From: Richard Kojedzinszky Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:43:46 +0000 (+0200) Subject: Sample imputs added X-Git-Url: http://git.neszt.hu/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=f9eb41b710777f7fa0c5291808cd40d7ae7ed9a7;p=uwc.git Sample imputs added --- diff --git a/inputs/pg135.txt b/inputs/pg135.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42845d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/inputs/pg135.txt @@ -0,0 +1,68116 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Les Miserables + Complete in Five Volumes + +Author: Victor Hugo + +Translator: Isabel F. Hapgood + +Release Date: June 22, 2008 [EBook #135] +Last Updated: October 30, 2009 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISERABLES *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +LES MISERABLES + +By Victor Hugo + + +Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood + +Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. +No. 13, Astor Place +New York + +Copyright 1887 + +[Illustration: Bookshelf 1spines] + +[Illustration: Bookcover 1cover] + +[Illustration: Frontpapers 1frontpapers] + +[Illustration: Frontispiece 1frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume One 1titlepage] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Verso 1verso] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + VOLUME I + + BOOK FIRST.--A JUST MAN + + CHAPTER + I. M. Myriel + II. M. Myriel becomes M. Welcome + III. A Hard Bishopric for a Good Bishop + IV. Works corresponding to Words + V. Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long + VI. Who guarded his House for him + VII. Cravatte + VIII. Philosophy after Drinking + IX. The Brother as depicted by the Sister + X. The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light + XI. A Restriction + XII. The Solitude of Monseigneur Welcome + XIII. What he believed + XIV. What he thought + + BOOK SECOND.--THE FALL + + I. The Evening of a Day of Walking + II. Prudence counselled to Wisdom + III. The Heroism of Passive Obedience + IV. Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier + V. Tranquillity + VI. Jean Valjean + VII. The Interior of Despair + VIII. Billows and Shadows + IX. New Troubles + X. The Man aroused + XI. What he does + XII. The Bishop works + XIII. Little Gervais + + BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817 + + I. The Year 1817 + II. A Double Quartette + III. Four and Four + IV. Tholomyes is so Merry that he sings a Spanish Ditty + V. At Bombardas + VI. A Chapter in which they adore Each Other + VII. The Wisdom of Tholomyes + VIII. The Death of a Horse + IX. A Merry End to Mirth + + BOOK FOURTH.--TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON'S POWER + + I. One Mother meets Another Mother + II. First Sketch of Two Unprepossessing Figures + III. The Lark + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT + + I. The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets + II. Madeleine + III. Sums deposited with Laffitte + IV. M. Madeleine in Mourning + V. Vague Flashes on the Horizon + VI. Father Fauchelevent + VII. Fauchelevent becomes a Gardener in Paris + VIII. Madame Victurnien expends Thirty Francs on Morality + IX. Madame Victurnien's Success + X. Result of the Success + XI. Christus nos Liberavit + XII. M. Bamatabois's Inactivity + XIII. The Solution of Some Questions connected with the + Municipal Police + + BOOK SIXTH.--JAVERT + + I. The Beginning of Repose + II. How Jean may become Champ + + BOOK SEVENTH.--THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR + + I. Sister Simplice + II. The Perspicacity of Master Scaufflaire + III. A Tempest in a Skull + IV. Forms assumed by Suffering during Sleep + V. Hindrances + VI. Sister Simplice put to the Proof + VII. The Traveller on his Arrival takes Precautions + for Departure + VIII. An Entrance by Favor + IX. A Place where Convictions are in Process of Formation + X. The System of Denials + XI. Champmathieu more and more Astonished + + BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW + + I. In what Mirror M. Madeleine contemplates his Hair + II. Fantine Happy + III. Javert Satisfied + IV. Authority reasserts its Rights + V. A Suitable Tomb + + + + VOLUME II + + BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO + + CHAPTER + I. What is met with on the Way from Nivelles + II. Hougomont + III. The Eighteenth of June, 1815 + IV. A + V. The Quid Obscurum of Battles + VI. Four o'clock in the Afternoon + VII. Napoleon in a Good Humor + VIII. The Emperor puts a Question to the Guide Lacoste + IX. The Unexpected + X. The Plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean + XI. A Bad Guide to Napoleon; a Good Guide to Bulow + XII. The Guard + XIII. The Catastrophe + XIV. The Last Square + XV. Cambronne + XVI. Quot Libras in Duce? + XVII. Is Waterloo to be considered Good? + XVIII. A Recrudescence of Divine Right + XIX. The Battle-Field at Night + + BOOK SECOND.--THE SHIP ORION + + I. Number 24,601 becomes Number 9,430 + II. In which the reader will peruse Two Verses which are + of the Devil's Composition possibly + III. The Ankle-Chain must have undergone a Certain Preparatory + Manipulation to be thus broken with a Blow from a Hammer + + BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN + + I. The Water Question at Montfermeil + II. Two Complete Portraits + III. Men must have Wine, and Horses must have Water + IV. Entrance on the Scene of a Doll + V. The Little One All Alone + VI. Which possibly proves Boulatruelle's Intelligence + VII. Cosette Side by Side with the Stranger in the Dark + VIII. The Unpleasantness of receiving into One's House a Poor + Man who may be a Rich Man + IX. Thenardier at his Manoeuvres + X. He who seeks to better himself may render his Situation Worse + XI. Number 9,430 reappears, and Cosette wins it in the Lottery + + BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL + + I. Master Gorbeau + II. A Nest for Owl and a Warbler + III. Two Misfortunes make One Piece of Good Fortune + IV. The Remarks of the Principal Tenant + V. A Five-Franc Piece falls on the Ground and produces a Tumult + + BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK + + I. The Zigzags of Strategy + II. It is Lucky that the Pont d'Austerlitz bears + Carriages + III. To Wit, the Plan of Paris in 1727 + IV. The Gropings of Flight + V. Which would be Impossible with Gas Lanterns + VI. The Beginning of an Enigma + VII. Continuation of the Enigma + VIII. The Enigma becomes Doubly Mysterious + IX. The Man with the Bell + X. Which explains how Javert got on the Scent + + BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS + + I. Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus + II. The Obedience of Martin Verga + III. Austerities + IV. Gayeties + V. Distractions + VI. The Little Convent + VII. Some Silhouettes of this Darkness + VIII. Post Corda Lapides + IX. A Century under a Guimpe + X. Origin of the Perpetual Adoration + XI. End of the Petit-Picpus + + BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS + + I. The Convent as an Abstract Idea + II. The Convent as an Historical Fact + III. On What Conditions One can respect the Past + IV. The Convent from the Point of View of Principles + V. Prayer + VI. The Absolute Goodness of Prayer + VII. Precautions to be observed in Blame + VIII. Faith, Law + + BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM + + I. Which treats of the Manner of entering a Convent + II. Fauchelevent in the Presence of a Difficulty + III. Mother Innocente + IV. In which Jean Valjean has quite the Air of having read + Austin Castillejo + V. It is not Necessary to be Drunk in order to be Immortal + VI. Between Four Planks + VII. In which will be found the Origin of the Saying: Don't + lose the Card + VIII. A Successful Interrogatory + IX. Cloistered + + + VOLUME III + + BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM + + I. Parvulus + II. Some of his Particular Characteristics + III. He is Agreeable + IV. He may be of Use + V. His Frontiers + VI. A Bit of History + VII. The Gamin should have his Place in the Classifications + of India + VIII. In which the Reader will find a Charming Saying of the + Last King + IX. The Old Soul of Gaul + X. Ecce Paris, ecce Homo + XI. To Scoff, to Reign + XII. The Future Latent in the People + XIII. Little Gavroche + + BOOK SECOND.--THE GREAT BOURGEOIS + + I. Ninety Years and Thirty-two Teeth + II. Like Master, Like House + III. Luc-Esprit + IV. A Centenarian Aspirant + V. Basque and Nicolette + VI. In which Magnon and her Two Children are seen + VII. Rule: Receive No One except in the Evening + VIII. Two do not make a Pair + + BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON + + I. An Ancient Salon + II. One of the Red Spectres of that Epoch + III. Requiescant + IV. End of the Brigand + V. The Utility of going to Mass, in order to become a + Revolutionist + VI. The Consequences of having met a Warden + VII. Some Petticoat + VIII. Marble against Granite + + BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC + + I. A Group which barely missed becoming Historic + II. Blondeau's Funeral Oration by Bossuet + III. Marius' Astonishments + IV. The Back Room of the Cafe Musain + V. Enlargement of Horizon + VI. Res Angusta + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE + + I. Marius Indigent + II. Marius Poor + III. Marius Grown Up + IV. M. Mabeuf + V. Poverty a Good Neighbor for Misery + VI. The Substitute + + BOOK SIXTH.--THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS + + I. The Sobriquet; Mode of Formation of Family Names + II. Lux Facta Est + III. Effect of the Spring + IV. Beginning of a Great Malady + V. Divers Claps of Thunder fall on Ma'am Bougon + VI. Taken Prisoner + VII. Adventures of the Letter U delivered over to Conjectures + VIII. The Veterans themselves can be Happy + IX. Eclipse + + BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE + + I. Mines and Miners + II. The Lowest Depths + III. Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse + IV. Composition of the Troupe + + BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN + + I. Marius, while seeking a Girl in a Bonnet encounters a + Man in a Cap + II. Treasure Trove + III. Quadrifrons + IV. A Rose in Misery + V. A Providential Peep-Hole + VI. The Wild Man in his Lair + VII. Strategy and Tactics + VIII. The Ray of Light in the Hovel + IX. Jondrette comes near Weeping + X. Tariff of Licensed Cabs, Two Francs an Hour + XI. Offers of Service from Misery to Wretchedness + XII. The Use made of M. Leblanc's Five-Franc Piece + XIII. Solus cum Solo, in Loco Remoto, non cogitabuntur + orare Pater Noster + XIV. In which a Police Agent bestows Two Fistfuls on a Lawyer + XV. Jondrette makes his Purchases + XVI. In which will be found the Words to an English Air + which was in Fashion in 1832 + XVII. The Use made of Marius' Five-Franc Piece + XVIII. Marius' Two Chairs form a Vis-a-Vis + XIX. Occupying One's Self with Obscure Depths + XX. The Trap + XXI. One should always begin by arresting the Victims + XXII. The Little One who was crying in Volume Two + + + + VOLUME IV + + BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY + + I. Well Cut + II. Badly Sewed + III. Louis Philippe + IV. Cracks beneath the Foundation + V. Facts whence History springs and which History ignores + VI. Enjolras and his Lieutenants + + BOOK SECOND.--EPONINE + + I. The Lark's Meadow + II. Embryonic Formation of Crimes in the Incubation of Prisons + III. Apparition to Father Mabeuf + IV. An Apparition to Marius + + BOOK THIRD.--THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET + + I. The House with a Secret + II. Jean Valjean as a National Guard + III. Foliis ac Frondibus + IV. Change of Gate + V. The Rose perceives that it is an Engine of War + VI. The Battle Begun + VII. To One Sadness oppose a Sadness and a Half + VIII. The Chain-Gang + + BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH + + I. A Wound without, Healing within + II. Mother Plutarque finds no Difficulty in explaining a Phenomenon + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING + + I. Solitude and Barracks Combined + II. Cosette's Apprehensions + III. Enriched with Commentaries by Toussaint + IV. A Heart beneath a Stone + V. Cosette after the Letter + VI. Old People are made to go out opportunely + + BOOK SIXTH.--LITTLE GAVROCHE + + I. The Malicious Playfulness of the Wind + II. In which Little Gavroche extracts Profit from Napoleon the Great + III. The Vicissitudes of Flight + + BOOK SEVENTH.--SLANG + + I. Origin + II. Roots + III. Slang which weeps and Slang which laughs + IV. The Two Duties: To Watch and to Hope + + BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS + + I. Full Light + II. The Bewilderment of Perfect Happiness + III. The Beginning of Shadow + IV. A Cab runs in English and barks in Slang + V. Things of the Night + VI. Marius becomes Practical once more to the Extent of + Giving Cosette his Address + VII. The Old Heart and the Young Heart in the Presence + of Each Other + + BOOK NINTH.--WHITHER ARE THEY GOING? + + I. Jean Valjean + II. Marius + III. M. Mabeuf + + BOOK TENTH.--THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832 + + I. The Surface of the Question + II. The Root of the Matter + III. A Burial; an Occasion to be born again + IV. The Ebullitions of Former Days + V. Originality of Paris + + BOOK ELEVENTH.--THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH THE HURRICANE + + I. Some Explanations with Regard to the Origin of Gavroche's + Poetry. The Influence of an Academician on this Poetry + II. Gavroche on the March + III. Just Indignation of a Hair-dresser + IV. The Child is amazed at the Old Man + V. The Old Man + VI. Recruits + + BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE + + I. History of Corinthe from its Foundation + II. Preliminary Gayeties + III. Night begins to descend upon Grantaire + IV. An Attempt to console the Widow Hucheloup + V. Preparations + VI. Waiting + VII. The Man recruited in the Rue des Billettes + VIII. Many Interrogation Points with Regard to a Certain + Le Cabuc, whose Name may not have been Le Cabuc + + BOOK THIRTEENTH.--MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW + + I. From the Rue Plumet to the Quartier Saint-Denis + II. An Owl's View of Paris + III. The Extreme Edge + + BOOK FOURTEENTH.--THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR + + I. The Flag: Act First + II. The Flag: Act Second + III. Gavroche would have done better to accept Enjolras' Carbine + IV. The Barrel of Powder + V. End of the Verses of Jean Prouvaire + VI. The Agony of Death after the Agony of Life + VII. Gavroche as a Profound Calculator of Distances + + BOOK FIFTEENTH.--THE RUE DE L'HOMME ARME + + I. A Drinker is a Babbler + II. The Street Urchin an Enemy of Light + III. While Cosette and Toussaint are Asleep + IV. Gavroche's Excess of Zeal + + + + VOLUME V + + BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS + + I. The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the + Scylla of the Faubourg du Temple + II. What Is to Be Done in the Abyss if One Does Not Converse + III. Light and Shadow + IV. Minus Five, Plus One + V. The Horizon Which One Beholds from the Summit of a Barricade + VI. Marius Haggard, Javert Laconic + VII. The Situation Becomes Aggravated + VIII. The Artillery-men Compel People to Take Them Seriously + IX. Employment of the Old Talents of a Poacher and That + Infallible Marksmanship Which Influenced the + Condemnation of 1796 + X. Dawn + XI. The Shot Which Misses Nothing and Kills No One + XII. Disorder a Partisan of Order + XIII. Passing Gleams + XIV. Wherein Will Appear the Name of Enjolras' Mistress + XV. Gavroche Outside + XVI. How from a Brother One Becomes a Father + XVII. Mortuus Pater Filium Moriturum Expectat + XVIII. The Vulture Becomes Prey + XIX. Jean Valjean Takes His Revenge + XX. The Dead Are in the Right and the Living Are Not in the Wrong + XXI. The Heroes + XXII. Foot to Foot + XXIII. Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk + XXIV. Prisoner + + BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN + + I. The Land Impoverished by the Sea + II. Ancient History of the Sewer + III. Bruneseau + IV. Bruneseau + V. Present Progress + VI. Future Progress + + BOOK THIRD.--MUD BUT THE SOUL + + I. The Sewer and Its Surprises + II. Explanation + III. The "Spun" Man + IV. He Also Bears His Cross + V. In the Case of Sand, as in That of Woman, There Is a + Fineness Which Is Treacherous + VI. The Fontis + VII. One Sometimes Runs Aground When One Fancies That + One Is Disembarking + VIII. The Torn Coat-Tail + IX. Marius Produces on Some One Who Is a Judge of the + Matter, the Effect of Being Dead + X. Return of the Son Who Was Prodigal of His Life + XI. Concussion in the Absolute + XII. The Grandfather + + BOOK FOURTH.--JAVERT DERAILED + + I. Javert + + BOOK FIFTH.--GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER + + I. In Which the Tree with the Zinc Plaster Appears Again + II. Marius, Emerging from Civil War, Makes Ready for + Domestic War + III. Marius Attacked + IV. Mademoiselle Gillenormand Ends by No Longer Thinking + It a Bad Thing That M. Fauchelevent Should Have + Entered With Something Under His Arm + V. Deposit Your Money in a Forest Rather than with a Notary + VI. The Two Old Men Do Everything, Each One After His + Own Fashion, to Render Cosette Happy + VII. The Effects of Dreams Mingled with Happiness + VIII. Two Men Impossible to Find + + BOOK SIXTH.--THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT + + I. The 16th of February, 1833 + II. Jean Valjean Still Wears His Arm in a Sling + III. The Inseparable + IV. The Immortal Liver + + BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP + + I. The Seventh Circle and the Eighth Heaven + II. The Obscurities Which a Revelation Can Contain + + BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT + + I. The Lower Chamber + II. Another Step Backwards + III. They Recall the Garden of the Rue Plumet + IV. Attraction and Extinction + + BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN + + I. Pity for the Unhappy, but Indulgence for the Happy + II. Last Flickerings of a Lamp Without Oil + III. A Pen Is Heavy to the Man Who Lifted the + Fauchelevent's Cart + IV. A Bottle of Ink Which Only Succeeded in Whitening + V. A Night Behind Which There Is Day + VI. The Grass Covers and the Rain Effaces + + + + + +LES MISERABLES + + + + + +VOLUME I.--FANTINE. + + + + +PREFACE + + +So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of +damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the +civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine +destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century--the +degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through +hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved; +so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in +other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance +and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot +fail to be of use. + +HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. + + + + +FANTINE + + + + +BOOK FIRST--A JUST MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--M. MYRIEL + +In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D---- He was +an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see +of D---- since 1806. + +Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance +of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely +for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various +rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very +moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said +of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all +in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a +councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility +of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of +his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, +in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in +parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said +that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, +though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the +whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and +to gallantry. + +The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the +parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. +M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the +Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from which she +had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate +of M. Myriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall +of his own family, the tragic spectacles of '93, which were, perhaps, +even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance, +with the magnifying powers of terror,--did these cause the ideas of +renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of +these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life, suddenly +smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes +overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public catastrophes +would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one +could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from +Italy he was a priest. + +In 1804, M. Myriel was the Cure of B---- [Brignolles]. He was already +advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner. + +About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with +his curacy--just what, is not precisely known--took him to Paris. +Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his +parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day, when the Emperor +had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Cure, who was waiting in the +anteroom, found himself present when His Majesty passed. Napoleon, +on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, +turned round and said abruptly:-- + +"Who is this good man who is staring at me?" + +"Sire," said M. Myriel, "you are looking at a good man, and I at a great +man. Each of us can profit by it." + +That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Cure, +and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that +he had been appointed Bishop of D---- + +What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as +to the early portion of M. Myriel's life? No one knew. Very few families +had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the Revolution. + +M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, +where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. +He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because +he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name +was connected were rumors only,--noise, sayings, words; less than +words--palabres, as the energetic language of the South expresses it. + +However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of +residence in D----, all the stories and subjects of conversation which +engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into +profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one would +have dared to recall them. + +M. Myriel had arrived at D---- accompanied by an elderly spinster, +Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior. + +Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as Mademoiselle +Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having been the +servant of M. le Cure, now assumed the double title of maid to +Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she +realized the ideal expressed by the word "respectable"; for it seems +that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She +had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a +succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of +pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired +what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in +her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity +allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her +person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to +provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever +drooping;--a mere pretext for a soul's remaining on the earth. + +Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and +bustling; always out of breath,--in the first place, because of her +activity, and in the next, because of her asthma. + +On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with +the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop +immediately after a major-general. The mayor and the president paid the +first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general +and the prefect. + +The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work. + + + + +CHAPTER II--M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME + + +The episcopal palace of D---- adjoins the hospital. + +The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at +the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology +of the Faculty of Paris, Abbe of Simore, who had been Bishop of D---- in +1712. This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about +it had a grand air,--the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms, +the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks +encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens +planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb +gallery which was situated on the ground-floor and opened on the +gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My +Lords Charles Brulart de Genlis, archbishop; Prince d'Embrun; Antoine +de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendome, Grand +Prior of France, Abbe of Saint Honore de Lerins; Francois de Berton de +Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; Cesar de Sabran de Forcalquier, bishop, +Seignor of Glandeve; and Jean Soanen, Priest of the Oratory, preacher in +ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of Senez. The portraits of these +seven reverend personages decorated this apartment; and this memorable +date, the 29th of July, 1714, was there engraved in letters of gold on a +table of white marble. + +The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a +small garden. + +Three days after his arrival, the Bishop visited the hospital. The visit +ended, he had the director requested to be so good as to come to his +house. + +"Monsieur the director of the hospital," said he to him, "how many sick +people have you at the present moment?" + +"Twenty-six, Monseigneur." + +"That was the number which I counted," said the Bishop. + +"The beds," pursued the director, "are very much crowded against each +other." + +"That is what I observed." + +"The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air +can be changed in them." + +"So it seems to me." + +"And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the +convalescents." + +"That was what I said to myself." + +"In case of epidemics,--we have had the typhus fever this year; we +had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at +times,--we know not what to do." + +"That is the thought which occurred to me." + +"What would you have, Monseigneur?" said the director. "One must resign +one's self." + +This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the +ground-floor. + +The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he turned abruptly to the +director of the hospital. + +"Monsieur," said he, "how many beds do you think this hall alone would +hold?" + +"Monseigneur's dining-room?" exclaimed the stupefied director. + +The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking +measures and calculations with his eyes. + +"It would hold full twenty beds," said he, as though speaking to +himself. Then, raising his voice:-- + +"Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. +There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of you, in five +or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for +sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my house, and I have +yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here." + +On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the +Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital. + +M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the +Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred +francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. M. Myriel +received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen +thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the +hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for +all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own +hand:-- + + +NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES. + + For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres + Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " + For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 " + Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 " + Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . 150 " + Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 " + Charitable maternity societies . . . . . . . . . . 300 " + Extra, for that of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 " + Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 " + Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . . 500 " + To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 " + Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the + diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 " + Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 " + Congregation of the ladies of D----, of Manosque, and of + Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor + girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 " + For the poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000 " + My personal expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 " + ------ + Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 " + + +M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period +that he occupied the see of D---- As has been seen, he called it +regulating his household expenses. + +This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle +Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D---- as at one and +the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the +flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and +venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed; when he acted, she yielded her +adherence. Their only servant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It +will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself +only one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle +Baptistine, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen hundred +francs these two old women and the old man subsisted. + +And when a village curate came to D----, the Bishop still found means to +entertain him, thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire, and to +the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine. + +One day, after he had been in D---- about three months, the Bishop +said:-- + +"And still I am quite cramped with it all!" + +"I should think so!" exclaimed Madame Magloire. "Monseigneur has not +even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense +of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the diocese. It was +customary for bishops in former days." + +"Hold!" cried the Bishop, "you are quite right, Madame Magloire." + +And he made his demand. + +Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand under +consideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs, +under this heading: Allowance to M. the Bishop for expenses of carriage, +expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits. + +This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator +of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred +which favored the 18 Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent +senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D----, wrote to M. +Bigot de Preameneu, the minister of public worship, a very angry and +confidential note on the subject, from which we extract these authentic +lines:-- + +"Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than +four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use +of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be +accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one +travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and +Chateau-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all thus, +greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he +first came. Now he does like the rest; he must have a carriage and a +posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden +days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte, +until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals. Down +with the Pope! [Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.] For my part, +I am for Caesar alone." Etc., etc. + +On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to Madame +Magloire. "Good," said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine; "Monseigneur +began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after +all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand +francs for us! At last!" + +That same evening the Bishop wrote out and handed to his sister a +memorandum conceived in the following terms:-- + +EXPENSES OF CARRIAGE AND CIRCUIT. + + For furnishing meat soup to the patients in the hospital. 1,500 livres + For the maternity charitable society of Aix . . . . . . . 250 " + For the maternity charitable society of Draguignan . . . 250 " + For foundlings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 " + For orphans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 " + ----- + Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000 " + +Such was M. Myriel's budget. + +As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans, +dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or +chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all +the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy. + +After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who +lacked knocked at M. Myriel's door,--the latter in search of the alms +which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had +become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those +in distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but +nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of +life, or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities. + +Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there +is brotherhood above, all was given away, so to speak, before it was +received. It was like water on dry soil; no matter how much money he +received, he never had any. Then he stripped himself. + +The usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at the +head of their charges and their pastoral letters, the poor people of the +country-side had selected, with a sort of affectionate instinct, among +the names and prenomens of their bishop, that which had a meaning for +them; and they never called him anything except Monseigneur Bienvenu +[Welcome]. We will follow their example, and will also call him thus +when we have occasion to name him. Moreover, this appellation pleased +him. + +"I like that name," said he. "Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur." + +We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we +confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP + + +The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his +carriage into alms. The diocese of D---- is a fatiguing one. There are +very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we have +just seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two hundred +and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task. + +The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the +neighborhood, in a tilted spring-cart when it was on the plain, and on +a donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When the +trip was too hard for them, he went alone. + +One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was +mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did not +permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receive +him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, +with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him. +"Monsieur the Mayor," said the Bishop, "and Messieurs Citizens, I +perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest +to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from +necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity." + +In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked +rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and +his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the example +of a neighboring district. In the cantons where they were harsh to the +poor, he said: "Look at the people of Briancon! They have conferred on +the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown +three days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses for +them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which +is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single +murderer among them." + +In villages which were greedy for profit and harvest, he said: "Look at +the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family +has his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service in +the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the cure recommends him to +the prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass, all the +inhabitants of the village--men, women, and children--go to the poor +man's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his +grain to his granary." To families divided by questions of money and +inheritance he said: "Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so +wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. +Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their +fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find +husbands." To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the +farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: "Look at those good +peasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand souls of +them. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiff +is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, +taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides +inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously; and he +is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men." To villages where +he found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more the people of Queyras: "Do +you know how they manage?" he said. "Since a little country of a +dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have +school-masters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round +of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, and +instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. +They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cord +of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen; those who teach +reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning, +and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like +the people of Queyras!" + +Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally; in default of examples, he +invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and +many images, which characteristic formed the real eloquence of Jesus +Christ. And being convinced himself, he was persuasive. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--WORKS CORRESPONDING TO WORDS + +His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the +two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, +it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your +Grace [Votre Grandeur]. One day he rose from his arm-chair, and went +to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper +shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not +reach it. "Madame Magloire," said he, "fetch me a chair. My greatness +[grandeur] does not reach as far as that shelf." + +One of his distant relatives, Madame la Comtesse de Lo, rarely allowed +an opportunity to escape of enumerating, in his presence, what she +designated as "the expectations" of her three sons. She had numerous +relatives, who were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons +were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a +grand-aunt a good hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the +heir by entail to the title of the Duke, his uncle; the eldest was to +succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to +listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On +one occasion, however, he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual, +while Madame de Lo was relating once again the details of all these +inheritances and all these "expectations." She interrupted herself +impatiently: "Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about?" "I am +thinking," replied the Bishop, "of a singular remark, which is to be +found, I believe, in St. Augustine,--'Place your hopes in the man from +whom you do not inherit.'" + +At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a +gentleman of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the +dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his +relatives, spread over an entire page: "What a stout back Death has!" +he exclaimed. "What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed +on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb +into the service of vanity!" + +He was gifted, on occasion, with a gentle raillery, which almost always +concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one Lent, a youthful vicar +came to D----, and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably eloquent. +The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the +poor, in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful +manner of which he was capable, and to win paradise, which he +represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was +a wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. +Geborand, who had amassed two millions in the manufacture of coarse +cloth, serges, and woollen galloons. Never in his whole life had M. +Geborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that +sermon, it was observed that he gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old +beggar-women at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to +share it. One day the Bishop caught sight of him in the act of bestowing +this charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, "There is M. +Geborand purchasing paradise for a sou." + +When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by +a refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which +induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room +of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy +and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, +an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has +actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, "You +must give me something, M. le Marquis." The Marquis turned round and +answered dryly, "I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur." "Give them +to me," replied the Bishop. + +One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:-- + + +"My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred +and twenty thousand peasants' dwellings in France which have but three +openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but +two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six +thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this +arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just +put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings, +and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to +men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. +In the department of the Isere, in the Var, in the two departments +of the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even +wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have +no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in +pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly +country of Dauphine. They make bread for six months at one time; they +bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with +an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to render it +eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of +you!" + +Born a Provencal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the +south. He said, "En be! moussu, ses sage?" as in lower Languedoc; "Onte +anaras passa?" as in the Basses-Alpes; "Puerte un bouen moutu embe un +bouen fromage grase," as in upper Dauphine. This pleased the people +extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all +spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the +mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most +vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. + +Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards +the lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking +circumstances into account. He said, "Examine the road over which the +fault has passed." + +Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none +of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal +of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a +doctrine which may be summed up as follows:-- + +"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his +temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, +check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may +be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is +venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in +prayer. + +"To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, +fall, sin if you will, but be upright. + +"The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream +of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a +gravitation." + +When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very +quickly, "Oh! oh!" he said, with a smile; "to all appearance, this is +a great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies +which have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put +themselves under shelter." + +He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of +human society rest. He said, "The faults of women, of children, of the +feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, +the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise." + +He said, moreover, "Teach those who are ignorant as many things as +possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction +gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul +is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the +person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the +shadow." + +It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging +things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. + +One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the +point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at +the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for +a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was +still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested +in the act of passing the first false piece made by the man. She was +held, but there were no proofs except against her. She alone could +accuse her lover, and destroy him by her confession. She denied; they +insisted. She persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to +the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of +the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly +presented, in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival, and +that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she +denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all. + +The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his +accomplice. They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing +enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy +into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had +educed the justice of revenge. The Bishop listened to all this in +silence. When they had finished, he inquired,-- + +"Where are this man and woman to be tried?" + +"At the Court of Assizes." + +He went on, "And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?" + +A tragic event occurred at D---- A man was condemned to death for +murder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly +ignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the +public. The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the +day fixed for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the +prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his +last moments. They sent for the cure. It seems that he refused to come, +saying, "That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that +unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, +it is not my place." This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, +"Monsieur le Cure is right: it is not his place; it is mine." + +He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the +"mountebank," called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to +him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, +praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the +condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths, which are also +the most simple. He was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to +bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man +was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he +stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He +was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His +condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken +through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery +of things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this +world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The Bishop +made him see light. + +On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the +Bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the +eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross upon +his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords. + +He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The +sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was +radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The +Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, +he said to him: "God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he whom +his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, +enter into life: the Father is there." When he descended from the +scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people draw +aside to let him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of +admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble +dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to +his sister, "I have just officiated pontifically." + +Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least +understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on +this conduct of the Bishop, "It is affectation." + +This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms. +The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and +admired him. + +As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, +and it was a long time before he recovered from it. + +In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has +something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain +indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon +it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with +one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; +one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire +it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine +is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, +and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers +with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their +interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a +vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not +a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of +wood, iron and cords. + +It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre +initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that +this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, +this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful +meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears +in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The +scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats +flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated +by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a +horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted. + +Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound; on the day +following the execution, and on many succeeding days, the Bishop +appeared to be crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal +moment had disappeared; the phantom of social justice tormented him. He, +who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, +seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself, and +stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his +sister overheard one evening and preserved: "I did not think that it was +so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a +degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what +right do men touch that unknown thing?" + +In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished. +Nevertheless, it was observed that the Bishop thenceforth avoided +passing the place of execution. + +M. Myriel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and +dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and +his greatest labor. Widowed and orphaned families had no need to summon +him; he came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down and hold +his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his +love, of the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the moment for +silence he knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He +sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify +it by hope. He said:-- + +"Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think +not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living +light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven." He knew that +faith is wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man, by +pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which +gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a +star. + + + + +CHAPTER V--MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG + + +The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his +public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D---- lived, +would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have +viewed it close at hand. + +Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. +This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an +hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own +house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk +of his own cows. Then he set to work. + +A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary +of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his +vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, +a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,--prayer-books, diocesan +catechisms, books of hours, etc.,--charges to write, sermons to +authorize, cures and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an +administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the +Holy See; and a thousand matters of business. + +What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and +his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, +the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the +afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes +he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word +for both these kinds of toil; he called them gardening. "The mind is a +garden," said he. + +Towards mid-day, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a +stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He +was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, +supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment +of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse +shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels +of large bullion to droop from its three points. + +It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that +his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children +and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the +sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed out +his house to any one who was in need of anything. + +[Illustration: The Comfortor 1b1-5-comfortor] + +Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiled +upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money; when +he no longer had any, he visited the rich. + +As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it +noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. +This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer. + +On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast. + +At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame +Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could +be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his +cures to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to +serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some +fine game from the mountains. Every cure furnished the pretext for +a good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his +ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil +soup. Thus it was said in the town, when the Bishop does not indulge in +the cheer of a cure, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist. + +After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine +and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to writing, +sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some folio. He was +a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six +very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse in +Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters. +With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, +The winds of God blew; Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was +precipitated upon the earth; and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of +Onkelos, which renders it, A wind coming from God blew upon the face of +the waters. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works +of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemais, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this +book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed +the divers little works published during the last century, under the +pseudonym of Barleycourt. + +Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might +be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound +meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of +the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with +the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written +by him on the margin of a quarto entitled Correspondence of Lord Germain +with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the American +station. Versailles, Poincot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot, +bookseller, Quai des Augustins. + +Here is the note:-- + +"Oh, you who are! + +"Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the +Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls +you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you +Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; +Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man +calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most +beautiful of all your names." + +Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook +themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until +morning on the ground floor. + +It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the +dwelling of the Bishop of D---- + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM + +The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground +floor, and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, three +chambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a +garden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied the +first floor; the Bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on the +street, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and the +third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory, except +by passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom, without passing +through the dining-room. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, there +was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality. +The Bishop offered this bed to country curates whom business or the +requirements of their parishes brought to D---- + +The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added +to the house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed into +a kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a +stable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in +which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they +gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people in +the hospital. "I am paying my tithes," he said. + +His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad +weather. As wood is extremely dear at D----, he hit upon the idea of +having a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here he +passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his +winter salon. + +In this winter salon, as in the dining-room, there was no other +furniture than a square table in white wood, and four straw-seated +chairs. In addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with an +antique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar +sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the +Bishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory. + +His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D---- had more than once +assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for Monseigneur's +oratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to +the poor. "The most beautiful of altars," he said, "is the soul of an +unhappy creature consoled and thanking God." + +In his oratory there were two straw prie-Dieu, and there was an +arm-chair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he received +seven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the +staff of the regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the little +seminary, the chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the +stable, the prie-Dieu from the oratory, and the arm-chair from the +bedroom: in this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for the +visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest. + +It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishop +then relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front +of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was +summer. + +There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was +half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service +only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also in +her own room a very large easy-chair of wood, which had formerly been +gilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin; but they had been +obliged to hoist this bergere up to the first story through the window, +as the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckoned +among the possibilities in the way of furniture. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set +of drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rose +pattern, and with mahogany in swan's neck style, with a sofa. But this +would have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the fact +that she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and ten sous for +this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing +the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal? + +Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop's +bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was the +bed,--a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge; in the +shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet, +which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: there +were two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory; the +other near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was +a large cupboard with glass doors filled with books; the chimney was of +wood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the +chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two +garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered +with silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury; above the +chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixed +on a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which the +gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, +loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes; before the +table an arm-chair of straw; in front of the bed a prie-Dieu, borrowed +from the oratory. + +Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of +the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at +the side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, +one the Abbe of Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude; the other, the Abbe +Tourteau, vicar-general of Agde, abbe of Grand-Champ, order of Citeaux, +diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after +the hospital patients, he had found these portraits there, and had left +them. They were priests, and probably donors--two reasons for respecting +them. All that he knew about these two persons was, that they had +been appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his +benefice, on the same day, the 27th of April, 1785. Madame Magloire +having taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these +particulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowed +by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbe of +Grand-Champ with four wafers. + +At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff, which +finally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a new one, +Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very middle +of it. This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often called +attention to it: "How delightful that is!" he said. + +All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground +floor as well as those on the first floor, were white-washed, which is a +fashion in barracks and hospitals. + +However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the +paper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartment +of Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becoming +a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the +Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks, +which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds. +Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two women, was +exquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which the +Bishop permitted. He said, "That takes nothing from the poor." + +It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former +possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, which +Madame Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened +splendidly upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now painting +the Bishop of D---- as he was in reality, we must add that he had said +more than once, "I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver +dishes." + +To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive +silver, which he had inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticks +held two wax candles, and usually figured on the Bishop's chimney-piece. +When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candles +and set the candlesticks on the table. + +In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small +cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and +forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that +the key was never removed. + +The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which +we have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiating +from a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirted +the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four +square plots rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloire +cultivated vegetables; in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some +flowers; here and there stood a few fruit-trees. Madame Magloire had +once remarked, with a sort of gentle malice: "Monseigneur, you who turn +everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be +better to grow salads there than bouquets." "Madame Magloire," retorted +the Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the +useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps." + +This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishop +almost as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there, +trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into +which he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener +could have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to +botany; he ignored groups and consistency; he made not the slightest +effort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method; he took part +neither with the buds against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu against +Linnaeus. He did not study plants; he loved flowers. He respected +learned men greatly; he respected the ignorant still more; and, without +ever failing in these two respects, he watered his flower-beds every +summer evening with a tin watering-pot painted green. + +The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the +dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral +square, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door +of a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door +was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the +latch. All that the first passerby had to do at any hour, was to give it +a push. At first, the two women had been very much tried by this door, +which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D---- had said to them, "Have +bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you." They had ended by +sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they shared it. +Madame Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for the Bishop, +his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in the three +lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, "This is the shade of +difference: the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of +the priest should always be open." + +On another book, entitled Philosophy of the Medical Science, he had +written this other note: "Am not I a physician like them? I also have my +patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates." + +Again he wrote: "Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of +you. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs +shelter." + +It chanced that a worthy cure, I know not whether it was the cure of +Couloubroux or the cure of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask +him one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whether +Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a +certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the +mercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, +he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little +guarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and +said to him, "Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui +custodiunt eam," Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch +who guard it. + +Then he spoke of something else. + +He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well as +the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only," he added, "ours must be +tranquil." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--CRAVATTE + +It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not +omit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a +man the Bishop of D---- was. + +After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bes, who had infested the +gorges of Ollioules, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in +the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the +remnant of Gaspard Bes's troop, in the county of Nice; then he made his +way to Piedmont, and suddenly reappeared in France, in the vicinity +of Barcelonette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He hid +himself in the caverns of the Joug-de-l'Aigle, and thence he descended +towards the hamlets and villages through the ravines of Ubaye and +Ubayette. + +He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, +and despoiled the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the +country-side. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He +always escaped; sometimes he resisted by main force. He was a bold +wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was +making his circuit to Chastelar. The mayor came to meet him, and urged +him to retrace his steps. Cravatte was in possession of the mountains +as far as Arche, and beyond; there was danger even with an escort; it +merely exposed three or four unfortunate gendarmes to no purpose. + +"Therefore," said the Bishop, "I intend to go without escort." + +"You do not really mean that, Monseigneur!" exclaimed the mayor. + +"I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and +shall set out in an hour." + +"Set out?" + +"Set out." + +"Alone?" + +"Alone." + +"Monseigneur, you will not do that!" + +"There exists yonder in the mountains," said the Bishop, "a tiny +community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. +They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own +one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty +woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on +little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now +and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would +they say if I did not go?" + +"But the brigands, Monseigneur?" + +"Hold," said the Bishop, "I must think of that. You are right. I may +meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God." + +"But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!" + +"Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves +that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of +Providence?" + +"They will rob you, Monseigneur." + +"I have nothing." + +"They will kill you." + +"An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! +To what purpose?" + +"Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!" + +"I should beg alms of them for my poor." + +"Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your +life!" + +"Monsieur le maire," said the Bishop, "is that really all? I am not in +the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls." + +They had to allow him to do as he pleased. He set out, accompanied only +by a child who offered to serve as a guide. His obstinacy was bruited +about the country-side, and caused great consternation. + +He would take neither his sister nor Madame Magloire. He traversed the +mountain on mule-back, encountered no one, and arrived safe and sound +at the residence of his "good friends," the shepherds. He remained +there for a fortnight, preaching, administering the sacrament, teaching, +exhorting. When the time of his departure approached, he resolved to +chant a Te Deum pontifically. He mentioned it to the cure. But what was +to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They could only place at +his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient chasubles +of threadbare damask adorned with imitation lace. + +"Bah!" said the Bishop. "Let us announce our Te Deum from the pulpit, +nevertheless, Monsieur le Cure. Things will arrange themselves." + +They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the +magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have sufficed +to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly. + +While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and +deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen, who +departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained a cope of +cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, +a magnificent crosier,--all the pontifical vestments which had been +stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame d'Embrun. In +the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, "From Cravatte +to Monseigneur Bienvenu." + +"Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?" said the +Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with +the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop." + +"Monseigneur," murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile. +"God--or the Devil." + +The Bishop looked steadily at the cure, and repeated with authority, +"God!" + +When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him as at +a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest's house in Chastelar he +rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire, who were waiting +for him, and he said to his sister: "Well! was I in the right? The poor +priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns +from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I +have brought back the treasure of a cathedral." + +That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: "Let us never fear +robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. +Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the +real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it +what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which +threatens our soul." + +Then, turning to his sister: "Sister, never a precaution on the part +of the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God +permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger +is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother +may not fall into sin on our account." + +However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which +we know; but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at +the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. + +As to what became of "the treasure" of the cathedral of Embrun, we +should be embarrassed by any inquiry in that direction. It consisted of +very handsome things, very tempting things, and things which were very +well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen +they had already been elsewhere. Half of the adventure was completed; it +only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause it +to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make no +assertions on this point. Only, a rather obscure note was found among +the Bishop's papers, which may bear some relation to this matter, and +which is couched in these terms, "The question is, to decide whether +this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--PHILOSOPHY AFTER DRINKING + +The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, +heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called +conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty: he had marched straight to his +goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his +interest. He was an old attorney, softened by success; not a bad man by +any means, who rendered all the small services in his power to his sons, +his sons-in-law, his relations, and even to his friends, having wisely +seized upon, in life, good sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. +Everything else seemed to him very stupid. He was intelligent, and just +sufficiently educated to think himself a disciple of Epicurus; while he +was, in reality, only a product of Pigault-Lebrun. He laughed willingly +and pleasantly over infinite and eternal things, and at the "Crotchets +of that good old fellow the Bishop." He even sometimes laughed at him +with an amiable authority in the presence of M. Myriel himself, who +listened to him. + +On some semi-official occasion or other, I do not recollect what, +Count*** [this senator] and M. Myriel were to dine with the prefect. +At dessert, the senator, who was slightly exhilarated, though still +perfectly dignified, exclaimed:-- + +"Egad, Bishop, let's have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a +bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am +going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own." + +"And you are right," replied the Bishop. "As one makes one's philosophy, +so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator." + +The senator was encouraged, and went on:-- + +"Let us be good fellows." + +"Good devils even," said the Bishop. + +"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens, +Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the +philosophers in my library gilded on the edges." + +"Like yourself, Count," interposed the Bishop. + +The senator resumed:-- + +"I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, +a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire +made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that +God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies +the fiat lux. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; +you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal +Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing +but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that +great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace! +Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession +to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I +have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches +renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an +avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? +I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another +wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a +superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if +one sees no further than the end of other people's noses? Let us live +merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on high, +below, anywhere, I don't believe; not one single word of it. Ah! +sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to +everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the +just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas. Why? Because I shall +have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine +dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch me. +Have a handful of dust seized by a shadow-hand, if you can. Let us tell +the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil of Isis: +there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is vegetation. +Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it +thoroughly. What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of it! We must scent +out the truth; dig in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you +exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh. I am square on the +bottom, I am. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a waiting for dead men's +shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it, if you like! What a +fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, with blue wings +on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian +who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We +shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall +see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are! God is a +nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, egad! but I +may whisper it among friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice the world to +paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the +infinite! I'm not such a fool. I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le +Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist +after death? No. What am I? A little dust collected in an organism. What +am I to do on this earth? The choice rests with me: suffer or enjoy. +Whither will suffering lead me? To nothingness; but I shall have +suffered. Whither will enjoyment lead me? To nothingness; but I shall +have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I +shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my +wisdom. After which, go whither I push thee, the grave-digger is there; +the Pantheon for some of us: all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. +Total liquidation. This is the vanishing-point. Death is death, believe +me. I laugh at the idea of there being any one who has anything to tell +me on that subject. Fables of nurses; bugaboo for children; Jehovah for +men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there is nothing +but equal nothingness. You have been Sardanapalus, you have been Vincent +de Paul--it makes no difference. That is the truth. Then live your life, +above all things. Make use of your _I_ while you have it. In truth, +Bishop, I tell you that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my +philosophers. I don't let myself be taken in with that nonsense. +Of course, there must be something for those who are down,--for the +barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, +chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for +them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. +He who has nothing else has the good. God. That is the least he can +have. I oppose no objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for +myself. The good God is good for the populace." + +The Bishop clapped his hands. + +"That's talking!" he exclaimed. "What an excellent and really marvellous +thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can have it. Ah! +when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does not stupidly +allow one's self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like Stephen, nor +burned alive like Jeanne d'Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring +this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves +irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without +uneasiness,--places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or +ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory +capitulations of conscience,--and that they shall enter the tomb with +their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that is! I do not say that +with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me +to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a +philosophy of your own, and for yourselves, which is exquisite, refined, +accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons +the voluptuousness of life admirably. This philosophy has been +extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are +good-natured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in +the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people, very much +as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE BROTHER AS DEPICTED BY THE SISTER + +In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the +Bishop of D----, and of the manner in which those two sainted women +subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts +even, which are easily alarmed, to the habits and purposes of the +Bishop, without his even taking the trouble of speaking in order to +explain them, we cannot do better than transcribe in this place a letter +from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the +friend of her childhood. This letter is in our possession. + + + D----, Dec. 16, 18--. +MY GOOD MADAM: Not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our +established custom; but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, +while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madam Magloire has +made some discoveries; now our two chambers hung with antique paper +whitewashed over, would not discredit a chateau in the style of yours. +Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper. There were things beneath. +My drawing-room, which contains no furniture, and which we use for +spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, +eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, +and with beams, as in yours. This was covered with a cloth while this +was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. +But my room is the one you ought to see. Madam Magloire has discovered, +under at least ten thicknesses of paper pasted on top, some paintings, +which without being good are very tolerable. The subject is Telemachus +being knighted by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes +me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What +shall I say to you? I have Romans, and Roman ladies [here occurs an +illegible word], and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all +off; this summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and +the whole revarnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has +also found in a corner of the attic two wooden pier-tables of ancient +fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but +it is much better to give the money to the poor; and they are very ugly +besides, and I should much prefer a round table of mahogany. + +I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to +the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in +the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. +We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are +great treats. + +My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop +ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened. +Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother's room. He +fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says. + +He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes +himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even +seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him. + +He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter. He +fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night. + +Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would +not take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had +happened to him; he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and +said, "This is the way I have been robbed!" And then he opened a trunk +full of jewels, all the jewels of the cathedral of Embrun, which the +thieves had given him. + +When he returned on that occasion, I could not refrain from scolding him +a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage +was making a noise, so that no one might hear me. + +At first I used to say to myself, "There are no dangers which will stop +him; he is terrible." Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a +sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself +as he sees fit. I carry off Madam Magloire, I enter my chamber, I pray +for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything +were to happen to him, it would be the end of me. I should go to the +good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madam Magloire +more trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his +imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we +tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this +house, he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us +to fear in this house? There is always some one with us who is stronger +than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. + +This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to +me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to +the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who +possesses grandeur of soul. + +I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you +desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows +everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very +good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the +generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a +Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of whom +was a seigneur de Rochefort. The last was Guy-Etienne-Alexandre, and was +commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. +His daughter, Marie-Louise, married Adrien-Charles de Gramont, son of +the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of the French guards, +and lieutenant-general of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq, and +Faoucq. + +Good Madame, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative, +Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in +not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me. +She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me. + +That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you +reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very +bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell; my paper is at an end, +and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes. + +BAPTISTINE. + +P.S. Your grand nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be +five years old? Yesterday he saw some one riding by on horseback who +had on knee-caps, and he said, "What has he got on his knees?" He is a +charming child! His little brother is dragging an old broom about the +room, like a carriage, and saying, "Hu!" + + +As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how to +mould themselves to the Bishop's ways with that special feminine genius +which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself. The Bishop +of D----, in spite of the gentle and candid air which never deserted +him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, +without seeming to have even a suspicion of the fact. They trembled, but +they let him alone. Sometimes Madame Magloire essayed a remonstrance in +advance, but never at the time, nor afterwards. They never interfered +with him by so much as a word or sign, in any action once entered upon. +At certain moments, without his having occasion to mention it, when he +was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was +his simplicity, they vaguely felt that he was acting as a bishop; then +they were nothing more than two shadows in the house. They served him +passively; and if obedience consisted in disappearing, they disappeared. +They understood, with an admirable delicacy of instinct, that certain +cares may be put under constraint. Thus, even when believing him to be +in peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature, +to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him +to God. + +Moreover, Baptistine said, as we have just read, that her brother's end +would prove her own. Madame Magloire did not say this, but she knew it. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT + +At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the +preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be +believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountains +infested with bandits. + +In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we will +state at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G---- + +Member of the Convention, G---- was mentioned with a sort of horror in +the little world of D---- A member of the Convention--can you imagine +such a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other +thou, and when they said "citizen." This man was almost a monster. +He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a +quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that such +a man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return of +the legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if you +please; clemency must be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment for +life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all +the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture. + +Was G---- a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by the +element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for the +death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of exile, and +had been able to remain in France. + +He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, far +from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild +valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sort +of field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passers-by. +Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither had +disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as +though it had been the dwelling of a hangman. + +Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to time +he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked the +valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, "There is a +soul yonder which is lonely." + +And he added, deep in his own mind, "I owe him a visit." + +But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush, +appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and +almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, and +the old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearly +conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on +hate, and which is so well expressed by the word estrangement. + +Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No. +But what a sheep! + +The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction; +then he returned. + +Finally, the rumor one day spread through the town that a sort of young +shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come +in quest of a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that paralysis was +gaining on him, and that he would not live over night.--"Thank God!" +some added. + +The Bishop took his staff, put on his cloak, on account of his too +threadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the evening +breeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out. + +The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop +arrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the heart, +he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over a +ditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs, +entered a neglected paddock, took a few steps with a good deal of +boldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behind +lofty brambles, he caught sight of the cavern. + +It was a very low hut, poor, small, and clean, with a vine nailed +against the outside. + +Near the door, in an old wheel-chair, the arm-chair of the peasants, +there was a white-haired man, smiling at the sun. + +Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offering +the old man a jar of milk. + +While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke: "Thank you," he +said, "I need nothing." And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the +child. + +The Bishop stepped forward. At the sound which he made in walking, the +old man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of the +surprise which a man can still feel after a long life. + +"This is the first time since I have been here," said he, "that any one +has entered here. Who are you, sir?" + +The Bishop answered:-- + +"My name is Bienvenu Myriel." + +"Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the +people call Monseigneur Welcome?" + +"I am." + +The old man resumed with a half-smile + +"In that case, you are my bishop?" + +"Something of that sort." + +"Enter, sir." + +The member of the Convention extended his hand to the Bishop, but the +Bishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark:-- + +"I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do not +seem to me to be ill." + +"Monsieur," replied the old man, "I am going to recover." + +He paused, and then said:-- + +"I shall die three hours hence." + +Then he continued:-- + +"I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour draws +on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended to +my knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the heart, +I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeled +out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does not +fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is on +the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that +moment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until the +dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night +then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has +no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight." + +The old man turned to the shepherd lad:-- + +"Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired." + +The child entered the hut. + +The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking to +himself:-- + +"I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors." + +The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. He +did not think he discerned God in this manner of dying; let us say the +whole, for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicated +like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "His +Grace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he +was almost tempted to retort "citizen." He was assailed by a fancy for +peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which +was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the +Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the +powerful ones of the earth; for the first time in his life, probably, +the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe. + +Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with a +modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that +humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning to +dust. + +The Bishop, on his side, although he generally restrained his curiosity, +which, in his opinion, bordered on a fault, could not refrain from +examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it +did not have its course in sympathy, would have served his conscience as +a matter of reproach, in connection with any other man. A member of the +Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside the pale +of the law, even of the law of charity. G----, calm, his body almost +upright, his voice vibrating, was one of those octogenarians who form +the subject of astonishment to the physiologist. The Revolution had +many of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In this old man one was +conscious of a man put to the proof. Though so near to his end, he +preserved all the gestures of health. In his clear glance, in his firm +tone, in the robust movement of his shoulders, there was something +calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of the +sepulchre, would have turned back, and thought that he had mistaken +the door. G---- seemed to be dying because he willed it so. There was +freedom in his agony. His legs alone were motionless. It was there that +the shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and dead, but his head +survived with all the power of life, and seemed full of light. G----, +at this solemn moment, resembled the king in that tale of the Orient who +was flesh above and marble below. + +There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt. + +"I congratulate you," said he, in the tone which one uses for a +reprimand. "You did not vote for the death of the king, after all." + +The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter +meaning underlying the words "after all." He replied. The smile had +quite disappeared from his face. + +"Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the +tyrant." + +It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity. + +"What do you mean to say?" resumed the Bishop. + +"I mean to say that man has a tyrant,--ignorance. I voted for the death +of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority +falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man +should be governed only by science." + +"And conscience," added the Bishop. + +"It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science +which we have within us." + +Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language, +which was very new to him. + +The member of the Convention resumed:-- + +"So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that I +had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. +I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution +for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. +In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, +concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and +errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We +have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of +miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn +of joy." + +"Mixed joy," said the Bishop. + +"You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the +past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work +was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we +were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not +sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the +wind is still there." + +"You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a +demolition complicated with wrath." + +"Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of +progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French +Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent +of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all the +unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, +enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the +earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of +humanity." + +The Bishop could not refrain from murmuring:-- + +"Yes? '93!" + +The member of the Convention straightened himself up in his chair with +an almost lugubrious solemnity, and exclaimed, so far as a dying man is +capable of exclamation:-- + +"Ah, there you go; '93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been +forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen +hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial." + +The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within +him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the +matter. He replied:-- + +"The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name +of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should +commit no error." And he added, regarding the member of the Convention +steadily the while, "Louis XVII.?" + +The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm. + +"Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent +child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal +child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, +an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Greve, +until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother +of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an +innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime +of having been grandson of Louis XV." + +"Monsieur," said the Bishop, "I like not this conjunction of names." + +"Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?" + +A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and +yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. + +The conventionary resumed:-- + +"Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ +loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, +full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, +'Sinite parvulos,' he made no distinction between the little children. +It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of +Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own +crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags +as in fleurs de lys." + +"That is true," said the Bishop in a low voice. + +"I persist," continued the conventionary G---- "You have mentioned Louis +XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the +innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? +I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back +further than '93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will +weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep +with me over the children of the people." + +"I weep for all," said the Bishop. + +"Equally!" exclaimed conventionary G----; "and if the balance must +incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering +longer." + +Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. He +raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb +and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and +judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of +the death agony. It was almost an explosion. + +"Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! that +is not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to me +about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these parts +I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, and +seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me in +a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit; +but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of imposing on +that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound of +your carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork +of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me +that you are the Bishop; but that affords me no information as to your +moral personality. In short, I repeat my question. Who are you? You are +a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded +men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,--the +bishopric of D---- fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand +in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,--who have kitchens, +who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who +strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and +who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus +Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,--revenues, palace, horses, +servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this like +the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says +either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the +intrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probable +intention of bringing wisdom to me. To whom do I speak? Who are you?" + +The Bishop hung his head and replied, "Vermis sum--I am a worm." + +"A worm of the earth in a carriage?" growled the conventionary. + +It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be +humble. + +The Bishop resumed mildly:-- + +"So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces +off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which I +eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palace +and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was not +inexorable." + +The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep +away a cloud. + +"Before replying to you," he said, "I beseech you to pardon me. I have +just committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, I +owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine +myself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures are +advantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictates +that I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of them +in the future." + +"I thank you," said the Bishop. + +G---- resumed. + +"Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where were +we? What were you saying to me? That '93 was inexorable?" + +"Inexorable; yes," said the Bishop. "What think you of Marat clapping +his hands at the guillotine?" + +"What think you of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades?" + +The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness +of a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it; no reply occurred to +him; but he was offended by this mode of alluding to Bossuet. The best +of minds will have their fetiches, and they sometimes feel vaguely +wounded by the want of respect of logic. + +The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is +mingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice; still, there was a +perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on:-- + +"Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. +Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human +affirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir; +but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what name +do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but what +is your opinion as to Lamoignon-Baville? Maillard is terrible; but +Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchene senior is ferocious; but what +epithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? Jourdan-Coupe-Tete +is a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir, +sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am +also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis the +Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist, +to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with +milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld +that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, a +mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of +her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture +of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir: the +French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be +absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its +most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race. I +abridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage; moreover, I am dying." + +And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his +thoughts in these tranquil words:-- + +"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are +over, this fact is recognized,--that the human race has been treated +harshly, but that it has progressed." + +The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all the +inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from this +intrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu's resistance, +came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the harshness of the +beginning:-- + +"Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. +He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race." + +The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seized +with a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance a +tear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled down +his livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and to +himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:-- + +"O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!" + +The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock. + +After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said:-- + +"The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person +would be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, it +would not exist. There is, then, an _I_. That _I_ of the infinite is +God." + +The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with +the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken, +his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident that he +had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left to +him. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in death. +The supreme moment was approaching. + +The Bishop understood this; time pressed; it was as a priest that he had +come: from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees to extreme emotion; +he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and ice-cold +hand in his, and bent over the dying man. + +"This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would be +regrettable if we had met in vain?" + +The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloom +was imprinted on his countenance. + +"Bishop," said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his +dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, "I have passed my +life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age +when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its +affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies existed, +I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and +confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France was +menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have been one +of the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were encumbered +with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, +which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and +silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succored +the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from +the altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. I +have always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towards +the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have, +when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of your +profession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spot +where the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent of +Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in +1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good +that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, +blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past, +I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they +have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present the +visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, without +hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point +of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?" + +"Your blessing," said the Bishop. + +And he knelt down. + +When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary had +become august. He had just expired. + +The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot +be known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the following +morning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him about +member of the Convention G----; he contented himself with pointing +heavenward. + +From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly feeling +towards all children and sufferers. + +Any allusion to "that old wretch of a G----" caused him to fall into a +singular preoccupation. No one could say that the passage of that soul +before his, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his, did +not count for something in his approach to perfection. + +This "pastoral visit" naturally furnished an occasion for a murmur of +comment in all the little local coteries. + +"Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a +bishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All those +revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to be +seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried +off by the devil." + +One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself +spiritual, addressed this sally to him, "Monseigneur, people are +inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!"--"Oh! oh! +that's a coarse color," replied the Bishop. "It is lucky that those who +despise it in a cap revere it in a hat." + + + + +CHAPTER XI--A RESTRICTION + +We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude +from this that Monseigneur Welcome was "a philosophical bishop," or a +"patriotic cure." His meeting, which may almost be designated as his +union, with conventionary G----, left behind it in his mind a sort of +astonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That is all. + +Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was far from being a politician, this is, +perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in the +events of that epoch, supposing that Monseigneur Bienvenu ever dreamed +of having an attitude. + +Let us, then, go back a few years. + +Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, the +Emperor had made him a baron of the Empire, in company with many other +bishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the +night of the 5th to the 6th of July, 1809; on this occasion, M. Myriel +was summoned by Napoleon to the synod of the bishops of France and Italy +convened at Paris. This synod was held at Notre-Dame, and assembled +for the first time on the 15th of June, 1811, under the presidency +of Cardinal Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninety-five bishops who +attended it. But he was present only at one sitting and at three or four +private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so very close +to nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that he imported +among these eminent personages, ideas which altered the temperature of +the assembly. He very soon returned to D---- He was interrogated as to +this speedy return, and he replied: "I embarrassed them. The outside air +penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an open +door." + +On another occasion he said, "What would you have? Those gentlemen are +princes. I am only a poor peasant bishop." + +The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is +said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at +the house of one of his most notable colleagues: "What beautiful clocks! +What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great +trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly +in my ears: 'There are people who are hungry! There are people who are +cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!'" + +Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an +intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts. +Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with +representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have +very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a +contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come +in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all these +misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person a +little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine +a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is +working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackened +nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first +proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty. + +This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D---- thought. + +It must not be supposed, however, that he shared what we call the "ideas +of the century" on certain delicate points. He took very little part +in the theological quarrels of the moment, and maintained silence on +questions in which Church and State were implicated; but if he had +been strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be an +ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, and +since we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that he +was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, he +gave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. He +refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island +of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor +in his diocese during the Hundred Days. + +Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a +general, the other a prefect. He wrote to both with tolerable frequency. +He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding a command +in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the general +had put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had pursued the +Emperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is desirous +of allowing to escape. His correspondence with the other brother, the +ex-prefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at Paris, Rue +Cassette, remained more affectionate. + +Thus Monseigneur Bienvenu also had his hour of party spirit, his hour +of bitterness, his cloud. The shadow of the passions of the moment +traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things. +Certainly, such a man would have done well not to entertain any +political opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning: we are +not confounding what is called "political opinions" with the grand +aspiration for progress, with the sublime faith, patriotic, democratic, +humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generous +intellect. Without going deeply into questions which are only indirectly +connected with the subject of this book, we will simply say this: It +would have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a Royalist, +and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away from +that serene contemplation in which is distinctly discernible, above the +fictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy vicissitudes of +human things, the beaming of those three pure radiances, truth, justice, +and charity. + +While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created +Monseigneur Welcome, we should have understood and admired his protest +in the name of right and liberty, his proud opposition, his just but +perilous resistance to the all-powerful Napoleon. But that which pleases +us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who +are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is danger, and in +any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone the right to be +the exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accuser in +prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of +success is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us, when +Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it work. 1812 commenced to +disarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of silence of that taciturn +legislative body, emboldened by catastrophe, possessed only traits which +aroused indignation. And it was a crime to applaud, in 1814, in the +presence of those marshals who betrayed; in the presence of that senate +which passed from one dunghill to another, insulting after having +deified; in the presence of that idolatry which was loosing its footing +and spitting on its idol,--it was a duty to turn aside the head. In +1815, when the supreme disasters filled the air, when France was seized +with a shiver at their sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimly +discerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the army +and the people to the condemned of destiny had nothing laughable in it, +and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that of +the Bishop of D----, ought not perhaps to have failed to recognize the +august and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nation +and a great man on the brink of the abyss. + +With this exception, he was in all things just, true, equitable, +intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is only +another sort of benevolence. He was a priest, a sage, and a man. It must +be admitted, that even in the political views with which we have just +reproached him, and which we are disposed to judge almost with severity, +he was tolerant and easy, more so, perhaps, than we who are speaking +here. The porter of the town-hall had been placed there by the Emperor. +He was an old non-commissioned officer of the old guard, a member of the +Legion of Honor at Austerlitz, as much of a Bonapartist as the eagle. +This poor fellow occasionally let slip inconsiderate remarks, which the +law then stigmatized as seditious speeches. After the imperial profile +disappeared from the Legion of Honor, he never dressed himself in his +regimentals, as he said, so that he should not be obliged to wear his +cross. He had himself devoutly removed the imperial effigy from the +cross which Napoleon had given him; this made a hole, and he would not +put anything in its place. "I will die," he said, "rather than wear the +three frogs upon my heart!" He liked to scoff aloud at Louis XVIII. "The +gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; "let him take himself +off to Prussia with that queue of his." He was happy to combine in the +same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia and +England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was, turned +out of the house, with his wife and children, and without bread. The +Bishop sent for him, reproved him gently, and appointed him beadle in +the cathedral. + +In the course of nine years Monseigneur Bienvenu had, by dint of holy +deeds and gentle manners, filled the town of D----with a sort of +tender and filial reverence. Even his conduct towards Napoleon had been +accepted and tacitly pardoned, as it were, by the people, the good and +weakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME + +A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little abbes, +just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what +that charming Saint Francois de Sales calls somewhere "les pretres +blancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form +a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power +which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its +court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present. Every +metropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses the +least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, +which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, +and mounts guard over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop is +equivalent to getting one's foot in the stirrup for a sub-diaconate. +It is necessary to walk one's path discreetly; the apostleship does not +disdain the canonship. + +Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church. +These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well +endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, +but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole +diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links +between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbes rather than priests, +prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them! Being +persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the +assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand +the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, +chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As +they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also; +it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam +of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind +the scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the +patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is Rome. +A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop who +knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist; +you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, and +behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, +and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence +and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every skull-cap may +dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a +king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. Then what a +nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, +how many youthful abbes bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! +Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in good +faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among +the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young +priests about him. We have seen that he "did not take" in Paris. Not a +single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man. +Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth its +foliage in his shadow. His canons and grand-vicars were good old men, +rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese, without +exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with this +difference, that they were finished and he was completed. The +impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well +understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the +seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix +or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, +men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation +is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion, +an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in +advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and +this infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur +Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the +lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. + +Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false +resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost +the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, has +one dupe,--history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our +day, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its +service, wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its +antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the +lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. +Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Be +lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people will think +you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose +the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but +short-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first +arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an +old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd. +That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Aeschylus, Dante, +Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by +acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may +consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a false +Corneille compose Tiridate; let a eunuch come to possess a harem; let a +military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch; +let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the +Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard, sold +as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a pork-packer +espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight millions, of +which he is the father and of which it is the mother; let a preacher +become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward of a fine +family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made minister +of finances,--and men call that Genius, just as they call the face +of Mousqueton Beauty, and the mien of Claude Majesty. With the +constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are +made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--WHAT HE BELIEVED + +We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D---- on the score of +orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood +but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his +word. Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible +development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs +from our own. + +What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery? These secrets of +the inner tribunal of the conscience are known only to the tomb, where +souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the +difficulties of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his +case. No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent +of his powers. "Credo in Patrem," he often exclaimed. Moreover, he +drew from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the +conscience, and which whispers to a man, "Thou art with God!" + +The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and +beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love. It +was in that quarter, quia multum amavit,--because he loved much--that +he was regarded as vulnerable by "serious men," "grave persons" and +"reasonable people"; favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism +takes its word of command from pedantry. What was this excess of love? +It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we have already +pointed out, and which, on occasion, extended even to things. He lived +without disdain. He was indulgent towards God's creation. Every man, +even the best, has within him a thoughtless harshness which he reserves +for animals. The Bishop of D---- had none of that harshness, which is +peculiar to many priests, nevertheless. He did not go as far as the +Brahmin, but he seemed to have weighed this saying of Ecclesiastes: "Who +knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth?" Hideousness of aspect, +deformity of instinct, troubled him not, and did not arouse his +indignation. He was touched, almost softened by them. It seemed as +though he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of life which +is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them. He +seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties. He examined +without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a +palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature. This +revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in +his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister was walking behind +him, unseen by him: suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the +ground; it was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider. His sister heard +him say:-- + +"Poor beast! It is not its fault!" + +Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of kindness? +Puerile they may be; but these sublime puerilities were peculiar to +Saint Francis d'Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he sprained his +ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just +man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing +more venerable possible. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent his youth, +and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate, +and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct +of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into +his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, +thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist +apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable; these +formations are indestructible. + +In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his seventy-fifth +birthday, but he did not appear to be more than sixty. He was not tall; +he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond +of taking long strolls on foot; his step was firm, and his form was +but slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any +conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and +smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur +Welcome had what the people term a "fine head," but so amiable was he +that they forgot that it was fine. + +When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one of his +charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease +with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole person. His fresh and +ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all of which he had preserved, +and which were displayed by his smile, gave him that open and easy air +which cause the remark to be made of a man, "He's a good fellow"; and +of an old man, "He is a fine man." That, it will be recalled, was the +effect which he produced upon Napoleon. On the first encounter, and to +one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing, in fact, but a fine +man. But if one remained near him for a few hours, and beheld him in the +least degree pensive, the fine man became gradually transfigured, and +took on some imposing quality, I know not what; his broad and serious +brow, rendered august by his white locks, became august also by virtue +of meditation; majesty radiated from his goodness, though his goodness +ceased not to be radiant; one experienced something of the emotion which +one would feel on beholding a smiling angel slowly unfold his wings, +without ceasing to smile. Respect, an unutterable respect, penetrated +you by degrees and mounted to your heart, and one felt that one had +before him one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls +where thought is so grand that it can no longer be anything but gentle. + +As we have seen, prayer, the celebration of the offices of religion, +alms-giving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation of a bit +of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence, +study, work, filled every day of his life. Filled is exactly the word; +certainly the Bishop's day was quite full to the brim, of good words and +good deeds. Nevertheless, it was not complete if cold or rainy weather +prevented his passing an hour or two in his garden before going to bed, +and after the two women had retired. It seemed to be a sort of rite with +him, to prepare himself for slumber by meditation in the presence of +the grand spectacles of the nocturnal heavens. Sometimes, if the two old +women were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at +a very advanced hour of the night. He was there alone, communing with +himself, peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the +serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor +of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his +heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, +while he offered his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer +their perfume, illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he +poured himself out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of +creation, he could not have told himself, probably, what was passing in +his spirit; he felt something take its flight from him, and something +descend into him. Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with +the abysses of the universe! + +He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future eternity, +that strange mystery; of the eternity past, a mystery still more +strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their way into all +his senses, beneath his eyes; and, without seeking to comprehend the +incomprehensible, he gazed upon it. He did not study God; he was dazzled +by him. He considered those magnificent conjunctions of atoms, which +communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them, create +individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable in the +infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions are +formed and dissolved incessantly; hence life and death. + +He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back against a decrepit +vine; he gazed at the stars, past the puny and stunted silhouettes +of his fruit-trees. This quarter of an acre, so poorly planted, so +encumbered with mean buildings and sheds, was dear to him, and satisfied +his wants. + +What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure of his +life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening in the +daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with +the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his +most divine works, in turn? Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and +what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to +walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be +cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate +upon: some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--WHAT HE THOUGHT + + +One last word. + +Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, +and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D---- a +certain "pantheistical" physiognomy, and induce the belief, either +to his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal +philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring +up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they +usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of +those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself +authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this +man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from +there. + +No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no, +there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses. The +apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably +have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems +which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds. There is a +sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings +stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a passer-by in life, +that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither! + +Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure speculation, +situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to +God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their adoration +interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and +responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs. + +Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes +and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by +a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious +world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is +probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be, +there are on earth men who--are they men?--perceive distinctly at the +verge of the horizons of revery the heights of the absolute, and who +have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome +was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would +have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like +Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these +powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths +one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which +shortens,--the Gospel's. + +He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah's +mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of +events; he did not seek to condense in flame the light of things; he +had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This +humble soul loved, and that was all. + +That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is +probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much; +and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint +Jerome would be heretics. + +He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe +appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, +everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to +solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle +of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only +in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to +compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare +priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation. + +There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction +of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned +everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he +declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the +whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be a +"philosopher," the senator who has already been alluded to, said to the +Bishop: "Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against +all; the strongest has the most wit. Your love each other is +nonsense."--"Well," replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting the +point, "if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the +pearl in the oyster." Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he +was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious +questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of +abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics--all those profundities +which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; +destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience +of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation +in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the +incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_, +the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, +liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where +lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses, +which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes +flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to +cause stars to blaze forth there. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of +mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling +his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave +respect for darkness. + + + + +BOOK SECOND--THE FALL + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE EVENING OF A DAY OF WALKING + +Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a +man who was travelling on foot entered the little town of D----The few +inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the +moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was +difficult to encounter a wayfarer of more wretched appearance. He was +a man of medium stature, thickset and robust, in the prime of life. +He might have been forty-six or forty-eight years old. A cap with a +drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned and tanned by +sun and wind, and dripping with perspiration. His shirt of coarse yellow +linen, fastened at the neck by a small silver anchor, permitted a view +of his hairy breast: he had a cravat twisted into a string; trousers of +blue drilling, worn and threadbare, white on one knee and torn on the +other; an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with +a bit of green cloth sewed on with twine; a tightly packed soldier +knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new, on his back; an enormous, +knotty stick in his hand; iron-shod shoes on his stockingless feet; a +shaved head and a long beard. + +The sweat, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, added I know not +what sordid quality to this dilapidated whole. His hair was closely cut, +yet bristling, for it had begun to grow a little, and did not seem to +have been cut for some time. + +No one knew him. He was evidently only a chance passer-by. Whence came +he? From the south; from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his entrance +into D---- by the same street which, seven months previously, had +witnessed the passage of the Emperor Napoleon on his way from Cannes +to Paris. This man must have been walking all day. He seemed very much +fatigued. Some women of the ancient market town which is situated below +the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the boulevard Gassendi, +and drink at the fountain which stands at the end of the promenade. He +must have been very thirsty: for the children who followed him saw him +stop again for a drink, two hundred paces further on, at the fountain in +the market-place. + +On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left, +and directed his steps toward the town-hall. He entered, then came out +a quarter of an hour later. A gendarme was seated near the door, on the +stone bench which General Drouot had mounted on the 4th of March to read +to the frightened throng of the inhabitants of D---- the proclamation +of the Gulf Juan. The man pulled off his cap and humbly saluted the +gendarme. + +The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively at him, +followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the town-hall. + +There then existed at D---- a fine inn at the sign of the Cross of +Colbas. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man +of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to another +Labarre, who kept the inn of the Three Dauphins in Grenoble, and had +served in the Guides. At the time of the Emperor's landing, many rumors +had circulated throughout the country with regard to this inn of the +Three Dauphins. It was said that General Bertrand, disguised as a +carter, had made frequent trips thither in the month of January, and +that he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls +of gold to the citizens. The truth is, that when the Emperor entered +Grenoble he had refused to install himself at the hotel of the +prefecture; he had thanked the mayor, saying, "I am going to the house +of a brave man of my acquaintance"; and he had betaken himself to the +Three Dauphins. This glory of the Labarre of the Three Dauphins was +reflected upon the Labarre of the Cross of Colbas, at a distance of five +and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, "That is the cousin +of the man of Grenoble." + +The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best in the +country-side. He entered the kitchen, which opened on a level with the +street. All the stoves were lighted; a huge fire blazed gayly in the +fireplace. The host, who was also the chief cook, was going from one +stew-pan to another, very busily superintending an excellent dinner +designed for the wagoners, whose loud talking, conversation, and +laughter were audible from an adjoining apartment. Any one who has +travelled knows that there is no one who indulges in better cheer than +wagoners. A fat marmot, flanked by white partridges and heather-cocks, +was turning on a long spit before the fire; on the stove, two huge carps +from Lake Lauzet and a trout from Lake Alloz were cooking. + +The host, hearing the door open and seeing a newcomer enter, said, +without raising his eyes from his stoves:-- + +"What do you wish, sir?" + +"Food and lodging," said the man. + +"Nothing easier," replied the host. At that moment he turned his head, +took in the traveller's appearance with a single glance, and added, "By +paying for it." + +The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and +answered, "I have money." + +"In that case, we are at your service," said the host. + +The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack from +his back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his stick in his +hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to the fire. D---- is in +the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October. + +But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller. + +"Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man. + +"Immediately," replied the landlord. + +While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with his back +turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his pocket, +then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on a small +table near the window. On the white margin he wrote a line or two, +folded it without sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper to +a child who seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and +lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the +child set off on a run in the direction of the town-hall. + +The traveller saw nothing of all this. + +Once more he inquired, "Will dinner be ready soon?" + +"Immediately," responded the host. + +The child returned. He brought back the paper. The host unfolded it +eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it +attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a moment. +Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who appeared to +be immersed in reflections which were not very serene. + +"I cannot receive you, sir," said he. + +The man half rose. + +"What! Are you afraid that I will not pay you? Do you want me to pay you +in advance? I have money, I tell you." + +"It is not that." + +"What then?" + +"You have money--" + +"Yes," said the man. + +"And I," said the host, "have no room." + +The man resumed tranquilly, "Put me in the stable." + +"I cannot." + +"Why?" + +"The horses take up all the space." + +"Very well!" retorted the man; "a corner of the loft then, a truss of +straw. We will see about that after dinner." + +"I cannot give you any dinner." + +This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger +as grave. He rose. + +"Ah! bah! But I am dying of hunger. I have been walking since sunrise. I +have travelled twelve leagues. I pay. I wish to eat." + +"I have nothing," said the landlord. + +The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the +stoves: "Nothing! and all that?" + +"All that is engaged." + +"By whom?" + +"By messieurs the wagoners." + +"How many are there of them?" + +"Twelve." + +"There is enough food there for twenty." + +"They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance." + +The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his voice, "I am +at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain." + +Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him +start, "Go away!" + +At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some +brands into the fire with the iron-shod tip of his staff; he turned +quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply, the host gazed +steadily at him and added, still in a low voice: "Stop! there's enough +of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name is +Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw you +come in I suspected something; I sent to the town-hall, and this was the +reply that was sent to me. Can you read?" + +So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the paper which +had just travelled from the inn to the town-hall, and from the town-hall +to the inn. The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord resumed after a +pause. + +"I am in the habit of being polite to every one. Go away!" + +The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he had deposited +on the ground, and took his departure. + +He chose the principal street. He walked straight on at a venture, +keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not +turn round a single time. Had he done so, he would have seen the host +of the Cross of Colbas standing on his threshold, surrounded by all +the guests of his inn, and all the passers-by in the street, talking +vivaciously, and pointing him out with his finger; and, from the glances +of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that his +arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town. + +He saw nothing of all this. People who are crushed do not look behind +them. They know but too well the evil fate which follows them. + +Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing +at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, +as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs +of hunger sharply. Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see +whether he could not discover some shelter. + +The fine hostelry was closed to him; he was seeking some very humble +public house, some hovel, however lowly. + +Just then a light flashed up at the end of the streets; a pine branch +suspended from a cross-beam of iron was outlined against the white sky +of the twilight. He proceeded thither. + +It proved to be, in fact, a public house. The public house which is in +the Rue de Chaffaut. + +The wayfarer halted for a moment, and peeped through the window into the +interior of the low-studded room of the public house, illuminated by a +small lamp on a table and by a large fire on the hearth. Some men were +engaged in drinking there. The landlord was warming himself. An iron +pot, suspended from a crane, bubbled over the flame. + +The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of an inn, is by +two doors. One opens on the street, the other upon a small yard filled +with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped +into the yard, halted again, then raised the latch timidly and opened +the door. + +"Who goes there?" said the master. + +"Some one who wants supper and bed." + +"Good. We furnish supper and bed here." + +He entered. All the men who were drinking turned round. The lamp +illuminated him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined +him for some time while he was taking off his knapsack. + +The host said to him, "There is the fire. The supper is cooking in the +pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade." + +He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his +feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire; a fine odor was +emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished of his face, beneath +his cap, which was well pulled down, assumed a vague appearance +of comfort, mingled with that other poignant aspect which habitual +suffering bestows. + +It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile. This +physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble, and +ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire +beneath brushwood. + +One of the men seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger who, +before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to +stable his horse at Labarre's. It chanced that he had that very morning +encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras +d'Asse and--I have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now, +when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely weary, had +requested him to take him on his crupper; to which the fishmonger had +made no reply except by redoubling his gait. This fishmonger had been +a member half an hour previously of the group which surrounded Jacquin +Labarre, and had himself related his disagreeable encounter of the +morning to the people at the Cross of Colbas. From where he sat he made +an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper went to +him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again become +absorbed in his reflections. + +The tavern-keeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand abruptly on +the shoulder of the man, and said to him:-- + +"You are going to get out of here." + +The stranger turned round and replied gently, "Ah! You know?--" + +"Yes." + +"I was sent away from the other inn." + +"And you are to be turned out of this one." + +"Where would you have me go?" + +"Elsewhere." + +The man took his stick and his knapsack and departed. + +As he went out, some children who had followed him from the Cross of +Colbas, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw stones at him. +He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his stick: the +children dispersed like a flock of birds. + +He passed before the prison. At the door hung an iron chain attached to +a bell. He rang. + +The wicket opened. + +"Turnkey," said he, removing his cap politely, "will you have the +kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night?" + +A voice replied:-- + +"The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be +admitted." + +The wicket closed again. + +He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of +them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful aspect to the +street. In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of a +small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted up. He +peered through the pane as he had done at the public house. Within was a +large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in printed cotton stuff, and +a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled gun +hanging on the wall. A table was spread in the centre of the room. A +copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the pewter +jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and the brown, smoking +soup-tureen. At this table sat a man of about forty, with a merry and +open countenance, who was dandling a little child on his knees. Close by +a very young woman was nursing another child. The father was laughing, +the child was laughing, the mother was smiling. + +The stranger paused a moment in revery before this tender and calming +spectacle. What was taking place within him? He alone could have +told. It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be +hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he +would find perhaps a little pity. + +He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock. + +They did not hear him. + +He tapped again. + +He heard the woman say, "It seems to me, husband, that some one is +knocking." + +"No," replied the husband. + +He tapped a third time. + +The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened. + +He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a +huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a +hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects +which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out. He +carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned +back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare. He had thick eyelashes, +enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face +like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, +which is indescribable. + +"Pardon me, sir," said the wayfarer, "Could you, in consideration of +payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the +garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?" + +"Who are you?" demanded the master of the house. + +The man replied: "I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all +day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?--if I pay?" + +"I would not refuse," said the peasant, "to lodge any respectable man +who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?" + +"There is no room." + +"Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been +to Labarre?" + +"Yes." + +"Well?" + +The traveller replied with embarrassment: "I do not know. He did not +receive me." + +"Have you been to What's-his-name's, in the Rue Chaffaut?" + +The stranger's embarrassment increased; he stammered, "He did not +receive me either." + +The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he surveyed +the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of +shudder:-- + +"Are you the man?--" + +He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps backwards, +placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall. + +Meanwhile, at the words, Are you the man? the woman had risen, had +clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge precipitately +behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger, with her bosom +uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured in a low tone, +"Tso-maraude."[1] + +All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to +one's self. After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one +scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door and +said:-- + +"Clear out!" + +"For pity's sake, a glass of water," said the man. + +"A shot from my gun!" said the peasant. + +Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot two large +bolts. A moment later, the window-shutter was closed, and the sound of a +bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside. + +Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the +light of the expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens +which bordered the street, a sort of hut, which seemed to him to be +built of sods. He climbed over the wooden fence resolutely, and found +himself in the garden. He approached the hut; its door consisted of a +very low and narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which +road-laborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought +without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling of a road-laborer; he +was suffering from cold and hunger, but this was, at least, a shelter +from the cold. This sort of dwelling is not usually occupied at night. +He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was warm +there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a moment, +stretched out on this bed, without the power to make a movement, so +fatigued was he. Then, as the knapsack on his back was in his way, and +as it furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he set about +unbuckling one of the straps. At that moment, a ferocious growl became +audible. He raised his eyes. The head of an enormous dog was outlined in +the darkness at the entrance of the hut. + +It was a dog's kennel. + +He was himself vigorous and formidable; he armed himself with his staff, +made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the +best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags. + +He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged, +in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manoeuvre +with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as la +rose couverte. + +When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found +himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without shelter, +without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and +from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a +stone, and it appears that a passer-by heard him exclaim, "I am not even +a dog!" + +He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town, +hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford +him shelter. + +He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt +himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed +searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those +low hills covered with close-cut stubble, which, after the harvest, +resemble shaved heads. + +The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of +night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest +upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole +sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still +floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these +clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a +gleam of light fell upon the earth. + +The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a +particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and +mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole +effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow. + +There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, +which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer. + +This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of +intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious +aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something in that sky, +in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly +desolate, that after a moment of immobility and revery he turned back +abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile. + +He retraced his steps; the gates of D---- were closed. D----, which had +sustained sieges during the wars of religion, was still surrounded +in 1815 by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been +demolished since. He passed through a breach and entered the town again. + +It might have been eight o'clock in the evening. As he was not +acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random. + +In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary. As he +passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church. + +At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is +there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard +to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated by Napoleon +himself, were printed for the first time. + +Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down +on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office. + +At that moment an old woman came out of the church. She saw the man +stretched out in the shadow. "What are you doing there, my friend?" said +she. + +He answered harshly and angrily: "As you see, my good woman, I am +sleeping." The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was +the Marquise de R---- + +"On this bench?" she went on. + +"I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years," said the man; +"to-day I have a mattress of stone." + +"You have been a soldier?" + +"Yes, my good woman, a soldier." + +"Why do you not go to the inn?" + +"Because I have no money." + +"Alas!" said Madame de R----, "I have only four sous in my purse." + +"Give it to me all the same." + +The man took the four sous. Madame de R---- continued: "You cannot +obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is +impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no +doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity." + +"I have knocked at all doors." + +"Well?" + +"I have been driven away everywhere." + +The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the +other side of the street a small, low house, which stood beside the +Bishop's palace. + +"You have knocked at all doors?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you knocked at that one?" + +"No." + +"Knock there." + + + + +CHAPTER II--PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM. + +That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through the town, +remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work +on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully +compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this +important subject. His book was divided into two parts: firstly, the +duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the +class to which he belongs. The duties of all are the great duties. There +are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out: duties towards God +(Matt. vi.); duties towards one's self (Matt. v. 29, 30); duties towards +one's neighbor (Matt. vii. 12); duties towards animals (Matt. vi. 20, +25). As for the other duties the Bishop found them pointed out and +prescribed elsewhere: to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the +Romans; to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint +Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle +to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; to +virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these precepts he was +laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired to present +to souls. + +At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of +inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his +knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the +silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop, +knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably +waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the +dining-room. + +The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a +door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on +the garden. + +Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the +table. + +As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle +Baptistine. + +A lamp stood on the table; the table was near the fireplace. A wood fire +was burning there. + +One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom +were over sixty years of age. Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious; +Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her +brother, dressed in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fashion of 1806, +which she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had lasted +ever since. To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of giving +utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would hardly +suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a peasant, and +Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a lady. Madame Magloire wore a white +quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon upon her neck, +the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a very +white fichu puffing out from a gown of coarse black woollen stuff, with +large, short sleeves, an apron of cotton cloth in red and green checks, +knotted round the waist with a green ribbon, with a stomacher of the +same attached by two pins at the upper corners, coarse shoes on her +feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle +Baptistine's gown was cut on the patterns of 1806, with a short waist, +a narrow, sheath-like skirt, puffed sleeves, with flaps and buttons. +She concealed her gray hair under a frizzed wig known as the baby wig. +Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and kindly air; the two +corners of her mouth unequally raised, and her upper lip, which was +larger than the lower, imparted to her a rather crabbed and imperious +look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him +resolutely with a mixture of respect and freedom; but as soon as +Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like +her mistress. Mademoiselle Baptistine did not even speak. She confined +herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never been pretty, even +when she was young; she had large, blue, prominent eyes, and a long +arched nose; but her whole visage, her whole person, breathed forth an +ineffable goodness, as we stated in the beginning. She had always been +predestined to gentleness; but faith, charity, hope, those three virtues +which mildly warm the soul, had gradually elevated that gentleness to +sanctity. Nature had made her a lamb, religion had made her an angel. +Poor sainted virgin! Sweet memory which has vanished! + +Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the +episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people now living +who still recall the most minute details. + +At the moment when the Bishop entered, Madame Magloire was talking with +considerable vivacity. She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on +a subject which was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also +accustomed. The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door. + +It appears that while procuring some provisions for supper, Madame +Magloire had heard things in divers places. People had spoken of a +prowler of evil appearance; a suspicious vagabond had arrived who must +be somewhere about the town, and those who should take it into their +heads to return home late that night might be subjected to unpleasant +encounters. The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there +was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure +each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to play the +part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be +taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the +doors well. + +Madame Magloire emphasized these last words; but the Bishop had just +come from his room, where it was rather cold. He seated himself in front +of the fire, and warmed himself, and then fell to thinking of other +things. He did not take up the remark dropped with design by Madame +Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of +satisfying Madame Magloire without displeasing her brother, ventured to +say timidly:-- + +"Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?" + +"I have heard something of it in a vague way," replied the Bishop. Then +half-turning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising +towards the old servant woman his cordial face, which so easily grew +joyous, and which was illuminated from below by the firelight,--"Come, +what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?" + +Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating it a +little without being aware of the fact. It appeared that a Bohemian, a +bare-footed vagabond, a sort of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment +in the town. He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre's to obtain +lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in. He had +been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about +the streets in the gloaming. A gallows-bird with a terrible face. + +"Really!" said the Bishop. + +This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire; it seemed +to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming alarmed; +she pursued triumphantly:-- + +"Yes, Monseigneur. That is how it is. There will be some sort of +catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the +police is so badly regulated" (a useful repetition). "The idea of living +in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at +night! One goes out. Black as ovens, indeed! And I say, Monseigneur, and +Mademoiselle there says with me--" + +"I," interrupted his sister, "say nothing. What my brother does is well +done." + +Madame Magloire continued as though there had been no protest:-- + +"We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will +permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and +replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them, and it is only the +work of a moment; for I say that nothing is more terrible than a +door which can be opened from the outside with a latch by the first +passer-by; and I say that we need bolts, Monseigneur, if only for this +night; moreover, Monseigneur has the habit of always saying 'come in'; +and besides, even in the middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no +need to ask permission." + +At that moment there came a tolerably violent knock on the door. + +"Come in," said the Bishop. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. + +The door opened. + +It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it an +energetic and resolute push. + +A man entered. + +We already know the man. It was the wayfarer whom we have seen wandering +about in search of shelter. + +He entered, advanced a step, and halted, leaving the door open behind +him. He had his knapsack on his shoulders, his cudgel in his hand, a +rough, audacious, weary, and violent expression in his eyes. The fire on +the hearth lighted him up. He was hideous. It was a sinister apparition. + +Madame Magloire had not even the strength to utter a cry. She trembled, +and stood with her mouth wide open. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine turned round, beheld the man entering, and half +started up in terror; then, turning her head by degrees towards the +fireplace again, she began to observe her brother, and her face became +once more profoundly calm and serene. + +The Bishop fixed a tranquil eye on the man. + +As he opened his mouth, doubtless to ask the new-comer what he desired, +the man rested both hands on his staff, directed his gaze at the old man +and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, +in a loud voice:-- + +"See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. +I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days +ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have +been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen +leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I +went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, +which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. +They said to me, 'Be off,' at both places. No one would take me. I +went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog's +kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. +One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, +intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no +stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the town, to +seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep +on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me, and said +to me, 'Knock there!' I have knocked. What is this place? Do you keep +an inn? I have money--savings. One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, +which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen +years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am very weary; +twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should +remain?" + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "you will set another place." + +The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp which was on +the table. "Stop," he resumed, as though he had not quite understood; +"that's not it. Did you hear? I am a galley-slave; a convict. I come +from the galleys." He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow +paper, which he unfolded. "Here's my passport. Yellow, as you see. This +serves to expel me from every place where I go. Will you read it? I know +how to read. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those +who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this passport: 'Jean +Valjean, discharged convict, native of'--that is nothing to you--'has +been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for house-breaking +and burglary; fourteen years for having attempted to escape on four +occasions. He is a very dangerous man.' There! Every one has cast me +out. Are you willing to receive me? Is this an inn? Will you give me +something to eat and a bed? Have you a stable?" + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "you will put white sheets on the +bed in the alcove." We have already explained the character of the two +women's obedience. + +Madame Magloire retired to execute these orders. + +The Bishop turned to the man. + +"Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few moments, +and your bed will be prepared while you are supping." + +At this point the man suddenly comprehended. The expression of his face, +up to that time sombre and harsh, bore the imprint of stupefaction, +of doubt, of joy, and became extraordinary. He began stammering like a +crazy man:-- + +"Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict! +You call me sir! You do not address me as thou? 'Get out of here, you +dog!' is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would expel +me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that was who +directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress and sheets, +like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since I have +slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good +people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the +inn-keeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you ask. You are +a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?" + +"I am," replied the Bishop, "a priest who lives here." + +"A priest!" said the man. "Oh, what a fine priest! Then you are not +going to demand any money of me? You are the cure, are you not? the cure +of this big church? Well! I am a fool, truly! I had not perceived your +skull-cap." + +As he spoke, he deposited his knapsack and his cudgel in a corner, +replaced his passport in his pocket, and seated himself. Mademoiselle +Baptistine gazed mildly at him. He continued: + +"You are humane, Monsieur le Cure; you have not scorned me. A good +priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay?" + +"No," said the Bishop; "keep your money. How much have you? Did you not +tell me one hundred and nine francs?" + +"And fifteen sous," added the man. + +"One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous. And how long did it take you +to earn that?" + +"Nineteen years." + +"Nineteen years!" + +The Bishop sighed deeply. + +The man continued: "I have still the whole of my money. In four days I +have spent only twenty-five sous, which I earned by helping unload some +wagons at Grasse. Since you are an abbe, I will tell you that we had a +chaplain in the galleys. And one day I saw a bishop there. Monseigneur +is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is +the cure who rules over the other cures, you understand. Pardon me, +I say that very badly; but it is such a far-off thing to me! You +understand what we are! He said mass in the middle of the galleys, on an +altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head; it glittered +in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three +sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could not see +very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That +is what a bishop is like." + +While he was speaking, the Bishop had gone and shut the door, which had +remained wide open. + +Madame Magloire returned. She brought a silver fork and spoon, which she +placed on the table. + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "place those things as near the fire +as possible." And turning to his guest: "The night wind is harsh on the +Alps. You must be cold, sir." + +Each time that he uttered the word sir, in his voice which was so gently +grave and polished, the man's face lighted up. Monsieur to a convict is +like a glass of water to one of the shipwrecked of the Medusa. Ignominy +thirsts for consideration. + +"This lamp gives a very bad light," said the Bishop. + +Madame Magloire understood him, and went to get the two silver +candlesticks from the chimney-piece in Monseigneur's bed-chamber, and +placed them, lighted, on the table. + +"Monsieur le Cure," said the man, "you are good; you do not despise me. +You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I +have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate +man." + +The Bishop, who was sitting close to him, gently touched his hand. "You +could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house; it is +the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters +whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are +hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say +that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man +who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much +more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need +have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which +I knew." + +The man opened his eyes in astonishment. + +"Really? You knew what I was called?" + +"Yes," replied the Bishop, "you are called my brother." + +"Stop, Monsieur le Cure," exclaimed the man. "I was very hungry when +I entered here; but you are so good, that I no longer know what has +happened to me." + +The Bishop looked at him, and said,-- + +"You have suffered much?" + +"Oh, the red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, +cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, +the cell for one word; even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs +are happier! Nineteen years! I am forty-six. Now there is the yellow +passport. That is what it is like." + +"Yes," resumed the Bishop, "you have come from a very sad place. +Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tear-bathed face of a +repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men. If you +emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against +mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts of +good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us." + +In the meantime, Madame Magloire had served supper: soup, made with +water, oil, bread, and salt; a little bacon, a bit of mutton, figs, a +fresh cheese, and a large loaf of rye bread. She had, of her own accord, +added to the Bishop's ordinary fare a bottle of his old Mauves wine. + +The Bishop's face at once assumed that expression of gayety which is +peculiar to hospitable natures. "To table!" he cried vivaciously. As was +his custom when a stranger supped with him, he made the man sit on his +right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly peaceable and natural, took +her seat at his left. + +The Bishop asked a blessing; then helped the soup himself, according to +his custom. The man began to eat with avidity. + +All at once the Bishop said: "It strikes me there is something missing +on this table." + +Madame Magloire had, in fact, only placed the three sets of forks and +spoons which were absolutely necessary. Now, it was the usage of the +house, when the Bishop had any one to supper, to lay out the whole +six sets of silver on the table-cloth--an innocent ostentation. This +graceful semblance of luxury was a kind of child's play, which was full +of charm in that gentle and severe household, which raised poverty into +dignity. + +Madame Magloire understood the remark, went out without saying a word, +and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded by +the Bishop were glittering upon the cloth, symmetrically arranged before +the three persons seated at the table. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--DETAILS CONCERNING THE CHEESE-DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER. + +Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot +do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle +Baptistine's letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation +between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingenious +minuteness. + + +". . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity +of a starving man. However, after supper he said: + +"'Monsieur le Cure of the good God, all this is far too good for me; but +I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep +a better table than you do.' + +"Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied:-- + +"'They are more fatigued than I.' + +"'No,' returned the man, 'they have more money. You are poor; I see that +plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a cure? Ah, if the +good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a cure!' + +"'The good God is more than just,' said my brother. + +"A moment later he added:-- + +"'Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?' + +"'With my road marked out for me.' + +"I think that is what the man said. Then he went on:-- + +"'I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the +nights are cold, the days are hot.' + +"'You are going to a good country,' said my brother. 'During the +Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comte at +first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will +was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There are +paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories +on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at +least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Chatillon, at Audincourt, and +at Beure, are tolerably large.' + +"I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my +brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and addressed me:-- + +"'Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?' + +"I replied,-- + +"'We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the +gates at Pontarlier under the old regime.' + +"'Yes,' resumed my brother; 'but in '93, one had no longer any +relatives, one had only one's arms. I worked. They have, in the +country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a +truly patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their +cheese-dairies, which they call fruitieres.' + +"Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with +great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier were; that they +were divided into two classes: the big barns which belong to the rich, +and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to +eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which +belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold +their cows in common, and share the proceeds. 'They engage the services +of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin; the grurin receives the +milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the quantity on +a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work of the +cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the +cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.' + +"The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink +that good Mauves wine, which he does not drink himself, because he says +that wine is expensive. My brother imparted all these details with that +easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his +words with graceful attentions to me. He recurred frequently to that +comfortable trade of grurin, as though he wished the man to understand, +without advising him directly and harshly, that this would afford him +a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you. Well, +neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did my brother +utter a single word, with the exception of a few words about Jesus when +he entered, which could remind the man of what he was, nor of what my +brother was. To all appearances, it was an occasion for preaching him +a little sermon, and of impressing the Bishop on the convict, so that a +mark of the passage might remain behind. This might have appeared to any +one else who had this, unfortunate man in his hands to afford a chance +to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow upon him +some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice, or a little +commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself better in the +future. My brother did not even ask him from what country he came, +nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my +brother seemed to avoid everything which could remind him of it. To such +a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was speaking +of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, who exercise a gentle labor near +heaven, and who, he added, are happy because they are innocent, he +stopped short, fearing lest in this remark there might have escaped him +something which might wound the man. By dint of reflection, I think +I have comprehended what was passing in my brother's heart. He was +thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his +misfortune only too vividly present in his mind; that the best thing +was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, +that he was a person like any other, by treating him just in his +ordinary way. Is not this indeed, to understand charity well? Is there +not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which +abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the +truest pity, when a man has a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has +seemed to me that this might have been my brother's private thought. In +any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he +gave no sign of them; from beginning to end, even to me he was the same +as he is every evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the +same air and in the same manner in which he would have supped with M. +Gedeon le Provost, or with the curate of the parish. + +"Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at +the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My +brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I +had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much +heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much +fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother +said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, 'You must be +in great need of your bed.' Madame Magloire cleared the table very +promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this +traveller to go to sleep, and we both went up stairs. Nevertheless, I +sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man's bed a +goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are +frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old; all +the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in Germany, +at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little +ivory-handled knife which I use at table. + +"Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the +drawing-room, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to +our own chambers, without saying a word to each other." + + + + +CHAPTER V--TRANQUILLITY + +After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of +the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his +guest, and said to him,-- + +"Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room." + +The man followed him. + +As might have been observed from what has been said above, the house was +so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove was +situated, or to get out of it, it was necessary to traverse the Bishop's +bedroom. + +At the moment when he was crossing this apartment, Madame Magloire was +putting away the silverware in the cupboard near the head of the bed. +This was her last care every evening before she went to bed. + +The Bishop installed his guest in the alcove. A fresh white bed had been +prepared there. The man set the candle down on a small table. + +"Well," said the Bishop, "may you pass a good night. To-morrow morning, +before you set out, you shall drink a cup of warm milk from our cows." + +"Thanks, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the man. + +Hardly had he pronounced these words full of peace, when all of a +sudden, and without transition, he made a strange movement, which would +have frozen the two sainted women with horror, had they witnessed it. +Even at this day it is difficult for us to explain what inspired him at +that moment. Did he intend to convey a warning or to throw out a menace? +Was he simply obeying a sort of instinctive impulse which was obscure +even to himself? He turned abruptly to the old man, folded his arms, and +bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse voice:-- + +"Ah! really! You lodge me in your house, close to yourself like this?" + +He broke off, and added with a laugh in which there lurked something +monstrous:-- + +"Have you really reflected well? How do you know that I have not been an +assassin?" + +The Bishop replied:-- + +"That is the concern of the good God." + +Then gravely, and moving his lips like one who is praying or talking +to himself, he raised two fingers of his right hand and bestowed his +benediction on the man, who did not bow, and without turning his head or +looking behind him, he returned to his bedroom. + +When the alcove was in use, a large serge curtain drawn from wall to +wall concealed the altar. The Bishop knelt before this curtain as he +passed and said a brief prayer. A moment later he was in his garden, +walking, meditating, contemplating, his heart and soul wholly absorbed +in those grand and mysterious things which God shows at night to the +eyes which remain open. + +As for the man, he was actually so fatigued that he did not even profit +by the nice white sheets. Snuffing out his candle with his nostrils +after the manner of convicts, he dropped, all dressed as he was, upon +the bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep. + +Midnight struck as the Bishop returned from his garden to his apartment. + +A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--JEAN VALJEAN + +Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke. + +Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not learned +to read in his childhood. When he reached man's estate, he became a +tree-pruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu; his +father was called Jean Valjean or Vlajean, probably a sobriquet, and a +contraction of viola Jean, "here's Jean." + +Jean Valjean was of that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which +constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate natures. On the whole, +however, there was something decidedly sluggish and insignificant about +Jean Valjean in appearance, at least. He had lost his father and mother +at a very early age. His mother had died of a milk fever, which had not +been properly attended to. His father, a tree-pruner, like himself, had +been killed by a fall from a tree. All that remained to Jean Valjean +was a sister older than himself,--a widow with seven children, boys and +girls. This sister had brought up Jean Valjean, and so long as she had a +husband she lodged and fed her young brother. + +The husband died. The eldest of the seven children was eight years old. +The youngest, one. + +Jean Valjean had just attained his twenty-fifth year. He took the +father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought +him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly +on the part of Jean Valjean. Thus his youth had been spent in rude and +ill-paid toil. He had never known a "kind woman friend" in his native +parts. He had not had the time to fall in love. + +He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word. +His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from +his bowl while he was eating,--a bit of meat, a slice of bacon, the +heart of the cabbage,--to give to one of her children. As he went on +eating, with his head bent over the table and almost into his soup, his +long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the air +of perceiving nothing and allowing it. There was at Faverolles, not +far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, +a farmer's wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually +famished, sometimes went to borrow from Marie-Claude a pint of milk, in +their mother's name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley +corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little +girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks. If their mother +had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents +severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid Marie-Claude for +the pint of milk behind their mother's back, and the children were not +punished. + +In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day; then he hired out as +a hay-maker, as laborer, as neat-herd on a farm, as a drudge. He did +whatever he could. His sister worked also but what could she do with +seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was +being gradually annihilated. A very hard winter came. Jean had no work. +The family had no bread. No bread literally. Seven children! + +One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Church Square at +Faverolles, was preparing to go to bed, when he heard a violent blow on +the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed +through a hole made by a blow from a fist, through the grating and the +glass. The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off. Isabeau ran +out in haste; the robber fled at the full speed of his legs. Isabeau ran +after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his +arm was still bleeding. It was Jean Valjean. + +This took place in 1795. Jean Valjean was taken before the tribunals +of the time for theft and breaking and entering an inhabited house at +night. He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the world, +he was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case. There exists a +legitimate prejudice against poachers. The poacher, like the smuggler, +smacks too strongly of the brigand. Nevertheless, we will remark +cursorily, there is still an abyss between these races of men and the +hideous assassin of the towns. The poacher lives in the forest, the +smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea. The cities make ferocious +men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, +make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often without +destroying the humane side. + +Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty. The terms of the Code were explicit. +There occur formidable hours in our civilization; there are moments when +the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute is that in +which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment +of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five years in the +galleys. + +On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the +general-in-chief of the army of Italy, whom the message of the Directory +to the Five Hundred, of the 2d of Floreal, year IV., calls Buona-Parte, +was announced in Paris; on that same day a great gang of galley-slaves +was put in chains at Bicetre. Jean Valjean formed a part of that gang. +An old turnkey of the prison, who is now nearly eighty years old, still +recalls perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was chained to the end of +the fourth line, in the north angle of the courtyard. He was seated on +the ground like the others. He did not seem to comprehend his position, +except that it was horrible. It is probable that he, also, was +disentangling from amid the vague ideas of a poor man, ignorant of +everything, something excessive. While the bolt of his iron collar was +being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, +his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech; he only managed to +say from time to time, "I was a tree-pruner at Faverolles." Then still +sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually seven times, +as though he were touching in succession seven heads of unequal heights, +and from this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had done, +whatever it was, he had done for the sake of clothing and nourishing +seven little children. + +He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of twenty-seven +days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in +the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even to his name, +was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601. +What became of his sister? What became of the seven children? Who +troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves from +the young tree which is sawed off at the root? + +It is always the same story. These poor living beings, these creatures +of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge, +wandered away at random,--who even knows?--each in his own direction +perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which +engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in +succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race. +They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their village +forgot them; the boundary line of what had been their field forgot them; +after a few years' residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean himself forgot +them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a scar. +That is all. Only once, during all the time which he spent at Toulon, +did he hear his sister mentioned. This happened, I think, towards +the end of the fourth year of his captivity. I know not through what +channels the news reached him. Some one who had known them in their +own country had seen his sister. She was in Paris. She lived in a poor +street Rear Saint-Sulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. She had with her only +one child, a little boy, the youngest. Where were the other six? Perhaps +she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing office, +No. 3 Rue du Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher. She was obliged +to be there at six o'clock in the morning--long before daylight in +winter. In the same building with the printing office there was a +school, and to this school she took her little boy, who was seven years +old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the school only +opened at seven, the child had to wait in the courtyard, for the school +to open, for an hour--one hour of a winter night in the open air! They +would not allow the child to come into the printing office, because he +was in the way, they said. When the workmen passed in the morning, they +beheld this poor little being seated on the pavement, overcome with +drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the shadow, crouched down and +doubled up over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the portress, +took pity on him; she took him into her den, where there was a pallet, a +spinning-wheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little one slumbered in a +corner, pressing himself close to the cat that he might suffer less from +cold. At seven o'clock the school opened, and he entered. That is what +was told to Jean Valjean. + +They talked to him about it for one day; it was a moment, a flash, +as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of those +things whom he had loved; then all closed again. He heard nothing more +forever. Nothing from them ever reached him again; he never beheld +them; he never met them again; and in the continuation of this mournful +history they will not be met with any more. + +Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean's turn to escape +arrived. His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place. +He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being +at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant, to quake at +the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a smoking roof, +of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking +clock, of the day because one can see, of the night because one cannot +see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep. On the evening +of the second day he was captured. He had neither eaten nor slept for +thirty-six hours. The maritime tribunal condemned him, for this crime, +to a prolongation of his term for three years, which made eight years. +In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself +of it, but could not accomplish his flight fully. He was missing at +roll-call. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found him +hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction; he +resisted the galley guards who seized him. Escape and rebellion. This +case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of +five years, two of them in the double chain. Thirteen years. In the +tenth year his turn came round again; he again profited by it; he +succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years. +Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year, he made a last +attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four +hours of absence. Three years for those four hours. Nineteen years. In +October, 1815, he was released; he had entered there in 1796, for having +broken a pane of glass and taken a loaf of bread. + +Room for a brief parenthesis. This is the second time, during his +studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of +this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of +departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gueux had stolen a loaf; +Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf. English statistics prove the fact that +four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate cause. + +Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged +impassive. He had entered in despair; he emerged gloomy. + +What had taken place in that soul? + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR + + +Let us try to say it. + +It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is +itself which creates them. + +He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The +light of nature was ignited in him. Unhappiness, which also possesses a +clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight +which existed in this mind. Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in +the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the +plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and +meditated. + +He constituted himself the tribunal. + +He began by putting himself on trial. + +He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly +punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy +act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to +him had he asked for it; that, in any case, it would have been better to +wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that +it is not an unanswerable argument to say, "Can one wait when one is +hungry?" That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die of +hunger, literally; and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man +is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and +physically, without dying; that it is therefore necessary to have +patience; that that would even have been better for those poor little +children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, +unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar, +and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that +is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through +which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong. + +Then he asked himself-- + +Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether +it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an +industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once +committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and +disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of +the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part +of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an +excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains +expiation. Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not equivalent +to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the +situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the +repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor +into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the +man who had violated it. + +Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for +attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage +perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against +the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a +crime which had lasted nineteen years. + +He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its +members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack +of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to +seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of +work and an excess of punishment. + +Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those +of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods +made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration. + +These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it. + +He condemned it to his hatred. + +He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said +to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call +it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium +between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done +to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was +not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous. + +Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; +one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one's side +at bottom. Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated. + +And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never +seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and +which it shows to those whom it strikes. Men had only touched him to +bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since +his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever +encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to +suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a +war; and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon +than his hate. He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away +with him when he departed. + +There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin +friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the +unfortunate men who had a mind for them. He was of the number who had +a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, +to write, to cipher. He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to +fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can +serve to eke out evil. + +This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had +caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society, +and he condemned it also. + +Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and +at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the +other. + +Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature. He was still good +when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society, and felt +that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence, and was +conscious that he was becoming impious. + +It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point. + +Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the +man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be +completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Can +the heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and +infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, +as the vertebral column beneath too low a vault? Is there not in every +human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a +first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in +the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with +splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish? + +Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist +would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had +he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean +Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded +arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into +his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, +a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by +civilization, and regarding heaven with severity. + +Certainly,--and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,--the +observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery; he +would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law's making; but +he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside +his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within +this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced +from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, +inscribed upon the brow of every man,--hope. + +Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as +perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for +those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their +formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their +formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had +this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of +the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and +descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed +the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed +within him, and of all that was working there? That is something +which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even +believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his +misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At +times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in +the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one +might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually +in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at +intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an +access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which +illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around +him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous +precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny. + +The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no +longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which +that which is pitiless--that is to say, that which is +brutalizing--predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by +a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a +ferocious beast. + +Jean Valjean's successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone +suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. +Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and +foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, +without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences +which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf +who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, "Flee!" Reason would have +said, "Remain!" But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason +vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When +he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only served to +render him still more wild. + +One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical +strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of the +galleys. At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan, Jean +Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous +weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced that +implement which is called a jack-screw, and was formerly called orgueil +[pride], whence, we may remark in passing, is derived the name of the +Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles [Fishmarket] in Paris. His comrades had +nicknamed him Jean the Jack-screw. Once, when they were repairing the +balcony of the town-hall at Toulon, one of those admirable caryatids of +Puget, which support the balcony, became loosened, and was on the point +of falling. Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the caryatid with +his shoulder, and gave the workmen time to arrive. + +His suppleness even exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were +forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force +and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire system of +mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever +envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find +points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to +Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his +back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness +of the stone, he raised himself as if by magic to the third story. He +sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison. + +He spoke but little. He laughed not at all. An excessive emotion was +required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh +of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all +appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of +something terrible. + +He was absorbed, in fact. + +Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed +intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was +resting on him. In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled, +each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, +he perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful +accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the +range of his vision,--laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,--whose outlines +escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than +that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished, +here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now +afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail, +vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the +gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop; away at the top, +like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him +that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered +it more funereal and more black. All this--laws, prejudices, deeds, men, +things--went and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the +complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization, +walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness +in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have +fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in the +lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the reproved of +the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so formidable for +him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon +their heads. + +In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature +of his meditation? + +If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, +doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought. + +All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of +realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state which +is almost indescribable. + +At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His +reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore, +rose in revolt. Everything which had happened to him seemed to him +absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said +to himself, "It is a dream." He gazed at the galley-sergeant standing a +few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to him. All of +a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. + +Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say +that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, +nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole +daylight habitually illumined his soul. + +To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated +into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will +confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen +years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive tree-pruner of Faverolles, the +formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner +in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action: +firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing, +entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which +he had undergone; secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave, +consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which +such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through +three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone +traverse,--reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his +habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities +suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the +just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point +of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred +which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential +incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then +the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which +manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to +some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was +not without reason that Jean Valjean's passport described him as a very +dangerous man. + +From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal +sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from +the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--BILLOWS AND SHADOWS + + +A man overboard! + +What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre +ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on. + +The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the +surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The +vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own +workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; +his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He +gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is +that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, +it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was +one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had +his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has +taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an end. + +He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees +and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him +hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of +water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused +openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses +of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations seize +him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that he is +becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss him +from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean +attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his agony. +It seems as though all that water were hate. + +Nevertheless, he struggles. + +He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes +an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, +combats the inexhaustible. + +Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of +the horizon. + +The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes +and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his +death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this +madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond +the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region +beyond. + +There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human +distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, +and he, he rattles in the death agony. + +He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, +at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud. + +Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is +exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has +vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he +stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous +billows of the invisible; he shouts. + +There are no more men. Where is God? + +He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on. + +Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven. + +He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are +deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the +infinite. + +Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, +the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. +Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy +adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold +paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp +nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is +to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the +alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons +his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths +of engulfment. + +Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of +souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! +Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death! + +The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling +their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness. + +The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall +resuscitate it? + + + + +CHAPTER IX--NEW TROUBLES + +When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when +Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, Thou art free! the +moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray +of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it +was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by +the idea of liberty. He had believed in a new life. He very speedily +perceived what sort of liberty it is to which a yellow passport is +provided. + +And this was encompassed with much bitterness. He had calculated that +his earnings, during his sojourn in the galleys, ought to amount to +a hundred and seventy-one francs. It is but just to add that he had +forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays +and festival days during nineteen years, which entailed a diminution +of about eighty francs. At all events, his hoard had been reduced by +various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen +sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had +understood nothing of this, and had thought himself wronged. Let us say +the word--robbed. + +On the day following his liberation, he saw, at Grasse, in front of +an orange-flower distillery, some men engaged in unloading bales. He +offered his services. Business was pressing; they were accepted. He set +to work. He was intelligent, robust, adroit; he did his best; the master +seemed pleased. While he was at work, a gendarme passed, observed +him, and demanded his papers. It was necessary to show him the yellow +passport. That done, Jean Valjean resumed his labor. A little while +before he had questioned one of the workmen as to the amount which they +earned each day at this occupation; he had been told thirty sous. When +evening arrived, as he was forced to set out again on the following day, +he presented himself to the owner of the distillery and requested to be +paid. The owner did not utter a word, but handed him twenty-five sous. He +objected. He was told, "That is enough for thee." He persisted. The +master looked him straight between the eyes, and said to him "Beware of +the prison." + +There, again, he considered that he had been robbed. + +Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale. +Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail. + +Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not +from the sentence. + +That is what happened to him at Grasse. We have seen in what manner he +was received at D---- + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE MAN AROUSED + +As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke. + +What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years +since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the +sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers. + +He had slept more than four hours. His fatigue had passed away. He was +accustomed not to devote many hours to repose. + +He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him; then +he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more. + +When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters +preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. +Sleep comes more easily than it returns. This is what happened to Jean +Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking. + +He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's +mind are troubled. There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His +memories of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there +pell-mell and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming +disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and +perturbed pool. Many thoughts occurred to him; but there was one which +kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all +others. We will mention this thought at once: he had observed the six +sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame Magloire had +placed on the table. + +Those six sets of silver haunted him.--They were there.--A few paces +distant.--Just as he was traversing the adjoining room to reach the +one in which he then was, the old servant-woman had been in the act +of placing them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed.--He had +taken careful note of this cupboard.--On the right, as you entered from +the dining-room.--They were solid.--And old silver.--From the ladle one +could get at least two hundred francs.--Double what he had earned in +nineteen years.--It is true that he would have earned more if "the +administration had not robbed him." + +His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was +certainly mingled some struggle. Three o'clock struck. He opened his +eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched +out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a +corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, +and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without +knowing it, seated on his bed. + +He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have +been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him +thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were +sleeping. All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed +them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful +attitude, and became motionless once more. + +Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above +indicated moved incessantly through his brain; entered, withdrew, +re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then he thought, also, +without knowing why, and with the mechanical persistence of revery, of +a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose +trousers had been upheld by a single suspender of knitted cotton. The +checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind. + +He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, +even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one--the half or quarter +hour. It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, "Come on!" + +He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened; all +was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with short steps, +to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very +dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by +the wind. This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light, +eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort of +twilight. This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way, +intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid light +which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which the passersby +come and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had +no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened, according to the +fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened it; but as a +rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room abruptly, he closed +it again immediately. He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze +which studies rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably +low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived +tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that the +wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees. + +Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who +has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened +it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the +bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up +again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the +visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in the +angle of the window; then returned to the bed, and resolutely seized the +object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short bar of +iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to +distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit of iron could +have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club. + +In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing +more than a miner's candlestick. Convicts were, at that period, +sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which environ +Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at their +command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at +the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into +the rock. + +He took the candlestick in his right hand; holding his breath and trying +to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps to the door of +the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as we already know. + +On arriving at this door, he found it ajar. The Bishop had not closed +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--WHAT HE DOES + +Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound. + +He gave the door a push. + +He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the +furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering. + +The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent +movement, which enlarged the opening a little. + +He waited a moment; then gave the door a second and a bolder push. + +It continued to yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to +allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which +formed an embarrassing angle with it, and barred the entrance. + +Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, +to enlarge the aperture still further. + +He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more +energetic than the two preceding. This time a badly oiled hinge suddenly +emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry. + +Jean Valjean shuddered. The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with +something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day +of Judgment. + +In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined +that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a +terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, +and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering, +bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He +heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and +it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar +of the wind issuing from a cavern. It seemed impossible to him that the +horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the +entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by +him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at +once; the two old women would shriek out; people would come to their +assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an +uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself +lost. + +He remained where he was, petrified like the statue of salt, not daring +to make a movement. Several minutes elapsed. The door had fallen wide +open. He ventured to peep into the next room. Nothing had stirred there. +He lent an ear. Nothing was moving in the house. The noise made by the +rusty hinge had not awakened any one. + +This first danger was past; but there still reigned a frightful tumult +within him. Nevertheless, he did not retreat. Even when he had thought +himself lost, he had not drawn back. His only thought now was to finish +as soon as possible. He took a step and entered the room. + +This room was in a state of perfect calm. Here and there vague and +confused forms were distinguishable, which in the daylight were papers +scattered on a table, open folios, volumes piled upon a stool, an +arm-chair heaped with clothing, a prie-Dieu, and which at that hour +were only shadowy corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced with +precaution, taking care not to knock against the furniture. He could +hear, at the extremity of the room, the even and tranquil breathing of +the sleeping Bishop. + +He suddenly came to a halt. He was near the bed. He had arrived there +sooner than he had thought for. + +Nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our actions +with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she desired to +make us reflect. For the last half-hour a large cloud had covered the +heavens. At the moment when Jean Valjean paused in front of the bed, +this cloud parted, as though on purpose, and a ray of light, traversing +the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face. He was +sleeping peacefully. He lay in his bed almost completely dressed, on +account of the cold of the Basses-Alps, in a garment of brown wool, +which covered his arms to the wrists. His head was thrown back on the +pillow, in the careless attitude of repose; his hand, adorned with the +pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many +holy actions, was hanging over the edge of the bed. His whole face +was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of +felicity. It was more than a smile, and almost a radiance. He bore upon +his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. +The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven. + +A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. + +It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven was +within him. That heaven was his conscience. + +[Illustration: The Fall 1b2-10-the-fall] + +At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, +upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It +remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That +moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, +that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added +some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, +and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white +hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was +confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant. + +There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, +without being himself aware of it. + +Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron +candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had +he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The +moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and +uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, +contemplating the slumber of the just. + +That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had +about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously +conscious. + +No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In +order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the +most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on +his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with +certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and +that was all. But what was his thought? It would have been impossible to +divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But +what was the nature of this emotion? + +His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly +to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange +indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two +abysses,--the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one +saves one's self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that +hand. + +At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards +his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same +deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in +his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over +his savage head. + +The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying +gaze. + +The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the +chimney-piece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them, +with a benediction for one and pardon for the other. + +Suddenly Jean Valjean replaced his cap on his brow; then stepped rapidly +past the bed, without glancing at the Bishop, straight to the cupboard, +which he saw near the head; he raised his iron candlestick as though to +force the lock; the key was there; he opened it; the first thing which +presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he seized it, +traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions +and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the door, +re-entered the oratory, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode +the window-sill of the ground-floor, put the silver into his knapsack, +threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the wall like a +tiger, and fled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE BISHOP WORKS + +The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his +garden. Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation. + +"Monseigneur, Monseigneur!" she exclaimed, "does your Grace know where +the basket of silver is?" + +"Yes," replied the Bishop. + +"Jesus the Lord be blessed!" she resumed; "I did not know what had +become of it." + +The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed. He presented +it to Madame Magloire. + +"Here it is." + +"Well!" said she. "Nothing in it! And the silver?" + +"Ah," returned the Bishop, "so it is the silver which troubles you? I +don't know where it is." + +"Great, good God! It is stolen! That man who was here last night has +stolen it." + +In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame +Magloire had rushed to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned +to the Bishop. The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he +examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had broken +as it fell across the bed. He rose up at Madame Magloire's cry. + +"Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen!" + +As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the +garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The +coping of the wall had been torn away. + +"Stay! yonder is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane. +Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver!" + +The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, +and said gently to Madame Magloire:-- + +"And, in the first place, was that silver ours?" + +Madame Magloire was speechless. Another silence ensued; then the Bishop +went on:-- + +"Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver +wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, +evidently." + +"Alas! Jesus!" returned Madame Magloire. "It is not for my sake, nor for +Mademoiselle's. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the sake of +Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?" + +The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement. + +"Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?" + +Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders. + +"Pewter has an odor." + +"Iron forks and spoons, then." + +Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace. + +"Iron has a taste." + +"Very well," said the Bishop; "wooden ones then." + +A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which +Jean Valjean had sat on the previous evening. As he ate his breakfast, +Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and +to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really +does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit +of bread in a cup of milk. + +"A pretty idea, truly," said Madame Magloire to herself, as she went and +came, "to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one's self! +And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it makes +one shudder to think of it!" + +As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came +a knock at the door. + +"Come in," said the Bishop. + +The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on the +threshold. Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The three +men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean. + +A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was +standing near the door. He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a +military salute. + +"Monseigneur--" said he. + +At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed, +raised his head with an air of stupefaction. + +"Monseigneur!" he murmured. "So he is not the cure?" + +"Silence!" said the gendarme. "He is Monseigneur the Bishop." + +In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his +great age permitted. + +"Ah! here you are!" he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. "I am glad to +see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which +are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two +hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and +spoons?" + +Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop +with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of. + +"Monseigneur," said the brigadier of gendarmes, "so what this man said +is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is +running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this +silver--" + +"And he told you," interposed the Bishop with a smile, "that it had been +given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed +the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back +here? It is a mistake." + +"In that case," replied the brigadier, "we can let him go?" + +"Certainly," replied the Bishop. + +The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled. + +"Is it true that I am to be released?" he said, in an almost +inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep. + +"Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?" said one of the +gendarmes. + +"My friend," resumed the Bishop, "before you go, here are your +candlesticks. Take them." + +He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and +brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering +a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the +Bishop. + +Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks +mechanically, and with a bewildered air. + +"Now," said the Bishop, "go in peace. By the way, when you return, my +friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always +enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with +anything but a latch, either by day or by night." + +Then, turning to the gendarmes:-- + +"You may retire, gentlemen." + +The gendarmes retired. + +Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting. + +The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:-- + +"Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money +in becoming an honest man." + +Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, +remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered +them. He resumed with solemnity:-- + +"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It +is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and +the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GERVAIS + +Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out +at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths +presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly +retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning, without having +eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the prey of a throng +of novel sensations. He was conscious of a sort of rage; he did not +know against whom it was directed. He could not have told whether he was +touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion +which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during +the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. +He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the +injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within +him. He asked himself what would replace this. At times he would have +actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things +should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less. +Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few +late flowers in the hedge-rows here and there, whose odor as he passed +through them in his march recalled to him memories of his childhood. +These memories were almost intolerable to him, it was so long since they +had recurred to him. + +Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long. + +As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the +soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a large +ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted. There was nothing on the +horizon except the Alps. Not even the spire of a distant village. Jean +Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D---- A path which +intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush. + +In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not +a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have +encountered him, a joyous sound became audible. + +He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, +coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his +marmot-box on his back. + +One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording +a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers. + +Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to +time, and played at knuckle-bones with some coins which he had in his +hand--his whole fortune, probably. + +Among this money there was one forty-sou piece. + +The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and +tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught +with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand. + +This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the +brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean set his foot upon it. + +In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught +sight of him. + +He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man. + +The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was +not a person on the plain or on the path. The only sound was the tiny, +feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the +heavens at an immense height. The child was standing with his back to +the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its +blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean. + +"Sir," said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is +composed of ignorance and innocence, "my money." + +"What is your name?" said Jean Valjean. + +"Little Gervais, sir." + +"Go away," said Jean Valjean. + +"Sir," resumed the child, "give me back my money." + +Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply. + +The child began again, "My money, sir." + +Jean Valjean's eyes remained fixed on the earth. + +"My piece of money!" cried the child, "my white piece! my silver!" + +It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him. The child grasped him +by the collar of his blouse and shook him. At the same time he made an +effort to displace the big iron-shod shoe which rested on his treasure. + +"I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!" + +The child wept. Jean Valjean raised his head. He still remained seated. +His eyes were troubled. He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement, +then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a +terrible voice, "Who's there?" + +"I, sir," replied the child. "Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty +sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please!" + +Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:-- + +"Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we'll +see!" + +"Ah! It's still you!" said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his +feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added:-- + +"Will you take yourself off!" + +The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to +foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top +of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry. + +Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain +distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own +revery. + +At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared. + +The sun had set. + +The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean. He had eaten nothing +all day; it is probable that he was feverish. + +He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the +child's flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular +intervals. His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed +to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient +fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once +he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening. + +He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to +cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his +cudgel. + +At that moment he caught sight of the forty-sou piece, which his foot +had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles. +It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. "What is this?" +he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then halted, +without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had +trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering +there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him. + +At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the +silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to +gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards +all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a +terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge. + +He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great +banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight. + +He said, "Ah!" and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child +had disappeared. After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him +and saw nothing. + +Then he shouted with all his might:-- + +"Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" + +He paused and waited. + +There was no reply. + +The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. +There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was +lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice. + +An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a +sort of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little arms with +incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and +pursuing some one. + +He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time to +time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was +the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to +hear, "Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" + +Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and +would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no +doubt already far away. + +He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:-- + +"Monsieur le Cure, have you seen a child pass?" + +"No," said the priest. + +"One named Little Gervais?" + +"I have seen no one." + +He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the +priest. + +"Monsieur le Cure, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Cure, he +was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a +hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" + +"I have not seen him." + +"Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?" + +"If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such +persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." + +Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, +and gave them to the priest. + +"For your poor," he said. + +Then he added, wildly:-- + +"Monsieur l'Abbe, have me arrested. I am a thief." + +The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed. + +Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first +taken. + +In this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling, +shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain +towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being +reclining or crouching down; it turned out to be nothing but brushwood +or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where +three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He +sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, "Little +Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" His shout died away in the +mist, without even awakening an echo. He murmured yet once more, "Little +Gervais!" but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was his last +effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible +power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his evil +conscience; he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in +his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, "I am a wretch!" + +Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he +had wept in nineteen years. + +When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, +quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He +could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He +hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the +old man. "You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. +I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good +God." + +This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness +he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was +indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest +assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his +obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he +yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the +actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and +which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be +conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been +begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man. + +In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is +intoxicated. As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct +perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D----? Did +he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the +spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that +he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer +remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the +best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to +speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; +that if he wished to become good be must become an angel; that if he +wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? + +Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put +to ourselves elsewhere: did he catch some shadow of all this in his +thought, in a confused way? Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does +form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful +whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have +here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses +of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into +an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion. On emerging from +that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop +had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on +emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered +itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors +and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who +should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and +blinded, as it were, by virtue. + +That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no +longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was +no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to +him and had not touched him. + +In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed +him of his forty sous. Why? He certainly could not have explained it; +was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the +evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,--a remnant of +impulse, a result of what is called in statics, acquired force? It +was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it +simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast, +who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, +while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto +unheard-of thoughts besetting it. + +When intelligence re-awakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean +Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror. + +[Illustration: Awakened 1b2-11-awakened] + +It was because,--strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only +in the situation in which he found himself,--in stealing the money from +that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable. + +However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on +him; it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and +dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other +the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as +certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating +one element and clarifying the other. + +First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all +bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the +child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the +fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when +he exclaimed "I am a wretch!" he had just perceived what he was, and he +was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to +himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, +there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean +Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled +with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, +with his thoughts filled with abominable projects. + +Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort +a visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw +that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached +the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by +him. + +His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm +moments in which revery is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no +longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as +though apart from one's self, the figures which one has in one's own +mind. + +Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the same +time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious depth a +sort of light which he at first took for a torch. On scrutinizing +this light which appeared to his conscience with more attention, he +recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and that this torch +was the Bishop. + +His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,--the +Bishop and Jean Valjean. Nothing less than the first was required to +soften the second. By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar +to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his revery continued, as the +Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow +less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more +than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he +filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance. + +Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with +more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child. + +As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an +extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past +life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his +internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans +of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing +that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the +more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come after the +Bishop's pardon,--all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly +to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed. +He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it +seemed frightful to him. In the meantime a gentle light rested over this +life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light +of Paradise. + +How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept? +Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems to be +authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at +that epoch, and who arrived at D---- about three o'clock in the morning, +saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop's residence was +situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pavement in +the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur Welcome. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817 + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE YEAR 1817 + + +1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance +which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. +It is the year in which M. Bruguiere de Sorsum was celebrated. All the +hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, +were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It was the +candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as church-warden in +the church-warden's pew of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in his costume of a +peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty +of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action. +The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this: being mayor of +Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a +little too promptly to M. the Duke d'Angouleme. Hence his peerage. In +1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of +age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling Esquimaux +mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the +Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers they +bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and since +England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. +In 1817 Pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; +Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There +were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy +had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of +Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, +grand chamberlain, and the Abbe Louis, appointed minister of finance, +laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs; +both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the mass of +federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis +had served it in the capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the side-alleys +of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have +been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with +traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling. These +were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor's +platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with +the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou. Two +or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and +had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops. The Field of May had +this remarkable point: that it had been held in the month of June and in +the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popular: +the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box a la Charter. The most recent +Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's +head into the fountain of the Flower-Market. + +They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of +the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined +to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gericault with glory. Colonel Selves +was going to Egypt to become Soliman-Pasha. The palace of Thermes, in +the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of +the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, +which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer +under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras read to +three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished +by X. in sky-blue satin. The N's were scratched off the Louvre. The +bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled the bridge of the +King's Garden [du Jardin du Roi], a double enigma, which disguised the +bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des Plantes at one stroke. Louis +XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with the corner of his +finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers of wooden shoes +who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,--Napoleon and Mathurin +Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize subject, The +Happiness procured through Study. M. Bellart was officially eloquent. +In his shadow could be seen germinating that future advocate-general of +Broe, dedicated to the sarcasms of Paul-Louis Courier. There was a false +Chateaubriand, named Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a +false Marchangy, named d'Arlincourt. Claire d'Albe and Malek-Adel were +masterpieces; Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the +epoch. The Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken +from its list of members. A royal ordinance erected Angouleme into a +naval school; for the Duc d'Angouleme, being lord high admiral, it was +evident that the city of Angouleme had all the qualities of a seaport; +otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In +the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes +representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi's +advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, +should be tolerated. M. Paer, the author of Agnese, a good sort of +fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little +private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l'Eveque. +All the young girls were singing the Hermit of Saint-Avelle, with words +by Edmond Geraud. The Yellow Dwarf was transferred into Mirror. The Cafe +Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Cafe Valois, which upheld +the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by +Louvel, had just been married to a princess of Sicily. Madame de Stael +had died a year previously. The body-guard hissed Mademoiselle Mars. +The grand newspapers were all very small. Their form was restricted, +but their liberty was great. The Constitutionnel was constitutional. +La Minerve called Chateaubriand Chateaubriant. That made the good +middle-class people laugh heartily at the expense of the great writer. +In journals which sold themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the +exiles of 1815. David had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer +any wit, Carnot was no longer honest, Soult had won no battles; it is +true that Napoleon had no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the +fact that letters sent to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as +the police made it their religious duty to intercept them. This is no +new fact; Descartes complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in +a Belgian publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters +which had been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as +amusing; and they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What +separated two men more than an abyss was to say, the regicides, or +to say the voters; to say the enemies, or to say the allies; to say +Napoleon, or to say Buonaparte. All sensible people were agreed that the +era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., surnamed +"The Immortal Author of the Charter." On the platform of the Pont-Neuf, +the word Redivivus was carved on the pedestal that awaited the statue of +Henry IV. M. Piet, in the Rue Therese, No. 4, was making the rough draft +of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy. The leaders of the +Right said at grave conjunctures, "We must write to Bacot." MM. Canuel, +O'Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the sketch, to some +extent with Monsieur's approval, of what was to become later on "The +Conspiracy of the Bord de l'Eau"--of the waterside. L'Epingle Noire was +already plotting in his own quarter. Delaverderie was conferring with +Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand +stood every morning at his window at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in +footed trousers, and slippers, with a madras kerchief knotted over his +gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, a complete set of dentist's +instruments spread out before him, cleaning his teeth, which were +charming, while he dictated The Monarchy according to the Charter to +M. Pilorge, his secretary. Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, +preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Feletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann +signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote Therese Aubert. Divorce was +abolished. Lyceums called themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated +on the collar with a golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other apropos of +the King of Rome. The counter-police of the chateau had denounced to her +Royal Highness Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the +Duc d'Orleans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a +colonel-general of hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of +colonel-general of dragoons--a serious inconvenience. The city of +Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. +Serious men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or +such an occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points +from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The +comedian Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Moliere +had not been able to do, had The Two Philiberts played at the Odeon, +upon whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF +THE EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet +de Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The +Liberal, Pelicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following +title: Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. "That will attract +purchasers," said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. +Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to +gnaw at him--a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:-- + + "Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws." + +As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, +administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of Dappes +was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from Captain, +afterwards General Dufour. Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting his +sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of Science, +whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure Fourier, +whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; +a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in these terms: +a certain Lord Baron. David d'Angers was trying to work in marble. The +Abbe Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of +seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines, of an unknown priest, +named Felicite-Robert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing +which smoked and clattered on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog +went and came beneath the windows of the Tuileries, from the Pont Royal +to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of mechanism which was not +good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle dream of a dream-ridden +inventor; an utopia--a steamboat. The Parisians stared indifferently at +this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by +a coup d'etat, the distinguished author of numerous academicians, +ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could +not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the +pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for prefect of police, on +account of his piety. Dupuytren and Recamier entered into a quarrel in +the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other +with their fists on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, +with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted +reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and by making mastodons +flatter Moses. + +M. Francois de Neufchateau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory +of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have pomme de terre [potato] +pronounced parmentiere, and succeeded therein not at all. The Abbe +Gregoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed, in the +royalist polemics, to the state of "Infamous Gregoire." The locution of +which we have made use--passed to the state of--has been condemned as a +neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of the Pont de Jena, +the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining aperture +made by Blucher to blow up the bridge had been stopped up, was still +recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice summoned to its bar a +man who, on seeing the Comte d'Artois enter Notre Dame, had said aloud: +"Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the +Bel Sauvage, arm in arm." A seditious utterance. Six months in prison. +Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned; men who had gone over to the +enemy on the eve of battle made no secret of their recompense, and +strutted immodestly in the light of day, in the cynicism of riches and +dignities; deserters from Ligny and Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of +their well-paid turpitude, exhibited their devotion to the monarchy in +the most barefaced manner. + +This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is +now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot +do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these +details, which are wrongly called trivial,--there are no trivial facts +in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,--are useful. It is of +the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is +composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged "a fine +farce." + + + + +CHAPTER II--A DOUBLE QUARTETTE + + +These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third +from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and +when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in Paris is to be +born in Paris. + +These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four +specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither +wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that +charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars; for, +at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. Burn for him the perfumes of +Araby! exclaimed romance. Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall behold him! +People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was Scandinavian and +Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail later, and +the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the battle of +Waterloo. + +These Oscars bore the names, one of Felix Tholomyes, of Toulouse; the +second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last, +Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress. +Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England; +Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a +flower; Fameuil idolized Zephine, an abridgment of Josephine; Tholomyes +had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair. + +Favourite, Dahlia, Zephine, and Fantine were four ravishing young women, +perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not yet +entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by intrigues, +but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity of toil, +and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall +in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she was +the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was +twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more +experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of life +than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions. + +Dahlia, Zephine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much. +There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though +hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the +first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave +in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one scolds +and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the people have +both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side. These badly +guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they accomplish, and the +stones which are thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of +all that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau were +hungry? + +Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zephine. She +had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was +an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, +who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when +he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on +a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident. The +result had been Favourite. She met her father from time to time, and he +bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of a devotee, +had entered her apartments, and had said to her, "You do not know me, +Mamemoiselle?" "No." "I am your mother." Then the old woman opened the +sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned brought in, +and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother never spoke to +Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word, breakfasted, dined, +and supped for four, and went down to the porter's quarters for company, +where she spoke ill of her daughter. + +It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to +Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such nails +work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands. +As for Zephine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and caressing +little way of saying "Yes, sir." + +The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves +are always accompanied by such friendships. + +Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this +is that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular +households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia were philosophical young +women, while Fantine was a good girl. + +Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyes? Solomon would reply that +love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that +the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love. + +She alone, of all the four, was not called "thou" by a single one of +them. + +Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs +of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths +of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the +unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can say? She had +never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She +had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory +still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal +name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name which pleased +the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small +child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the name as she +received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was +called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This human creature +had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten, Fantine quitted +the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood. At +fifteen she came to Paris "to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, +and remained pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with +fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on +her head, and her pearls were in her mouth. + +She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,--for +the heart, also, has its hunger,--she loved. + +She loved Tholomyes. + +An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the Latin quarter, +filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of +their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tholomyes in the mazes of the hill +of the Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in +such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of +avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took place. + +Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which +Tholomyes was the head. It was he who possessed the wit. + +Tholomyes was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of +four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on +Mount Sainte-Genevieve. Tholomyes was a fast man of thirty, and badly +preserved. He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a +bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, the skull at thirty, +the knee at forty. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been attacked +by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth disappeared, +gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth with buffooneries, his hair +with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly. +He was dilapidated but still in flower. His youth, which was packing +up for departure long before its time, beat a retreat in good order, +bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire. He had had a +piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few verses now and then. In +addition to this he doubted everything to the last degree, which is a +vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus ironical and bald, he +was the leader. Iron is an English word. Is it possible that irony is +derived from it? + +One day Tholomyes took the three others aside, with the gesture of an +oracle, and said to them:-- + +"Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly +a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly that we +would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, +just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, 'Faccia +gialluta, fa o miracolo, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our +beauties say to me incessantly, 'Tholomyes, when will you bring forth +your surprise?' At the same time our parents keep writing to us. +Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us +discuss the question." + +Thereupon, Tholomyes lowered his voice and articulated something so +mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four +mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, "That is an idea." + +A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of +their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow. + +The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took +place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four +young girls. + + + + +CHAPTER III--FOUR AND FOUR + +It is hard nowadays to picture to one's self what a pleasure-trip of +students and grisettes to the country was like, forty-five years ago. +The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy of what +may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last +half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; +where there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people speak +of Fecamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in those days. The Paris +of 1862 is a city which has France for its outskirts. + +The four couples conscientiously went through with all the country +follies possible at that time. The vacation was beginning, and it was a +warm, bright, summer day. On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one +who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyes in the +name of the four: "It is a good hour to emerge from happiness." That +is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to +Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed, "This +must be very beautiful when there is water!" They breakfasted at the +Tete-Noir, where Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a +game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain; +they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the +roulette establishment of the Pont de Sevres, picked bouquets at +Pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and +were perfectly happy. + +The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their +cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little +taps on the young men. Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years! +the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not +remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the +branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you? +Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a beloved +woman holding your hand, and crying, "Ah, my new boots! what a state +they are in!" + +Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in +the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they +set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, "The slugs are crawling +in the paths,--a sign of rain, children." + +All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then famous, a good +fellow who had an Eleonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he strolled +that day beneath the chestnut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them pass about +ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many of +them," as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle's friend, the +one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great +green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and +presided over this merry-making with the spirit of a young female faun. +Zephine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that +they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, +never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from +friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed English poses; the +first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning +for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men; and the hair of the +tender sex began to droop dolefully. Zephine and Dahlia had their hair +dressed in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in discussing +their professors, explained to Fantine the difference that existed +between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau. + +Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's +single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his +arm on Sundays. + +Tholomyes followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt +the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality; +his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of +nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan +worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to +everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was +sacred to him; he smoked. + +"That Tholomyes is astounding!" said the others, with veneration. "What +trousers! What energy!" + +As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold. Her splendid teeth had +evidently received an office from God,--laughter. She preferred to carry +her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand +rather than on her head. Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to +wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten +up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the +willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth +voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an +air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped +discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to +call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking +about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish +brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked +stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, +whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced +after the fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and +midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said, +wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath +flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing; but by the side +of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine's canezou, with its +transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and +displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring godsend of +decency, and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the Vicomtesse +de Cette, with the sea-green eyes, would, perhaps, have awarded the +prize for coquetry to this canezou, in the contest for the prize of +modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest. This does happen. + +Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy +lids, feet arched and small, wrists and ankles admirably formed, a white +skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to +be seen, joy, a cheek that was young and fresh, the robust throat of the +Juno of AEgina, a strong and supple nape of the neck, shoulders modelled +as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the middle, visible +through the muslin; a gayety cooled by dreaminess; sculptural and +exquisite--such was Fantine; and beneath these feminine adornments and +these ribbons one could divine a statue, and in that statue a soul. + +Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare +dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront +everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little +working-woman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the +ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. +She was beautiful in the two ways--style and rhythm. Style is the form +of the ideal; rhythm is its movement. + +We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty. + +To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from +her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her +love affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She +remained a little astonished. This chaste astonishment is the shade +of difference which separates Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long, +white, fine fingers of the vestal virgin who stirs the ashes of the +sacred fire with a golden pin. Although she would have refused nothing +to Tholomyes, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her +face in repose was supremely virginal; a sort of serious and almost +austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there +was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so +suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without +any transition state. This sudden and sometimes severely accentuated +gravity resembled the disdain of a goddess. Her brow, her nose, her +chin, presented that equilibrium of outline which is quite distinct +from equilibrium of proportion, and from which harmony of countenance +results; in the very characteristic interval which separates the base +of the nose from the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming +fold, a mysterious sign of chastity, which makes Barberousse fall in +love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia. + +Love is a fault; so be it. Fantine was innocence floating high over +fault. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THOLOMYES IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY + + +That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature +seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of +Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the +leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the +jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, +the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of +France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds. + +The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, +the trees, were resplendent. + +And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, +chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-work +stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, +to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, +who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of +dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. "You always have a queer +look about you," said Favourite to her. + +Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound +appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from +everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests +expressly for those in love,--in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, +which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there +are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers. +The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb +of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden +times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and there +is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfiguration +effected by love! Notaries' clerks are gods. And the little cries, +the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those +jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the +manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by +another,--all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial +glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this +will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe these +ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled +by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter +of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the +azure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and +d'Urfe mingles druids with them. + +After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King's +Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our +memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all +Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, +whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, +were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub the +air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring +crowd about it. + +After viewing the shrub, Tholomyes exclaimed, "I offer you asses!" and +having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned +by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly +national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened +to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in +his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet +of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of +Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing +attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbe de Bernis. +As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the +fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals +of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyes, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, +Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the +old ballad gallega, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in +full flight upon a rope between two trees:-- + + "Soy de Badajoz, "Badajoz is my home, + Amor me llama, And Love is my name; + Toda mi alma, To my eyes in flame, + Es en mi ojos, All my soul doth come; + Porque ensenas, For instruction meet + A tuas piernas. I receive at thy feet" + + +Fantine alone refused to swing. + +"I don't like to have people put on airs like that," muttered Favourite, +with a good deal of acrimony. + +After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the +Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the +barrier of l'Etoile. They had been up since five o'clock that morning, +as the reader will remember; but bah! there is no such thing as fatigue +on Sunday, said Favourite; on Sunday fatigue does not work. + +About three o'clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, +were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then +occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible +above the trees of the Champs Elysees. + +From time to time Favourite exclaimed:-- + +"And the surprise? I claim the surprise." + +"Patience," replied Tholomyes. + + + + +CHAPTER V--AT BOMBARDA'S + +The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about +dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became +stranded in Bombarda's public house, a branch establishment which had +been set up in the Champs-Elysees by that famous restaurant-keeper, +Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near +Delorme Alley. + +A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had +been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday +crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay +and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes; +two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets, mingled +with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples seated +round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles; jugs +of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on the table, +some disorder beneath it; + + "They made beneath the table + A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable," + +says Moliere. + +This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o'clock in +the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun was +setting; their appetites were satisfied. + +The Champs-Elysees, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing +but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The +horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud +of gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent +body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the +Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting +sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, +which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy +promenaders. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the +white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from +button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls +threw to the winds, amid the passersby, who formed into circles and +applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to strike +the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:-- + + "Rendez-nous notre pere de Gand, + Rendez-nous notre pere." + + "Give us back our father from Ghent, + Give us back our father." + + +Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even +decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the +large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and revolving +on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some journeyman +printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible. Every thing +was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist +security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief +of Police Angeles to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, +terminated with these lines:-- + +"Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be +feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. +The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are +very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one +of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the +populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of +this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and +the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the +Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble." + +Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform +itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the +miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised +by Count Angles possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their +eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to +the Minerva Aptera of the Piraeus, there stood on the public square in +Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the +Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too "rose-colored" a light; +it is not so much of "an amiable rabble" as it is thought. The Parisian +is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one sleeps +more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than +he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not be +trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when +there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every +sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of August; give +him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon's stay and Danton's +resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a question of +liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled with wrath, +is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take +care! he will make of the first Rue Grenetat which comes to hand Caudine +Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in +stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and +his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that +slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, +thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with +arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his delight. Proportion his song +to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing +but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the +Marseillaise, and he will free the world. + +This note jotted down on the margin of Angles' report, we will return to +our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER + +Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as +the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke. + +Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyes was drinking. Zephine was +laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he +had purchased at Saint-Cloud. + +Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:-- + +"Blachevelle, I adore you." + +This called forth a question from Blachevelle:-- + +"What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?" + +"I!" cried Favourite. "Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were +to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, +I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you +arrested." + +Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is +tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:-- + +"Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself, +not at all! Rabble!" + +Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed +both eyes proudly. + +Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:-- + +"So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?" + +"I? I detest him," replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork +again. "He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my +house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see +that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes +in, his mother says to him: 'Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone. +There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my +head!' So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as +he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know +what? so that he can be heard down stairs! He earns twenty sous a day at +an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor +of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so, +that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to +me: 'Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.' It +is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. +I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never +mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him--how I lie! Hey! How I do +lie!" + +Favourite paused, and then went on:-- + +"I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer; the +wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy; +there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to +eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then +you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, +and that disgusts me with life." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYES + +In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously +all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyes intervened. + +"Let us not talk at random nor too fast," he exclaimed. "Let us reflect, +if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in +a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen. Let us +mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with meditation; let us make +haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes +haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets frozen. Excess of zeal +ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and +the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reyniere +agrees with Talleyrand." + +A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group. + +"Leave us in peace, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle. + +"Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil. + +"Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!" cried Listolier. + +"Sunday exists," resumed Fameuil. + +"We are sober," added Listolier. + +"Tholomyes," remarked Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness [mon +calme]." + +"You are the Marquis of that," retorted Tholomyes. + +This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool. +The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the +frogs held their peace. + +"Friends," cried Tholomyes, with the accent of a man who had recovered +his empire, "Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the +skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls +in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun +is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where; +and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure +depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the +condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun! I honor +it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most august, the +most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of +humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on +Isaac, AEschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And observe that +Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been +for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name +which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. +I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess; even in +witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have +the prudence of Amphiaraus and the baldness of Caesar. There must be a +limit, even to rebuses. Est modus in rebus. + +"There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple +turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter +of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the +glutton, Gula punit Gulax. Indigestion is charged by the good God with +preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our +passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In +all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control +must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn +on appetite; one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry +one's self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given +moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I +have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to +the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the +question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in +Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the +epoch when Munatius Demens was quaestor of the Parricide; because I +am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is +absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to +moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Felix Tholomyes; +I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic +resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes." + +Favourite listened with profound attention. + +"Felix," said she, "what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin; +it means prosper." + +Tholomyes went on:-- + +"Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel +the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing +more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard +labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, +gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphaeas; drink +emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet, +starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the +application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of +lead, and fomentations of oxycrat." + +"I prefer a woman," said Listolier. + +"Woman," resumed Tholomyes; "distrust her. Woe to him who yields himself +to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. +She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the +shop over the way." + +"Tholomyes!" cried Blachevelle, "you are drunk!" + +"Pardieu," said Tholomyes. + +"Then be gay," resumed Blachevelle. + +"I agree to that," responded Tholomyes. + +And, refilling his glass, he rose. + +"Glory to wine! Nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon me ladies; that is +Spanish. And the proof of it, senoras, is this: like people, like cask. +The arrobe of Castile contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of Alicante, +twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin of the +Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long +live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still +greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your +neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love +affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English +serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not +made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error +is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zephine, O +Josephine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not +all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has +sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day +when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guerin-Boisseau, +he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which +displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell +in love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian +lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the +painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint +thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the +name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like +Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou +who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful +woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as 'thou,' because I pass +from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago. +That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names. They may +delude us. I am called Felix, and I am not happy. Words are liars. Let +us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us. It would be +a mistake to write to Liege [2] for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss +Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should +smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of Fantine; she +is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom +possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has +strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, +and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well +knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed +on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in +existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyes, I am all illusion; but +she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, +everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light. +O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a +woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice: do +not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. +But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable +on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not +prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming +of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, +remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, +and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white +teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are +withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the +liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then +the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence +death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch +sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men: gentlemen, make conquest, +rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. +In love there are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty woman +hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a +casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions +of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man's right. +Romulus carried off the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; +Caesar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like +a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all +those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation +of Bonaparte to the army of Italy: "Soldiers, you are in need of +everything; the enemy has it." + +Tholomyes paused. + +"Take breath, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle. + +At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, +struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of +the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as +destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, +which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and +take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group +replied to Tholomyes' harangue:-- + + + "The father turkey-cocks so grave + Some money to an agent gave, + That master good Clermont-Tonnerre + Might be made pope on Saint Johns' day fair. + But this good Clermont could not be + Made pope, because no priest was he; + And then their agent, whose wrath burned, + With all their money back returned." + + +This was not calculated to calm Tholomyes' improvisation; he emptied his +glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:-- + +"Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither prudes +nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be merry. +Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and +the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy in +the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. +The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale +is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O +Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allee de l'Observatoire! O +pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they +guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas of America would please +me if I had not the arcades of the Odeon. My soul flits away into the +virgin forests and to the savannas. All is beautiful. The flies buzz in +the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!" + +He made a mistake and embraced Favourite. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE DEATH OF A HORSE + + +"The dinners are better at Edon's than at Bombarda's," exclaimed +Zephine. + +"I prefer Bombarda to Edon," declared Blachevelle. "There is more +luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are +mirrors [glaces] on the walls." + +"I prefer them [glaces, ices] on my plate," said Favourite. + +Blachevelle persisted:-- + +"Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda's and of bone +at Edon's. Now, silver is more valuable than bone." + +"Except for those who have a silver chin," observed Tholomyes. + +He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from +Bombarda's windows. + +A pause ensued. + +"Tholomyes," exclaimed Fameuil, "Listolier and I were having a +discussion just now." + +"A discussion is a good thing," replied Tholomyes; "a quarrel is +better." + +"We were disputing about philosophy." + +"Well?" + +"Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?" + +"Desaugiers," said Tholomyes. + +This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:-- + +"I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still +talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. +One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected +bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human +beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the +paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil +an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das +Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of +the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! +and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you +those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty +centimes." + +Again Fameuil interrupted him:-- + +"Tholomyes, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?" + +"Ber--" + +"Quin?" + +"No; Choux." + +And Tholomyes continued:-- + +"Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but +get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chaeronea if he could +bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in +Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, +and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! +Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and +Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia +embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you +know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women +had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple +hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was +a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess +prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a +mistress should be needed for Prometheus." + +Tholomyes, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, +had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The +shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a +Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was +dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda's, the +worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This +incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter +had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, Matin (the +jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, +never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passersby, +Tholomyes' merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyes took +advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with +this melancholy strophe:-- + + "Elle etait de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses [3] + Ont le meme destin; + Et, rosse, elle a vecu ce que vivant les rosses, + L'espace d'un matin!" + + +"Poor horse!" sighed Fantine. + +And Dahlia exclaimed:-- + +"There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be +such a pitiful fool as that!" + +At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, +looked resolutely at Tholomyes and said:-- + +"Come, now! the surprise?" + +"Exactly. The moment has arrived," replied Tholomyes. "Gentlemen, +the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a +moment, ladies." + +"It begins with a kiss," said Blachevelle. + +"On the brow," added Tholomyes. + +Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress's brow; then all four filed +out through the door, with their fingers on their lips. + +Favourite clapped her hands on their departure. + +"It is beginning to be amusing already," said she. + +"Don't be too long," murmured Fantine; "we are waiting for you." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A MERRY END TO MIRTH + +When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the +window-sills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one +window to the other. + +They saw the young men emerge from the Cafe Bombarda arm in arm. The +latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in +that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the +Champs-Elysees. + +"Don't be long!" cried Fantine. + +"What are they going to bring us?" said Zephine. + +"It will certainly be something pretty," said Dahlia. + +"For my part," said Favourite, "I want it to be of gold." + +Their attention was soon distracted by the movements on the shore of the +lake, which they could see through the branches of the large trees, and +which diverted them greatly. + +It was the hour for the departure of the mail-coaches and diligences. +Nearly all the stage-coaches for the south and west passed through the +Champs-Elysees. The majority followed the quay and went through the +Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow +and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless +by trunks, tarpaulins, and valises, full of heads which immediately +disappeared, rushed through the crowd with all the sparks of a forge, +with dust for smoke, and an air of fury, grinding the pavements, +changing all the paving-stones into steels. This uproar delighted the +young girls. Favourite exclaimed:-- + +"What a row! One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away." + +It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with +difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out +again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine. + +"That's odd!" said she. "I thought the diligence never stopped." + +Favourite shrugged her shoulders. + +"This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of +curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case: I am +a traveller; I say to the diligence, 'I will go on in advance; you shall +pick me up on the quay as you pass.' The diligence passes, sees me, +halts, and takes me. That is done every day. You do not know life, my +dear." + +In this manner a certain time elapsed. All at once Favourite made a +movement, like a person who is just waking up. + +"Well," said she, "and the surprise?" + +"Yes, by the way," joined in Dahlia, "the famous surprise?" + +"They are a very long time about it!" said Fantine. + +As Fantine concluded this sigh, the waiter who had served them at dinner +entered. He held in his hand something which resembled a letter. + +"What is that?" demanded Favourite. + +The waiter replied:-- + +"It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies." + +"Why did you not bring it at once?" + +"Because," said the waiter, "the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it +to the ladies for an hour." + +Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand. It was, in fact, a +letter. + +"Stop!" said she; "there is no address; but this is what is written on +it--" + + "THIS IS THE SURPRISE." + +She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read [she knew how to +read]:-- + +"OUR BELOVED:-- + +"You must know that we have parents. Parents--you do not know much about +such things. They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code, +which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks +implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons; +they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being virtuous, +we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will +be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up our stakes, as +Bossuet says. We are going; we are gone. We flee in the arms of Lafitte +and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence tears us from +the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties! We return to +society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three +leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the country that we +should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, +rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate us. We are sacrificing +ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us with speed. If this +letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu. + +"For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you +no grudge for that. "Signed: + BLACHEVELLE. + FAMUEIL. + LISTOLIER. + FELIX THOLOMYES. + +"Postscriptum. The dinner is paid for." + + +The four young women looked at each other. + +Favourite was the first to break the silence. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, "it's a very pretty farce, all the same." + +"It is very droll," said Zephine. + +"That must have been Blachevelle's idea," resumed Favourite. "It makes +me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an +adventure, indeed." + +"No," said Dahlia; "it was one of Tholomyes' ideas. That is evident. + +"In that case," retorted Favourite, "death to Blachevelle, and long live +Tholomyes!" + +"Long live Tholomyes!" exclaimed Dahlia and Zephine. + +And they burst out laughing. + +Fantine laughed with the rest. + +An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was +her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this +Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON'S POWER + + + + +CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER + +There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this +century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was +kept by some people named Thenardier, husband and wife. It was situated +in Boulanger Lane. Over the door there was a board nailed flat against +the wall. Upon this board was painted something which resembled a +man carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt +epaulettes of a general, with large silver stars; red spots represented +blood; the rest of the picture consisted of smoke, and probably +represented a battle. Below ran this inscription: AT THE SIGN OF +SERGEANT OF WATERLOO (Au Sargent de Waterloo). + +Nothing is more common than a cart or a truck at the door of a hostelry. +Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of +a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the cook-shop of the +Sergeant of Waterloo, one evening in the spring of 1818, would certainly +have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who had passed +that way. + +It was the fore-carriage of one of those trucks which are used in wooded +tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and the +trunks of trees. This fore-carriage was composed of a massive iron +axle-tree with a pivot, into which was fitted a heavy shaft, and +which was supported by two huge wheels. The whole thing was compact, +overwhelming, and misshapen. It seemed like the gun-carriage of an +enormous cannon. The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the +fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous +yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond +of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the +iron beneath rust. Under the axle-tree hung, like drapery, a huge chain, +worthy of some Goliath of a convict. This chain suggested, not the +beams, which it was its office to transport, but the mastodons and +mammoths which it might have served to harness; it had the air of the +galleys, but of cyclopean and superhuman galleys, and it seemed to have +been detached from some monster. Homer would have bound Polyphemus with +it, and Shakespeare, Caliban. + +Why was that fore-carriage of a truck in that place in the street? In +the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might +finish the process of rusting. There is a throng of institutions in the +old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks +about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the +above. + +The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and in +the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped, on +that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little girls; +one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months; the +younger in the arms of the other. A handkerchief, cleverly knotted about +them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of that +frightful chain, and had said, "Come! there's a plaything for my +children." + +The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance, were +radiant with pleasure; one would have said that they were two roses amid +old iron; their eyes were a triumph; their fresh cheeks were full of +laughter. One had chestnut hair; the other, brown. Their innocent faces +were two delighted surprises; a blossoming shrub which grew near wafted +to the passers-by perfumes which seemed to emanate from them; the child +of eighteen months displayed her pretty little bare stomach with the +chaste indecency of childhood. Above and around these two delicate +heads, all made of happiness and steeped in light, the gigantic +fore-carriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all entangled in curves +and wild angles, rose in a vault, like the entrance of a cavern. A few +paces apart, crouching down upon the threshold of the hostelry, the +mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way, though touching +at that moment, was swinging the two children by means of a long cord, +watching them carefully, for fear of accidents, with that animal and +celestial expression which is peculiar to maternity. At every backward +and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident sound, which +resembled a cry of rage; the little girls were in ecstasies; the setting +sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this +caprice of chance which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of +cherubim. + +As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a +romance then celebrated:-- + + + "It must be, said a warrior." + + +Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing +and seeing what was going on in the street. + +In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the +first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying very +near her ear:-- + +"You have two beautiful children there, Madame." + + + "To the fair and tender Imogene--" + + +replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head. + +A woman stood before her, a few paces distant. This woman also had a +child, which she carried in her arms. + +She was carrying, in addition, a large carpet-bag, which seemed very +heavy. + +This woman's child was one of the most divine creatures that it is +possible to behold. It was a girl, two or three years of age. She could +have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as +the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen, +ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of +her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and +dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty +inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks. Of her +eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and +that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep. + +She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her +age. The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep +profoundly. + +As for the mother, her appearance was sad and poverty-stricken. She +was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant +again. She was young. Was she handsome? Perhaps; but in that attire it +was not apparent. Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed +very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, +nun-like cap, tied under the chin. A smile displays beautiful teeth when +one has them; but she did not smile. Her eyes did not seem to have been +dry for a very long time. She was pale; she had a very weary and rather +sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with +the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child. A large blue +handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a fichu, and +concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted +with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated with the +needle; she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a linen gown, +and coarse shoes. It was Fantine. + +It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize. Nevertheless, on +scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained +her beauty. A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony, +wrinkled her right cheek. As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of +muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, +full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful +and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; +it melts and leaves the branch quite black. + +Ten months had elapsed since the "pretty farce." + +What had taken place during those ten months? It can be divined. + +After abandonment, straightened circumstances. Fantine had immediately +lost sight of Favourite, Zephine and Dahlia; the bond once broken on the +side of the men, it was loosed between the women; they would have been +greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they +had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a thing. +Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,--alas! such +ruptures are irrevocable,--she found herself absolutely isolated, minus +the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure. Drawn away by her +liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the pretty trade which she knew, she +had neglected to keep her market open; it was now closed to her. She had +no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to +write; in her childhood she had only been taught to sign her name; +she had a public letter-writer indite an epistle to Tholomyes, then a +second, then a third. Tholomyes replied to none of them. Fantine heard +the gossips say, as they looked at her child: "Who takes those children +seriously! One only shrugs one's shoulders over such children!" Then she +thought of Tholomyes, who had shrugged his shoulders over his child, +and who did not take that innocent being seriously; and her heart grew +gloomy toward that man. But what was she to do? She no longer knew to +whom to apply. She had committed a fault, but the foundation of her +nature, as will be remembered, was modesty and virtue. She was vaguely +conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of +gliding into a worse state. Courage was necessary; she possessed it, and +held herself firm. The idea of returning to her native town of M. sur +M. occurred to her. There, some one might possibly know her and give her +work; yes, but it would be necessary to conceal her fault. In a confused +way she perceived the necessity of a separation which would be more +painful than the first one. Her heart contracted, but she took her +resolution. Fantine, as we shall see, had the fierce bravery of life. +She had already valiantly renounced finery, had dressed herself in +linen, and had put all her silks, all her ornaments, all her ribbons, +and all her laces on her daughter, the only vanity which was left to +her, and a holy one it was. She sold all that she had, which produced +for her two hundred francs; her little debts paid, she had only about +eighty francs left. At the age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring +morning, she quitted Paris, bearing her child on her back. Any one who +had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, +in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the +world, no one but this woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had +tired her chest, and she coughed a little. + +We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Felix Tholomyes. Let us +confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King Louis +Philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a +wise elector, and a very severe juryman; he was still a man of pleasure. + +Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the +sake of resting herself, travelled, for three or four sous a league, in +what was then known as the Petites Voitures des Environs de Paris, the +"little suburban coach service," Fantine found herself at Montfermeil, +in the alley Boulanger. + +As she passed the Thenardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful +in the monster swing, had dazzled her in a manner, and she had halted in +front of that vision of joy. + +Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother. + +She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an +announcement of Paradise. She thought that, above this inn, she beheld +the mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures were +evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion +that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between +two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her +the remark which we have just read:-- + +"You have two pretty children, Madame." + +The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their +young. + +The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer +sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the +threshold. The two women began to chat. + +"My name is Madame Thenardier," said the mother of the two little girls. +"We keep this inn." + +Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming between +her teeth:-- + + "It must be so; I am a knight, + And I am off to Palestine." + + +This Madame Thenardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and +angular--the type of the soldier's wife in all its unpleasantness; and +what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal +of romances. She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances +produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop +woman. She was still young; she was barely thirty. If this crouching +woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a +perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the +traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what +caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead +of standing erect--destinies hang upon such a thing as that. + +The traveller told her story, with slight modifications. + +That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her +work in Paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it +elsewhere, in her own native parts; that she had left Paris that morning +on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had +got into the Villemomble coach when she met it; that from Villemomble +she had come to Montfermeil on foot; that the little one had walked a +little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been +obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep. + +At this word she bestowed on her daughter a passionate kiss, which woke +her. The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother's, and +looked at--what? Nothing; with that serious and sometimes severe air of +little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in +the presence of our twilight of virtue. One would say that they feel +themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men. Then the child +began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to +the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being which wished +to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, +stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of admiration. + +Mother Thenardier released her daughters, made them descend from the +swing, and said:-- + +"Now amuse yourselves, all three of you." + +Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration +of a minute the little Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer at +making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure. + +The new-comer was very gay; the goodness of the mother is written in the +gayety of the child; she had seized a scrap of wood which served her +for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The +grave-digger's business becomes a subject for laughter when performed by +a child. + +The two women pursued their chat. + +"What is your little one's name?" + +"Cosette." + +For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child's name was Euphrasie. But out +of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful +instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into +Pepita, and Francoise into Sillette. It is a sort of derivative which +disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have +known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon. + +"How old is she?" + +"She is going on three." + +"That is the age of my eldest." + +In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an attitude of +profound anxiety and blissfulness; an event had happened; a big worm +had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid; and they were in +ecstasies over it. + +Their radiant brows touched each other; one would have said that there +were three heads in one aureole. + +"How easily children get acquainted at once!" exclaimed Mother +Thenardier; "one would swear that they were three sisters!" + +This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been +waiting for. She seized the Thenardier's hand, looked at her fixedly, +and said:-- + +"Will you keep my child for me?" + +The Thenardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify +neither assent nor refusal. + +Cosette's mother continued:-- + +"You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country. My work will not +permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are ridiculous +in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When +I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean, and so happy, +it overwhelmed me. I said: 'Here is a good mother. That is just the +thing; that will make three sisters.' And then, it will not be long +before I return. Will you keep my child for me?" + +"I must see about it," replied the Thenardier. + +"I will give you six francs a month." + +Here a man's voice called from the depths of the cook-shop:-- + +"Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance." + +"Six times seven makes forty-two," said the Thenardier. + +"I will give it," said the mother. + +"And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses," added the +man's voice. + +"Total, fifty-seven francs," said Madame Thenardier. And she hummed +vaguely, with these figures:-- + + "It must be, said a warrior." + + +"I will pay it," said the mother. "I have eighty francs. I shall have +enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall +earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my +darling." + +The man's voice resumed:-- + +"The little one has an outfit?" + +"That is my husband," said the Thenardier. + +"Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.--I understood perfectly +that it was your husband.--And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless +outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is here, +in my carpet-bag." + +"You must hand it over," struck in the man's voice again. + +"Of course I shall give it to you," said the mother. "It would be very +queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!" + +The master's face appeared. + +"That's good," said he. + +The bargain was concluded. The mother passed the night at the inn, gave +up her money and left her child, fastened her carpet-bag once more, now +reduced in volume by the removal of the outfit, and light henceforth +and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon. People +arrange such departures tranquilly; but they are despairs! + +A neighbor of the Thenardiers met this mother as she was setting out, +and came back with the remark:-- + +"I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to +rend your heart." + +When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the +woman:-- + +"That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which +falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should +have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap +nicely with your young ones." + +"Without suspecting it," said the woman. + + + + +CHAPTER II--FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES + +The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat +rejoices even over a lean mouse. + +Who were these Thenardiers? + +Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later +on. + +These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people +who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended +in the scale, which is between the class called "middle" and the class +denominated as "inferior," and which combines some of the defects of the +second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing +the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the +bourgeois. + +They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm +them up, easily become monstrous. There was in the woman a substratum +of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were +susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress +which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist crab-like +souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, +retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to +augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more +and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and +woman possessed such souls. + +Thenardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can +only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are +dark in both directions. They are uneasy in the rear and threatening +in front. There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more +answer for what they have done than for what they will do. The shadow +which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing them +utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of +sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future. + +This Thenardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier--a +sergeant, he said. He had probably been through the campaign of 1815, +and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We +shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his +hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it +himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly. + +It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after +having been Clelie, was no longer anything but Lodoiska, still noble, +but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de +Scuderi to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to +Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses +of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. Madame +Thenardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She +lived on them. In them she drowned what brains she possessed. This had +given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive +attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian +lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the +same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the +perusal of Pigault-Lebrun, and "in what concerns the sex," as he said +in his jargon--a downright, unmitigated lout. His wife was twelve or +fifteen years younger than he was. Later on, when her hair, arranged in +a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magaera +began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thenardier was nothing +but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, +one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest +daughter was named Eponine; as for the younger, the poor little thing +came near being called Gulnare; I know not to what diversion, effected +by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore +the name of Azelma. + +However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and +superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which +may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of +this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social +symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name +of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte--if there are +still any vicomtes--to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This +displacement, which places the "elegant" name on the plebeian and the +rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. +The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as +everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a +profound thing,--the French Revolution. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE LARK + +It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The +cook-shop was in a bad way. + +Thanks to the traveller's fifty-seven francs, Thenardier had been able +to avoid a protest and to honor his signature. On the following month +they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosette's outfit to +Paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker's for sixty francs. As soon +as that sum was spent, the Thenardiers grew accustomed to look on the +little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity; +and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes, they +dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the Thenardier +brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the rest +had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. +Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions; +Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to +theirs. + +The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M. +sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter every +month, that she might have news of her child. The Thenardiers replied +invariably, "Cosette is doing wonderfully well." + +At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs +for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable +regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when +Thenardier said: "A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she +expect us to do with her seven francs?" and he wrote to demand twelve +francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her +child was happy, "and was coming on well," submitted, and forwarded the +twelve francs. + +Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other. +Mother Thenardier loved her two daughters passionately, which caused her +to hate the stranger. + +It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous +aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to +her as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child +diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many +women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and +injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain +that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received the whole +of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to +herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette could not +make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of +violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being, who +should not have understood anything of this world or of God, incessantly +punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her two little +creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn! + +Madame Thenardier was vicious with Cosette. Eponine and Azelma were +vicious. Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size +is smaller; that is all. + +A year passed; then another. + +People in the village said:-- + +"Those Thenardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are +bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!" + +They thought that Cosette's mother had forgotten her. + +In the meanwhile, Thenardier, having learned, it is impossible to say by +what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that the +mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month, saying +that "the creature" was growing and "eating," and threatening to send +her away. "Let her not bother me," he exclaimed, "or I'll fire her brat +right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase." The +mother paid the fifteen francs. + +From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness. + +As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other +children; as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say, +before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the +household. + +Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is +true. Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen the +trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from the +age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the world, +"worked for his living and stole"? + +Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard, +the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens. The Thenardiers +considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner, +since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in +her payments. Some months she was in arrears. + +If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three +years, she would not have recognized her child. Cosette, so pretty and +rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an +indescribably uneasy look. "The sly creature," said the Thenardiers. + +Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing +remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain, because, +large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still +larger amount of sadness. + +It was a heart-breaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years +old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes, +sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny +red hands, and a tear in her great eyes. + +[Illustration: Cossette Sweeping 1b4-1-cossette-sweeping] + +She was called the Lark in the neighborhood. The populace, who are fond +of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name on +this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger +than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the +house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before +daybreak. + +Only the little lark never sang. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS + +And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to +the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was +she? What was she doing? + +After leaving her little Cosette with the Thenardiers, she had continued +her journey, and had reached M. sur M. + +This, it will be remembered, was in 1818. + +Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had changed +its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchedness +to wretchedness, her native town had prospered. + +About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are the +grand events of small districts had taken place. + +This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at +length; we should almost say, to underline it. + +From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the +imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This +industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw +material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine +returned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken place +in the production of "black goods." Towards the close of 1815 a man, +a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired +with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin, +and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid +together, for slides of soldered sheet-iron. + +This very small change had effected a revolution. + +This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of +the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to +raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the second +place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the +third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which +was a benefit to the manufacturer. + +Thus three results ensued from one idea. + +In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, +which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better. +He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known; +of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he had +come to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most. + +It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of an +ingenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn his +own fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside. + +On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance, +and the language of a workingman. + +It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry into +the little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening, +knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken out +in the town-hall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at the +risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the +gendarmerie; this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his passport. +Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father Madeleine. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MADELEINE + +He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and +who was good. That was all that could be said about him. + +Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably +re-constructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important centre of trade. +Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous purchases +there each year. M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this +branch of commerce. Father Madeleine's profits were such, that at the +end of the second year he was able to erect a large factory, in which +there were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and the other for women. +Any one who was hungry could present himself there, and was sure of +finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good +will, of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated +the work-rooms in order to separate the sexes, and so that the women and +girls might remain discreet. On this point he was inflexible. It was the +only thing in which he was in a manner intolerant. He was all the more +firmly set on this severity, since M. sur M., being a garrison town, +opportunities for corruption abounded. However, his coming had been a +boon, and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's arrival, +everything had languished in the country; now everything lived with +a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything and +penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretchedness were unknown. +There was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money in it; no +dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it. + +Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one thing: +Be an honest man. Be an honest woman. + +As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the cause +and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular thing +in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that were his +chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little of +himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty +thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before reserving +these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he had spent more than a +million for the town and its poor. + +The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there. M. sur M. is +divided into the upper and the lower town. The lower town, in which he +lived, had but one school, a miserable hovel, which was falling to ruin: +he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys. He allotted a +salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary twice as +large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said to some one +who expressed surprise, "The two prime functionaries of the state are +the nurse and the schoolmaster." He created at his own expense an infant +school, a thing then almost unknown in France, and a fund for aiding old +and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which +there were a good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he +established there a free dispensary. + +At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, "He's +a jolly fellow who means to get rich." When they saw him enriching +the country before he enriched himself, the good souls said, "He is +an ambitious man." This seemed all the more probable since the man was +religious, and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing +which was very favorably viewed at that epoch. He went regularly to +low mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who nosed out all rivalry +everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy over this religion. This deputy +had been a member of the legislative body of the Empire, and shared the +religious ideas of a father of the Oratoire, known under the name +of Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He +indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But when he beheld +the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to low mass at seven o'clock, +he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to outdo him; he +took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition +was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the +steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well as the good God, for +the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the hospital, which made +twelve. + +Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through the town +to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect and in +consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father +Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who +had pronounced this new-comer to be "an ambitious fellow," seized with +delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim, "There! +what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well +founded. Several days later the appointment appeared in the Moniteur. On +the following day Father Madeleine refused. + +In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented by +Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when the jury made their +report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier of the Legion of +Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the cross +that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross. + +Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their +predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort of an adventurer." + +We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed him +everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been +obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored +him, and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. +When he was known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and +he received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur +Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father +Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile. In +proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him. +"Society" claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on +M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan, +opened both leaves of their folding-doors to the millionnaire. They made +a thousand advances to him. He refused. + +This time the good gossips had no trouble. "He is an ignorant man, of +no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to +behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how +to read." + +When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business." +When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, "He is an +ambitious man." When he was seen to decline honors, they said, "He is +an adventurer." When they saw him repulse society, they said, "He is a +brute." + +In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which +he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion of +the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King again +appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined; but the prefect +resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore +him, the people in the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous +that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed +chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe +addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from +her threshold, in an angry way: "A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he +drawing back before the good which he can do?" + +This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become +Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire. + + + + +CHAPTER III--SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE + +On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had +gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the +thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a +wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He +fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in +solitude. He spoke to but few people. He avoided polite attentions; +he escaped quickly; he smiled to relieve himself of the necessity of +talking; he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling, The +women said of him, "What a good-natured bear!" His pleasure consisted in +strolling in the fields. + +He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he +read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books; books +are cold but safe friends. In proportion as leisure came to him with +fortune, he seemed to take advantage of it to cultivate his mind. It had +been observed that, ever since his arrival at M. sur M.. his language +had grown more polished, more choice, and more gentle with every passing +year. He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely +made use of it. When he did happen to do so, his shooting was something +so infallible as to inspire terror. He never killed an inoffensive +animal. He never shot at a little bird. + +Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was still +prodigiously strong. He offered his assistance to any one who was in +need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or +stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets full +of money when he went out; but they were empty on his return. When he +passed through a village, the ragged brats ran joyously after him, and +surrounded him like a swarm of gnats. + +It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life, +since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught to the +peasants. He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling it +and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution +of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging up orviot in +bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the grass and in +the houses. + +He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, +and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit +warren against rats, simply by the odor of a guinea-pig which he placed +in it. + +One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles; +he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried, and said: +"They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to +make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent +vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and +flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are +good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of +the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the +root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. +Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is +required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the +seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That +is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made +useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How +many men resemble the nettle!" He added, after a pause: "Remember this, +my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are +only bad cultivators." + +The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little +trifles of straw and cocoanuts. + +When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered: he sought +out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and the grief of +others attracted him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with +the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with +the priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his +thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of +the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a +sort of aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad +voices which sing on the verge of the obscure abyss of death. + +He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them +as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated houses +privately, at night; he ascended staircases furtively. A poor wretch +on returning to his attic would find that his door had been opened, +sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor +over it: some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first +thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece of +furniture. The "malefactor" who had been there was Father Madeleine. + +He was affable and sad. The people said: "There is a rich man who has +not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air." + +Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and that no +one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's cell, +furnished with winged hour-glasses and enlivened by cross-bones and +skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant +and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked: +"Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a +grotto." He smiled, and introduced them instantly into this "grotto." +They were well punished for their curiosity. The room was very simply +furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly, like all furniture of +that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing +remarkable about it, except two candlesticks of antique pattern which +stood on the chimney-piece and appeared to be silver, "for they were +hall-marked," an observation full of the type of wit of petty towns. + +Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into the +room, and that it was a hermit's cave, a mysterious retreat, a hole, a +tomb. + +It was also whispered about that he had "immense" sums deposited with +Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always at his +immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could make his +appearance at Laffitte's any morning, sign a receipt, and carry off his +two or three millions in ten minutes. In reality, "these two or three +millions" were reducible, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or +forty thousand francs. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--M. MADELEINE IN MOURNING + +At the beginning of 1820 the newspapers announced the death of M. +Myriel, Bishop of D----, surnamed "Monseigneur Bienvenu," who had died +in the odor of sanctity at the age of eighty-two. + +The Bishop of D---- to supply here a detail which the papers +omitted--had been blind for many years before his death, and content to +be blind, as his sister was beside him. + +Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in fact, +one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, +where nothing is complete. To have continually at one's side a woman, a +daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her +and because she cannot do without you; to know that we are indispensable +to a person who is necessary to us; to be able to incessantly measure +one's affection by the amount of her presence which she bestows on us, +and to say to ourselves, "Since she consecrates the whole of her time +to me, it is because I possess the whole of her heart"; to behold her +thought in lieu of her face; to be able to verify the fidelity of one +being amid the eclipse of the world; to regard the rustle of a gown +as the sound of wings; to hear her come and go, retire, speak, return, +sing, and to think that one is the centre of these steps, of this +speech; to manifest at each instant one's personal attraction; to feel +one's self all the more powerful because of one's infirmity; to become +in one's obscurity, and through one's obscurity, the star around which +this angel gravitates,--few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness +of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for +one's own sake--let us say rather, loved in spite of one's self; this +conviction the blind man possesses. To be served in distress is to be +caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not lose the sight when +one has love. And what love! A love wholly constituted of virtue! There +is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, +and finds it. And this soul, found and tested, is a woman. A hand +sustains you; it is hers: a mouth lightly touches your brow; it is her +mouth: you hear a breath very near you; it is hers. To have everything +of her, from her worship to her pity, never to be left, to have that +sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that immovable reed, to +touch Providence with one's hands, and to be able to take it in +one's arms,--God made tangible,--what bliss! The heart, that obscure, +celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not +exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there, +uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she +vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth +approaching, and behold! she is there. One overflows with serenity, with +gayety, with ecstasy; one is a radiance amid the night. And there are +a thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that void. The +most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you, and +supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the soul. +One sees nothing, but one feels that one is adored. It is a paradise of +shadows. + +It was from this paradise that Monseigneur Welcome had passed to the +other. + +The announcement of his death was reprinted by the local journal of M. +sur M. On the following day, M. Madeleine appeared clad wholly in black, +and with crape on his hat. + +This mourning was noticed in the town, and commented on. It seemed +to throw a light on M. Madeleine's origin. It was concluded that some +relationship existed between him and the venerable Bishop. "He has gone +into mourning for the Bishop of D----" said the drawing-rooms; this +raised M. Madeleine's credit greatly, and procured for him, instantly +and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur +M. The microscopic Faubourg Saint-Germain of the place meditated raising +the quarantine against M. Madeleine, the probable relative of a bishop. +M. Madeleine perceived the advancement which he had obtained, by the +more numerous courtesies of the old women and the more plentiful smiles +of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in that petty great world, who +was curious by right of seniority, ventured to ask him, "M. le Maire is +doubtless a cousin of the late Bishop of D----?" + +He said, "No, Madame." + +"But," resumed the dowager, "you are wearing mourning for him." + +He replied, "It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth." + +Another thing which was remarked, was, that every time that he +encountered in the town a young Savoyard who was roaming about the +country and seeking chimneys to sweep, the mayor had him summoned, +inquired his name, and gave him money. The little Savoyards told each +other about it: a great many of them passed that way. + + + + +CHAPTER V--VAGUE FLASHES ON THE HORIZON + +Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition +subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, +in virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to, +blackening and calumnies; then they grew to be nothing more than +ill-nature, then merely malicious remarks, then even this entirely +disappeared; respect became complete, unanimous, cordial, and towards +1821 the moment arrived when the word "Monsieur le Maire" was pronounced +at M. sur M. with almost the same accent as "Monseigneur the Bishop" +had been pronounced in D---- in 1815. People came from a distance of ten +leagues around to consult M. Madeleine. He put an end to differences, +he prevented lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Every one took him for the +judge, and with good reason. It seemed as though he had for a soul the +book of the natural law. It was like an epidemic of veneration, which in +the course of six or seven years gradually took possession of the whole +district. + +One single man in the town, in the arrondissement, absolutely escaped +this contagion, and, whatever Father Madeleine did, remained his +opponent as though a sort of incorruptible and imperturbable instinct +kept him on the alert and uneasy. It seems, in fact, as though there +existed in certain men a veritable bestial instinct, though pure and +upright, like all instincts, which creates antipathies and sympathies, +which fatally separates one nature from another nature, which does not +hesitate, which feels no disquiet, which does not hold its peace, +and which never belies itself, clear in its obscurity, infallible, +imperious, intractable, stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence +and to all the dissolvents of reason, and which, in whatever manner +destinies are arranged, secretly warns the man-dog of the presence of +the man-cat, and the man-fox of the presence of the man-lion. + +It frequently happened that when M. Madeleine was passing along a +street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, a man of +lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed with a heavy +cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly behind him, and +followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and +a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with +his lower to his nose, a sort of significant grimace which might be +translated by: "What is that man, after all? I certainly have seen him +somewhere. In any case, I am not his dupe." + +This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing, was one +of those men who, even when only seen by a rapid glimpse, arrest the +spectator's attention. + +His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police. + +At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an +inspector. He had not seen Madeleine's beginnings. Javert owed the post +which he occupied to the protection of M. Chabouillet, the secretary of +the Minister of State, Comte Angeles, then prefect of police at Paris. +When Javert arrived at M. sur M. the fortune of the great manufacturer +was already made, and Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine. + +Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy, which is +complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority. +Javert possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness. + +It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should +be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual +of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal +creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived +by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the +tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. +Sometimes even several of them at a time. + +Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, +straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls. God shows +them to us in order to induce us to reflect. Only since animals are mere +shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full sense +of the word; what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being realities +and having a goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on +them intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of education. Social +education, when well done, can always draw from a soul, of whatever sort +it may be, the utility which it contains. + +This, be it said, is of course from the restricted point of view of the +terrestrial life which is apparent, and without prejudging the profound +question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings which are +not man. The visible _I_ in nowise authorizes the thinker to deny the +latent _I_. Having made this reservation, let us pass on. + +Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man +there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us +to say what there was in Police Officer Javert. + +The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves +there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as +he grew up, he would devour the other little ones. + +Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be +Javert. + +Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was +in the galleys. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale +of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that +society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,--those who attack +it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these +two classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable +foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an +inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He +entered the police; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an +inspector. + +During his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of +the South. + +Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the +words, "human face," which we have just applied to Javert. + +The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep +nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One +felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns +for the first time. When Javert laughed,--and his laugh was rare and +terrible,--his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, +but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage +fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a watchdog; +when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little +skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead and +fell over his eyebrows; between his eyes there was a permanent, central +frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his mouth pursed +up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command. + +This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments, +comparatively; but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating +them,--respect for authority, hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes, +murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion. He enveloped +in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state, +from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, +aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold +of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the one hand, +he said, "The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never +the wrong." On the other hand, he said, "These men are irremediably +lost. Nothing good can come from them." He fully shared the opinion of +those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know not what power +of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of authenticating, demons, +and who place a Styx at the base of society. He was stoical, serious, +austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics. His +glance was like a gimlet, cold and piercing. His whole life hung on +these two words: watchfulness and supervision. He had introduced a +straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world; +he possessed the conscience of his usefulness, the religion of his +functions, and he was a spy as other men are priests. Woe to the man +who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father, if +the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his +mother, if she had broken her ban. And he would have done it with that +sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, +a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never +a diversion. It was implacable duty; the police understood, as the +Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious +honesty, a marble informer, Brutus in Vidocq. + +Javert's whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who +withdraws himself from observation. The mystical school of Joseph de +Maistre, which at that epoch seasoned with lofty cosmogony those things +which were called the ultra newspapers, would not have failed to declare +that Javert was a symbol. His brow was not visible; it disappeared +beneath his hat: his eyes were not visible, since they were lost under +his eyebrows: his chin was not visible, for it was plunged in his +cravat: his hands were not visible; they were drawn up in his sleeves: +and his cane was not visible; he carried it under his coat. But when the +occasion presented itself, there was suddenly seen to emerge from all +this shadow, as from an ambuscade, a narrow and angular forehead, a +baleful glance, a threatening chin, enormous hands, and a monstrous +cudgel. + +In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although +he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could +be recognized by some emphasis in his speech. + +As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, +he permitted himself a pinch of snuff. Therein lay his connection with +humanity. + +The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the +terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry +of Justice designates under the rubric, Vagrants. The name of Javert +routed them by its mere utterance; the face of Javert petrified them at +sight. + +Such was this formidable man. + +Javert was like an eye constantly fixed on M. Madeleine. An eye full of +suspicion and conjecture. M. Madeleine had finally perceived the fact; +but it seemed to be of no importance to him. He did not even put a +question to Javert; he neither sought nor avoided him; he bore that +embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to notice it. +He treated Javert with ease and courtesy, as he did all the rest of the +world. + +It was divined, from some words which escaped Javert, that he had +secretly investigated, with that curiosity which belongs to the race, +and into which there enters as much instinct as will, all the anterior +traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere. He seemed to +know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that some one had gleaned +certain information in a certain district about a family which had +disappeared. Once he chanced to say, as he was talking to himself, "I +think I have him!" Then he remained pensive for three days, and uttered +not a word. It seemed that the thread which he thought he held had +broken. + +Moreover, and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too +absolute sense which certain words might present, there can be nothing +really infallible in a human creature, and the peculiarity of instinct +is that it can become confused, thrown off the track, and defeated. +Otherwise, it would be superior to intelligence, and the beast would be +found to be provided with a better light than man. + +Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness +and tranquillity of M. Madeleine. + +One day, nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an +impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FATHER FAUCHELEVENT + +One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of M. sur +M.; he heard a noise, and saw a group some distance away. He approached. +An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart, +his horse having tumbled down. + +This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M. Madeleine had at +that time. When Madeleine arrived in the neighborhood, Fauchelevent, an +ex-notary and a peasant who was almost educated, had a business which +was beginning to be in a bad way. Fauchelevent had seen this simple +workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined. This had filled +him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every occasion, +to injure Madeleine. Then bankruptcy had come; and as the old man had +nothing left but a cart and a horse, and neither family nor children, he +had turned carter. + +The horse had two broken legs and could not rise. The old man was caught +in the wheels. The fall had been so unlucky that the whole weight of the +vehicle rested on his breast. The cart was quite heavily laden. Father +Fauchelevent was rattling in the throat in the most lamentable manner. +They had tried, but in vain, to drag him out. An unmethodical effort, +aid awkwardly given, a wrong shake, might kill him. It was impossible to +disengage him otherwise than by lifting the vehicle off of him. +Javert, who had come up at the moment of the accident, had sent for a +jack-screw. + +M. Madeleine arrived. People stood aside respectfully. + +"Help!" cried old Fauchelevent. "Who will be good and save the old man?" + +M. Madeleine turned towards those present:-- + +"Is there a jack-screw to be had?" + +"One has been sent for," answered the peasant. + +"How long will it take to get it?" + +"They have gone for the nearest, to Flachot's place, where there is a +farrier; but it makes no difference; it will take a good quarter of an +hour." + +"A quarter of an hour!" exclaimed Madeleine. + +It had rained on the preceding night; the soil was soaked. + +The cart was sinking deeper into the earth every moment, and crushing +the old carter's breast more and more. It was evident that his ribs +would be broken in five minutes more. + +"It is impossible to wait another quarter of an hour," said Madeleine to +the peasants, who were staring at him. + +"We must!" + +"But it will be too late then! Don't you see that the cart is sinking?" + +"Well!" + +"Listen," resumed Madeleine; "there is still room enough under the cart +to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only half +a minute, and the poor man can be taken out. Is there any one here who +has stout loins and heart? There are five louis d'or to be earned!" + +Not a man in the group stirred. + +"Ten louis," said Madeleine. + +The persons present dropped their eyes. One of them muttered: "A man +would need to be devilish strong. And then he runs the risk of getting +crushed!" + +"Come," began Madeleine again, "twenty louis." + +The same silence. + +"It is not the will which is lacking," said a voice. + +M. Madeleine turned round, and recognized Javert. He had not noticed him +on his arrival. + +Javert went on:-- + +"It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing +as lift a cart like that on his back." + +Then, gazing fixedly at M. Madeleine, he went on, emphasizing every word +that he uttered:-- + +"Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing +what you ask." + +Madeleine shuddered. + +Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his eyes +from Madeleine:-- + +"He was a convict." + +"Ah!" said Madeleine. + +"In the galleys at Toulon." + +Madeleine turned pale. + +Meanwhile, the cart continued to sink slowly. Father Fauchelevent +rattled in the throat, and shrieked:-- + +"I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah!" + +Madeleine glanced about him. + +"Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the +life of this poor old man?" + +No one stirred. Javert resumed:-- + +"I have never known but one man who could take the place of a screw, and +he was that convict." + +"Ah! It is crushing me!" cried the old man. + +Madeleine raised his head, met Javert's falcon eye still fixed upon +him, looked at the motionless peasants, and smiled sadly. Then, without +saying a word, he fell on his knees, and before the crowd had even had +time to utter a cry, he was underneath the vehicle. + +A terrible moment of expectation and silence ensued. + +They beheld Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrible +weight, make two vain efforts to bring his knees and his elbows +together. They shouted to him, "Father Madeleine, come out!" Old +Fauchelevent himself said to him, "Monsieur Madeleine, go away! You see +that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also!" +Madeleine made no reply. + +All the spectators were panting. The wheels had continued to sink, and +it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from under +the vehicle. + +Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly, the +wheels half emerged from the ruts. They heard a stifled voice crying, +"Make haste! Help!" It was Madeleine, who had just made a final effort. + +They rushed forwards. The devotion of a single man had given force and +courage to all. The cart was raised by twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent was +saved. + +Madeleine rose. He was pale, though dripping with perspiration. His +clothes were torn and covered with mud. All wept. The old man kissed +his knees and called him the good God. As for him, he bore upon +his countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial +suffering, and he fixed his tranquil eye on Javert, who was still +staring at him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS + + +Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine +had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his +workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two +sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a +thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father +Madeleine's writing: "I purchase your horse and cart." The cart was +broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee +remained stiff. M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of +charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a +female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris. + +Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor. The first time +that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him +authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watch-dog +might experience on smelling a wolf in his master's clothes. From +that time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the +requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could +not do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound +respect. + +This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides +the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was +none the less significant for not being visible. This never deceives. +When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no +commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and +oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in +the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when +the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the +state nothing. It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer +of the public misery and riches,--the cost of collecting the taxes. +In the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had +diminished three-fourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this +led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by +M. de Villele, then Minister of Finance. + +Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither. No +one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine's factory was +like the face of a friend. She presented herself there, and was admitted +to the women's workroom. The trade was entirely new to Fantine; she +could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned but little by +her day's work; but it was sufficient; the problem was solved; she was +earning her living. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY + +When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a +moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The +taste for work had really returned to her. She bought a looking-glass, +took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her beautiful hair, her fine +teeth; she forgot many things; she thought only of Cosette and of the +possible future, and was almost happy. She hired a little room and +furnished on credit on the strength of her future work--a lingering +trace of her improvident ways. As she was not able to say that she was +married she took good care, as we have seen, not to mention her little +girl. + +At first, as the reader has seen, she paid the Thenardiers promptly. As +she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged to write through a +public letter-writer. + +She wrote often, and this was noticed. It began to be said in an +undertone, in the women's workroom, that Fantine "wrote letters" and +that "she had ways about her." + +There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are +not concerned in them. Why does that gentleman never come except at +nightfall? Why does Mr. So-and-So never hang his key on its nail on +Tuesday? Why does he always take the narrow streets? Why does Madame +always descend from her hackney-coach before reaching her house? Why +does she send out to purchase six sheets of note paper, when she has a +"whole stationer's shop full of it?" etc. There exist beings who, for +the sake of obtaining the key to these enigmas, which are, moreover, of +no consequence whatever to them, spend more money, waste more time, +take more trouble, than would be required for ten good actions, and +that gratuitously, for their own pleasure, without receiving any other +payment for their curiosity than curiosity. They will follow up such and +such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for hours +at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, +in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the +drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn +a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, +and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often +these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas +illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, +failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy +of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the +matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing. + +Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for talking. +Their conversation, the chat of the drawing-room, gossip of the +anteroom, is like those chimneys which consume wood rapidly; they need +a great amount of combustibles; and their combustibles are furnished by +their neighbors. + +So Fantine was watched. + +In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white +teeth. + +It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the +midst of the rest, to wipe away a tear. These were the moments when she +was thinking of her child; perhaps, also, of the man whom she had loved. + +Breaking the gloomy bonds of the past is a mournful task. + +It was observed that she wrote twice a month at least, and that she +paid the carriage on the letter. They managed to obtain the address: +Monsieur, Monsieur Thenardier, inn-keeper at Montfermeil. The public +writer, a good old man who could not fill his stomach with red wine +without emptying his pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the +wine-shop. In short, it was discovered that Fantine had a child. "She +must be a pretty sort of a woman." An old gossip was found, who made the +trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thenardiers, and said on her return: +"For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. I have seen the +child." + +The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the +guardian and door-keeper of every one's virtue. Madame Victurnien was +fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. +A quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once been +young--astonishing fact! In her youth, in '93, she had married a +monk who had fled from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from +the Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp, +captious, almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow +she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his +will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was visible. +At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with so much energy +that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She had a small property, +which she bequeathed with much ostentation to a religious community. +She was in high favor at the episcopal palace of Arras. So this Madame +Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, "I have +seen the child." + +All this took time. Fantine had been at the factory for more than a +year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her +fifty francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed +in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor's name, to leave the +neighborhood. + +This was the very month when the Thenardiers, after having demanded +twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen francs instead of +twelve. + +Fantine was overwhelmed. She could not leave the neighborhood; she was +in debt for her rent and furniture. Fifty francs was not sufficient +to cancel this debt. She stammered a few supplicating words. The +superintendent ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides, +Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even +more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room. +So her fault was now known to every one. + +She no longer felt strong enough to say a word. She was advised to +see the mayor; she did not dare. The mayor had given her fifty francs +because he was good, and had dismissed her because he was just. She +bowed before the decision. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MADAME VICTURNIEN'S SUCCESS + +So the monk's widow was good for something. + +But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just +such combinations of events. M. Madeleine was in the habit of almost +never entering the women's workroom. + +At the head of this room he had placed an elderly spinster, whom +the priest had provided for him, and he had full confidence in this +superintendent,--a truly respectable person, firm, equitable, upright, +full of the charity which consists in giving, but not having in the same +degree that charity which consists in understanding and in forgiving. +M. Madeleine relied wholly on her. The best men are often obliged +to delegate their authority. It was with this full power, and the +conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had +instituted the suit, judged, condemned, and executed Fantine. + +As regards the fifty francs, she had given them from a fund which M. +Madeleine had intrusted to her for charitable purposes, and for giving +assistance to the workwomen, and of which she rendered no account. + +Fantine tried to obtain a situation as a servant in the neighborhood; +she went from house to house. No one would have her. She could not +leave town. The second-hand dealer, to whom she was in debt for her +furniture--and what furniture!--said to her, "If you leave, I will have +you arrested as a thief." The householder, whom she owed for her rent, +said to her, "You are young and pretty; you can pay." She divided the +fifty francs between the landlord and the furniture-dealer, returned to +the latter three-quarters of his goods, kept only necessaries, and found +herself without work, without a trade, with nothing but her bed, and +still about fifty francs in debt. + +She began to make coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison, and earned +twelve sous a day. Her daughter cost her ten. It was at this point that +she began to pay the Thenardiers irregularly. + +However, the old woman who lighted her candle for her when she returned +at night, taught her the art of living in misery. Back of living on +little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers; the +first is dark, the second is black. + +Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to +give up a bird which eats a half a farthing's worth of millet every +two days; how to make a coverlet of one's petticoat, and a petticoat of +one's coverlet; how to save one's candle, by taking one's meals by +the light of the opposite window. No one knows all that certain feeble +creatures, who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of +a sou. It ends by being a talent. Fantine acquired this sublime talent, +and regained a little courage. + +At this epoch she said to a neighbor, "Bah! I say to myself, by only +sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing, +I shall always manage to nearly earn my bread. And, then, when one is +sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one +hand, trouble on the other,--all this will support me." + +It would have been a great happiness to have her little girl with her in +this distress. She thought of having her come. But what then! Make her +share her own destitution! And then, she was in debt to the Thenardiers! +How could she pay them? And the journey! How pay for that? + +The old woman who had given her lessons in what may be called the life +of indigence, was a sainted spinster named Marguerite, who was pious +with a true piety, poor and charitable towards the poor, and even +towards the rich, knowing how to write just sufficiently to sign herself +Marguerite, and believing in God, which is science. + +There are many such virtuous people in this lower world; some day they +will be in the world above. This life has a morrow. + +At first, Fantine had been so ashamed that she had not dared to go out. + +When she was in the street, she divined that people turned round behind +her, and pointed at her; every one stared at her and no one greeted her; +the cold and bitter scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very flesh +and soul like a north wind. + +It seems as though an unfortunate woman were utterly bare beneath the +sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no +one knows you, and this obscurity is a garment. Oh! how she would have +liked to betake herself to Paris! Impossible! + +She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she had accustomed +herself to indigence. Gradually she decided on her course. At the +expiration of two or three months she shook off her shame, and began to +go about as though there were nothing the matter. "It is all the same to +me," she said. + +She went and came, bearing her head well up, with a bitter smile, and +was conscious that she was becoming brazen-faced. + +Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed +the distress of "that creature" who, "thanks to her," had been "put back +in her proper place," and congratulated herself. The happiness of the +evil-minded is black. + +Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which troubled +her increased. She sometimes said to her neighbor, Marguerite, "Just +feel how hot my hands are!" + +Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the morning with +an old broken comb, and it flowed about her like floss silk, she +experienced a moment of happy coquetry. + + + + +CHAPTER X--RESULT OF THE SUCCESS + +She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter; the summer passed, +but winter came again. Short days, less work. Winter: no warmth, +no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, fogs, +twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it. The +sky is but a vent-hole. The whole day is a cavern. The sun has the air +of a beggar. A frightful season! Winter changes the water of heaven and +the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her. + +Fantine earned too little. Her debts had increased. The Thenardiers, who +were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose contents +drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote +to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that cold weather, +that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least +ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed it in her +hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber's shop at the +corner of the street, and pulled out her comb. Her admirable golden hair +fell to her knees. + +"What splendid hair!" exclaimed the barber. + +"How much will you give me for it?" said she. + +"Ten francs." + +"Cut it off." + +She purchased a knitted petticoat and sent it to the Thenardiers. This +petticoat made the Thenardiers furious. It was the money that they +wanted. They gave the petticoat to Eponine. The poor Lark continued to +shiver. + +Fantine thought: "My child is no longer cold. I have clothed her with my +hair." She put on little round caps which concealed her shorn head, and +in which she was still pretty. + +Dark thoughts held possession of Fantine's heart. + +When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she began to hate +every one about her. She had long shared the universal veneration for +Father Madeleine; yet, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he +who had discharged her, that he was the cause of her unhappiness, she +came to hate him also, and most of all. When she passed the factory in +working hours, when the workpeople were at the door, she affected to +laugh and sing. + +An old workwoman who once saw her laughing and singing in this fashion +said, "There's a girl who will come to a bad end." + +She took a lover, the first who offered, a man whom she did not love, +out of bravado and with rage in her heart. He was a miserable scamp, +a sort of mendicant musician, a lazy beggar, who beat her, and who +abandoned her as she had taken him, in disgust. + +She adored her child. + +The lower she descended, the darker everything grew about her, the more +radiant shone that little angel at the bottom of her heart. She said, +"When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. Her +cough did not leave her, and she had sweats on her back. + +One day she received from the Thenardiers a letter couched in the +following terms: "Cosette is ill with a malady which is going the rounds +of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive drugs are +required. This is ruining us, and we can no longer pay for them. If you +do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the little one will +be dead." + +She burst out laughing, and said to her old neighbor: "Ah! they are +good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they +think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly." + +Nevertheless she went to a dormer window in the staircase and read the +letter once more. Then she descended the stairs and emerged, running and +leaping and still laughing. + +Some one met her and said to her, "What makes you so gay?" + +She replied: "A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have +written to me. They demand forty francs of me. So much for you, you +peasants!" + +As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around +a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man dressed +in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his rounds, +who was offering to the public full sets of teeth, opiates, powders and +elixirs. + +Fantine mingled in the group, and began to laugh with the rest at +the harangue, which contained slang for the populace and jargon for +respectable people. The tooth-puller espied the lovely, laughing girl, +and suddenly exclaimed: "You have beautiful teeth, you girl there, who +are laughing; if you want to sell me your palettes, I will give you a +gold napoleon apiece for them." + +"What are my palettes?" asked Fantine. + +"The palettes," replied the dental professor, "are the front teeth, the +two upper ones." + +"How horrible!" exclaimed Fantine. + +"Two napoleons!" grumbled a toothless old woman who was present. "Here's +a lucky girl!" + +Fantine fled and stopped her ears that she might not hear the hoarse +voice of the man shouting to her: "Reflect, my beauty! two napoleons; +they may prove of service. If your heart bids you, come this evening to +the inn of the Tillac d'Argent; you will find me there." + +Fantine returned home. She was furious, and related the occurrence to +her good neighbor Marguerite: "Can you understand such a thing? Is he +not an abominable man? How can they allow such people to go about the +country! Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should be horrible! My hair +will grow again, but my teeth! Ah! what a monster of a man! I should +prefer to throw myself head first on the pavement from the fifth story! +He told me that he should be at the Tillac d'Argent this evening." + +"And what did he offer?" asked Marguerite. + +"Two napoleons." + +"That makes forty francs." + +"Yes," said Fantine; "that makes forty francs." + +She remained thoughtful, and began her work. At the expiration of a +quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the Thenardiers' +letter once more on the staircase. + +On her return, she said to Marguerite, who was at work beside her:-- + +"What is a miliary fever? Do you know?" + +"Yes," answered the old spinster; "it is a disease." + +"Does it require many drugs?" + +"Oh! terrible drugs." + +"How does one get it?" + +"It is a malady that one gets without knowing how." + +"Then it attacks children?" + +"Children in particular." + +"Do people die of it?" + +"They may," said Marguerite. + +Fantine left the room and went to read her letter once more on the +staircase. + +That evening she went out, and was seen to turn her steps in the +direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated. + +The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine's room before +daylight,--for they always worked together, and in this manner used only +one candle for the two,--she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and +frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. +Her candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed. +Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous +wastefulness, and exclaimed:-- + +"Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened." + +Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its +hair. + +Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. + +"Jesus!" said Marguerite, "what is the matter with you, Fantine?" + +"Nothing," replied Fantine. "Quite the contrary. My child will not die +of that frightful malady, for lack of succor. I am content." + +So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were +glittering on the table. + +"Ah! Jesus God!" cried Marguerite. "Why, it is a fortune! Where did you +get those louis d'or?" + +"I got them," replied Fantine. + +At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It +was a bloody smile. A reddish saliva soiled the corners of her lips, and +she had a black hole in her mouth. + +The two teeth had been extracted. + +She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil. + +After all it was a ruse of the Thenardiers to obtain money. Cosette was +not ill. + +Fantine threw her mirror out of the window. She had long since quitted +her cell on the second floor for an attic with only a latch to fasten +it, next the roof; one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle +with the floor, and knocks you on the head every instant. The poor +occupant can reach the end of his chamber as he can the end of his +destiny, only by bending over more and more. + +She had no longer a bed; a rag which she called her coverlet, a mattress +on the floor, and a seatless chair still remained. A little rosebush +which she had, had dried up, forgotten, in one corner. In the other +corner was a butter-pot to hold water, which froze in winter, and in +which the various levels of the water remained long marked by these +circles of ice. She had lost her shame; she lost her coquetry. A final +sign. She went out, with dirty caps. Whether from lack of time or from +indifference, she no longer mended her linen. As the heels wore out, +she dragged her stockings down into her shoes. This was evident from the +perpendicular wrinkles. She patched her bodice, which was old and worn +out, with scraps of calico which tore at the slightest movement. The +people to whom she was indebted made "scenes" and gave her no peace. +She found them in the street, she found them again on her staircase. She +passed many a night weeping and thinking. Her eyes were very bright, +and she felt a steady pain in her shoulder towards the top of the +left shoulder-blade. She coughed a great deal. She deeply hated Father +Madeleine, but made no complaint. She sewed seventeen hours a day; but +a contractor for the work of prisons, who made the prisoners work at a +discount, suddenly made prices fall, which reduced the daily earnings +of working-women to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and nine sous a +day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The second-hand dealer, +who had taken back nearly all his furniture, said to her incessantly, +"When will you pay me, you hussy?" What did they want of her, good God! +She felt that she was being hunted, and something of the wild beast +developed in her. About the same time, Thenardier wrote to her that he +had waited with decidedly too much amiability and that he must have a +hundred francs at once; otherwise he would turn little Cosette out of +doors, convalescent as she was from her heavy illness, into the cold and +the streets, and that she might do what she liked with herself, and die +if she chose. "A hundred francs," thought Fantine. "But in what trade +can one earn a hundred sous a day?" + +"Come!" said she, "let us sell what is left." + +The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT + +What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. + +From whom? From misery. + +From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul +for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts. + +The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does +not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from +European civilization. This is a mistake. It still exists; but it weighs +only upon the woman, and it is called prostitution. + +It weighs upon the woman, that is to say, upon grace, weakness, beauty, +maternity. This is not one of the least of man's disgraces. + +At the point in this melancholy drama which we have now reached, nothing +is left to Fantine of that which she had formerly been. + +She has become marble in becoming mire. Whoever touches her feels cold. +She passes; she endures you; she ignores you; she is the severe and +dishonored figure. Life and the social order have said their last word +for her. All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has +felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered +everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with +that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. +She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all +the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that +is soaked. + +At least, she believes it to be so; but it is an error to imagine that +fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything +whatever. + +Alas! What are all these fates, driven on pell-mell? Whither are they +going? Why are they thus? + +He who knows that sees the whole of the shadow. + +He is alone. His name is God. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--M. BAMATABOIS'S INACTIVITY + +There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, +a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred +francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred +thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter +species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a +little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and +who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, +my peasants, my woods"; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that +they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison +to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of +tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the +diligence, live at the cafe, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the +bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; +who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise +women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris +through the medium of Pont-A-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, +serve no use, and do no great harm. + +M. Felix Tholomyes, had he remained in his own province and never beheld +Paris, would have been one of these men. + +If they were richer, one would say, "They are dandies;" if they were +poorer, one would say, "They are idlers." They are simply men without +employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored, dreamers, +and some knaves. + +At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a +watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top of +the other--the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat, with +a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each other +and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a lighter +shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite, but +always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to eleven--a limit +which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons +on the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an +enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all, +spurs and a mustache. At that epoch mustaches indicated the bourgeois, +and spurs the pedestrian. + +The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of +mustaches. + +It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with +the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats were +royalist, and were called morillos; liberals wore hats with wide brims, +which were called bolivars. + +Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding +pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of +these dandies, one of these unemployed, a "right thinker," for he wore +a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large +cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was +amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a +ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of +the officers' cafe. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly +fashionable. + +Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, +together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered +witty and mirthful, such as, "How ugly you are!--Will you get out of my +sight?--You have no teeth!" etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. +Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and +came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, +and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and with a sombre +regularity, which brought her every five minutes within reach of this +sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods. The +small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger; and taking +advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up behind her +with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down, picked up a +handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly into her back, +between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar, whirled round, +gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the man, burying her +nails in his face, with the most frightful words which could fall from +the guard-room into the gutter. These insults, poured forth in a voice +roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous wise from a mouth +which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine. + +At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the +cafe, passers-by collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and +applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings, +whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman: the +man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet +and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath, +horrible. + +Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd, +seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and +said to her, "Follow me!" + +The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her +eyes were glassy; she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled +with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert. + +The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE +MUNICIPAL POLICE + +Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out +with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the +extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She +yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of +spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery +an occasion for obscenity. + +On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a +stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded +by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut +the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who +raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the +thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a +sort of gluttony. To see is to devour. + +On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute, +crouching down like a terrified dog. + +The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert +seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began +to write. + +This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion +of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems +good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which +they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive; his +grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously +and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he was +exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a severe +conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was +conscious that his police agent's stool was a tribunal. He was entering +judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could +possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he was doing. +The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. +It was evident that he had just witnessed the commission of a crime. +He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a +freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was +outside all pales. A prostitute had made an attempt on the life of a +citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence. + +When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the +sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, "Take three men and +conduct this creature to jail." + +Then, turning to Fantine, "You are to have six months of it." The +unhappy woman shuddered. + +"Six months! six months of prison!" she exclaimed. "Six months in which +to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! +my daughter! But I still owe the Thenardiers over a hundred francs; do +you know that, Monsieur Inspector?" + +She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all +those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides +on her knees. + +"Monsieur Javert," said she, "I beseech your mercy. I assure you that +I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have +seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That +gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has +any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along +peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. +And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: +'You are ugly! you have no teeth!' I know well that I have no longer +those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, 'The gentleman is amusing +himself.' I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that +moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur +Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you +that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that +one is not master of one's self at the first moment. One gives way to +vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down your +back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that +gentleman's hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! +It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor +to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know that in +prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government's +fault, but seven sous is one's earnings; and just fancy, I must pay +one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! +I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my +little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? +I will tell you: it is the Thenardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such +people are unreasonable. They want money. Don't put me in prison! You +see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to +get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must +have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, +she might earn her living; but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a +bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made +me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not +love it; but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only +necessary to glance into my closets, and it would have been evident that +I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of +linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert!" + +She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, +her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, +stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and +terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had +become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused, and tenderly +kissed the police agent's coat. She would have softened a heart of +granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened. + +"Come!" said Javert, "I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? +You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could +do nothing more." + +At these solemn words, "the Eternal Father in person could do nothing +more," she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down, +murmuring, "Mercy!" + +Javert turned his back. + +The soldiers seized her by the arms. + +A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed +to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to +Fantine's despairing supplications. + +At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate +woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said:-- + +"One moment, if you please." + +Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat, +and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness:-- + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor--" + +The words "Mr. Mayor" produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose +to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth, +thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M. +Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him, +with a bewildered air, she cried:-- + +"Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!" + +Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face. + +M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said:-- + +"Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty." + +Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at +that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent +emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of +the town spit in the mayor's face was a thing so monstrous that, in his +most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege +to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his +thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as +to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse +of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But +when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and +say, "Set this woman at liberty," he underwent a sort of intoxication +of amazement; thought and word failed him equally; the sum total of +possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute. + +The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised +her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who +is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in a +low voice, as though talking to herself:-- + +"At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six +months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said +that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a +mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be +set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me +go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the +cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all +because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that +is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her +work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery +followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these +gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison +contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you +see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to +nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become +whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was actually +forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is that that +blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I stamped on +that gentleman's hat in front of the officers' cafe; but he had spoiled +my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress for evening +wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately--truly, Monsieur +Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked than I, +and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders +that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak to my +landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am +perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally +touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke." + +M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was +speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened +it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine, "How +much did you say that you owed?" + +Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:-- + +"Was I speaking to you?" + +Then, addressing the soldiers:-- + +"Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old +wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I'm not afraid of +you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur +Javert!" + +So saying, she turned to the inspector again:-- + +"And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I +understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly +simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman's back, and +that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way; +and we--well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course! +And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order, +you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since you +are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for +the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my +supporting my child. 'Only, don't do it again, you hussy!' Oh! I won't +do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me +now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me. +I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I +told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball +in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, 'Take care of yourself.' Here, +feel, give me your hand; don't be afraid--it is here." + +She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert's coarse +hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him. + +All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the +folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself +along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door, +saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod:-- + +"Children, Monsieur l'Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and +I am going." + +She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would +be in the street. + +Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes +fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced statue, +which is waiting to be put away somewhere. + +The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression +of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in +proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild +beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. + +"Sergeant!" he cried, "don't you see that that jade is walking off! Who +bade you let her go?" + +"I," said Madeleine. + +Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert's voice, and let go of the latch +as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the sound +of Madeleine's voice she turned around, and from that moment forth she +uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but her glance +strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine in turn, +according to which was speaking. + +It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure +before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he +had done, after the mayor's suggestion that Fantine should be set at +liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor's presence? +Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any +"authority" should have given such an order, and that the mayor must +certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending +it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for the +past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to +supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small should +be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into a +magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice, and +that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, +society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert? + +However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, _I_, as we +have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the +mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole body +agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented occurrence, and +say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, that cannot be." + +"Why not?" said M. Madeleine. + +"This miserable woman has insulted a citizen." + +"Inspector Javert," replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone, +"listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining +matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing +through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were +still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned +everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have +been arrested by properly conducted police." + +Javert retorted:-- + +"This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire." + +"That concerns me," said M. Madeleine. "My own insult belongs to me, I +think. I can do what I please about it." + +"I beg Monsieur le Maire's pardon. The insult is not to him but to the +law." + +"Inspector Javert," replied M. Madeleine, "the highest law is +conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing." + +"And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see." + +"Then content yourself with obeying." + +"I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six +months in prison." + +M. Madeleine replied gently:-- + +"Heed this well; she will not serve a single day." + +At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the +mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly +respectful:-- + +"I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my +life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my +authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the +question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself +on Monsieur Bamatabnois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that +handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, +three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are +in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of +police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain +this woman Fantine." + +Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no +one in the town had heard hitherto:-- + +"The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal +police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and +sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order +that this woman shall be set at liberty." + +Javert ventured to make a final effort. + +"But, Mr. Mayor--" + +"I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, +1799, in regard to arbitrary detention." + +"Monsieur le Maire, permit me--" + +"Not another word." + +"But--" + +"Leave the room," said M. Madeleine. + +Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like +a Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left +the room. + +Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he +passed. + +Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just +seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had +seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, +her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing +her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards the light. +In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of terror, these two +men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, +the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, +strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was +the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she +abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as the author of all +her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when she had insulted +him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had she, then, been +mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know; she +trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in affright, and +at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of +hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, +indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her +heart. + +When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and said +to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to +weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:-- + +"I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I +believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant +of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But +here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go +to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake +the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if +you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be +honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all +is as you say,--and I do not doubt it,--you have never ceased to be +virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman." + +This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this +life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to +see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of +her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and +could only give vent to two or three sobs, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and +before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her +lips to it. + +Then she fainted. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--JAVERT + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE + + +M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had +established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put +her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the night +in delirium and raving. At length, however, she fell asleep. + +On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one +breathing close to her bed; she drew aside the curtain and saw M. +Madeleine standing there and looking at something over her head. His +gaze was full of pity, anguish, and supplication. She followed its +direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix which was nailed to +the wall. + +Thenceforth, M. Madeleine was transfigured in Fantine's eyes. He seemed +to her to be clothed in light. He was absorbed in a sort of prayer. She +gazed at him for a long time without daring to interrupt him. At last +she said timidly:-- + +"What are you doing?" + +M. Madeleine had been there for an hour. He had been waiting for Fantine +to awake. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied:-- + +"How do you feel?" + +"Well, I have slept," she replied; "I think that I am better, It is +nothing." + +He answered, responding to the first question which she had put to him +as though he had just heard it:-- + +"I was praying to the martyr there on high." + +And he added in his own mind, "For the martyr here below." + +M. Madeleine had passed the night and the morning in making inquiries. +He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heart-rending +details. He went on:-- + +"You have suffered much, poor mother. Oh! do not complain; you now have +the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into angels. +It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise. +You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of +heaven. It was necessary to begin there." + +He sighed deeply. But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in which +two teeth were lacking. + +That same night, Javert wrote a letter. The next morning be posted it +himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the +superscription ran: To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur le +Prefet of Police. As the affair in the station-house had been bruited +about, the post-mistress and some other persons who saw the letter +before it was sent off, and who recognized Javert's handwriting on the +cover, thought that he was sending in his resignation. + +M. Madeleine made haste to write to the Thenardiers. Fantine owed +them one hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, +telling them to pay themselves from that sum, and to fetch the child +instantly to M. sur M., where her sick mother required her presence. + +This dazzled Thenardier. "The devil!" said the man to his wife; "don't +let's allow the child to go. This lark is going to turn into a milch +cow. I see through it. Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother." + +He replied with a very well drawn-up bill for five hundred and some odd +francs. In this memorandum two indisputable items figured up over three +hundred francs,--one for the doctor, the other for the apothecary +who had attended and physicked Eponine and Azelma through two long +illnesses. Cosette, as we have already said, had not been ill. It was +only a question of a trifling substitution of names. At the foot of the +memorandum Thenardier wrote, Received on account, three hundred francs. + +M. Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote, +"Make haste to bring Cosette." + +"Christi!" said Thenardier, "let's not give up the child." + +In the meantime, Fantine did not recover. She still remained in the +infirmary. + +The sisters had at first only received and nursed "that woman" with +repugnance. Those who have seen the bas-reliefs of Rheims will recall +the inflation of the lower lip of the wise virgins as they survey the +foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajae is +one of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity; the sisters +felt it with the double force contributed by religion. But in a few days +Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds of humble and gentle things, +and the mother in her provoked tenderness. One day the sisters heard +her say amid her fever: "I have been a sinner; but when I have my child +beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was +leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me; +I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her sake +that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall feel the +benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall gaze at her; +it will do me good to see that innocent creature. She knows nothing at +all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings have +not fallen off." + +M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and each time she asked him:-- + +"Shall I see my Cosette soon?" + +He answered:-- + +"To-morrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her." + +And the mother's pale face grew radiant. + +"Oh!" she said, "how happy I am going to be!" + +We have just said that she did not recover her health. On the contrary, +her condition seemed to become more grave from week to week. That +handful of snow applied to her bare skin between her shoulder-blades had +brought about a sudden suppression of perspiration, as a consequence of +which the malady which had been smouldering within her for many years +was violently developed at last. At that time people were beginning to +follow the fine Laennec's fine suggestions in the study and treatment of +chest maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine's chest and shook his head. + +M. Madeleine said to the doctor:-- + +"Well?" + +"Has she not a child which she desires to see?" said the doctor. + +"Yes." + +"Well! Make haste and get it here!" + +M. Madeleine shuddered. + +Fantine inquired:-- + +"What did the doctor say?" + +M. Madeleine forced himself to smile. + +"He said that your child was to be brought speedily. That that would +restore your health." + +"Oh!" she rejoined, "he is right! But what do those Thenardiers mean +by keeping my Cosette from me! Oh! she is coming. At last I behold +happiness close beside me!" + +In the meantime Thenardier did not "let go of the child," and gave a +hundred insufficient reasons for it. Cosette was not quite well enough +to take a journey in the winter. And then, there still remained some +petty but pressing debts in the neighborhood, and they were collecting +the bills for them, etc., etc. + +"I shall send some one to fetch Cosette!" said Father Madeleine. "If +necessary, I will go myself." + +He wrote the following letter to Fantine's dictation, and made her sign +it:-- + + "MONSIEUR THENARDIER:-- + You will deliver Cosette to this person. + You will be paid for all the little things. + I have the honor to salute you with respect. + "FANTINE." + + +In the meantime a serious incident occurred. Carve as we will the +mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny +constantly reappears in it. + + + + +CHAPTER II--HOW JEAN MAY BECOME CHAMP + + +One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in +advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor's office, in case +he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was informed +that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with him. +Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on hearing +this name. Javert had avoided him more than ever since the affair of the +police-station, and M. Madeleine had not seen him. + +"Admit him," he said. + +Javert entered. + +M. Madeleine had retained his seat near the fire, pen in hand, his eyes +fixed on the docket which he was turning over and annotating, and which +contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of +police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He +could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be glacial +in his manner. + +Javert bestowed a respectful salute on the mayor, whose back was turned +to him. The mayor did not look at him, but went on annotating this +docket. + +Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without +breaking the silence. + +If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had +made a lengthy study of this savage in the service of civilization, +this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the +corporal, this spy who was incapable of a lie, this unspotted police +agent--if any physiognomist had known his secret and long-cherished +aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of +Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said to +himself, "What has taken place?" It was evident to any one acquainted +with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious +conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior +struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his +countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt +changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and +startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which +there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few paces in +the rear of the mayor's arm-chair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, +in an attitude almost of discipline, with the cold, ingenuous roughness +of a man who has never been gentle and who has always been patient; he +waited without uttering a word, without making a movement, in genuine +humility and tranquil resignation, calm, serious, hat in hand, with +eyes cast down, and an expression which was half-way between that of a +soldier in the presence of his officer and a criminal in the presence +of his judge, until it should please the mayor to turn round. All the +sentiments as well as all the memories which one might have attributed +to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as +granite, no longer bore any trace of anything but a melancholy +depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and an +indescribable courageous despondency. + +At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned half round. + +"Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?" + +Javert remained silent for an instant as though collecting his ideas, +then raised his voice with a sort of sad solemnity, which did not, +however, preclude simplicity. + +"This is the matter, Mr. Mayor; a culpable act has been committed." + +"What act?" + +"An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the +gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to +your knowledge, as it is my duty to do." + +"Who is the agent?" asked M. Madeleine. + +"I," said Javert. + +"You?" + +"I." + +"And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent?" + +"You, Mr. Mayor." + +M. Madeleine sat erect in his arm-chair. Javert went on, with a severe +air and his eyes still cast down. + +"Mr. Mayor, I have come to request you to instigate the authorities to +dismiss me." + +M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him:-- + +"You will say that I might have handed in my resignation, but that does +not suffice. Handing in one's resignation is honorable. I have failed in +my duty; I ought to be punished; I must be turned out." + +And after a pause he added:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, you were severe with me the other day, and unjustly. Be so +to-day, with justice." + +"Come, now! Why?" exclaimed M. Madeleine. "What nonsense is this? +What is the meaning of this? What culpable act have you been guilty of +towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard +to me? You accuse yourself; you wish to be superseded--" + +"Turned out," said Javert. + +"Turned out; so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand." + +"You shall understand, Mr. Mayor." + +Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still +coldly and sadly:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, six weeks ago, in consequence of the scene over that woman, +I was furious, and I informed against you." + +"Informed against me!" + +"At the Prefecture of Police in Paris." + +M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than +Javert himself, burst out laughing now:-- + +"As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?" + +"As an ex-convict." + +The mayor turned livid. + +Javert, who had not raised his eyes, went on:-- + +"I thought it was so. I had had an idea for a long time; a resemblance; +inquiries which you had caused to be made at Faverolles; the strength +of your loins; the adventure with old Fauchelevant; your skill in +marksmanship; your leg, which you drag a little;--I hardly know what +all,--absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean +Valjean." + +"A certain--What did you say the name was?" + +"Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing twenty +years ago, when I was adjutant-guard of convicts at Toulon. On leaving +the galleys, this Jean Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop; then he +committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway +on the person of a little Savoyard. He disappeared eight years ago, no +one knows how, and he has been sought, I fancied. In short, I did this +thing! Wrath impelled me; I denounced you at the Prefecture!" + +M. Madeleine, who had taken up the docket again several moments before +this, resumed with an air of perfect indifference:-- + +"And what reply did you receive?" + +"That I was mad." + +"Well?" + +"Well, they were right." + +"It is lucky that you recognize the fact." + +"I am forced to do so, since the real Jean Valjean has been found." + +The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his +hand; he raised his head, gazed fixedly at Javert, and said with his +indescribable accent:-- + +"Ah!" + +Javert continued:-- + +"This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor. It seems that there was in the +neighborhood near Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher an old fellow who was called +Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any +attention to him. No one knows what such people subsist on. Lately, last +autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some cider +apples from--Well, no matter, a theft had been committed, a wall scaled, +branches of trees broken. My Champmathieu was arrested. He still had +the branch of apple-tree in his hand. The scamp is locked up. Up to +this point it was merely an affair of a misdemeanor. But here is where +Providence intervened. + +"The jail being in a bad condition, the examining magistrate finds it +convenient to transfer Champmathieu to Arras, where the departmental +prison is situated. In this prison at Arras there is an ex-convict named +Brevet, who is detained for I know not what, and who has been appointed +turnkey of the house, because of good behavior. Mr. Mayor, no sooner had +Champmathieu arrived than Brevet exclaims: 'Eh! Why, I know that man! +He is a fagot![4] Take a good look at me, my good man! You are Jean +Valjean!' 'Jean Valjean! who's Jean Valjean?' Champmathieu feigns +astonishment. 'Don't play the innocent dodge,' says Brevet. 'You are +Jean Valjean! You have been in the galleys of Toulon; it was twenty +years ago; we were there together.' Champmathieu denies it. Parbleu! You +understand. The case is investigated. The thing was well ventilated for +me. This is what they discovered: This Champmathieu had been, thirty +years ago, a pruner of trees in various localities, notably at +Faverolles. There all trace of him was lost. A long time afterwards he +was seen again in Auvergne; then in Paris, where he is said to have been +a wheelwright, and to have had a daughter, who was a laundress; but that +has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for theft, what +was Jean Valjean? A pruner of trees. Where? At Faverolles. Another fact. +This Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's surname was +Mathieu. What more natural to suppose than that, on emerging from the +galleys, he should have taken his mother's name for the purpose of +concealing himself, and have called himself Jean Mathieu? He goes to +Auvergne. The local pronunciation turns Jean into Chan--he is called +Chan Mathieu. Our man offers no opposition, and behold him transformed +into Champmathieu. You follow me, do you not? Inquiries were made at +Faverolles. The family of Jean Valjean is no longer there. It is not +known where they have gone. You know that among those classes a family +often disappears. Search was made, and nothing was found. When such +people are not mud, they are dust. And then, as the beginning of the +story dates thirty years back, there is no longer any one at Faverolles +who knew Jean Valjean. Inquiries were made at Toulon. Besides Brevet, +there are only two convicts in existence who have seen Jean Valjean; +they are Cochepaille and Chenildieu, and are sentenced for life. +They are taken from the galleys and confronted with the pretended +Champmathieu. They do not hesitate; he is Jean Valjean for them as well +as for Brevet. The same age,--he is fifty-four,--the same height, the +same air, the same man; in short, it is he. It was precisely at this +moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the Prefecture in Paris. I +was told that I had lost my reason, and that Jean Valjean is at Arras, +in the power of the authorities. You can imagine whether this surprised +me, when I thought that I had that same Jean Valjean here. I write to +the examining judge; he sends for me; Champmathieu is conducted to me--" + +"Well?" interposed M. Madeleine. + +Javert replied, his face incorruptible, and as melancholy as ever:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth. I am sorry; but that man is Jean +Valjean. I recognized him also." + +M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:-- + +"You are sure?" + +Javert began to laugh, with that mournful laugh which comes from +profound conviction. + +"O! Sure!" + +He stood there thoughtfully for a moment, mechanically taking pinches of +powdered wood for blotting ink from the wooden bowl which stood on the +table, and he added:-- + +"And even now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I do not see how I +could have thought otherwise. I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor." + +Javert, as he addressed these grave and supplicating words to the man, +who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole +station-house, and bade him "leave the room,"--Javert, that haughty man, +was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity,--M. Madeleine made no +other reply to his prayer than the abrupt question:-- + +"And what does this man say?" + +"Ah! Indeed, Mr. Mayor, it's a bad business. If he is Jean Valjean, he +has his previous conviction against him. To climb a wall, to break a +branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a +man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime. Robbing +and housebreaking--it is all there. It is no longer a question of +correctional police; it is a matter for the Court of Assizes. It is no +longer a matter of a few days in prison; it is the galleys for life. And +then, there is the affair with the little Savoyard, who will return, I +hope. The deuce! there is plenty to dispute in the matter, is there not? +Yes, for any one but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly dog. That +is the way I recognized him. Any other man would have felt that things +were getting hot for him; he would struggle, he would cry out--the +kettle sings before the fire; he would not be Jean Valjean, et +cetera. But he has not the appearance of understanding; he says, 'I am +Champmathieu, and I won't depart from that!' He has an astonished air, +he pretends to be stupid; it is far better. Oh! the rogue is clever! But +it makes no difference. The proofs are there. He has been recognized by +four persons; the old scamp will be condemned. The case has been taken +to the Assizes at Arras. I shall go there to give my testimony. I have +been summoned." + +M. Madeleine had turned to his desk again, and taken up his docket, and +was turning over the leaves tranquilly, reading and writing by turns, +like a busy man. He turned to Javert:-- + +"That will do, Javert. In truth, all these details interest me but +little. We are wasting our time, and we have pressing business on hand. +Javert, you will betake yourself at once to the house of the woman +Buseaupied, who sells herbs at the corner of the Rue Saint-Saulve. You +will tell her that she must enter her complaint against carter Pierre +Chesnelong. The man is a brute, who came near crushing this woman and +her child. He must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcellay, +Rue Montre-de-Champigny. He complained that there is a gutter on the +adjoining house which discharges rain-water on his premises, and is +undermining the foundations of his house. After that, you will verify +the infractions of police regulations which have been reported to me in +the Rue Guibourg, at Widow Doris's, and Rue du Garraud-Blanc, at Madame +Renee le Bosse's, and you will prepare documents. But I am giving you a +great deal of work. Are you not to be absent? Did you not tell me that +you were going to Arras on that matter in a week or ten days?" + +"Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor." + +"On what day, then?" + +"Why, I thought that I had said to Monsieur le Maire that the case was +to be tried to-morrow, and that I am to set out by diligence to-night." + +M. Madeleine made an imperceptible movement. + +"And how long will the case last?" + +"One day, at the most. The judgment will be pronounced to-morrow evening +at latest. But I shall not wait for the sentence, which is certain; I +shall return here as soon as my deposition has been taken." + +"That is well," said M. Madeleine. + +And he dismissed Javert with a wave of the hand. + +Javert did not withdraw. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor," said he. + +"What is it now?" demanded M. Madeleine. + +"Mr. Mayor, there is still something of which I must remind you." + +"What is it?" + +"That I must be dismissed." + +M. Madeleine rose. + +"Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you. You exaggerate your +fault. Moreover, this is an offence which concerns me. Javert, you +deserve promotion instead of degradation. I wish you to retain your +post." + +Javert gazed at M. Madeleine with his candid eyes, in whose depths his +not very enlightened but pure and rigid conscience seemed visible, and +said in a tranquil voice:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, I cannot grant you that." + +"I repeat," replied M. Madeleine, "that the matter concerns me." + +But Javert, heeding his own thought only, continued:-- + +"So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is the +way I reason: I have suspected you unjustly. That is nothing. It is our +right to cherish suspicion, although suspicion directed above ourselves +is an abuse. But without proofs, in a fit of rage, with the object +of wreaking my vengeance, I have denounced you as a convict, you, a +respectable man, a mayor, a magistrate! That is serious, very serious. I +have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the authorities! +If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I should have +declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him. Well? Stop, +Mr. Mayor; one word more. I have often been severe in the course of my +life towards others. That is just. I have done well. Now, if I were not +severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become +injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should +be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not myself! Why, I +should be a blackguard! Those who say, 'That blackguard of a Javert!' +would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that you should treat +me kindly; your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was +directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The kindness which +consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police +agent against the mayor, the man who is down against the man who is +up in the world, is what I call false kindness. That is the sort of +kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be +kind; the difficulty lies in being just. Come! if you had been what I +thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have +seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. +When I have subdued malefactors, when I have proceeded with vigor +against rascals, I have often said to myself, 'If you flinch, if I ever +catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!' I have flinched, I +have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse! Come, discharged, +cashiered, expelled! That is well. I have arms. I will till the soil; it +makes no difference to me. Mr. Mayor, the good of the service demands an +example. I simply require the discharge of Inspector Javert." + +All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced tone, +which lent indescribable grandeur to this singular, honest man. + +"We shall see," said M. Madeleine. + +And he offered him his hand. + +Javert recoiled, and said in a wild voice:-- + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his +hand to a police spy." + +He added between his teeth:-- + +"A police spy, yes; from the moment when I have misused the police. I am +no more than a police spy." + +Then he bowed profoundly, and directed his steps towards the door. + +There he wheeled round, and with eyes still downcast:-- + +"Mr. Mayor," he said, "I shall continue to serve until I am superseded." + +He withdrew. M. Madeleine remained thoughtfully listening to the firm, +sure step, which died away on the pavement of the corridor. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR + + + + +CHAPTER I--SISTER SIMPLICE + +The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M. sur +M. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory +in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did +not narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details the +reader will encounter two or three improbable circumstances, which we +preserve out of respect for the truth. + +On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to see +Fantine according to his wont. + +Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned. + +The two nuns who performed the services of nurse in the infirmary, +Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of Sister +Perpetue and Sister Simplice. + +Sister Perpetue was an ordinary villager, a sister of charity in a +coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any other +service. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is not +so very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasant +earthenware, which is easily fashioned into a Capuchin or an Ursuline. +These rustics are utilized for the rough work of devotion. The +transition from a drover to a Carmelite is not in the least violent; +the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorance +common to the village and the cloister is a preparation ready at hand, +and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk: a little +more amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perpetue +was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois, +droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the +hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was +crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their +death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; was bold, honest, and ruddy. + +Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perpetue, +she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely traced +the features of the Sister of Charity in these admirable words, in which +he mingles as much freedom as servitude: "They shall have for their +convent only the house of the sick; for cell only a hired room; for +chapel only their parish church; for cloister only the streets of the +town and the wards of the hospitals; for enclosure only obedience; for +gratings only the fear of God; for veil only modesty." This ideal was +realized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never been +young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one could +have told Sister Simplice's age. She was a person--we dare not say a +woman--who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never lied. +She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more solid than +granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pure +and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech; she said just +what was necessary, and she possessed a tone of voice which would +have equally edified a confessional or enchanted a drawing-room. This +delicacy accommodated itself to the serge gown, finding in this harsh +contact a continual reminder of heaven and of God. Let us emphasize +one detail. Never to have lied, never to have said, for any interest +whatever, even in indifference, any single thing which was not the +truth, the sacred truth, was Sister Simplice's distinctive trait; it was +the accent of her virtue. She was almost renowned in the congregation +for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbe Sicard speaks of Sister +Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere +we may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocent +lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent lie--does such a thing exist? To +lie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible: he +who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. +Satan has two names; he is called Satan and Lying. That is what she +thought; and as she thought, so she did. The result was the whiteness +which we have mentioned--a whiteness which covered even her lips and her +eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. There was +not a single spider's web, not a grain of dust, on the glass window of +that conscience. On entering the order of Saint Vincent de Paul, she had +taken the name of Simplice by special choice. Simplice of Sicily, as we +know, is the saint who preferred to allow both her breasts to be torn +off rather than to say that she had been born at Segesta when she had +been born at Syracuse--a lie which would have saved her. This patron +saint suited this soul. + +Sister Simplice, on her entrance into the order, had had two faults +which she had gradually corrected: she had a taste for dainties, and she +liked to receive letters. She never read anything but a book of prayers +printed in Latin, in coarse type. She did not understand Latin, but she +understood the book. + +This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probably +feeling a latent virtue there, and she had devoted herself almost +exclusively to her care. + +M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her +in a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on. + +On leaving the sister, he approached Fantine. + +Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray +of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, "I only live when Monsieur +le Maire is here." + +She had a great deal of fever that day. As soon as she saw M. Madeleine +she asked him:-- + +"And Cosette?" + +He replied with a smile:-- + +"Soon." + +M. Madeleine was the same as usual with Fantine. Only he remained an +hour instead of half an hour, to Fantine's great delight. He urged every +one repeatedly not to allow the invalid to want for anything. It was +noticed that there was a moment when his countenance became very sombre. +But this was explained when it became known that the doctor had bent +down to his ear and said to him, "She is losing ground fast." + +Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed him +attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He +wrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE PERSPICACITY OF MASTER SCAUFFLAIRE + +From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a +Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out "horses +and cabriolets as desired." + +In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the +little-frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the +parish in which M. Madeleine resided. The cure was, it was said, a +worthy, respectable, and sensible man. At the moment when M. Madeleine +arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passer-by in the +street, and this person noticed this: After the mayor had passed the +priest's house he halted, stood motionless, then turned about, and +retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage, which had an iron +knocker. He laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it; then +he paused again and stopped short, as though in thought, and after +the lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall +abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste +which had not been apparent previously. + +M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home, engaged in stitching a +harness over. + +"Master Scaufflaire," he inquired, "have you a good horse?" + +"Mr. Mayor," said the Fleming, "all my horses are good. What do you mean +by a good horse?" + +"I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day." + +"The deuce!" said the Fleming. "Twenty leagues!" + +"Yes." + +"Hitched to a cabriolet?" + +"Yes." + +"And how long can he rest at the end of his journey?" + +"He must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary." + +"To traverse the same road?" + +"Yes." + +"The deuce! the deuce! And it is twenty leagues?" + +M. Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled +some figures. He showed it to the Fleming. The figures were 5, 6, 8 1/2. + +"You see," he said, "total, nineteen and a half; as well say twenty +leagues." + +"Mr. Mayor," returned the Fleming, "I have just what you want. My little +white horse--you may have seen him pass occasionally; he is a small +beast from Lower Boulonnais. He is full of fire. They wanted to make +a saddle-horse of him at first. Bah! He reared, he kicked, he laid +everybody flat on the ground. He was thought to be vicious, and no one +knew what to do with him. I bought him. I harnessed him to a carriage. +That is what he wanted, sir; he is as gentle as a girl; he goes like the +wind. Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to +be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' +We must suppose that is what he said to himself." + +"And he will accomplish the trip?" + +"Your twenty leagues all at a full trot, and in less than eight hours. +But here are the conditions." + +"State them." + +"In the first place, you will give him half an hour's breathing spell +midway of the road; he will eat; and some one must be by while he is +eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats; for +I have noticed that in inns the oats are more often drunk by the stable +men than eaten by the horses." + +"Some one will be by." + +"In the second place--is the cabriolet for Monsieur le Maire?" + +"Yes." + +"Does Monsieur le Maire know how to drive?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Monsieur le Maire will travel alone and without baggage, in order +not to overload the horse?" + +"Agreed." + +"But as Monsieur le Maire will have no one with him, he will be obliged +to take the trouble himself of seeing that the oats are not stolen." + +"That is understood." + +"I am to have thirty francs a day. The days of rest to be paid for +also--not a farthing less; and the beast's food to be at Monsieur le +Maire's expense." + +M. Madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the +table. + +"Here is the pay for two days in advance." + +"Fourthly, for such a journey a cabriolet would be too heavy, and would +fatigue the horse. Monsieur le Maire must consent to travel in a little +tilbury that I own." + +"I consent to that." + +"It is light, but it has no cover." + +"That makes no difference to me." + +"Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter?" + +M. Madeleine did not reply. The Fleming resumed:-- + +"That it is very cold?" + +M. Madeleine preserved silence. + +Master Scaufflaire continued:-- + +"That it may rain?" + +M. Madeleine raised his head and said:-- + +"The tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door to-morrow morning +at half-past four o'clock." + +"Of course, Monsieur le Maire," replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a +speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that +careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with +their shrewdness:-- + +"But this is what I am thinking of now: Monsieur le Maire has not told +me where he is going. Where is Monsieur le Maire going?" + +He had been thinking of nothing else since the beginning of the +conversation, but he did not know why he had not dared to put the +question. + +"Are your horse's forelegs good?" said M. Madeleine. + +"Yes, Monsieur le Maire. You must hold him in a little when going down +hill. Are there many descends between here and the place whither you are +going?" + +"Do not forget to be at my door at precisely half-past four o'clock +to-morrow morning," replied M. Madeleine; and he took his departure. + +The Fleming remained "utterly stupid," as he himself said some time +afterwards. + +The mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened again; +it was the mayor once more. + +He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air. + +"Monsieur Scaufflaire," said he, "at what sum do you estimate the value +of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,--the one bearing +the other?" + +"The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire," said the Fleming, with +a broad smile. + +"So be it. Well?" + +"Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me?" + +"No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back +the sum at my return. At what value do you estimate your horse and +cabriolet?" + +"Five hundred francs, Monsieur le Maire." + +"Here it is." + +M. Madeleine laid a bank-bill on the table, then left the room; and this +time he did not return. + +Master Scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said a +thousand francs. Besides the horse and tilbury together were worth but a +hundred crowns. + +The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her. "Where the +devil could Monsieur le Maire be going?" They held counsel together. +"He is going to Paris," said the wife. "I don't believe it," said the +husband. + +M. Madeleine had forgotten the paper with the figures on it, and it lay +on the chimney-piece. The Fleming picked it up and studied it. "Five, +six, eight and a half? That must designate the posting relays." He +turned to his wife:-- + +"I have found out." + +"What?" + +"It is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from Hesdin to Saint-Pol, +eight and a half from Saint-Pol to Arras. He is going to Arras." + +Meanwhile, M. Madeleine had returned home. He had taken the longest way +to return from Master Scaufflaire's, as though the parsonage door had +been a temptation for him, and he had wished to avoid it. He ascended +to his room, and there he shut himself up, which was a very simple act, +since he liked to go to bed early. Nevertheless, the portress of the +factory, who was, at the same time, M. Madeleine's only servant, noticed +that the latter's light was extinguished at half-past eight, and she +mentioned it to the cashier when he came home, adding:-- + +"Is Monsieur le Maire ill? I thought he had a rather singular air." + +This cashier occupied a room situated directly under M. Madeleine's +chamber. He paid no heed to the portress's words, but went to bed and +to sleep. Towards midnight he woke up with a start; in his sleep he had +heard a noise above his head. He listened; it was a footstep pacing back +and forth, as though some one were walking in the room above him. He +listened more attentively, and recognized M. Madeleine's step. This +struck him as strange; usually, there was no noise in M. Madeleine's +chamber until he rose in the morning. A moment later the cashier heard +a noise which resembled that of a cupboard being opened, and then shut +again; then a piece of furniture was disarranged; then a pause ensued; +then the step began again. The cashier sat up in bed, quite awake now, +and staring; and through his window-panes he saw the reddish gleam of a +lighted window reflected on the opposite wall; from the direction of the +rays, it could only come from the window of M. Madeleine's chamber. The +reflection wavered, as though it came rather from a fire which had +been lighted than from a candle. The shadow of the window-frame was not +shown, which indicated that the window was wide open. The fact that this +window was open in such cold weather was surprising. The cashier fell +asleep again. An hour or two later he waked again. The same step was +still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead. + +The reflection was still visible on the wall, but now it was pale and +peaceful, like the reflection of a lamp or of a candle. The window was +still open. + +This is what had taken place in M. Madeleine's room. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A TEMPEST IN A SKULL + +The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other +than Jean Valjean. + +We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment has +now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not without +emotion and trepidation. There is nothing more terrible in existence +than this sort of contemplation. The eye of the spirit can nowhere find +more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it can fix itself +on no other thing which is more formidable, more complicated, more +mysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle more grand than the +sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is +the inmost recesses of the soul. + +To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to +a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would +be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscience +is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of +dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium +of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at +certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged +in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that +obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, +like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons and +hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary circles, as in +Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears within +him, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of his +brain and the actions of his life! + +Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which he +hesitated. Here is one before us, upon whose threshold we hesitate. Let +us enter, nevertheless. + +We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what had +happened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. From +that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What +the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more +than a transformation; it was a transfiguration. + +He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop's silver, reserving only +the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed +France, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned, +accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safe +from seizure and inaccessible, and, thenceforth, established at M. sur +M., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the first +half of his existence belied by the last, he lived in peace, reassured +and hopeful, having henceforth only two thoughts,--to conceal his name +and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God. + +These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that +they formed but a single one there; both were equally absorbing and +imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired +to regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him towards the gloom; +they rendered him kindly and simple; they counselled him to the same +things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the reader +will remember, the man whom all the country of M. sur M. called M. +Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second--his +security to his virtue. Thus, in spite of all his reserve and all his +prudence, he had preserved the Bishop's candlesticks, worn mourning for +him, summoned and interrogated all the little Savoyards who passed that +way, collected information regarding the families at Faverolles, and +saved old Fauchelevent's life, despite the disquieting insinuations of +Javert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, as though he thought, +following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, +that his first duty was not towards himself. + +At the same time, it must be confessed, nothing just like this had yet +presented itself. + +Never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferings +we are narrating, engaged in so serious a struggle. He understood this +confusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert, +when the latter entered his study. At the moment when that name, which +he had buried beneath so many layers, was so strangely articulated, +he was struck with stupor, and as though intoxicated with the sinister +eccentricity of his destiny; and through this stupor he felt that +shudder which precedes great shocks. He bent like an oak at the approach +of a storm, like a soldier at the approach of an assault. He felt +shadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his head. +As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him was to +go, to run and denounce himself, to take that Champmathieu out of prison +and place himself there; this was as painful and as poignant as an +incision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said to +himself, "We will see! We will see!" He repressed this first, generous +instinct, and recoiled before heroism. + +It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, after +so many years of repentance and abnegation, in the midst of a penitence +admirably begun, if this man had not flinched for an instant, even in +the presence of so terrible a conjecture, but had continued to walk with +the same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of which +lay heaven; that would have been beautiful; but it was not thus. We must +render an account of the things which went on in this soul, and we can +only tell what there was there. He was carried away, at first, by +the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, +stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert's presence, that +great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook +off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a +warrior picks up his buckler. + +He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwind +within, a profound tranquillity without. He took no "preservative +measures," as they may be called. Everything was still confused, and +jostling together in his brain. His trouble was so great that he could +not perceive the form of a single idea distinctly, and he could have +told nothing about himself, except that he had received a great blow. + +He repaired to Fantine's bed of suffering, as usual, and prolonged his +visit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behave +thus, and recommend her well to the sisters, in case he should be +obliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might be +obliged to go to Arras; and without having the least in the world made +up his mind to this trip, he said to himself that being, as he was, +beyond the shadow of any suspicion, there could be nothing out of the +way in being a witness to what was to take place, and he engaged the +tilbury from Scaufflaire in order to be prepared in any event. + +He dined with a good deal of appetite. + +On returning to his room, he communed with himself. + +He examined the situation, and found it unprecedented; so unprecedented +that in the midst of his revery he rose from his chair, moved by some +inexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He feared +lest something more should enter. He was barricading himself against +possibilities. + +A moment later he extinguished his light; it embarrassed him. + +It seemed to him as though he might be seen. + +By whom? + +Alas! That on which he desired to close the door had already entered; +that which he desired to blind was staring him in the face,--his +conscience. + +His conscience; that is to say, God. + +Nevertheless, he deluded himself at first; he had a feeling of security +and of solitude; the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable; +the candle extinguished, he felt himself invisible. Then he took +possession of himself: he set his elbows on the table, leaned his head +on his hand, and began to meditate in the dark. + +"Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really +true that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in that +manner? Who can that Champmathieu be? So he resembles me! Is it +possible? When I reflect that yesterday I was so tranquil, and so far +from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What +is there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done?" + +This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its +power of retaining ideas; they passed like waves, and he clutched his +brow in both hands to arrest them. + +Nothing but anguish extricated itself from this tumult which overwhelmed +his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof and +resolution. + +His head was burning. He went to the window and threw it wide open. +There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at the +table. + +The first hour passed in this manner. + +Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fix +themselves in his meditation, and he was able to catch a glimpse with +precision of the reality,--not the whole situation, but some of +the details. He began by recognizing the fact that, critical and +extraordinary as was this situation, he was completely master of it. + +This only caused an increase of his stupor. + +Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to +his actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but a +hole in which to bury his name. That which he had always feared most of +all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to +ever hear that name pronounced; he had said to himself, that that would +be the end of all things for him; that on the day when that name made +its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about +him, and--who knows?--perhaps even his new soul within him, also. He +shuddered at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if any +one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that +name would ring in his ears, when the hideous words, Jean Valjean, would +suddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when that +formidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he had +enveloped himself, would suddenly blaze forth above his head, and that +that name would not menace him, that that light would but produce +an obscurity more dense, that this rent veil would but increase the +mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this +prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was +concerned, if so it seemed good to him, than that of rendering his +existence at once clearer and more impenetrable, and that, out of his +confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy +citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful, and +more respected than ever--if any one had told him that, he would have +tossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, all +this was precisely what had just come to pass; all that accumulation of +impossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted these wild fancies to +become real things! + +His revery continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to an +understanding of his position. + +It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from some inexplicable +dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middle +of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very +brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, +a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom she +was thrusting into the gulf in his stead; in order that the gulf might +close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or that other +man, should fall into it: he had only let things take their course. + +The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: That +his place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was still +awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it; +that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he filled +it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself, +"that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that a +certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself, +being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, present +in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, +provided that he did not prevent men from sealing over the head of +that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the stone of the +sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again." + +All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place +in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two +or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the +conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart, which +is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be called an +outburst of inward laughter. + +He hastily relighted his candle. + +"Well, what then?" he said to himself; "what am I afraid of? What is +there in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I had +but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life, +and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been +annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined +me, which had divined me--good God! and which followed me everywhere; +that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown +off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: +henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean +Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! +And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count +for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in this? Upon my +honor, people would think, to see me, that some catastrophe had happened +to me! After all, if it does bring harm to some one, that is not my +fault in the least: it is Providence which has done it all; it is +because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange +what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should I meddle? It does +not concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what more do I want? The +goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the dream of my nights, +the object of my prayers to Heaven,--security,--I have now attained; it +is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the will of God, and why +does God will it? In order that I may continue what I have begun, that I +may do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, that +it may be said at last, that a little happiness has been attached to +the penance which I have undergone, and to that virtue to which I have +returned. Really, I do not understand why I was afraid, a little while +ago, to enter the house of that good cure, and to ask his advice; this +is evidently what he would have said to me: It is settled; let things +take their course; let the good God do as he likes!" + +Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending +over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair, and began +to pace the room: "Come," said he, "let us think no more about it; my +resolve is taken!" but he felt no joy. + +Quite the reverse. + +One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can +the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the +guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. + +After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the +gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying +that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to that which +he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power +which said to him: "Think!" as it said to another condemned man, two +thousand years ago, "March on!" + +Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully +understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation. + +It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no living +being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never +a more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience +within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in +this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, he +said, he exclaimed, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talks +to one's self, exclaims to one's self without breaking the external +silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the +mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because +they are not visible and palpable. + +So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that +"settled resolve." He confessed to himself that all that he had just +arranged in his mind was monstrous, that "to let things take their +course, to let the good God do as he liked," was simply horrible; to +allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it, +to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short, +was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last +degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime! + +For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the +bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. + +He spit it out with disgust. + +He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had +meant by this, "My object is attained!" He declared to himself that +his life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? +To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all +that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the +true one--to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and +good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone, +which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon him--to +shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great God! he was +re-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was becoming a thief +once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was robbing another of +his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He was +becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretched +man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death +beneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, +to surrender himself to save that man, struck down with so melancholy +an error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the +convict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection, +and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall back +there in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must be +done! He had done nothing if he did not do all this; his whole life was +useless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of +saying, "What is the use?" He felt that the Bishop was there, that the +Bishop was present all the more because he was dead, that the Bishop +was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his +virtues, would be abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean +would be pure and admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but +that the Bishop saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishop +beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean +Valjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of +sacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but +it must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes +of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men. + +"Well," said he, "let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let us +save this man." He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that he +was speaking aloud. + +He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung in +the fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassed +tradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it might +have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment, +To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d'Artois, Paris. He drew from his +secretary a pocket-book which contained several bank-notes and the +passport of which he had made use that same year when he went to the +elections. + +Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts, +into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicion +of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his lips move; at +other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon some point of the +wall, as though there existed at that point something which he wished to +elucidate or interrogate. + +When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into his +pocket, together with the pocket-book, and began his walk once more. + +His revery had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his duty +clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes and +changed its place as he altered the direction of his glance:-- + +"Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself!" + +In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in +visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formed +the double rule of his soul,--the concealment of his name, the +sanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him as +absolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated them. +He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily, good, +while the other might become bad; that the first was self-devotion, and +that the other was personality; that the one said, my neighbor, and that +the other said, myself; that one emanated from the light, and the other +from darkness. + +They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as +he meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now +attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within +himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the +midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending. + +He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good thought +was getting the upper hand. + +He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of his +conscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked the first +phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After +the grand crisis, the grand test. + +But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession +of him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued to +fortify him in his resolution. + +One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter +too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and +that he had actually been guilty of theft. + +He answered himself: "If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that +means a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the galleys. And +who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of Jean Valjean +overwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not the attorneys +for the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is supposed to be a +thief because he is known to be a convict." + +In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when he +denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken into +consideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and what he +had done for the district, and that they would have mercy on him. + +But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as he +remembered that the theft of the forty sous from little Gervais put him +in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction, +that this affair would certainly come up, and, according to the precise +terms of the law, would render him liable to penal servitude for life. + +He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more and more from +earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himself +that he must do his duty; that perhaps he should not be more unhappy +after doing his duty than after having avoided it; that if he allowed +things to take their own course, if he remained at M. sur M., his +consideration, his good name, his good works, the deference and +veneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, his +virtue, would be seasoned with a crime. And what would be the taste of +all these holy things when bound up with this hideous thing? while, if +he accomplished his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled with +the galleys, the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil, +and pitiless shame. + +At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus +allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on +high, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without and +abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without. + +The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his courage to +fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of +indifferent matters, in spite of himself. + +The veins in his temples throbbed violently; he still paced to and fro; +midnight sounded first from the parish church, then from the town-hall; +he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the sounds +of the two bells; he recalled in this connection the fact that, a few +days previously, he had seen in an ironmonger's shop an ancient clock +for sale, upon which was written the name, Antoine-Albin de Romainville. + +He was cold; he lighted a small fire; it did not occur to him to close +the window. + +In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged to make +a tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the subject of his +thoughts before midnight had struck; he finally succeeded in doing this. + +"Ah! yes," he said to himself, "I had resolved to inform against +myself." + +And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine. + +"Hold!" said he, "and what about that poor woman?" + +Here a fresh crisis declared itself. + +Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his revery, produced the effect +of an unexpected ray of light; it seemed to him as though everything +about him were undergoing a change of aspect: he exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself; it is proper for +me to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to conceal my person or +to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an +infamous and venerable convict; it is I, it is always I and nothing +but I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms +of egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think a +little about others? The highest holiness is to think of others; come, +let us examine the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_ +forgotten, what would be the result of all this? What if I denounce +myself? I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back in +the galleys; that is well--and what then? What is going on here? Ah! +here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers, +both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this I +have created; all these I provide with their living; everywhere where +there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on the +hearth and meat in the pot; I have created ease, circulation, credit; +before me there was nothing; I have elevated, vivified, informed with +life, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole country-side; lacking +me, the soul is lacking; I take myself off, everything dies: and this +woman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spite +of her fall; the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been! And +that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to her +mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for +the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The mother +dies; the child becomes what it can; that is what will take place, if +I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? come, let us see how it +will be if I do not denounce myself." + +After putting this question to himself, he paused; he seemed to undergo +a momentary hesitation and trepidation; but it did not last long, and he +answered himself calmly:-- + +"Well, this man is going to the galleys; it is true, but what the deuce! +he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been guilty +of theft, for he has! I remain here; I go on: in ten years I shall have +made ten millions; I scatter them over the country; I have nothing of +my own; what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am doing it; +the prosperity of all goes on augmenting; industries are aroused and +animated; factories and shops are multiplied; families, a hundred +families, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomes +populated; villages spring up where there were only farms before; +farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, and +with wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder; all vices +disappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and behold +a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! +what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay +attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would +have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after +all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for +the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps, +but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing, +evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor woman must die in +the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street! like dogs; ah, +this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her child +once more, almost without the child's having known her mother; and +all that for the sake of an old wretch of an apple-thief who, most +assuredly, has deserved the galleys for something else, if not for +that; fine scruples, indeed, which save a guilty man and sacrifice the +innocent, which save an old vagabond who has only a few years to live at +most, and who will not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel, +and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. This +poor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, no +doubt, blue with cold at this moment in the den of those Thenardiers; +those peoples are rascals; and I was going to neglect my duty towards +all these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce myself; and I +was about to commit that unspeakable folly! Let us put it at the worst: +suppose that there is a wrong action on my part in this, and that my +conscience will reproach me for it some day, to accept, for the good of +others, these reproaches which weigh only on myself; this evil action +which compromises my soul alone; in that lies self-sacrifice; in that +alone there is virtue." + +He rose and resumed his march; this time, he seemed to be content. + +Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are +found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, after +having descended into these depths, after having long groped among the +darkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds, +one of these truths, and that he now held it in his hand, and he was +dazzled as he gazed upon it. + +"Yes," he thought, "this is right; I am on the right road; I have the +solution; I must end by holding fast to something; my resolve is taken; +let things take their course; let us no longer vacillate; let us no +longer hang back; this is for the interest of all, not for my own; I am +Madeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean! +I am no longer he; I do not know that man; I no longer know anything; it +turns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present moment; let him +look out for himself; that does not concern me; it is a fatal name which +was floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a head, so +much the worse for that head." + +He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece, and +said:-- + +"Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision; I am quite another man +now." + +He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short. + +"Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before any of the consequences of +the resolution which I have once adopted; there are still threads which +attach me to that Jean Valjean; they must be broken; in this very room +there are objects which would betray me, dumb things which would bear +witness against me; it is settled; all these things must disappear." + +He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out a +small key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardly +be seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones of the design which +covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort of +false cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the +chimney-piece; in this hiding-place there were some rags--a blue linen +blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge thorn +cudgel shod with iron at both ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean at +the epoch when he passed through D----in October, 1815, could easily +have recognized all the pieces of this miserable outfit. + +He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks, in +order to remind himself continually of his starting-point, but he +had concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had allowed the +candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen. + +He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that it +would open in spite of the bolt which fastened it; then, with a quick +and abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms at once, without +bestowing so much as a glance on the things which he had so religiously +and so perilously preserved for so many years, and flung them all, rags, +cudgel, knapsack, into the fire. + +[Illustration: Candlesticks Into the Fire 1b7-3-into-the-fire] + +He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions, +henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door +behind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front of it. + +After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were +lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire; +the thorn cudgel snapped and threw out sparks to the middle of the +chamber. + +As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags which it +contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By bending +over, one could have readily recognized a coin,--no doubt the forty-sou +piece stolen from the little Savoyard. + +He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with the same +step. + +All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which shone +vaguely on the chimney-piece, through the glow. + +"Hold!" he thought; "the whole of Jean Valjean is still in them. They +must be destroyed also." + +He seized the two candlesticks. + +There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out of shape, +and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal. + +He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a sense +of real comfort. "How good warmth is!" said he. + +He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks. + +A minute more, and they were both in the fire. + +At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him +shouting: "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" + +His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to some +terrible thing. + +"Yes, that's it! finish!" said the voice. "Complete what you are about! +Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop! +Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right! Applaud +yourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed: here is an old man +who does not know what is wanted of him, who has, perhaps, done nothing, +an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in your name, upon whom +your name weighs like a crime, who is about to be taken for you, who +will be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror. +That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire; +remain honorable and honored; enrich the town; nourish the indigent; +rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and admired; and, during this +time, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be a +man who will wear your red blouse, who will bear your name in ignominy, +and who will drag your chain in the galleys. Yes, it is well arranged +thus. Ah, wretch!" + +The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the +candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The +voice continued:-- + +"Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a +great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and +only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark. +Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before +they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God." + +This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the most +obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling and +formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him that +it had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outside +of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he +glanced around the room in a sort of terror. + +"Is there any one here?" he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment. + +Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:-- + +"How stupid I am! There can be no one!" + +There was some one; but the person who was there was of those whom the +human eye cannot see. + +He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece. + +Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which troubled the +dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start. + +This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him. +It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about +for the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounter +by change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew +his position. + +He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions at which he +had arrived in turn. The two ideas which counselled him appeared to him +equally fatal. What a fatality! What conjunction that that Champmathieu +should have been taken for him; to be overwhelmed by precisely the means +which Providence seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen his +position! + +There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself, +great God! Deliver himself up! With immense despair he faced all that +he should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up +once more. He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was so +good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty. +He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never more hear the +birds sing in the month of May; he should never more bestow alms on the +little children; he should never more experience the sweetness of having +glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he should quit that house +which he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming to +him at that moment. Never again should he read those books; never more +should he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress, +the only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him his coffee +in the morning. Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the iron +necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, +the camp bed all those horrors which he knew so well! At his age, +after having been what he was! If he were only young again! but to +be addressed in his old age as "thou" by any one who pleased; to +be searched by the convict-guard; to receive the galley-sergeant's +cudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have to +stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman who +visits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be +told: "That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor of +M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with +lassitude, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount, two by +two, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the sergeant's whip. +Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent +being, and become as monstrous as the human heart? + +And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma +which lay at the foundation of his revery: "Should he remain in paradise +and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?" + +What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done? + +The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was +unchained afresh within him. His ideas began to grow confused once +more; they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is +peculiar to despair. The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to his +mind, with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past. +He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris, where young +lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April. + +He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child +who is permitted to toddle alone. + +At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to recover +the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time, +and definitely, the problem over which he had, in a manner, fallen +prostrate with fatigue: Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he to hold +his peace? He could not manage to see anything distinctly. The vague +aspects of all the courses of reasoning which had been sketched out by +his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. +He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up his mind, +something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his being +able to escape the fact; that he was entering a sepulchre on the +right hand as much as on the left; that he was passing through a death +agony,--the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue. + +Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him. He was no +further advanced than at the beginning. + +Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred +years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are +summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had also +long thrust aside with his hand, while the olive-trees quivered in +the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Him +dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all +studded with stars. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--FORMS ASSUMED BY SUFFERING DURING SLEEP + +Three o'clock in the morning had just struck, and he had been walking +thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed +himself to drop into his chair. + +There he fell asleep and had a dream. + +This dream, like the majority of dreams, bore no relation to the +situation, except by its painful and heart-rending character, but it +made an impression on him. This nightmare struck him so forcibly that he +wrote it down later on. It is one of the papers in his own handwriting +which he has bequeathed to us. We think that we have here reproduced the +thing in strict accordance with the text. + +Of whatever nature this dream may be, the history of this night would +be incomplete if we were to omit it: it is the gloomy adventure of an +ailing soul. + +Here it is. On the envelope we find this line inscribed, "The Dream I +had that Night." + +"I was in a plain; a vast, gloomy plain, where there was no grass. It +did not seem to me to be daylight nor yet night. + +"I was walking with my brother, the brother of my childish years, +the brother of whom, I must say, I never think, and whom I now hardly +remember. + +"We were conversing and we met some passers-by. We were talking of a +neighbor of ours in former days, who had always worked with her window +open from the time when she came to live on the street. As we talked we +felt cold because of that open window. + +"There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He +was entirely nude, of the hue of ashes, and mounted on a horse which was +earth color. The man had no hair; we could see his skull and the veins +on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vine-shoot +and as heavy as iron. This horseman passed and said nothing to us. + +"My brother said to me, 'Let us take to the hollow road.' + +"There existed a hollow way wherein one saw neither a single shrub nor +a spear of moss. Everything was dirt-colored, even the sky. After +proceeding a few paces, I received no reply when I spoke: I perceived +that my brother was no longer with me. + +"I entered a village which I espied. I reflected that it must be +Romainville. (Why Romainville?)[5] + +"The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second +street. Behind the angle formed by the two streets, a man was standing +erect against the wall. I said to this Man:-- + +"'What country is this? Where am I?' The man made no reply. I saw the +door of a house open, and I entered. + +"The first chamber was deserted. I entered the second. Behind the door +of this chamber a man was standing erect against the wall. I inquired of +this man, 'Whose house is this? Where am I?' The man replied not. + +"The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden. +The garden was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing +upright. I said to this man, 'What garden is this? Where am I?' The man +did not answer. + +"I strolled into the village, and perceived that it was a town. All +the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living +being was passing in the streets, walking through the chambers or +strolling in the gardens. But behind each angle of the walls, behind +each door, behind each tree, stood a silent man. Only one was to be seen +at a time. These men watched me pass. + +"I left the town and began to ramble about the fields. + +"After the lapse of some time I turned back and saw a great crowd coming +up behind me. I recognized all the men whom I had seen in that town. +They had strange heads. They did not seem to be in a hurry, yet they +walked faster than I did. They made no noise as they walked. In an +instant this crowd had overtaken and surrounded me. The faces of these +men were earthen in hue. + +"Then the first one whom I had seen and questioned on entering the town +said to me:-- + +"'Whither are you going! Do you not know that you have been dead this +long time?' + +"I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near +me." + + +He woke. He was icy cold. A wind which was chill like the breeze of dawn +was rattling the leaves of the window, which had been left open on their +hinges. The fire was out. The candle was nearing its end. It was still +black night. + +He rose, he went to the window. There were no stars in the sky even yet. + +From his window the yard of the house and the street were visible. A +sharp, harsh noise, which made him drop his eyes, resounded from the +earth. + +Below him he perceived two red stars, whose rays lengthened and +shortened in a singular manner through the darkness. + +As his thoughts were still half immersed in the mists of sleep, "Hold!" +said he, "there are no stars in the sky. They are on earth now." + +But this confusion vanished; a second sound similar to the first roused +him thoroughly; he looked and recognized the fact that these two stars +were the lanterns of a carriage. By the light which they cast he was +able to distinguish the form of this vehicle. It was a tilbury harnessed +to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling +of the horse's hoofs on the pavement. + +"What vehicle is this?" he said to himself. "Who is coming here so early +in the morning?" + +At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber. + +He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:-- + +"Who is there?" + +Some one said:-- + +"I, Monsieur le Maire." + +He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress. + +"Well!" he replied, "what is it?" + +"Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o'clock in the morning." + +"What is that to me?" + +"The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire." + +"What cabriolet?" + +"The tilbury." + +"What tilbury?" + +"Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury?" + +"No," said he. + +"The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire." + +"What coachman?" + +"M. Scaufflaire's coachman." + +"M. Scaufflaire?" + +That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had +passed in front of his face. + +"Ah! yes," he resumed; "M. Scaufflaire!" + +If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been +frightened. + +A tolerably long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle +with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning +wax, which he rolled between his fingers. The old woman waited for him. +She even ventured to uplift her voice once more:-- + +"What am I to say, Monsieur le Maire?" + +"Say that it is well, and that I am coming down." + + + + +CHAPTER V--HINDRANCES + +The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still operated at this +period by small mail-wagons of the time of the Empire. These mail-wagons +were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with fawn-colored +leather, hung on springs, and having but two seats, one for the postboy, +the other for the traveller. The wheels were armed with those long, +offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which +may still be seen on the road in Germany. The despatch box, an immense +oblong coffer, was placed behind the vehicle and formed a part of it. +This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. + +These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays, had something +distorted and hunchbacked about them; and when one saw them passing in +the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled +the insects which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with +but little corselet, drag a great train behind them. But they travelled +at a very rapid rate. The post-wagon which set out from Arras at one +o'clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. +sur M. a little before five o'clock in the morning. + +That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin +road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the +town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going +in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man +enveloped in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent +shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the traveller paid no +heed and pursued his road at full gallop. + +"That man is in a devilish hurry!" said the postman. + +The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have just seen struggling +in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity. + +Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was he hastening? +He did not know. He was driving at random, straight ahead. Whither? +To Arras, no doubt; but he might have been going elsewhere as well. +At times he was conscious of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the +night as into a gulf. Something urged him forward; something drew him +on. No one could have told what was taking place within him; every one +will understand it. What man is there who has not entered, at least once +in his life, into that obscure cavern of the unknown? + +However, he had resolved on nothing, decided nothing, formed no plan, +done nothing. None of the actions of his conscience had been decisive. +He was, more than ever, as he had been at the first moment. + +Why was he going to Arras? + +He repeated what he had already said to himself when he had hired +Scaufflaire's cabriolet: that, whatever the result was to be, there was +no reason why he should not see with his own eyes, and judge of matters +for himself; that this was even prudent; that he must know what took +place; that no decision could be arrived at without having observed and +scrutinized; that one made mountains out of everything from a distance; +that, at any rate, when he should have seen that Champmathieu, some +wretch, his conscience would probably be greatly relieved to allow him +to go to the galleys in his stead; that Javert would indeed be there; +and that Brevet, that Chenildieu, that Cochepaille, old convicts who +had known him; but they certainly would not recognize him;--bah! what an +idea! that Javert was a hundred leagues from suspecting the truth; that +all conjectures and all suppositions were fixed on Champmathieu, and +that there is nothing so headstrong as suppositions and conjectures; +that accordingly there was no danger. + +That it was, no doubt, a dark moment, but that he should emerge from it; +that, after all, he held his destiny, however bad it might be, in his +own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to this thought. + +At bottom, to tell the whole truth, he would have preferred not to go to +Arras. + +Nevertheless, he was going thither. + +As he meditated, he whipped up his horse, which was proceeding at that +fine, regular, and even trot which accomplishes two leagues and a half +an hour. + +In proportion as the cabriolet advanced, he felt something within him +draw back. + +At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M. sur M. lay far +behind him. He watched the horizon grow white; he stared at all the +chilly figures of a winter's dawn as they passed before his eyes, +but without seeing them. The morning has its spectres as well as the +evening. He did not see them; but without his being aware of it, and by +means of a sort of penetration which was almost physical, these black +silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sinister quality +to the violent state of his soul. + +Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings which sometimes +border on the highway, he said to himself, "And yet there are people +there within who are sleeping!" + +The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the road, +produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These things are charming when one +is joyous, and lugubrious when one is sad. + +It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halted in front of +the inn, to allow the horse a breathing spell, and to have him given +some oats. + +The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small race of the +Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck +and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine +legs, and solid hoofs--a homely, but a robust and healthy race. The +excellent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had not a +drop of sweat on his loins. + +He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who brought the oats +suddenly bent down and examined the left wheel. + +"Are you going far in this condition?" said the man. + +He replied, with an air of not having roused himself from his revery:-- + +"Why?" + +"Have you come from a great distance?" went on the man. + +"Five leagues." + +"Ah!" + +"Why do you say, 'Ah?'" + +The man bent down once more, was silent for a moment, with his eyes +fixed on the wheel; then he rose erect and said:-- + +"Because, though this wheel has travelled five leagues, it certainly +will not travel another quarter of a league." + +He sprang out of the tilbury. + +"What is that you say, my friend?" + +"I say that it is a miracle that you should have travelled five leagues +without you and your horse rolling into some ditch on the highway. Just +see here!" + +The wheel really had suffered serious damage. The shock administered by +the mail-wagon had split two spokes and strained the hub, so that the +nut no longer held firm. + +"My friend," he said to the stableman, "is there a wheelwright here?" + +"Certainly, sir." + +"Do me the service to go and fetch him." + +"He is only a step from here. Hey! Master Bourgaillard!" + +Master Bourgaillard, the wheelwright, was standing on his own threshold. +He came, examined the wheel and made a grimace like a surgeon when the +latter thinks a limb is broken. + +"Can you repair this wheel immediately?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"When can I set out again?" + +"To-morrow." + +"To-morrow!" + +"There is a long day's work on it. Are you in a hurry, sir?" + +"In a very great hurry. I must set out again in an hour at the latest." + +"Impossible, sir." + +"I will pay whatever you ask." + +"Impossible." + +"Well, in two hours, then." + +"Impossible to-day. Two new spokes and a hub must be made. Monsieur will +not be able to start before to-morrow morning." + +"The matter cannot wait until to-morrow. What if you were to replace +this wheel instead of repairing it?" + +"How so?" + +"You are a wheelwright?" + +"Certainly, sir." + +"Have you not a wheel that you can sell me? Then I could start again at +once." + +"A spare wheel?" + +"Yes." + +"I have no wheel on hand that would fit your cabriolet. Two wheels make +a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together hap-hazard." + +"In that case, sell me a pair of wheels." + +"Not all wheels fit all axles, sir." + +"Try, nevertheless." + +"It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cart-wheels. We are but +a poor country here." + +"Have you a cabriolet that you can let me have?" + +The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a +hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders. + +"You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I +would not let it to you!" + +"Well, sell it to me, then." + +"I have none." + +"What! not even a spring-cart? I am not hard to please, as you see." + +"We live in a poor country. There is, in truth," added the wheelwright, +"an old calash under the shed yonder, which belongs to a bourgeois of +the town, who gave it to me to take care of, and who only uses it on the +thirty-sixth of the month--never, that is to say. I might let that +to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it +pass--and then, it is a calash; it would require two horses." + +"I will take two post-horses." + +"Where is Monsieur going?" + +"To Arras." + +"And Monsieur wishes to reach there to-day?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"By taking two post-horses?" + +"Why not?" + +"Does it make any difference whether Monsieur arrives at four o'clock +to-morrow morning?" + +"Certainly not." + +"There is one thing to be said about that, you see, by taking +post-horses--Monsieur has his passport?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, by taking post-horses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before +to-morrow. We are on a cross-road. The relays are badly served, the +horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning; +heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from +the post as well as elsewhere. Monsieur will have to wait three or four +hours at the least at every relay. And, then, they drive at a walk. +There are many hills to ascend." + +"Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one +can surely sell me a saddle in the neighborhood." + +"Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle?" + +"That is true; you remind me of that; he will not bear it." + +"Then--" + +"But I can surely hire a horse in the village?" + +"A horse to travel to Arras at one stretch?" + +"Yes." + +"That would require such a horse as does not exist in these parts. You +would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you +will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for a +thousand." + +"What am I to do?" + +"The best thing is to let me repair the wheel like an honest man, and +set out on your journey to-morrow." + +"To-morrow will be too late." + +"The deuce!" + +"Is there not a mail-wagon which runs to Arras? When will it pass?" + +"To-night. Both the posts pass at night; the one going as well as the +one coming." + +"What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel?" + +"A day, and a good long one." + +"If you set two men to work?" + +"If I set ten men to work." + +"What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?" + +"That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is +in a bad state, too." + +"Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?" + +"No." + +"Is there another wheelwright?" + +The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of the +head. + +"No." + +He felt an immense joy. + +It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had +broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road. +He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made every +possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and scrupulously +exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the season, nor +fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to reproach +himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It did not +concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the act of +his own conscience, but the act of Providence. + +He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his +lungs for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the +hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last twenty +hours had just released him. + +It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself. + +He said himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had +nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly. + +If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber +of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard him, +things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should not +have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about +to peruse; but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any +colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always +people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was +questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and forth +halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young lad, to +whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group and ran +off. + +At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which we +have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child returned. +He was accompanied by an old woman. + +"Monsieur," said the woman, "my boy tells me that you wish to hire a +cabriolet." + +These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the +perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand +which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready +to seize him once more. + +He answered:-- + +"Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire." + +And he hastened to add:-- + +"But there is none in the place." + +"Certainly there is," said the old woman. + +"Where?" interpolated the wheelwright. + +"At my house," replied the old woman. + +He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again. + +The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket spring-cart. +The wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the +traveller escaping their clutches, interfered. + +"It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an actual +fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs; the rain +came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture; it +would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old +stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted +himself to it," etc., etc. + +All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this +thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras. + +He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be +repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse +put to the cart, climbed into it, and resumed the road which he had been +travelling since morning. + +At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a +moment previously, a certain joy in the thought that he should not +go whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of +wrath, and found it absurd. Why should he feel joy at turning back? +After all, he was taking this trip of his own free will. No one was +forcing him to it. + +And assuredly nothing would happen except what he should choose. + +As he left Hesdin, he heard a voice shouting to him: "Stop! Stop!" He +halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and +convulsive element resembling hope. + +It was the old woman's little boy. + +"Monsieur," said the latter, "it was I who got the cart for you." + +"Well?" + +"You have not given me anything." + +He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost +odious. + +"Ah! it's you, you scamp?" said he; "you shall have nothing." + +He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed. + +He had lost a great deal of time at Hesdin. He wanted to make it good. +The little horse was courageous, and pulled for two; but it was the +month of February, there had been rain; the roads were bad. And then, +it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition, +there were many ascents. + +He took nearly four hours to go from Hesdin to Saint-Pol; four hours for +five leagues. + +At Saint-Pol he had the horse unharnessed at the first inn he came to +and led to the stable; as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside +the manger while the horse was eating; he thought of sad and confusing +things. + +The inn-keeper's wife came to the stable. + +"Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast?" + +"Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite." + +He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face; she led him to the +public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth. + +"Make haste!" said he; "I must start again; I am in a hurry." + +A big Flemish servant-maid placed his knife and fork in all haste; he +looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort. + +"That is what ailed me," he thought; "I had not breakfasted." + +His breakfast was served; he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and then +slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again. + +A carter was eating at another table; he said to this man:-- + +"Why is their bread so bitter here?" + +The carter was a German and did not understand him. + +He returned to the stable and remained near the horse. + +An hour later he had quitted Saint-Pol and was directing his course +towards Tinques, which is only five leagues from Arras. + +What did he do during this journey? Of what was he thinking? As in the +morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields +pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of the +road, vanished; this is a sort of contemplation which sometimes +suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more +melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the +first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every +instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make +comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all +the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and +bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse; +we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing; +each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel +a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy +horse of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and +unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows. + +Twilight was falling when the children who were coming out of school +beheld this traveller enter Tinques; it is true that the days were still +short; he did not halt at Tinques; as he emerged from the village, a +laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his head and said +to him:-- + +"That horse is very much fatigued." + +The poor beast was, in fact, going at a walk. + +"Are you going to Arras?" added the road-mender. + +"Yes." + +"If you go on at that rate you will not arrive very early." + +He stopped his horse, and asked the laborer:-- + +"How far is it from here to Arras?" + +"Nearly seven good leagues." + +"How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter." + +"Ah!" returned the road-mender, "so you don't know that the road is +under repair? You will find it barred a quarter of an hour further on; +there is no way to proceed further." + +"Really?" + +"You will take the road on the left, leading to Carency; you will cross +the river; when you reach Camblin, you will turn to the right; that is +the road to Mont-Saint-Eloy which leads to Arras." + +"But it is night, and I shall lose my way." + +"You do not belong in these parts?" + +"No." + +"And, besides, it is all cross-roads; stop! sir," resumed the +road-mender; "shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired; +return to Tinques; there is a good inn there; sleep there; you can reach +Arras to-morrow." + +"I must be there this evening." + +"That is different; but go to the inn all the same, and get an extra +horse; the stable-boy will guide you through the cross-roads." + +He followed the road-mender's advice, retraced his steps, and, half an +hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed, +with a good horse to aid; a stable-boy, who called himself a postilion, +was seated on the shaft of the cariole. + +Still, he felt that he had lost time. + +Night had fully come. + +They turned into the cross-road; the way became frightfully bad; the +cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said to the postilion:-- + +"Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee." + +In one of the jolts, the whiffle-tree broke. + +"There's the whiffle-tree broken, sir," said the postilion; "I don't +know how to harness my horse now; this road is very bad at night; if +you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early +to-morrow morning." + +He replied, "Have you a bit of rope and a knife?" + +"Yes, sir." + +He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it. + +This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a +gallop. + +The plain was gloomy; low-hanging, black, crisp fogs crept over the +hills and wrenched themselves away like smoke: there were whitish gleams +in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a +sound in all quarters of the horizon, as of some one moving furniture; +everything that could be seen assumed attitudes of terror. How many +things shiver beneath these vast breaths of the night! + +He was stiff with cold; he had eaten nothing since the night before; +he vaguely recalled his other nocturnal trip in the vast plain in +the neighborhood of D----, eight years previously, and it seemed but +yesterday. + +The hour struck from a distant tower; he asked the boy:-- + +"What time is it?" + +"Seven o'clock, sir; we shall reach Arras at eight; we have but three +leagues still to go." + +At that moment, he for the first time indulged in this reflection, +thinking it odd the while that it had not occurred to him sooner: that +all this trouble which he was taking was, perhaps, useless; that he did +not know so much as the hour of the trial; that he should, at least, +have informed himself of that; that he was foolish to go thus straight +ahead without knowing whether he would be of any service or not; then +he sketched out some calculations in his mind: that, ordinarily, the +sittings of the Court of Assizes began at nine o'clock in the morning; +that it could not be a long affair; that the theft of the apples would +be very brief; that there would then remain only a question of identity, +four or five depositions, and very little for the lawyers to say; that +he should arrive after all was over. + +The postilion whipped up the horses; they had crossed the river and left +Mont-Saint-Eloy behind them. + +The night grew more profound. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF + +But at that moment Fantine was joyous. + +She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful; her fever +had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the +doctor paid his visit, she was delirious; he assumed an alarmed look, +and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived. + +All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid plaits +in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations +which seemed to be calculations of distances. Her eyes were hollow and +staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up +again and shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a +certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the +light of earth. + +Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied +invariably, "Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine." + +Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her +last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of +herself; now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had +completed the work of moral suffering. This creature of five and twenty +had a wrinkled brow, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which +the gums had receded, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent +shoulder-blades, frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was +growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises old-age! + +At mid-day the physician returned, gave some directions, inquired +whether the mayor had made his appearance at the infirmary, and shook +his head. + +M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three o'clock. As +exactness is kindness, he was exact. + +About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of +twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, "What time is it, +sister?" + +Three o'clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed; she +who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless +hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one +of those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine +turned and looked at the door. + +No one entered; the door did not open. + +She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted on the +door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared not +speak to her. The clock struck a quarter past three. Fantine fell back +on her pillow. + +She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more. + +Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time the clock +struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the door, then fell back +again. + +Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no name, she made +no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way. +One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She was +livid and her lips were blue. She smiled now and then. + +Five o'clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low and gently, +"He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away to-morrow." + +Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine's delay. + +In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She +seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All at once she began to +sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The nun listened. This is what +Fantine was singing:-- + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through. + Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, corn-flowers are blue. + + +"Yestere'en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle +clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you +one day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy +thread.' + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through. + + +"Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons +decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast +granted me. 'Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?'--'Make of it +clothes for thy new-born babe.' + + + "Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue. + + +"'Wash this linen.'--'Where?'--'In the stream. Make of it, soiling +not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will +embroider and fill with flowers.'--'Madame, the child is no longer here; +what is to be done?'--'Then make of it a winding-sheet in which to bury +me.' + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through, + Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, corn-flowers are blue." + + +This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days, +lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had never recurred to her +mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her +child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it +was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as +she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes. + +The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer +seemed to pay attention to anything about her. + +Sister Simplice sent a serving-maid to inquire of the portress of the +factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he would not come to the +infirmary soon. The girl returned in a few minutes. + +Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. + +The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the +mayor had set out that morning before six o'clock, in a little tilbury +harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone +alone, without even a driver; that no one knew what road he had taken; +that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras; that +others asserted that they had met him on the road to Paris. That when he +went away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely told +the portress not to expect him that night. + +While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned +to Fantine's bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing, +Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which +unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of +death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands +resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the +curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:-- + +"You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is +he doing? Why does he not come?" + +Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they heard +the voice of a man; they wheeled round in affright. + +"Answer me!" cried Fantine. + +The servant stammered:-- + +"The portress told me that he could not come to-day." + +"Be calm, my child," said the sister; "lie down again." + +Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and +with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:-- + +"He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to +each other there. I want to know it." + +The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun's ear, "Say that he is busy +with the city council." + +Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had +proposed to her. + +On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the +truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow, and +that this was a serious matter in Fantine's present state. Her flush +did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and +said, "Monsieur le Maire has gone away." + +Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes +sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face. + +"Gone!" she cried; "he has gone to get Cosette." + +Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became ineffable; +her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice. + +When her prayer was finished, "Sister," she said, "I am willing to lie +down again; I will do anything you wish; I was naughty just now; I beg +your pardon for having spoken so loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly; +I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the +good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to +Montfermeil to get my little Cosette." + +She lay down again, with the nun's assistance, helped the nun to arrange +her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore on her +neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her. + +"My child," said the sister, "try to rest now, and do not talk any +more." + +Fantine took the sister's hand in her moist hands, and the latter was +pained to feel that perspiration. + +"He set out this morning for Paris; in fact, he need not even go through +Paris; Montfermeil is a little to the left as you come thence. Do you +remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of Cosette, +Soon, soon? He wants to give me a surprise, you know! he made me sign a +letter so that she could be taken from the Thenardiers; they cannot +say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for they have been +paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the child since they +have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that I must not talk, +sister! I am extremely happy; I am doing well; I am not ill at all any +more; I am going to see Cosette again; I am even quite hungry; it is +nearly five years since I saw her last; you cannot imagine how much +attached one gets to children, and then, she will be so pretty; you will +see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy fingers she had! In the +first place, she will have very beautiful hands; she had ridiculous +hands when she was only a year old; like this! she must be a big girl +now; she is seven years old; she is quite a young lady; I call her +Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie. Stop! this morning I was +looking at the dust on the chimney-piece, and I had a sort of idea come +across me, like that, that I should see Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! +how wrong it is not to see one's children for years! One ought to +reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good M. le Maire is to go! it +is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak, at least? he will be +here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a festival day; to-morrow +morning, sister, you must remind me to put on my little cap that has +lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I took that journey on +foot once; it was very long for me, but the diligences go very quickly! +he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how far is it from here to +Montfermeil?" + +The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, "Oh, I think that he +will be here to-morrow." + +"To-morrow! to-morrow!" said Fantine, "I shall see Cosette to-morrow! +you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill; I am mad; +I could dance if any one wished it." + +A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not have +understood the change; she was all rosy now; she spoke in a lively and +natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she talked, +she laughed softly; the joy of a mother is almost infantile. + +"Well," resumed the nun, "now that you are happy, mind me, and do not +talk any more." + +Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: "Yes, +lie down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister +Simplice is right; every one here is right." + +And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to +stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said +nothing more. + +The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would +fall into a doze. Between seven and eight o'clock the doctor came; not +hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and +approached the bed on tiptoe; he opened the curtains a little, and, by +the light of the taper, he saw Fantine's big eyes gazing at him. + +She said to him, "She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little +bed, will she not, sir?" + +The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:-- + +"See! there is just room." + +The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to him; +that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their doubt +they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who believed that +the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that +her guess was correct: the doctor approved. + +He returned to Fantine's bed, and she went on:-- + +"You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good +morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can +hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good." + +"Give me your hand," said the doctor. + +She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh:-- + +"Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured; Cosette will +arrive to-morrow." + +The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on her chest +had decreased; her pulse had regained its strength; a sort of life had +suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, worn-out creature. + +"Doctor," she went on, "did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has +gone to get that mite of a child?" + +The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be +avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the +fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he +took his departure, he said to the sister:-- + +"She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should +actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are crises +so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well +that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all those +things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR +DEPARTURE + +It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening when the cart, which we +left on the road, entered the porte-cochere of the Hotel de la Poste in +Arras; the man whom we have been following up to this moment alighted +from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the +people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands +led the little white horse to the stable; then he opened the door of a +billiard-room which was situated on the ground floor, sat down there, +and leaned his elbows on a table; he had taken fourteen hours for +the journey which he had counted on making in six; he did himself the +justice to acknowledge that it was not his fault, but at bottom, he was +not sorry. + +The landlady of the hotel entered. + +"Does Monsieur wish a bed? Does Monsieur require supper?" + +He made a sign of the head in the negative. + +"The stableman says that Monsieur's horse is extremely fatigued." + +Here he broke his silence. + +"Will not the horse be in a condition to set out again to-morrow +morning?" + +"Oh, Monsieur! he must rest for two days at least." + +He inquired:-- + +"Is not the posting-station located here?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The hostess conducted him to the office; he showed his passport, and +inquired whether there was any way of returning that same night to M. +sur M. by the mail-wagon; the seat beside the post-boy chanced to be +vacant; he engaged it and paid for it. "Monsieur," said the clerk, +"do not fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o'clock in the +morning." + +This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town. + +He was not acquainted with Arras; the streets were dark, and he +walked on at random; but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the +passers-by. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a +labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way. A citizen was passing +along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he decided to apply to this +man, not without having first glanced behind and in front of him, as +though he feared lest some one should hear the question which he was +about to put. + +"Monsieur," said he, "where is the court-house, if you please." + +"You do not belong in town, sir?" replied the bourgeois, who was an +oldish man; "well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of +the court-house, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the +prefecture; for the court-house is undergoing repairs just at this +moment, and the courts are holding their sittings provisionally in the +prefecture." + +"Is it there that the Assizes are held?" he asked. + +"Certainly, sir; you see, the prefecture of to-day was the bishop's +palace before the Revolution. M. de Conzie, who was bishop in '82, built +a grand hall there. It is in this grand hall that the court is held." + +On the way, the bourgeois said to him:-- + +"If Monsieur desires to witness a case, it is rather late. The sittings +generally close at six o'clock." + +When they arrived on the grand square, however, the man pointed out to +him four long windows all lighted up, in the front of a vast and gloomy +building. + +"Upon my word, sir, you are in luck; you have arrived in season. Do you +see those four windows? That is the Court of Assizes. There is light +there, so they are not through. The matter must have been greatly +protracted, and they are holding an evening session. Do you take an +interest in this affair? Is it a criminal case? Are you a witness?" + +He replied:-- + +"I have not come on any business; I only wish to speak to one of the +lawyers." + +"That is different," said the bourgeois. "Stop, sir; here is the door +where the sentry stands. You have only to ascend the grand staircase." + +He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he +was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled +with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there. + +It is always a heart-breaking thing to see these congregations of men +robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of +the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome +of these words. Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely +to be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful +observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert +all sorts of dark edifices. + +This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of +the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace +of justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment, +separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting. + +The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer +whom he met. + +"What stage have they reached, sir?" he asked. + +"It is finished," said the lawyer. + +"Finished!" + +This word was repeated in such accents that the lawyer turned round. + +"Excuse me sir; perhaps you are a relative?" + +"No; I know no one here. Has judgment been pronounced?" + +"Of course. Nothing else was possible." + +"To penal servitude?" + +"For life." + +He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:-- + +"Then his identity was established?" + +"What identity?" replied the lawyer. "There was no identity to be +established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her +child; the infanticide was proved; the jury threw out the question of +premeditation, and she was condemned for life." + +"So it was a woman?" said he. + +"Why, certainly. The Limosin woman. Of what are you speaking?" + +"Nothing. But since it is all over, how comes it that the hall is still +lighted?" + +"For another case, which was begun about two hours ago." + +"What other case?" + +"Oh! this one is a clear case also. It is about a sort of blackguard; +a man arrested for a second offence; a convict who has been guilty of +theft. I don't know his name exactly. There's a bandit's phiz for you! +I'd send him to the galleys on the strength of his face alone." + +"Is there any way of getting into the court-room, sir?" said he. + +"I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, +the hearing has been suspended. Some people have gone out, and when the +hearing is resumed, you might make an effort." + +"Where is the entrance?" + +"Through yonder large door." + +The lawyer left him. In the course of a few moments he had experienced, +almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all possible +emotions. The words of this indifferent spectator had, in turn, pierced +his heart like needles of ice and like blades of fire. When he saw that +nothing was settled, he breathed freely once more; but he could not have +told whether what he felt was pain or pleasure. + +He drew near to many groups and listened to what they were saying. The +docket of the session was very heavy; the president had appointed +for the same day two short and simple cases. They had begun with the +infanticide, and now they had reached the convict, the old offender, the +"return horse." This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to +be entirely proved; what had been proved was, that he had already been +in the galleys at Toulon. It was that which lent a bad aspect to +his case. However, the man's examination and the depositions of the +witnesses had been completed, but the lawyer's plea, and the speech +of the public prosecutor were still to come; it could not be +finished before midnight. The man would probably be condemned; the +attorney-general was very clever, and never missed his culprits; he was +a brilliant fellow who wrote verses. + +An usher stood at the door communicating with the hall of the Assizes. +He inquired of this usher:-- + +"Will the door be opened soon, sir?" + +"It will not be opened at all," replied the usher. + +"What! It will not be opened when the hearing is resumed? Is not the +hearing suspended?" + +"The hearing has just been begun again," replied the usher, "but the +door will not be opened again." + +"Why?" + +"Because the hall is full." + +"What! There is not room for one more?" + +"Not another one. The door is closed. No one can enter now." + +The usher added after a pause: "There are, to tell the truth, two +or three extra places behind Monsieur le President, but Monsieur le +President only admits public functionaries to them." + +So saying, the usher turned his back. + +He retired with bowed head, traversed the antechamber, and slowly +descended the stairs, as though hesitating at every step. It is probable +that he was holding counsel with himself. The violent conflict which had +been going on within him since the preceding evening was not yet ended; +and every moment he encountered some new phase of it. On reaching the +landing-place, he leaned his back against the balusters and folded his +arms. All at once he opened his coat, drew out his pocket-book, took +from it a pencil, tore out a leaf, and upon that leaf he wrote rapidly, +by the light of the street lantern, this line: M. Madeleine, Mayor of M. +sur M.; then he ascended the stairs once more with great strides, made +his way through the crowd, walked straight up to the usher, handed him +the paper, and said in an authoritative manner:-- + +"Take this to Monsieur le President." + +The usher took the paper, cast a glance upon it, and obeyed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--AN ENTRANCE BY FAVOR + + +Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed +a sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for +virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had eventually passed +the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through +two or three neighboring departments. Besides the service which he had +rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry, +there was not one out of the hundred and forty communes of the +arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some +benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the +industries of other arrondissements. It was thus that he had, when +occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen +factory at Boulogne, the flax-spinning industry at Frevent, and the +hydraulic manufacture of cloth at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the +name of M. Madeleine was pronounced with veneration. Arras and Douai +envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor. + +The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this +session of the Assizes at Arras, was acquainted, in common with the rest +of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and universally +honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which connected +the council-chamber with the court-room, bent over the back of the +President's arm-chair and handed him the paper on which was inscribed +the line which we have just perused, adding: "The gentleman desires to +be present at the trial," the President, with a quick and deferential +movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper +and returned it to the usher, saying, "Admit him." + +The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the door +of the hall, in the same place and the same attitude in which the usher +had left him. In the midst of his revery he heard some one saying to +him, "Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me?" It was the same usher +who had turned his back upon him but a moment previously, and who was +now bowing to the earth before him. At the same time, the usher handed +him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be near the light, +he could read it. + +"The President of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to M. +Madeleine." + +He crushed the paper in his hand as though those words contained for him +a strange and bitter aftertaste. + +He followed the usher. + +A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted +cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a +table with a green cloth. The last words of the usher who had just +quitted him still rang in his ears: "Monsieur, you are now in the +council-chamber; you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder door, +and you will find yourself in the court-room, behind the President's +chair." These words were mingled in his thoughts with a vague memory of +narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had recently traversed. + +The usher had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought +to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment +when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful +realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain. He +was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned. With +stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible apartment, +where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring with his +name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He stared at +the wall, then he looked at himself, wondering that it should be that +chamber and that it should be he. + +He had eaten nothing for four and twenty hours; he was worn out by the +jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him that +he felt nothing. + +He approached a black frame which was suspended on the wall, and which +contained, under glass, an ancient autograph letter of Jean Nicolas +Pache, mayor of Paris and minister, and dated, through an error, no +doubt, the 9th of June, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded to +the commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by them. +Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who had +watched him, would have imagined, doubtless, that this letter struck him +as very curious, for he did not take his eyes from it, and he read it +two or three times. He read it without paying any attention to it, and +unconsciously. He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette. + +As he dreamed, he turned round, and his eyes fell upon the brass knob +of the door which separated him from the Court of Assizes. He had almost +forgotten that door. His glance, calm at first, paused there, remained +fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by little +became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth among +his hair and trickled down upon his temples. + +At a certain moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of +authority mingled with rebellion, which is intended to convey, and which +does so well convey, "Pardieu! who compels me to this?" Then he wheeled +briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had entered in +front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was no longer +in that chamber; he was outside in a corridor, a long, narrow corridor, +broken by steps and gratings, making all sorts of angles, lighted +here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of invalids, the +corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he listened; not +a sound in front, not a sound behind him, and he fled as though pursued. + +When he had turned many angles in this corridor, he still listened. The +same silence reigned, and there was the same darkness around him. He was +out of breath; he staggered; he leaned against the wall. The stone was +cold; the perspiration lay ice-cold on his brow; he straightened himself +up with a shiver. + +Then, there alone in the darkness, trembling with cold and with +something else, too, perchance, he meditated. + +He had meditated all night long; he had meditated all the day: he heard +within him but one voice, which said, "Alas!" + +A quarter of an hour passed thus. At length he bowed his head, sighed +with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly, +and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him in +his flight and was leading him back. + +He re-entered the council-chamber. The first thing he caught sight of +was the knob of the door. This knob, which was round and of polished +brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb +might gaze into the eye of a tiger. + +He could not take his eyes from it. From time to time he advanced a step +and approached the door. + +Had he listened, he would have heard the sound of the adjoining hall +like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not +hear. + +Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself near +the door; he grasped the knob convulsively; the door opened. + +He was in the court-room. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A PLACE WHERE CONVICTIONS ARE IN PROCESS OF FORMATION + +He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and +remained standing, contemplating what he saw. + +It was a vast and badly lighted apartment, now full of uproar, now full +of silence, where all the apparatus of a criminal case, with its petty +and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of +development. + +At the one end of the hall, the one where he was, were judges, with +abstracted air, in threadbare robes, who were gnawing their nails or +closing their eyelids; at the other end, a ragged crowd; lawyers in +all sorts of attitudes; soldiers with hard but honest faces; ancient, +spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was +yellow rather than green; doors blackened by handmarks; tap-room +lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in +the wainscot; on the tables candles in brass candlesticks; darkness, +ugliness, sadness; and from all this there was disengaged an austere and +august impression, for one there felt that grand human thing which is +called the law, and that grand divine thing which is called justice. + +No one in all that throng paid any attention to him; all glances were +directed towards a single point, a wooden bench placed against a small +door, in the stretch of wall on the President's left; on this bench, +illuminated by several candles, sat a man between two gendarmes. + +This man was the man. + +He did not seek him; he saw him; his eyes went thither naturally, as +though they had known beforehand where that figure was. + +He thought he was looking at himself, grown old; not absolutely the same +in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect, with his +bristling hair, with that wild and uneasy eye, with that blouse, just as +it was on the day when he entered D----, full of hatred, concealing +his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he had spent +nineteen years in collecting on the floor of the prison. + +He said to himself with a shudder, "Good God! shall I become like that +again?" + +This creature seemed to be at least sixty; there was something +indescribably coarse, stupid, and frightened about him. + +At the sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make +way for him; the President had turned his head, and, understanding that +the personage who had just entered was the mayor of M. sur M., he had +bowed to him; the attorney-general, who had seen M. Madeleine at M. +sur M., whither the duties of his office had called him more than once, +recognized him and saluted him also: he had hardly perceived it; he was +the victim of a sort of hallucination; he was watching. + +Judges, clerks, gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious heads, all these +he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twenty-seven years before; +he had encountered those fatal things once more; there they were; they +moved; they existed; it was no longer an effort of his memory, a mirage +of his thought; they were real gendarmes and real judges, a real +crowd, and real men of flesh and blood: it was all over; he beheld the +monstrous aspects of his past reappear and live once more around him, +with all that there is formidable in reality. + +All this was yawning before him. + +He was horrified by it; he shut his eyes, and exclaimed in the deepest +recesses of his soul, "Never!" + +And by a tragic play of destiny which made all his ideas tremble, and +rendered him nearly mad, it was another self of his that was there! all +called that man who was being tried Jean Valjean. + +Under his very eyes, unheard-of vision, he had a sort of representation +of the most horrible moment of his life, enacted by his spectre. + +Everything was there; the apparatus was the same, the hour of the night, +the faces of the judges, of soldiers, and of spectators; all were the +same, only above the President's head there hung a crucifix, something +which the courts had lacked at the time of his condemnation: God had +been absent when he had been judged. + +There was a chair behind him; he dropped into it, terrified at the +thought that he might be seen; when he was seated, he took advantage of +a pile of cardboard boxes, which stood on the judge's desk, to conceal +his face from the whole room; he could now see without being seen; he +had fully regained consciousness of the reality of things; gradually he +recovered; he attained that phase of composure where it is possible to +listen. + +M. Bamatabois was one of the jurors. + +He looked for Javert, but did not see him; the seat of the witnesses was +hidden from him by the clerk's table, and then, as we have just said, +the hall was sparely lighted. + +At the moment of this entrance, the defendant's lawyer had just finished +his plea. + +The attention of all was excited to the highest pitch; the affair had +lasted for three hours: for three hours that crowd had been watching a +strange man, a miserable specimen of humanity, either profoundly stupid +or profoundly subtle, gradually bending beneath the weight of a terrible +likeness. This man, as the reader already knows, was a vagabond who had +been found in a field carrying a branch laden with ripe apples, broken +in the orchard of a neighbor, called the Pierron orchard. Who was this +man? an examination had been made; witnesses had been heard, and they +were unanimous; light had abounded throughout the entire debate; the +accusation said: "We have in our grasp not only a marauder, a stealer +of fruit; we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an old offender who +has broken his ban, an ex-convict, a miscreant of the most dangerous +description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom justice has long been +in search of, and who, eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys +at Toulon, committed a highway robbery, accompanied by violence, on the +person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais; a crime provided +for by article 383 of the Penal Code, the right to try him for which +we reserve hereafter, when his identity shall have been judicially +established. He has just committed a fresh theft; it is a case of a +second offence; condemn him for the fresh deed; later on he will be +judged for the old crime." In the face of this accusation, in the face +of the unanimity of the witnesses, the accused appeared to be astonished +more than anything else; he made signs and gestures which were meant to +convey No, or else he stared at the ceiling: he spoke with difficulty, +replied with embarrassment, but his whole person, from head to foot, was +a denial; he was an idiot in the presence of all these minds ranged in +order of battle around him, and like a stranger in the midst of this +society which was seizing fast upon him; nevertheless, it was a question +of the most menacing future for him; the likeness increased every +moment, and the entire crowd surveyed, with more anxiety than he did +himself, that sentence freighted with calamity, which descended +ever closer over his head; there was even a glimpse of a possibility +afforded; besides the galleys, a possible death penalty, in case his +identity were established, and the affair of Little Gervais were to end +thereafter in condemnation. Who was this man? what was the nature of his +apathy? was it imbecility or craft? Did he understand too well, or did +he not understand at all? these were questions which divided the crowd, +and seemed to divide the jury; there was something both terrible and +puzzling in this case: the drama was not only melancholy; it was also +obscure. + +The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that +provincial tongue which has long constituted the eloquence of the bar, +and which was formerly employed by all advocates, at Paris as well as at +Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which to-day, having become classic, is +no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom +it is suited on account of its grave sonorousness and its majestic +stride; a tongue in which a husband is called a consort, and a woman +a spouse; Paris, the centre of art and civilization; the king, +the monarch; Monseigneur the Bishop, a sainted pontiff; the +district-attorney, the eloquent interpreter of public prosecution; the +arguments, the accents which we have just listened to; the age of Louis +XIV., the grand age; a theatre, the temple of Melpomene; the reigning +family, the august blood of our kings; a concert, a musical solemnity; +the General Commandant of the province, the illustrious warrior, who, +etc.; the pupils in the seminary, these tender levities; errors imputed +to newspapers, the imposture which distills its venom through the +columns of those organs; etc. The lawyer had, accordingly, begun with an +explanation as to the theft of the apples,--an awkward matter couched +in fine style; but Benigne Bossuet himself was obliged to allude to a +chicken in the midst of a funeral oration, and he extricated himself +from the situation in stately fashion. The lawyer established the fact +that the theft of the apples had not been circumstantially proved. +His client, whom he, in his character of counsel, persisted in calling +Champmathieu, had not been seen scaling that wall nor breaking that +branch by any one. He had been taken with that branch (which the lawyer +preferred to call a bough) in his possession; but he said that he had +found it broken off and lying on the ground, and had picked it up. +Where was there any proof to the contrary? No doubt that branch had been +broken off and concealed after the scaling of the wall, then thrown away +by the alarmed marauder; there was no doubt that there had been a +thief in the case. But what proof was there that that thief had been +Champmathieu? One thing only. His character as an ex-convict. The +lawyer did not deny that that character appeared to be, unhappily, +well attested; the accused had resided at Faverolles; the accused had +exercised the calling of a tree-pruner there; the name of Champmathieu +might well have had its origin in Jean Mathieu; all that was true,--in +short, four witnesses recognize Champmathieu, positively and without +hesitation, as that convict, Jean Valjean; to these signs, to this +testimony, the counsel could oppose nothing but the denial of his +client, the denial of an interested party; but supposing that he was +the convict Jean Valjean, did that prove that he was the thief of the +apples? that was a presumption at the most, not a proof. The prisoner, +it was true, and his counsel, "in good faith," was obliged to admit it, +had adopted "a bad system of defence." He obstinately denied everything, +the theft and his character of convict. An admission upon this last +point would certainly have been better, and would have won for him the +indulgence of his judges; the counsel had advised him to do this; but +the accused had obstinately refused, thinking, no doubt, that he would +save everything by admitting nothing. It was an error; but ought not the +paucity of this intelligence to be taken into consideration? This man +was visibly stupid. Long-continued wretchedness in the galleys, long +misery outside the galleys, had brutalized him, etc. He defended himself +badly; was that a reason for condemning him? As for the affair with +Little Gervais, the counsel need not discuss it; it did not enter into +the case. The lawyer wound up by beseeching the jury and the court, if +the identity of Jean Valjean appeared to them to be evident, to apply +to him the police penalties which are provided for a criminal who has +broken his ban, and not the frightful chastisement which descends upon +the convict guilty of a second offence. + +The district-attorney answered the counsel for the defence. He was +violent and florid, as district-attorneys usually are. + +He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his "loyalty," and +skilfully took advantage of this loyalty. He reached the accused through +all the concessions made by his lawyer. The advocate had seemed to admit +that the prisoner was Jean Valjean. He took note of this. So this man +was Jean Valjean. This point had been conceded to the accusation and +could no longer be disputed. Here, by means of a clever +autonomasia which went back to the sources and causes of crime, the +district-attorney thundered against the immorality of the romantic +school, then dawning under the name of the Satanic school, which +had been bestowed upon it by the critics of the Quotidienne and the +Oriflamme; he attributed, not without some probability, to the influence +of this perverse literature the crime of Champmathieu, or rather, +to speak more correctly, of Jean Valjean. Having exhausted these +considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean himself. Who was this Jean +Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean: a monster spewed forth, etc. +The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of +Theramene, which is not useful to tragedy, but which every day renders +great services to judicial eloquence. The audience and the jury +"shuddered." The description finished, the district-attorney resumed +with an oratorical turn calculated to raise the enthusiasm of the +journal of the prefecture to the highest pitch on the following day: And +it is such a man, etc., etc., etc., vagabond, beggar, without means of +existence, etc., etc., inured by his past life to culpable deeds, and +but little reformed by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by the +crime committed against Little Gervais, etc., etc.; it is such a man, +caught upon the highway in the very act of theft, a few paces from a +wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand the object +stolen, who denies the crime, the theft, the climbing the wall; denies +everything; denies even his own identity! In addition to a hundred +other proofs, to which we will not recur, four witnesses recognize +him--Javert, the upright inspector of police; Javert, and three of +his former companions in infamy, the convicts Brevet, Chenildieu, and +Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming +unanimity? His denial. What obduracy! You will do justice, gentlemen +of the jury, etc., etc. While the district-attorney was speaking, the +accused listened to him open-mouthed, with a sort of amazement in which +some admiration was assuredly blended. He was evidently surprised that +a man could talk like that. From time to time, at those "energetic" +moments of the prosecutor's speech, when eloquence which cannot contain +itself overflows in a flood of withering epithets and envelops the +accused like a storm, he moved his head slowly from right to left and +from left to right in the sort of mute and melancholy protest with which +he had contented himself since the beginning of the argument. Two or +three times the spectators who were nearest to him heard him say in +a low voice, "That is what comes of not having asked M. Baloup." The +district-attorney directed the attention of the jury to this stupid +attitude, evidently deliberate, which denoted not imbecility, but craft, +skill, a habit of deceiving justice, and which set forth in all its +nakedness the "profound perversity" of this man. He ended by making +his reserves on the affair of Little Gervais and demanding a severe +sentence. + +At that time, as the reader will remember, it was penal servitude for +life. + +The counsel for the defence rose, began by complimenting Monsieur +l'Avocat-General on his "admirable speech," then replied as best he +could; but he weakened; the ground was evidently slipping away from +under his feet. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE SYSTEM OF DENIALS + +The moment for closing the debate had arrived. The President had the +accused stand up, and addressed to him the customary question, "Have you +anything to add to your defence?" + +The man did not appear to understand, as he stood there, twisting in his +hands a terrible cap which he had. + +The President repeated the question. + +This time the man heard it. He seemed to understand. He made a motion +like a man who is just waking up, cast his eyes about him, stared at +the audience, the gendarmes, his counsel, the jury, the court, laid +his monstrous fist on the rim of woodwork in front of his bench, +took another look, and all at once, fixing his glance upon the +district-attorney, he began to speak. It was like an eruption. +It seemed, from the manner in which the words escaped from his +mouth,--incoherent, impetuous, pell-mell, tumbling over each other,--as +though they were all pressing forward to issue forth at once. He said:-- + +"This is what I have to say. That I have been a wheelwright in Paris, +and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the +wheelwright's trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards, +under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops, +because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one +beats one's arms together to warm one's self; but the masters don't like +it; they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice between +the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old +while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man is done for. +I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean! +When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but an old bird, +old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me +as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my age--and then I +had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She earned a little +also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to +her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind cuts your face, when +it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people +who have not much linen, and wait until late; if you do not wash, you +lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and water drops on you +from everywhere; you have your petticoats all damp above and below. That +penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of the Enfants-Rouges, +where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there; you +wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As +it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there is that hot steam, which +is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o'clock +in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband +beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy. She was a good girl, +who did not go to the ball, and who was very peaceable. I remember +one Shrove-Tuesday when she went to bed at eight o'clock. There, I am +telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris +is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I +tell you. Go see at M. Baloup's; and after all, I don't know what is +wanted of me." + +The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things +in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and savage +ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd. The sort +of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at random came +like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a wood-cutter who is +splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience burst into a laugh. +He stared at the public, and, perceiving that they were laughing, and +not understanding why, he began to laugh himself. + +It was inauspicious. + +The President, an attentive and benevolent man, raised his voice. + +He reminded "the gentlemen of the jury" that "the sieur Baloup, formerly +a master-wheelwright, with whom the accused stated that he had served, +had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be +found." Then turning to the accused, he enjoined him to listen to what +he was about to say, and added: "You are in a position where reflection +is necessary. The gravest presumptions rest upon you, and may induce +vital results. Prisoner, in your own interests, I summon you for the +last time to explain yourself clearly on two points. In the first place, +did you or did you not climb the wall of the Pierron orchard, break +the branch, and steal the apples; that is to say, commit the crime +of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the discharged +convict, Jean Valjean--yes or no?" + +The prisoner shook his head with a capable air, like a man who has +thoroughly understood, and who knows what answer he is going to make. He +opened his mouth, turned towards the President, and said:-- + +"In the first place--" + +Then he stared at his cap, stared at the ceiling, and held his peace. + +"Prisoner," said the district-attorney, in a severe voice; "pay +attention. You are not answering anything that has been asked of you. +Your embarrassment condemns you. It is evident that your name is not +Champmathieu; that you are the convict, Jean Valjean, concealed first +under the name of Jean Mathieu, which was the name of his mother; that +you went to Auvergne; that you were born at Faverolles, where you were +a pruner of trees. It is evident that you have been guilty of entering, +and of the theft of ripe apples from the Pierron orchard. The gentlemen +of the jury will form their own opinion." + +[Illustration: Father Champmathieu on Trial] + +The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the +district-attorney had finished, and exclaimed:-- + +"You are very wicked; that you are! This what I wanted to say; I could +not find words for it at first. I have stolen nothing. I am a man who +does not have something to eat every day. I was coming from Ailly; I +was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the whole +country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from +the sand any more but the little blades of grass at the wayside. I +found a broken branch with apples on the ground; I picked up the branch +without knowing that it would get me into trouble. I have been in +prison, and they have been dragging me about for the last three months; +more than that I cannot say; people talk against me, they tell me, +'Answer!' The gendarme, who is a good fellow, nudges my elbow, and says +to me in a low voice, 'Come, answer!' I don't know how to explain; I +have no education; I am a poor man; that is where they wrong me, because +they do not see this. I have not stolen; I picked up from the ground +things that were lying there. You say, Jean Valjean, Jean Mathieu! I +don't know those persons; they are villagers. I worked for M. Baloup, +Boulevard de l'Hopital; my name is Champmathieu. You are very clever to +tell me where I was born; I don't know myself: it's not everybody +who has a house in which to come into the world; that would be too +convenient. I think that my father and mother were people who strolled +along the highways; I know nothing different. When I was a child, +they called me young fellow; now they call me old fellow; those are my +baptismal names; take that as you like. I have been in Auvergne; I have +been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can't a man have been in Auvergne, or +at Faverolles, without having been in the galleys? I tell you that I +have not stolen, and that I am Father Champmathieu; I have been with M. +Baloup; I have had a settled residence. You worry me with your nonsense, +there! Why is everybody pursuing me so furiously?" + +The district-attorney had remained standing; he addressed the +President:-- + +"Monsieur le President, in view of the confused but exceedingly clever +denials of the prisoner, who would like to pass himself off as an idiot, +but who will not succeed in so doing,--we shall attend to that,--we +demand that it shall please you and that it shall please the court to +summon once more into this place the convicts Brevet, Cochepaille, and +Chenildieu, and Police-Inspector Javert, and question them for the last +time as to the identity of the prisoner with the convict Jean Valjean." + +"I would remind the district-attorney," said the President, "that +Police-Inspector Javert, recalled by his duties to the capital of a +neighboring arrondissement, left the court-room and the town as soon as +he had made his deposition; we have accorded him permission, with the +consent of the district-attorney and of the counsel for the prisoner." + +"That is true, Mr. President," responded the district-attorney. "In the +absence of sieur Javert, I think it my duty to remind the gentlemen of +the jury of what he said here a few hours ago. Javert is an estimable +man, who does honor by his rigorous and strict probity to inferior but +important functions. These are the terms of his deposition: 'I do not +even stand in need of circumstantial proofs and moral presumptions to +give the lie to the prisoner's denial. I recognize him perfectly. The +name of this man is not Champmathieu; he is an ex-convict named Jean +Valjean, and is very vicious and much to be feared. It is only with +extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He +underwent nineteen years of penal servitude for theft. He made five or +six attempts to escape. Besides the theft from Little Gervais, and from +the Pierron orchard, I suspect him of a theft committed in the house of +His Grace the late Bishop of D---- I often saw him at the time when I +was adjutant of the galley-guard at the prison in Toulon. I repeat that +I recognize him perfectly.'" + +This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression +on the public and on the jury. The district-attorney concluded by +insisting, that in default of Javert, the three witnesses Brevet, +Chenildieu, and Cochepaille should be heard once more and solemnly +interrogated. + +The President transmitted the order to an usher, and, a moment later, +the door of the witnesses' room opened. The usher, accompanied by a +gendarme ready to lend him armed assistance, introduced the convict +Brevet. The audience was in suspense; and all breasts heaved as though +they had contained but one soul. + +The ex-convict Brevet wore the black and gray waistcoat of the central +prisons. Brevet was a person sixty years of age, who had a sort of +business man's face, and the air of a rascal. The two sometimes go +together. In prison, whither fresh misdeeds had led him, he had become +something in the nature of a turnkey. He was a man of whom his superiors +said, "He tries to make himself of use." The chaplains bore good +testimony as to his religious habits. It must not be forgotten that this +passed under the Restoration. + +"Brevet," said the President, "you have undergone an ignominious +sentence, and you cannot take an oath." + +Brevet dropped his eyes. + +"Nevertheless," continued the President, "even in the man whom the law +has degraded, there may remain, when the divine mercy permits it, a +sentiment of honor and of equity. It is to this sentiment that I +appeal at this decisive hour. If it still exists in you,--and I hope +it does,--reflect before replying to me: consider on the one hand, this +man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a +word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn; there is still time +to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, +take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on +your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as your +former companion in the galleys, Jean Valjean?" + +Brevet looked at the prisoner, then turned towards the court. + +"Yes, Mr. President, I was the first to recognize him, and I stick to +it; that man is Jean Valjean, who entered at Toulon in 1796, and left in +1815. I left a year later. He has the air of a brute now; but it must be +because age has brutalized him; he was sly at the galleys: I recognize +him positively." + +"Take your seat," said the President. "Prisoner, remain standing." + +Chenildieu was brought in, a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his +red cassock and his green cap. He was serving out his sentence at the +galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case. He was a +small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced, +feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and +his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in +the galleys had nicknamed him I-deny-God (Je-nie Dieu, Chenildieu). + +The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had +used to Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which +deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his +head and looked the crowd in the face. The President invited him to +reflection, and asked him as he had asked Brevet, if he persisted in +recognition of the prisoner. + +Chenildieu burst out laughing. + +"Pardieu, as if I didn't recognize him! We were attached to the same +chain for five years. So you are sulking, old fellow?" + +"Go take your seat," said the President. + +The usher brought in Cochepaille. He was another convict for life, who +had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was +a peasant from Lourdes, and a half-bear of the Pyrenees. He had guarded +the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into +a brigand. Cochepaille was no less savage and seemed even more stupid +than the prisoner. He was one of those wretched men whom nature has +sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing +touches as convicts in the galleys. + +The President tried to touch him with some grave and pathetic words, +and asked him, as he had asked the other two, if he persisted, without +hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before +him. + +"He is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. "He was even called +Jean-the-Screw, because he was so strong." + +Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and +in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the +prisoner,--a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that a +fresh declaration was added to the proceeding. + +The prisoner had listened to them, with that astounded face which was, +according to the accusation, his principal means of defence; at the +first, the gendarmes, his neighbors, had heard him mutter between his +teeth: "Ah, well, he's a nice one!" after the second, he said, a little +louder, with an air that was almost that of satisfaction, "Good!" at the +third, he cried, "Famous!" + +The President addressed him:-- + +"Have you heard, prisoner? What have you to say?" + +He replied:-- + +"I say, 'Famous!'" + +An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the +jury; it was evident that the man was lost. + +"Ushers," said the President, "enforce silence! I am going to sum up the +arguments." + +At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice +was heard crying:-- + +"Brevet! Chenildieu! Cochepaille! look here!" + +All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was +it; all eyes were turned to the point whence it had proceeded. A man, +placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the +court, had just risen, had pushed open the half-door which separated the +tribunal from the audience, and was standing in the middle of the hall; +the President, the district-attorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty persons, +recognized him, and exclaimed in concert:-- + +"M. Madeleine!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED + +It was he, in fact. The clerk's lamp illumined his countenance. He held +his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat +was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; +his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now +entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there. + +All heads were raised: the sensation was indescribable; there was +a momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so +heart-rending; the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did +not understand at first. They asked themselves whether he had indeed +uttered that cry; they could not believe that that tranquil man had been +the one to give that terrible outcry. + +This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President +and the district-attorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the +gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that +moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, +Brevet, and Chenildieu. + +"Do you not recognize me?" said he. + +All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that +they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a military +salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in +a gentle voice:-- + +"Gentlemen of the jury, order the prisoner to be released! Mr. +President, have me arrested. He is not the man whom you are in search +of; it is I: I am Jean Valjean." + +Not a mouth breathed; the first commotion of astonishment had been +followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall +experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when +something grand has been done. + +In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy and +sadness; he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district-attorney and a +few low-toned words with the assistant judges; he addressed the public, +and asked in accents which all understood:-- + +"Is there a physician present?" + +The district-attorney took the word:-- + +"Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident +which disturbs the audience inspires us, like yourselves, only with a +sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by +reputation at least, the honorable M. Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M.; +if there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in +requesting him to attend to M. Madeleine, and to conduct him to his +home." + +M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to finish; he +interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the +words which he uttered; here they are literally, as they were written +down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene, +and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty +years ago:-- + +"I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see; +you were on the point of committing a great error; release this man! I +am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one +here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God, +who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that +suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I +concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become +a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. It seems that +that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot +tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it +one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it is +true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you that +Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not altogether +his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly +humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, +nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I +have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict +what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the +galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort +of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became +vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on, +indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon +me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You will find at my house, +among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, +seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; +take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M. +Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do +not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I +wish Javert were here; he would recognize me." + +Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which +accompanied these words. + +He turned to the three convicts, and said:-- + +"Well, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?" + +He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:-- + +"Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you +wore in the galleys?" + +Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot with +a frightened air. He continued:-- + +"Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of 'Jenie-Dieu,' +your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid +your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to efface +the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible, nevertheless; +answer, is this true?" + +"It is true," said Chenildieu. + +He addressed himself to Cochepaille:-- + +"Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped +in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of +the Emperor at Cannes, March 1, 1815; pull up your sleeve!" + +Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve; all eyes were focused on him and on +his bare arm. + +A gendarme held a light close to it; there was the date. + +The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile +which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of +it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. + +"You see plainly," he said, "that I am Jean Valjean." + +In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor +gendarmes; there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts. +No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon +to play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of +prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for +the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance +that no question was put, that no authority intervened. The peculiarity +of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls and turn witnesses +into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt; +no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid +outburst of a grand light: all felt themselves inwardly dazzled. + +It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was +clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light +that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without +any further explanation: the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric +revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple +and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so +that another man might not be condemned in his stead. The details, the +hesitations, little possible oppositions, were swallowed up in that vast +and luminous fact. + +It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was irresistible +at the moment. + +"I do not wish to disturb the court further," resumed Jean Valjean. "I +shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do. +The district-attorney knows who I am; he knows whither I am going; he +can have me arrested when he likes." + +He directed his steps towards the door. Not a voice was raised, not an +arm extended to hinder him. All stood aside. At that moment there was +about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside +and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never +known who opened the door, but it is certain that he found the door open +when he reached it. On arriving there he turned round and said:-- + +"I am at your command, Mr. District-Attorney." + +Then he addressed the audience:-- + +"All of you, all who are present--consider me worthy of pity, do you +not? Good God! When I think of what I was on the point of doing, I +consider that I am to be envied. Nevertheless, I should have preferred +not to have had this occur." + +He withdrew, and the door closed behind him as it had opened, for those +who do certain sovereign things are always sure of being served by some +one in the crowd. + +Less than an hour after this, the verdict of the jury freed the said +Champmathieu from all accusations; and Champmathieu, being at once +released, went off in a state of stupefaction, thinking that all men +were fools, and comprehending nothing of this vision. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW + + + + +CHAPTER I--IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR + +The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish +night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister +Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this +slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister +had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending +over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on +account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all +objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M. +Madeleine stood before her; he had just entered silently. + +"Is it you, Mr. Mayor?" she exclaimed. + +He replied in a low voice:-- + +"How is that poor woman?" + +"Not so bad just now; but we have been very uneasy." + +She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill the +day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that the +mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared not +question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he had +not come from there. + +"All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her." + +"Yes," responded the sister; "but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and +will not see her child. What shall we say to her?" + +He reflected for a moment. + +"God will inspire us," said he. + +"But we cannot tell a lie," murmured the sister, half aloud. + +It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M. Madeleine's +face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it. + +"Good God, sir!" she exclaimed; "what has happened to you? Your hair is +perfectly white!" + +"White!" said he. + +Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out +the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether +a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took +the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:-- + +"Well!" + +He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on +something else. + +The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a +glimpse in all this. + +He inquired:-- + +"Can I see her?" + +"Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" +said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question. + +"Of course; but it will take two or three days at least." + +"If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time," went on +the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had +returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when +the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just +come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie." + +M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his +calm gravity:-- + +"No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste." + +The nun did not appear to notice this word "perhaps," which communicated +an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor's speech. She +replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:-- + +"In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter." + +He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of +which might awaken the sick woman; then he entered Fantine's chamber, +approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her +breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar +to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are +watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned +to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of +ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which +transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness; her +cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her +youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they +remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an +indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her +away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be +seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was +an invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather +something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of +dying. + +The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and +seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time. +The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in +which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul. + +M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing +in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months +before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her +in that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude--she +sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair +was gray and his was white. + +The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his +finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he +must enjoin to silence. + +She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile:-- + +"And Cosette?" + + + + +CHAPTER II--FANTINE HAPPY + +She made no movement of either surprise or of joy; she was joy itself. +That simple question, "And Cosette?" was put with so profound a faith, +with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of disquiet and of +doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued:-- + +"I knew that you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I have seen +you for a long, long time. I have been following you with my eyes all +night long. You were in a glory, and you had around you all sorts of +celestial forms." + +He raised his glance to the crucifix. + +"But," she resumed, "tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place her +on my bed against the moment of my waking?" + +He made some mechanical reply which he was never afterwards able to +recall. + +Fortunately, the doctor had been warned, and he now made his appearance. +He came to the aid of M. Madeleine. + +"Calm yourself, my child," said the doctor; "your child is here." + +Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped +her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to +prayer in the way of violence and tenderness. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, "bring her to me!" + +Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little +child who is carried. + +"Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. +The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be +cured first." + +She interrupted him impetuously:-- + +"But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that doctor +is! The idea! I want to see my child!" + +"You see," said the doctor, "how excited you become. So long as you are +in this state I shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough +to see her; it is necessary that you should live for her. When you are +reasonable, I will bring her to you myself." + +The poor mother bowed her head. + +"I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should +never have spoken as I have just done; so many misfortunes have happened +to me, that I sometimes do not know what I am saying. I understand you; +you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like, but I swear to +you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been +seeing her; I have not taken my eyes from her since yesterday evening. +Do you know? If she were brought to me now, I should talk to her very +gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I should desire to see +my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I +am not angry. I know well that I am about to be happy. All night long I +have seen white things, and persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le +Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I have no longer any fever; +I am well. I am perfectly conscious that there is nothing the matter +with me any more; but I am going to behave as though I were ill, and not +stir, to please these ladies here. When it is seen that I am very calm, +they will say, 'She must have her child.'" + +M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards +him; she was making a visible effort to be calm and "very good," as she +expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in +order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty about +bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she could not +refrain from questioning M. Madeleine. + +"Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were +to go and get her for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the +journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten +me by this time, poor darling! Children have no memories. They are like +birds. A child sees one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, and +thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those +Thenardiers keep her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew +how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during all +the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I am happy. Oh, how I +should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le Maire? +Is not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in that +diligence! Could she not be brought for just one little instant? She +might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me; you are the master; it +could be so if you chose!" + +He took her hand. "Cosette is beautiful," he said, "Cosette is well. +You shall see her soon; but calm yourself; you are talking with too much +vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the clothes, and +that makes you cough." + +In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word. + +Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too +passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of +inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. + +"Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure +parties in summer. Are the Thenardiers prosperous? There are not many +travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs is a sort of a cook-shop." + +M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with anxiety; +it was evident that he had come to tell her things before which his mind +now hesitated. The doctor, having finished his visit, retired. Sister +Simplice remained alone with them. + +But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:-- + +"I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!" + +She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, +and began to listen with rapture. + +There was a child playing in the yard--the child of the portress or +of some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always +occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious stage-setting +of mournful scenes. The child--a little girl--was going and coming, +running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. +Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this +little girl whom Fantine heard singing. + +"Oh!" she resumed, "it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice." + +The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine +listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M. +Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How wicked that doctor is not +to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance, that +he has." + +But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She +continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How +happy we are going to be! We shall have a little garden the very first +thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will play in the +garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell. +She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then +she will take her first communion. Ah! when will she take her first +communion?" + +She began to reckon on her fingers. + +"One, two, three, four--she is seven years old. In five years she will +have a white veil, and openwork stockings; she will look like a little +woman. O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I +think of my daughter's first communion!" + +She began to laugh. + +He had released Fantine's hand. He listened to her words as one listens +to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind +absorbed in reflection which had no bottom. All at once she ceased +speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine +had become terrible. + +She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to +a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her face, +which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she +seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something +alarming at the other extremity of the room. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed; "what ails you, Fantine?" + +She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which +she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the other +made him a sign to look behind him. + +He turned, and beheld Javert. + + + + +CHAPTER III--JAVERT SATISFIED + +This is what had taken place. + +The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted +the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set +out again by the mail-wagon, in which he had engaged his place. A little +before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M., and his +first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the +infirmary and see Fantine. + +However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of +Assizes, when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock, +had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of +M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least +modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter, +and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu, +who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The district-attorney's +persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one, of +the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence +had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that, +in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of +the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had been thoroughly +altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an innocent +man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, +unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his +summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence, and in a few minutes +the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case. + +Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean; +and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine. + +Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the +district-attorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred "as +to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M." +This phrase, in which there was a great deal of of, is the +district-attorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his +report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off, the +President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all, take +its course. And then, when all was said, although the President was +a kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time, a +devoted and almost an ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to hear +the Mayor of M. sur M. say the Emperor, and not Bonaparte, when alluding +to the landing at Cannes. + +The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The +district-attorney forwarded it to M. sur M. by a special messenger, at +full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert. + +The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. immediately after +having given his deposition. + +Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the +order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner. + +The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in +two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order +of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words: +"Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor +of M. sur M., who, in this day's session of the court, was recognized as +the liberated convict, Jean Valjean." + +Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the +moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have +divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air +the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray +hair was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted +the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly +acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the moment, +would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his +left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted +agitation. + +Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or +in his uniform; methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of +his coat. + +That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was +indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those +emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes. + +He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring +post for a corporal and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the +courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed out to him by the portress, +who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men +inquiring for the mayor. + +On arriving at Fantine's chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed +the door open with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and +entered. + +Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the half-open +door, his hat on his head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which +was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head of +his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen. + +Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being +perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. +Madeleine turn round. + +The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, +without stirring, without moving from his post, without approaching him, +became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible as joy. + +It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul. + +The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that +was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having been +stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in +some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a few +moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride +at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of +having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert's content shone +forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread +that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied +face can afford were there. + +Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly +to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his +presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light, and +truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him and +around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the case +judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the stars; he +was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, +he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, +he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed in his +victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, +he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious +archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was accomplishing +caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible in his clenched +fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime, vice, rebellion, +perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there +was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael. + +Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. + +Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things +which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when +hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human +conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues +which have one vice,--error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic +in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously +venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his +formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who +triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, +wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the +good. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AUTHORITY REASSERTS ITS RIGHTS + +Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn +her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only +thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get her. She could +not endure that terrible face; she felt her life quitting her; she hid +her face in both hands, and shrieked in her anguish:-- + +"Monsieur Madeleine, save me!" + +Jean Valjean--we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise--had risen. +He said to Fantine in the gentlest and calmest of voices:-- + +"Be at ease; it is not for you that he is come." + +Then he addressed Javert, and said:-- + +"I know what you want." + +Javert replied:-- + +"Be quick about it!" + +There lay in the inflection of voice which accompanied these words +something indescribably fierce and frenzied. Javert did not say, "Be +quick about it!" he said "Bequiabouit." + +No orthography can do justice to the accent with which it was uttered: +it was no longer a human word: it was a roar. + +He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the +matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean +was a sort of mysterious combatant, who was not to be laid hands upon, +a wrestler in the dark whom he had had in his grasp for the last five +years, without being able to throw him. This arrest was not a beginning, +but an end. He confined himself to saying, "Be quick about it!" + +As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step; he hurled at Jean +Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grappling-hook, and with +which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him. + +It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very marrow +of her bones two months previously. + +At Javert's exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the +mayor was there; what had she to fear? + +Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:-- + +"See here now! Art thou coming?" + +The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the +nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of "thou" be addressed? +To her only. She shuddered. + +Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented +that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest +deliriums of fever. + +She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she +saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming +to an end. + +Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar. + +"Monsieur le Maire!" shrieked Fantine. + +Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all +his gums. + +"There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here!" + +Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the +collar of his coat. He said:-- + +"Javert--" + +Javert interrupted him: "Call me Mr. Inspector." + +"Monsieur," said Jean Valjean, "I should like to say a word to you in +private." + +"Aloud! Say it aloud!" replied Javert; "people are in the habit of +talking aloud to me." + +Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone:-- + +"I have a request to make of you--" + +"I tell you to speak loud." + +"But you alone should hear it--" + +"What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen." + +Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low +voice:-- + +"Grant me three days' grace! three days in which to go and fetch the +child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You shall +accompany me if you choose." + +"You are making sport of me!" cried Javert. "Come now, I did not think +you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run away! +You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature's child! +Ah! Ah! That's good! That's really capital!" + +Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling. + +"My child!" she cried, "to go and fetch my child! She is not here, +then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur +Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire!" + +Javert stamped his foot. + +"And now there's the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy? +It's a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where +women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going to +change all that; it is high time!" + +He stared intently at Fantine, and added, once more taking into his +grasp Jean Valjean's cravat, shirt and collar:-- + +"I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine and that there is no +Monsieur le Maire. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean +Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That's what there is!" + +Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her +stiffened arms and on both hands: she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed +at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to +speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth +chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands +convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then +suddenly fell back on her pillow. + +Her head struck the head-board of the bed and fell forwards on her +breast, with gaping mouth and staring, sightless eyes. + +She was dead. + +Jean Valjean laid his hand upon the detaining hand of Javert, and opened +it as he would have opened the hand of a baby; then he said to Javert:-- + +"You have murdered that woman." + +"Let's have an end of this!" shouted Javert, in a fury; "I am not here +to listen to argument. Let us economize all that; the guard is below; +march on instantly, or you'll get the thumb-screws!" + +In the corner of the room stood an old iron bedstead, which was in a +decidedly decrepit state, and which served the sisters as a camp-bed +when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this +bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the head-piece, which was already in a +dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the +principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated +towards the door. Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked +slowly up to Fantine's couch. When he arrived there he turned and said +to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible:-- + +"I advise you not to disturb me at this moment." + +One thing is certain, and that is, that Javert trembled. + +It did occur to him to summon the guard, but Jean Valjean might avail +himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped +his cane by the small end, and leaned against the door-post, without +removing his eyes from Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and +his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of +Fantine, which lay extended there. He remained thus, mute, absorbed, +evidently with no further thought of anything connected with this life. +Upon his face and in his attitude there was nothing but inexpressible +pity. After a few moments of this meditation he bent towards Fantine, +and spoke to her in a low voice. + +What did he say to her? What could this man, who was reproved, say to +that woman, who was dead? What words were those? No one on earth heard +them. Did the dead woman hear them? There are some touching illusions +which are, perhaps, sublime realities. The point as to which there +exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the +incident, often said that at the moment that Jean Valjean whispered in +Fantine's ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those +pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the tomb. + +Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in both his hands, and arranged it on +the pillow as a mother might have done for her child; then he tied the +string of her chemise, and smoothed her hair back under her cap. That +done, he closed her eyes. + +Fantine's face seemed strangely illuminated at that moment. + +Death, that signifies entrance into the great light. + +Fantine's hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt +down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it. + +Then he rose, and turned to Javert. + +"Now," said he, "I am at your disposal." + + + + +CHAPTER V--A SUITABLE TOMB + +Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison. + +The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an +extraordinary commotion in M. sur M. We are sorry that we cannot conceal +the fact, that at the single word, "He was a convict," nearly every one +deserted him. In less than two hours all the good that he had done had +been forgotten, and he was nothing but a "convict from the galleys." It +is just to add that the details of what had taken place at Arras were +not yet known. All day long conversations like the following were to be +heard in all quarters of the town:-- + +"You don't know? He was a liberated convict!" "Who?" "The mayor." "Bah! +M. Madeleine?" "Yes." "Really?" "His name was not Madeleine at all; he +had a frightful name, Bejean, Bojean, Boujean." "Ah! Good God!" "He +has been arrested." "Arrested!" "In prison, in the city prison, while +waiting to be transferred." "Until he is transferred!" "He is to be +transferred!" "Where is he to be taken?" "He will be tried at the +Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago." "Well! I +suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. +He refused the cross; he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came +across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that." + +The "drawing-rooms" particularly abounded in remarks of this nature. + +One old lady, a subscriber to the Drapeau Blanc, made the following +remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom:-- + +"I am not sorry. It will be a lesson to the Bonapartists!" + +It was thus that the phantom which had been called M. Madeleine vanished +from M. sur M. Only three or four persons in all the town remained +faithful to his memory. The old portress who had served him was among +the number. + +On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her +lodge, still in a thorough fright, and absorbed in sad reflections. +The factory had been closed all day, the carriage gate was bolted, the +street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns, +Sister Perpetue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body +of Fantine. + +Towards the hour when M. Madeleine was accustomed to return home, +the good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of +M. Madeleine's chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every +evening to go up to his quarters; then she hung the key on the nail +whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one +side, as though she was expecting him. Then she sat down again on her +chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old +woman had done all this without being conscious of it. + +It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from +her revery, and exclaimed, "Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his key +on the nail!" + +At that moment the small window in the lodge opened, a hand passed +through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at +the candle which was burning there. + +The portress raised her eyes, and stood there with gaping mouth, and a +shriek which she confined to her throat. + +She knew that hand, that arm, the sleeve of that coat. + +It was M. Madeleine. + +It was several seconds before she could speak; she had a seizure, as she +said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards. + +"Good God, Monsieur le Maire," she cried at last, "I thought you were--" + +She stopped; the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in +respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire +to her. + +He finished her thought. + +"In prison," said he. "I was there; I broke a bar of one of the windows; +I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am going up +to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with that poor +woman, no doubt." + +The old woman obeyed in all haste. + +He gave her no orders; he was quite sure that she would guard him better +than he should guard himself. + +No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard +without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, +a pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been +searched, and his latch-key must have been taken from him. This point +was never explained. + +He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the +top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door +with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by +feeling, then returned for his candle and re-entered his room. + +It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window could +be seen from the street. + +He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed which +had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder of the +night before last remained. The portress had "done up" his room; only +she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the two +iron ends of the cudgel and the forty-sou piece which had been blackened +by the fire. + +He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote: "These are the two tips of +my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais, +which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes," and he arranged this piece +of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were +the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he +pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the +strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks. He +betrayed neither haste nor agitation; and while he was wrapping up the +Bishop's candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was +probably the prison-bread which he had carried with him in his flight. + +This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room +when the authorities made an examination later on. + +There came two taps at the door. + +"Come in," said he. + +It was Sister Simplice. + +She was pale; her eyes were red; the candle which she carried trembled +in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that +however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our +very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface. The emotions of +that day had turned the nun into a woman once more. She had wept, and +she was trembling. + +Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he +handed to the nun, saying, "Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le +Cure." + +The paper was not folded. She cast a glance upon it. + +"You can read it," said he. + +She read:-- + +"I beg Monsieur le Cure to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me. He +will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of the +funeral of the woman who died yesterday. The rest is for the poor." + +The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few +inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however:-- + +"Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor, +unhappy woman?" + +"No," said he; "I am pursued; it would only end in their arresting me in +that room, and that would disturb her." + +He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the +staircase. They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old +portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones:-- + +"My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has +entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not +even left the door." + +A man responded:-- + +"But there is a light in that room, nevertheless." + +They recognized Javert's voice. + +The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner +of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed +himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table. + +The door opened. + +Javert entered. + +The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were +audible in the corridor. + +The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying. + +The candle was on the chimney-piece, and gave but very little light. + +Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement. + +It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his element, +the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority. This was +impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor restriction. In his +eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was the chief of all; he +was religious, superficial and correct on this point as on all others. +In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never makes a mistake; a nun was a +creature who never sins; they were souls walled in from this world, +with a single door which never opened except to allow the truth to pass +through. + +On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire. + +But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him +imperiously in the opposite direction. His second movement was to remain +and to venture on at least one question. + +This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert +knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence. + +"Sister," said he, "are you alone in this room?" + +A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though +she should faint. + +The sister raised her eyes and answered:-- + +"Yes." + +"Then," resumed Javert, "you will excuse me if I persist; it is my duty; +you have not seen a certain person--a man--this evening? He has escaped; +we are in search of him--that Jean Valjean; you have not seen him?" + +The sister replied:-- + +"No." + +She lied. She had lied twice in succession, one after the other, without +hesitation, promptly, as a person does when sacrificing herself. + +"Pardon me," said Javert, and he retired with a deep bow. + +O sainted maid! you left this world many years ago; you have rejoined +your sisters, the virgins, and your brothers, the angels, in the light; +may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise! + +The sister's affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did +not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been +extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table. + +An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly +departing from M. sur M. in the direction of Paris. That man was Jean +Valjean. It has been established by the testimony of two or three +carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed +in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out. +But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days +before, leaving behind him nothing but his blouse. Perhaps that was the +one. + +One last word about Fantine. + +We all have a mother,--the earth. Fantine was given back to that mother. + +The cure thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in +reserving as much money as possible from what Jean Valjean had left for +the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the +town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced +it to that strictly necessary form known as the pauper's grave. + +So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs +to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God +knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade, +among the first bones that came to hand; she was subjected to the +promiscuousness of ashes. She was thrown into the public grave. Her +grave resembled her bed. + + +[THE END OF VOLUME I. "FANTINE"] + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Two 2frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Two 2titlepage] + + + + + +VOLUME II.--COSETTE + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO + + + + +CHAPTER I--WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES + +Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person +who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his +course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a broad paved +road, which undulated between two rows of trees, over the hills which +succeed each other, raise the road and let it fall again, and produce +something in the nature of enormous waves. + +He had passed Lillois and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. In the west he perceived +the slate-roofed tower of Braine-l'Alleud, which has the form of a +reversed vase. He had just left behind a wood upon an eminence; and +at the angle of the cross-road, by the side of a sort of mouldy gibbet +bearing the inscription Ancient Barrier No. 4, a public house, bearing +on its front this sign: At the Four Winds (Aux Quatre Vents). Echabeau, +Private Cafe. + +A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom of a little +valley, where there is water which passes beneath an arch made through +the embankment of the road. The clump of sparsely planted but very green +trees, which fills the valley on one side of the road, is dispersed over +the meadows on the other, and disappears gracefully and as in order in +the direction of Braine-l'Alleud. + +On the right, close to the road, was an inn, with a four-wheeled cart +at the door, a large bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a heap of dried +brushwood near a flourishing hedge, lime smoking in a square hole, and +a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with straw partitions. A young +girl was weeding in a field, where a huge yellow poster, probably of +some outside spectacle, such as a parish festival, was fluttering in +the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla +of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes. The +wayfarer struck into this. + +After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth +century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he +found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear +impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat +medallions. A severe facade rose above this door; a wall, perpendicular +to the facade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt +right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through +which, in disorder, grew all the flowers of May. The door was closed. +The two decrepit leaves which barred it were ornamented with an old +rusty knocker. + +The sun was charming; the branches had that soft shivering of May, +which seems to proceed rather from the nests than from the wind. A brave +little bird, probably a lover, was carolling in a distracted manner in a +large tree. + +The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular excavation, +resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on the left, at the foot +of the pier of the door. + +At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman +emerged. + +She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at. + +"It was a French cannon-ball which made that," she said to him. And she +added:-- + +"That which you see there, higher up in the door, near a nail, is the +hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The bullet did not pierce +the wood." + +"What is the name of this place?" inquired the wayfarer. + +"Hougomont," said the peasant woman. + +The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and +went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon through the +trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this elevation +something which at that distance resembled a lion. + +He was on the battle-field of Waterloo. + + + + +CHAPTER II--HOUGOMONT + +Hougomont,--this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, +the first resistance, which that great wood-cutter of Europe, called +Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blows of his +axe. + +It was a chateau; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the +antiquary, Hougomont is Hugomons. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire +of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of +Villiers. + +The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the +porch, and entered the courtyard. + +The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the +sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else +having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its +birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of +the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard; +beside this door, a manure-hole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some +carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken +jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small +bell-tower, a blossoming pear-tree trained in espalier against the +wall of the chapel--behold the court, the conquest of which was one of +Napoleon's dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized +it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are +scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible; it is a +huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English. + +The English behaved admirably there. Cooke's four companies of guards +there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army. + +Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings +and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of +which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern +door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away. +Hougomont has two doors,--the southern door, that of the chateau; and +the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent his brother +Jerome against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu +hurled themselves against it; nearly the entire corps of Reille was +employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann's balls were exhausted +on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin's brigade was not strong enough +to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do +more than effect the beginning of a breach on the south, but without +taking it. + +The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the north +door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It consists of +four planks nailed to two cross-beams, on which the scars of the attack +are visible. + +The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had +a piece applied to it to replace the panel suspended on the wall, stands +half-open at the bottom of the paddock; it is cut squarely in the wall, +built of stone below, of brick above which closes in the courtyard on +the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in all farms, +with the two large leaves made of rustic planks: beyond lie the meadows. +The dispute over this entrance was furious. For a long time, all sorts +of imprints of bloody hands were visible on the door-posts. It was there +that Bauduin was killed. + +The storm of the combat still lingers in this courtyard; its horror is +visible there; the confusion of the fray was petrified there; it lives +and it dies there; it was only yesterday. The walls are in the death +agony, the stones fall; the breaches cry aloud; the holes are wounds; +the drooping, quivering trees seem to be making an effort to flee. + +This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day. Buildings +which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles. + +The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in, +but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the +chateau, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises in +a crumbling state,--disembowelled, one might say. The chateau served +for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each +other. The French, fired on from every point,--from behind the walls, +from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars, through +all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every crack in the +stones,--fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men; the reply to the +grape-shot was a conflagration. + +In the ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the +dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible; the +English guards were in ambush in these rooms; the spiral of the +staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears +like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the +English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had +cut off the lower steps. These consisted of large slabs of blue stone, +which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still +cling to the wall; on the first is cut the figure of a trident. These +inaccessible steps are solid in their niches. All the rest resembles a +jaw which has been denuded of its teeth. There are two old trees there: +one is dead; the other is wounded at its base, and is clothed with +verdure in April. Since 1815 it has taken to growing through the +staircase. + +A massacre took place in the chapel. The interior, which has recovered +its calm, is singular. The mass has not been said there since the +carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left there--an altar of +unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four +whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows; +over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square +air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, +an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces--such is the +chapel. Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, +of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried +off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel for a +moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames filled this +building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was +burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his +feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it +stopped,--a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the +neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the +Christ. + +The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this +name is to be read: Henquinez. Then these others: Conde de Rio Maior +Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana). There are French names with +exclamation points,--a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed +in 1849. The nations insulted each other there. + +It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which +held an axe in its hand; this corpse was Sub-Lieutenant Legros. + +On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left. There are +two in this courtyard. One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley +to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not +drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons. + +The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van +Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. +On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in +the woods. + +The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate +people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights. There +are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned +trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the +depths of the thickets. + +Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, "to guard the chateau," and +concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. +They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this +frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of +their swords. They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It +was from this well that he drew it. Many drank there their last draught. +This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself. + +After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies. Death +has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow +glory. The typhus is a concomitant of triumph. This well was deep, and +it was turned into a sepulchre. Three hundred dead bodies were cast into +it. With too much haste perhaps. Were they all dead? Legend says they +were not. It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble +voices were heard calling from the well. + +This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part +stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like +the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides. The fourth side is +open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has +a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell. This +little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron +supports of the well on the right form a cross. On leaning over, the +eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a heaped-up +mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is concealed +in a growth of nettles. + +This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the +table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a +cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty +and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either +pail, chain, or pulley; but there is still the stone basin which served +the overflow. The rain-water collects there, and from time to time a +bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then flies +away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited. The +door of this house opens on the courtyard. Upon this door, beside a +pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed +slanting. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant, Wilda, grasped +this handle in order to take refuge in the farm, a French sapper hewed +off his hand with an axe. + +The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van +Kylsom, the old gardener, dead long since. A woman with gray hair said +to us: "I was there. I was three years old. My sister, who was older, +was terrified and wept. They carried us off to the woods. I went there +in my mother's arms. We glued our ears to the earth to hear. I imitated +the cannon, and went boum! boum!" + +A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so +we were told. The orchard is terrible. + +It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first +part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These +three parts have a common enclosure: on the side of the entrance, the +buildings of the chateau and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the +right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of +brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. +It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a +wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut +stone, with balustrade with a double curve. + +It was a seignorial garden in the first French style which preceded Le +Notre; to-day it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by +globes which resemble cannon-balls of stone. Forty-three balusters can +still be counted on their sockets; the rest lie prostrate in the grass. +Almost all bear scratches of bullets. One broken baluster is placed on +the pediment like a fractured leg. + +It was in this garden, further down than the orchard, that six +light-infantry men of the 1st, having made their way thither, and being +unable to escape, hunted down and caught like bears in their dens, +accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was +armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired +from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two +hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currant-bushes, took a +quarter of an hour to die. + +One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, +properly speaking. There, within the limits of those few square fathoms, +fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready +to renew the combat. Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced by the English at +irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth are placed two +English tombs of granite. There are loopholes only in the south wall, as +the principal attack came from that quarter. The wall is hidden on the +outside by a tall hedge; the French came up, thinking that they had to +deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found the wall both an obstacle +and an ambuscade, with the English guards behind it, the thirty-eight +loopholes firing at once a shower of grape-shot and balls, and Soye's +brigade was broken against it. Thus Waterloo began. + +Nevertheless, the orchard was taken. As they had no ladders, the French +scaled it with their nails. They fought hand to hand amid the trees. +All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven +hundred strong, was overwhelmed there. The outside of the wall, against +which Kellermann's two batteries were trained, is gnawed by grape-shot. + +This orchard is sentient, like others, in the month of May. It has its +buttercups and its daisies; the grass is tall there; the cart-horses +browse there; cords of hair, on which linen is drying, traverse the +spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one +walks over this uncultivated land, and one's foot dives into mole-holes. +In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted tree-bole which lies +there all verdant. Major Blackmann leaned against it to die. Beneath +a great tree in the neighborhood fell the German general, Duplat, +descended from a French family which fled on the revocation of the Edict +of Nantes. An aged and falling apple-tree leans far over to one side, +its wound dressed with a bandage of straw and of clayey loam. Nearly all +the apple-trees are falling with age. There is not one which has not +had its bullet or its biscayan.[6] The skeletons of dead trees abound in +this orchard. Crows fly through their branches, and at the end of it is +a wood full of violets. + +Bauduin, killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a +rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled +in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the +regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the +English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty +from Reille's corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of +Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their +throats cut,--and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the +traveller: Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will +explain to you the affair of Waterloo! + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815 + +Let us turn back,--that is one of the story-teller's rights,--and put +ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than +the epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this book took +place. + +If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of +June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different. A few drops +of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that +Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz +was a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season +sufficed to make a world crumble. + +The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleven +o'clock, and that gave Blucher time to come up. Why? Because the ground +was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer +before they could manoeuvre. + +Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. The +foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to +the Directory on Aboukir, said: Such a one of our balls killed six men. +All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his +victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the +strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it. +He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and dissolved +battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter in his +genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to +crush and disperse masses,--for him everything lay in this, to +strike, strike, strike incessantly,--and he intrusted this task to the +cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, +rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the +space of fifteen years. + +On the 18th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery, +because he had numbers on his side. Wellington had only one hundred and +fifty-nine mouths of fire; Napoleon had two hundred and forty. + +Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action +would have begun at six o'clock in the morning. The battle would have +been won and ended at two o'clock, three hours before the change of +fortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches to +Napoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the pilot? + +Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this +epoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war worn +out the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the body? +Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In a word, +was this genius, as many historians of note have thought, suffering from +an eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise his weakened +powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion of +a breath of adventure? Had he become--a grave matter in a +general--unconscious of peril? Is there an age, in this class of +material great men, who may be called the giants of action, when genius +grows short-sighted? Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal; +for the Dantes and Michael Angelos to grow old is to grow in greatness; +is it to grow less for the Hannibals and the Bonapartes? Had Napoleon +lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he +could no longer recognize the reef, could no longer divine the snare, no +longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power of +scenting out catastrophes? He who had in former days known all the +roads to triumph, and who, from the summit of his chariot of lightning, +pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that +state of sinister amazement when he could lead his tumultuous legions +harnessed to it, to the precipice? Was he seized at the age of forty-six +with a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of destiny no longer +anything more than an immense dare-devil? + +We do not think so. + +His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. To +go straight to the centre of the Allies' line, to make a breach in the +enemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal, +and the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered fragments of +Wellington and Blucher, to carry Mont-Saint-Jean, to seize Brussels, +to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All +this was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Afterwards +people would see. + +Of course, we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle of +Waterloo; one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which we +are relating is connected with this battle, but this history is not our +subject; this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in a +masterly manner, from one point of view by Napoleon, and from another +point of view by a whole pleiad of historians.[7] + +As for us, we leave the historians at loggerheads; we are but a distant +witness, a passer-by on the plain, a seeker bending over that soil all +made of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance; we +have no right to oppose, in the name of science, a collection of facts +which contain illusions, no doubt; we possess neither military practice +nor strategic ability which authorize a system; in our opinion, a chain +of accidents dominated the two leaders at Waterloo; and when it becomes +a question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like that +ingenious judge, the populace. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A + +Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo +have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb +of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the road to Genappe, +the tie of the A is the hollow road to Ohain from Braine-l'Alleud. The +top of the A is Mont-Saint-Jean, where Wellington is; the lower left tip +is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with Jerome Bonaparte; the right +tip is the Belle-Alliance, where Napoleon was. At the centre of this +chord is the precise point where the final word of the battle was +pronounced. It was there that the lion has been placed, the involuntary +symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. + +The triangle included in the top of the A, between the two limbs and the +tie, is the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. The dispute over this plateau +constituted the whole battle. The wings of the two armies extended to +the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and Nivelles; d'Erlon +facing Picton, Reille facing Hill. + +Behind the tip of the A, behind the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, is the +forest of Soignes. + +As for the plain itself, let the reader picture to himself a vast +undulating sweep of ground; each rise commands the next rise, and all +the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the +forest. + +Two hostile troops on a field of battle are two wrestlers. It is a +question of seizing the opponent round the waist. The one seeks to trip +up the other. They clutch at everything: a bush is a point of support; +an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack +of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its +ground; an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a +cross-path encountered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can +stay the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its +retreat. He who quits the field is beaten; hence the necessity devolving +on the responsible leader, of examining the most insignificant clump of +trees, and of studying deeply the slightest relief in the ground. + +The two generals had attentively studied the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean, +now called the plain of Waterloo. In the preceding year, Wellington, +with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of +a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the 18th of June, +Wellington had the good post, Napoleon the bad post. The English army +was stationed above, the French army below. + +It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on +horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on +June 18, 1815. All the world has seen him before we can show him. +That calm profile under the little three-cornered hat of the school of +Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of the +Legion of Honor, his great coat hiding his epaulets, the corner of red +ribbon peeping from beneath his vest, his leather trousers, the white +horse with the saddle-cloth of purple velvet bearing on the corners +crowned N's and eagles, Hessian boots over silk stockings, silver spurs, +the sword of Marengo,--that whole figure of the last of the Caesars is +present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by some, severely +regarded by others. + +That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from +a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which +always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time; but to-day history +and daylight have arrived. + +That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and +divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it +is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had +hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different +phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and +the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader. +Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations. +Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Caesar, +Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a +misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his form. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES + +Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginning +which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, but +still more so for the English than for the French. + +It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the +water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if +in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried +up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid +mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports +on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the +wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of +Papelotte would have been impossible. + +The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in +the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, +aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had +been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop +freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come +out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was +no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, +the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it +was thirty-five minutes past eleven. + +The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the +Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on +Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling +Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right +wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested on +Papelotte. + +The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw +Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan would +have succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the brave +Belgians of Perponcher's division had not held the position solidly, and +Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself +to despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies of +guards and one battalion from Brunswick. + +The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated, +in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels, +to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force Mont-Saint-Jean, +to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on Braine-l'Alleud, thence +on Hal; nothing easier. With the exception of a few incidents this +attack succeeded Papelotte was taken; La Haie-Sainte was carried. + +A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularly +in Kempt's brigade, a great many raw recruits. These young soldiers were +valiant in the presence of our redoubtable infantry; their inexperience +extricated them intrepidly from the dilemma; they performed particularly +excellent service as skirmishers: the soldier skirmisher, left somewhat +to himself, becomes, so to speak, his own general. These recruits +displayed some of the French ingenuity and fury. This novice of an +infantry had dash. This displeased Wellington. + +After the taking of La Haie-Sainte the battle wavered. + +There is in this day an obscure interval, from mid-day to four o'clock; +the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and participates +in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight reigns over it. +We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mirage, paraphernalia +of war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks, floating sabre-taches, +cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red boots +with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, the +almost black infantry of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet infantry +of England, the English soldiers with great, white circular pads on the +slopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the Hanoverian light-horse with +their oblong casques of leather, with brass hands and red horse-tails, +the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters +of our grenadiers; pictures, not strategic lines--what Salvator Rosa +requires, not what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval. + +A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. Quid +obscurum, quid divinum. Each historian traces, to some extent, the +particular feature which pleases him amid this pell-mell. Whatever may +be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an +incalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enter +into each other and become mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point of +the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as +more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water which +is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers than +one would like; a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen. The +line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of blood +gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments +form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw; all these reefs are +continually moving in front of each other. Where the infantry stood the +artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the +battalions are like smoke. There was something there; seek it. It has +disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and +retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back, +distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a fray? an +oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, +not a day. In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those +powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better +than Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o'clock. +Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is what +confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that +there is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat, +becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, +which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong rather to +the biography of the regiments than to the history of the army." The +historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. He +cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and +it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, +to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a +battle. + +This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly +applicable to Waterloo. + +Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to a +point. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON + +Towards four o'clock the condition of the English army was serious. The +Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing, +Picton of the left wing. The Prince of Orange, desperate and intrepid, +shouted to the Hollando-Belgians: "Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat!" +Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of Wellington; +Picton was dead. At the very moment when the English had captured from +the French the flag of the 105th of the line, the French had killed the +English general, Picton, with a bullet through the head. The battle +had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; +Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of +the German battalion which defended it, only forty-two men survived; all +the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand +combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English +Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by his +companions, had been killed there by a little French drummer-boy. Baring +had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been lost, +one from Alten's division, and one from the battalion of Lunenburg, +carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch Grays no +longer existed; Ponsonby's great dragoons had been hacked to pieces. +That valiant cavalry had bent beneath the lancers of Bro and beneath +the cuirassiers of Travers; out of twelve hundred horses, six +hundred remained; out of three lieutenant-colonels, two lay on the +earth,--Hamilton wounded, Mater slain. Ponsonby had fallen, riddled by +seven lance-thrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the +fifth and the sixth, had been annihilated. + +Hougomont injured, La Haie-Sainte taken, there now existed but one +rallying-point, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington +reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at Merle-Braine; he +summoned Chasse, who was at Braine-l'Alleud. + +The centre of the English army, rather concave, very dense, and +very compact, was strongly posted. It occupied the plateau of +Mont-Saint-Jean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the +slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone +dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and +which marks the intersection of the roads--a pile of the sixteenth +century, and so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded from it without +injuring it. All about the plateau the English had cut the hedges here +and there, made embrasures in the hawthorn-trees, thrust the throat of +a cannon between two branches, embattled the shrubs. There artillery was +ambushed in the brushwood. This punic labor, incontestably authorized +by war, which permits traps, was so well done, that Haxo, who had been +despatched by the Emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre +the enemy's batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and had returned +and reported to Napoleon that there were no obstacles except the two +barricades which barred the road to Nivelles and to Genappe. It was +at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a +battalion of Kempt's brigade, the 95th, armed with carabines, was +concealed in the tall wheat. + +Thus assured and buttressed, the centre of the Anglo-Dutch army was well +posted. The peril of this position lay in the forest of Soignes, +then adjoining the field of battle, and intersected by the ponds of +Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without +dissolving; the regiments would have broken up immediately there. +The artillery would have been lost among the morasses. The retreat, +according to many a man versed in the art,--though it is disputed by +others,--would have been a disorganized flight. + +To this centre, Wellington added one of Chasse's brigades taken from the +right wing, and one of Wincke's brigades taken from the left wing, plus +Clinton's division. To his English, to the regiments of Halkett, to +the brigades of Mitchell, to the guards of Maitland, he gave as +reinforcements and aids, the infantry of Brunswick, Nassau's contingent, +Kielmansegg's Hanoverians, and Ompteda's Germans. This placed twenty-six +battalions under his hand. The right wing, as Charras says, was thrown +back on the centre. An enormous battery was masked by sacks of earth at +the spot where there now stands what is called the "Museum of Waterloo." +Besides this, Wellington had, behind a rise in the ground, Somerset's +Dragoon Guards, fourteen hundred horse strong. It was the remaining half +of the justly celebrated English cavalry. Ponsonby destroyed, Somerset +remained. + +The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was +ranged behind a very low garden wall, backed up with a coating of bags +of sand and a large slope of earth. This work was not finished; there +had been no time to make a palisade for it. + +Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained +the whole day in the same attitude, a little in advance of the old mill +of Mont-Saint-Jean, which is still in existence, beneath an elm, which +an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, purchased later on for two +hundred francs, cut down, and carried off. Wellington was coldly heroic. +The bullets rained about him. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, fell at his +side. Lord Hill, pointing to a shell which had burst, said to him: "My +lord, what are your orders in case you are killed?" "To do like me," +replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, "To hold this spot +to the last man." The day was evidently turning out ill. Wellington +shouted to his old companions of Talavera, of Vittoria, of Salamanca: +"Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England!" + +Towards four o'clock, the English line drew back. Suddenly nothing +was visible on the crest of the plateau except the artillery and the +sharpshooters; the rest had disappeared: the regiments, dislodged by +the shells and the French bullets, retreated into the bottom, now +intersected by the back road of the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean; a +retrograde movement took place, the English front hid itself, Wellington +drew back. "The beginning of retreat!" cried Napoleon. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR + +The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local trouble, +had never been in a better humor than on that day. His impenetrability +had been smiling ever since the morning. On the 18th of June, that +profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. The man who had been +gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest favorites of +destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme +smile is God's alone. + +Ridet Caesar, Pompeius flebit, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix +Legion. Pompey was not destined to weep on that occasion, but it is +certain that Caesar laughed. While exploring on horseback at one o'clock +on the preceding night, in storm and rain, in company with Bertrand, the +communes in the neighborhood of Rossomme, satisfied at the sight of the +long line of the English camp-fires illuminating the whole horizon from +Frischemont to Braine-l'Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to +whom he had assigned a day on the field of Waterloo, was exact to +the appointment; he stopped his horse, and remained for some time +motionless, gazing at the lightning and listening to the thunder; +and this fatalist was heard to cast into the darkness this mysterious +saying, "We are in accord." Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer +in accord. + +He took not a moment for sleep; every instant of that night was marked +by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts, +halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near +the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march; he +thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington. +He said: "It is the rear-guard of the English getting under way for the +purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English who +have just arrived at Ostend." He conversed expansively; he regained the +animation which he had shown at his landing on the first of March, when +he pointed out to the Grand-Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of the Gulf +Juan, and cried, "Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement already!" On +the night of the 17th to the 18th of June he rallied Wellington. "That +little Englishman needs a lesson," said Napoleon. The rain redoubled in +violence; the thunder rolled while the Emperor was speaking. + +At half-past three o'clock in the morning, he lost one illusion; +officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that +the enemy was not making any movement. Nothing was stirring; not a +bivouac-fire had been extinguished; the English army was asleep. The +silence on earth was profound; the only noise was in the heavens. +At four o'clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts; this +peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably +Vivian's brigade, which was on its way to take up a position in the +village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o'clock, two Belgian +deserters reported to him that they had just quitted their regiment, +and that the English army was ready for battle. "So much the better!" +exclaimed Napoleon. "I prefer to overthrow them rather than to drive +them back." + +In the morning he dismounted in the mud on the slope which forms an +angle with the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant's +chair brought to him from the farm of Rossomme, seated himself, with a +truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart +of the battle-field, saying to Soult as he did so, "A pretty +checker-board." + +In consequence of the rains during the night, the transports of +provisions, embedded in the soft roads, had not been able to arrive by +morning; the soldiers had had no sleep; they were wet and fasting. This +did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, "We have +ninety chances out of a hundred." At eight o'clock the Emperor's +breakfast was brought to him. He invited many generals to it. During +breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights +before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond's; and Soult, a rough +man of war, with a face of an archbishop, said, "The ball takes place +to-day." The Emperor jested with Ney, who said, "Wellington will not be +so simple as to wait for Your Majesty." That was his way, however. "He +was fond of jesting," says Fleury de Chaboulon. "A merry humor was +at the foundation of his character," says Gourgaud. "He abounded in +pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty," says Benjamin +Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was +he who called his grenadiers "his grumblers"; he pinched their ears; he +pulled their mustaches. "The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on us," +is the remark of one of them. During the mysterious trip from the island +of Elba to France, on the 27th of February, on the open sea, the French +brig of war, Le Zephyr, having encountered the brig L'Inconstant, on +which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the news of Napoleon +from L'Inconstant, the Emperor, who still wore in his hat the white and +amaranthine cockade sown with bees, which he had adopted at the isle of +Elba, laughingly seized the speaking-trumpet, and answered for himself, +"The Emperor is well." A man who laughs like that is on familiar terms +with events. Napoleon indulged in many fits of this laughter during the +breakfast at Waterloo. After breakfast he meditated for a quarter of an +hour; then two generals seated themselves on the truss of straw, pen in +hand and their paper on their knees, and the Emperor dictated to them +the order of battle. + +At nine o'clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in echelons +and set in motion in five columns, had deployed--the divisions in two +lines, the artillery between the brigades, the music at their head; as +they beat the march, with rolls on the drums and the blasts of trumpets, +mighty, vast, joyous, a sea of casques, of sabres, and of bayonets on +the horizon, the Emperor was touched, and twice exclaimed, "Magnificent! +Magnificent!" + +Between nine o'clock and half-past ten the whole army, incredible as it +may appear, had taken up its position and ranged itself in six lines, +forming, to repeat the Emperor's expression, "the figure of six V's." +A few moments after the formation of the battle-array, in the midst of +that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a storm, +which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the shoulder, as +he beheld the three batteries of twelve-pounders, detached by his orders +from the corps of Erlon, Reille, and Lobau, and destined to begin the +action by taking Mont-Saint-Jean, which was situated at the intersection +of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to him, "There are four +and twenty handsome maids, General." + +Sure of the issue, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed before +him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he had appointed +to barricade Mont-Saint-Jean as soon as the village should be carried. +All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty +pity; perceiving on his left, at a spot where there now stands a large +tomb, those admirable Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, massing +themselves, he said, "It is a pity." + +Then he mounted his horse, advanced beyond Rossomme, and selected for +his post of observation a contracted elevation of turf to the right of +the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his second station during +the battle. The third station, the one adopted at seven o'clock in the +evening, between La Belle-Alliance and La Haie-Sainte, is formidable; +it is a rather elevated knoll, which still exists, and behind which the +guard was massed on a slope of the plain. Around this knoll the balls +rebounded from the pavements of the road, up to Napoleon himself. As at +Brienne, he had over his head the shriek of the bullets and of the +heavy artillery. Mouldy cannon-balls, old sword-blades, and shapeless +projectiles, eaten up with rust, were picked up at the spot where his +horse' feet stood. Scabra rubigine. A few years ago, a shell of sixty +pounds, still charged, and with its fuse broken off level with the bomb, +was unearthed. It was at this last post that the Emperor said to his +guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was attached to the +saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every discharge of canister +and tried to hide behind Napoleon: "Fool, it is shameful! You'll get +yourself killed with a ball in the back." He who writes these lines has +himself found, in the friable soil of this knoll, on turning over +the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb, disintegrated, by the +oxidization of six and forty years, and old fragments of iron which +parted like elder-twigs between the fingers. + +Every one is aware that the variously inclined undulations of the +plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took place, +are no longer what they were on June 18, 1815. By taking from this +mournful field the wherewithal to make a monument to it, its real relief +has been taken away, and history, disconcerted, no longer finds her +bearings there. It has been disfigured for the sake of glorifying +it. Wellington, when he beheld Waterloo once more, two years later, +exclaimed, "They have altered my field of battle!" Where the great +pyramid of earth, surmounted by the lion, rises to-day, there was a +hillock which descended in an easy slope towards the Nivelles road, but +which was almost an escarpment on the side of the highway to Genappe. +The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of +the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from +Genappe to Brussels: one, the English tomb, is on the left; the other, +the German tomb, is on the right. There is no French tomb. The whole +of that plain is a sepulchre for France. Thanks to the thousands upon +thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and +fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau +of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of +battle, particularly on the side of La Haie-Sainte, it was abrupt and +difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the English +cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bottom of the valley, +which was the centre of the combat. On the 18th of June, 1815, the rains +had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the +problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck fast +in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench whose +presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine. + +What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l'Alleud is a Belgian +village; Ohain is another. These villages, both of them concealed in +curves of the landscape, are connected by a road about a league and a +half in length, which traverses the plain along its undulating level, +and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which +makes a ravine of this road in some places. In 1815, as at the present +day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between +the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles; only, it is now on a level +with the plain; it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been +appropriated for the monumental hillock. This road was, and still is, +a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench, +sometimes a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep, +crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving +rains. Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the +Braine-l'Alleud entrance that a passer-by was crushed by a cart, as is +proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives +the name of the dead, Monsieur Bernard Debrye, Merchant of Brussels, +and the date of the accident, February, 1637.[8] It was so deep on +the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean that a peasant, Mathieu Nicaise, +was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on +another stone cross, the top of which has disappeared in the process of +clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on +the grassy slope to the left of the highway between La Haie-Sainte and +the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean. + +On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way +indicated, bordering the crest of Mont-Saint-Jean, a trench at the +summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible; +that is to say, terrible. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE + +So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content. + +He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, +really admirable. + +The battle once begun, its very various changes,--the resistance of +Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the +disabling of Foy; the unexpected wall against which Soye's brigade was +shattered; Guilleminot's fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard +nor powder sacks; the miring of the batteries; the fifteen unescorted +pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge; the small effect of the +bombs falling in the English lines, and there embedding themselves in +the rain-soaked soil, and only succeeding in producing volcanoes of mud, +so that the canister was turned into a splash; the uselessness of Pire's +demonstration on Braine-l'Alleud; all that cavalry, fifteen squadrons, +almost exterminated; the right wing of the English badly alarmed, the +left wing badly cut into; Ney's strange mistake in massing, instead of +echelonning the four divisions of the first corps; men delivered over to +grape-shot, arranged in ranks twenty-seven deep and with a frontage +of two hundred; the frightful holes made in these masses by the +cannon-balls; attacking columns disorganized; the side-battery suddenly +unmasked on their flank; Bourgeois, Donzelot, and Durutte compromised; +Quiot repulsed; Lieutenant Vieux, that Hercules graduated at the +Polytechnic School, wounded at the moment when he was beating in with an +axe the door of La Haie-Sainte under the downright fire of the English +barricade which barred the angle of the road from Genappe to Brussels; +Marcognet's division caught between the infantry and the cavalry, shot +down at the very muzzle of the guns amid the grain by Best and Pack, put +to the sword by Ponsonby; his battery of seven pieces spiked; the Prince +of Saxe-Weimar holding and guarding, in spite of the Comte d'Erlon, both +Frischemont and Smohain; the flag of the 105th taken, the flag of the +45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the +flying column of three hundred light cavalry on the scout between Wavre +and Plancenoit; the alarming things that had been said by prisoners; +Grouchy's delay; fifteen hundred men killed in the orchard of Hougomont +in less than an hour; eighteen hundred men overthrown in a still shorter +time about La Haie-Sainte,--all these stormy incidents passing like the +clouds of battle before Napoleon, had hardly troubled his gaze and +had not overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was +accustomed to gaze steadily at war; he never added up the heart-rending +details, cipher by cipher; ciphers mattered little to him, provided that +they furnished the total, victory; he was not alarmed if the beginnings +did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor +at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the +question, and he treated destiny as his equal: he seemed to say to fate, +Thou wilt not dare. + +Composed half of light and half of shadow, Napoleon thought himself +protected in good and tolerated in evil. He had, or thought that he had, +a connivance, one might almost say a complicity, of events in his favor, +which was equivalent to the invulnerability of antiquity. + +Nevertheless, when one has Beresina, Leipzig, and Fontainebleau behind +one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown +becomes perceptible in the depths of the heavens. + +At the moment when Wellington retreated, Napoleon shuddered. He suddenly +beheld the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean cleared, and the van of the +English army disappear. It was rallying, but hiding itself. The Emperor +half rose in his stirrups. The lightning of victory flashed from his +eyes. + +Wellington, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and +destroyed--that was the definitive conquest of England by France; it was +Crecy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo +was wiping out Agincourt. + +So the Emperor, meditating on this terrible turn of fortune, swept his +glass for the last time over all the points of the field of battle. His +guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below +with a sort of religion. He pondered; he examined the slopes, noted the +declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the +path; he seemed to be counting each bush. He gazed with some intentness +at the English barricades of the two highways,--two large abatis of +trees, that on the road to Genappe above La Haie-Sainte, armed with two +cannon, the only ones out of all the English artillery which commanded +the extremity of the field of battle, and that on the road to Nivelles +where gleamed the Dutch bayonets of Chasse's brigade. Near this +barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, +which stands at the angle of the cross-road near Braine-l'Alleud; he +bent down and spoke in a low voice to the guide Lacoste. The guide made +a negative sign with his head, which was probably perfidious. + +The Emperor straightened himself up and fell to thinking. + +Wellington had drawn back. + +All that remained to do was to complete this retreat by crushing him. + +Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an express at full speed to +Paris to announce that the battle was won. + +Napoleon was one of those geniuses from whom thunder darts. + +He had just found his clap of thunder. + +He gave orders to Milhaud's cuirassiers to carry the table-land of +Mont-Saint-Jean. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE UNEXPECTED + +There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a +quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. +There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had behind them to +support them Lefebvre-Desnouettes's division,--the one hundred and six +picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard, eleven hundred and +ninety-seven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and +eighty lances. They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses +of beaten iron, with horse-pistols in their holsters, and long +sabre-swords. That morning the whole army had admired them, when, at +nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing "Let us +watch o'er the Safety of the Empire," they had come in a solid column, +with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their centre, and +deployed in two ranks between the roads to Genappe and Frischemont, +and taken up their position for battle in that powerful second line, +so cleverly arranged by Napoleon, which, having on its extreme left +Kellermann's cuirassiers and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, +had, so to speak, two wings of iron. + +Aide-de-camp Bernard carried them the Emperor's orders. Ney drew his +sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set +in motion. + +Then a formidable spectacle was seen. + +All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to +the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous +movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen battering-ram +which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle Alliance, plunged into +the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared +there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the +other side of the valley, still compact and in close ranks, mounting at +a full trot, through a storm of grape-shot which burst upon them, +the terrible muddy slope of the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean. They +ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable; in the intervals between +the musketry and the artillery, their colossal trampling was audible. +Being two divisions, there were two columns of them; Wathier's division +held the right, Delort's division was on the left. It seemed as though +two immense adders of steel were to be seen crawling towards the crest +of the table-land. It traversed the battle like a prodigy. + +Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of +the Muskowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was +again present. It seemed as though that mass had become a monster and +had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled like the ring of a +polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke which was rent +here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy +heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of +trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses +like the scales on the hydra. + +These narrations seemed to belong to another age. Something parallel to +this vision appeared, no doubt, in the ancient Orphic epics, which told +of the centaurs, the old hippanthropes, those Titans with human +heads and equestrian chests who scaled Olympus at a gallop, horrible, +invulnerable, sublime--gods and beasts. + +Odd numerical coincidence,--twenty-six battalions rode to meet +twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of +the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen squares, +two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the first +line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, +taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, +mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers +did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They +heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and +symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the +cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage +breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all at once, +a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the +crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads +with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" All this cavalry +debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an +earthquake. + +All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the +head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On +arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly +given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and +cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,--a trench +between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain. + +It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, +directly under the horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double +slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed +on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their +haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming +the riders; and there being no means of retreat,--the whole column being +no longer anything more than a projectile,--the force which had been +acquired to crush the English crushed the French; the inexorable ravine +could only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled there pell-mell, +grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf: when +this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and +passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss. + +This began the loss of the battle. + +A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates matters, says that two +thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road +of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which +were flung into this ravine the day after the combat. + +Let us note in passing that it was Dubois's sorely tried brigade which, +an hour previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag +of the Lunenburg battalion. + +Napoleon, before giving the order for this charge of Milhaud's +cuirassiers, had scrutinized the ground, but had not been able to see +that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of +the plateau. Warned, nevertheless, and put on the alert by the little +white chapel which marks its angle of junction with the Nivelles +highway, he had probably put a question as to the possibility of an +obstacle, to the guide Lacoste. The guide had answered No. We might +almost affirm that Napoleon's catastrophe originated in that sign of a +peasant's head. + +Other fatalities were destined to arise. + +Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer No. +Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God. + +Bonaparte victor at Waterloo; that does not come within the law of the +nineteenth century. Another series of facts was in preparation, in which +there was no longer any room for Napoleon. The ill will of events had +declared itself long before. + +It was time that this vast man should fall. + +The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. +This individual alone counted for more than a universal group. These +plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head; the world +mounting to the brain of one man,--this would be mortal to civilization +were it to last. The moment had arrived for the incorruptible and +supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the principles and the +elements, on which the regular gravitations of the moral, as of the +material, world depend, had complained. Smoking blood, over-filled +cemeteries, mothers in tears,--these are formidable pleaders. When +the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious +groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear. + +Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been +decided on. + +He embarrassed God. + +Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change of front on the part of the +Universe. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE PLATEAU OF MONT-SAINT-JEAN + +The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine. + +Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted lightning point-blank on +the cuirassiers. The intrepid General Delort made the military salute to +the English battery. + +The whole of the flying artillery of the English had re-entered the +squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not had even the time for a +halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not discouraged +them. They belonged to that class of men who, when diminished in number, +increase in courage. + +Wathier's column alone had suffered in the disaster; Delort's column, +which Ney had deflected to the left, as though he had a presentiment of +an ambush, had arrived whole. + +The cuirassiers hurled themselves on the English squares. + +At full speed, with bridles loose, swords in their teeth pistols in +fist,--such was the attack. + +There are moments in battles in which the soul hardens the man until +the soldier is changed into a statue, and when all this flesh turns into +granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. + +Then it was terrible. + +All the faces of the English squares were attacked at once. A frenzied +whirl enveloped them. That cold infantry remained impassive. The first +rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second +ranks shot them down; behind the second rank the cannoneers charged +their guns, the front of the square parted, permitted the passage of +an eruption of grape-shot, and closed again. The cuirassiers replied +by crushing them. Their great horses reared, strode across the ranks, +leaped over the bayonets and fell, gigantic, in the midst of these four +living wells. The cannon-balls ploughed furrows in these cuirassiers; +the cuirassiers made breaches in the squares. Files of men disappeared, +ground to dust under the horses. The bayonets plunged into the bellies +of these centaurs; hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably +never been seen anywhere else. The squares, wasted by this mad cavalry, +closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of +grape-shot, they created explosions in their assailants' midst. The form +of this combat was monstrous. These squares were no longer battalions, +they were craters; those cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, they were +a tempest. Each square was a volcano attacked by a cloud; lava contended +with lightning. + +The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the +air, was almost annihilated at the very first shock. lt was formed +of the 75th regiment of Highlanders. The bagpipe-player in the centre +dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the +forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being +exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under +his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben +Lothian, as did the Greeks recalling Argos. The sword of a cuirassier, +which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to +the song by killing the singer. + +The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still further diminished +by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army +against them, but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them +was equal to ten. Nevertheless, some Hanoverian battalions yielded. +Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at +that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have won the battle. +This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake. + +All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assailants, found +themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their back. Before +them two squares, behind them Somerset; Somerset meant fourteen hundred +dragoons of the guard. On the right, Somerset had Dornberg with the +German light-horse, and on his left, Trip with the Belgian carabineers; +the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the +rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face all sides. What mattered it +to them? They were a whirlwind. Their valor was something indescribable. + +In addition to this, they had behind them the battery, which was still +thundering. It was necessary that it should be so, or they could never +have been wounded in the back. One of their cuirasses, pierced on the +shoulder by a ball from a biscayan,[9] is in the collection of the +Waterloo Museum. + +For such Frenchmen nothing less than such Englishmen was needed. It +was no longer a hand-to-hand conflict; it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy +transport of souls and courage, a hurricane of lightning swords. In an +instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. +Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with +the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes's light-horse. The plateau +of Mont-Saint-Jean was captured, recaptured, captured again. The +cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry; or, to put +it more exactly, the whole of that formidable rout collared each other +without releasing the other. The squares still held firm. + +There were a dozen assaults. Ney had four horses killed under him. Half +the cuirassiers remained on the plateau. This conflict lasted two hours. + +The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had they +not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the hollow +road the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and decided the +victory. This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton, who had seen +Talavera and Badajoz. Wellington, three-quarters vanquished, admired +heroically. He said in an undertone, "Sublime!" + +The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen, took or +spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and captured from the English regiments +six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore +to the Emperor, in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance. + +Wellington's situation had grown worse. This strange battle was like a +duel between two raging, wounded men, each of whom, still fighting and +still resisting, is expending all his blood. + +Which of the two will be the first to fall? + +The conflict on the plateau continued. + +What had become of the cuirassiers? No one could have told. One thing +is certain, that on the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his +horse were found dead among the woodwork of the scales for vehicles at +Mont-Saint-Jean, at the very point where the four roads from Nivelles, +Genappe, La Hulpe, and Brussels meet and intersect each other. This +horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the +body still lives at Mont-Saint-Jean. His name is Dehaze. He was eighteen +years old at that time. + +Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand. + +The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken +through. As every one was in possession of the plateau, no one held it, +and in fact it remained, to a great extent, with the English. Wellington +held the village and the culminating plain; Ney had only the crest and +the slope. They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both sides. + +But the weakening of the English seemed irremediable. The bleeding +of that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded +reinforcements. "There are none," replied Wellington; "he must let +himself be killed!" Almost at that same moment, a singular coincidence +which paints the exhaustion of the two armies, Ney demanded infantry +from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, "Infantry! Where does he expect +me to get it? Does he think I can make it?" + +Nevertheless, the English army was in the worse case of the two. The +furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and +breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing. A few men clustered +round a flag marked the post of a regiment; such and such a battalion +was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant; Alten's division, +already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte, was almost destroyed; +the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the rye-fields +all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch +grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in 1811, +fought against Wellington; and who, in 1815, rallied to the +English standard, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers was +considerable. Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg buried on the following +day, had his knee shattered. If, on the French side, in that tussle +of the cuirassiers, Delort, l'Heritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers, and +Blancard were disabled, on the side of the English there was Alten +wounded, Barne wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda +killed, the whole of Wellington's staff decimated, and England had the +worse of it in that bloody scale. The second regiment of foot-guards +had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns; +the first battalion of the 30th infantry had lost 24 officers and 1,200 +soldiers; the 79th Highlanders had lost 24 officers wounded, 18 officers +killed, 450 soldiers killed. The Hanoverian hussars of Cumberland, a +whole regiment, with Colonel Hacke at its head, who was destined to be +tried later on and cashiered, had turned bridle in the presence of the +fray, and had fled to the forest of Soignes, sowing defeat all the way +to Brussels. The transports, ammunition-wagons, the baggage-wagons, the +wagons filled with wounded, on perceiving that the French were gaining +ground and approaching the forest, rushed headlong thither. The Dutch, +mowed down by the French cavalry, cried, "Alarm!" From Vert-Coucou to +Groentendael, for a distance of nearly two leagues in the direction +of Brussels, according to the testimony of eye-witnesses who are still +alive, the roads were encumbered with fugitives. This panic was such +that it attacked the Prince de Conde at Mechlin, and Louis XVIII. at +Ghent. With the exception of the feeble reserve echelonned behind the +ambulance established at the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean, and of Vivian's +and Vandeleur's brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had +no cavalry left. A number of batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are +attested by Siborne; and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far +as to say that the Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand +men. The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vincent, the +Austrian commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present +at the battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five +o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these +sinister words, "Blucher, or night!" + +It was at about that moment that a distant line of bayonets gleamed on +the heights in the direction of Frischemont. + +Here comes the change of face in this giant drama. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW + +The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, +Blucher arriving. Death instead of life. + +Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was Saint +Helena that was seen. + +If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bulow, Blucher's +lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above +Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth +century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the +battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit, +the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for +artillery, and Bulow would not have arrived. + +Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, and +Blucher would not have found Wellington on his feet. "The battle was +lost." + +It was time that Bulow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover, +been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont, and had set +out at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuck +fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, +he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre; +the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so +the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between two rows of +burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration was +extinguished. It was mid-day before Bulow's vanguard had been able to +reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. + +Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over +at four o'clock, and Blucher would have fallen on the battle won by +Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite which +we cannot comprehend. + +The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with his +field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his +attention. He had said, "I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be +troops." Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, "Soult, what do you see in +the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling his +glass, answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy." +But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff +had studied "the cloud" pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: "It is +trees." The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached +Domon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter. + +Bulow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could +accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army +corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before +entering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, +Blucher ordered Bulow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "We +must give air to the English army." + +A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel +deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia +debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the +Prussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in +reserve behind Napoleon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GUARD + +Every one knows the rest,--the irruption of a third army; the battle +broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; +Pirch the first coming up with Bulow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher +in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of +Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating; +Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our +dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the +offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French +army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each +other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the +Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all +things. + +Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!" +History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in +acclamations. + +The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very +moment,--it was eight o'clock in the evening--the clouds on the horizon +parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to +pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it +rise at Austerlitz. + +Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final +catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan, +were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with +their large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line, +tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for +France; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field +of battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors, +believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellington +shouted, "Up, Guards, and aim straight!" The red regiment of English +guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot +riddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurled +themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the +Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast +shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the +place of the "Vive l'Empereur!" and, with flight behind it, it continued +to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that it took. +There were none who hesitated, no timid men in its ranks. The soldier in +that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man was missing +in that suicide. + +Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offered +himself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killed +under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth, with +uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a sword-stroke +from a horseguard, his plaque with the great eagle dented by a bullet; +bleeding, bemired, magnificent, a broken sword in his hand, he said, +"Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of battle!" But +in vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At Drouet d'Erlon he +hurled this question, "Are you not going to get yourself killed?" In +the midst of all that artillery engaged in crushing a handful of men, +he shouted: "So there is nothing for me! Oh! I should like to have all +these English bullets enter my bowels!" Unhappy man, thou wert reserved +for French bullets! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE CATASTROPHE + +The rout behind the Guard was melancholy. + +The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once,--Hougomont, La +Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry "Treachery!" was followed by +a cry of "Save yourselves who can!" An army which is disbanding is +like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, +hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney +borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, +places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and +French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, he +insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly +from him, shouting, "Long live Marshal Ney!" Two of Durutte's regiments +go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the +swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best, +Pack, and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to-hand conflicts is the defeat; +friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions +break and disperse against each other, like the tremendous foam of +battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into +the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of +his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable +squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur, +Lobau before Bulow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before +Prince William of Prussia; Guyot, who led the Emperor's squadrons to the +charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon gallops +past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats +them. All the mouths which in the morning had shouted, "Long live +the Emperor!" remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The Prussian +cavalry, newly arrived, dashes forwards, flies, hews, slashes, kills, +exterminates. Horses lash out, the cannons flee; the soldiers of the +artillery-train unharness the caissons and use the horses to make their +escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air, clog the +road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed, trampled down, others walk +over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the +roads, the paths, the bridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, +the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts +despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passages forced at +the point of the sword, no more comrades, no more officers, no more +generals, an inexpressible terror. Zieten putting France to the sword at +its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. + +At Genappe, an effort was made to wheel about, to present a battle +front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The entrance +to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of Prussian +canister, all took to flight again, and Lobau was taken. That volley of +grape-shot can be seen to-day imprinted on the ancient gable of a brick +building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you +enter Genappe. The Prussians threw themselves into Genappe, furious, no +doubt, that they were not more entirely the conquerors. The pursuit was +stupendous. Blucher ordered extermination. Roguet had set the lugubrious +example of threatening with death any French grenadier who should bring +him a Prussian prisoner. Blucher outdid Roguet. Duhesme, the general +of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe, +surrendered his sword to a huzzar of death, who took the sword and slew +the prisoner. The victory was completed by the assassination of the +vanquished. Let us inflict punishment, since we are history: old +Blucher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the +disaster. The desperate route traversed Genappe, traversed Quatre-Bras, +traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed +Thuin, and only halted at the frontier. Alas! and who, then, was fleeing +in that manner? The Grand Army. + +This vertigo, this terror, this downfall into ruin of the loftiest +bravery which ever astounded history,--is that causeless? No. The shadow +of an enormous right is projected athwart Waterloo. It is the day of +destiny. The force which is mightier than man produced that day. Hence +the terrified wrinkle of those brows; hence all those great souls +surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen +prone on the earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the +present shadow of a terrible presence. Hoc erat in fatis. That day the +perspective of the human race underwent a change. Waterloo is the +hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was +necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom +one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The panic of heroes +can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there is something more than +a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has passed by. + +At nightfall, in a meadow near Genappe, Bernard and Bertrand seized by +the skirt of his coat and detained a man, haggard, pensive, sinister, +gloomy, who, dragged to that point by the current of the rout, had just +dismounted, had passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with +wild eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense +somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to +advance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--THE LAST SQUARE + +Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, +as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night came, +death also; they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible, allowed +themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the +rest, and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every part, +died alone. They had taken up position for this final action, some on +the heights of Rossomme, others on the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean. There, +abandoned, vanquished, terrible, those gloomy squares endured their +death-throes in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland, died +with them. + +At twilight, towards nine o'clock in the evening, one of them was left +at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. In that fatal valley, +at the foot of that declivity which the cuirassiers had ascended, now +inundated by the masses of the English, under the converging fires +of the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful density of +projectiles, this square fought on. It was commanded by an obscure +officer named Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and +replied. It replied to the grape-shot with a fusillade, continually +contracting its four walls. The fugitives pausing breathless for a +moment in the distance, listened in the darkness to that gloomy and +ever-decreasing thunder. + +When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left +of their flag but a rag, when their guns, the bullets all gone, were no +longer anything but clubs, when the heap of corpses was larger than the +group of survivors, there reigned among the conquerors, around those men +dying so sublimely, a sort of sacred terror, and the English artillery, +taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of respite. These +combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of +spectres, silhouettes of men on horseback, the black profiles of cannon, +the white sky viewed through wheels and gun-carriages, the colossal +death's-head, which the heroes saw constantly through the smoke, in the +depths of the battle, advanced upon them and gazed at them. Through the +shades of twilight they could hear the pieces being loaded; the matches +all lighted, like the eyes of tigers at night, formed a circle round +their heads; all the lintstocks of the English batteries approached the +cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the supreme moment suspended +above these men, an English general, Colville according to some, +Maitland according to others, shouted to them, "Surrender, brave +Frenchmen!" Cambronne replied, "-----." + +{EDITOR'S COMMENTARY: Another edition of this book has the word "Merde!" +in lieu of the ----- above.} + + + + +CHAPTER XV--CAMBRONNE + +If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one +would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps +the finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would enjoin us from +consigning something sublime to History. + +At our own risk and peril, let us violate this injunction. + +Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,--Cambronne. + +To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being +willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man's fault if +he survived after he was shot. + +The winner of the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, who was put to +flight; nor Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, in despair at five; +nor Blucher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloo +was Cambronne. + +To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is +to conquer! + +Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give this +pedestal to the future lion, to hurl such a challenge to the midnight +rainstorm, to the treacherous wall of Hougomont, to the sunken road of +Ohain, to Grouchy's delay, to Blucher's arrival, to be Irony itself in +the tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown in +two syllables the European coalition, to offer kings privies which +the Caesars once knew, to make the lowest of words the most lofty by +entwining with it the glory of France, insolently to end Waterloo with +Mardigras, to finish Leonidas with Rabellais, to set the crown on this +victory by a word impossible to speak, to lose the field and preserve +history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,--this is +immense! + +It was an insult such as a thunder-cloud might hurl! It reaches the +grandeur of AEschylus! + +Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like the +breaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. 'Tis the overflow of agony +bursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been for +Blucher, he was lost. Was it Blucher? No! If Wellington had not begun, +Blucher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending his +last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes +that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly +agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of +it, he is offered this mockery,--life! How could he restrain himself? +Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, +the Jupiter's darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousand +victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their +cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind down +under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they have +just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,--only this earthworm +is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate +word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the +word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory +which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He +grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality; +and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior +force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: "Excrement!" +We repeat it,--to use that word, to do thus, to invent such an +expression, is to be the conqueror! + +The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment made its descent +on that unknown man. Cambronne invents the word for Waterloo as Rouget +invents the "Marseillaise," under the visitation of a breath from on +high. An emanation from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comes +sweeping over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the song +supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry. + +This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe in +the name of the Empire,--that would be a trifle: he hurls it at the past +in the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognized +as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be +speaking! Kleber seems to be bellowing! + +At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, "Fire!" +The batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen mouths +belched a last terrible gush of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke, +vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the +smoke dispersed, there was no longer anything there. That formidable +remnant had been annihilated; the Guard was dead. The four walls of the +living redoubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here and +there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions, +greater than the Roman legions, expired on Mont-Saint-Jean, on the soil +watered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the spot where +nowadays Joseph, who drives the post-wagon from Nivelles, passes +whistling, and cheerfully whipping up his horse at four o'clock in the +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE? + +The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won +it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic;[10] Blucher +sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in regard +to it. Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the commentaries +involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of +Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes; +Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, +seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that +catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the +other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled +state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, +a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of +kings, drew all the kingdoms after it--the fall of force, the defeat of +war. + +In this event, stamped with superhuman necessity, the part played by men +amounts to nothing. + +If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blucher, do we thereby deprive +England and Germany of anything? No. Neither that illustrious England +nor that august Germany enter into the problem of Waterloo. Thank +Heaven, nations are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of +the sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is contained in +a scabbard. At this epoch when Waterloo is only a clashing of swords, +above Blucher, Germany has Schiller; above Wellington, England has +Byron. A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our century, and in +that aurora England and Germany have a magnificent radiance. They +are majestic because they think. The elevation of level which they +contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them; it proceeds from +themselves and not from an accident. The aggrandizement which they have +brought to the nineteenth century has not Waterloo as its source. It is +only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth after a victory. That is +the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, +especially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the good or +bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the human species +results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank God! their +dignity, their intelligence, their genius, are not numbers which those +gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. +Often a battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is less glory +and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes the word. It is +a game in which he who loses wins. Let us, therefore, speak of Waterloo +coldly from both sides. Let us render to chance that which is due +to chance, and to God that which is due to God. What is Waterloo? A +victory? No. The winning number in the lottery. + +The quine [11] won by Europe, paid by France. + +It was not worth while to place a lion there. + +Waterloo, moreover, is the strangest encounter in history. Napoleon and +Wellington. They are not enemies; they are opposites. Never did God, +who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more +extraordinary comparison. On one side, precision, foresight, geometry, +prudence, an assured retreat, reserves spared, with an obstinate +coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage +of the ground, tactics, which preserve the equilibrium of battalions, +carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, +nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage, +absolute regularity; on the other, intuition, divination, military +oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable +something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the +lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries +of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the +forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey, the despot +going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle; faith in +a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but perturbing it. +Wellington was the Bareme of war; Napoleon was its Michael Angelo; and +on this occasion, genius was vanquished by calculation. On both sides +some one was awaited. It was the exact calculator who succeeded. +Napoleon was waiting for Grouchy; he did not come. Wellington expected +Blucher; he came. + +Wellington is classic war taking its revenge. Bonaparte, at his dawning, +had encountered him in Italy, and beaten him superbly. The old owl had +fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not only struck +as by lightning, but disgraced. Who was that Corsican of six and twenty? +What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with everything against +him, nothing in his favor, without provisions, without ammunition, +without cannon, without shoes, almost without an army, with a mere +handful of men against masses, hurled himself on Europe combined, +and absurdly won victories in the impossible? Whence had issued that +fulminating convict, who almost without taking breath, and with the same +set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the other, the five +armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on Alvinzi, Wurmser +on Beaulieu, Melas on Wurmser, Mack on Melas? Who was this novice in +war with the effrontery of a luminary? The academical military school +excommunicated him, and as it lost its footing; hence, the implacable +rancor of the old Caesarism against the new; of the regular sword +against the flaming sword; and of the exchequer against genius. On the +18th of June, 1815, that rancor had the last word. and beneath Lodi, +Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Arcola, it wrote: Waterloo. A triumph of +the mediocres which is sweet to the majority. Destiny consented to this +irony. In his decline, Napoleon found Wurmser, the younger, again in +front of him. + +In fact, to get Wurmser, it sufficed to blanch the hair of Wellington. + +Waterloo is a battle of the first order, won by a captain of the second. + +That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England; the +English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood; the superb +thing about England there, no offence to her, was herself. It was not +her captain; it was her army. + +Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst, +that his army, the army which fought on the 18th of June, 1815, was a +"detestable army." What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried +beneath the furrows of Waterloo think of that? + +England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make +Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but +a hero like many another. Those Scotch Grays, those Horse Guards, those +regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt, +that cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset, those Highlanders playing the +pibroch under the shower of grape-shot, those battalions of Rylandt, +those utterly raw recruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket +holding their own against Essling's and Rivoli's old troops,--that is +what was grand. Wellington was tenacious; in that lay his merit, and we +are not seeking to lessen it: but the least of his foot-soldiers and of +his cavalry would have been as solid as he. The iron soldier is worth +as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the +English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy +there be, it is to England that the trophy is due. The column of +Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore +on high the statue of a people. + +But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She +still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion. +She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none +in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And +as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its +head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it +allows itself to be flogged. + +It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who +had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan, +as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the +grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports. + +That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of +Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance. A nocturnal rain, the +wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, +Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Bulow's guide enlightening him,--the +whole of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted. + +On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of a +battle at Waterloo. + +Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest front +for such a number of combatants. Napoleon three-quarters of a league; +Wellington, half a league; seventy-two thousand combatants on each side. +From this denseness the carnage arose. + +The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion +established: Loss of men: at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent; +Russians, thirty per cent; Austrians, forty-four per cent. At Wagram, +French, thirteen per cent; Austrians, fourteen. At the Moskowa, French, +thirty-seven per cent; Russians, forty-four. At Bautzen, French, +thirteen per cent; Russians and Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo, +French, fifty-six per cent; the Allies, thirty-one. Total for Waterloo, +forty-one per cent; one hundred and forty-four thousand combatants; +sixty thousand dead. + +To-day the field of Waterloo has the calm which belongs to the earth, +the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains. + +At night, moreover, a sort of visionary mist arises from it; and if a +traveller strolls there, if he listens, if he watches, if he dreams +like Virgil in the fatal plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the +catastrophe takes possession of him. The frightful 18th of June lives +again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in +air, the battle-field resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate +over the plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon; the frightened +dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare of +bombs, the tremendous interchange of thunders; he hears, as it were, +the death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague clamor of the battle +phantom; those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are cuirassiers; +that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington; all this no +longer exists, and yet it clashes together and combats still; and the +ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in +the clouds and in the shadows; all those terrible heights, Hougomont, +Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly +crowned with whirlwinds of spectres engaged in exterminating each other. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--IS WATERLOO TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD? + +There exists a very respectable liberal school which does not hate +Waterloo. We do not belong to it. To us, Waterloo is but the stupefied +date of liberty. That such an eagle should emerge from such an egg is +certainly unexpected. + +If one places one's self at the culminating point of view of the +question, Waterloo is intentionally a counter-revolutionary victory. It +is Europe against France; it is Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna against +Paris; it is the statu quo against the initiative; it is the 14th +of July, 1789, attacked through the 20th of March, 1815; it is the +monarchies clearing the decks in opposition to the indomitable French +rioting. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in +eruption for twenty-six years--such was the dream. The solidarity of the +Brunswicks, the Nassaus, the Romanoffs, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs +with the Bourbons. Waterloo bears divine right on its crupper. It is +true, that the Empire having been despotic, the kingdom by the natural +reaction of things, was forced to be liberal, and that a constitutional +order was the unwilling result of Waterloo, to the great regret of the +conquerors. It is because revolution cannot be really conquered, and +that being providential and absolutely fatal, it is always cropping +up afresh: before Waterloo, in Bonaparte overthrowing the old thrones; +after Waterloo, in Louis XVIII. granting and conforming to the charter. +Bonaparte places a postilion on the throne of Naples, and a sergeant +on the throne of Sweden, employing inequality to demonstrate equality; +Louis XVIII. at Saint-Ouen countersigns the declaration of the rights +of man. If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it +Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, +call it To-morrow. To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is +already fulfilling it to-day. It always reaches its goal strangely. It +employs Wellington to make of Foy, who was only a soldier, an orator. +Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again in the tribune. Thus does +progress proceed. There is no such thing as a bad tool for that workman. +It does not become disconcerted, but adjusts to its divine work the +man who has bestridden the Alps, and the good old tottering invalid +of Father Elysee. It makes use of the gouty man as well as of the +conqueror; of the conqueror without, of the gouty man within. Waterloo, +by cutting short the demolition of European thrones by the sword, had +no other effect than to cause the revolutionary work to be continued in +another direction. The slashers have finished; it was the turn of the +thinkers. The century that Waterloo was intended to arrest has pursued +its march. That sinister victory was vanquished by liberty. + +In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo; that +which smiled in Wellington's rear; that which brought him all the +marshals' staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a +marshal of France; that which joyously trundled the barrows full of +bones to erect the knoll of the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed +on that pedestal the date "June 18, 1815"; that which encouraged +Blucher, as he put the flying army to the sword; that which, from the +heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over France as over +its prey, was the counter-revolution. It was the counter-revolution +which murmured that infamous word "dismemberment." On arriving in Paris, +it beheld the crater close at hand; it felt those ashes which scorched +its feet, and it changed its mind; it returned to the stammer of a +charter. + +Let us behold in Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo. Of intentional +liberty there is none. The counter-revolution was involuntarily liberal, +in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was +involuntarily revolutionary. On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted +Robespierre was hurled from his saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT + +End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away. + +The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as +it expired. Again we behold the abyss, as in the days of the barbarians; +only the barbarism of 1815, which must be called by its pet name of the +counter-revolution, was not long breathed, soon fell to panting, and +halted short. The Empire was bewept,--let us acknowledge the fact,--and +bewept by heroic eyes. If glory lies in the sword converted into a +sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had diffused over the +earth all the light which tyranny can give a sombre light. We will say +more; an obscure light. Compared to the true daylight, it is night. This +disappearance of night produces the effect of an eclipse. + +Louis XVIII. re-entered Paris. The circling dances of the 8th of July +effaced the enthusiasms of the 20th of March. The Corsican became the +antithesis of the Bearnese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries was +white. The exile reigned. Hartwell's pine table took its place in front +of the fleur-de-lys-strewn throne of Louis XIV. Bouvines and Fontenoy +were mentioned as though they had taken place on the preceding +day, Austerlitz having become antiquated. The altar and the throne +fraternized majestically. One of the most undisputed forms of the health +of society in the nineteenth century was established over France, and +over the continent. Europe adopted the white cockade. Trestaillon was +celebrated. The device non pluribus impar re-appeared on the stone rays +representing a sun upon the front of the barracks on the Quai d'Orsay. +Where there had been an Imperial Guard, there was now a red house. The +Arc du Carrousel, all laden with badly borne victories, thrown out +of its element among these novelties, a little ashamed, it may be, of +Marengo and Arcola, extricated itself from its predicament with the +statue of the Duc d'Angouleme. The cemetery of the Madeleine, a terrible +pauper's grave in 1793, was covered with jasper and marble, since the +bones of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette lay in that dust. + +In the moat of Vincennes a sepulchral shaft sprang from the earth, +recalling the fact that the Duc d'Enghien had perished in the very +month when Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed the +coronation very near this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing on the +fall as he had bestowed it on the elevation. At Schoenbrunn there was +a little shadow, aged four, whom it was seditious to call the King of +Rome. And these things took place, and the kings resumed their thrones, +and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became +the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the earth +changed place, because, on the afternoon of a certain summer's day, a +shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, "Go this way, and not that!" + +This 1815 was a sort of lugubrious April. Ancient unhealthy and +poisonous realities were covered with new appearances. A lie wedded +1789; the right divine was masked under a charter; fictions became +constitutional; prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with +Article 14 in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was the +serpent's change of skin. + +Man had been rendered both greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under this +reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the strange name of +ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future +into derision. The populace, however, that food for cannon which is so +fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is +he doing? "Napoleon is dead," said a passer-by to a veteran of Marengo +and Waterloo. "He dead!" cried the soldier; "you don't know him." +Imagination distrusted this man, even when overthrown. The depths of +Europe were full of darkness after Waterloo. Something enormous remained +long empty through Napoleon's disappearance. + +The kings placed themselves in this void. Ancient Europe profited by +it to undertake reforms. There was a Holy Alliance; Belle-Alliance, +Beautiful Alliance, the fatal field of Waterloo had said in advance. + +In presence and in face of that antique Europe reconstructed, the +features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the +Emperor had rallied, made its entry. On its brow it bore the star, +Liberty. The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on it. +Singular fact! people were, at one and the same time, in love with +the future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the +vanquished greater. Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon +erect. Those who had triumphed were alarmed. England had him guarded by +Hudson Lowe, and France had him watched by Montchenu. His folded arms +became a source of uneasiness to thrones. Alexander called him "my +sleeplessness." This terror was the result of the quantity of +revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and excuses +Bonapartist liberalism. This phantom caused the old world to tremble. +The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock of Saint Helena +on the horizon. + +While Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood, the +sixty thousand men who had fallen on the field of Waterloo were quietly +rotting, and something of their peace was shed abroad over the world. +The Congress of Vienna made the treaties in 1815, and Europe called this +the Restoration. + +This is what Waterloo was. + +But what matters it to the Infinite? all that tempest, all that cloud, +that war, then that peace? All that darkness did not trouble for a +moment the light of that immense Eye before which a grub skipping from +one blade of grass to another equals the eagle soaring from belfry to +belfry on the towers of Notre Dame. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT + +Let us return--it is a necessity in this book--to that fatal +battle-field. + +On the 18th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blucher's +ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, delivered +up that disastrous mass to the eager Prussian cavalry, and aided the +massacre. Such tragic favors of the night do occur sometimes during +catastrophes. + +After the last cannon-shot had been fired, the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean +remained deserted. + +The English occupied the encampment of the French; it is the usual sign +of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established their +bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the retreating +rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of Waterloo to draw +up his report to Lord Bathurst. + +If ever the sic vos non vobis was applicable, it certainly is to that +village of Waterloo. Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from +the scene of action. Mont-Saint-Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was +burned, La Haie-Sainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, +Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two +conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not +in the battle, bears off all the honor. + +We are not of the number of those who flatter war; when the occasion +presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War has frightful beauties +which we have not concealed; it has also, we acknowledge, some hideous +features. One of the most surprising is the prompt stripping of the +bodies of the dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle +always rises on naked corpses. + +Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is +that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets +are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some +philosophers--Voltaire among the number--affirm that it is precisely +those persons have made the glory. It is the same men, they say; there +is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone +on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night. One has +assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when one is the +author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so; it seems +to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the +shoes from a dead man. + +One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow +thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary +soldier, out of the question. + +Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. +Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of +vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of +uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; +formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, +sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they +sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers' +servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,--we are not +speaking of the present,--dragged all this behind them, so that in the +special language they are called "stragglers." No army, no nation, +was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and followed the +Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of +these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis +of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and taking him for one +of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on the battle-field +itself, in the course of the night which followed the victory of +Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, +Live on the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline +alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive; one does +not always know why certain generals, great in other directions, have +been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated +pillage; evil permitted constitutes part of goodness. Turenne was so +good that he allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and +blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in +number, according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and +Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few, and we do him the justice +to mention it. + +Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead +were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in +the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in +one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. + +The moon was sinister over this plain. + +Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the +direction of the hollow road of Ohain. To all appearance he was one of +those whom we have just described,--neither English nor French, neither +peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent +of the dead bodies having theft for his victory, and come to rifle +Waterloo. He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat; +he was uneasy and audacious; he walked forwards and gazed behind him. +Who was this man? The night probably knew more of him than the day. He +had no sack, but evidently he had large pockets under his coat. From +time to time he halted, scrutinized the plain around him as though to +see whether he were observed, bent over abruptly, disturbed something +silent and motionless on the ground, then rose and fled. His sliding +motion, his attitudes, his mysterious and rapid gestures, caused him +to resemble those twilight larvae which haunt ruins, and which ancient +Norman legends call the Alleurs. + +Certain nocturnal wading birds produce these silhouettes among the +marshes. + +A glance capable of piercing all that mist deeply would have perceived +at some distance a sort of little sutler's wagon with a fluted wicker +hood, harnessed to a famished nag which was cropping the grass across +its bit as it halted, hidden, as it were, behind the hovel which adjoins +the highway to Nivelles, at the angle of the road from Mont-Saint-Jean +to Braine l'Alleud; and in the wagon, a sort of woman seated on coffers +and packages. Perhaps there was some connection between that wagon and +that prowler. + +The darkness was serene. Not a cloud in the zenith. What matters it if +the earth be red! the moon remains white; these are the indifferences of +the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grape-shot, but not +fallen, upheld by their bark, swayed gently in the breeze of night. +A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which +resembled the departure of souls ran through the grass. + +In the distance the coming and going of patrols and the general rounds +of the English camp were audible. + +Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte continued to burn, forming, one in the +west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the +cordon of bivouac fires of the English, like a necklace of rubies +with two carbuncles at the extremities, as they extended in an immense +semicircle over the hills along the horizon. + +We have described the catastrophe of the road of Ohain. The heart is +terrified at the thought of what that death must have been to so many +brave men. + +If there is anything terrible, if there exists a reality which surpasses +dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun; to be in full possession +of virile force; to possess health and joy; to laugh valiantly; to rush +towards a glory which one sees dazzling in front of one; to feel in +one's breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats, a will which +reasons; to speak, think, hope, love; to have a mother, to have a wife, +to have children; to have the light--and all at once, in the space of a +shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss; to fall, to +roll, to crush, to be crushed; to see ears of wheat, flowers, leaves, +branches; not to be able to catch hold of anything; to feel one's sword +useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one; to struggle in vain, +since one's bones have been broken by some kick in the darkness; to feel +a heel which makes one's eyes start from their sockets; to bite horses' +shoes in one's rage; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be beneath, and +to say to one's self, "But just a little while ago I was a living man!" + +There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its death-rattle, +all was silence now. The edges of the hollow road were encumbered with +horses and riders, inextricably heaped up. Terrible entanglement! There +was no longer any slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the +plain, and reached the brim like a well-filled bushel of barley. A +heap of dead bodies in the upper part, a river of blood in the lower +part--such was that road on the evening of the 18th of June, 1815. The +blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and there overflowed in a large +pool in front of the abatis of trees which barred the way, at a spot +which is still pointed out. + +It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the +direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction of the cuirassiers +had taken place. The thickness of the layer of bodies was proportioned +to the depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at the point +where it became level, where Delort's division had passed, the layer of +corpses was thinner. + +The nocturnal prowler whom we have just shown to the reader was going +in that direction. He was searching that vast tomb. He gazed about. He +passed the dead in some sort of hideous review. He walked with his feet +in the blood. + +All at once he paused. + +A few paces in front of him, in the hollow road, at the point where +the pile of dead came to an end, an open hand, illumined by the moon, +projected from beneath that heap of men. That hand had on its finger +something sparkling, which was a ring of gold. + +The man bent over, remained in a crouching attitude for a moment, and +when he rose there was no longer a ring on the hand. + +He did not precisely rise; he remained in a stooping and frightened +attitude, with his back turned to the heap of dead, scanning the horizon +on his knees, with the whole upper portion of his body supported on his +two forefingers, which rested on the earth, and his head peering above +the edge of the hollow road. The jackal's four paws suit some actions. + +Then coming to a decision, he rose to his feet. + +At that moment, he gave a terrible start. He felt some one clutch him +from behind. + +He wheeled round; it was the open hand, which had closed, and had seized +the skirt of his coat. + +An honest man would have been terrified; this man burst into a laugh. + +"Come," said he, "it's only a dead body. I prefer a spook to a +gendarme." + +But the hand weakened and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in +the grave. + +"Well now," said the prowler, "is that dead fellow alive? Let's see." + +He bent down again, fumbled among the heap, pushed aside everything that +was in his way, seized the hand, grasped the arm, freed the head, pulled +out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the lifeless, or +at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He +was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of considerable rank; +a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the cuirass; this officer +no longer possessed a helmet. A furious sword-cut had scarred his face, +where nothing was discernible but blood. + +However, he did not appear to have any broken limbs, and, by some happy +chance, if that word is permissible here, the dead had been vaulted +above him in such a manner as to preserve him from being crushed. His +eyes were still closed. + +On his cuirass he wore the silver cross of the Legion of Honor. + +The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared into one of the gulfs +which he had beneath his great coat. + +Then he felt of the officer's fob, discovered a watch there, and took +possession of it. Next he searched his waistcoat, found a purse and +pocketed it. + +When he had arrived at this stage of succor which he was administering +to this dying man, the officer opened his eyes. + +"Thanks," he said feebly. + +The abruptness of the movements of the man who was manipulating him, the +freshness of the night, the air which he could inhale freely, had roused +him from his lethargy. + +The prowler made no reply. He raised his head. A sound of footsteps was +audible in the plain; some patrol was probably approaching. + +The officer murmured, for the death agony was still in his voice:-- + +"Who won the battle?" + +"The English," answered the prowler. + +The officer went on:-- + +"Look in my pockets; you will find a watch and a purse. Take them." + +It was already done. + +The prowler executed the required feint, and said:-- + +"There is nothing there." + +"I have been robbed," said the officer; "I am sorry for that. You should +have had them." + +The steps of the patrol became more and more distinct. + +"Some one is coming," said the prowler, with the movement of a man who +is taking his departure. + +The officer raised his arm feebly, and detained him. + +"You have saved my life. Who are you?" + +The prowler answered rapidly, and in a low voice:-- + +"Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they +were to catch me, they would shoot me. I have saved your life. Now get +out of the scrape yourself." + +"What is your rank?" + +"Sergeant." + +"What is your name?" + +"Thenardier." + +"I shall not forget that name," said the officer; "and do you remember +mine. My name is Pontmercy." + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE SHIP ORION + + + + +CHAPTER I--NUMBER 24,601 BECOMES NUMBER 9,430 + +Jean Valjean had been recaptured. + +The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad +details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs +published by the journals of that day, a few months after the surprising +events which had taken place at M. sur M. + +These articles are rather summary. It must be remembered, that at that +epoch the Gazette des Tribunaux was not yet in existence. + +We borrow the first from the Drapeau Blanc. It bears the date of July +25, 1823. + + +An arrondissement of the Pas de Calais has just been the theatre of an +event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in the +Department, and who bore the name of M. Madeleine, had, thanks to the +new methods, resuscitated some years ago an ancient local industry, the +manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his fortune +in the business, and that of the arrondissement as well, we will admit. +He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his services. The police +discovered that M. Madeleine was no other than an ex-convict who had +broken his ban, condemned in 1796 for theft, and named Jean Valjean. +Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It appears that previous +to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing from the hands of M. +Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and +which he had, moreover, and by perfectly legitimate means, acquired in +his business. No one has been able to discover where Jean Valjean has +concealed this money since his return to prison at Toulon. + + +The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an +extract from the Journal de Paris, of the same date. + +A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just +appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances +calculated to attract attention. This wretch had succeeded in escaping +the vigilance of the police, he had changed his name, and had succeeded +in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns; +in this town he had established a considerable commerce. He has at last +been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the +public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who +died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is +endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape; but three or +four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once more, +in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of those +little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of +Montfermeil (Seine-et-Oise). He is said to have profited by this +interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable +sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been +estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. If the indictment is +to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone, +and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be, +the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the +Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with +violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest +children who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said, in immortal verse, + + + ". . . Arrive from Savoy every year, + And who, with gentle hands, do clear + Those long canals choked up with soot." + + +This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and +eloquent representative of the public prosecutor, that the theft was +committed in complicity with others, and that Jean Valjean was a member +of a band of robbers in the south. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty +and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal +refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency, has +deigned to commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for life. Jean +Valjean was immediately taken to the prison at Toulon. + + +The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at +M. sur M. Some papers, among others the Constitutional, presented this +commutation as a triumph of the priestly party. + +Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called 9,430. + +However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be +obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished +with M. Madeleine; all that he had foreseen during his night of fever +and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was a soul +lacking. After this fall, there took place at M. sur M. that egotistical +division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal dismemberment +of flourishing things which is accomplished every day, obscurely, in +the human community, and which history has noted only once, because it +occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are crowned kings; +superintendents improvise manufacturers out of themselves. Envious +rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were shut; his buildings +fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of them quitted the +country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth, everything was done +on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for lucre instead of +the general good. There was no longer a centre; everywhere there +was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had reigned over all and +directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each pulled things to +himself; the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit of organization, +bitterness to cordiality, hatred of one another to the benevolence of +the founder towards all; the threads which M. Madeleine had set were +tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the products were +debased, confidence was killed; the market diminished, for lack of +orders; salaries were reduced, the workshops stood still, bankruptcy +arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All had vanished. + +The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere. +Less than four years after the judgment of the Court of Assizes +establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the +benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the +arrondissement of M. sur M.; and M. de Villele called attention to the +fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IN WHICH THE READER WILL PERUSE TWO VERSES, WHICH ARE OF THE +DEVIL'S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY + +Before proceeding further, it will be to the purpose to narrate in some +detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, +in Montfermeil, and which is not lacking in coincidence with certain +conjectures of the indictment. + +There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition, +which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because +a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in +Siberia. We are among those who respect everything which is in the +nature of a rare plant. Here, then, is the superstition of Montfermeil: +it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the +forest as a hiding-place for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is +no rarity to encounter at nightfall, in secluded nooks of the forest, +a black man with the air of a carter or a wood-chopper, wearing wooden +shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the +fact, that, instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns on his +head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is +habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting +by such an encounter. The first is to approach the man and speak to him. +Then it is seen that the man is simply a peasant, that he appears black +because it is nightfall; that he is not digging any hole whatever, but +is cutting grass for his cows, and that what had been taken for horns +is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his back, and whose +teeth, thanks to the perspective of evening, seemed to spring from his +head. The man returns home and dies within the week. The second way is +to watch him, to wait until he has dug his hole, until he has filled it +and has gone away; then to run with great speed to the trench, to +open it once more and to seize the "treasure" which the black man +has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies within the month. +Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look +at him, and to flee at the best speed of one's legs. One then dies +within the year. + +As all three methods are attended with their special inconveniences, the +second, which at all events, presents some advantages, among others that +of possessing a treasure, if only for a month, is the one most generally +adopted. So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have quite +frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the black +man, and tried to rob the devil. The success of the operation appears +to be but moderate. At least, if the tradition is to be believed, and in +particular the two enigmatical lines in barbarous Latin, which an +evil Norman monk, a bit of a sorcerer, named Tryphon has left on +this subject. This Tryphon is buried at the Abbey of Saint-Georges de +Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads spawn on his grave. + +Accordingly, enormous efforts are made. Such trenches are ordinarily +extremely deep; a man sweats, digs, toils all night--for it must be done +at night; he wets his shirt, burns out his candle, breaks his mattock, +and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on +the "treasure," what does he find? What is the devil's treasure? A sou, +sometimes a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body, sometimes +a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper in a portfolio, +sometimes nothing. This is what Tryphon's verses seem to announce to the +indiscreet and curious:-- + + "Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca, + As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque." + + +It seems that in our day there is sometimes found a powder-horn with +bullets, sometimes an old pack of cards greasy and worn, which has +evidently served the devil. Tryphon does not record these two finds, +since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does not +appear to have had the wit to invent powder before Roger Bacon's time, +and cards before the time of Charles VI. + +Moreover, if one plays at cards, one is sure to lose all that one +possesses! and as for the powder in the horn, it possesses the property +of making your gun burst in your face. + +Now, a very short time after the epoch when it seemed to the prosecuting +attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his flight of +several days had been prowling around Montfermeil, it was remarked in +that village that a certain old road-laborer, named Boulatruelle, had +"peculiar ways" in the forest. People thereabouts thought they knew that +this Boulatruelle had been in the galleys. He was subjected to +certain police supervision, and, as he could find work nowhere, the +administration employed him at reduced rates as a road-mender on the +cross-road from Gagny to Lagny. + +This Boulatruelle was a man who was viewed with disfavor by the +inhabitants of the district as too respectful, too humble, too prompt in +removing his cap to every one, and trembling and smiling in the presence +of the gendarmes,--probably affiliated to robber bands, they said; +suspected of lying in ambush at verge of copses at nightfall. The only +thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard. + +This is what people thought they had noticed:-- + +Of late, Boulatruelle had taken to quitting his task of stone-breaking +and care of the road at a very early hour, and to betaking himself to +the forest with his pickaxe. He was encountered towards evening in +the most deserted clearings, in the wildest thickets; and he had the +appearance of being in search of something, and sometimes he was digging +holes. The goodwives who passed took him at first for Beelzebub; then +they recognized Boulatruelle, and were not in the least reassured +thereby. These encounters seemed to cause Boulatruelle a lively +displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that there was +some mystery in what he was doing. + +It was said in the village: "It is clear that the devil has appeared. +Boulatruelle has seen him, and is on the search. In sooth, he is cunning +enough to pocket Lucifer's hoard." + +The Voltairians added, "Will Boulatruelle catch the devil, or will the +devil catch Boulatruelle?" The old women made a great many signs of the +cross. + +In the meantime, Boulatruelle's manoeuvres in the forest ceased; and he +resumed his regular occupation of roadmending; and people gossiped of +something else. + +Some persons, however, were still curious, surmising that in all this +there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some +fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's +bank-bills, and that the road-mender had half discovered the secret. The +most "puzzled" were the school-master and Thenardier, the proprietor of +the tavern, who was everybody's friend, and had not disdained to ally +himself with Boulatruelle. + +"He has been in the galleys," said Thenardier. "Eh! Good God! no one +knows who has been there or will be there." + +One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law would +have instituted an inquiry as to what Boulatruelle did in the forest, +and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that he would +have been put to the torture in case of need, and that Boulatruelle +would not have resisted the water test, for example. "Let us put him to +the wine test," said Thenardier. + +They made an effort, and got the old road-mender to drinking. +Boulatruelle drank an enormous amount, but said very little. He combined +with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a +gormandizer with the discretion of a judge. Nevertheless, by dint of +returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few +obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thenardier +and the schoolmaster imagined that they had made out:-- + +One morning, when Boulatruelle was on his way to his work, at daybreak, +he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, +a shovel and a pickaxe, concealed, as one might say. + +However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and +pick of Father Six-Fours, the water-carrier, and would have thought no +more about it. But, on the evening of that day, he saw, without being +seen himself, as he was hidden by a large tree, "a person who did not +belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well," directing +his steps towards the densest part of the wood. Translation by +Thenardier: A comrade of the galleys. Boulatruelle obstinately refused +to reveal his name. This person carried a package--something square, +like a large box or a small trunk. Surprise on the part of Boulatruelle. +However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that +the idea of following that "person" had occurred to him. But it was too +late; the person was already in the thicket, night had descended, and +Boulatruelle had not been able to catch up with him. Then he had +adopted the course of watching for him at the edge of the woods. "It was +moonlight." Two or three hours later, Boulatruelle had seen this person +emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel +and pick. Boulatruelle had allowed the person to pass, and had not +dreamed of accosting him, because he said to himself that the other man +was three times as strong as he was, and armed with a pickaxe, and that +he would probably knock him over the head on recognizing him, and on +perceiving that he was recognized. Touching effusion of two old comrades +on meeting again. But the shovel and pick had served as a ray of light +to Boulatruelle; he had hastened to the thicket in the morning, and had +found neither shovel nor pick. From this he had drawn the inference that +this person, once in the forest, had dug a hole with his pick, buried +the coffer, and reclosed the hole with his shovel. Now, the coffer was +too small to contain a body; therefore it contained money. Hence his +researches. Boulatruelle had explored, sounded, searched the entire +forest and the thicket, and had dug wherever the earth appeared to him +to have been recently turned up. In vain. + +He had "ferreted out" nothing. No one in Montfermeil thought any more +about it. There were only a few brave gossips, who said, "You may be +certain that the mender on the Gagny road did not take all that trouble +for nothing; he was sure that the devil had come." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY +MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER + +Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of +Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for +the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship Orion, which was +employed later at Brest as a school-ship, and which then formed a part +of the Mediterranean squadron. + +This vessel, battered as it was,--for the sea had handled it +roughly,--produced a fine effect as it entered the roads. It flew some +colors which procured for it the regulation salute of eleven guns, which +it returned, shot for shot; total, twenty-two. It has been calculated +that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses, courteous +exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and +citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and +all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized +world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty +hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At six francs the +shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day, three hundred +millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere detail. All this +time the poor were dying of hunger. + +The year 1823 was what the Restoration called "the epoch of the Spanish +war." + +This war contained many events in one, and a quantity of peculiarities. +A grand family affair for the house of Bourbon; the branch of France +succoring and protecting the branch of Madrid, that is to say, +performing an act devolving on the elder; an apparent return to our +national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the +cabinets of the North; M. le Duc d'Angouleme, surnamed by the liberal +sheets the hero of Andujar, compressing in a triumphal attitude that +was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very +powerful terrorism of the Holy Office at variance with the chimerical +terrorism of the liberals; the sansculottes resuscitated, to the great +terror of dowagers, under the name of descamisados; monarchy opposing an +obstacle to progress described as anarchy; the theories of '89 roughly +interrupted in the sap; a European halt, called to the French idea, +which was making the tour of the world; beside the son of France as +generalissimo, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, +enrolling himself in that crusade of kings against people as a +volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted; the soldiers of the +Empire setting out on a fresh campaign, but aged, saddened, after eight +years of repose, and under the white cockade; the tricolored standard +waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had +been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our troops; +the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets; +principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that +which she had done by her mind; in addition to this, hostile leaders +sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions; no military +perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised +and invaded; but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, +glory for no one. Such was this war, made by the princes descended from +Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who had been under Napoleon. Its +sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand politics. + +Some feats of arms were serious; the taking of the Trocadero, among +others, was a fine military action; but after all, we repeat, the +trumpets of this war give back a cracked sound, the whole effect was +suspicious; history approves of France for making a difficulty about +accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish +officers charged with resistance yielded too easily; the idea of +corruption was connected with the victory; it appears as though generals +and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier returned +humiliated. A debasing war, in short, in which the Bank of France could +be read in the folds of the flag. + +Soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom Saragossa had fallen in formidable +ruin, frowned in 1823 at the easy surrender of citadels, and began to +regret Palafox. It is the nature of France to prefer to have Rostopchine +rather than Ballesteros in front of her. + +From a still more serious point of view, and one which it is also proper +to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit +of France, enraged the democratic spirit. It was an enterprise of +inthralment. In that campaign, the object of the French soldier, the +son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for others. A hideous +contradiction. France is made to arouse the soul of nations, not to +stifle it. All the revolutions of Europe since 1792 are the French +Revolution: liberty darts rays from France. That is a solar fact. Blind +is he who will not see! It was Bonaparte who said it. + +The war of 1823, an outrage on the generous Spanish nation, was then, +at the same time, an outrage on the French Revolution. It was France +who committed this monstrous violence; by foul means, for, with the +exception of wars of liberation, everything that armies do is by foul +means. The words passive obedience indicate this. An army is a strange +masterpiece of combination where force results from an enormous sum +of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity, despite +humanity, explained. + +As for the Bourbons, the war of 1823 was fatal to them. They took it for +a success. They did not perceive the danger that lies in having an idea +slain to order. They went astray, in their innocence, to such a degree +that they introduced the immense enfeeblement of a crime into their +establishment as an element of strength. The spirit of the ambush +entered into their politics. 1830 had its germ in 1823. The Spanish +campaign became in their counsels an argument for force and for +adventures by right Divine. France, having re-established elrey netto +in Spain, might well have re-established the absolute king at home. They +fell into the alarming error of taking the obedience of the soldier for +the consent of the nation. Such confidence is the ruin of thrones. It is +not permitted to fall asleep, either in the shadow of a machineel tree, +nor in the shadow of an army. + +Let us return to the ship Orion. + +During the operations of the army commanded by the prince generalissimo, +a squadron had been cruising in the Mediterranean. We have just stated +that the Orion belonged to this fleet, and that accidents of the sea had +brought it into port at Toulon. + +The presence of a vessel of war in a port has something about it which +attracts and engages a crowd. It is because it is great, and the crowd +loves what is great. + +A ship of the line is one of the most magnificent combinations of the +genius of man with the powers of nature. + +A ship of the line is composed, at the same time, of the heaviest and +the lightest of possible matter, for it deals at one and the same time +with three forms of substance,--solid, liquid, and fluid,--and it must +do battle with all three. It has eleven claws of iron with which to +seize the granite on the bottom of the sea, and more wings and more +antennae than winged insects, to catch the wind in the clouds. Its +breath pours out through its hundred and twenty cannons as through +enormous trumpets, and replies proudly to the thunder. The ocean seeks +to lead it astray in the alarming sameness of its billows, but the +vessel has its soul, its compass, which counsels it and always shows it +the north. In the blackest nights, its lanterns supply the place of +the stars. Thus, against the wind, it has its cordage and its canvas; +against the water, wood; against the rocks, its iron, brass, and lead; +against the shadows, its light; against immensity, a needle. + +If one wishes to form an idea of all those gigantic proportions which, +taken as a whole, constitute the ship of the line, one has only to enter +one of the six-story covered construction stocks, in the ports of Brest +or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are under a bell-glass +there, as it were. This colossal beam is a yard; that great column of +wood which stretches out on the earth as far as the eye can reach is +the main-mast. Taking it from its root in the stocks to its tip in the +clouds, it is sixty fathoms long, and its diameter at its base is +three feet. The English main-mast rises to a height of two hundred and +seventeen feet above the water-line. The navy of our fathers employed +cables, ours employs chains. The simple pile of chains on a ship of a +hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth, and eight +feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three +thousand cubic metres. It is a floating forest. + +And moreover, let this be borne in mind, it is only a question here of +the military vessel of forty years ago, of the simple sailing-vessel; +steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that prodigy +which is called a war vessel. At the present time, for example, the +mixed vessel with a screw is a surprising machine, propelled by three +thousand square metres of canvas and by an engine of two thousand five +hundred horse-power. + +Not to mention these new marvels, the ancient vessel of Christopher +Columbus and of De Ruyter is one of the masterpieces of man. It is as +inexhaustible in force as is the Infinite in gales; it stores up +the wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the +billows, it floats, and it reigns. + +There comes an hour, nevertheless, when the gale breaks that sixty-foot +yard like a straw, when the wind bends that mast four hundred feet tall, +when that anchor, which weighs tens of thousands, is twisted in the jaws +of the waves like a fisherman's hook in the jaws of a pike, when those +monstrous cannons utter plaintive and futile roars, which the hurricane +bears forth into the void and into night, when all that power and all +that majesty are engulfed in a power and majesty which are superior. + +Every time that immense force is displayed to culminate in an immense +feebleness it affords men food for thought, Hence in the ports curious +people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of navigation, +without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why. Every day, +accordingly, from morning until night, the quays, sluices, and the +jetties of the port of Toulon were covered with a multitude of idlers +and loungers, as they say in Paris, whose business consisted in staring +at the Orion. + +The Orion was a ship that had been ailing for a long time; in the course +of its previous cruises thick layers of barnacles had collected on its +keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed; it had gone +into the dry dock the year before this, in order to have the barnacles +scraped off, then it had put to sea again; but this cleaning had +affected the bolts of the keel: in the neighborhood of the Balearic +Isles the sides had been strained and had opened; and, as the plating +in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. +A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in +a grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the +foretop-gallant-shrouds; in consequence of these injuries, the Orion had +run back to Toulon. + +It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were +begun. The hull had received no damage on the starboard, but some of the +planks had been unnailed here and there, according to custom, to permit +of air entering the hold. + +One morning the crowd which was gazing at it witnessed an accident. + +[Illustration: The Ship Orion, An Accident 2b2-1-the-ship-orion] + +The crew was busy bending the sails; the topman, who had to take the +upper corner of the main-top-sail on the starboard, lost his balance; +he was seen to waver; the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered a +cry; the man's head overbalanced his body; the man fell around the yard, +with his hands outstretched towards the abyss; on his way he seized the +footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and remained hanging +from it: the sea lay below him at a dizzy depth; the shock of his fall +had imparted to the foot-rope a violent swinging motion; the man swayed +back and forth at the end of that rope, like a stone in a sling. + +It was incurring a frightful risk to go to his assistance; not one +of the sailors, all fishermen of the coast, recently levied for the +service, dared to attempt it. In the meantime, the unfortunate topman +was losing his strength; his anguish could not be discerned on his face, +but his exhaustion was visible in every limb; his arms were contracted +in horrible twitchings; every effort which he made to re-ascend served +but to augment the oscillations of the foot-rope; he did not shout, for +fear of exhausting his strength. All were awaiting the minute when he +should release his hold on the rope, and, from instant to instant, heads +were turned aside that his fall might not be seen. There are moments +when a bit of rope, a pole, the branch of a tree, is life itself, and +it is a terrible thing to see a living being detach himself from it and +fall like a ripe fruit. + +All at once a man was seen climbing into the rigging with the agility +of a tiger-cat; this man was dressed in red; he was a convict; he wore a +green cap; he was a life convict. On arriving on a level with the top, a +gust of wind carried away his cap, and allowed a perfectly white head to +be seen: he was not a young man. + +A convict employed on board with a detachment from the galleys had, in +fact, at the very first instant, hastened to the officer of the watch, +and, in the midst of the consternation and the hesitation of the crew, +while all the sailors were trembling and drawing back, he had asked +the officer's permission to risk his life to save the topman; at an +affirmative sign from the officer he had broken the chain riveted to his +ankle with one blow of a hammer, then he had caught up a rope, and had +dashed into the rigging: no one noticed, at the instant, with what ease +that chain had been broken; it was only later on that the incident was +recalled. + +In a twinkling he was on the yard; he paused for a few seconds and +appeared to be measuring it with his eye; these seconds, during which +the breeze swayed the topman at the extremity of a thread, seemed +centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his +eyes to heaven and advanced a step: the crowd drew a long breath. He was +seen to run out along the yard: on arriving at the point, he fastened +the rope which he had brought to it, and allowed the other end to hang +down, then he began to descend the rope, hand over hand, and then,--and +the anguish was indescribable,--instead of one man suspended over the +gulf, there were two. + +One would have said it was a spider coming to seize a fly, only here the +spider brought life, not death. Ten thousand glances were fastened on +this group; not a cry, not a word; the same tremor contracted every +brow; all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the +slightest puff to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men. + +In the meantime, the convict had succeeded in lowering himself to a +position near the sailor. It was high time; one minute more, and the +exhausted and despairing man would have allowed himself to fall into +the abyss. The convict had moored him securely with the cord to which +he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last, he +was seen to climb back on the yard, and to drag the sailor up after him; +he held him there a moment to allow him to recover his strength, then he +grasped him in his arms and carried him, walking on the yard himself to +the cap, and from there to the main-top, where he left him in the hands +of his comrades. + +At that moment the crowd broke into applause: old convict-sergeants +among them wept, and women embraced each other on the quay, and all +voices were heard to cry with a sort of tender rage, "Pardon for that +man!" + +He, in the meantime, had immediately begun to make his descent to rejoin +his detachment. In order to reach them the more speedily, he dropped +into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards; all eyes were +following him. At a certain moment fear assailed them; whether it was +that he was fatigued, or that his head turned, they thought they saw him +hesitate and stagger. All at once the crowd uttered a loud shout: the +convict had fallen into the sea. + +The fall was perilous. The frigate Algesiras was anchored alongside the +Orion, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels: it was +to be feared that he would slip under one or the other of them. Four men +flung themselves hastily into a boat; the crowd cheered them on; +anxiety again took possession of all souls; the man had not risen to +the surface; he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple, as +though he had fallen into a cask of oil: they sounded, they dived. In +vain. The search was continued until the evening: they did not even find +the body. + +On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines:-- + +"Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on +board of the Orion, on his return from rendering assistance to a sailor, +fell into the sea and was drowned. The body has not yet been found; it +is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the Arsenal point: +this man was committed under the number 9,430, and his name was Jean +Valjean." + + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL + +Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge +of that lofty table-land which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At +the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented all the year +through with plaster villas, and on Sundays with beaming bourgeois. In +1823 there were at Montfermeil neither so many white houses nor so +many well-satisfied citizens: it was only a village in the forest. Some +pleasure-houses of the last century were to be met with there, to be +sure, which were recognizable by their grand air, their balconies in +twisted iron, and their long windows, whose tiny panes cast all sorts +of varying shades of green on the white of the closed shutters; but +Montfermeil was none the less a village. Retired cloth-merchants and +rusticating attorneys had not discovered it as yet; it was a peaceful +and charming place, which was not on the road to anywhere: there people +lived, and cheaply, that peasant rustic life which is so bounteous and +so easy; only, water was rare there, on account of the elevation of the +plateau. + +It was necessary to fetch it from a considerable distance; the end of +the village towards Gagny drew its water from the magnificent ponds +which exist in the woods there. The other end, which surrounds the +church and which lies in the direction of Chelles, found drinking-water +only at a little spring half-way down the slope, near the road to +Chelles, about a quarter of an hour from Montfermeil. + +Thus each household found it hard work to keep supplied with water. The +large houses, the aristocracy, of which the Thenardier tavern formed a +part, paid half a farthing a bucketful to a man who made a business of +it, and who earned about eight sous a day in his enterprise of supplying +Montfermeil with water; but this good man only worked until seven +o'clock in the evening in summer, and five in winter; and night once +come and the shutters on the ground floor once closed, he who had no +water to drink went to fetch it for himself or did without it. + +This constituted the terror of the poor creature whom the reader has +probably not forgotten,--little Cosette. It will be remembered that +Cosette was useful to the Thenardiers in two ways: they made the mother +pay them, and they made the child serve them. So when the mother ceased +to pay altogether, the reason for which we have read in preceding +chapters, the Thenardiers kept Cosette. She took the place of a servant +in their house. In this capacity she it was who ran to fetch water when +it was required. So the child, who was greatly terrified at the idea of +going to the spring at night, took great care that water should never be +lacking in the house. + +Christmas of the year 1823 was particularly brilliant at Montfermeil. +The beginning of the winter had been mild; there had been neither snow +nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained +permission of the mayor to erect their booths in the principal street of +the village, and a band of itinerant merchants, under protection of the +same tolerance, had constructed their stalls on the Church Square, +and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will +perhaps remember, the Thenardiers' hostelry was situated. These people +filled the inns and drinking-shops, and communicated to that tranquil +little district a noisy and joyous life. In order to play the part of +a faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities +displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful +clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to +the peasants of Montfermeil in 1823 one of those horrible Brazilian +vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until 1845, and which +have a tricolored cockade for an eye. I believe that naturalists call +this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicides, +and to the family of the vultures. Some good old Bonapartist soldiers, +who had retired to the village, went to see this creature with great +devotion. The mountebanks gave out that the tricolored cockade was a +unique phenomenon made by God expressly for their menagerie. + +On Christmas eve itself, a number of men, carters, and peddlers, were +seated at table, drinking and smoking around four or five candles in +the public room of Thenardier's hostelry. This room resembled all +drinking-shop rooms,--tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers; +but little light and a great deal of noise. The date of the year 1823 +was indicated, nevertheless, by two objects which were then fashionable +in the bourgeois class: to wit, a kaleidoscope and a lamp of ribbed tin. +The female Thenardier was attending to the supper, which was roasting in +front of a clear fire; her husband was drinking with his customers and +talking politics. + +Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects +the Spanish war and M. le Duc d'Angouleme, strictly local parentheses, +like the following, were audible amid the uproar:-- + +"About Nanterre and Suresnes the vines have flourished greatly. When +ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a +great deal of juice under the press." "But the grapes cannot be ripe?" +"In those parts the grapes should not be ripe; the wine turns oily as +soon as spring comes." "Then it is very thin wine?" "There are wines +poorer even than these. The grapes must be gathered while green." Etc. + +Or a miller would call out:-- + +"Are we responsible for what is in the sacks? We find in them a quantity +of small seed which we cannot sift out, and which we are obliged to send +through the mill-stones; there are tares, fennel, vetches, hempseed, +fox-tail, and a host of other weeds, not to mention pebbles, which +abound in certain wheat, especially in Breton wheat. I am not fond of +grinding Breton wheat, any more than long-sawyers like to saw beams with +nails in them. You can judge of the bad dust that makes in grinding. And +then people complain of the flour. They are in the wrong. The flour is +no fault of ours." + +In a space between two windows a mower, who was seated at table with a +landed proprietor who was fixing on a price for some meadow work to be +performed in the spring, was saying:-- + +"It does no harm to have the grass wet. It cuts better. Dew is a good +thing, sir. It makes no difference with that grass. Your grass is young +and very hard to cut still. It's terribly tender. It yields before the +iron." Etc. + +Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the cross-bar of the kitchen +table near the chimney. She was in rags; her bare feet were thrust into +wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen +stockings destined for the young Thenardiers. A very young kitten was +playing about among the chairs. Laughter and chatter were audible in +the adjoining room, from two fresh children's voices: it was Eponine and +Azelma. + +In the chimney-corner a cat-o'-nine-tails was hanging on a nail. + +At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the +house, rang through the noise of the dram-shop. It was a little boy +who had been born to the Thenardiers during one of the preceding +winters,--"she did not know why," she said, "the result of the +cold,"--and who was a little more than three years old. The mother had +nursed him, but she did not love him. When the persistent clamor of the +brat became too annoying, "Your son is squalling," Thenardier would +say; "do go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would reply, "he +bothers me." And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER II--TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS + +So far in this book the Thenardiers have been viewed only in profile; +the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and +considering it under all its aspects. + +Thenardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thenardier was +approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so +that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife. + +Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thenardier +woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, +square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the +race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with +paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the +house,--made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything +else. Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the service of an +elephant. Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,--window panes, +furniture, and people. Her big face, dotted with red blotches, +presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an ideal +market-porter dressed in woman's clothes. She swore splendidly; she +boasted of being able to crack a nut with one blow of her fist. Except +for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected lady +peep through the ogress at times, in a very queer way, the idea would +never have occurred to any one to say of her, "That is a woman." +This Thenardier female was like the product of a wench engrafted on a +fishwife. When one heard her speak, one said, "That is a gendarme"; when +one saw her drink, one said, "That is a carter"; when one saw her handle +Cosette, one said, "That is the hangman." One of her teeth projected +when her face was in repose. + +Thenardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had +a sickly air and who was wonderfully healthy. His cunning began here; +he smiled habitually, by way of precaution, and was almost polite to +everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He had +the glance of a pole-cat and the bearing of a man of letters. He greatly +resembled the portraits of the Abbe Delille. His coquetry consisted in +drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in rendering him +drunk. He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under his blouse an +old black coat. He made pretensions to literature and to materialism. +There were certain names which he often pronounced to support whatever +things he might be saying,--Voltaire, Raynal, Parny, and, singularly +enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had "a system." In +addition, he was a great swindler. A filousophe [philosophe], a +scientific thief. The species does exist. It will be remembered that he +pretended to have served in the army; he was in the habit of relating +with exuberance, how, being a sergeant in the 6th or the 9th light +something or other, at Waterloo, he had alone, and in the presence of a +squadron of death-dealing hussars, covered with his body and saved +from death, in the midst of the grape-shot, "a general, who had been +dangerously wounded." Thence arose for his wall the flaring sign, and +for his inn the name which it bore in the neighborhood, of "the cabaret +of the Sergeant of Waterloo." He was a liberal, a classic, and a +Bonapartist. He had subscribed for the Champ d'Asile. It was said in the +village that he had studied for the priesthood. + +We believe that he had simply studied in Holland for an inn-keeper. This +rascal of composite order was, in all probability, some Fleming from +Lille, in Flanders, a Frenchman in Paris, a Belgian at Brussels, being +comfortably astride of both frontiers. As for his prowess at Waterloo, +the reader is already acquainted with that. It will be perceived that +he exaggerated it a trifle. Ebb and flow, wandering, adventure, was +the leven of his existence; a tattered conscience entails a fragmentary +life, and, apparently at the stormy epoch of June 18, 1815, Thenardier +belonged to that variety of marauding sutlers of which we have spoken, +beating about the country, selling to some, stealing from others, and +travelling like a family man, with wife and children, in a rickety +cart, in the rear of troops on the march, with an instinct for always +attaching himself to the victorious army. This campaign ended, and +having, as he said, "some quibus," he had come to Montfermeil and set up +an inn there. + +This quibus, composed of purses and watches, of gold rings and silver +crosses, gathered in harvest-time in furrows sown with corpses, did +not amount to a large total, and did not carry this sutler turned +eating-house-keeper very far. + +Thenardier had that peculiar rectilinear something about his gestures +which, accompanied by an oath, recalls the barracks, and by a sign +of the cross, the seminary. He was a fine talker. He allowed it to be +thought that he was an educated man. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster had +noticed that he pronounced improperly.[12] + +He composed the travellers' tariff card in a superior manner, but +practised eyes sometimes spied out orthographical errors in it. +Thenardier was cunning, greedy, slothful, and clever. He did not disdain +his servants, which caused his wife to dispense with them. This giantess +was jealous. It seemed to her that that thin and yellow little man must +be an object coveted by all. + +Thenardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a +scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy enters +into it. + +It is not that Thenardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to +quite the same degree as his wife; but this was very rare, and at such +times, since he was enraged with the human race in general, as he bore +within him a deep furnace of hatred. And since he was one of those +people who are continually avenging their wrongs, who accuse everything +that passes before them of everything which has befallen them, and who +are always ready to cast upon the first person who comes to hand, as a +legitimate grievance, the sum total of the deceptions, the bankruptcies, +and the calamities of their lives,--when all this leaven was stirred up +in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was terrible. Woe to +the person who came under his wrath at such a time! + +In addition to his other qualities, Thenardier was attentive and +penetrating, silent or talkative, according to circumstances, and always +highly intelligent. He had something of the look of sailors, who are +accustomed to screw up their eyes to gaze through marine glasses. +Thenardier was a statesman. + +Every new-comer who entered the tavern said, on catching sight of Madame +Thenardier, "There is the master of the house." A mistake. She was not +even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She worked; +he created. He directed everything by a sort of invisible and constant +magnetic action. A word was sufficient for him, sometimes a sign; the +mastodon obeyed. Thenardier was a sort of special and sovereign being in +Madame Thenardier's eyes, though she did not thoroughly realize it. +She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a +disagreement as to any detail with "Monsieur Thenardier,"--which was +an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way,--she would not have blamed +her husband in public on any subject whatever. She would never have +committed "before strangers" that mistake so often committed by women, +and which is called in parliamentary language, "exposing the crown." +Although their concord had only evil as its result, there was +contemplation in Madame Thenardier's submission to her husband. That +mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little finger of that +frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that +grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by matter; for certain +ugly features have a cause in the very depths of eternal beauty. There +was an unknown quantity about Thenardier; hence the absolute empire +of the man over that woman. At certain moments she beheld him like a +lighted candle; at others she felt him like a claw. + +This woman was a formidable creature who loved no one except her +children, and who did not fear any one except her husband. She was a +mother because she was mammiferous. But her maternity stopped short with +her daughters, and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys. The man had +but one thought,--how to enrich himself. + +He did not succeed in this. A theatre worthy of this great talent was +lacking. Thenardier was ruining himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is +possible to zero; in Switzerland or in the Pyrenees this penniless scamp +would have become a millionaire; but an inn-keeper must browse where +fate has hitched him. + +It will be understood that the word inn-keeper is here employed in a +restricted sense, and does not extend to an entire class. + +In this same year, 1823, Thenardier was burdened with about fifteen +hundred francs' worth of petty debts, and this rendered him anxious. + +Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case, +Thenardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most +profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue +among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized +peoples,--hospitality. Besides, he was an admirable poacher, and quoted +for his skill in shooting. He had a certain cold and tranquil laugh, +which was particularly dangerous. + +His theories as a landlord sometimes burst forth in lightning flashes. +He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife's mind. +"The duty of the inn-keeper," he said to her one day, violently, and in +a low voice, "is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, +dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty +small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling +families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick +the child clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the +chimney-corner, the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the +feather-bed, the mattress and the truss of straw; to know how much +the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five +hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even +for the flies which his dog eats!" + +This man and this woman were ruse and rage wedded--a hideous and +terrible team. + +While the husband pondered and combined, Madame Thenardier thought not +of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and +lived in a fit of anger, all in a minute. + +Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to their +double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being ground up +in a mill and pulled to pieces with pincers. The man and the woman each +had a different method: Cosette was overwhelmed with blows--this was the +woman's; she went barefooted in winter--that was the man's doing. + +Cosette ran up stairs and down, washed, swept, rubbed, dusted, ran, +fluttered about, panted, moved heavy articles, and weak as she was, +did the coarse work. There was no mercy for her; a fierce mistress and +venomous master. The Thenardier hostelry was like a spider's web, in +which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal +of oppression was realized by this sinister household. It was something +like the fly serving the spiders. + +The poor child passively held her peace. + +What takes place within these souls when they have but just quitted God, +find themselves thus, at the very dawn of life, very small and in the +midst of men all naked! + + + + +CHAPTER III--MEN MUST HAVE WINE, AND HORSES MUST HAVE WATER + +Four new travellers had arrived. + +Cosette was meditating sadly; for, although she was only eight years +old, she had already suffered so much that she reflected with the +lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye was black in consequence of a +blow from Madame Thenardier's fist, which caused the latter to remark +from time to time, "How ugly she is with her fist-blow on her eye!" + +Cosette was thinking that it was dark, very dark, that the pitchers and +caraffes in the chambers of the travellers who had arrived must have +been filled and that there was no more water in the cistern. + +She was somewhat reassured because no one in the Thenardier +establishment drank much water. Thirsty people were never lacking there; +but their thirst was of the sort which applies to the jug rather than to +the pitcher. Any one who had asked for a glass of water among all those +glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these men. But there +came a moment when the child trembled; Madame Thenardier raised the +cover of a stew-pan which was boiling on the stove, then seized a glass +and briskly approached the cistern. She turned the faucet; the child +had raised her head and was following all the woman's movements. A thin +stream of water trickled from the faucet, and half filled the glass. +"Well," said she, "there is no more water!" A momentary silence ensued. +The child did not breathe. + +"Bah!" resumed Madame Thenardier, examining the half-filled glass, "this +will be enough." + +Cosette applied herself to her work once more, but for a quarter of an +hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake. + +She counted the minutes that passed in this manner, and wished it were +the next morning. + +From time to time one of the drinkers looked into the street, and +exclaimed, "It's as black as an oven!" or, "One must needs be a cat +to go about the streets without a lantern at this hour!" And Cosette +trembled. + +All at once one of the pedlers who lodged in the hostelry entered, and +said in a harsh voice:-- + +"My horse has not been watered." + +"Yes, it has," said Madame Thenardier. + +"I tell you that it has not," retorted the pedler. + +Cosette had emerged from under the table. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" said she, "the horse has had a drink; he drank out of a +bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and I +spoke to him." + +It was not true; Cosette lied. + +"There's a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house," +exclaimed the pedler. "I tell you that he has not been watered, you +little jade! He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I +know well." + +Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish, +and which was hardly audible:-- + +"And he drank heartily." + +"Come," said the pedler, in a rage, "this won't do at all, let my horse +be watered, and let that be the end of it!" + +Cosette crept under the table again. + +"In truth, that is fair!" said Madame Thenardier, "if the beast has not +been watered, it must be." + +Then glancing about her:-- + +"Well, now! Where's that other beast?" + +She bent down and discovered Cosette cowering at the other end of the +table, almost under the drinkers' feet. + +"Are you coming?" shrieked Madame Thenardier. + +Cosette crawled out of the sort of hole in which she had hidden herself. +The Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse." + +"But, Madame," said Cosette, feebly, "there is no water." + +The Thenardier threw the street door wide open:-- + +"Well, go and get some, then!" + +Cosette dropped her head, and went for an empty bucket which stood near +the chimney-corner. + +This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down +in it at her ease. + +The Thenardier returned to her stove, and tasted what was in the +stewpan, with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while:-- + +"There's plenty in the spring. There never was such a malicious creature +as that. I think I should have done better to strain my onions." + +Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained sous, pepper, and +shallots. + +"See here, Mam'selle Toad," she added, "on your way back, you will get a +big loaf from the baker. Here's a fifteen-sou piece." + +Cosette had a little pocket on one side of her apron; she took the coin +without saying a word, and put it in that pocket. + +Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She +seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue. + +"Get along with you!" screamed the Thenardier. + +Cosette went out. The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--ENTRANCE ON THE SCENE OF A DOLL + +The line of open-air booths starting at the church, extended, as the +reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thenardiers. These +booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on +their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels, +which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the Thenardiers' +observed, produced "a magical effect." In compensation, not a star was +visible in the sky. + +The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the +Thenardiers' door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass, +and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the +merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll, +nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold +wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that +day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by +under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil +sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. +Eponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette +herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true. + +At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and +overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to +that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it. The poor child +paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The +whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a +vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in +a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly +engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity +of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from +that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a +princess, to have a "thing" like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink +dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, "How happy that doll +must be!" She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The +more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing +at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed +to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and +forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being +the Eternal Father. + +In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she +was charged. + +All at once the Thenardier's coarse voice recalled her to reality: +"What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I'll give it to you! I +want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!" + +The Thenardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight +of Cosette in her ecstasy. + +Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which +she was capable. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE + +As the Thenardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is +near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of +Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water. + +She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long +as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the +lighted stalls illuminated the road; but soon the last light from the +last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She +plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as +much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked +along. This made a noise which afforded her company. + +The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one +in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around +on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth: "Where can +that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?" Then the woman recognized +Cosette. "Well," said she, "it's the Lark!" + +In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted +streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of +Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both +sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time +to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a +shutter--this was light and life; there were people there, and it +reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened +mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last +house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the last +stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last house. She +set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and +began slowly to scratch her head,--a gesture peculiar to children when +terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil; it +was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her. She gazed in +despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one, where there +were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took a good +look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw +spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket again; fear had +lent her audacity. "Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no +more water!" And she resolutely re-entered Montfermeil. + +Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch +her head again. Now it was the Thenardier who appeared to her, with her +hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a +melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she to do? What +was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her was the +spectre of the Thenardier; behind her all the phantoms of the night +and of the forest. It was before the Thenardier that she recoiled. She +resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She emerged from +the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer looking at or +listening to anything. She only paused in her course when her breath +failed her; but she did not halt in her advance. She went straight +before her in desperation. + +As she ran she felt like crying. + +The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely. + +She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was +facing this tiny creature. On the one hand, all shadow; on the other, an +atom. + +It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to +the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many times +in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of instinct +guided her vaguely. But she did not turn her eyes either to right or to +left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood. In +this manner she reached the spring. + +It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey +soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall, +crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.'s frills, and paved with +several large stones. A brook ran out of it, with a tranquil little +noise. + +Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in +the habit of coming to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the +dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually +served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent +down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such +violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over, +she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into +the spring. The fifteen-sou piece fell into the water. Cosette neither +saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it +on the grass. + +That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would +have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill the +bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step. She +was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained crouching +there. + +She shut her eyes; then she opened them again, without knowing why, but +because she could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket +beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents. + +Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like +masses of smoke. The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over +the child. + +Jupiter was setting in the depths. + +The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which she +was unfamiliar, and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact, very +near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted +to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist, gloomily empurpled, magnified the +star. One would have called it a luminous wound. + +A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf +was moving; there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide. +Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and +misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses undulated +like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms +furnished with claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather, tossed +by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had the air of fleeing in terror +before something which was coming after. On all sides there were +lugubrious stretches. + +The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries himself +in the opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye sees +black, the heart sees trouble. In an eclipse in the night, in the sooty +opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one walks +alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and trees--two +formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the indistinct +depths. The inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant from you with +a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in space or in one's +own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible thing, like the +dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes on the horizon. +One inhales the effluvia of the great black void. One is afraid to +glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities of night, +things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances, +obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the lugubrious +reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of silence, unknown +but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches, alarming torsos of +trees, long handfuls of quivering plants,--against all this one has no +protection. There is no hardihood which does not shudder and which does +not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is conscious of something hideous, +as though one's soul were becoming amalgamated with the darkness. This +penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a +child. + +Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul +produces a sound of agony beneath their monstrous vault. + +Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was +seized upon by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer terror +alone which was gaining possession of her; it was something more +terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to express +the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of +her heart; her eye grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not +be able to refrain from returning there at the same hour on the morrow. + +Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three, +four, and so on up to ten, in order to escape from that singular state +which she did not understand, but which terrified her, and, when she had +finished, she began again; this restored her to a true perception of +the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the water, +felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had +returned: she had but one thought now,--to flee at full speed through +the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the windows, to the +lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her; +such was the fright which the Thenardier inspired in her, that she dared +not flee without that bucket of water: she seized the handle with both +hands; she could hardly lift the pail. + +In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it +was heavy; she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took +breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and +resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she +was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again. +She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the +weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron +handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands; +she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did so, +the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This +took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far from all +human sight; she was a child of eight: no one but God saw that sad thing +at the moment. + +And her mother, no doubt, alas! + +For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves. + +She panted with a sort of painful rattle; sobs contracted her throat, +but she dared not weep, so afraid was she of the Thenardier, even at a +distance: it was her custom to imagine the Thenardier always present. + +However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went +on very slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and +of walking as long as possible between them, she reflected with anguish +that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in +this manner, and that the Thenardier would beat her. This anguish was +mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night; she was +worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On +arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was acquainted, made +a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well +rested; then she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket +again, and courageously resumed her march, but the poor little desperate +creature could not refrain from crying, "O my God! my God!" + +At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer +weighed anything at all: a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just +seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A +large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her through the +darkness; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose approach +she had not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had seized the +handle of the bucket which she was carrying. + +There are instincts for all the encounters of life. + +The child was not afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE + +On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked +for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de +l'Hopital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is seeking +lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest +houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau. + +We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in +that isolated quarter. + +This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of what +may be called the well-bred mendicant,--extreme wretchedness combined +with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which inspires +intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels for the man +who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very +old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn perfectly +threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the least +eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable +cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of black worsted; +and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a +preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would +have been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly +white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance, +where everything breathed depression and weariness of life. Judging from +his firm tread, from the singular vigor which stamped all his movements, +he would have hardly been thought fifty. The wrinkles on his brow were +well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one who observed +him attentively. His lip contracted with a strange fold which seemed +severe, and which was humble. There was in the depth of his glance an +indescribable melancholy serenity. In his left hand he carried a little +bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his right he leaned on a sort of a +cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and +had an air that was not too threatening; the most had been made of its +knots, and it had received a coral-like head, made from red wax: it was +a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane. + +There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in the +winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this +without any affectation. + +At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to Choisy-le-Roi: +it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two o'clock, almost +invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen to pass at full +speed along the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the quarter +who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries." + +And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king +always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of +Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was +rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop; +as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly +have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe, +in the midst of naked swords. His massive coach, all covered with +gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered +noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the +rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white +satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau +royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two +great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the +Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of +Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide +blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked +with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English +gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted +rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. +When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter, +the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an +inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is +the government." + +This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore, the +daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the +quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as to +this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by a +squadron of the body-guard all covered with silver lace, debouched +on the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salpetriere, he +appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in +this cross-lane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an +enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havre from spying +him out. + +M. le Duc de Havre, as captain of the guard on duty that day, was seated +in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty, "Yonder +is an evil-looking man." Members of the police, who were clearing the +king's route, took equal note of him: one of them received an order to +follow him. But the man plunged into the deserted little streets of the +faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of +him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte +d'Angles, Minister of State, Prefect of Police. + +When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track, +he redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure +himself that he was not being followed. At a quarter-past four, that is +to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre +of the Porte Saint-Martin, where The Two Convicts was being played that +day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him; for, +although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An instant later +he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the Plat +d'Etain [the Pewter Platter], where the office of the coach for Lagny +was then situated. This coach set out at half-past four. The horses were +harnessed, and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were hastily +climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle. + +The man inquired:-- + +"Have you a place?" + +"Only one--beside me on the box," said the coachman. + +"I will take it." + +"Climb up." + +Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at the +traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and made +him pay his fare. + +"Are you going as far as Lagny?" demanded the coachman. + +"Yes," said the man. + +The traveller paid to Lagny. + +They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried +to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in +monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his +horses. + +The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man +did not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed Gournay and +Neuilly-sur-Marne. + +Towards six o'clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman +drew up in front of the carters' inn installed in the ancient buildings +of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell. + +"I get down here," said the man. + +He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle. + +An instant later he had disappeared. + +He did not enter the inn. + +When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not +encounter him in the principal street of Chelles. + +The coachman turned to the inside travellers. + +"There," said he, "is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know +him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider money; +he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is night; all +the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is not to be +found. So he has dived through the earth." + +The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great +strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then he +had turned to the right before reaching the church, into the cross-road +leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the +country and had been there before. + +He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected by +the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard +people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there +waited until the passers-by were at a distance. The precaution was +nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have already said, it was a very +dark December night. Not more than two or three stars were visible in +the sky. + +It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did not +return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields to the +right, and entered the forest with long strides. + +Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful +examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though seeking +and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There came a +moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At +last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by inch, at a clearing +where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to +these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists of night, +as though he were passing them in review. A large tree, covered with +those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, stood a few paces +distant from the pile of stones. He went up to this tree and passed +his hand over the bark of the trunk, as though seeking to recognize and +count all the warts. + +Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree, +suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been +nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this +band of zinc. + +Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space +between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to +assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed. + +That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the +forest. + +It was the man who had just met Cosette. + +As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he had +espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on +the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He drew near, and +perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket +of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle +of the bucket. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK + +Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. + +The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost +bass. + +"My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you." + +Cosette raised her head and replied:-- + +"Yes, sir." + +"Give it to me," said the man; "I will carry it for you." + +Cosette let go of the bucket-handle. The man walked along beside her. + +"It really is very heavy," he muttered between his teeth. Then he +added:-- + +"How old are you, little one?" + +"Eight, sir." + +"And have you come from far like this?" + +"From the spring in the forest." + +"Are you going far?" + +"A good quarter of an hour's walk from here." + +The man said nothing for a moment; then he remarked abruptly:-- + +"So you have no mother." + +"I don't know," answered the child. + +Before the man had time to speak again, she added:-- + +"I don't think so. Other people have mothers. I have none." + +And after a silence she went on:-- + +"I think that I never had any." + +The man halted; he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed +both hands on the child's shoulders, making an effort to look at her and +to see her face in the dark. + +Cosette's thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light +in the sky. + +"What is your name?" said the man. + +"Cosette." + +The man seemed to have received an electric shock. He looked at her once +more; then he removed his hands from Cosette's shoulders, seized the +bucket, and set out again. + +After a moment he inquired:-- + +"Where do you live, little one?" + +"At Montfermeil, if you know where that is." + +"That is where we are going?" + +"Yes, sir." + +He paused; then began again:-- + +"Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?" + +"It was Madame Thenardier." + +The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but +in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor:-- + +"What does your Madame Thenardier do?" + +"She is my mistress," said the child. "She keeps the inn." + +"The inn?" said the man. "Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show +me the way." + +"We are on the way there," said the child. + +The man walked tolerably fast. Cosette followed him without difficulty. +She no longer felt any fatigue. From time to time she raised her eyes +towards the man, with a sort of tranquillity and an indescribable +confidence. She had never been taught to turn to Providence and to pray; +nevertheless, she felt within her something which resembled hope and +joy, and which mounted towards heaven. + +Several minutes elapsed. The man resumed:-- + +"Is there no servant in Madame Thenardier's house?" + +"No, sir." + +"Are you alone there?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice:-- + +"That is to say, there are two little girls." + +"What little girls?" + +"Ponine and Zelma." + +This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the +female Thenardier. + +"Who are Ponine and Zelma?" + +"They are Madame Thenardier's young ladies; her daughters, as you would +say." + +"And what do those girls do?" + +"Oh!" said the child, "they have beautiful dolls; things with gold in +them, all full of affairs. They play; they amuse themselves." + +"All day long?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And you?" + +"I? I work." + +"All day long?" + +The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not +visible because of the darkness, and replied gently:-- + +"Yes, sir." + +After an interval of silence she went on:-- + +"Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse +myself, too." + +"How do you amuse yourself?" + +"In the best way I can. They let me alone; but I have not many +playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I +have only a little lead sword, no longer than that." + +The child held up her tiny finger. + +"And it will not cut?" + +"Yes, sir," said the child; "it cuts salad and the heads of flies." + +They reached the village. Cosette guided the stranger through the +streets. They passed the bakeshop, but Cosette did not think of the +bread which she had been ordered to fetch. The man had ceased to ply her +with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence. + +When they had left the church behind them, the man, on perceiving all +the open-air booths, asked Cosette:-- + +"So there is a fair going on here?" + +"No, sir; it is Christmas." + +As they approached the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm:-- + +"Monsieur?" + +"What, my child?" + +"We are quite near the house." + +"Well?" + +"Will you let me take my bucket now?" + +"Why?" + +"If Madame sees that some one has carried it for me, she will beat me." + +The man handed her the bucket. An instant later they were at the tavern +door. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE'S HOUSE A POOR +MAN WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN + + +Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big +doll, which was still displayed at the toy-merchant's; then she knocked. +The door opened. The Thenardier appeared with a candle in her hand. + + +"Ah! so it's you, you little wretch! good mercy, but you've taken your +time! The hussy has been amusing herself!" + +"Madame," said Cosette, trembling all over, "here's a gentleman who +wants a lodging." + +The Thenardier speedily replaced her gruff air by her amiable grimace, +a change of aspect common to tavern-keepers, and eagerly sought the +new-comer with her eyes. + +"This is the gentleman?" said she. + +"Yes, Madame," replied the man, raising his hand to his hat. + +Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection +of the stranger's costume and baggage, which the Thenardier passed in +review with one glance, caused the amiable grimace to vanish, and the +gruff mien to reappear. She resumed dryly:-- + +"Enter, my good man." + +The "good man" entered. The Thenardier cast a second glance at him, paid +particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely threadbare, +and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, +wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, +who was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied by that +imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed up by an +inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases: A regular beggar. +Thereupon, the Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left." + +"Put me where you like," said the man; "in the attic, in the stable. I +will pay as though I occupied a room." + +"Forty sous." + +"Forty sous; agreed." + +"Very well, then!" + +"Forty sous!" said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thenardier woman; +"why, the charge is only twenty sous!" + +"It is forty in his case," retorted the Thenardier, in the same tone. "I +don't lodge poor folks for less." + +"That's true," added her husband, gently; "it ruins a house to have such +people in it." + +In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench, +had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a +bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of +water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the +kitchen table, and her knitting. + +The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had +poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention. + +Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We +have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was +thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be +hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put +out with weeping. The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual +anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people. +Her hands were, as her mother had divined, "ruined with chilblains." The +fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the +angles of her bones, and rendered her thinness frightfully apparent. +As she was always shivering, she had acquired the habit of pressing her +knees one against the other. Her entire clothing was but a rag which +would have inspired pity in summer, and which inspired horror in winter. +All she had on was hole-ridden linen, not a scrap of woollen. Her skin +was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be +descried, which marked the places where the Thenardier woman had touched +her. Her naked legs were thin and red. The hollows in her neck were +enough to make one weep. This child's whole person, her mien, her +attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals which she allowed to +elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her +slightest gesture, expressed and betrayed one sole idea,--fear. + +Fear was diffused all over her; she was covered with it, so to speak; +fear drew her elbows close to her hips, withdrew her heels under her +petticoat, made her occupy as little space as possible, allowed her only +the breath that was absolutely necessary, and had become what might be +called the habit of her body, admitting of no possible variation except +an increase. In the depths of her eyes there was an astonished nook +where terror lurked. + +Her fear was such, that on her arrival, wet as she was, Cosette did not +dare to approach the fire and dry herself, but sat silently down to her +work again. + +The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was habitually +so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain moments as +though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a demon. + +As we have stated, she had never known what it is to pray; she had never +set foot in a church. "Have I the time?" said the Thenardier. + +The man in the yellow coat never took his eyes from Cosette. + +All at once, the Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"By the way, where's that bread?" + +Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thenardier uplifted her +voice, emerged with great haste from beneath the table. + +She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the +expedient of children who live in a constant state of fear. She lied. + +"Madame, the baker's shop was shut." + +"You should have knocked." + +"I did knock, Madame." + +"Well?" + +"He did not open the door." + +"I'll find out to-morrow whether that is true," said the Thenardier; +"and if you are telling me a lie, I'll lead you a pretty dance. In the +meantime, give me back my fifteen-sou piece." + +Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron, and turned green. +The fifteen-sou piece was not there. + +"Ah, come now," said Madame Thenardier, "did you hear me?" + +Cosette turned her pocket inside out; there was nothing in it. What +could have become of that money? The unhappy little creature could not +find a word to say. She was petrified. + +"Have you lost that fifteen-sou piece?" screamed the Thenardier, +hoarsely, "or do you want to rob me of it?" + +At the same time, she stretched out her arm towards the +cat-o'-nine-tails which hung on a nail in the chimney-corner. + +This formidable gesture restored to Cosette sufficient strength to +shriek:-- + +"Mercy, Madame, Madame! I will not do so any more!" + +The Thenardier took down the whip. + +In the meantime, the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling in the fob +of his waistcoat, without any one having noticed his movements. Besides, +the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying +attention to anything. + +Cosette contracted herself into a ball, with anguish, within the angle +of the chimney, endeavoring to gather up and conceal her poor half-nude +limbs. The Thenardier raised her arm. + +"Pardon me, Madame," said the man, "but just now I caught sight of +something which had fallen from this little one's apron pocket, and +rolled aside. Perhaps this is it." + +At the same time he bent down and seemed to be searching on the floor +for a moment. + +"Exactly; here it is," he went on, straightening himself up. + +And he held out a silver coin to the Thenardier. + +"Yes, that's it," said she. + +It was not it, for it was a twenty-sou piece; but the Thenardier found +it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined +herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the +remark, "Don't let this ever happen again!" + +Cosette returned to what the Thenardier called "her kennel," and her +large eyes, which were riveted on the traveller, began to take on an +expression such as they had never worn before. Thus far it was only an +innocent amazement, but a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with +it. + +"By the way, would you like some supper?" the Thenardier inquired of the +traveller. + +He made no reply. He appeared to be absorbed in thought. + +"What sort of a man is that?" she muttered between her teeth. "He's some +frightfully poor wretch. He hasn't a sou to pay for a supper. Will he +even pay me for his lodging? It's very lucky, all the same, that it did +not occur to him to steal the money that was on the floor." + +In the meantime, a door had opened, and Eponine and Azelma entered. + +They were two really pretty little girls, more bourgeois than peasant +in looks, and very charming; the one with shining chestnut tresses, +the other with long black braids hanging down her back, both vivacious, +neat, plump, rosy, and healthy, and a delight to the eye. They were +warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the +stuffs did not detract from the coquetry of arrangement. There was a +hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced. Light +emanated from these two little beings. Besides this, they were on the +throne. In their toilettes, in their gayety, in the noise which they +made, there was sovereignty. When they entered, the Thenardier said to +them in a grumbling tone which was full of adoration, "Ah! there you +are, you children!" + +Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their +hair, tying their ribbons afresh, and then releasing them with +that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she +exclaimed, "What frights they are!" + +They went and seated themselves in the chimney-corner. They had a doll, +which they turned over and over on their knees with all sorts of joyous +chatter. From time to time Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting, +and watched their play with a melancholy air. + +Eponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog +to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty +years between them, but they already represented the whole society of +man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other. + +The doll of the Thenardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and +much broken; but it seemed none the less admirable to Cosette, who had +never had a doll in her life, a real doll, to make use of the expression +which all children will understand. + +All at once, the Thenardier, who had been going back and forth in the +room, perceived that Cosette's mind was distracted, and that, instead of +working, she was paying attention to the little ones at their play. + +"Ah! I've caught you at it!" she cried. "So that's the way you work! +I'll make you work to the tune of the whip; that I will." + +The stranger turned to the Thenardier, without quitting his chair. + +"Bah, Madame," he said, with an almost timid air, "let her play!" + +Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and +had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not +the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an +order. But that a man with such a hat should permit himself such a +desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a +will, was something which Madame Thenardier did not intend to tolerate. +She retorted with acrimony:-- + +"She must work, since she eats. I don't feed her to do nothing." + +"What is she making?" went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which +contrasted strangely with his beggarly garments and his porter's +shoulders. + +The Thenardier deigned to reply:-- + +"Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls, who have none, +so to speak, and who are absolutely barefoot just now." + +The man looked at Cosette's poor little red feet, and continued:-- + +"When will she have finished this pair of stockings?" + +"She has at least three or four good days' work on them still, the lazy +creature!" + +"And how much will that pair of stockings be worth when she has finished +them?" + +The Thenardier cast a glance of disdain on him. + +"Thirty sous at least." + +"Will you sell them for five francs?" went on the man. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed a carter who was listening, with a loud laugh; +"five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five balls!" + +Thenardier thought it time to strike in. + +"Yes, sir; if such is your fancy, you will be allowed to have that pair +of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers." + +"You must pay on the spot," said the Thenardier, in her curt and +peremptory fashion. + +"I will buy that pair of stockings," replied the man, "and," he added, +drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and laying it on the table, +"I will pay for them." + +Then he turned to Cosette. + +"Now I own your work; play, my child." + +The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he +abandoned his glass and hastened up. + +"But it's true!" he cried, examining it. "A real hind wheel! and not +counterfeit!" + +Thenardier approached and silently put the coin in his pocket. + +The Thenardier had no reply to make. She bit her lips, and her face +assumed an expression of hatred. + +In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask:-- + +"Is it true, Madame? May I play?" + +"Play!" said the Thenardier, in a terrible voice. + +"Thanks, Madame," said Cosette. + +And while her mouth thanked the Thenardier, her whole little soul +thanked the traveller. + +Thenardier had resumed his drinking; his wife whispered in his ear:-- + +"Who can this yellow man be?" + +"I have seen millionaires with coats like that," replied Thenardier, in +a sovereign manner. + +Cosette had dropped her knitting, but had not left her seat. Cosette +always moved as little as possible. She picked up some old rags and her +little lead sword from a box behind her. + +Eponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was going on. They had just +executed a very important operation; they had just got hold of the +cat. They had thrown their doll on the ground, and Eponine, who was +the elder, was swathing the little cat, in spite of its mewing and its +contortions, in a quantity of clothes and red and blue scraps. While +performing this serious and difficult work she was saying to her sister +in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the +splendor of the butterfly's wing, vanishes when one essays to fix it +fast. + +"You see, sister, this doll is more amusing than the other. She twists, +she cries, she is warm. See, sister, let us play with her. She shall be +my little girl. I will be a lady. I will come to see you, and you shall +look at her. Gradually, you will perceive her whiskers, and that will +surprise you. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her +tail and it will amaze you. And you will say to me, 'Ah! Mon Dieu!' and +I will say to you: 'Yes, Madame, it is my little girl. Little girls are +made like that just at present.'" + +Azelma listened admiringly to Eponine. + +In the meantime, the drinkers had begun to sing an obscene song, and +to laugh at it until the ceiling shook. Thenardier accompanied and +encouraged them. + +As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of +anything which comes to hand. While Eponine and Azelma were bundling up +the cat, Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she +laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep. + +The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one +of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to +clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a +little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something +is some one,--therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and +chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little +gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the +young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child +is the continuation of the last doll. + +A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as +impossible, as a woman without children. + +So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword. + +Madame Thenardier approached the yellow man; "My husband is right," she +thought; "perhaps it is M. Laffitte; there are such queer rich men!" + +She came and set her elbows on the table. + +"Monsieur," said she. At this word, Monsieur, the man turned; up to that +time, the Thenardier had addressed him only as brave homme or bonhomme. + +"You see, sir," she pursued, assuming a sweetish air that was even more +repulsive to behold than her fierce mien, "I am willing that the child +should play; I do not oppose it, but it is good for once, because you +are generous. You see, she has nothing; she must needs work." + +"Then this child is not yours?" demanded the man. + +"Oh! mon Dieu! no, sir! she is a little beggar whom we have taken in +through charity; a sort of imbecile child. She must have water on the +brain; she has a large head, as you see. We do what we can for her, for +we are not rich; we have written in vain to her native place, and have +received no reply these six months. It must be that her mother is dead." + +"Ah!" said the man, and fell into his revery once more. + +"Her mother didn't amount to much," added the Thenardier; "she abandoned +her child." + +During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some +instinct that she was under discussion, had not taken her eyes from the +Thenardier's face; she listened vaguely; she caught a few words here and +there. + +Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated, were repeating +their unclean refrain with redoubled gayety; it was a highly spiced and +wanton song, in which the Virgin and the infant Jesus were introduced. +The Thenardier went off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, +from her post under the table, gazed at the fire, which was reflected +from her fixed eyes. She had begun to rock the sort of baby which she +had made, and, as she rocked it, she sang in a low voice, "My mother is +dead! my mother is dead! my mother is dead!" + +On being urged afresh by the hostess, the yellow man, "the millionaire," +consented at last to take supper. + +"What does Monsieur wish?" + +"Bread and cheese," said the man. + +"Decidedly, he is a beggar" thought Madame Thenardier. + +The drunken men were still singing their song, and the child under the +table was singing hers. + +All at once, Cosette paused; she had just turned round and caught sight +of the little Thenardiers' doll, which they had abandoned for the cat +and had left on the floor a few paces from the kitchen table. + +Then she dropped the swaddled sword, which only half met her needs, and +cast her eyes slowly round the room. Madame Thenardier was whispering to +her husband and counting over some money; Ponine and Zelma were playing +with the cat; the travellers were eating or drinking or singing; not +a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose; she crept out +from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no +one was watching her; then she slipped quickly up to the doll and seized +it. An instant later she was in her place again, seated motionless, and +only turned so as to cast a shadow on the doll which she held in her +arms. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it +contained all the violence of voluptuousness. + +No one had seen her, except the traveller, who was slowly devouring his +meagre supper. + +This joy lasted about a quarter of an hour. + +But with all the precautions that Cosette had taken she did not perceive +that one of the doll's legs stuck out and that the fire on the hearth +lighted it up very vividly. That pink and shining foot, projecting from +the shadow, suddenly struck the eye of Azelma, who said to Eponine, +"Look! sister." + +The two little girls paused in stupefaction; Cosette had dared to take +their doll! + +Eponine rose, and, without releasing the cat, she ran to her mother, and +began to tug at her skirt. + +"Let me alone!" said her mother; "what do you want?" + +"Mother," said the child, "look there!" + +And she pointed to Cosette. + +Cosette, absorbed in the ecstasies of possession, no longer saw or heard +anything. + +Madame Thenardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which +is composed of the terrible mingled with the trifles of life, and which +has caused this style of woman to be named megaeras. + +On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath still further. +Cosette had overstepped all bounds; Cosette had laid violent hands on +the doll belonging to "these young ladies." A czarina who should see +a muzhik trying on her imperial son's blue ribbon would wear no other +face. + +She shrieked in a voice rendered hoarse with indignation:-- + +"Cosette!" + +Cosette started as though the earth had trembled beneath her; she turned +round. + +"Cosette!" repeated the Thenardier. + +Cosette took the doll and laid it gently on the floor with a sort of +veneration, mingled with despair; then, without taking her eyes from +it, she clasped her hands, and, what is terrible to relate of a child +of that age, she wrung them; then--not one of the emotions of the day, +neither the trip to the forest, nor the weight of the bucket of water, +nor the loss of the money, nor the sight of the whip, nor even the sad +words which she had heard Madame Thenardier utter had been able to wring +this from her--she wept; she burst out sobbing. + +Meanwhile, the traveller had risen to his feet. + +"What is the matter?" he said to the Thenardier. + +"Don't you see?" said the Thenardier, pointing to the corpus delicti +which lay at Cosette's feet. + +"Well, what of it?" resumed the man. + +"That beggar," replied the Thenardier, "has permitted herself to touch +the children's doll!" + +"All this noise for that!" said the man; "well, what if she did play +with that doll?" + +"She touched it with her dirty hands!" pursued the Thenardier, "with her +frightful hands!" + +Here Cosette redoubled her sobs. + +"Will you stop your noise?" screamed the Thenardier. + +The man went straight to the street door, opened it, and stepped out. + +As soon as he had gone, the Thenardier profited by his absence to give +Cosette a hearty kick under the table, which made the child utter loud +cries. + +The door opened again, the man re-appeared; he carried in both hands the +fabulous doll which we have mentioned, and which all the village brats +had been staring at ever since the morning, and he set it upright in +front of Cosette, saying:-- + +"Here; this is for you." + +It must be supposed that in the course of the hour and more which he had +spent there he had taken confused notice through his revery of that +toy shop, lighted up by fire-pots and candles so splendidly that it was +visible like an illumination through the window of the drinking-shop. + +Cosette raised her eyes; she gazed at the man approaching her with that +doll as she might have gazed at the sun; she heard the unprecedented +words, "It is for you"; she stared at him; she stared at the doll; then +she slowly retreated, and hid herself at the extreme end, under the +table in a corner of the wall. + +She no longer cried; she no longer wept; she had the appearance of no +longer daring to breathe. + +The Thenardier, Eponine, and Azelma were like statues also; the very +drinkers had paused; a solemn silence reigned through the whole room. + +Madame Thenardier, petrified and mute, recommenced her conjectures: "Who +is that old fellow? Is he a poor man? Is he a millionaire? Perhaps he is +both; that is to say, a thief." + +The face of the male Thenardier presented that expressive fold which +accentuates the human countenance whenever the dominant instinct appears +there in all its bestial force. The tavern-keeper stared alternately at +the doll and at the traveller; he seemed to be scenting out the man, as +he would have scented out a bag of money. This did not last longer than +the space of a flash of lightning. He stepped up to his wife and said to +her in a low voice:-- + +"That machine costs at least thirty francs. No nonsense. Down on your +belly before that man!" + +Gross natures have this in common with naive natures, that they possess +no transition state. + +"Well, Cosette," said the Thenardier, in a voice that strove to be +sweet, and which was composed of the bitter honey of malicious women, +"aren't you going to take your doll?" + +Cosette ventured to emerge from her hole. + +"The gentleman has given you a doll, my little Cosette," said +Thenardier, with a caressing air. "Take it; it is yours." + +Cosette gazed at the marvellous doll in a sort of terror. Her face was +still flooded with tears, but her eyes began to fill, like the sky at +daybreak, with strange beams of joy. What she felt at that moment was +a little like what she would have felt if she had been abruptly told, +"Little one, you are the Queen of France." + +It seemed to her that if she touched that doll, lightning would dart +from it. + +This was true, up to a certain point, for she said to herself that the +Thenardier would scold and beat her. + +Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day. She ended by drawing near +and murmuring timidly as she turned towards Madame Thenardier:-- + +"May I, Madame?" + +No words can render that air, at once despairing, terrified, and +ecstatic. + +"Pardi!" cried the Thenardier, "it is yours. The gentleman has given it +to you." + +"Truly, sir?" said Cosette. "Is it true? Is the 'lady' mine?" + +The stranger's eyes seemed to be full of tears. He appeared to have +reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest +he should weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the "lady's" hand in +her tiny hand. + +Cosette hastily withdrew her hand, as though that of the "lady" scorched +her, and began to stare at the floor. We are forced to add that at that +moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled +round and seized the doll in a transport. + +"I shall call her Catherine," she said. + +It was an odd moment when Cosette's rags met and clasped the ribbons and +fresh pink muslins of the doll. + +"Madame," she resumed, "may I put her on a chair?" + +"Yes, my child," replied the Thenardier. + +It was now the turn of Eponine and Azelma to gaze at Cosette with envy. + +Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor +in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an +attitude of contemplation. + +"Play, Cosette," said the stranger. + +"Oh! I am playing," returned the child. + +This stranger, this unknown individual, who had the air of a visit which +Providence was making on Cosette, was the person whom the Thenardier +hated worse than any one in the world at that moment. However, it was +necessary to control herself. Habituated as she was to dissimulation +through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these +emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her +daughters to bed, then she asked the man's permission to send Cosette +off also; "for she has worked hard all day," she added with a maternal +air. Cosette went off to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms. + +From time to time the Thenardier went to the other end of the room where +her husband was, to relieve her soul, as she said. She exchanged with +her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not +utter them aloud. + +"Old beast! What has he got in his belly, to come and upset us in this +manner! To want that little monster to play! to give away forty-franc +dolls to a jade that I would sell for forty sous, so I would! A little +more and he will be saying Your Majesty to her, as though to the Duchess +de Berry! Is there any sense in it? Is he mad, then, that mysterious old +fellow?" + +"Why! it is perfectly simple," replied Thenardier, "if that amuses him! +It amuses you to have the little one work; it amuses him to have her +play. He's all right. A traveller can do what he pleases when he pays +for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If +he is an imbecile, it does not concern you. What are you worrying for, +so long as he has money?" + +The language of a master, and the reasoning of an innkeeper, neither of +which admitted of any reply. + +The man had placed his elbows on the table, and resumed his thoughtful +attitude. All the other travellers, both pedlers and carters, had +withdrawn a little, and had ceased singing. They were staring at him +from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed +man, who drew "hind-wheels" from his pocket with so much ease, and +who lavished gigantic dolls on dirty little brats in wooden shoes, was +certainly a magnificent fellow, and one to be feared. + +Many hours passed. The midnight mass was over, the chimes had ceased, +the drinkers had taken their departure, the drinking-shop was closed, +the public room was deserted, the fire extinct, the stranger still +remained in the same place and the same attitude. From time to time he +changed the elbow on which he leaned. That was all; but he had not said +a word since Cosette had left the room. + +The Thenardiers alone, out of politeness and curiosity, had remained in +the room. + +"Is he going to pass the night in that fashion?" grumbled the +Thenardier. When two o'clock in the morning struck, she declared herself +vanquished, and said to her husband, "I'm going to bed. Do as you like." +Her husband seated himself at a table in the corner, lighted a candle, +and began to read the Courrier Francais. + +A good hour passed thus. The worthy inn-keeper had perused the Courrier +Francais at least three times, from the date of the number to the +printer's name. The stranger did not stir. + +Thenardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his +chair. Not a movement on the man's part. "Is he asleep?" thought +Thenardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse him. + +At last Thenardier took off his cap, stepped gently up to him, and +ventured to say:-- + +"Is not Monsieur going to his repose?" + +Not going to bed would have seemed to him excessive and familiar. To +repose smacked of luxury and respect. These words possess the mysterious +and admirable property of swelling the bill on the following day. A +chamber where one sleeps costs twenty sous; a chamber in which one +reposes costs twenty francs. + +"Well!" said the stranger, "you are right. Where is your stable?" + +"Sir!" exclaimed Thenardier, with a smile, "I will conduct you, sir." + +He took the candle; the man picked up his bundle and cudgel, and +Thenardier conducted him to a chamber on the first floor, which was of +rare splendor, all furnished in mahogany, with a low bedstead, curtained +with red calico. + +"What is this?" said the traveller. + +"It is really our bridal chamber," said the tavern-keeper. "My wife and +I occupy another. This is only entered three or four times a year." + +"I should have liked the stable quite as well," said the man, abruptly. + +Thenardier pretended not to hear this unamiable remark. + +He lighted two perfectly fresh wax candles which figured on the +chimney-piece. A very good fire was flickering on the hearth. + +On the chimney-piece, under a glass globe, stood a woman's head-dress in +silver wire and orange flowers. + +"And what is this?" resumed the stranger. + +"That, sir," said Thenardier, "is my wife's wedding bonnet." + +The traveller surveyed the object with a glance which seemed to say, +"There really was a time, then, when that monster was a maiden?" + +Thenardier lied, however. When he had leased this paltry building for +the purpose of converting it into a tavern, he had found this chamber +decorated in just this manner, and had purchased the furniture and +obtained the orange flowers at second hand, with the idea that this +would cast a graceful shadow on "his spouse," and would result in what +the English call respectability for his house. + +When the traveller turned round, the host had disappeared. Thenardier +had withdrawn discreetly, without venturing to wish him a good night, +as he did not wish to treat with disrespectful cordiality a man whom he +proposed to fleece royally the following morning. + +The inn-keeper retired to his room. His wife was in bed, but she was not +asleep. When she heard her husband's step she turned over and said to +him:-- + +"Do you know, I'm going to turn Cosette out of doors to-morrow." + +Thenardier replied coldly:-- + +"How you do go on!" + +They exchanged no further words, and a few moments later their candle +was extinguished. + +As for the traveller, he had deposited his cudgel and his bundle in a +corner. The landlord once gone, he threw himself into an arm-chair and +remained for some time buried in thought. Then he removed his shoes, +took one of the two candles, blew out the other, opened the door, and +quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of +something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There he +heard a very faint and gentle sound like the breathing of a child. He +followed this sound, and came to a sort of triangular recess built under +the staircase, or rather formed by the staircase itself. This recess was +nothing else than the space under the steps. There, in the midst of all +sorts of old papers and potsherds, among dust and spiders' webs, was a +bed--if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes +as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the +pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor. + +In this bed Cosette was sleeping. + +The man approached and gazed down upon her. + +Cosette was in a profound sleep; she was fully dressed. In the winter +she did not undress, in order that she might not be so cold. + +Against her breast was pressed the doll, whose large eyes, wide open, +glittered in the dark. From time to time she gave vent to a deep sigh as +though she were on the point of waking, and she strained the doll almost +convulsively in her arms. Beside her bed there was only one of her +wooden shoes. + +A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a +rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further +extremity, through a glass door, he saw two small, very white beds. +They belonged to Eponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, +stood an uncurtained wicker cradle, in which the little boy who had +cried all the evening lay asleep. + +The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the +Thenardier pair. He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell +upon the fireplace--one of those vast tavern chimneys where there is +always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are +so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even +ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze, +nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape +and unequal in size. The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial +custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the +chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling +gift from their good fairy. Eponine and Azelma had taken care not to +omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth. + +The traveller bent over them. + +The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit, and +in each he saw a brand-new and shining ten-sou piece. + +The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, +when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight +of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a +frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all +covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with +that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet never +discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearth-stone also. + +Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and +touching thing. + +There was nothing in this wooden shoe. + +The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis d'or +in Cosette's shoe. + +Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THENARDIER AND HIS MANOEUVRES + +On the following morning, two hours at least before day-break, +Thenardier, seated beside a candle in the public room of the tavern, pen +in hand, was making out the bill for the traveller with the yellow coat. + +His wife, standing beside him, and half bent over him, was following +him with her eyes. They exchanged not a word. On the one hand, there was +profound meditation, on the other, the religious admiration with which +one watches the birth and development of a marvel of the human mind. A +noise was audible in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. + +After the lapse of a good quarter of an hour, and some erasures, +Thenardier produced the following masterpiece:-- + + BILL OF THE GENTLEMAN IN No. 1. + + Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 francs. + Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 " + Candle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 " + Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 " + Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 " + ---------- + Total . . . . . . 23 francs. + + +Service was written servisse. + +"Twenty-three francs!" cried the woman, with an enthusiasm which was +mingled with some hesitation. + +Like all great artists, Thenardier was dissatisfied. + +"Peuh!" he exclaimed. + +It was the accent of Castlereagh auditing France's bill at the Congress +of Vienna. + +"Monsieur Thenardier, you are right; he certainly owes that," murmured +the wife, who was thinking of the doll bestowed on Cosette in the +presence of her daughters. "It is just, but it is too much. He will not +pay it." + +Thenardier laughed coldly, as usual, and said:-- + +"He will pay." + +This laugh was the supreme assertion of certainty and authority. That +which was asserted in this manner must needs be so. His wife did not +insist. + +She set about arranging the table; her husband paced the room. A moment +later he added:-- + +"I owe full fifteen hundred francs!" + +He went and seated himself in the chimney-corner, meditating, with his +feet among the warm ashes. + +"Ah! by the way," resumed his wife, "you don't forget that I'm going to +turn Cosette out of doors to-day? The monster! She breaks my heart with +that doll of hers! I'd rather marry Louis XVIII. than keep her another +day in the house!" + +Thenardier lighted his pipe, and replied between two puffs:-- + +"You will hand that bill to the man." + +Then he went out. + +Hardly had he left the room when the traveller entered. + +Thenardier instantly reappeared behind him and remained motionless in +the half-open door, visible only to his wife. + +The yellow man carried his bundle and his cudgel in his hand. + +"Up so early?" said Madame Thenardier; "is Monsieur leaving us already?" + +As she spoke thus, she was twisting the bill about in her hands with an +embarrassed air, and making creases in it with her nails. Her hard +face presented a shade which was not habitual with it,--timidity and +scruples. + +To present such a bill to a man who had so completely the air "of a poor +wretch" seemed difficult to her. + +The traveller appeared to be preoccupied and absent-minded. He +replied:-- + +"Yes, Madame, I am going." + +"So Monsieur has no business in Montfermeil?" + +"No, I was passing through. That is all. What do I owe you, Madame," he +added. + +The Thenardier silently handed him the folded bill. + +The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it; but his thoughts were +evidently elsewhere. + +"Madame," he resumed, "is business good here in Montfermeil?" + +"So so, Monsieur," replied the Thenardier, stupefied at not witnessing +another sort of explosion. + +She continued, in a dreary and lamentable tone:-- + +"Oh! Monsieur, times are so hard! and then, we have so few bourgeois in +the neighborhood! All the people are poor, you see. If we had not, now +and then, some rich and generous travellers like Monsieur, we should +not get along at all. We have so many expenses. Just see, that child is +costing us our very eyes." + +"What child?" + +"Why, the little one, you know! Cosette--the Lark, as she is called +hereabouts!" + +"Ah!" said the man. + +She went on:-- + +"How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She has more the +air of a bat than of a lark. You see, sir, we do not ask charity, and we +cannot bestow it. We earn nothing and we have to pay out a great deal. +The license, the imposts, the door and window tax, the hundredths! +Monsieur is aware that the government demands a terrible deal of money. +And then, I have my daughters. I have no need to bring up other people's +children." + +The man resumed, in that voice which he strove to render indifferent, +and in which there lingered a tremor:-- + +"What if one were to rid you of her?" + +"Who? Cosette?" + +"Yes." + +The landlady's red and violent face brightened up hideously. + +"Ah! sir, my dear sir, take her, keep her, lead her off, carry her +away, sugar her, stuff her with truffles, drink her, eat her, and the +blessings of the good holy Virgin and of all the saints of paradise be +upon you!" + +"Agreed." + +"Really! You will take her away?" + +"I will take her away." + +"Immediately?" + +"Immediately. Call the child." + +"Cosette!" screamed the Thenardier. + +"In the meantime," pursued the man, "I will pay you what I owe you. How +much is it?" + +He cast a glance on the bill, and could not restrain a start of +surprise:-- + +"Twenty-three francs!" + +He looked at the landlady, and repeated:-- + +"Twenty-three francs?" + +There was in the enunciation of these words, thus repeated, an accent +between an exclamation and an interrogation point. + +The Thenardier had had time to prepare herself for the shock. She +replied, with assurance:-- + +"Good gracious, yes, sir, it is twenty-three francs." + +The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table. + +"Go and get the child," said he. + +At that moment Thenardier advanced to the middle of the room, and +said:-- + +"Monsieur owes twenty-six sous." + +"Twenty-six sous!" exclaimed his wife. + +"Twenty sous for the chamber," resumed Thenardier, coldly, "and six sous +for his supper. As for the child, I must discuss that matter a little +with the gentleman. Leave us, wife." + +Madame Thenardier was dazzled as with the shock caused by unexpected +lightning flashes of talent. She was conscious that a great actor was +making his entrance on the stage, uttered not a word in reply, and left +the room. + +As soon as they were alone, Thenardier offered the traveller a chair. +The traveller seated himself; Thenardier remained standing, and his face +assumed a singular expression of good-fellowship and simplicity. + +"Sir," said he, "what I have to say to you is this, that I adore that +child." + +The stranger gazed intently at him. + +"What child?" + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"How strange it is, one grows attached. What money is that? Take back +your hundred-sou piece. I adore the child." + +"Whom do you mean?" demanded the stranger. + +"Eh! our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from +us? Well, I speak frankly; as true as you are an honest man, I will not +consent to it. I shall miss that child. I saw her first when she was a +tiny thing. It is true that she costs us money; it is true that she has +her faults; it is true that we are not rich; it is true that I have paid +out over four hundred francs for drugs for just one of her illnesses! +But one must do something for the good God's sake. She has neither +father nor mother. I have brought her up. I have bread enough for +her and for myself. In truth, I think a great deal of that child. You +understand, one conceives an affection for a person; I am a good sort +of a beast, I am; I do not reason; I love that little girl; my wife is +quick-tempered, but she loves her also. You see, she is just the same as +our own child. I want to keep her to babble about the house." + +The stranger kept his eye intently fixed on Thenardier. The latter +continued:-- + +"Excuse me, sir, but one does not give away one's child to a passer-by, +like that. I am right, am I not? Still, I don't say--you are rich; you +have the air of a very good man,--if it were for her happiness. But one +must find out that. You understand: suppose that I were to let her go +and to sacrifice myself, I should like to know what becomes of her; I +should not wish to lose sight of her; I should like to know with whom +she is living, so that I could go to see her from time to time; so that +she may know that her good foster-father is alive, that he is watching +over her. In short, there are things which are not possible. I do not +even know your name. If you were to take her away, I should say: 'Well, +and the Lark, what has become of her?' One must, at least, see some +petty scrap of paper, some trifle in the way of a passport, you know!" + +The stranger, still surveying him with that gaze which penetrates, as +the saying goes, to the very depths of the conscience, replied in a +grave, firm voice:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier, one does not require a passport to travel five +leagues from Paris. If I take Cosette away, I shall take her away, and +that is the end of the matter. You will not know my name, you will not +know my residence, you will not know where she is; and my intention is +that she shall never set eyes on you again so long as she lives. I break +the thread which binds her foot, and she departs. Does that suit you? +Yes or no?" + +Since geniuses, like demons, recognize the presence of a superior God by +certain signs, Thenardier comprehended that he had to deal with a very +strong person. It was like an intuition; he comprehended it with his +clear and sagacious promptitude. While drinking with the carters, +smoking, and singing coarse songs on the preceding evening, he had +devoted the whole of the time to observing the stranger, watching him +like a cat, and studying him like a mathematician. He had watched him, +both on his own account, for the pleasure of the thing, and through +instinct, and had spied upon him as though he had been paid for so +doing. Not a movement, not a gesture, on the part of the man in the +yellow great-coat had escaped him. Even before the stranger had so +clearly manifested his interest in Cosette, Thenardier had divined his +purpose. He had caught the old man's deep glances returning constantly +to the child. Who was this man? Why this interest? Why this hideous +costume, when he had so much money in his purse? Questions which he put +to himself without being able to solve them, and which irritated him. He +had pondered it all night long. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he +her grandfather? Then why not make himself known at once? When one has +a right, one asserts it. This man evidently had no right over Cosette. +What was it, then? Thenardier lost himself in conjectures. He caught +glimpses of everything, but he saw nothing. Be that as it may, on +entering into conversation with the man, sure that there was some secret +in the case, that the latter had some interest in remaining in the +shadow, he felt himself strong; when he perceived from the stranger's +clear and firm retort, that this mysterious personage was mysterious in +so simple a way, he became conscious that he was weak. He had expected +nothing of the sort. His conjectures were put to the rout. He rallied +his ideas. He weighed everything in the space of a second. Thenardier +was one of those men who take in a situation at a glance. He decided +that the moment had arrived for proceeding straightforward, and quickly +at that. He did as great leaders do at the decisive moment, which they +know that they alone recognize; he abruptly unmasked his batteries. + +"Sir," said he, "I am in need of fifteen hundred francs." + +The stranger took from his side pocket an old pocketbook of black +leather, opened it, drew out three bank-bills, which he laid on the +table. Then he placed his large thumb on the notes and said to the +inn-keeper:-- + +"Go and fetch Cosette." + +While this was taking place, what had Cosette been doing? + +On waking up, Cosette had run to get her shoe. In it she had found the +gold piece. It was not a Napoleon; it was one of those perfectly new +twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on whose effigy the little +Prussian queue had replaced the laurel wreath. Cosette was dazzled. Her +destiny began to intoxicate her. She did not know what a gold piece was; +she had never seen one; she hid it quickly in her pocket, as though +she had stolen it. Still, she felt that it really was hers; she guessed +whence her gift had come, but the joy which she experienced was full of +fear. She was happy; above all she was stupefied. Such magnificent and +beautiful things did not appear real. The doll frightened her, the +gold piece frightened her. She trembled vaguely in the presence of this +magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her. On the contrary, +he reassured her. Ever since the preceding evening, amid all her +amazement, even in her sleep, she had been thinking in her little +childish mind of that man who seemed to be so poor and so sad, and who +was so rich and so kind. Everything had changed for her since she had +met that good man in the forest. Cosette, less happy than the most +insignificant swallow of heaven, had never known what it was to take +refuge under a mother's shadow and under a wing. For the last five +years, that is to say, as far back as her memory ran, the poor child had +shivered and trembled. She had always been exposed completely naked +to the sharp wind of adversity; now it seemed to her she was clothed. +Formerly her soul had seemed cold, now it was warm. Cosette was no +longer afraid of the Thenardier. She was no longer alone; there was some +one there. + +She hastily set about her regular morning duties. That louis, which she +had about her, in the very apron pocket whence the fifteen-sou piece had +fallen on the night before, distracted her thoughts. She dared not touch +it, but she spent five minutes in gazing at it, with her tongue hanging +out, if the truth must be told. As she swept the staircase, she paused, +remained standing there motionless, forgetful of her broom and of the +entire universe, occupied in gazing at that star which was blazing at +the bottom of her pocket. + +It was during one of these periods of contemplation that the Thenardier +joined her. She had gone in search of Cosette at her husband's orders. +What was quite unprecedented, she neither struck her nor said an +insulting word to her. + +"Cosette," she said, almost gently, "come immediately." + +An instant later Cosette entered the public room. + +The stranger took up the bundle which he had brought and untied it. This +bundle contained a little woollen gown, an apron, a fustian bodice, a +kerchief, a petticoat, woollen stockings, shoes--a complete outfit for a +girl of seven years. All was black. + +"My child," said the man, "take these, and go and dress yourself +quickly." + +Daylight was appearing when those of the inhabitants of Montfermeil who +had begun to open their doors beheld a poorly clad old man leading a +little girl dressed in mourning, and carrying a pink doll in her arms, +pass along the road to Paris. They were going in the direction of Livry. + +It was our man and Cosette. + +No one knew the man; as Cosette was no longer in rags, many did not +recognize her. Cosette was going away. With whom? She did not know. +Whither? She knew not. All that she understood was that she was leaving +the Thenardier tavern behind her. No one had thought of bidding her +farewell, nor had she thought of taking leave of any one. She was +leaving that hated and hating house. + +Poor, gentle creature, whose heart had been repressed up to that hour! + +Cosette walked along gravely, with her large eyes wide open, and gazing +at the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her new apron. From +time to time, she bent down and glanced at it; then she looked at the +good man. She felt something as though she were beside the good God. + + + + +CHAPTER X--HE WHO SEEKS TO BETTER HIMSELF MAY RENDER HIS SITUATION WORSE + +Madame Thenardier had allowed her husband to have his own way, as was +her wont. She had expected great results. When the man and Cosette had +taken their departure, Thenardier allowed a full quarter of an hour +to elapse; then he took her aside and showed her the fifteen hundred +francs. + +"Is that all?" said she. + +It was the first time since they had set up housekeeping that she had +dared to criticise one of the master's acts. + +The blow told. + +"You are right, in sooth," said he; "I am a fool. Give me my hat." + +He folded up the three bank-bills, thrust them into his pocket, and ran +out in all haste; but he made a mistake and turned to the right first. +Some neighbors, of whom he made inquiries, put him on the track again; +the Lark and the man had been seen going in the direction of Livry. He +followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself +the while:-- + +"That man is evidently a million dressed in yellow, and I am an animal. +First he gave twenty sous, then five francs, then fifty francs, then +fifteen hundred francs, all with equal readiness. He would have given +fifteen thousand francs. But I shall overtake him." + +And then, that bundle of clothes prepared beforehand for the child; all +that was singular; many mysteries lay concealed under it. One does not +let mysteries out of one's hand when one has once grasped them. The +secrets of the wealthy are sponges of gold; one must know how to subject +them to pressure. All these thoughts whirled through his brain. "I am an +animal," said he. + +When one leaves Montfermeil and reaches the turn which the road takes +that runs to Livry, it can be seen stretching out before one to a great +distance across the plateau. On arriving there, he calculated that he +ought to be able to see the old man and the child. He looked as far as +his vision reached, and saw nothing. He made fresh inquiries, but he had +wasted time. Some passers-by informed him that the man and child of whom +he was in search had gone towards the forest in the direction of Gagny. +He hastened in that direction. + +They were far in advance of him; but a child walks slowly, and he walked +fast; and then, he was well acquainted with the country. + +All at once he paused and dealt himself a blow on his forehead like a +man who has forgotten some essential point and who is ready to retrace +his steps. + +"I ought to have taken my gun," said he to himself. + +Thenardier was one of those double natures which sometimes pass through +our midst without our being aware of the fact, and who disappear without +our finding them out, because destiny has only exhibited one side of +them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In a +calm and even situation, Thenardier possessed all that is required to +make--we will not say to be--what people have agreed to call an honest +trader, a good bourgeois. At the same time certain circumstances being +given, certain shocks arriving to bring his under-nature to the surface, +he had all the requisites for a blackguard. He was a shopkeeper in +whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally +crouched down in some corner of the hovel in which Thenardier dwelt, and +have fallen a-dreaming in the presence of this hideous masterpiece. + +After a momentary hesitation:-- + +"Bah!" he thought; "they will have time to make their escape." + +And he pursued his road, walking rapidly straight ahead, and with almost +an air of certainty, with the sagacity of a fox scenting a covey of +partridges. + +In truth, when he had passed the ponds and had traversed in an oblique +direction the large clearing which lies on the right of the Avenue de +Bellevue, and reached that turf alley which nearly makes the circuit of +the hill, and covers the arch of the ancient aqueduct of the Abbey of +Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on +which he had already erected so many conjectures; it was that man's hat. +The brushwood was not high. Thenardier recognized the fact that the man +and Cosette were sitting there. The child could not be seen on account +of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. + +Thenardier was not mistaken. The man was sitting there, and letting +Cosette get somewhat rested. The inn-keeper walked round the brushwood +and presented himself abruptly to the eyes of those whom he was in +search of. + +"Pardon, excuse me, sir," he said, quite breathless, "but here are your +fifteen hundred francs." + +So saying, he handed the stranger the three bank-bills. + +The man raised his eyes. + +"What is the meaning of this?" + +Thenardier replied respectfully:-- + +"It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette." + +Cosette shuddered, and pressed close to the old man. + +He replied, gazing to the very bottom of Thenardier's eyes the while, +and enunciating every syllable distinctly:-- + +"You are go-ing to take back Co-sette?" + +"Yes, sir, I am. I will tell you; I have considered the matter. In fact, +I have not the right to give her to you. I am an honest man, you see; +this child does not belong to me; she belongs to her mother. It was her +mother who confided her to me; I can only resign her to her mother. You +will say to me, 'But her mother is dead.' Good; in that case I can only +give the child up to the person who shall bring me a writing, signed by +her mother, to the effect that I am to hand the child over to the person +therein mentioned; that is clear." + +The man, without making any reply, fumbled in his pocket, and Thenardier +beheld the pocket-book of bank-bills make its appearance once more. + +The tavern-keeper shivered with joy. + +"Good!" thought he; "let us hold firm; he is going to bribe me!" + +Before opening the pocket-book, the traveller cast a glance about him: +the spot was absolutely deserted; there was not a soul either in the +woods or in the valley. The man opened his pocket-book once more and +drew from it, not the handful of bills which Thenardier expected, but a +simple little paper, which he unfolded and presented fully open to the +inn-keeper, saying:-- + +"You are right; read!" + +Thenardier took the paper and read:-- + + "M. SUR M., March 25, 1823. + + "MONSIEUR THENARDIER:-- + + You will deliver Cosette to this person. + You will be paid for all the little things. + I have the honor to salute you with respect, + FANTINE." + +"You know that signature?" resumed the man. + +It certainly was Fantine's signature; Thenardier recognized it. + +There was no reply to make; he experienced two violent vexations, the +vexation of renouncing the bribery which he had hoped for, and the +vexation of being beaten; the man added:-- + +"You may keep this paper as your receipt." + +Thenardier retreated in tolerably good order. + +"This signature is fairly well imitated," he growled between his teeth; +"however, let it go!" + +Then he essayed a desperate effort. + +"It is well, sir," he said, "since you are the person, but I must be +paid for all those little things. A great deal is owing to me." + +The man rose to his feet, filliping the dust from his thread-bare +sleeve:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier, in January last, the mother reckoned that she owed +you one hundred and twenty francs. In February, you sent her a bill of +five hundred francs; you received three hundred francs at the end of +February, and three hundred francs at the beginning of March. Since then +nine months have elapsed, at fifteen francs a month, the price agreed +upon, which makes one hundred and thirty-five francs. You had received +one hundred francs too much; that makes thirty-five still owing you. I +have just given you fifteen hundred francs." + +Thenardier's sensations were those of the wolf at the moment when he +feels himself nipped and seized by the steel jaw of the trap. + +"Who is this devil of a man?" he thought. + +He did what the wolf does: he shook himself. Audacity had succeeded with +him once. + +"Monsieur-I-don't-know-your-name," he said resolutely, and this time +casting aside all respectful ceremony, "I shall take back Cosette if you +do not give me a thousand crowns." + +The stranger said tranquilly:-- + +"Come, Cosette." + +He took Cosette by his left hand, and with his right he picked up his +cudgel, which was lying on the ground. + +Thenardier noted the enormous size of the cudgel and the solitude of the +spot. + +The man plunged into the forest with the child, leaving the inn-keeper +motionless and speechless. + +While they were walking away, Thenardier scrutinized his huge shoulders, +which were a little rounded, and his great fists. + +Then, bringing his eyes back to his own person, they fell upon his +feeble arms and his thin hands. "I really must have been exceedingly +stupid not to have thought to bring my gun," he said to himself, "since +I was going hunting!" + +However, the inn-keeper did not give up. + +"I want to know where he is going," said he, and he set out to follow +them at a distance. Two things were left on his hands, an irony in +the shape of the paper signed Fantine, and a consolation, the fifteen +hundred francs. + +The man led Cosette off in the direction of Livry and Bondy. He walked +slowly, with drooping head, in an attitude of reflection and sadness. +The winter had thinned out the forest, so that Thenardier did not lose +them from sight, although he kept at a good distance. The man turned +round from time to time, and looked to see if he was being followed. +All at once he caught sight of Thenardier. He plunged suddenly into +the brushwood with Cosette, where they could both hide themselves. "The +deuce!" said Thenardier, and he redoubled his pace. + +The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When +the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled +round. It was in vain that Thenardier sought to conceal himself in the +branches; he could not prevent the man seeing him. The man cast upon him +an uneasy glance, then elevated his head and continued his course. The +inn-keeper set out again in pursuit. Thus they continued for two or +three hundred paces. All at once the man turned round once more; he saw +the inn-keeper. This time he gazed at him with so sombre an air that +Thenardier decided that it was "useless" to proceed further. Thenardier +retraced his steps. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY + +Jean Valjean was not dead. + +When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it, he +was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until he reached a +vessel at anchor, to which a boat was moored. He found means of hiding +himself in this boat until night. At night he swam off again, and +reached the shore a little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack +money, he procured clothing. A small country-house in the neighborhood +of Balaguier was at that time the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a +lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives +who are seeking to evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality, +pursued an obscure and undulating itinerary. He found his first +refuge at Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards +Grand-Villard, near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and +uneasy flight,--a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later +on, some trace of his passage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, +was discovered; in the Pyrenees, at Accons; at the spot called +Grange-de-Doumec, near the market of Chavailles, and in the environs of +Perigueux at Brunies, canton of La Chapelle-Gonaguet. He reached Paris. +We have just seen him at Montfermeil. + +His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourning clothes +for a little girl of from seven to eight years of age; then to procure +a lodging. That done, he had betaken himself to Montfermeil. It will +be remembered that already, during his preceding escape, he had made a +mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the +law had gathered an inkling. + +However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further increased the +obscurity which had gathered about him. At Paris, one of the journals +which chronicled the fact fell into his hands. He felt reassured and +almost at peace, as though he had really been dead. + +On the evening of the day when Jean Valjean rescued Cosette from the +claws of the Thenardiers, he returned to Paris. He re-entered it at +nightfall, with the child, by way of the Barrier Monceaux. There +he entered a cabriolet, which took him to the esplanade of the +Observatoire. There he got out, paid the coachman, took Cosette by +the hand, and together they directed their steps through the +darkness,--through the deserted streets which adjoin the Ourcine and the +Glaciere, towards the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +The day had been strange and filled with emotions for Cosette. They +had eaten some bread and cheese purchased in isolated taverns, behind +hedges; they had changed carriages frequently; they had travelled short +distances on foot. She made no complaint, but she was weary, and Jean +Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand +as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go +of Catherine, laid her head on Jean Valjean's shoulder, and there fell +asleep. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL + +[Illustration: The Gorbeau Hovel 2b3-10-gorbeau-house] + + + + +CHAPTER I--MASTER GORBEAU + +Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of +the Salpetriere, and who had mounted to the Barriere d'Italie by way +of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris +disappeared. It was no longer solitude, for there were passers-by; it +was not the country, for there were houses and streets; it was not the +city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in +them; it was not a village, the houses were too lofty. What was it, +then? It was an inhabited spot where there was no one; it was a desert +place where there was some one; it was a boulevard of the great city, a +street of Paris; more wild at night than the forest, more gloomy by day +than a cemetery. + +It was the old quarter of the Marche-aux-Chevaux. + +The rambler, if he risked himself outside the four decrepit walls of +this Marche-aux-Chevaux; if he consented even to pass beyond the Rue du +Petit-Banquier, after leaving on his right a garden protected by high +walls; then a field in which tan-bark mills rose like gigantic beaver +huts; then an enclosure encumbered with timber, with a heap of stumps, +sawdust, and shavings, on which stood a large dog, barking; then a long, +low, utterly dilapidated wall, with a little black door in mourning, +laden with mosses, which were covered with flowers in the spring; then, +in the most deserted spot, a frightful and decrepit building, on which +ran the inscription in large letters: POST NO BILLS,--this daring +rambler would have reached little known latitudes at the corner of the +Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two +garden walls, there could be seen, at that epoch, a mean building, +which, at the first glance, seemed as small as a thatched hovel, and +which was, in reality, as large as a cathedral. It presented its side +and gable to the public road; hence its apparent diminutiveness. Nearly +the whole of the house was hidden. Only the door and one window could be +seen. + +This hovel was only one story high. + +The first detail that struck the observer was, that the door could never +have been anything but the door of a hovel, while the window, if it +had been carved out of dressed stone instead of being in rough masonry, +might have been the lattice of a lordly mansion. + +The door was nothing but a collection of worm-eaten planks roughly bound +together by cross-beams which resembled roughly hewn logs. It +opened directly on a steep staircase of lofty steps, muddy, chalky, +plaster-stained, dusty steps, of the same width as itself, which +could be seen from the street, running straight up like a ladder and +disappearing in the darkness between two walls. The top of the shapeless +bay into which this door shut was masked by a narrow scantling in the +centre of which a triangular hole had been sawed, which served both as +wicket and air-hole when the door was closed. On the inside of the +door the figures 52 had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush +dipped in ink, and above the scantling the same hand had daubed the +number 50, so that one hesitated. Where was one? Above the door it said, +"Number 50"; the inside replied, "no, Number 52." No one knows what +dust-colored figures were suspended like draperies from the triangular +opening. + +The window was large, sufficiently elevated, garnished with Venetian +blinds, and with a frame in large square panes; only these large panes +were suffering from various wounds, which were both concealed and +betrayed by an ingenious paper bandage. And the blinds, dislocated and +unpasted, threatened passers-by rather than screened the occupants. +The horizontal slats were missing here and there and had been naively +replaced with boards nailed on perpendicularly; so that what began as +a blind ended as a shutter. This door with an unclean, and this window +with an honest though dilapidated air, thus beheld on the same house, +produced the effect of two incomplete beggars walking side by side, +with different miens beneath the same rags, the one having always been a +mendicant, and the other having once been a gentleman. + +The staircase led to a very vast edifice which resembled a shed which +had been converted into a house. This edifice had, for its intestinal +tube, a long corridor, on which opened to right and left sorts of +compartments of varied dimensions which were inhabitable under stress +of circumstances, and rather more like stalls than cells. These chambers +received their light from the vague waste grounds in the neighborhood. + +All this was dark, disagreeable, wan, melancholy, sepulchral; traversed +according as the crevices lay in the roof or in the door, by cold rays +or by icy winds. An interesting and picturesque peculiarity of this sort +of dwelling is the enormous size of the spiders. + +To the left of the entrance door, on the boulevard side, at about the +height of a man from the ground, a small window which had been walled up +formed a square niche full of stones which the children had thrown there +as they passed by. + +A portion of this building has recently been demolished. From what still +remains of it one can form a judgment as to what it was in former days. +As a whole, it was not over a hundred years old. A hundred years is +youth in a church and age in a house. It seems as though man's lodging +partook of his ephemeral character, and God's house of his eternity. + +The postmen called the house Number 50-52; but it was known in the +neighborhood as the Gorbeau house. + +Let us explain whence this appellation was derived. + +Collectors of petty details, who become herbalists of anecdotes, and +prick slippery dates into their memories with a pin, know that there +was in Paris, during the last century, about 1770, two attorneys at the +Chatelet named, one Corbeau (Raven), the other Renard (Fox). The two +names had been forestalled by La Fontaine. The opportunity was too fine +for the lawyers; they made the most of it. A parody was immediately +put in circulation in the galleries of the court-house, in verses that +limped a little:-- + + + Maitre Corbeau, sur un dossier perche,[13] + Tenait dans son bee une saisie executoire; + Maitre Renard, par l'odeur alleche, + Lui fit a peu pres cette histoire: + He! bonjour. Etc. + + +The two honest practitioners, embarrassed by the jests, and finding the +bearing of their heads interfered with by the shouts of laughter which +followed them, resolved to get rid of their names, and hit upon the +expedient of applying to the king. + +Their petition was presented to Louis XV. on the same day when the +Papal Nuncio, on the one hand, and the Cardinal de la Roche-Aymon on the +other, both devoutly kneeling, were each engaged in putting on, in his +Majesty's presence, a slipper on the bare feet of Madame du Barry, who +had just got out of bed. The king, who was laughing, continued to laugh, +passed gayly from the two bishops to the two lawyers, and bestowed on +these limbs of the law their former names, or nearly so. By the kings +command, Maitre Corbeau was permitted to add a tail to his initial +letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Maitre Renard was less lucky; all he +obtained was leave to place a P in front of his R, and to call himself +Prenard; so that the second name bore almost as much resemblance as the +first. + +Now, according to local tradition, this Maitre Gorbeau had been the +proprietor of the building numbered 50-52 on the Boulevard de l'Hopital. +He was even the author of the monumental window. + +Hence the edifice bore the name of the Gorbeau house. + +Opposite this house, among the trees of the boulevard, rose a great elm +which was three-quarters dead; almost directly facing it opens the Rue +de la Barriere des Gobelins, a street then without houses, unpaved, +planted with unhealthy trees, which was green or muddy according to the +season, and which ended squarely in the exterior wall of Paris. An odor +of copperas issued in puffs from the roofs of the neighboring factory. + +The barrier was close at hand. In 1823 the city wall was still in +existence. + +This barrier itself evoked gloomy fancies in the mind. It was the +road to Bicetre. It was through it that, under the Empire and the +Restoration, prisoners condemned to death re-entered Paris on the day +of their execution. It was there, that, about 1829, was committed that +mysterious assassination, called "The assassination of the Fontainebleau +barrier," whose authors justice was never able to discover; a melancholy +problem which has never been elucidated, a frightful enigma which has +never been unriddled. Take a few steps, and you come upon that fatal Rue +Croulebarbe, where Ulbach stabbed the goat-girl of Ivry to the sound of +thunder, as in the melodramas. A few paces more, and you arrive at the +abominable pollarded elms of the Barriere Saint-Jacques, that expedient +of the philanthropist to conceal the scaffold, that miserable and +shameful Place de Grove of a shop-keeping and bourgeois society, which +recoiled before the death penalty, neither daring to abolish it with +grandeur, nor to uphold it with authority. + +Leaving aside this Place Saint-Jacques, which was, as it were, +predestined, and which has always been horrible, probably the most +mournful spot on that mournful boulevard, seven and thirty years ago, +was the spot which even to-day is so unattractive, where stood the +building Number 50-52. + +Bourgeois houses only began to spring up there twenty-five years later. +The place was unpleasant. In addition to the gloomy thoughts which +assailed one there, one was conscious of being between the Salpetriere, +a glimpse of whose dome could be seen, and Bicetre, whose outskirts one +was fairly touching; that is to say, between the madness of women and +the madness of men. As far as the eye could see, one could perceive +nothing but the abattoirs, the city wall, and the fronts of a few +factories, resembling barracks or monasteries; everywhere about stood +hovels, rubbish, ancient walls blackened like cerecloths, new white +walls like winding-sheets; everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings +erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the +melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, +not a caprice in the architecture, not a fold. The ensemble was glacial, +regular, hideous. Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is +because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is at the very foundation of grief. +Despair yawns. Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers +may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell +existed, that bit of the Boulevard de l'Hopital might have formed the +entrance to it. + +Nevertheless, at nightfall, at the moment when the daylight is +vanishing, especially in winter, at the hour when the twilight breeze +tears from the elms their last russet leaves, when the darkness is deep +and starless, or when the moon and the wind are making openings in the +clouds and losing themselves in the shadows, this boulevard suddenly +becomes frightful. The black lines sink inwards and are lost in the +shades, like morsels of the infinite. The passer-by cannot refrain from +recalling the innumerable traditions of the place which are connected +with the gibbet. The solitude of this spot, where so many crimes have +been committed, had something terrible about it. One almost had a +presentiment of meeting with traps in that darkness; all the confused +forms of the darkness seemed suspicious, and the long, hollow square, of +which one caught a glimpse between each tree, seemed graves: by day it +was ugly; in the evening melancholy; by night it was sinister. + +In summer, at twilight, one saw, here and there, a few old women seated +at the foot of the elm, on benches mouldy with rain. These good old +women were fond of begging. + +However, this quarter, which had a superannuated rather than an antique +air, was tending even then to transformation. Even at that time any one +who was desirous of seeing it had to make haste. Each day some detail of +the whole effect was disappearing. For the last twenty years the station +of the Orleans railway has stood beside the old faubourg and distracted +it, as it does to-day. Wherever it is placed on the borders of a +capital, a railway station is the death of a suburb and the birth of a +city. It seems as though, around these great centres of the movements of +a people, the earth, full of germs, trembled and yawned, to engulf the +ancient dwellings of men and to allow new ones to spring forth, at the +rattle of these powerful machines, at the breath of these monstrous +horses of civilization which devour coal and vomit fire. The old houses +crumble and new ones rise. + +Since the Orleans railway has invaded the region of the Salpetriere, +the ancient, narrow streets which adjoin the moats Saint-Victor and the +Jardin des Plantes tremble, as they are violently traversed three or +four times each day by those currents of coach fiacres and omnibuses +which, in a given time, crowd back the houses to the right and the left; +for there are things which are odd when said that are rigorously exact; +and just as it is true to say that in large cities the sun makes the +southern fronts of houses to vegetate and grow, it is certain that the +frequent passage of vehicles enlarges streets. The symptoms of a new +life are evident. In this old provincial quarter, in the wildest nooks, +the pavement shows itself, the sidewalks begin to crawl and to grow +longer, even where there are as yet no pedestrians. One morning,--a +memorable morning in July, 1845,--black pots of bitumen were seen +smoking there; on that day it might be said that civilization had +arrived in the Rue de l'Ourcine, and that Paris had entered the suburb +of Saint-Marceau. + + + + +CHAPTER II--A NEST FOR OWL AND A WARBLER + +It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like +wild birds, he had chosen this desert place to construct his nest. + +He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a sort of a pass-key, +opened the door, entered, closed it again carefully, and ascended the +staircase, still carrying Cosette. + +At the top of the stairs he drew from his pocket another key, with +which he opened another door. The chamber which he entered, and which +he closed again instantly, was a kind of moderately spacious attic, +furnished with a mattress laid on the floor, a table, and several +chairs; a stove in which a fire was burning, and whose embers were +visible, stood in one corner. A lantern on the boulevard cast a vague +light into this poor room. At the extreme end there was a dressing-room +with a folding bed; Jean Valjean carried the child to this bed and laid +her down there without waking her. + +He struck a match and lighted a candle. All this was prepared beforehand +on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began +to scrutinize Cosette's face with a gaze full of ecstasy, in which the +expression of kindness and tenderness almost amounted to aberration. The +little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only to extreme +strength and extreme weakness, had fallen asleep without knowing with +whom she was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was. + +Jean Valjean bent down and kissed that child's hand. + +Nine months before he had kissed the hand of the mother, who had also +just fallen asleep. + +The same sad, piercing, religious sentiment filled his heart. + +He knelt beside Cosette's bed. + +lt was broad daylight, and the child still slept. A wan ray of the +December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the +ceiling in long threads of light and shade. All at once a heavily laden +carrier's cart, which was passing along the boulevard, shook the frail +bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver from top to bottom. + +"Yes, madame!" cried Cosette, waking with a start, "here I am! here I +am!" + +And she sprang out of bed, her eyes still half shut with the heaviness +of sleep, extending her arms towards the corner of the wall. + +"Ah! mon Dieu, my broom!" said she. + +She opened her eyes wide now, and beheld the smiling countenance of Jean +Valjean. + +"Ah! so it is true!" said the child. "Good morning, Monsieur." + +Children accept joy and happiness instantly and familiarly, being +themselves by nature joy and happiness. + +Cosette caught sight of Catherine at the foot of her bed, and took +possession of her, and, as she played, she put a hundred questions to +Jean Valjean. Where was she? Was Paris very large? Was Madame Thenardier +very far away? Was she to go back? etc., etc. All at once she exclaimed, +"How pretty it is here!" + +It was a frightful hole, but she felt free. + +"Must I sweep?" she resumed at last. + +"Play!" said Jean Valjean. + +The day passed thus. Cosette, without troubling herself to understand +anything, was inexpressibly happy with that doll and that kind man. + + + + +CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE + +On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still by +Cosette's bedside; he watched there motionless, waiting for her to wake. + +Some new thing had come into his soul. + +Jean Valjean had never loved anything; for twenty-five years he had been +alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. In +the prison he had been vicious, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and shy. +The heart of that ex-convict was full of virginity. His sister and his +sister's children had left him only a vague and far-off memory which +had finally almost completely vanished; he had made every effort to +find them, and not having been able to find them, he had forgotten them. +Human nature is made thus; the other tender emotions of his youth, if he +had ever had any, had fallen into an abyss. + +When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried her +off, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him. + +All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that +child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with +joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it +meant; for that great and singular movement of a heart which begins to +love is a very obscure and a very sweet thing. + +Poor old man, with a perfectly new heart! + +Only, as he was five and fifty, and Cosette eight years of age, all that +might have been love in the whole course of his life flowed together +into a sort of ineffable light. + +It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop +had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused the +dawn of love to rise. + +The early days passed in this dazzled state. + +Cosette, on her side, had also, unknown to herself, become another +being, poor little thing! She was so little when her mother left her, +that she no longer remembered her. Like all children, who resemble young +shoots of the vine, which cling to everything, she had tried to love; +she had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,--the Thenardiers, their +children, other children. She had loved the dog, and he had died, after +which nothing and nobody would have anything to do with her. It is a sad +thing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years of +age, her heart was cold. It was not her fault; it was not the faculty +of loving that she lacked; alas! it was the possibility. Thus, from the +very first day, all her sentient and thinking powers loved this kind +man. She felt that which she had never felt before--a sensation of +expansion. + +The man no longer produced on her the effect of being old or poor; she +thought Jean Valjean handsome, just as she thought the hovel pretty. + +These are the effects of the dawn, of childhood, of joy. The novelty of +the earth and of life counts for something here. Nothing is so charming +as the coloring reflection of happiness on a garret. We all have in our +past a delightful garret. + +Nature, a difference of fifty years, had set a profound gulf between +Jean Valjean and Cosette; destiny filled in this gulf. Destiny suddenly +united and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprooted +existences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completed +the other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean's +instinct sought a child. To meet was to find each other. At the +mysterious moment when their hands touched, they were welded together. +When these two souls perceived each other, they recognized each other as +necessary to each other, and embraced each other closely. + +Taking the words in their most comprehensive and absolute sense, we +may say that, separated from every one by the walls of the tomb, Jean +Valjean was the widower, and Cosette was the orphan: this situation +caused Jean Valjean to become Cosette's father after a celestial +fashion. + +And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in the +depths of the forest of Chelles by the hand of Jean Valjean grasping +hers in the dark was not an illusion, but a reality. The entrance of +that man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean had chosen his refuge well. There he seemed +perfectly secure. + +The chamber with a dressing-room, which he occupied with Cosette, was +the one whose window opened on the boulevard. This being the only window +in the house, no neighbors' glances were to be feared from across the +way or at the side. + +The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse, +served as a wagon-house for market-gardeners, and no communication +existed between it and the first story. It was separated by the +flooring, which had neither traps nor stairs, and which formed the +diaphragm of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as we +have said, numerous chambers and several attics, only one of which +was occupied by the old woman who took charge of Jean Valjean's +housekeeping; all the rest was uninhabited. + +It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the principal lodger, +and in reality intrusted with the functions of portress, who had let +him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had represented himself to her as a +gentleman of means who had been ruined by Spanish bonds, who was coming +there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her six months in +advance, and had commissioned the old woman to furnish the chamber and +dressing-room, as we have seen. It was this good woman who had lighted +the fire in the stove, and prepared everything on the evening of their +arrival. + +Week followed week; these two beings led a happy life in that hovel. + +Cosette laughed, chattered, and sang from daybreak. Children have their +morning song as well as birds. + +It sometimes happened that Jean Valjean clasped her tiny red hand, all +cracked with chilblains, and kissed it. The poor child, who was used +to being beaten, did not know the meaning of this, and ran away in +confusion. + +At times she became serious and stared at her little black gown. Cosette +was no longer in rags; she was in mourning. She had emerged from misery, +and she was entering into life. + +Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he made +the child spell, he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evil +that he had learned to read in prison. This idea had ended in teaching a +child to read. Then the ex-convict smiled with the pensive smile of the +angels. + +He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one who +was not man, and he became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have their +abysses as well as evil ones. + +To teach Cosette to read, and to let her play, this constituted nearly +the whole of Jean Valjean's existence. And then he talked of her mother, +and he made her pray. + +She called him father, and knew no other name for him. + +He passed hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in +listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full +of interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached +any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very +old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretching +out before him, illuminated by Cosette as by a charming light. The best +of us are not exempt from egotistical thoughts. At times, he reflected +with a sort of joy that she would be ugly. + +This is only a personal opinion; but, to utter our whole thought, at the +point where Jean Valjean had arrived when he began to love Cosette, it +is by no means clear to us that he did not need this encouragement in +order that he might persevere in well-doing. He had just viewed the +malice of men and the misery of society under a new aspect--incomplete +aspects, which unfortunately only exhibited one side of the truth, +the fate of woman as summed up in Fantine, and public authority as +personified in Javert. He had returned to prison, this time for having +done right; he had quaffed fresh bitterness; disgust and lassitude were +overpowering him; even the memory of the Bishop probably suffered +a temporary eclipse, though sure to reappear later on luminous and +triumphant; but, after all, that sacred memory was growing dim. +Who knows whether Jean Valjean had not been on the eve of growing +discouraged and of falling once more? He loved and grew strong again. +Alas! he walked with no less indecision than Cosette. He protected her, +and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; +thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay, +and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the +balances of destiny! + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE REMARKS OF THE PRINCIPAL TENANT + +Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, +at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with +Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and +entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Medard, which is +the nearest church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained +with the old woman; but the child's delight was to go out with the good +man. She preferred an hour with him to all her rapturous tete-a-tetes +with Catherine. He held her hand as they walked, and said sweet things +to her. + +It turned out that Cosette was a very gay little person. + +The old woman attended to the housekeeping and cooking and went to +market. + +They lived soberly, always having a little fire, but like people in +very moderate circumstances. Jean Valjean had made no alterations in +the furniture as it was the first day; he had merely had the glass door +leading to Cosette's dressing-room replaced by a solid door. + +He still wore his yellow coat, his black breeches, and his old hat. +In the street, he was taken for a poor man. It sometimes happened that +kind-hearted women turned back to bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean +accepted the sou with a deep bow. It also happened occasionally that he +encountered some poor wretch asking alms; then he looked behind him +to make sure that no one was observing him, stealthily approached the +unfortunate man, put a piece of money into his hand, often a silver +coin, and walked rapidly away. This had its disadvantages. He began +to be known in the neighborhood under the name of the beggar who gives +alms. + +The old principal lodger, a cross-looking creature, who was +thoroughly permeated, so far as her neighbors were concerned, with the +inquisitiveness peculiar to envious persons, scrutinized Jean Valjean +a great deal, without his suspecting the fact. She was a little deaf, +which rendered her talkative. There remained to her from her past, two +teeth,--one above, the other below,--which she was continually knocking +against each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able +to tell her anything, since she knew nothing herself except that she had +come from Montfermeil. One morning, this spy saw Jean Valjean, with +an air which struck the old gossip as peculiar, entering one of the +uninhabited compartments of the hovel. She followed him with the step +of an old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen, through a +crack in the door, which was directly opposite him. Jean Valjean had his +back turned towards this door, by way of greater security, no doubt. The +old woman saw him fumble in his pocket and draw thence a case, scissors, +and thread; then he began to rip the lining of one of the skirts of his +coat, and from the opening he took a bit of yellowish paper, which he +unfolded. The old woman recognized, with terror, the fact that it was +a bank-bill for a thousand francs. It was the second or third only that +she had seen in the course of her existence. She fled in alarm. + +A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to go and +get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding that it was his +quarterly income, which he had received the day before. "Where?" thought +the old woman. "He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening, and +the government bank certainly is not open at that hour." The old +woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises. That +thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast +amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the Rue des Vignes +Saint-Marcel. + +A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing some wood, in +his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor. The old woman was in the chamber, +putting things in order. She was alone. Cosette was occupied in admiring +the wood as it was sawed. The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging +on a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again. The good +woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed in the skirts and +revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc bank-bills, no doubt! + +She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets. +Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big +pocket-book, a very large knife, and--a suspicious circumstance--several +wigs of various colors. Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in +a manner provided against unexpected accidents. + +Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of winter. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLS ON THE GROUND AND PRODUCES A TUMULT + +Near Saint-Medard's church there was a poor man who was in the habit of +crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and +on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity. He never passed this +man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who +envied this mendicant said that he belonged to the police. He was an +ex-beadle of seventy-five, who was constantly mumbling his prayers. + +One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing by, when he had not Cosette +with him, he saw the beggar in his usual place, beneath the lantern +which had just been lighted. The man seemed engaged in prayer, according +to his custom, and was much bent over. Jean Valjean stepped up to him +and placed his customary alms in his hand. The mendicant raised his +eyes suddenly, stared intently at Jean Valjean, then dropped his head +quickly. This movement was like a flash of lightning. Jean Valjean was +seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just caught sight, +by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and beaming +visage of the old beadle, but of a well-known and startling face. He +experienced the same impression that one would have on finding one's +self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He +recoiled, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak, +to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head, +which was enveloped in a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he +was there. At this strange moment, an instinct--possibly the mysterious +instinct of self-preservation,--restrained Jean Valjean from uttering a +word. The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance +as he had every day. "Bah!" said Jean Valjean, "I am mad! I am dreaming! +Impossible!" And he returned profoundly troubled. + +He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he +thought he had seen was the face of Javert. + +That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having +questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second +time. + +On the following day, at nightfall, he went back. The beggar was at his +post. "Good day, my good man," said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing +him a sou. The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice, +"Thanks, my good sir." It was unmistakably the ex-beadle. + +Jean Valjean felt completely reassured. He began to laugh. "How the +deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there?" he thought. "Am I +going to lose my eyesight now?" And he thought no more about it. + +A few days afterwards,--it might have been at eight o'clock in the +evening,--he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, +when he heard the house door open and then shut again. This struck him +as singular. The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house +except himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not +burn out her candles. Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet. +He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old +woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. +Jean Valjean listened. + +The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man; but the old woman +wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the +step of a man as that of an old woman. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew +out his candle. + +He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, "Get into bed +very softly"; and as he kissed her brow, the steps paused. + +Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the +door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding his +breath in the dark. + +After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he +heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards the door of his +chamber, he saw a light through the keyhole. This light formed a sort +of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was +evidently some one there, who was holding a candle in his hand and +listening. + +Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated. But he heard no +sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the person who had +been listening at the door had removed his shoes. + +Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his bed, and could +not close his eyes all night. + +At daybreak, just as he was falling into a doze through fatigue, he was +awakened by the creaking of a door which opened on some attic at the +end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine footstep which had +ascended the stairs on the preceding evening. The step was approaching. +He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole, which was +tolerably large, hoping to see the person who had made his way by night +into the house and had listened at his door, as he passed. It was a +man, in fact, who passed, this time without pausing, in front of Jean +Valjean's chamber. The corridor was too dark to allow of the person's +face being distinguished; but when the man reached the staircase, a +ray of light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean +Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man was of lofty stature, +clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable +neck and shoulders belonged to Javert. + +Jean Valjean might have attempted to catch another glimpse of him +through his window opening on the boulevard, but he would have been +obliged to open the window: he dared not. + +It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself. +Who had given him that key? What was the meaning of this? + +When the old woman came to do the work, at seven o'clock in the morning, +Jean Valjean cast a penetrating glance on her, but he did not question +her. The good woman appeared as usual. + +As she swept up she remarked to him:-- + +"Possibly Monsieur may have heard some one come in last night?" + +At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o'clock in the evening was the +dead of the night. + +"That is true, by the way," he replied, in the most natural tone +possible. "Who was it?" + +"It was a new lodger who has come into the house," said the old woman. + +"And what is his name?" + +"I don't know exactly; Dumont, or Daumont, or some name of that sort." + +"And who is this Monsieur Dumont?" + +The old woman gazed at him with her little polecat eyes, and answered:-- + +"A gentleman of property, like yourself." + +Perhaps she had no ulterior meaning. Jean Valjean thought he perceived +one. + +When the old woman had taken her departure, he did up a hundred francs +which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in his pocket. In +spite of all the precautions which he took in this operation so that he +might not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou piece escaped from his +hands and rolled noisily on the floor. + +When darkness came on, he descended and carefully scrutinized both sides +of the boulevard. He saw no one. The boulevard appeared to be absolutely +deserted. It is true that a person can conceal himself behind trees. + +He went up stairs again. + +"Come." he said to Cosette. + +He took her by the hand, and they both went out. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY + +An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the +reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further +on. + +The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning +himself, has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been +transformed since he quitted it. A new city has arisen, which is, after +a fashion, unknown to him. There is no need for him to say that he loves +Paris: Paris is his mind's natal city. In consequence of demolitions and +reconstructions, the Paris of his youth, that Paris which he bore away +religiously in his memory, is now a Paris of days gone by. He must +be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is +possible that when the author conducts his readers to a spot and says, +"In such a street there stands such and such a house," neither street +nor house will any longer exist in that locality. Readers may verify +the facts if they care to take the trouble. For his own part, he is +unacquainted with the new Paris, and he writes with the old Paris before +his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a delight to him +to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he +beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. +So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those +streets are a matter of indifference to you; that those windows, +those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you; that those walls are +strangers to you; that those trees are merely the first encountered +haphazard; that those houses, which you do not enter, are useless to +you; that the pavements which you tread are merely stones. Later on, +when you are no longer there, you perceive that the streets are dear to +you; that you miss those roofs, those doors; and that those walls are +necessary to you, those trees are well beloved by you; that you entered +those houses which you never entered, every day, and that you have left +a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements. +All those places which you no longer behold, which you may never +behold again, perchance, and whose memory you have cherished, take on +a melancholy charm, recur to your mind with the melancholy of an +apparition, make the holy land visible to you, and are, so to speak, +the very form of France, and you love them; and you call them up as they +are, as they were, and you persist in this, and you will submit to no +change: for you are attached to the figure of your fatherland as to the +face of your mother. + +May we, then, be permitted to speak of the past in the present? That +said, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we continue. + +Jean Valjean instantly quitted the boulevard and plunged into the +streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, +returning on his track at times, to make sure that he was not being +followed. + +[Illustration: The Black Hunt 2b5-1-black-hunt] + +This manoeuvre is peculiar to the hunted stag. On soil where an +imprint of the track may be left, this manoeuvre possesses, among other +advantages, that of deceiving the huntsmen and the dogs, by throwing +them on the wrong scent. In venery this is called false re-imbushment. + +The moon was full that night. Jean Valjean was not sorry for this. The +moon, still very close to the horizon, cast great masses of light and +shadow in the streets. Jean Valjean could glide along close to the +houses on the dark side, and yet keep watch on the light side. He did +not, perhaps, take sufficiently into consideration the fact that the +dark side escaped him. Still, in the deserted lanes which lie near the +Rue Poliveau, he thought he felt certain that no one was following him. + +Cosette walked on without asking any questions. The sufferings of the +first six years of her life had instilled something passive into her +nature. Moreover,--and this is a remark to which we shall frequently +have occasion to recur,--she had grown used, without being herself +aware of it, to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of +destiny. And then she was with him, and she felt safe. + +Jean Valjean knew no more where he was going than did Cosette. He +trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed as though he also were +clinging to the hand of some one greater than himself; he thought he +felt a being leading him, though invisible. However, he had no settled +idea, no plan, no project. He was not even absolutely sure that it was +Javert, and then it might have been Javert, without Javert knowing that +he was Jean Valjean. Was not he disguised? Was not he believed to be +dead? Still, queer things had been going on for several days. He wanted +no more of them. He was determined not to return to the Gorbeau house. +Like the wild animal chased from its lair, he was seeking a hole in +which he might hide until he could find one where he might dwell. + +Jean Valjean described many and varied labyrinths in the Mouffetard +quarter, which was already asleep, as though the discipline of the +Middle Ages and the yoke of the curfew still existed; he combined in +various manners, with cunning strategy, the Rue Censier and the Rue +Copeau, the Rue du Battoir-Saint-Victor and the Rue du Puits l'Ermite. +There are lodging houses in this locality, but he did not even enter +one, finding nothing which suited him. He had no doubt that if any one +had chanced to be upon his track, they would have lost it. + +As eleven o'clock struck from Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, he was traversing +the Rue de Pontoise, in front of the office of the commissary of police, +situated at No. 14. A few moments later, the instinct of which we have +spoken above made him turn round. At that moment he saw distinctly, +thanks to the commissary's lantern, which betrayed them, three men +who were following him closely, pass, one after the other, under that +lantern, on the dark side of the street. One of the three entered the +alley leading to the commissary's house. The one who marched at their +head struck him as decidedly suspicious. + +"Come, child," he said to Cosette; and he made haste to quit the Rue +Pontoise. + +He took a circuit, turned into the Passage des Patriarches, which was +closed on account of the hour, strode along the Rue de l'Epee-de-Bois +and the Rue de l'Arbalete, and plunged into the Rue des Postes. + +At that time there was a square formed by the intersection of +streets, where the College Rollin stands to-day, and where the Rue +Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve turns off. + +It is understood, of course, that the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve is an +old street, and that a posting-chaise does not pass through the Rue des +Postes once in ten years. In the thirteenth century this Rue des Postes +was inhabited by potters, and its real name is Rue des Pots. + +The moon cast a livid light into this open space. Jean Valjean went into +ambush in a doorway, calculating that if the men were still following +him, he could not fail to get a good look at them, as they traversed +this illuminated space. + +In point of fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their +appearance. There were four of them now. All were tall, dressed in long, +brown coats, with round hats, and huge cudgels in their hands. Their +great stature and their vast fists rendered them no less alarming +than did their sinister stride through the darkness. One would have +pronounced them four spectres disguised as bourgeois. + +They halted in the middle of the space and formed a group, like men in +consultation. They had an air of indecision. The one who appeared to be +their leader turned round and pointed hastily with his right hand in the +direction which Jean Valjean had taken; another seemed to indicate the +contrary direction with considerable obstinacy. At the moment when the +first man wheeled round, the moon fell full in his face. Jean Valjean +recognized Javert perfectly. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IT IS LUCKY THAT THE PONT D'AUSTERLITZ BEARS CARRIAGES + +Uncertainty was at an end for Jean Valjean: fortunately it still lasted +for the men. He took advantage of their hesitation. It was time lost for +them, but gained for him. He slipped from under the gate where he had +concealed himself, and went down the Rue des Postes, towards the region +of the Jardin des Plantes. Cosette was beginning to be tired. He took +her in his arms and carried her. There were no passers-by, and the +street lanterns had not been lighted on account of there being a moon. + +He redoubled his pace. + +In a few strides he had reached the Goblet potteries, on the front +of which the moonlight rendered distinctly legible the ancient +inscription:-- + + De Goblet fils c'est ici la fabrique;[14] + Venez choisir des cruches et des broos, + Des pots a fleurs, des tuyaux, de la brique. + A tout venant le Coeur vend des Carreaux. + + + +He left behind him the Rue de la Clef, then the Fountain Saint-Victor, +skirted the Jardin des Plantes by the lower streets, and reached the +quay. There he turned round. The quay was deserted. The streets were +deserted. There was no one behind him. He drew a long breath. + +He gained the Pont d'Austerlitz. + +Tolls were still collected there at that epoch. + +He presented himself at the toll office and handed over a sou. + +"It is two sous," said the old soldier in charge of the bridge. "You are +carrying a child who can walk. Pay for two." + +He paid, vexed that his passage should have aroused remark. Every flight +should be an imperceptible slipping away. + +A heavy cart was crossing the Seine at the same time as himself, and on +its way, like him, to the right bank. This was of use to him. He could +traverse the bridge in the shadow of the cart. + +Towards the middle of the Bridge, Cosette, whose feet were benumbed, +wanted to walk. He set her on the ground and took her hand again. + +The bridge once crossed, he perceived some timber-yards on his right. He +directed his course thither. In order to reach them, it was necessary to +risk himself in a tolerably large unsheltered and illuminated space. +He did not hesitate. Those who were on his track had evidently lost the +scent, and Jean Valjean believed himself to be out of danger. Hunted, +yes; followed, no. + +A little street, the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, opened out +between two timber-yards enclosed in walls. This street was dark and +narrow and seemed made expressly for him. Before entering it he cast a +glance behind him. + +From the point where he stood he could see the whole extent of the Pont +d'Austerlitz. + +Four shadows were just entering on the bridge. + +These shadows had their backs turned to the Jardin des Plantes and were +on their way to the right bank. + +These four shadows were the four men. + +Jean Valjean shuddered like the wild beast which is recaptured. + +One hope remained to him; it was, that the men had not, perhaps, stepped +on the bridge, and had not caught sight of him while he was crossing the +large illuminated space, holding Cosette by the hand. + +In that case, by plunging into the little street before him, he +might escape, if he could reach the timber-yards, the marshes, the +market-gardens, the uninhabited ground which was not built upon. + +It seemed to him that he might commit himself to that silent little +street. He entered it. + + + + +CHAPTER III--TO WIT, THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727 + +Three hundred paces further on, he arrived at a point where the street +forked. It separated into two streets, which ran in a slanting line, one +to the right, and the other to the left. + +Jean Valjean had before him what resembled the two branches of a Y. +Which should he choose? He did not hesitate, but took the one on the +right. + +Why? + +Because that to the left ran towards a suburb, that is to say, towards +inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the open country, that +is to say, towards deserted regions. + +However, they no longer walked very fast. Cosette's pace retarded Jean +Valjean's. + +He took her up and carried her again. Cosette laid her head on the +shoulder of the good man and said not a word. + +He turned round from time to time and looked behind him. He took care to +keep always on the dark side of the street. The street was straight +in his rear. The first two or three times that he turned round he saw +nothing; the silence was profound, and he continued his march somewhat +reassured. All at once, on turning round, he thought he perceived in the +portion of the street which he had just passed through, far off in the +obscurity, something which was moving. + +He rushed forward precipitately rather than walked, hoping to find some +side-street, to make his escape through it, and thus to break his scent +once more. + +He arrived at a wall. + +This wall, however, did not absolutely prevent further progress; it was +a wall which bordered a transverse street, in which the one he had taken +ended. + +Here again, he was obliged to come to a decision; should he go to the +right or to the left. + +He glanced to the right. The fragmentary lane was prolonged between +buildings which were either sheds or barns, then ended at a blind alley. +The extremity of the cul-de-sac was distinctly visible,--a lofty white +wall. + +He glanced to the left. On that side the lane was open, and about +two hundred paces further on, ran into a street of which it was the +affluent. On that side lay safety. + +At the moment when Jean Valjean was meditating a turn to the left, in +an effort to reach the street which he saw at the end of the lane, he +perceived a sort of motionless, black statue at the corner of the lane +and the street towards which he was on the point of directing his steps. + +It was some one, a man, who had evidently just been posted there, and +who was barring the passage and waiting. + +Jean Valjean recoiled. + +The point of Paris where Jean Valjean found himself, situated between +the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and la Rapee, is one of those which recent +improvements have transformed from top to bottom,--resulting in +disfigurement according to some, and in a transfiguration according to +others. The market-gardens, the timber-yards, and the old buildings +have been effaced. To-day, there are brand-new, wide streets, arenas, +circuses, hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison, Mazas, there; +progress, as the reader sees, with its antidote. + +Half a century ago, in that ordinary, popular tongue, which is all +compounded of traditions, which persists in calling the Institut les +Quatre-Nations, and the Opera-Comique Feydeau, the precise spot +whither Jean Valjean had arrived was called le Petit Picpus. The +Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere des Sergents, the +Porcherons, la Galiote, les Celestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, +l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne--these are the names of old Paris +which survive amid the new. The memory of the populace hovers over these +relics of the past. + +Le Petit-Picpus, which, moreover, hardly ever had any existence, and +never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish +aspect of a Spanish town. The roads were not much paved; the streets +were not much built up. With the exception of the two or three streets, +of which we shall presently speak, all was wall and solitude there. Not +a shop, not a vehicle, hardly a candle lighted here and there in the +windows; all lights extinguished after ten o'clock. Gardens, convents, +timber-yards, marshes; occasional lowly dwellings and great walls as +high as the houses. + +Such was this quarter in the last century. The Revolution snubbed +it soundly. The republican government demolished and cut through it. +Rubbish shoots were established there. Thirty years ago, this quarter +was disappearing under the erasing process of new buildings. To-day, +it has been utterly blotted out. The Petit-Picpus, of which no existing +plan has preserved a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness +in the plan of 1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry, Rue +Saint-Jacques, opposite the Rue du Platre; and at Lyons, by Jean Girin, +Rue Merciere, at the sign of Prudence. Petit-Picpus had, as +we have just mentioned, a Y of streets, formed by the Rue du +Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on +the left the name of Little Picpus Street, and on the right the name of +the Rue Polonceau. The two limbs of the Y were connected at the apex +as by a bar; this bar was called Rue Droit-Mur. The Rue Polonceau ended +there; Rue Petit-Picpus passed on, and ascended towards the Lenoir +market. A person coming from the Seine reached the extremity of the Rue +Polonceau, and had on his right the Rue Droit-Mur, turning abruptly at a +right angle, in front of him the wall of that street, and on his right a +truncated prolongation of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had no issue and was +called the Cul-de-Sac Genrot. + +It was here that Jean Valjean stood. + +As we have just said, on catching sight of that black silhouette +standing on guard at the angle of the Rue Droit-Mur and the Rue +Petit-Picpus, he recoiled. There could be no doubt of it. That phantom +was lying in wait for him. + +What was he to do? + +The time for retreating was passed. That which he had perceived in +movement an instant before, in the distant darkness, was Javert and his +squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement +of the street at whose end Jean Valjean stood. Javert, to all +appearances, was acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken +his precautions by sending one of his men to guard the exit. These +surmises, which so closely resembled proofs, whirled suddenly, like a +handful of dust caught up by an unexpected gust of wind, through Jean +Valjean's mournful brain. He examined the Cul-de-Sac Genrot; there he +was cut off. He examined the Rue Petit-Picpus; there stood a sentinel. +He saw that black form standing out in relief against the white +pavement, illuminated by the moon; to advance was to fall into this +man's hands; to retreat was to fling himself into Javert's arms. Jean +Valjean felt himself caught, as in a net, which was slowly contracting; +he gazed heavenward in despair. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT + +In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact +idea of the Droit-Mur lane, and, in particular, of the angle which one +leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue Polonceau into this +lane. Droit-Mur lane was almost entirely bordered on the right, as far +as the Rue Petit-Picpus, by houses of mean aspect; on the left by a +solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous parts which +grew gradually higher by a story or two as they approached the Rue +Petit-Picpus side; so that this building, which was very lofty on the +Rue Petit-Picpus side, was tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue +Polonceau. There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descended to +such a degree that it consisted of merely a wall. This wall did not abut +directly on the Street; it formed a deeply retreating niche, concealed +by its two corners from two observers who might have been, one in the +Rue Polonceau, the other in the Rue Droit-Mur. + +Beginning with these angles of the niche, the wall extended along the +Rue Polonceau as far as a house which bore the number 49, and along the +Rue Droit-Mur, where the fragment was much shorter, as far as the gloomy +building which we have mentioned and whose gable it intersected, thus +forming another retreating angle in the street. This gable was sombre +of aspect; only one window was visible, or, to speak more correctly, two +shutters covered with a sheet of zinc and kept constantly closed. + +The state of the places of which we are here giving a description is +rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise memory in the +mind of old inhabitants of the quarter. + +The niche was entirely filled by a thing which resembled a colossal +and wretched door; it was a vast, formless assemblage of perpendicular +planks, the upper ones being broader than the lower, bound together by +long transverse strips of iron. At one side there was a carriage gate of +the ordinary dimensions, and which had evidently not been cut more than +fifty years previously. + +A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered +with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau. + +In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean found himself, this sombre +building had about it a solitary and uninhabited look which tempted him. +He ran his eyes rapidly over it; he said to himself, that if he could +contrive to get inside it, he might save himself. First he conceived an +idea, then a hope. + +In the central portion of the front of this building, on the Rue +Droit-Mur side, there were at all the windows of the different stories +ancient cistern pipes of lead. The various branches of the pipes which +led from one central pipe to all these little basins sketched out a sort +of tree on the front. These ramifications of pipes with their hundred +elbows imitated those old leafless vine-stocks which writhe over the +fronts of old farm-houses. + +This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, was the first +thing that struck Jean Valjean. He seated Cosette with her back against +a stone post, with an injunction to be silent, and ran to the spot where +the conduit touched the pavement. Perhaps there was some way of climbing +up by it and entering the house. But the pipe was dilapidated and past +service, and hardly hung to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows +of this silent dwelling were grated with heavy iron bars, even the attic +windows in the roof. And then, the moon fell full upon that facade, and +the man who was watching at the corner of the street would have seen +Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done +with Cosette? How was she to be drawn up to the top of a three-story +house? + +He gave up all idea of climbing by means of the drain-pipe, and crawled +along the wall to get back into the Rue Polonceau. + +When he reached the slant of the wall where he had left Cosette, he +noticed that no one could see him there. As we have just explained, he +was concealed from all eyes, no matter from which direction they were +approaching; besides this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were +two doors; perhaps they might be forced. The wall above which he saw the +linden-tree and the ivy evidently abutted on a garden where he could, at +least, hide himself, although there were as yet no leaves on the trees, +and spend the remainder of the night. + +Time was passing; he must act quickly. + +He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that +it was impracticable outside and in. + +He approached the other door with more hope; it was frightfully +decrepit; its very immensity rendered it less solid; the planks were +rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It +seemed as though it might be possible to pierce this worm-eaten barrier. + +On examining it he found that the door was not a door; it had neither +hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle; the iron bands +traversed it from side to side without any break. Through the crevices +in the planks he caught a view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone +roughly cemented together, which passers-by might still have seen there +ten years ago. He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this +apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against +which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank; but then, one +found one's self face to face with a wall. + + + + +CHAPTER V--WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GAS LANTERNS + +At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some +distance. Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street. +Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just debouched +into the Rue Polonceau. He saw the gleam of their bayonets. They were +advancing towards him; these soldiers, at whose head he distinguished +Javert's tall figure, advanced slowly and cautiously. They halted +frequently; it was plain that they were searching all the nooks of the +walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys. + +This was some patrol that Javert had encountered--there could be no +mistake as to this surmise--and whose aid he had demanded. + +Javert's two acolytes were marching in their ranks. + +At the rate at which they were marching, and in consideration of the +halts which they were making, it would take them about a quarter of +an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean stood. It was a frightful +moment. A few minutes only separated Jean Valjean from that terrible +precipice which yawned before him for the third time. And the galleys +now meant not only the galleys, but Cosette lost to him forever; that is +to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb. + +There was but one thing which was possible. + +Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he carried, as one might say, +two beggar's pouches: in one he kept his saintly thoughts; in the other +the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the +other, according to circumstances. + +Among his other resources, thanks to his numerous escapes from the +prison at Toulon, he was, as it will be remembered, a past master in the +incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbing-irons, by sheer +muscular force, by leaning on the nape of his neck, his shoulders, his +hips, and his knees, by helping himself on the rare projections of the +stone, in the right angle of a wall, as high as the sixth story, if need +be; an art which has rendered so celebrated and so alarming that corner +of the wall of the Conciergerie of Paris by which Battemolle, condemned +to death, made his escape twenty years ago. + +Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the +linden; it was about eighteen feet in height. The angle which it formed +with the gable of the large building was filled, at its lower extremity, +by a mass of masonry of a triangular shape, probably intended to +preserve that too convenient corner from the rubbish of those dirty +creatures called the passers-by. This practice of filling up corners of +the wall is much in use in Paris. + +This mass was about five feet in height; the space above the summit of +this mass which it was necessary to climb was not more than fourteen +feet. + +The wall was surmounted by a flat stone without a coping. + +Cosette was the difficulty, for she did not know how to climb a wall. +Should he abandon her? Jean Valjean did not once think of that. It +was impossible to carry her. A man's whole strength is required to +successfully carry out these singular ascents. The least burden would +disturb his centre of gravity and pull him downwards. + +A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to +get a rope at midnight, in the Rue Polonceau? Certainly, if Jean Valjean +had had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope at that moment. + +All extreme situations have their lightning flashes which sometimes +dazzle, sometimes illuminate us. + +Jean Valjean's despairing glance fell on the street lantern-post of the +blind alley Genrot. + +At that epoch there were no gas-jets in the streets of Paris. At +nightfall lanterns placed at regular distances were lighted; they were +ascended and descended by means of a rope, which traversed the street +from side to side, and was adjusted in a groove of the post. The pulley +over which this rope ran was fastened underneath the lantern in a little +iron box, the key to which was kept by the lamp-lighter, and the rope +itself was protected by a metal case. + +Jean Valjean, with the energy of a supreme struggle, crossed the street +at one bound, entered the blind alley, broke the latch of the little box +with the point of his knife, and an instant later he was beside Cosette +once more. He had a rope. These gloomy inventors of expedients work +rapidly when they are fighting against fatality. + +We have already explained that the lanterns had not been lighted that +night. The lantern in the Cul-de-Sac Genrot was thus naturally extinct, +like the rest; and one could pass directly under it without even +noticing that it was no longer in its place. + +Nevertheless, the hour, the place, the darkness, Jean Valjean's +absorption, his singular gestures, his goings and comings, all had begun +to render Cosette uneasy. Any other child than she would have given vent +to loud shrieks long before. She contented herself with plucking Jean +Valjean by the skirt of his coat. They could hear the sound of the +patrol's approach ever more and more distinctly. + +"Father," said she, in a very low voice, "I am afraid. Who is coming +yonder?" + +"Hush!" replied the unhappy man; "it is Madame Thenardier." + +Cosette shuddered. He added:-- + +"Say nothing. Don't interfere with me. If you cry out, if you weep, the +Thenardier is lying in wait for you. She is coming to take you back." + +Then, without haste, but without making a useless movement, with firm +and curt precision, the more remarkable at a moment when the patrol and +Javert might come upon him at any moment, he undid his cravat, passed it +round Cosette's body under the armpits, taking care that it should not +hurt the child, fastened this cravat to one end of the rope, by means of +that knot which seafaring men call a "swallow knot," took the other end +of the rope in his teeth, pulled off his shoes and stockings, which +he threw over the wall, stepped upon the mass of masonry, and began +to raise himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much +solidity and certainty as though he had the rounds of a ladder under his +feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on +his knees on the wall. + +Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without uttering a word. Jean +Valjean's injunction, and the name of Madame Thenardier, had chilled her +blood. + +All at once she heard Jean Valjean's voice crying to her, though in a +very low tone:-- + +"Put your back against the wall." + +She obeyed. + +"Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed," went on Jean Valjean. + +And she felt herself lifted from the ground. + +Before she had time to recover herself, she was on the top of the wall. + +Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands +in his large left hand, lay down flat on his stomach and crawled along +on top of the wall as far as the cant. As he had guessed, there stood +a building whose roof started from the top of the wooden barricade and +descended to within a very short distance of the ground, with a gentle +slope which grazed the linden-tree. A lucky circumstance, for the wall +was much higher on this side than on the street side. Jean Valjean could +only see the ground at a great depth below him. + +He had just reached the slope of the roof, and had not yet left the +crest of the wall, when a violent uproar announced the arrival of the +patrol. The thundering voice of Javert was audible:-- + +"Search the blind alley! The Rue Droit-Mur is guarded! so is the Rue +Petit-Picpus. I'll answer for it that he is in the blind alley." + +The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley. + +Jean Valjean allowed himself to slide down the roof, still holding fast +to Cosette, reached the linden-tree, and leaped to the ground. Whether +from terror or courage, Cosette had not breathed a sound, though her +hands were a little abraded. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA + +Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and +of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to +be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape, +with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall forest +trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where could +be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees, gnarled +and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch, whose +glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and +there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss. The alleys were +bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs. The grass had half +taken possession of them, and a green mould covered the rest. + +Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as +a means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots, directly +against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was no longer +anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely through the +gloom. + +The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were +distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a +shed. + +The large building of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had a wing on the Rue +Petit-Picpus, turned two facades, at right angles, towards this garden. +These interior facades were even more tragic than the exterior. All +the windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible at any one of +them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons. One of those facades +cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an immense +black pall. + +No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist +and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out, which +intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond, and the +low roofs of the Rue Polonceau. + +Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined. There +was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour; but it +did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk in, even +in broad daylight. + +Jean Valjean's first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put them +on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is fleeing +never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose thoughts were +still on the Thenardier, shared his instinct for withdrawing from sight +as much as possible. + +Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous +noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets; the blows +of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert's appeals to the police +spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which +could not be distinguished. + +At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that +species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held his +breath. + +He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette's mouth. + +However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that this +frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him by so +much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those walls had +been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. + +All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a +sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been +horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst +of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; +women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure +accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,--voices which +are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant +still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded +from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At the moment +when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of +angels was approaching through the gloom. + +Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees. + +They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of +them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that +they must kneel. + +These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent +the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in +an uninhabited house. + +While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no +longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he +felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. + +The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could +not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment. + +All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street; +there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had +reassured him,--all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds +on the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy +sound. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA + +The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one +and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had +seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean +had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her. +Cosette's eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean +Valjean. + +She was still trembling. + +"Are you sleepy?" said Jean Valjean. + +"I am very cold," she replied. + +A moment later she resumed:-- + +"Is she still there?" + +"Who?" said Jean Valjean. + +"Madame Thenardier." + +Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to +make Cosette keep silent. + +"Ah!" said he, "she is gone. You need fear nothing further." + +The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. + +The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grew more +keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round +Cosette. + +"Are you less cold now?" said he. + +"Oh, yes, father." + +"Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back." + +He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better +shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were bars at +all the windows of the ground floor. + +Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed +that he was coming to some arched windows, where he perceived a light. +He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all +opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up +by arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were +visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one +corner. The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it. +Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the +ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding-sheet, and +which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat +on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the +immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent +which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round +its neck. + +The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely +illuminated, which adds to horror. + +Jean Valjean often said afterwards, that, although many funereal +spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more +blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form accomplishing +some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and beheld thus at +night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was perhaps dead; and +still more alarming to think that it was perhaps alive. + +He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch +whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what seemed +to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement. All +at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and he +fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind him. +It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that form +following him with great strides and waving its arms. + +He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way beneath +him; the perspiration was pouring from him. + +Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of +sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An edifice +full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the darkness with +the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them abruptly that +terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of heaven, and +then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it actually was an +edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It was not a dream! +He had to touch the stones to convince himself that such was the fact. + +Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a +genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. + +He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE ENIGMA BECOMES DOUBLY MYSTERIOUS + +The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep. + +He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he gazed +at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind. + +He clearly perceived this truth, the foundation of his life henceforth, +that so long as she was there, so long as he had her near him, he should +need nothing except for her, he should fear nothing except for her. He +was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had taken off his +coat to cover her. + +Nevertheless, athwart this revery into which he had fallen he had heard +for some time a peculiar noise. It was like the tinkling of a bell. This +sound proceeded from the garden. It could be heard distinctly though +faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced by the bells of +cattle at night in the pastures. + +This noise made Valjean turn round. + +He looked and saw that there was some one in the garden. + +A being resembling a man was walking amid the bell-glasses of the melon +beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he +were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person +appeared to limp. + +Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For +them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day +because it enables people to see them, and the night because it aids +in surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the +garden was deserted, and now he shivered because there was some one +there. + +He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to himself +that Javert and the spies had, perhaps, not taken their departure; that +they had, no doubt, left people on the watch in the street; that if this +man should discover him in the garden, he would cry out for help against +thieves and deliver him up. He took the sleeping Cosette gently in his +arms and carried her behind a heap of old furniture, which was out of +use, in the most remote corner of the shed. Cosette did not stir. + +From that point he scrutinized the appearance of the being in the +melon patch. The strange thing about it was, that the sound of the bell +followed each of this man's movements. When the man approached, the +sound approached; when the man retreated, the sound retreated; if he +made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture; when he +halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached +to that man; but what could that signify? Who was this man who had a +bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? + +As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They +were icy cold. + +"Ah! good God!" he cried. + +He spoke to her in a low voice:-- + +"Cosette!" + +She did not open her eyes. + +He shook her vigorously. + +She did not wake. + +"Is she dead?" he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering +from head to foot. + +The most frightful thoughts rushed pell-mell through his mind. There +are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies, and +violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love are in +question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He remembered that +sleep in the open air on a cold night may be fatal. + +Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his +feet, without a movement. + +He listened to her breathing: she still breathed, but with a respiration +which seemed to him weak and on the point of extinction. + + +How was he to warm her back to life? How was he to rouse her? All that +was not connected with this vanished from his thoughts. He rushed wildly +from the ruin. + +It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed and beside a +fire in less than a quarter of an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE MAN WITH THE BELL + +He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had taken +in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat. + +The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In a +few strides Jean Valjean stood beside him. + +Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:-- + +"One hundred francs!" + +The man gave a start and raised his eyes. + +"You can earn a hundred francs," went on Jean Valjean, "if you will +grant me shelter for this night." + +The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. + +"What! so it is you, Father Madeleine!" said the man. + +That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that unknown spot, +by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back. + +He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him was +a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on his +left knee a leather knee-cap, whence hung a moderately large bell. His +face, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable. + +However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed, trembling all +over:-- + +"Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter? +Dieu-Jesus! Did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that: +if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what a state you are in! +You have no cravat; you have no hat; you have no coat! Do you know, you +would have frightened any one who did not know you? No coat! Lord God! +Are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here?" + +His words tumbled over each other. The goodman talked with a rustic +volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered +with a mixture of stupefaction and naive kindliness. + +"Who are you? and what house is this?" demanded Jean Valjean. + +"Ah! pardieu, this is too much!" exclaimed the old man. "I am the person +for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had +me placed. What! You don't recognize me?" + +"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how happens it that you know me?" + +"You saved my life," said the man. + +He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjean +recognized old Fauchelevent. + +"Ah!" said Jean Valjean, "so it is you? Yes, I recollect you." + +"That is very lucky," said the old man, in a reproachful tone. + +"And what are you doing here?" resumed Jean Valjean. + +"Why, I am covering my melons, of course!" + +In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Fauchelevent +held in his hand the end of a straw mat which he was occupied in +spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he had +been in the garden he had already spread out a number of them. It was +this operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar movements +observed from the shed by Jean Valjean. + +He continued:-- + +"I said to myself, 'The moon is bright: it is going to freeze. What if I +were to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And," he added, looking at +Jean Valjean with a broad smile,--"pardieu! you ought to have done the +same! But how do you come here?" + +Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the +name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution. He multiplied +his questions. Strange to say, their roles seemed to be reversed. It was +he, the intruder, who interrogated. + +"And what is this bell which you wear on your knee?" + +"This," replied Fauchelevent, "is so that I may be avoided." + +"What! so that you may be avoided?" + +Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air. + +"Ah, goodness! there are only women in this house--many young girls. It +appears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell gives them +warning. When I come, they go." + +"What house is this?" + +"Come, you know well enough." + +"But I do not." + +"Not when you got me the place here as gardener?" + +"Answer me as though I knew nothing." + +"Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent." + +Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence, +had cast him into precisely that convent in the Quartier Saint-Antoine +where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been +admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as +though talking to himself:-- + +"The Petit-Picpus convent." + +"Exactly," returned old Fauchelevent. "But to come to the point, how the +deuce did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine? No matter if +you are a saint; you are a man as well, and no man enters here." + +"You certainly are here." + +"There is no one but me." + +"Still," said Jean Valjean, "I must stay here." + +"Ah, good God!" cried Fauchelevent. + +Jean Valjean drew near to the old man, and said to him in a grave +voice:-- + +"Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life." + +"I was the first to recall it," returned Fauchelevent. + +"Well, you can do to-day for me that which I did for you in the olden +days." + +Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean +Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though +incapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed:-- + +"Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you +some little return for that! Save your life! Monsieur le Maire, dispose +of the old man!" + +A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed to +emit a ray of light. + +"What do you wish me to do?" he resumed. + +"That I will explain to you. You have a chamber?" + +"I have an isolated hovel yonder, behind the ruins of the old convent, +in a corner which no one ever looks into. There are three rooms in it." + +The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and so cleverly +arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean had not perceived +it. + +"Good," said Jean Valjean. "Now I am going to ask two things of you." + +"What are they, Mr. Mayor?" + +"In the first place, you are not to tell any one what you know about me. +In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more." + +"As you please. I know that you can do nothing that is not honest, +that you have always been a man after the good God's heart. And then, +moreover, you it was who placed me here. That concerns you. I am at your +service." + +"That is settled then. Now, come with me. We will go and get the child." + +"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "so there is a child?" + +He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows +his master. + +Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown rosy again +before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old gardener's +bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more; his hat, +which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. While +Jean Valjean was putting on his coat, Fauchelevent had removed the +bell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that +adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbows +resting on a table upon which Fauchelevent had placed a bit of cheese, +black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man was +saying to Jean Valjean, as he laid his hand on the latter's knee: +"Ah! Father Madeleine! You did not recognize me immediately; you save +people's lives, and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember +you! You are an ingrate!" + + + + +CHAPTER X--WHICH EXPLAINS HOW JAVERT GOT ON THE SCENT + +The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak, +had come about in the simplest possible manner. + +When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had +arrested him beside Fantine's death-bed, had escaped from the town jail +of M. sur M., the police had supposed that he had betaken himself to +Paris. Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost, and everything +disappears in this belly of the world, as in the belly of the sea. No +forest hides a man as does that crowd. Fugitives of every sort know +this. They go to Paris as to an abyss; there are gulfs which save. The +police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they +have lost elsewhere. They sought the ex-mayor of M. sur M. Javert was +summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in +fact, rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean Valjean. +Javert's zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by +M. Chabouillet, secretary of the Prefecture under Comte Angles. M. +Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been Javert's patron, had the +inspector of M. sur M. attached to the police force of Paris. There +Javert rendered himself useful in divers and, though the word may seem +strange for such services, honorable manners. + +He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,--the wolf of to-day causes these +dogs who are always on the chase to forget the wolf of yesterday,--when, +in December, 1823, he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers; +but Javert, a monarchical man, had a desire to know the particulars of +the triumphal entry of the "Prince Generalissimo" into Bayonne. Just as +he was finishing the article, which interested him; a name, the name of +Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The paper +announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact +in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined himself +to the remark, "That's a good entry." Then he threw aside the paper, and +thought no more about it. + +Some time afterwards, it chanced that a police report was transmitted +from the prefecture of the Seine-et-Oise to the prefecture of police in +Paris, concerning the abduction of a child, which had taken place, under +peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermeil. +A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who had +been intrusted by her mother to an inn-keeper of that neighborhood, had +been stolen by a stranger; this child answered to the name of Cosette, +and was the daughter of a girl named Fantine, who had died in the +hospital, it was not known where or when. + +This report came under Javert's eye and set him to thinking. + +The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean +Valjean had made him, Javert, burst into laughter, by asking him for a +respite of three days, for the purpose of going to fetch that creature's +child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris +at the very moment when he was stepping into the coach for Montfermeil. +Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was the second +occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the +previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood of that village, for +he had not been seen in the village itself. What had he been intending +to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not even be surmised. +Javert understood it now. Fantine's daughter was there. Jean Valjean was +going there in search of her. And now this child had been stolen by a +stranger! Who could that stranger be? Could it be Jean Valjean? But Jean +Valjean was dead. Javert, without saying anything to anybody, took the +coach from the Pewter Platter, Cul-de-Sac de la Planchette, and made a +trip to Montfermeil. + +He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there; he found +a great deal of obscurity. + +For the first few days the Thenardiers had chattered in their rage. The +disappearance of the Lark had created a sensation in the village. He +immediately obtained numerous versions of the story, which ended in the +abduction of a child. Hence the police report. But their first vexation +having passed off, Thenardier, with his wonderful instinct, had +very quickly comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the +prosecutor of the Crown, and that his complaints with regard to the +abduction of Cosette would have as their first result to fix upon +himself, and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the glittering +eye of justice. The last thing that owls desire is to have a candle +brought to them. And in the first place, how explain the fifteen hundred +francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a gag on +his wife's mouth, and feigned astonishment when the stolen child was +mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it; no doubt he had +grumbled for awhile at having that dear little creature "taken from him" +so hastily; he should have liked to keep her two or three days longer, +out of tenderness; but her "grandfather" had come for her in the most +natural way in the world. He added the "grandfather," which produced a +good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at +Montfermeil. The grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish. + +Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions, like plummets, into +Thenardier's history. "Who was that grandfather? and what was his name?" +Thenardier replied with simplicity: "He is a wealthy farmer. I saw his +passport. I think his name was M. Guillaume Lambert." + +Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon Javert +returned to Paris. + +"Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." + +He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of +March, 1824, he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish of +Saint-Medard and who had been surnamed "the mendicant who gives alms." +This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no one knew +exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight years, who +knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. +Montfermeil! that name was always coming up, and it made Javert prick +up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an ex-beadle, to whom this person +had given alms, added a few more details. This gentleman of property was +very shy,--never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, +except, occasionally to the poor, and never allowing any one to approach +him. He wore a horrible old yellow frock-coat, which was worth many +millions, being all wadded with bank-bills. This piqued Javert's +curiosity in a decided manner. In order to get a close look at this +fantastic gentleman without alarming him, he borrowed the beadle's +outfit for a day, and the place where the old spy was in the habit of +crouching every evening, whining orisons through his nose, and playing +the spy under cover of prayer. + +"The suspected individual" did indeed approach Javert thus disguised, +and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the +shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to the +one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean. + +However, the darkness might have misled him; Jean Valjean's death was +official; Javert cherished very grave doubts; and when in doubt, Javert, +the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one's collar. + +He followed his man to the Gorbeau house, and got "the old woman" to +talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the fact +regarding the coat lined with millions, and narrated to him the episode +of the thousand-franc bill. She had seen it! She had handled it! Javert +hired a room; that evening he installed himself in it. He came and +listened at the mysterious lodger's door, hoping to catch the sound of +his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the key-hole, and +foiled the spy by keeping silent. + +On the following day Jean Valjean decamped; but the noise made by the +fall of the five-franc piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing +the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave, and +made haste to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert +was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men. + +Javert had demanded assistance at the Prefecture, but he had not +mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was +his secret, and he had kept it for three reasons: in the first place, +because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert; +next, because, to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape +and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed +forever as among malefactors of the most dangerous sort, was a +magnificent success which the old members of the Parisian police would +assuredly not leave to a new-comer like Javert, and he was afraid of +being deprived of his convict; and lastly, because Javert, being an +artist, had a taste for the unforeseen. He hated those well-heralded +successes which are talked of long in advance and have had the bloom +brushed off. He preferred to elaborate his masterpieces in the dark and +to unveil them suddenly at the last. + +Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner +to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single +instant; even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to +be the most secure Javert's eye had been on him. Why had not Javert +arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt. + +It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely +at its ease; the free press embarrassed it; several arbitrary arrests +denounced by the newspapers, had echoed even as far as the Chambers, and +had rendered the Prefecture timid. Interference with individual liberty +was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake; +the prefect laid the blame on them; a mistake meant dismissal. The +reader can imagine the effect which this brief paragraph, reproduced +by twenty newspapers, would have caused in Paris: "Yesterday, an aged +grandfather, with white hair, a respectable and well-to-do gentleman, +who was walking with his grandchild, aged eight, was arrested and +conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" + +Let us repeat in addition that Javert had scruples of his own; +injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the +prefect. He was really in doubt. + +Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. + +Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety, depression, this fresh misfortune of being +forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for Cosette +and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace of +the child--all this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean +Valjean's walk, and impressed on his bearing such senility, that the +police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might, and did in +fact, make a mistake. The impossibility of approaching too close, his +costume of an emigre preceptor, the declaration of Thenardier which made +a grandfather of him, and, finally, the belief in his death in prison, +added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in Javert's +mind. + +For an instant it occurred to him to make an abrupt demand for his +papers; but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a +good, honest old fellow living on his income, he was probably some merry +blade deeply and cunningly implicated in the obscure web of Parisian +misdeeds, some chief of a dangerous band, who gave alms to conceal +his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, +accomplices' retreats in case of emergencies, in which he would, no +doubt, take refuge. All these turns which he was making through the +streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man. To +arrest him too hastily would be "to kill the hen that laid the golden +eggs." Where was the inconvenience in waiting? Javert was very sure that +he would not escape. + +Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to +himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage. + +It was only quite late in the Rue de Pontoise, that, thanks to the +brilliant light thrown from a dram-shop, he decidedly recognized Jean +Valjean. + +There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,--the +mother who recovers her child and the tiger who recovers his prey. +Javert gave that profound start. + +As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable +convict, he perceived that there were only three of them, and he asked +for reinforcements at the police station of the Rue de Pontoise. One +puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel. + +This delay and the halt at the Carrefour Rollin to consult with his +agents came near causing him to lose the trail. He speedily divined, +however, that Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his +pursuers and himself. He bent his head and reflected like a blood-hound +who puts his nose to the ground to make sure that he is on the right +scent. Javert, with his powerful rectitude of instinct, went straight to +the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the toll-keeper furnished him with +the information which he required: "Have you seen a man with a little +girl?" "I made him pay two sous," replied the toll-keeper. Javert +reached the bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the small +illuminated spot on the other side of the water, leading Cosette by +the hand. He saw him enter the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine; he +remembered the Cul-de-Sac Genrot arranged there like a trap, and of the +sole exit of the Rue Droit-Mur into the Rue Petit-Picpus. He made sure +of his back burrows, as huntsmen say; he hastily despatched one of his +agents, by a roundabout way, to guard that issue. A patrol which was +returning to the Arsenal post having passed him, he made a requisition +on it, and caused it to accompany him. In such games soldiers are aces. +Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild +boar, one must employ the science of venery and plenty of dogs. These +combinations having been effected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught +between the blind alley Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and +himself, Javert, in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff. + +Then he began the game. He experienced one ecstatic and infernal moment; +he allowed his man to go on ahead, knowing that he had him safe, but +desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible, happy +at the thought that he was taken and yet at seeing him free, gloating +over him with his gaze, with that voluptuousness of the spider which +allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. +Claws and talons possess a monstrous sensuality,--the obscure movements +of the creature imprisoned in their pincers. What a delight this +strangling is! + +Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly knotted. +He was sure of success; all he had to do now was to close his hand. + +Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible, +however vigorous, energetic, and desperate Jean Valjean might be. + +[Illustration: Javert on the Hunt 2b5-10-javert-on-the-hunt] + +Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of +the street like so many pockets of thieves. + +When he reached the centre of the web he found the fly no longer there. + +His exasperation can be imagined. + +He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and Petit-Picpus; +that agent, who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not seen the +man pass. + +It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns; that is to +say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very heels, and then the +oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez +halt short. In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, "It was +not a stag, but a sorcerer." Javert would have liked to utter the same +cry. + +His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage. + +It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, +that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Caesar made +mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war +in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean +Valjean. He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the +exconvict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in +not arresting him purely and simply in the old building; he was wrong +in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de +Pontoise. He was wrong in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the +full light of the moon in the Carrefour Rollin. Advice is certainly +useful; it is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs +who deserve confidence; but the hunter cannot be too cautious when he is +chasing uneasy animals like the wolf and the convict. Javert, by taking +too much thought as to how he should set the bloodhounds of the pack on +the trail, alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart, and so +made him run. Above all, he was wrong in that after he had picked up the +scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that formidable and +puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a thread. He thought +himself stronger than he was, and believed that he could play at the +game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he reckoned himself +as too weak, when he judged it necessary to obtain reinforcement. Fatal +precaution, waste of precious time! Javert committed all these blunders, +and none the less was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that +ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what is called in +venery a knowing dog. But what is there that is perfect? + +Great strategists have their eclipses. + +The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes, of +a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the +petty determining motives separately, and you can break them one after +the other, and you say, "That is all there is of it!" Braid them, twist +them together; the result is enormous: it is Attila hesitating between +Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west; it is Hannibal tarrying +at Capua; it is Danton falling asleep at Arcis-sur-Aube. + +However that may be, even at the moment when he saw that Jean Valjean +had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict who +had broken his ban could not be far off, he established sentinels, he +organized traps and ambuscades, and beat the quarter all that night. The +first thing he saw was the disorder in the street lantern whose rope +had been cut. A precious sign which, however, led him astray, since it +caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the Cul-de-Sac +Genrot. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls which abutted +on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of waste land. +Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction. The fact is, +that had he penetrated a little further in the Cul-de-Sac Genrot, he +would probably have done so and have been lost. Javert explored these +gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a +needle. + +At daybreak he left two intelligent men on the outlook, and returned to +the Prefecture of Police, as much ashamed as a police spy who had been +captured by a robber might have been. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS + + + + +CHAPTER I--NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS + +Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate +than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, +which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a +view of two things, neither of which have anything very funereal about +them,--a courtyard surrounded by walls hung with vines, and the face +of a lounging porter. Above the wall, at the bottom of the court, tall +trees were visible. When a ray of sunlight enlivened the courtyard, when +a glass of wine cheered up the porter, it was difficult to pass Number +62 Little Picpus Street without carrying away a smiling impression of +it. Nevertheless, it was a sombre place of which one had had a glimpse. + +The threshold smiled; the house prayed and wept. + +If one succeeded in passing the porter, which was not easy,--which was +even nearly impossible for every one, for there was an open sesame! +which it was necessary to know,--if, the porter once passed, one entered +a little vestibule on the right, on which opened a staircase shut in +between two walls and so narrow that only one person could ascend it at +a time, if one did not allow one's self to be alarmed by a daubing of +canary yellow, with a dado of chocolate which clothed this staircase, if +one ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first landing, then a second, +and arrived on the first story at a corridor where the yellow wash and +the chocolate-hued plinth pursued one with a peaceable persistency. +Staircase and corridor were lighted by two beautiful windows. The +corridor took a turn and became dark. If one doubled this cape, one +arrived a few paces further on, in front of a door which was all the +more mysterious because it was not fastened. If one opened it, one +found one's self in a little chamber about six feet square, tiled, +well-scrubbed, clean, cold, and hung with nankin paper with green +flowers, at fifteen sous the roll. A white, dull light fell from a large +window, with tiny panes, on the left, which usurped the whole width +of the room. One gazed about, but saw no one; one listened, one heard +neither a footstep nor a human murmur. The walls were bare, the chamber +was not furnished; there was not even a chair. + +One looked again, and beheld on the wall facing the door a quadrangular +hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, +black, knotted, solid, which formed squares--I had almost said +meshes--of less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little +green flowers of the nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to +those iron bars, without being startled or thrown into confusion by +their funereal contact. Supposing that a living being had been so +wonderfully thin as to essay an entrance or an exit through the square +hole, this grating would have prevented it. It did not allow the passage +of the body, but it did allow the passage of the eyes; that is to +say, of the mind. This seems to have occurred to them, for it had been +re-enforced by a sheet of tin inserted in the wall a little in the rear, +and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of +a strainer. At the bottom of this plate, an aperture had been pierced +exactly similar to the orifice of a letter box. A bit of tape attached +to a bell-wire hung at the right of the grated opening. + +If the tape was pulled, a bell rang, and one heard a voice very near at +hand, which made one start. + +"Who is there?" the voice demanded. + +It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was mournful. + +Here, again, there was a magical word which it was necessary to know. If +one did not know it, the voice ceased, the wall became silent once more, +as though the terrified obscurity of the sepulchre had been on the other +side of it. + +If one knew the password, the voice resumed, "Enter on the right." + +One then perceived on the right, facing the window, a glass door +surmounted by a frame glazed and painted gray. On raising the latch and +crossing the threshold, one experienced precisely the same impression +as when one enters at the theatre into a grated baignoire, before the +grating is lowered and the chandelier is lighted. One was, in fact, in +a sort of theatre-box, narrow, furnished with two old chairs, and a +much-frayed straw matting, sparely illuminated by the vague light from +the glass door; a regular box, with its front just of a height to lean +upon, bearing a tablet of black wood. This box was grated, only +the grating of it was not of gilded wood, as at the opera; it was a +monstrous lattice of iron bars, hideously interlaced and riveted to the +wall by enormous fastenings which resembled clenched fists. + +The first minutes passed; when one's eyes began to grow used to this +cellar-like half-twilight, one tried to pass the grating, but got no +further than six inches beyond it. There he encountered a barrier of +black shutters, re-enforced and fortified with transverse beams of wood +painted a gingerbread yellow. These shutters were divided into long, +narrow slats, and they masked the entire length of the grating. They +were always closed. At the expiration of a few moments one heard a voice +proceeding from behind these shutters, and saying:-- + +"I am here. What do you wish with me?" + +It was a beloved, sometimes an adored, voice. No one was visible. Hardly +the sound of a breath was audible. It seemed as though it were a spirit +which had been evoked, that was speaking to you across the walls of the +tomb. + +If one chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare conditions, +the slat of one of the shutters opened opposite you; the evoked spirit +became an apparition. Behind the grating, behind the shutter, one +perceived so far as the grating permitted sight, a head, of which only +the mouth and the chin were visible; the rest was covered with a black +veil. One caught a glimpse of a black guimpe, and a form that was barely +defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did +not look at you and never smiled at you. + +The light which came from behind you was adjusted in such a manner that +you saw her in the white, and she saw you in the black. This light was +symbolical. + +Nevertheless, your eyes plunged eagerly through that opening which +was made in that place shut off from all glances. A profound vagueness +enveloped that form clad in mourning. Your eyes searched that vagueness, +and sought to make out the surroundings of the apparition. At the +expiration of a very short time you discovered that you could see +nothing. What you beheld was night, emptiness, shadows, a wintry mist +mingled with a vapor from the tomb, a sort of terrible peace, a silence +from which you could gather nothing, not even sighs, a gloom in which +you could distinguish nothing, not even phantoms. + +What you beheld was the interior of a cloister. + +It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called +the Convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adoration. The box in +which you stood was the parlor. The first voice which had addressed you +was that of the portress who always sat motionless and silent, on the +other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron +grating and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. +The obscurity which bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the +parlor, which had a window on the side of the world, had none on the +side of the convent. Profane eyes must see nothing of that sacred place. + +Nevertheless, there was something beyond that shadow; there was a light; +there was life in the midst of that death. Although this was the most +strictly walled of all convents, we shall endeavor to make our way into +it, and to take the reader in, and to say, without transgressing the +proper bounds, things which story-tellers have never seen, and have, +therefore, never described. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA + +This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in +the Rue Petit-Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of +Martin Verga. + +These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like +the Bernardine monks, but to Citeaux, like the Benedictine monks. In +other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint +Benoit. + +Any one who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin +Verga founded in 1425 a congregation of Bernardines-Benedictines, +with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch +establishment. + +This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic +countries of Europe. + +There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these grafts of one +order on another. To mention only a single order of Saint-Benoit, which +is here in question: there are attached to this order, without counting +the obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations,--two in Italy, +Mont-Cassin and Sainte-Justine of Padua; two in France, Cluny and +Saint-Maur; and nine orders,--Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Celestins, +the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilies, the Olivateurs, the +Silvestrins, and lastly, Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, a trunk for other +orders, is only an offshoot of Saint-Benoit. Citeaux dates from Saint +Robert, Abbe de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in 1098. Now it was +in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco--he +was old--had he turned hermit?--was chased from the ancient temple of +Apollo, where he dwelt, by Saint-Benoit, then aged seventeen. + +After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow +on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, +with a guimpe, which, in accordance with the express command of +Saint-Benoit, mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves, +a large woollen veil, the guimpe which mounts to the chin cut square on +the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this +is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The +novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also +wear a rosary at their side. + +The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga practise the Perpetual +Adoration, like the Benedictines called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, +who, at the beginning of this century, had two houses in Paris,--one at +the Temple, the other in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve. However, the +Bernardines-Benedictines of the Petit-Picpus, of whom we are speaking, +were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, +cloistered in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve and at the Temple. There +were numerous differences in their rule; there were some in their +costume. The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Petit-Picpus wore the +black guimpe, and the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament and of the +Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve wore a white one, and had, besides, on their +breasts, a Holy Sacrament about three inches long, in silver gilt or +gilded copper. The nuns of the Petit-Picpus did not wear this Holy +Sacrament. The Perpetual Adoration, which was common to the house of +the Petit-Picpus and to the house of the Temple, leaves those two orders +perfectly distinct. Their only resemblance lies in this practice of the +Ladies of the Holy Sacrament and the Bernardines of Martin Verga, just +as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of +all the mysteries relating to the infancy, the life, and death of Jesus +Christ and the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, +widely separated, and on occasion even hostile. The Oratory of Italy, +established at Florence by Philip de Neri, and the Oratory of France, +established by Pierre de Berulle. The Oratory of France claimed the +precedence, since Philip de Neri was only a saint, while Berulle was a +cardinal. + +Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule of Martin Verga. + +The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year +round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are +peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock +in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all +seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, +never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of +silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are +very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from +September 14th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. +These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but +this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers +and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this +palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, +they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, +chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,--these are their vows, which +the rule greatly aggravates. + +The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called +meres vocales because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioress can +only be re-elected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a +prioress at nine years. + +They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them +by a serge curtain nine feet in height. During the sermon, when the +preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They +must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their +heads bowed. One man only is allowed to enter the convent,--the +archbishop of the diocese. + +There is really one other,--the gardener. But he is always an old man, +and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the +nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee. + +Their submission to the prioress is absolute and passive. It is the +canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation. As at the +voice of Christ, ut voci Christi, at a gesture, at the first sign, +ad nutum, ad primum signum, immediately, with cheerfulness, with +perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, prompte, hilariter, +perseveranter et caeca quadam obedientia, as the file in the hand of the +workman, quasi limam in manibus fabri, without power to read or to write +without express permission, legere vel scribere non addiscerit sine +expressa superioris licentia. + +Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation +is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the +dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the +crimes committed on earth. For the space of twelve consecutive hours, +from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the morning, or +from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, +the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone +before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. +When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on +her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a +cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the +guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. + +As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it +is called without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post. +The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which +contains an idea of torture and abasement. + +To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. +The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall +directly behind her. + +Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the Holy +Sacrament. This station lasts an hour. They relieve each other like +soldiers on guard. This is the Perpetual Adoration. + +The prioresses and the mothers almost always bear names stamped with +peculiar solemnity, recalling, not the saints and martyrs, but moments +in the life of Jesus Christ: as Mother Nativity, Mother Conception, +Mother Presentation, Mother Passion. But the names of saints are not +interdicted. + +When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. + +All their teeth are yellow. No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. +Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the +loss of one's soul. + +They never say my. They possess nothing of their own, and they must not +attach themselves to anything. They call everything our; thus: our veil, +our chaplet; if they were speaking of their chemise, they would say our +chemise. Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object,--to a book +of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As soon as they become +aware that they are growing attached to this object, they must give it +up. They recall the words of Saint Therese, to whom a great lady said, +as she was on the point of entering her order, "Permit me, mother, to +send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached." "Ah, you are attached +to something! In that case, do not enter our order!" + +Every person whatever is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place +of her own, a chamber. They live with their cells open. When they meet, +one says, "Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!" +The other responds, "Forever." The same ceremony when one taps at the +other's door. Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the +other side is heard to say hastily, "Forever!" Like all practices, this +becomes mechanical by force of habit; and one sometimes says forever +before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, "Praised +and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar." + +Among the Visitandines the one who enters says: "Ave Maria," and the one +whose cell is entered says, "Gratia plena." It is their way of saying +good day, which is in fact full of grace. + +At each hour of the day three supplementary strokes sound from the +church bell of the convent. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, +professed nuns, lay-sisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they +are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say +in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance, "At five o'clock and at +all hours praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!" +If it is eight o'clock, "At eight o'clock and at all hours!" and so on, +according to the hour. + +This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought +and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities; the +formula alone varies. Thus at The Infant Jesus they say, "At this +hour and at every hour may the love of Jesus kindle my heart!" The +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago at +Petit-Picpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian +chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office. +Everywhere in the missal where an asterisk occurs they pause, and say in +a low voice, "Jesus-Marie-Joseph." For the office of the dead they adopt +a tone so low that the voices of women can hardly descend to such a +depth. The effect produced is striking and tragic. + +The nuns of the Petit-Picpus had made a vault under their grand altar +for the burial of their community. The Government, as they say, does not +permit this vault to receive coffins so they leave the convent when they +die. This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation as an +infraction of the rules. + +They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,--permission to be +interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient +Vaugirard cemetery, which was made of land which had formerly belonged +to their community. + +On Fridays the nuns hear high mass, vespers, and all the offices, as on +Sunday. They scrupulously observe in addition all the little festivals +unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so +prodigal in the olden days, and of which it is still prodigal in Spain +and Italy. Their stations in the chapel are interminable. As for the +number and duration of their prayers we can convey no better idea of +them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them: "The prayers +of the postulants are frightful, the prayers of the novices are still +worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns are still worse." + +Once a week the chapter assembles: the prioress presides; the vocal +mothers assist. Each sister kneels in turn on the stones, and confesses +aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has +committed during the week. The vocal mothers consult after each +confession and inflict the penance aloud. + +Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the +least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what +they call the coulpe. To make one's coulpe means to prostrate one's self +flat on one's face during the office in front of the prioress until +the latter, who is never called anything but our mother, notifies the +culprit by a slight tap of her foot against the wood of her stall that +she can rise. The coulpe or peccavi, is made for a very small matter--a +broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of a few seconds at an +office, a false note in church, etc.; this suffices, and the coulpe +is made. The coulpe is entirely spontaneous; it is the culpable person +herself (the word is etymologically in its place here) who judges +herself and inflicts it on herself. On festival days and Sundays four +mother precentors intone the offices before a large reading-desk with +four places. One day one of the mother precentors intoned a psalm +beginning with Ecce, and instead of Ecce she uttered aloud the three +notes do si sol; for this piece of absent-mindedness she underwent a +coulpe which lasted during the whole service: what rendered the fault +enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed. + +When a nun is summoned to the parlor, even were it the prioress herself, +she drops her veil, as will be remembered, so that only her mouth is +visible. + +The prioress alone can hold communication with strangers. The others can +see only their immediate family, and that very rarely. If, by chance, +an outsider presents herself to see a nun, or one whom she has known and +loved in the outer world, a regular series of negotiations is required. +If it is a woman, the authorization may sometimes be granted; the nun +comes, and they talk to her through the shutters, which are opened only +for a mother or sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is +always refused to men. + +Such is the rule of Saint-Benoit, aggravated by Martin Verga. + +These nuns are not gay, rosy, and fresh, as the daughters of other +orders often are. They are pale and grave. Between 1825 and 1830 three +of them went mad. + + + + +CHAPTER III--AUSTERITIES + +One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice for +four. It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced +earlier than the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years. The +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to their +order. + +In their cells, they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations, +of which they must never speak. + +On the day when a novice makes her profession, she is dressed in her +handsomest attire, she is crowned with white roses, her hair is brushed +until it shines, and curled. Then she prostrates herself; a great black +veil is thrown over her, and the office for the dead is sung. Then the +nuns separate into two files; one file passes close to her, saying in +plaintive accents, "Our sister is dead"; and the other file responds in +a voice of ecstasy, "Our sister is alive in Jesus Christ!" + +At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attached +to the convent--a boarding-school for young girls of noble and +mostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoiselle +de Saint-Aulaire and de Belissen, and an English girl bearing the +illustrious Catholic name of Talbot. These young girls, reared by these +nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the +age. One of them said to us one day, "The sight of the street pavement +made me shudder from head to foot." They were dressed in blue, with a +white cap and a Holy Spirit of silver gilt or of copper on their breast. +On certain grand festival days, particularly Saint Martha's day, they +were permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dress +themselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice of +Saint-Benoit for a whole day. In the early days the nuns were in the +habit of lending them their black garments. This seemed profane, and +the prioress forbade it. Only the novices were permitted to lend. It is +remarkable that these performances, tolerated and encouraged, no doubt, +in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order +to give these children a foretaste of the holy habit, were a genuine +happiness and a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amused +themselves with it. It was new; it gave them a change. Candid reasons +of childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlings +comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand +and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of +a reading-desk. + +The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the +practices of the convent. There was a certain young woman who entered +the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in +breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any +one knocked at her door, "forever!" Like the nuns, the pupils saw +their relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtain +permission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degree +severity on that point was carried. One day a young girl received a +visit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister three +years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace +her sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might be +permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could +kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--GAYETIES + +None the less, these young girls filled this grave house with charming +souvenirs. + +At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation +hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds said, "Good; +here come the children!" An irruption of youth inundated that garden +intersected with a cross like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads, +innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered +about amid these shadows. After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals, +and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a +sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, +and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, +they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth +chattered in the corners; the veils superintended the laughs from a +distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it? Still +they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment +of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the +reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was +like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young +girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability +does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was, +among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones +skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled +with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, +expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with +Perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, +cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles +of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the +fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage +from Hecuba to la Mere-Grand. + +In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those children's +sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of +thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of +five years exclaimed one day: "Mother! one of the big girls has just +told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain +here. What happiness!" + +It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place:-- + +A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child? + +The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She +says that I do not know it, but I do. + +Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it. + +The Mother. How is that, my child? + +Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question +in the book, and she would answer it. + +"Well?" + +"She did not answer it." + +"Let us see about it. What did you ask her?" + +"I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first +question that I came across." + +"And what was the question?" + +"It was, 'What happened after that?'" + +It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy +paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:-- + +"How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just +like a person!" + +It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once +picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order +that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:-- + +"Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious. + +"Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress. + +"Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen." + +It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six +years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by +blue eyes aged four and five years:-- + +"There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were +a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their +pockets. After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their +playthings. There was a wolf in that country; there was a great deal of +forest; and the wolf was in the forest; and he ate the little cocks." + +And this other poem:-- + +"There came a blow with a stick. + +"It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat. + +"It was not good for her; it hurt her. + +"Then a lady put Punchinello in prison." + +It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent +was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heart-breaking +saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured +in her corner:-- + +"As for me, my mother was not there when I was born!" + +There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the +corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The +big big girls--those over ten years of age--called her Agathocles. + +The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which +received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the +garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All +the places round about furnished their contingent of insects. + +Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, +a special and expressive name. There was Spider corner, Caterpillar +corner, Wood-louse corner, and Cricket corner. + +Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not +so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had passed to +the boarding-school, and there served as in the old College Mazarin +to distinguish four nations. Every pupil belonged to one of these four +nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at +meals. One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral +visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the +class-room through which he was passing. + +He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who +stood near him:-- + +"Who is that?" + +"She is a spider, Monseigneur." + +"Bah! And that one yonder?" + +"She is a cricket." + +"And that one?" + +"She is a caterpillar." + +"Really! and yourself?" + +"I am a wood-louse, Monseigneur." + +Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of +this century Ecouen was one of those strict and graceful places where +young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At +Ecouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, +a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the +"dais" and the "censors,"--the first who held the cords of the dais, and +the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament. The flowers +belonged by right to the florists. Four "virgins" walked in advance. On +the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question +put in the dormitory, "Who is a virgin?" + +Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a "little one" of seven +years, to a "big girl" of sixteen, who took the head of the procession, +while she, the little one, remained at the rear, "You are a virgin, but +I am not." + + + + +CHAPTER V--DISTRACTIONS + +Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the white +Paternoster, and which possessed the property of bearing people straight +to paradise, was inscribed in large black letters:-- + +"Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which God +placed in paradise. In the evening, when I went to bed, I found three +angels sitting on my bed, one at the foot, two at the head, the good +Virgin Mary in the middle, who told me to lie down without hesitation. +The good God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three +apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The shirt in +which God was born envelopes my body; Saint Margaret's cross is written +on my breast. Madame the Virgin was walking through the meadows, weeping +for God, when she met M. Saint John. 'Monsieur Saint John, whence come +you?' 'I come from Ave Salus.' 'You have not seen the good God; where +is he?' 'He is on the tree of the Cross, his feet hanging, his hands +nailed, a little cap of white thorns on his head.' Whoever shall say +this thrice at eventide, thrice in the morning, shall win paradise at +the last." + +In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under +a triple coating of daubing paint. At the present time it is finally +disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and +who are old women now. + +A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this +refectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on the +garden. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed +two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory. +The walls were white, the tables were black; these two mourning colors +constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and +the food of the children themselves severe. A single dish of meat and +vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagre +fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an +exception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the mother +whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against +the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence +was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little +pulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix. The +reader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances, +on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which the +pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which +they sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish; this was +punished. These bowls were called ronds d'eau. The child who broke the +silence "made a cross with her tongue." Where? On the ground. She licked +the pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged with the +chastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which had been guilty of +chirping. + +There was in the convent a book which has never been printed except as +a unique copy, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of +Saint-Benoit. An arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo +regulas, seu constitutiones nostras, externis communicabit. + +The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and set +to reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted by +the fear of being caught, which caused them to close the volume +precipitately. + +From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderate +amount of pleasure. The most "interesting thing" they found were some +unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys. + +They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby +fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of +the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they +sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or +an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech +to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty +years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de----one of the most +elegant women in Paris. I quote literally: "One hides one's pear or +one's apple as best one may. When one goes up stairs to put the veil on +the bed before supper, one stuffs them under one's pillow and at night +one eats them in bed, and when one cannot do that, one eats them in the +closet." That was one of their greatest luxuries. + +Once--it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the +convent--one of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was +connected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would ask +for a day's leave of absence--an enormity in so austere a community. The +wager was accepted, but not one of those who bet believed that she would +do it. When the moment came, as the archbishop was passing in front of +the pupils, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable terror of her +companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day's +leave of absence." Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall, blooming, with the +prettiest little rosy face in the world. M. de Quelen smiled and said, +"What, my dear child, a day's leave of absence! Three days if you like. +I grant you three days." The prioress could do nothing; the archbishop +had spoken. Horror of the convent, but joy of the pupil. The effect may +be imagined. + +This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that the +life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, +did not make their way in. To prove this, we will confine ourselves to +recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, +which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected by +any thread whatever with the story which we are relating. We mention the +fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in the +reader's mind. + +About this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who was +not a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who was addressed as +Madame Albertine. Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad, +and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it +was said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a great +marriage. + +This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerably +pretty, had a vague look in her large black eyes. Could she see? There +was some doubt about this. She glided rather than walked, she never +spoke; it was not quite known whether she breathed. Her nostrils were +livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch her +hand was like touching snow. She possessed a strange spectral grace. +Wherever she entered, people felt cold. One day a sister, on seeing her +pass, said to another sister, "She passes for a dead woman." "Perhaps +she is one," replied the other. + +A hundred tales were told of Madame Albertine. This arose from the +eternal curiosity of the pupils. In the chapel there was a gallery +called L'OEil de Boeuf. It was in this gallery, which had only a +circular bay, an oeil de boeuf, that Madame Albertine listened to the +offices. She always occupied it alone because from this gallery, being +on the level of the first story, the preacher or the officiating priest +could be seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit was +occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of +France, officer of the Red Musketeers in 1815 when he was Prince de +Leon, and who died afterward, in 1830, as cardinal and Archbishop of +Besancon. It was the first time that M. de Rohan had preached at the +Petit-Picpus convent. Madame Albertine usually preserved perfect +calmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services. That +day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and +said, in a loud voice, amid the silence of the chapel, "Ah! Auguste!" +The whole community turned their heads in amazement, the preacher raised +his eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. A +breath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instant +across that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished, and the mad +woman had become a corpse again. + +Those two words, however, had set every one in the convent who had the +privilege of speech to chattering. How many things were contained in +that "Ah! Auguste!" what revelations! M. de Rohan's name really was +Auguste. It was evident that Madame Albertine belonged to the very +highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank there +was of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord, +and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship, +perhaps, but a very close one in any case, since she knew his "pet +name." + +Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, often +visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of +the privilege Magnates mulieres, and caused great consternation in the +boarding-school. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor young +girls trembled and dropped their eyes. + +Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object of +attention to the school-girls. At that epoch he had just been made, +while waiting for the episcopate, vicar-general of the Archbishop of +Paris. It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the +offices in the chapel of the nuns of the Petit-Picpus. Not one of the +young recluses could see him, because of the serge curtain, but he had +a sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and to +distinguish. He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to be +very coquettish, that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed in +a roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent +moire, and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in the +world. He held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years. + +Not a sound from without made its way into the convent. But there was +one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was an +event, and the girls who were at school there at the time still recall +it. + +It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood. This flute always +played the same air, an air which is very far away nowadays,--"My +Zetulbe, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or three +times a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal +mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in +showers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or +less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was +Zetulbe. The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue +Droit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything, +attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only +for a second, of the "young man" who played that flute so deliciously, +and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time. There +were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the +third story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch a +glimpse through the gaps. Impossible! One even went so far as to thrust +her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two +were still bolder. They found means to climb on a roof, and risked their +lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was an +old emigre gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flute in +his attic, in order to pass the time. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE LITTLE CONVENT + +In this enclosure of the Petit-Picpus there were three perfectly +distinct buildings,--the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the +Boarding-school, where the scholars were lodged; and lastly, what was +called the Little Convent. It was a building with a garden, in which +lived all sorts of aged nuns of various orders, the relics of cloisters +destroyed in the Revolution; a reunion of all the black, gray, and white +medleys of all communities and all possible varieties; what might be +called, if such a coupling of words is permissible, a sort of harlequin +convent. + +When the Empire was established, all these poor old dispersed and exiled +women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the +wings of the Bernardines-Benedictines. The government paid them a small +pension, the ladies of the Petit-Picpus received them cordially. It was +a singular pell-mell. Each followed her own rule, Sometimes the pupils +of the boarding-school were allowed, as a great recreation, to pay them +a visit; the result is, that all those young memories have +retained among other souvenirs that of Mother Sainte-Bazile, Mother +Sainte-Scolastique, and Mother Jacob. + +One of these refugees found herself almost at home. She was a nun of +Sainte-Aure, the only one of her order who had survived. The ancient +convent of the ladies of Sainte-Aure occupied, at the beginning of the +eighteenth century, this very house of the Petit-Picpus, which belonged +later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy woman, too poor to +wear the magnificent habit of her order, which was a white robe with +a scarlet scapulary, had piously put it on a little manikin, which she +exhibited with complacency and which she bequeathed to the house at +her death. In 1824, only one nun of this order remained; to-day, there +remains only a doll. + +In addition to these worthy mothers, some old society women had obtained +permission of the prioress, like Madame Albertine, to retire into the +Little Convent. Among the number were Madame Beaufort d'Hautpoul and +Marquise Dufresne. Another was never known in the convent except by +the formidable noise which she made when she blew her nose. The pupils +called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub). + +About 1820 or 1821, Madame de Genlis, who was at that time editing a +little periodical publication called l'Intrepide, asked to be allowed +to enter the convent of the Petit-Picpus as lady resident. The Duc +d'Orleans recommended her. Uproar in the hive; the vocal-mothers were +all in a flutter; Madame de Genlis had made romances. But she declared +that she was the first to detest them, and then, she had reached her +fierce stage of devotion. With the aid of God, and of the Prince, she +entered. She departed at the end of six or eight months, alleging as a +reason, that there was no shade in the garden. The nuns were delighted. +Although very old, she still played the harp, and did it very well. + +When she went away she left her mark in her cell. Madame de Genlis was +superstitious and a Latinist. These two words furnish a tolerably good +profile of her. A few years ago, there were still to be seen, pasted in +the inside of a little cupboard in her cell in which she locked up her +silverware and her jewels, these five lines in Latin, written with +her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, +possessed the property of frightening away robbers:-- + + + Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis:[15] + Dismas et Gesmas, media est divina potestas; + Alta petit Dismas, infelix, infima, Gesmas; + Nos et res nostras conservet summa potestas. + Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas. + + +These verses in sixth century Latin raise the question whether the +two thieves of Calvary were named, as is commonly believed, Dismas and +Gestas, or Dismas and Gesmas. This orthography might have confounded the +pretensions put forward in the last century by the Vicomte de Gestas, of +a descent from the wicked thief. However, the useful virtue attached to +these verses forms an article of faith in the order of the Hospitallers. + +The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the +Great Convent from the Boarding-school like a veritable intrenchment, +was, of course, common to the Boarding-school, the Great Convent, and +the Little Convent. The public was even admitted by a sort of lazaretto +entrance on the street. But all was so arranged, that none of the +inhabitants of the cloister could see a face from the outside world. +Suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand, and +folded in such a manner as to form, not, as in ordinary churches, a +prolongation behind the altar, but a sort of hall, or obscure cellar, to +the right of the officiating priest; suppose this hall to be shut off by +a curtain seven feet in height, of which we have already spoken; in the +shadow of that curtain, pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir +on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the +novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the +Petit-Picpus assisting at divine service. That cavern, which was called +the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby. The church was +lighted from the garden. When the nuns were present at services where +their rule enjoined silence, the public was warned of their presence +only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--SOME SILHOUETTES OF THIS DARKNESS + +During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the +Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, +was Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur, +author of Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoit. She had +been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short, thick, +"singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already +quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in the +whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned, erudite, +wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with Latin, +stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine monk than +a Benedictine nun. + +The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost +blind. + +The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine; +the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the +novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother Annonciation, +the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the +convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde (Mademoiselle +Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges +(Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu, +and in the convent du Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother +Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adelaide +(Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misericorde (Mademoiselle de +Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion +(Mademoiselle de la Miltiere, received at the age of sixty in defiance +of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de +Laudiniere), Mother Presentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was +prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Celigne (sister of the +sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle de +Suzon), who went mad. + +There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three +and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the +Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was +called Mother Assumption. + +Mother Sainte-Mechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was +fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter. She usually took a +complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen years +of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made sing +standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the +smallest to the largest. This presented to the eye, something in the +nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living Pan-pipe made of +angels. + +Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister +Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguerite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in +her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh. + +All these women were gentle with the children. The nuns were severe only +towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and the +food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished +a thousand cares on their scholars. Only, when a child passed near a nun +and addressed her, the nun never replied. + +This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole +convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed +on inanimate objects. Now it was the church-bell which spoke, now it was +the gardener's bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the portress, +and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its varied +peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the actions of +material life which were to be performed, and summoned to the parlor, in +case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house. Each person +and each thing had its own peal. The prioress had one and one, the +sub-prioress one and two. Six-five announced lessons, so that the pupils +never said "to go to lessons," but "to go to six-five." Four-four was +Madame de Genlis's signal. It was very often heard. "C'est le diable +a quatre,"--it's the very deuce--said the uncharitable. Tennine strokes +announced a great event. It was the opening of the door of seclusion, +a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts which only turned on its +hinges in the presence of the archbishop. + +With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered +the convent, as we have already said. The schoolgirls saw two others: +one, the chaplain, the Abbe Banes, old and ugly, whom they were +permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the +drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a +few lines, calls M. Anciot, and describes as a frightful old hunchback. + +It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen. + +Such was this curious house. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--POST CORDA LAPIDES + +After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable +to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader +already has some idea of it. + +The convent of the Petit-Picpus-Sainte-Antoine filled almost the whole +of the vast trapezium which resulted from the intersection of the Rue +Polonceau, the Rue Droit-Mur, the Rue Petit-Picpus, and the unused lane, +called Rue Aumarais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this +trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several buildings +and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a +juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which, viewed from a bird's-eye +view, outlined, with considerable exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the +ground. The main arm of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment +of the Rue Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue Petit-Picpus and the Rue +Polonceau; the lesser arm was a lofty, gray, severe grated facade which +faced the Rue Petit-Picpus; the carriage entrance No. 62 marked its +extremity. Towards the centre of this facade was a low, arched door, +whitened with dust and ashes, where the spiders wove their webs, +and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare +occasions, when the coffin of a nun left the convent. This was the +public entrance of the church. The elbow of the gibbet was a square +hall which was used as the servants' hall, and which the nuns called the +buttery. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, and +the novices. In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, backed +up by the cloisters and the church. Between the door No. 62 and the +corner of the closed lane Aumarais, was the school, which was not +visible from without. The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, +which was much lower than the level of the Rue Polonceau, which caused +the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The +garden, which was slightly arched, had in its centre, on the summit of +a hillock, a fine pointed and conical fir-tree, whence ran, as from +the peaked boss of a shield, four grand alleys, and, ranged by twos +in between the branchings of these, eight small ones, so that, if the +enclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the alleys would +have resembled a cross superposed on a wheel. As the alleys all ended +in the very irregular walls of the garden, they were of unequal length. +They were bordered with currant bushes. At the bottom, an alley of tall +poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of +the Rue Droit-Mur to the house of the Little Convent, which was at the +angle of the Aumarais lane. In front of the Little Convent was what was +called the little garden. To this whole, let the reader add a courtyard, +all sorts of varied angles formed by the interior buildings, prison +walls, the long black line of roofs which bordered the other side of the +Rue Polonceau for its sole perspective and neighborhood, and he will +be able to form for himself a complete image of what the house of the +Bernardines of the Petit-Picpus was forty years ago. This holy house +had been built on the precise site of a famous tennis-ground of the +fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the "tennis-ground +of the eleven thousand devils." + +All these streets, moreover, were more ancient than Paris. These names, +Droit-Mur and Aumarais, are very ancient; the streets which bear them +are very much more ancient still. Aumarais Lane was called Maugout Lane; +the Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Eglantiers, for God opened +flowers before man cut stones. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE + +Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the +Petit-Picpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open +a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other +little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and +useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures. + +In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey +of Fontevrault. She had even been in society before the Revolution. She +talked a great deal of M. de Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals under Louis +XVI. and of a Presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very intimate. +It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every +pretext. She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault,--that it was like +a city, and that there were streets in the monastery. + +She talked with a Picard accent which amused the pupils. Every year, +she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath, she +said to the priest, "Monseigneur Saint-Francois gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Julien, Monseigneur Saint-Julien gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Eusebius, Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Procopius, etc., etc.; and thus I give it to you, father." And the +school-girls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves, but under +their veils; charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers +frown. + +On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories. She said +that in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the +mousquetaires. It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the +eighteenth century. She told about the custom of the four wines, which +existed before the Revolution in Champagne and Bourgogne. When a great +personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke, and a peer, traversed +a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue +him and presented him with four silver gondolas into which they +had poured four different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this +inscription could be read, monkey wine; on the second, lion wine; on the +third, sheep wine; on the fourth, hog wine. These four legends express +the four stages descended by the drunkard; the first, intoxication, +which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which +dulls; and the fourth, that which brutalizes. + +In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious object of which +she thought a great deal. The rule of Fontevrault did not forbid this. +She would not show this object to anyone. She shut herself up, which her +rule allowed her to do, and hid herself, every time that she desired to +contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the +cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands. As +soon as it was mentioned to her, she became silent, she who was so fond +of talking. The most curious were baffled by her silence and the most +tenacious by her obstinacy. Thus it furnished a subject of comment for +all those who were unoccupied or bored in the convent. What could that +treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret? +Some holy book, no doubt? Some unique chaplet? Some authentic relic? +They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, +they rushed to her cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and +opened it. They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some +consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves +flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. +The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the +charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, +fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the +dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral: Love conquered by the +colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which had, possibly, +the honor of furnishing Moliere with an idea, was still in existence +in September, 1845; it was for sale by a bric-a-brac merchant in the +Boulevard Beaumarchais. + +This good old woman would not receive any visits from outside because, +said she, the parlor is too gloomy. + + + + +CHAPTER X--ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION + +However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to +convey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with the +same severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue du Temple, +in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the black +shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was a +salon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in white +muslin curtains and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portrait +of a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even the +head of a Turk. + +It is in that garden of the Temple convent, that stood that famous +chestnut-tree which was renowned as the finest and the largest in +France, and which bore the reputation among the good people of the +eighteenth century of being the father of all the chestnut trees of the +realm. + +As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictines +of the Perpetual Adoration, Benedictines quite different from those who +depended on Citeaux. This order of the Perpetual Adoration is not very +ancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 the +holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two +churches in Paris, at Saint-Sulpice and at Saint-Jean en Greve, a rare +and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. M. the +Prior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des Pres ordered a solemn +procession of all his clergy, in which the Pope's Nuncio officiated. +But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Courtin, +Marquise de Boucs, and the Comtesse de Chateauvieux. This outrage +committed on "the most holy sacrament of the altar," though but +temporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed to +them that it could only be extenuated by a "Perpetual Adoration" in some +female monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made +donations of notable sums to Mother Catherine de Bar, called of the Holy +Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding, to this pious +end, a monastery of the order of Saint-Benoit; the first permission for +this foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abbe +of Saint-Germain, "on condition that no woman could be received unless +she contributed three hundred livres income, which amounts to six +thousand livres, to the principal." After the Abbe of Saint-Germain, the +king accorded letters-patent; and all the rest, abbatial charter, and +royal letters, was confirmed in 1654 by the Chamber of Accounts and the +Parliament. + +Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the +Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at Paris. +Their first convent was "a new building" in the Rue Cassette, out of the +contributions of Mesdames de Boucs and de Chateauvieux. + +This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded with +the Benedictine nuns of Citeaux. It mounted back to the Abbe of +Saint-Germain des Pres, in the same manner that the ladies of the Sacred +Heart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charity +to the general of the Lazarists. + +It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the Petit-Picpus, +whose interior we have just shown. In 1657, Pope Alexander VII. had +authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue Petit-Picpus, +to practise the Perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of the +Holy Sacrament. But the two orders remained distinct none the less. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--END OF THE PETIT-PICPUS + +At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the Petit-Picpus +was in its decay; this forms a part of the general death of the order, +which, after the eighteenth century, has been disappearing like all +the religious orders. Contemplation is, like prayer, one of humanity's +needs; but, like everything which the Revolution touched, it will be +transformed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will become +favorable to it. + +The house of the Petit-Picpus was becoming rapidly depopulated. In 1840, +the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There +were no longer any old women, nor young girls; the first were dead, the +latter had taken their departure. Volaverunt. + +The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its nature that it +alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits. In +1845, it still obtained lay-sisters here and there. But of professed +nuns, none at all. Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; +fifteen years ago there were not more than twenty-eight of them. How +many are there to-day? In 1847, the prioress was young, a sign that +the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old. In +proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue increases, the service +of each becomes more painful; the moment could then be seen drawing near +when there would be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the +heavy rule of Saint-Benoit. The burden is implacable, and remains the +same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they +die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in Paris, +two died. One was twenty-five years old, the other twenty-three. This +latter can say, like Julia Alpinula: "Hic jaceo. Vixi annos viginti et +tres." It is in consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the +education of girls. + +We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary house without +entering it, and without introducing the minds which accompany us, and +which are listening to our tale, to the profit of some, perchance, of +the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this +community, full of those old practices which seem so novel to-day. It +is the closed garden, hortus conclusus. We have spoken of this singular +place in detail, but with respect, in so far, at least, as detail and +respect are compatible. We do not understand all, but we insult nothing. +We are equally far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who +wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer of Voltaire, +who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross. + +An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark, by the way; for +Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even +for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix +represent? The assassinated sage. + +In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. +People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, +while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum in the human +heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but +on condition that they are followed by reconstructions. + +In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary +to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits +of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. +This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let +us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a +visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage +and let us tear off the mask. + +As for convents, they present a complex problem,--a question of +civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects +them. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA + +This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. + +Man is the second. + +Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it +has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which is common +to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to +modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to +Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the +Infinite. + +This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain +ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our +restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we +encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel +ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the +mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, +and a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind, +and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the +human wall! + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT + +From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism +is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in +its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idleness where +centres of labor should exist. Monastic communities are to the great +social community what the mistletoe is to the oak, what the wart is +to the human body. Their prosperity and their fatness mean the +impoverishment of the country. The monastic regime, good at the +beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the +spiritual, is bad when peoples have reached their manhood. Moreover, +when it becomes relaxed, and when it enters into its period of disorder, +it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its +period of purity, because it still continues to set the example. + +Claustration has had its day. Cloisters, useful in the early education +of modern civilization, have embarrassed its growth, and are injurious +to its development. So far as institution and formation with relation +to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the tenth century, +questionable in the fifteenth, are detestable in the nineteenth. The +leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful +nations, Italy and Spain; the one the light, the other the splendor of +Europe for centuries; and, at the present day, these two illustrious +peoples are but just beginning to convalesce, thanks to the healthy and +vigorous hygiene of 1789 alone. + +The convent--the ancient female convent in particular, such as it still +presents itself on the threshold of this century, in Italy, in Austria, +in Spain--is one of the most sombre concretions of the Middle Ages. The +cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors. The +Catholic cloister, properly speaking, is wholly filled with the black +radiance of death. + +The Spanish convent is the most funereal of all. There rise, in +obscurity, beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes vague with +shadow, massive altars of Babel, as high as cathedrals; there immense +white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark; there are extended, all +nude on the ebony, great Christs of ivory; more than bleeding,--bloody; +hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their +knee-pans showing their integuments, their wounds showing their flesh, +crowned with silver thorns, nailed with nails of gold, with blood drops +of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes. The diamonds +and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, +their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their iron-tipped scourges, +their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with +prayer; women who think themselves wives, spectres who think themselves +seraphim. Do these women think? No. Have they any will? No. Do they +love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone; their +bones have turned to stone. Their veil is of woven night. Their breath +under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of +death. The abbess, a spectre, sanctifies them and terrifies them. +The immaculate one is there, and very fierce. Such are the ancient +monasteries of Spain. Lairs of terrible devotion, caverns of virgins, +ferocious places. + +Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself. The Spanish convent was, +above all others, the Catholic convent. There was a flavor of the Orient +about it. The archbishop, the kislar-aga of heaven, locked up and kept +watch over this seraglio of souls reserved for God. The nun was the +odalisque, the priest was the eunuch. The fervent were chosen in dreams +and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful, nude young man descended +from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls +guarded the mystic sultana, who had the crucified for her sultan, from +all living distraction. A glance on the outer world was infidelity. The +in pace replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in +the East was thrown into the ground in the West. In both quarters, women +wrung their hands; the waves for the first, the grave for the last; here +the drowned, there the buried. Monstrous parallel. + +To-day the upholders of the past, unable to deny these things, have +adopted the expedient of smiling at them. There has come into fashion +a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of +invalidating the commentaries of philosophy, of eliding all embarrassing +facts and all gloomy questions. A matter for declamations, say the +clever. Declamations, repeat the foolish. Jean-Jacques a declaimer; +Diderot a declaimer; Voltaire on Calas, Labarre, and Sirven, declaimers. +I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer, +that Nero was a victim, and that pity is decidedly due to "that poor +Holofernes." + +Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are +obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight +leagues distant from Brussels,--there are relics of the Middle Ages +there which are attainable for everybody,--at the Abbey of Villers, the +hole of the oubliettes, in the middle of the field which was formerly +the courtyard of the cloister, and on the banks of the Thil, four stone +dungeons, half under ground, half under the water. They were in pace. +Each of these dungeons has the remains of an iron door, a vault, and a +grated opening which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the +river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground. Four +feet of river flow past along the outside wall. The ground is always +soaked. The occupant of the in pace had this wet soil for his bed. In +one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to +the wall; in another, there can be seen a square box made of four slabs +of granite, too short for a person to lie down in, too low for him to +stand upright in. A human being was put inside, with a coverlid of stone +on top. This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, +these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole +on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid +of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here +was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those +oozing walls,--what declaimers! + + + + +CHAPTER III--ON WHAT CONDITIONS ONE CAN RESPECT THE PAST + +Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in +Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It +simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge +of Europe. Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the +forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the right of +the first-born pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the +ferocities of which we have just spoken, the in pace, the closed mouths, +the walled-up brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon +of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. +Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you +may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil,--those two +winding-sheets of human devising. Nevertheless, at certain points and in +certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit +of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and +a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this moment, astonishing +the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in +perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume +which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which +should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment +which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which +should return to embrace the living. + +"Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why +will you have nothing to do with me?" "I have just come from the deep +sea," says the fish. "I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have +loved you," says the corpse. "I have civilized you," says the convent. + +To this there is but one reply: "In former days." + +To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the +government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, +to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to +refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles +on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and +militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication +of parasites, to force the past on the present,--this seems strange. +Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, +who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple +process; they apply to the past a glazing which they call social +order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique +authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion; and they go about +shouting, "Look! take this, honest people." This logic was known to the +ancients. The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over +with chalk, and said, "She is white, Bos cretatus." + +As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above +all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, +we attack it, and we try to kill it. + +Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms all +forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in +their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must +be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities +of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is +difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. + +A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is +a college of owls facing the light. A cloister, caught in the very act +of asceticism, in the very heart of the city of '89 and of 1830 and +of 1848, Rome blossoming out in Paris, is an anachronism. In ordinary +times, in order to dissolve an anachronism and to cause it to vanish, +one has only to make it spell out the date. But we are not in ordinary +times. + +Let us fight. + +Let us fight, but let us make a distinction. The peculiar property of +truth is never to commit excesses. What need has it of exaggeration? +There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which +it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine. What a force is kindly +and serious examination! Let us not apply a flame where only a light is +required. + +So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general +proposition, and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, +in India as well as in Turkey, to ascetic claustration. Whoever says +cloister, says marsh. Their putrescence is evident, their stagnation is +unhealthy, their fermentation infects people with fever, and etiolates +them; their multiplication becomes a plague of Egypt. We cannot think +without affright of those lands where fakirs, bonzes, santons, Greek +monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of +vermin. + +This said, the religious question remains. This question has certain +mysterious, almost formidable sides; may we be permitted to look at it +fixedly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES + +Men unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue of what right? +By virtue of the right of association. + +They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of +the right which every man has to open or shut his door. + +They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right +to go and come, which implies the right to remain at home. + +There, at home, what do they do? + +They speak in low tones; they drop their eyes; they toil. They renounce +the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities, pride, interests. +They are clothed in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them +possesses in his own right anything whatever. On entering there, each +one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He +who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of +him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All undergo the +same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on +the same straw, die on the same ashes. The same sack on their backs, the +same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, +all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them; that prince is the +same shadow as the rest. No titles. Even family names have disappeared. +They bear only first names. All are bowed beneath the equality of +baptismal names. They have dissolved the carnal family, and constituted +in their community a spiritual family. They have no other relatives than +all men. They succor the poor, they care for the sick. They elect those +whom they obey. They call each other "my brother." + +You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!" + +It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent, that I should take +notice of it. + +Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken of a +convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast +aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the +purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant +policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary +matter and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always +consider a cloistered community with a certain attentive, and, in some +respects, a deferential gravity. + +Wherever there is a community, there is a commune; where there is a +commune, there is right. The monastery is the product of the formula: +Equality, Fraternity. Oh! how grand is liberty! And what a splendid +transfiguration! Liberty suffices to transform the monastery into a +republic. + +Let us continue. + +But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They +dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are equals, they call each +other brothers, that is well; but they do something else? + +Yes. + +What? + +They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands. + +What does this signify? + + + + +CHAPTER V--PRAYER + +They pray. + +To whom? + +To God. + +To pray to God,--what is the meaning of these words? + +Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, +permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because, +if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, since +it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end +there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can +attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it +not the absolute, of which we are only the relative? + +At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not +an infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarming +plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second +infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's +mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another +abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does +it love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent, each of +them has a will principle, and there is an _I_ in the upper infinity as +there is an _I_ in the lower infinity. The _I_ below is the soul; the +_I_ on high is God. + +To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, +with the infinity on high, is called praying. + +Let us take nothing from the human mind; to suppress is bad. We must +reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards +the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What +is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, +prayer,--these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them. +Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul? Into the shadow; +that is to say, to the light. + +The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing of +humanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there +exists the right of the soul. + +To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let +us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of +creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We +have a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery against +the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, +to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purify +belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of +caterpillars. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRAYER + +With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are +sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite. + +There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is +also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun; this +philosophy is called blindness. + +To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth, is a fine blind +man's self-sufficiency. + +The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate airs which +this groping philosophy assumes towards the philosophy which beholds +God. One fancies he hears a mole crying, "I pity them with their sun!" + +There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led +back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that +they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in +any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove +God. + +We salute them as philosophers, while inexorably denouncing their +philosophy. + +Let us go on. + +The remarkable thing about it is, also, their facility in paying +themselves off with words. A metaphysical school of the North, +impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a +revolution in human understanding by replacing the word Force with the +word Will. + +To say: "the plant wills," instead of: "the plant grows": this would be +fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add: "the universe wills." Why? +Because it would come to this: the plant wills, therefore it has an _I_; +the universe wills, therefore it has a God. + +As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject +nothing a priori, a will in the plant, accepted by this school, appears +to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe denied by it. + +To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on +any other conditions than a denial of the infinite. We have demonstrated +this. + +The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything +becomes "a mental conception." + +With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts +the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists +itself. + +From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only +"a mental conception." + +Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in the +lump, simply by the utterance of the word, mind. + +In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all +end in the monosyllable, No. + +To No there is only one reply, Yes. + +Nihilism has no point. + +There is no such thing as nothingness. Zero does not exist. Everything +is something. Nothing is nothing. + +Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread. + +Even to see and to show does not suffice. Philosophy should be an +energy; it should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the condition +of man. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius; in +other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man +of felicity. Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science should be +a cordial. To enjoy,--what a sad aim, and what a paltry ambition! The +brute enjoys. To offer thought to the thirst of men, to give them all as +an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and science fraternize +in them, to render them just by this mysterious confrontation; such is +the function of real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming out of truths. +Contemplation leads to action. The absolute should be practicable. It is +necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable, and eatable to +the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say: Take, this! +It is on this condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science +and becomes the one and sovereign mode of human rallying, and that +philosophy herself is promoted to religion. + +Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it +at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to +curiosity. + +For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another +occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand +man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without those two +forces which are their two motors: faith and love. + +Progress is the goal, the ideal is the type. + +What is this ideal? It is God. + +Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity: identical words. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN BLAME + +History and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the same time, +simple duties; to combat Caiphas the High-priest, Draco the Lawgiver, +Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor; this is clear, direct, +and limpid, and offers no obscurity. + +But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its +abuses, insists on being stated and taken into account. Cenobitism is a +human problem. + +When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, +of aberration but of good-will, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture +but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no. + +A convent is a contradiction. Its object, salvation; its means thereto, +sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme +abnegation. + +To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of +monasticism. + +In the cloister, one suffers in order to enjoy. One draws a bill of +exchange on death. One discounts in terrestrial gloom celestial light. +In the cloister, hell is accepted in advance as a post obit on paradise. + +The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity. + +It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. +All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad. + +The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We +understand wrath, but not malice. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--FAITH, LAW + +A few words more. + +We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the +spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal; but we everywhere honor +the thoughtful man. + +We salute the man who kneels. + +A faith; this is a necessity for man. Woe to him who believes nothing. + +One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed. There is visible labor +and invisible labor. + +To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act. + +Folded arms toil, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work. + +Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy. + +In our opinion, cenobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers. + +To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing. + +Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that +a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, +the priest and the philosopher agree. We must die. The Abbe de la Trappe +replies to Horace. + +To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre,--this is +the law of the sage; and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, +the ascetic and the sage converge. There is a material growth; we +admit it. There is a moral grandeur; we hold to that. Thoughtless and +vivacious spirits say:-- + +"What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? +What purpose do they serve? What do they do?" + +Alas! In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which +awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of +us, we reply: "There is probably no work more divine than that performed +by these souls." And we add: "There is probably no work which is more +useful." + +There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never +pray at all. + +In our opinion the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is +mingled with prayer. + +Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine. Deo erexit +Voltaire. + +We are for religion as against religions. + +We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the +sublimity of prayer. + +Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,--a minute which +will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,--at +this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little +elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, +and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, +whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us. + +The monastery is a renunciation. Sacrifice wrongly directed is still +sacrifice. To mistake a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its +own. + +Taken by itself, and ideally, and in order to examine the truth on all +sides until all aspects have been impartially exhausted, the monastery, +the female convent in particular,--for in our century it is woman who +suffers the most, and in this exile of the cloister there is something +of protestation,--the female convent has incontestably a certain +majesty. + +This cloistered existence which is so austere, so depressing, a few of +whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty; +it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude; it is the strange place +whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side +the abyss where we are, on the other, the abyss whither we shall go; it +is the narrow and misty frontier separating two worlds, illuminated +and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has +become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death; it is the half +obscurity of the tomb. + +We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, +live by faith,--we have never been able to think without a sort of +tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity, that is full of +envy, of those devoted, trembling and trusting creatures, of these +humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the +mystery, waiting between the world which is closed and heaven which is +not yet open, turned towards the light which one cannot see, possessing +the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring +towards the gulf, and the unknown, their eyes fixed motionless on the +darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted, at +times, by the deep breaths of eternity. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM + + + + +CHAPTER I--WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING A CONVENT + +It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed +it, "fallen from the sky." + +He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue +Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle +of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had +caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had +seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation; +that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, was the +gardener's bell attached to the knee of Father Fauchelevent. + +Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have +already seen, supped on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a +good, crackling fire; then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by +Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. + +Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said: "I must remain here +henceforth." This remark trotted through Fauchelevent's head all night +long. + +To tell the truth, neither of them slept. + +Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on +his scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to +Paris. Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded +him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,--to +remain there. Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this +convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places; the most +dangerous, because, as no men might enter there, if he were discovered, +it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step +intervening between the convent and prison; the safest, because, if he +could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would +ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was +safety. + +On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains. He began by +declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had +M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister +walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One +cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms. Who was +that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived +in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing +of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which +discouraged questions; and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself: "One +does not question a saint." M. Madeleine had preserved all his prestige +in Fauchelevent's eyes. Only, from some words which Jean Valjean had let +fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine +had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was +pursued by his creditors; or that he had compromised himself in some +political affair, and was in hiding; which last did not displease +Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an +old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine had +selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should +wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point, to which Fauchelevent +returned constantly and over which he wearied his brain, was that M. +Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that little girl with +him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did +not believe it possible. The incomprehensible had just made its entrance +into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and +could see nothing clearly but this: "M. Madeleine saved my life." +This certainty alone was sufficient and decided his course. He said to +himself: "It is my turn now." He added in his conscience: "M. Madeleine +did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself +under the cart for the purpose of dragging me out." He made up his mind +to save M. Madeleine. + +Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself and made himself divers +replies: "After what he did for me, would I save him if he were a thief? +Just the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? Just the same. +Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same." + +But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent! +Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical +undertaking; this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder +than his self-devotion, his good will, and a little of that old +rustic cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous +enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister, and the +steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Benoit. Father Fauchelevent was +an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards the end +of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the world, +found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action to be +performed, flung himself upon it like a man, who at the moment when he +is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he +had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may add, +that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had +destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good +action of some kind absolutely necessary to him. + +So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine. + +We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardy. That description +is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now +reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology becomes useful. +He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his +cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various +causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a +carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses +seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had +some natural wit; he talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare +thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: "He talks almost +like a gentleman with a hat." Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that +species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last +century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-lout, and which the metaphors +showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the +pigeon-hole of the plebeian: rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and +salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate, +worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless, an +impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious +quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his +vices, for he had some, were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy +was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none +of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify +malice or stupidity. + +At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an +enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss +of straw, and watching Cosette's slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and +said:-- + +"Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter?" + +This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his +revery. + +The two men took counsel together. + +"In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you will begin by not setting +foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the +garden and we are done for." + +"That is true." + +"Monsieur Madeleine," resumed Fauchelevent, "you have arrived at a very +auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of +the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our +direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours +are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. +The one who is on the point of departure is a saint. In fact, we are +all saints here; all the difference between them and me is that they say +'our cell,' and that I say 'my cabin.' The prayers for the dying are to +be said, and then the prayers for the dead. We shall be at peace here +for to-day; but I will not answer for to-morrow." + +"Still," observed Jean Valjean, "this cottage is in the niche of the +wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not visible +from the convent." + +"And I add that the nuns never come near it." + +"Well?" said Jean Valjean. + +The interrogation mark which accentuated this "well" signified: +"it seems to me that one may remain concealed here?" It was to this +interrogation point that Fauchelevent responded:-- + +"There are the little girls." + +"What little girls?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Just as Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had +uttered, a bell emitted one stroke. + +"The nun is dead," said he. "There is the knell." + +And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen. + +The bell struck a second time. + +"It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will continue to strike +once a minute for twenty-four hours, until the body is taken from the +church.--You see, they play. At recreation hours it suffices to have a +ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to +hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils." + +"Who?" asked Jean Valjean. + +"The little girls. You would be very quickly discovered. They would +shriek: 'Oh! a man!' There is no danger to-day. There will be no +recreation hour. The day will be entirely devoted to prayers. You hear +the bell. As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell." + +"I understand, Father Fauchelevent. There are pupils." + +And Jean Valjean thought to himself:-- + +"Here is Cosette's education already provided." + +Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- + +"Pardine! There are little girls indeed! And they would bawl around you! +And they would rush off! To be a man here is to have the plague. You see +how they fasten a bell to my paw as though I were a wild beast." + +Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.--"This convent +would be our salvation," he murmured. + +Then he raised his voice:-- + +"Yes, the difficulty is to remain here." + +"No," said Fauchelevent, "the difficulty is to get out." + +Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart. + +"To get out!" + +"Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is first necessary +to get out." + +And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded, +Fauchelevent went on:-- + +"You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me, +you fall from heaven, because I know you; but the nuns require one to +enter by the door." + +All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from another bell. + +"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "they are ringing up the vocal mothers. They +are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when any one dies. +She died at daybreak. People generally do die at daybreak. But cannot +you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the +sake of questioning you, but how did you get in?" + +Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into +that terrible street made him shudder. You make your way out of a forest +filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly counsel that +shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the +whole police force still engaged in swarming in that quarter, agents on +the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended towards his +collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection of the streets perhaps. + +"Impossible!" said he. "Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell from the +sky." + +"But I believe it, I believe it," retorted Fauchelevent. "You have no +need to tell me that. The good God must have taken you in his hand for +the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped +you. Only, he meant to place you in a man's convent; he made a mistake. +Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and +inform the municipality that the dead-doctor is to come here and view a +corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not +at all fond of that visit. A doctor is a man who does not believe in +anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too. How +quickly they have had the doctor summoned this time! What is the matter? +Your little one is still asleep. What is her name?" + +"Cosette." + +"She is your daughter? You are her grandfather, that is?" + +"Yes." + +"It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service +door which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens; I have +my vintage basket on my back, the child is in it, I go out. Father +Fauchelevent goes out with his basket--that is perfectly natural. You +will tell the child to keep very quiet. She will be under the cover. I +will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a +fruit-seller whom I know in the Rue Chemin-Vert, who is deaf, and who +has a little bed. I will shout in the fruit-seller's ear, that she is a +niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until to-morrow. Then +the little one will re-enter with you; for I will contrive to have you +re-enter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out?" + +Jean Valjean shook his head. + +"No one must see me, the whole point lies there, Father Fauchelevent. +Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like +Cosette." + +Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his +left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment. + +A third peal created a diversion. + +"That is the dead-doctor taking his departure," said Fauchelevent. "He +has taken a look and said: 'She is dead, that is well.' When the doctor +has signed the passport for paradise, the undertaker's company sends a +coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister, +the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail her up. That forms a part +of my gardener's duty. A gardener is a bit of a grave-digger. She is +placed in a lower hall of the church which communicates with the street, +and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead. I don't +count the undertaker's men and myself as men. It is in that hall that I +nail up the coffin. The undertaker's men come and get it, and whip +up, coachman! that's the way one goes to heaven. They fetch a box with +nothing in it, they take it away again with something in it. That's what +a burial is like. De profundis." + +A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping +Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an +angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her. +He was no longer listening to Fauchelevent. + +That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The +good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble:-- + +"The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery. They declare that they are +going to suppress that Vaugirard cemetery. It is an ancient cemetery +which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is +going to retire. It is a shame, for it is convenient. I have a friend +there, Father Mestienne, the grave-digger. The nuns here possess one +privilege, it is to be taken to that cemetery at nightfall. There is +a special permission from the Prefecture on their behalf. But how many +events have happened since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and +Father Madeleine--" + +"Is buried," said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly. + +Fauchelevent caught the word. + +"Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial." + +A fourth peal burst out. Fauchelevent hastily detached the belled +knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. + +"This time it is for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. Good, now I am +pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't +stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are +hungry, there is wine, bread and cheese." + +And he hastened out of the hut, crying: "Coming! coming!" + +Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his +crooked leg would permit, casting a sidelong glance by the way on his +melon patch. + +Less than ten minutes later, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell put the +nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door, and a gentle voice +replied: "Forever! Forever!" that is to say: "Enter." + +The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the +gardener on business. This parlor adjoined the chapter hall. The +prioress, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for +Fauchelevent. + + + + +CHAPTER II--FAUCHELEVENT IN THE PRESENCE OF A DIFFICULTY + +It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, +notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical +occasions. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, this double form of +preoccupation was imprinted on the countenance of the prioress, who was +that wise and charming Mademoiselle de Blemeur, Mother Innocente, who +was ordinarily cheerful. + +The gardener made a timid bow, and remained at the door of the cell. The +prioress, who was telling her beads, raised her eyes and said:-- + +"Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent." + +This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent. + +Fauchelevent bowed again. + +"Father Fauvent, I have sent for you." + +"Here I am, reverend Mother." + +"I have something to say to you." + +"And so have I," said Fauchelevent with a boldness which caused him +inward terror, "I have something to say to the very reverend Mother." + +The prioress stared at him. + +"Ah! you have a communication to make to me." + +"A request." + +"Very well, speak." + +Goodman Fauchelevent, the ex-notary, belonged to the category of +peasants who have assurance. A certain clever ignorance constitutes a +force; you do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fauchelevent +had been a success during the something more than two years which he had +passed in the convent. Always solitary and busied about his gardening, +he had nothing else to do than to indulge his curiosity. As he was at a +distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before +him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness +he had succeeded in clothing all those phantoms with flesh, and those +corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows +keener, and like a blind man whose hearing becomes more acute. He had +applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, +and he had succeeded, so that this taciturn and enigmatical cloister +possessed no secrets for him; the sphinx babbled all her secrets in his +ear. Fauchelevent knew all and concealed all; that constituted his art. +The whole convent thought him stupid. A great merit in religion. The +vocal mothers made much of Fauchelevent. He was a curious mute. He +inspired confidence. Moreover, he was regular, and never went out except +for well-demonstrated requirements of the orchard and vegetable garden. +This discretion of conduct had inured to his credit. None the less, he +had set two men to chattering: the porter, in the convent, and he +knew the singularities of their parlor, and the grave-digger, at +the cemetery, and he was acquainted with the peculiarities of their +sepulture; in this way, he possessed a double light on the subject of +these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death. But he +did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of +him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the +bargain,--what qualities! They would have found it difficult to replace +him. + +The goodman, with the assurance of a person who feels that he is +appreciated, entered into a rather diffuse and very deep rustic harangue +to the reverend prioress. He talked a long time about his age, his +infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, +of the increasing demands of his work, of the great size of the garden, +of nights which must be passed, like the last, for instance, when he had +been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds, because of the moon, +and he wound up as follows: "That he had a brother"--(the prioress made +a movement),--"a brother no longer young"--(a second movement on the +part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),--"that, if he +might be permitted, this brother would come and live with him and help +him, that he was an excellent gardener, that the community would receive +from him good service, better than his own; that, otherwise, if his +brother were not admitted, as he, the elder, felt that his health was +broken and that he was insufficient for the work, he should be obliged, +greatly to his regret, to go away; and that his brother had a little +daughter whom he would bring with him, who might be reared for God in +the house, and who might, who knows, become a nun some day." + +When he had finished speaking, the prioress stayed the slipping of her +rosary between her fingers, and said to him:-- + +"Could you procure a stout iron bar between now and this evening?" + +"For what purpose?" + +"To serve as a lever." + +"Yes, reverend Mother," replied Fauchelevent. + +The prioress, without adding a word, rose and entered the adjoining +room, which was the hall of the chapter, and where the vocal mothers +were probably assembled. Fauchelevent was left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MOTHER INNOCENTE + +About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and seated +herself once more on her chair. + +The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied. We will present a stenographic +report of the dialogue which then ensued, to the best of our ability. + +"Father Fauvent!" + +"Reverend Mother!" + +"Do you know the chapel?" + +"I have a little cage there, where I hear the mass and the offices." + +"And you have been in the choir in pursuance of your duties?" + +"Two or three times." + +"There is a stone to be raised." + +"Heavy?" + +"The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar." + +"The slab which closes the vault?" + +"Yes." + +"It would be a good thing to have two men for it." + +"Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you." + +"A woman is never a man." + +"We have only a woman here to help you. Each one does what he can. +Because Dom Mabillon gives four hundred and seventeen epistles of +Saint Bernard, while Merlonus Horstius only gives three hundred and +sixty-seven, I do not despise Merlonus Horstius." + +"Neither do I." + +"Merit consists in working according to one's strength. A cloister is +not a dock-yard." + +"And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though!" + +"And can you get a lever?" + +"That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door." + +"There is a ring in the stone." + +"I will put the lever through it." + +"And the stone is so arranged that it swings on a pivot." + +"That is good, reverend Mother. I will open the vault." + +"And the four Mother Precentors will help you." + +"And when the vault is open?" + +"It must be closed again." + +"Will that be all?" + +"No." + +"Give me your orders, very reverend Mother." + +"Fauvent, we have confidence in you." + +"I am here to do anything you wish." + +"And to hold your peace about everything!" + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"When the vault is open--" + +"I will close it again." + +"But before that--" + +"What, reverend Mother?" + +"Something must be lowered into it." + +A silence ensued. The prioress, after a pout of the under lip which +resembled hesitation, broke it. + +"Father Fauvent!" + +"Reverend Mother!" + +"You know that a mother died this morning?" + +"No." + +"Did you not hear the bell?" + +"Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden." + +"Really?" + +"I can hardly distinguish my own signal." + +"She died at daybreak." + +"And then, the wind is not blowing in my direction this morning." + +"It was Mother Crucifixion. A blessed woman." + +The prioress paused, moved her lips, as though in mental prayer, and +resumed:-- + +"Three years ago, Madame de Bethune, a Jansenist, turned orthodox, +merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer." + +"Ah! yes, now I hear the knell, reverend Mother." + +"The mothers have taken her to the dead-room, which opens on the +church." + +"I know." + +"No other man than you can or must enter that chamber. See to that. A +fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the dead-room!" + +"More often!" + +"Hey?" + +"More often!" + +"What do you say?" + +"I say more often." + +"More often than what?" + +"Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what, I said more +often." + +"I don't understand you. Why do you say more often?" + +"In order to speak like you, reverend Mother." + +"But I did not say 'more often.'" + +At that moment, nine o'clock struck. + +"At nine o'clock in the morning and at all hours, praised and adored be +the most Holy Sacrament of the altar," said the prioress. + +"Amen," said Fauchelevent. + +The clock struck opportunely. It cut "more often" short. It is probable, +that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never +have unravelled that skein. + +Fauchelevent mopped his forehead. + +The prioress indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, +then raised her voice:-- + +"In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts; after her death, she +will perform miracles." + +"She will!" replied Father Fauchelevent, falling into step, and striving +not to flinch again. + +"Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. +No doubt, it is not granted to every one to die, like Cardinal de +Berulle, while saying the holy mass, and to breathe forth their souls to +God, while pronouncing these words: Hanc igitur oblationem. But without +attaining to such happiness, Mother Crucifixion's death was very +precious. She retained her consciousness to the very last moment. +She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last +commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been +in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it. +She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was +something of paradise in that death." + +Fauchelevent thought that it was an orison which she was finishing. + +"Amen," said he. + +"Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done." + +The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet. Fauchelevent held +his peace. + +She went on:-- + +"I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our +Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and +who bear wonderful fruit." + +"Reverend Mother, you can hear the knell much better here than in the +garden." + +"Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint." + +"Like yourself, reverend Mother." + +"She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by express permission of our +Holy Father, Pius VII.--" + +"The one who crowned the Emp--Buonaparte." + +For a clever man like Fauchelevent, this allusion was an awkward one. +Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did +not hear it. She continued:-- + +"Father Fauvent?" + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"Saint Didorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this single word +might be inscribed on his tomb: Acarus, which signifies, a worm of the +earth; this was done. Is this true?" + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the +gallows; this was done." + +"That is true." + +"Saint Terentius, Bishop of Port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties +into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the +sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that +passers-by would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be +obeyed." + +"So be it." + +"The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near Roche-Abeille, was, +as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the +church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was +Bishop of Tuy in Spain. Can the contrary be affirmed?" + +"For that matter, no, reverend Mother." + +"The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse." + +Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The +prioress resumed:-- + +"Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in +which she has slept for the last twenty years." + +"That is just." + +"It is a continuation of her slumber." + +"So I shall have to nail up that coffin?" + +"Yes." + +"And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin?" + +"Precisely." + +"I am at the orders of the very reverend community." + +"The four Mother Precentors will assist you." + +"In nailing up the coffin? I do not need them." + +"No. In lowering the coffin." + +"Where?" + +"Into the vault." + +"What vault?" + +"Under the altar." + +Fauchelevent started. + +"The vault under the altar?" + +"Under the altar." + +"But--" + +"You will have an iron bar." + +"Yes, but--" + +"You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring." + +"But--" + +"The dead must be obeyed. To be buried in the vault under the altar of +the chapel, not to go to profane earth; to remain there in death where +she prayed while living; such was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion. +She asked it of us; that is to say, commanded us." + +"But it is forbidden." + +"Forbidden by men, enjoined by God." + +"What if it became known?" + +"We have confidence in you." + +"Oh! I am a stone in your walls." + +"The chapter assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted +again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother +Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin, +under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles +here! What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from +tombs." + +"But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission--" + +"Saint Benoit II., in the matter of sepulture, resisted Constantine +Pogonatus." + +"But the commissary of police--" + +"Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered among the Gauls +under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns +to be buried in religion, that is to say, beneath the altar." + +"But the inspector from the Prefecture--" + +"The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh +general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device: Stat crux dum +volvitur orbis." + +"Amen," said Fauchelevent, who imperturbably extricated himself in this +manner from the dilemma, whenever he heard Latin. + +Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On +the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in +his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he +halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it and +made very great efforts to convince it. The prioress, who was usually +subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, +rose and exclaimed with the loquacity of a dam which has broken away:-- + +"I have on my right Benoit and on my left Bernard. Who was Bernard? The +first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is +blest because it gave him birth. His father was named Tecelin, and his +mother Alethe. He began at Citeaux, to end in Clairvaux; he was ordained +abbot by the bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone, Guillaume de Champeaux; he had +seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty monasteries; he +overthrew Abeilard at the council of Sens in 1140, and Pierre de Bruys +and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were +called the Apostolics; he confounded Arnauld de Brescia, darted +lightning at the monk Raoul, the murderer of the Jews, dominated the +council of Reims in 1148, caused the condemnation of Gilbert de Porea, +Bishop of Poitiers, caused the condemnation of Eon de l'Etoile, arranged +the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised Pope +Eugene III., regulated the Temple, preached the crusade, performed +two hundred and fifty miracles during his lifetime, and as many +as thirty-nine in one day. Who was Benoit? He was the patriarch of +Mont-Cassin; he was the second founder of the Saintete Claustrale, +he was the Basil of the West. His order has produced forty popes, two +hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred archbishops, four +thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six +kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints, +and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years. On one side Saint +Bernard, on the other the agent of the sanitary department! On one side +Saint Benoit, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state, +the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the +administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance +passer-by who would not be indignant to see how we are treated. We +have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ! Your sanitary +department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the +commissary of police; such is the age. Silence, Fauvent!" + +Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress +continued:-- + +"No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture. Only fanatics +and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We +do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which +we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist +people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and +the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good +ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so +blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of +Jesus Christ. Louis XVI. was merely a king. Let us beware of God! There +is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not +the name of Cesar de Bus. Nevertheless, Cesar de Bus is a man of blessed +memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last arch-bishop, +the Cardinal de Perigord, did not even know that Charles de +Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Francois Bourgoin to Gondren, +and Jean-Francois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to +Jean-Francois Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because +he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but +because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material +for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint Francois de +Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked. Why? +Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, +was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them +followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that +prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak +to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the +truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts which +are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked people +are! By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the revolution. +One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy +death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint +Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to +the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, +in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the +supremacy of the Emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of Chalons, held his own +in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy +agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on +matters of the day. The Abbot of Citeaux, the general of the order, was +councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We do what +we please with our dead. Is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in +France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Loire, although +he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on Saturday, the 21st of the month +of March, of the year 543? All this is incontestable. I abhor +psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest +yet more any one who should maintain the contrary. One has only to +read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc +d'Achery." + +The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent. + +"Is it settled, Father Fauvent?" + +"It is settled, reverend Mother." + +"We may depend on you?" + +"I will obey." + +"That is well." + +"I am entirely devoted to the convent." + +"That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry +it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be said. Then we +shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you +will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound +secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, +Mother Ascension and yourself." + +"And the sister at the post?" + +"She will not turn round." + +"But she will hear." + +"She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns +not." + +A pause ensued. The prioress went on:-- + +"You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the +post should perceive your presence." + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"What, Father Fauvent?" + +"Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit?" + +"He will pay it at four o'clock to-day. The peal which orders the +doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been rung. But you do not +understand any of the peals?" + +"I pay no attention to any but my own." + +"That is well, Father Fauvent." + +"Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required." + +"Where will you obtain it?" + +"Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my +heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden." + +"About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget." + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"What?" + +"If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the +strong man for you. A perfect Turk!" + +"You will do it as speedily as possible." + +"I cannot work very fast. I am infirm; that is why I require an +assistant. I limp." + +"To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry II., +who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoit VIII., has two +surnames, the Saint and the Lame." + +"Two surtouts are a good thing," murmured Fauchelevent, who really was a +little hard of hearing. + +"Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole hour to it. +That is not too much. Be near the principal altar, with your iron bar, +at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have +been completed a good quarter of an hour before that." + +"I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my +orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to +be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension +will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind! I shall +have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the coffin, and +we will close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace +of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all has been +arranged, reverend Mother?" + +"No!" + +"What else remains?" + +"The empty coffin remains." + +This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated. + +"What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?" + +"It will be given to the earth." + +"Empty?" + +Another silence. Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a +gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject. + +"Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the +basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I +will cover the coffin with the pall." + +"Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it +into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it." + +"Ah! the de--!" exclaimed Fauchelevent. + +The prioress began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at +the gardener. The vil stuck fast in his throat. + +He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath. + +"I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the +effect of a corpse." + +"You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. So you will manage +the empty coffin?" + +"I will make that my special business." + +The prioress's face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene +once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to +him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of +passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:-- + +"I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent; bring your brother to me +to-morrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter." + + + + +CHAPTER IV--IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE AIR OF HAVING READ +AUSTIN CASTILLEJO + +The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; +they do not reach their goal very promptly. Moreover, Fauchelevent +was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his +cottage in the garden. Cosette had waked up. Jean Valjean had placed her +near the fire. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was +pointing out to her the vintner's basket on the wall, and saying to her, +"Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go away from this +house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here. The +good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back in that. +You will wait for me at a lady's house. I shall come to fetch you. Obey, +and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thenardier to +get you again!" + +Cosette nodded gravely. + +Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fauchelevent opening the +door. + +"Well?" + +"Everything is arranged, and nothing is," said Fauchelevent. "I have +permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in you must be +got out. That's where the difficulty lies. It is easy enough with the +child." + +"You will carry her out?" + +"And she will hold her tongue?" + +"I answer for that." + +"But you, Father Madeleine?" + +And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- + +"Why, get out as you came in!" + +Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, contented himself with saying, +"Impossible." + +Fauchelevent grumbled, more to himself than to Jean Valjean:-- + +"There is another thing which bothers me. I have said that I would put +earth in it. When I come to think it over, the earth instead of the +corpse will not seem like the real thing, it won't do, it will get +displaced, it will move about. The men will bear it. You understand, +Father Madeleine, the government will notice it." + +Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought that he was +raving. + +Fauchelevent went on:-- + +"How the de--uce are you going to get out? It must all be done by +to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The +prioress expects you." + +Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a +service which he, Fauchelevent, was to render to the community. That it +fell among his duties to take part in their burials, that he nailed up +the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun +who had died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which +had served her for a bed, and interred in the vault under the altar of +the chapel. That the police regulations forbade this, but that she was +one of those dead to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress and the +vocal mothers intended to fulfil the wish of the deceased. That it was +so much the worse for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, was to nail +up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the +corpse into the vault. And that, by way of thanks, the prioress was to +admit his brother to the house as a gardener, and his niece as a pupil. +That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That +the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening, +after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery. But that he could not +bring M. Madeleine in from the outside if M. Madeleine was not outside. +That that was the first problem. And then, that there was another: the +empty coffin. + +"What is that empty coffin?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"The coffin of the administration." + +"What coffin? What administration?" + +"A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, 'A nun has died.' +The government sends a coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and +undertaker's men to get the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The +undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in +it." + +"Put something in it." + +"A corpse? I have none." + +"No." + +"What then?" + +"A living person." + +"What person?" + +"Me!" said Jean Valjean. + +Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a bomb had burst under +his chair. + +"You!" + +"Why not?" + +Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which lighted up his +face like a flash from heaven in the winter. + +"You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said: 'Mother Crucifixion is +dead.' and I add: 'and Father Madeleine is buried.'" + +"Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking seriously." + +"Very seriously, I must get out of this place." + +"Certainly." + +"l have told you to find a basket, and a cover for me also." + +"Well?" + +"The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth." + +"In the first place, it will be a white cloth. Nuns are buried in +white." + +"Let it be a white cloth, then." + +"You are not like other men, Father Madeleine." + +To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and +daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things +which surrounded him, and mingle with what he called the "petty course +of life in the convent," caused Fauchelevent as much amazement as a +gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue Saint-Denis would inspire in a +passer-by. + +Jean Valjean went on:-- + +"The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers +the means. But give me some information, in the first place. How is it +managed? Where is this coffin?" + +"The empty one?" + +"Yes." + +"Down stairs, in what is called the dead-room. It stands on two +trestles, under the pall." + +"How long is the coffin?" + +"Six feet." + +"What is this dead-room?" + +"It is a chamber on the ground floor which has a grated window opening +on the garden, which is closed on the outside by a shutter, and two +doors; one leads into the convent, the other into the church." + +"What church?" + +"The church in the street, the church which any one can enter." + +"Have you the keys to those two doors?" + +"No; I have the key to the door which communicates with the convent; the +porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." + +"When does the porter open that door?" + +"Only to allow the undertaker's men to enter, when they come to get the +coffin. When the coffin has been taken out, the door is closed again." + +"Who nails up the coffin?" + +"I do." + +"Who spreads the pall over it?" + +"I do." + +"Are you alone?" + +"Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead-room. +That is even written on the wall." + +"Could you hide me in that room to-night when every one is asleep?" + +"No. But I could hide you in a small, dark nook which opens on the +dead-room, where I keep my tools to use for burials, and of which I have +the key." + +"At what time will the hearse come for the coffin to-morrow?" + +"About three o'clock in the afternoon. The burial will take place at the +Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not very near." + +"I will remain concealed in your tool-closet all night and all the +morning. And how about food? I shall be hungry." + +"I will bring you something." + +"You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock." + +Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-joints. + +"But that is impossible!" + +"Bah! Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails in a plank?" + +What seemed unprecedented to Fauchelevent was, we repeat, a simple +matter to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had been in worse straits than +this. Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract +himself to fit the diameter of the escape. The prisoner is subject to +flight as the sick man is subject to a crisis which saves or kills him. +An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a +cure? To have himself nailed up in a case and carried off like a bale +of goods, to live for a long time in a box, to find air where there is +none, to economize his breath for hours, to know how to stifle without +dying--this was one of Jean Valjean's gloomy talents. + +Moreover, a coffin containing a living being,--that convict's +expedient,--is also an imperial expedient. If we are to credit the monk +Austin Castillejo, this was the means employed by Charles the Fifth, +desirous of seeing the Plombes for the last time after his abdication. + +He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste +in this manner. + +Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:-- + +"But how will you manage to breathe?" + +"I will breathe." + +"In that box! The mere thought of it suffocates me." + +"You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and +there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely." + +"Good! And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze?" + +"A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze." + +And Jean Valjean added:-- + +"Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision: I must either be +caught here, or accept this escape through the hearse." + +Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging +between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not +said to a cat, "Do come in!" There are men who, when an incident stands +half-open before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision +between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the +abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they +are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than +the audacious. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature. But +Jean Valjean's coolness prevailed over him in spite of himself. He +grumbled:-- + +"Well, since there is no other means." + +Jean Valjean resumed:-- + +"The only thing which troubles me is what will take place at the +cemetery." + +"That is the very point that is not troublesome," exclaimed +Fauchelevent. "If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all right, I +am sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-digger is a drunkard, +and a friend of mine. He is Father Mestienne. An old fellow of the old +school. The grave-digger puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the +grave-digger in my pocket. I will tell you what will take place. They +will arrive a little before dusk, three-quarters of an hour before the +gates of the cemetery are closed. The hearse will drive directly up to +the grave. I shall follow; that is my business. I shall have a hammer, +a chisel, and some pincers in my pocket. The hearse halts, the +undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The +priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy +water, and takes his departure. I am left alone with Father Mestienne. +He is my friend, I tell you. One of two things will happen, he will +either be sober, or he will not be sober. If he is not drunk, I shall +say to him: 'Come and drink a bout while the Bon Coing [the Good Quince] +is open.' I carry him off, I get him drunk,--it does not take long to +make Father Mestienne drunk, he always has the beginning of it about +him,--I lay him under the table, I take his card, so that I can get into +the cemetery again, and I return without him. Then you have no longer +any one but me to deal with. If he is drunk, I shall say to him: 'Be +off; I will do your work for you.' Off he goes, and I drag you out of +the hole." + +Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself +upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant. + +"That is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well." + +"Provided nothing goes wrong," thought Fauchelevent. "In that case, it +would be terrible." + + + + +CHAPTER V--IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE DRUNK IN ORDER TO BE IMMORTAL + +On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by +on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned +hearse, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and tears. This hearse +contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large +black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourning-coach, in +which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red +cap, followed. Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black +walked on the right and the left of the hearse. Behind it came an old +man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along. The procession was +going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery. + +The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antennae of +a pair of pincers were visible, protruding from the man's pocket. + +The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries of +Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage +entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung +tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavaliere and the +porte pietonne.[16] The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Rue Petit-Picpus +had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there +in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land having formerly +belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being thus bound to +service in the evening in summer and at night in winter, in this +cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the +Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a +municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the +rest. The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated +gates, adjoining a pavilion built by the architect Perronet, and +inhabited by the door-keeper of the cemetery. These gates, therefore, +swung inexorably on their hinges at the instant when the sun disappeared +behind the dome of the Invalides. If any grave-digger were delayed +after that moment in the cemetery, there was but one way for him to +get out--his grave-digger's card furnished by the department of public +funerals. A sort of letter-box was constructed in the porter's window. +The grave-digger dropped his card into this box, the porter heard it +fall, pulled the rope, and the small door opened. If the man had not his +card, he mentioned his name, the porter, who was sometimes in bed and +asleep, rose, came out and identified the man, and opened the gate with +his key; the grave-digger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen +francs. + +This cemetery, with its peculiarities outside the regulations, +embarrassed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed +a little later than 1830. The cemetery of Mont-Parnasse, called the +Eastern cemetery, succeeded to it, and inherited that famous dram-shop +next to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted +on a board, and which formed an angle, one side on the drinkers' tables, +and the other on the tombs, with this sign: Au Bon Coing. + +The Vaugirard cemetery was what may be called a faded cemetery. It +was falling into disuse. Dampness was invading it, the flowers were +deserting it. The bourgeois did not care much about being buried in +the Vaugirard; it hinted at poverty. Pere-Lachaise if you please! to be +buried in Pere-Lachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany. +It is recognized as elegant. The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable +enclosure, planted like an old-fashioned French garden. Straight alleys, +box, thuya-trees, holly, ancient tombs beneath aged cypress-trees, and +very tall grass. In the evening it was tragic there. There were very +lugubrious lines about it. + +The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and the +black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man +who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent. + +The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, the +exit of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean to the dead-room,--all +had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch. + +Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under +the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight. It +is one of the faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had committed it, +not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own +consciences. In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only +an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always +questionable. In the first place, the rule; as for the code, we shall +see. Make as many laws as you please, men; but keep them for yourselves. +The tribute to Caesar is never anything but the remnants of the tribute +to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle. + +Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame +of mind. His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, +the other against it, the other with M. Madeleine, had succeeded, to +all appearance. Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful +tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt +doubtful as to his success. + +What remained to be done was a mere nothing. Within the last two years, +he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubby-cheeked person, drunk at +least ten times. He played with Father Mestienne. He did what he liked +with him. He made him dance according to his whim. Mestienne's head +adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's +confidence was perfect. + +At the moment when the convoy entered the avenue leading to the +cemetery, Fauchelevent glanced cheerfully at the hearse, and said half +aloud, as he rubbed his big hands:-- + +"Here's a fine farce!" + +All at once the hearse halted; it had reached the gate. The permission +for interment must be exhibited. The undertaker's man addressed himself +to the porter of the cemetery. During this colloquy, which always is +productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, +came and placed himself behind the hearse, beside Fauchelevent. He was +a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and +carried a mattock under his arm. + +Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger. + +"Who are you?" he demanded. + +"The man replied:-- + +"The grave-digger." + +If a man could survive the blow of a cannon-ball full in the breast, he +would make the same face that Fauchelevent made. + +"The grave-digger?" + +"Yes." + +"You?" + +"I." + +"Father Mestienne is the grave-digger." + +"He was." + +"What! He was?" + +"He is dead." + +Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could +die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By +dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one's own. + +Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open. He had hardly the +strength to stammer:-- + +"But it is not possible!" + +"It is so." + +"But," he persisted feebly, "Father Mestienne is the grave-digger." + +"After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name +is Gribier." + +Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier. + +He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man. He had the air of an +unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger. + +Fauchelevent burst out laughing. + +"Ah!" said he, "what queer things do happen! Father Mestienne is dead, +but long live little Father Lenoir! Do you know who little Father Lenoir +is? He is a jug of red wine. It is a jug of Surene, morbigou! of real +Paris Surene? Ah! So old Mestienne is dead! I am sorry for it; he was +a jolly fellow. But you are a jolly fellow, too. Are you not, comrade? +We'll go and have a drink together presently." + +The man replied:-- + +"I have been a student. I passed my fourth examination. I never drink." + +The hearse had set out again, and was rolling up the grand alley of the +cemetery. + +Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped more out of anxiety than +from infirmity. + +The grave-digger walked on in front of him. + +Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. + +He was one of those men who, though very young, have the air of age, and +who, though slender, are extremely strong. + +"Comrade!" cried Fauchelevent. + +The man turned round. + +"I am the convent grave-digger." + +"My colleague," said the man. + +Fauchelevent, who was illiterate but very sharp, understood that he +had to deal with a formidable species of man, with a fine talker. He +muttered: + +"So Father Mestienne is dead." + +The man replied:-- + +"Completely. The good God consulted his note-book which shows when the +time is up. It was Father Mestienne's turn. Father Mestienne died." + +Fauchelevent repeated mechanically: "The good God--" + +"The good God," said the man authoritatively. "According to the +philosophers, the Eternal Father; according to the Jacobins, the Supreme +Being." + +"Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?" stammered Fauchelevent. + +"It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian." + +"People do not know each other until they have drunk together. He who +empties his glass empties his heart. You must come and have a drink with +me. Such a thing cannot be refused." + +"Business first." + +Fauchelevent thought: "I am lost." + +They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley +leading to the nuns' corner. + +The grave-digger resumed:-- + +"Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As they must eat, +I cannot drink." + +And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a +phrase well:-- + +"Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst." + +The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, +turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into +a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of +sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the +hearse. Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter +rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed. + +He approached the grave-digger. + +"They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine," murmured Fauchelevent. + +"Villager," retorted the man, "I ought not be a grave-digger. My +father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall]. He destined me for +literature. But he had reverses. He had losses on 'change. I was obliged +to renounce the profession of author. But I am still a public writer." + +"So you are not a grave-digger, then?" returned Fauchelevent, clutching +at this branch, feeble as it was. + +"The one does not hinder the other. I cumulate." + +Fauchelevent did not understand this last word. + +"Come have a drink," said he. + +Here a remark becomes necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever his anguish, +offered a drink, but he did not explain himself on one point; who was to +pay? Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer +of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the +new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old +gardener left the proverbial quarter of an hour named after Rabelais in +the dark, and that not unintentionally. As for himself, Fauchelevent did +not wish to pay, troubled as he was. + +The grave-digger went on with a superior smile:-- + +"One must eat. I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to +be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his classes. To the labor +of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in +the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the +cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of +love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the +evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic." + +The hearse was still advancing. Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, +was gazing about him on all sides. Great drops of perspiration trickled +down from his brow. + +"But," continued the grave-digger, "a man cannot serve two mistresses. +I must choose between the pen and the mattock. The mattock is ruining my +hand." + +The hearse halted. + +The choir boy alighted from the mourning-coach, then the priest. + +One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a +pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible. + +"What a farce this is!" repeated Fauchelevent in consternation. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS + +Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist there, and he +could almost breathe. + +It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience confers +security of the rest. Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean had +been progressing, and progressing favorably, since the preceding day. +He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt +as to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, never more +complete composure. + +The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible peace. It +seemed as though something of the repose of the dead entered into Jean +Valjean's tranquillity. + +From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had +followed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing with +death. + +Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, Jean +Valjean had felt himself carried out, then driven off. He knew, from the +diminution in the jolting, when they left the pavements and reached the +earth road. He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossing +the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that they +were entering the cemetery; at the second halt, he said to himself:-- + +"Here is the grave." + +Suddenly, he felt hands seize the coffin, then a harsh grating against +the planks; he explained it to himself as the rope which was being +fastened round the casket in order to lower it into the cavity. + +Then he experienced a giddiness. + +The undertaker's man and the grave-digger had probably allowed the +coffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head before the foot. He +recovered himself fully when he felt himself horizontal and motionless. +He had just touched the bottom. + +He had a certain sensation of cold. + +A voice rose above him, glacial and solemn. He heard Latin words, which +he did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able to +catch them one by one:-- + +"Qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam aeternam, et +alii in approbrium, ut videant semper." + +A child's voice said:-- + +"De profundis." + +The grave voice began again:-- + +"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine." + +The child's voice responded:-- + +"Et lux perpetua luceat ei." + +He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on +the plank which covered him. It was probably the holy water. + +He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a little while +longer. The priest will take his departure. Fauchelevent will take +Mestienne off to drink. I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will return +alone, and I shall get out. That will be the work of a good hour." + +The grave voice resumed + +"Requiescat in pace." + +And the child's voice said:-- + +"Amen." + +Jean Valjean strained his ears, and heard something like retreating +footsteps. + +"There, they are going now," thought he. "I am alone." + +All at once, he heard over his head a sound which seemed to him to be a +clap of thunder. + +It was a shovelful of earth falling on the coffin. + +A second shovelful fell. + +One of the holes through which he breathed had just been stopped up. + +A third shovelful of earth fell. + +Then a fourth. + +There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean +Valjean lost consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE ORIGIN OF THE SAYING: DON'T LOSE +THE CARD + +This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean. + +When the hearse had driven off, when the priest and the choir boy had +entered the carriage again and taken their departure, Fauchelevent, who +had not taken his eyes from the grave-digger, saw the latter bend over +and grasp his shovel, which was sticking upright in the heap of dirt. + +Then Fauchelevent took a supreme resolve. + +He placed himself between the grave and the grave-digger, crossed his +arms and said:-- + +"I am the one to pay!" + +The grave-digger stared at him in amazement, and replied:-- + +"What's that, peasant?" + +Fauchelevent repeated:-- + +"I am the one who pays!" + +"What?" + +"For the wine." + +"What wine?" + +"That Argenteuil wine." + +"Where is the Argenteuil?" + +"At the Bon Coing." + +"Go to the devil!" said the grave-digger. + +And he flung a shovelful of earth on the coffin. + +The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt himself stagger +and on the point of falling headlong into the grave himself. He shouted +in a voice in which the strangling sound of the death rattle began to +mingle:-- + +"Comrade! Before the Bon Coing is shut!" + +The grave-digger took some more earth on his shovel. Fauchelevent +continued. + +"I will pay." + +And he seized the man's arm. + +"Listen to me, comrade. I am the convent grave-digger, I have come +to help you. It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us +begin, then, by going for a drink." + +And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy +reflection occurred to him: "And if he drinks, will he get drunk?" + +"Provincial," said the man, "if you positively insist upon it, I +consent. We will drink. After work, never before." + +And he flourished his shovel briskly. Fauchelevent held him back. + +"It is Argenteuil wine, at six." + +"Oh, come," said the grave-digger, "you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, +ding dong, that's all you know how to say. Go hang yourself." + +And he threw in a second shovelful. + +Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was +saying. + +"Come along and drink," he cried, "since it is I who pays the bill." + +"When we have put the child to bed," said the grave-digger. + +He flung in a third shovelful. + +Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:-- + +"It's cold to-night, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us +if we were to plant her there without a coverlet." + +At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, +and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped. Fauchelevent's wild gaze fell +mechanically into that pocket, and there it stopped. + +The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon; there was still light +enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of +that yawning pocket. + +The sum total of lightning that the eye of a Picard peasant can contain, +traversed Fauchelevent's pupils. An idea had just occurred to him. + +He thrust his hand into the pocket from behind, without the +grave-digger, who was wholly absorbed in his shovelful of earth, +observing it, and pulled out the white object which lay at the bottom of +it. + +The man sent a fourth shovelful tumbling into the grave. + +Just as he turned round to get the fifth, Fauchelevent looked calmly at +him and said:-- + +"By the way, you new man, have you your card?" + +The grave-digger paused. + +"What card?" + +"The sun is on the point of setting." + +"That's good, it is going to put on its nightcap." + +"The gate of the cemetery will close immediately." + +"Well, what then?" + +"Have you your card?" + +"Ah! my card?" said the grave-digger. + +And he fumbled in his pocket. + +Having searched one pocket, he proceeded to search the other. He passed +on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. + +"Why, no," said he, "I have not my card. I must have forgotten it." + +"Fifteen francs fine," said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger turned green. Green is the pallor of livid people. + +"Ah! Jesus-mon-Dieu-bancroche-a-bas-la-lune!"[17] he exclaimed. "Fifteen +francs fine!" + +"Three pieces of a hundred sous," said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger dropped his shovel. + +Fauchelevent's turn had come. + +"Ah, come now, conscript," said Fauchelevent, "none of this despair. +There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. +Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to +pay it. I am an old hand, you are a new one. I know all the ropes and +the devices. I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, +the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the +cemetery will be closed in five minutes more." + +"That is true," replied the man. + +"Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is +as hollow as the devil, this grave, and to reach the gate in season to +pass it before it is shut." + +"That is true." + +"In that case, a fine of fifteen francs." + +"Fifteen francs." + +"But you have time. Where do you live?" + +"A couple of steps from the barrier, a quarter of an hour from here. No. +87 Rue de Vaugirard." + +"You have just time to get out by taking to your heels at your best +speed." + +"That is exactly so." + +"Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, +the cemetery porter admits you. As you have your card, there will be +nothing to pay. And you will bury your corpse. I'll watch it for you in +the meantime, so that it shall not run away." + +"I am indebted to you for my life, peasant." + +"Decamp!" said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger, overwhelmed with gratitude, shook his hand and set off +on a run. + +When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until +he heard his footsteps die away in the distance, then he leaned over the +grave, and said in a low tone:-- + +"Father Madeleine!" + +There was no reply. + +Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder. He tumbled rather than climbed +into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried:-- + +"Are you there?" + +Silence in the coffin. + +Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his +cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid. + +Jean Valjean's face appeared in the twilight; it was pale and his eyes +were closed. + +Fauchelevent's hair rose upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, +then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the +coffin. He stared at Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless. + +Fauchelevent murmured in a voice as faint as a sigh:-- + +"He is dead!" + +And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that +his clenched fists came in contact with his shoulders, he cried:-- + +"And this is the way I save his life!" + +Then the poor man fell to sobbing. He soliloquized the while, for it is +an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural. Powerful emotion +often talks aloud. + +"It is Father Mestienne's fault. Why did that fool die? What need was +there for him to give up the ghost at the very moment when no one was +expecting it? It is he who has killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! +He is in the coffin. It is quite handy. All is over. Now, is there any +sense in these things? Ah! my God! he is dead! Well! and his little +girl, what am I to do with her? What will the fruit-seller say? The idea +of its being possible for a man like that to die like this! When I think +how he put himself under that cart! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! +Pardine! He was suffocated, I said so. He wouldn't believe me. Well! +Here's a pretty trick to play! He is dead, that good man, the very best +man out of all the good God's good folks! And his little girl! Ah! In +the first place, I won't go back there myself. I shall stay here. After +having done such a thing as that! What's the use of being two old men, +if we are two old fools! But, in the first place, how did he manage to +enter the convent? That was the beginning of it all. One should not +do such things. Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! +Madeleine! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire! He does not hear me. +Now get out of this scrape if you can!" + +And he tore his hair. + +A grating sound became audible through the trees in the distance. It was +the cemetery gate closing. + +Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once he bounded back and +recoiled so far as the limits of a grave permit. + +Jean Valjean's eyes were open and gazing at him. + +To see a corpse is alarming, to behold a resurrection is almost as much +so. Fauchelevent became like stone, pale, haggard, overwhelmed by all +these excesses of emotion, not knowing whether he had to do with a +living man or a dead one, and staring at Jean Valjean, who was gazing at +him. + +[Illustration: The Resurrection 2b8-7-resurrection] + +"I fell asleep," said Jean Valjean. + +And he raised himself to a sitting posture. + +Fauchelevent fell on his knees. + +"Just, good Virgin! How you frightened me!" + +Then he sprang to his feet and cried:-- + +"Thanks, Father Madeleine!" + +Jean Valjean had merely fainted. The fresh air had revived him. + +Joy is the ebb of terror. Fauchelevent found almost as much difficulty +in recovering himself as Jean Valjean had. + +"So you are not dead! Oh! How wise you are! I called you so much that +you came back. When I saw your eyes shut, I said: 'Good! there he is, +stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket. +They would have put me in Bicetre. What do you suppose I should +have done if you had been dead? And your little girl? There's that +fruit-seller,--she would never have understood it! The child is thrust +into your arms, and then--the grandfather is dead! What a story! good +saints of paradise, what a tale! Ah! you are alive, that's the best of +it!" + +"I am cold," said Jean Valjean. + +This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was +pressing need of it. The souls of these two men were troubled even when +they had recovered themselves, although they did not realize it, +and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister +bewilderment inspired by the place. + +"Let us get out of here quickly," exclaimed Fauchelevent. + +He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a gourd with which he had +provided himself. + +"But first, take a drop," said he. + +The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed +a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties. + +He got out of the coffin, and helped Fauchelevent to nail on the lid +again. + +Three minutes later they were out of the grave. + +Moreover, Fauchelevent was perfectly composed. He took his time. The +cemetery was closed. The arrival of the grave-digger Gribier was not to +be apprehended. That "conscript" was at home busily engaged in looking +for his card, and at some difficulty in finding it in his lodgings, +since it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without a card, he could not get +back into the cemetery. + +Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pick-axe, and +together they buried the empty coffin. + +When the grave was full, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:-- + +"Let us go. I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock." + +Night was falling. + +Jean Valjean experienced rome difficulty in moving and in walking. He +had stiffened himself in that coffin, and had become a little like a +corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four +planks. He had, in a manner, to thaw out, from the tomb. + +"You are benumbed," said Fauchelevent. "It is a pity that I have a game +leg, for otherwise we might step out briskly." + +"Bah!" replied Jean Valjean, "four paces will put life into my legs once +more." + +They set off by the alleys through which the hearse had passed. On +arriving before the closed gate and the porter's pavilion Fauchelevent, +who held the grave-digger's card in his hand, dropped it into the box, +the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out. + +"How well everything is going!" said Fauchelevent; "what a capital idea +that was of yours, Father Madeleine!" + +They passed the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest manner in the world. +In the neighborhood of the cemetery, a shovel and pick are equal to two +passports. + +The Rue Vaugirard was deserted. + +"Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising +his eyes to the houses, "Your eyes are better than mine. Show me No. +87." + +"Here it is," said Jean Valjean. + +"There is no one in the street," said Fauchelevent. "Give me your +mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me." + +Fauchelevent entered No. 87, ascended to the very top, guided by the +instinct which always leads the poor man to the garret, and knocked in +the dark, at the door of an attic. + +A voice replied: "Come in." + +It was Gribier's voice. + +Fauchelevent opened the door. The grave-digger's dwelling was, like +all such wretched habitations, an unfurnished and encumbered garret. +A packing-case--a coffin, perhaps--took the place of a commode, a +butter-pot served for a drinking-fountain, a straw mattress served for +a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs. In a corner, on a +tattered fragment which had been a piece of an old carpet, a thin +woman and a number of children were piled in a heap. The whole of this +poverty-stricken interior bore traces of having been overturned. One +would have said that there had been an earthquake "for one." The covers +were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had +been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous +and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the grave-digger had made +a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, +from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore an air of +desperation. + +But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry to terminate this adventure to +take any notice of this sad side of his success. + +He entered and said:-- + +"I have brought you back your shovel and pick." + +Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction. + +"Is it you, peasant?" + +"And to-morrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the +cemetery." + +And he laid the shovel and mattock on the floor. + +"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gribier. + +"The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket, +that I found it on the ground after you were gone, that I have buried +the corpse, that I have filled the grave, that I have done your work, +that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have +to pay fifteen francs. There you have it, conscript." + +"Thanks, villager!" exclaimed Gribier, radiant. "The next time I will +pay for the drinks." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY + +An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented +themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the +knocker and rapped. + +They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette. + +The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in +the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where Fauchelevent had deposited her on the +preceding day. Cosette had passed these twenty-four hours trembling +silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that +she wept. She had neither eaten nor slept. The worthy fruit-seller had +plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply +than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of +what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that +they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was +necessary to "be good." Who has not experienced the sovereign power +of those two words, pronounced with a certain accent in the ear of a +terrified little being: Say nothing! Fear is mute. Moreover, no one +guards a secret like a child. + +But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twenty-four hours, she +beheld Jean Valjean again, she gave vent to such a cry of joy, that any +thoughtful person who had chanced to hear that cry, would have guessed +that it issued from an abyss. + +Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the pass-words. All the +doors opened. + +Thus was solved the double and alarming problem of how to get out and +how to get in. + +The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the little +servant's door which connected the courtyard with the garden, and which +could still be seen from the street twenty years ago, in the wall at the +bottom of the court, which faced the carriage entrance. + +The porter admitted all three of them through this door, and from that +point they reached the inner, reserved parlor where Fauchelevent, on the +preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress. + +The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vocal mother, with +her veil lowered, stood beside her. + +A discreet candle lighted, one might almost say, made a show of lighting +the parlor. + +The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is nothing which +examines like a downcast eye. + +Then she questioned him:-- + +"You are the brother?" + +"Yes, reverend Mother," replied Fauchelevent. + +"What is your name?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Ultime Fauchelevent." + +He really had had a brother named Ultime, who was dead. + +"Where do you come from?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"From Picquigny, near Amiens." + +"What is your age?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Fifty." + +"What is your profession?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Gardener." + +"Are you a good Christian?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Every one is in the family." + +"Is this your little girl?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"You are her father?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Her grandfather." + +The vocal mother said to the prioress in a low voice + +"He answers well." + +Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. + +The prioress looked attentively at Cosette, and said half aloud to the +vocal mother:-- + +"She will grow up ugly." + +The two mothers consulted for a few moments in very low tones in the +corner of the parlor, then the prioress turned round and said:-- + +"Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap with a bell. Two will be +required now." + +On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, +and the nuns could not resist the temptation to raise the corner of +their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two +men, Fauvent and another man, were visible as they dug side by side. An +enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each +other: "He is an assistant gardener." + +The vocal mothers added: "He is a brother of Father Fauvent." + +Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his belled +knee-cap; henceforth he was official. His name was Ultime Fauchelevent. + +The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the +prioress's observation upon Cosette: "She will grow up ugly." + +The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, immediately took a fancy +to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil. + +There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this. + +It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are +conscious of their faces; now, girls who are conscious of their beauty +do not easily become nuns; the vocation being voluntary in inverse +proportion to their good looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than +from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls. + +The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good, old +Fauchelevent; he won a triple success; in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom +he had saved and sheltered; in those of grave-digger Gribier, who said +to himself: "He spared me that fine"; with the convent, which, being +enabled, thanks to him, to retain the coffin of Mother Crucifixion +under the altar, eluded Caesar and satisfied God. There was a coffin +containing a body in the Petit-Picpus, and a coffin without a body in +the Vaugirard cemetery, public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed +thereby, but no one was aware of it. + +As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was very great. +Fauchelevent became the best of servitors and the most precious of +gardeners. Upon the occasion of the archbishop's next visit, the +prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a +confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving +the convent, the archbishop mentioned it with approval, and in a whisper +to M. de Latil, Monsieur's confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Reims +and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it +made its way to Rome. We have seen a note addressed by the then reigning +Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, a Monsignor in the Nuncio's +establishment in Paris, and bearing, like himself, the name of Della +Genga; it contained these lines: "It appears that there is in a convent +in Paris an excellent gardener, who is also a holy man, named Fauvent." +Nothing of this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut; he went on +grafting, weeding, and covering up his melon beds, without in the least +suspecting his excellences and his sanctity. Neither did he suspect his +glory, any more than a Durham or Surrey bull whose portrait is published +in the London Illustrated News, with this inscription: "Bull which +carried off the prize at the Cattle Show." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--CLOISTERED + +Cosette continued to hold her tongue in the convent. + +It was quite natural that Cosette should think herself Jean Valjean's +daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and +then, she would not have said anything in any case. As we have just +observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness. Cosette +had suffered so much, that she feared everything, even to speak or to +breathe. A single word had so often brought down an avalanche upon her. +She had hardly begun to regain her confidence since she had been with +Jean Valjean. She speedily became accustomed to the convent. Only she +regretted Catherine, but she dared not say so. Once, however, she did +say to Jean Valjean: "Father, if I had known, I would have brought her +away with me." + +Cosette had been obliged, on becoming a scholar in the convent, to don +the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting +them to restore to him the garments which she laid aside. This was the +same mourning suit which he had made her put on when she had quitted +the Thenardiers' inn. It was not very threadbare even now. Jean Valjean +locked up these garments, plus the stockings and the shoes, with a +quantity of camphor and all the aromatics in which convents abound, in a +little valise which he found means of procuring. He set this valise on +a chair near his bed, and he always carried the key about his person. +"Father," Cosette asked him one day, "what is there in that box which +smells so good?" + +Father Fauchelevent received other recompense for his good action, in +addition to the glory which we just mentioned, and of which he knew +nothing; in the first place it made him happy; next, he had much less +work, since it was shared. Lastly, as he was very fond of snuff, he +found the presence of M. Madeleine an advantage, in that he used three +times as much as he had done previously, and that in an infinitely more +luxurious manner, seeing that M. Madeleine paid for it. + +The nuns did not adopt the name of Ultime; they called Jean Valjean the +other Fauvent. + +If these holy women had possessed anything of Javert's glance, they +would eventually have noticed that when there was any errand to be +done outside in the behalf of the garden, it was always the elder +Fauchelevent, the old, the infirm, the lame man, who went, and never the +other; but whether it is that eyes constantly fixed on God know not how +to spy, or whether they were, by preference, occupied in keeping watch +on each other, they paid no heed to this. + +Moreover, it was well for Jean Valjean that he kept close and did not +stir out. Javert watched the quarter for more than a month. + +This convent was for Jean Valjean like an island surrounded by gulfs. +Henceforth, those four walls constituted his world. He saw enough of the +sky there to enable him to preserve his serenity, and Cosette enough to +remain happy. + +A very sweet life began for him. + +He inhabited the old hut at the end of the garden, in company with +Fauchelevent. This hovel, built of old rubbish, which was still in +existence in 1845, was composed, as the reader already knows, of three +chambers, all of which were utterly bare and had nothing beyond the +walls. The principal one had been given up, by force, for Jean Valjean +had opposed it in vain, to M. Madeleine, by Father Fauchelevent. The +walls of this chamber had for ornament, in addition to the two nails +whereon to hang the knee-cap and the basket, a Royalist bank-note +of '93, applied to the wall over the chimney-piece, and of which the +following is an exact facsimile:-- + + +[Illustration: Royalist Bank-note 2b8-9-banknote] + + +This specimen of Vendean paper money had been nailed to the wall by +the preceding gardener, an old Chouan, who had died in the convent, and +whose place Fauchelevent had taken. + +Jean Valjean worked in the garden every day and made himself very +useful. He had formerly been a pruner of trees, and he gladly found +himself a gardener once more. It will be remembered that he knew all +sorts of secrets and receipts for agriculture. He turned these to +advantage. Almost all the trees in the orchard were ungrafted, and wild. +He budded them and made them produce excellent fruit. + +Cosette had permission to pass an hour with him every day. As the +sisters were melancholy and he was kind, the child made comparisons and +adored him. At the appointed hour she flew to the hut. When she entered +the lowly cabin, she filled it with paradise. Jean Valjean blossomed +out and felt his happiness increase with the happiness which he afforded +Cosette. The joy which we inspire has this charming property, that, far +from growing meagre, like all reflections, it returns to us more radiant +than ever. At recreation hours, Jean Valjean watched her running and +playing in the distance, and he distinguished her laugh from that of the +rest. + +For Cosette laughed now. + +Cosette's face had even undergone a change, to a certain extent. The +gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine; it +banishes winter from the human countenance. + +Recreation over, when Cosette went into the house again, Jean Valjean +gazed at the windows of her class-room, and at night he rose to look at +the windows of her dormitory. + +God has his own ways, moreover; the convent contributed, like Cosette, +to uphold and complete the Bishop's work in Jean Valjean. It is certain +that virtue adjoins pride on one side. A bridge built by the devil +exists there. Jean Valjean had been, unconsciously, perhaps, tolerably +near that side and that bridge, when Providence cast his lot in the +convent of the Petit-Picpus; so long as he had compared himself only to +the Bishop, he had regarded himself as unworthy and had remained humble; +but for some time past he had been comparing himself to men in general, +and pride was beginning to spring up. Who knows? He might have ended by +returning very gradually to hatred. + +The convent stopped him on that downward path. + +This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, +in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite +recently again, he had beheld another,--a frightful place, a terrible +place, whose severities had always appeared to him the iniquity of +justice, and the crime of the law. Now, after the galleys, he saw the +cloister; and when he meditated how he had formed a part of the galleys, +and that he now, so to speak, was a spectator of the cloister, he +confronted the two in his own mind with anxiety. + +Sometimes he crossed his arms and leaned on his hoe, and slowly +descended the endless spirals of revery. + +He recalled his former companions: how wretched they were; they rose at +dawn, and toiled until night; hardly were they permitted to sleep; they +lay on camp beds, where nothing was tolerated but mattresses two inches +thick, in rooms which were heated only in the very harshest months of +the year; they were clothed in frightful red blouses; they were allowed, +as a great favor, linen trousers in the hottest weather, and a woollen +carter's blouse on their backs when it was very cold; they drank no +wine, and ate no meat, except when they went on "fatigue duty." They +lived nameless, designated only by numbers, and converted, after a +manner, into ciphers themselves, with downcast eyes, with lowered +voices, with shorn heads, beneath the cudgel and in disgrace. + +Then his mind reverted to the beings whom he had under his eyes. + +These beings also lived with shorn heads, with downcast eyes, with +lowered voices, not in disgrace, but amid the scoffs of the world, +not with their backs bruised with the cudgel, but with their shoulders +lacerated with their discipline. Their names, also, had vanished from +among men; they no longer existed except under austere appellations. +They never ate meat and they never drank wine; they often remained until +evening without food; they were attired, not in a red blouse, but in a +black shroud, of woollen, which was heavy in summer and thin in winter, +without the power to add or subtract anything from it; without having +even, according to the season, the resource of the linen garment or the +woollen cloak; and for six months in the year they wore serge chemises +which gave them fever. They dwelt, not in rooms warmed only during +rigorous cold, but in cells where no fire was ever lighted; they slept, +not on mattresses two inches thick, but on straw. And finally, they were +not even allowed their sleep; every night, after a day of toil, they +were obliged, in the weariness of their first slumber, at the moment +when they were falling sound asleep and beginning to get warm, to rouse +themselves, to rise and to go and pray in an ice-cold and gloomy chapel, +with their knees on the stones. + +On certain days each of these beings in turn had to remain for twelve +successive hours in a kneeling posture, or prostrate, with face upon the +pavement, and arms outstretched in the form of a cross. + +The others were men; these were women. + +What had those men done? They had stolen, violated, pillaged, +murdered, assassinated. They were bandits, counterfeiters, poisoners, +incendiaries, murderers, parricides. What had these women done? They had +done nothing whatever. + +On the one hand, highway robbery, fraud, deceit, violence, sensuality, +homicide, all sorts of sacrilege, every variety of crime; on the other, +one thing only, innocence. + +Perfect innocence, almost caught up into heaven in a mysterious +assumption, attached to the earth by virtue, already possessing +something of heaven through holiness. + +On the one hand, confidences over crimes, which are exchanged in +whispers; on the other, the confession of faults made aloud. And what +crimes! And what faults! + +On the one hand, miasms; on the other, an ineffable perfume. On the one +hand, a moral pest, guarded from sight, penned up under the range of +cannon, and literally devouring its plague-stricken victims; on +the other, the chaste flame of all souls on the same hearth. There, +darkness; here, the shadow; but a shadow filled with gleams of light, +and of gleams full of radiance. + +Two strongholds of slavery; but in the first, deliverance possible, +a legal limit always in sight, and then, escape. In the second, +perpetuity; the sole hope, at the distant extremity of the future, that +faint light of liberty which men call death. + +In the first, men are bound only with chains; in the other, chained by +faith. + +What flowed from the first? An immense curse, the gnashing of teeth, +hatred, desperate viciousness, a cry of rage against human society, a +sarcasm against heaven. + +What results flowed from the second? Blessings and love. + +And in these two places, so similar yet so unlike, these two species +of beings who were so very unlike, were undergoing the same work, +expiation. + +Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the former; that +personal expiation, the expiation for one's self. But he did not +understand that of these last, that of creatures without reproach and +without stain, and he trembled as he asked himself: The expiation of +what? What expiation? + +A voice within his conscience replied: "The most divine of human +generosities, the expiation for others." + +Here all personal theory is withheld; we are only the narrator; we +place ourselves at Jean Valjean's point of view, and we translate his +impressions. + +Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest +possible pitch of virtue; the innocence which pardons men their faults, +and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to, torture +accepted, punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the +sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity +swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving its distinct +and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery +of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed. + +And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! + +Often, in the middle of the night, he rose to listen to the grateful +song of those innocent creatures weighed down with severities, and the +blood ran cold in his veins at the thought that those who were justly +chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy, and that he, +wretch that he was, had shaken his fist at God. + +There was one striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply, like +a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the +passing of those barriers, the adventure accepted even at the risk of +death, the painful and difficult ascent, all those efforts even, which +he had made to escape from that other place of expiation, he had made in +order to gain entrance into this one. Was this a symbol of his destiny? +This house was a prison likewise and bore a melancholy resemblance to +that other one whence he had fled, and yet he had never conceived an +idea of anything similar. + +Again he beheld gratings, bolts, iron bars--to guard whom? Angels. + +These lofty walls which he had seen around tigers, he now beheld once +more around lambs. + +This was a place of expiation, and not of punishment; and yet, it was +still more austere, more gloomy, and more pitiless than the other. + +These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, +harsh wind, that wind which had chilled his youth, traversed the barred +and padlocked grating of the vultures; a still harsher and more biting +breeze blew in the cage of these doves. + +Why? + +When he thought on these things, all that was within him was lost in +amazement before this mystery of sublimity. + +In these meditations, his pride vanished. He scrutinized his own heart +in all manner of ways; he felt his pettiness, and many a time he wept. +All that had entered into his life for the last six months had led him +back towards the Bishop's holy injunctions; Cosette through love, the +convent through humility. + +Sometimes at eventide, in the twilight, at an hour when the garden was +deserted, he could be seen on his knees in the middle of the walk which +skirted the chapel, in front of the window through which he had gazed on +the night of his arrival, and turned towards the spot where, as he knew, +the sister was making reparation, prostrated in prayer. Thus he prayed +as he knelt before the sister. + +It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God. + +Everything that surrounded him, that peaceful garden, those fragrant +flowers, those children who uttered joyous cries, those grave and simple +women, that silent cloister, slowly permeated him, and little by little, +his soul became compounded of silence like the cloister, of perfume like +the flowers, of simplicity like the women, of joy like the children. +And then he reflected that these had been two houses of God which had +received him in succession at two critical moments in his life: the +first, when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him; +the second, at a moment when human society had again set out in pursuit +of him, and when the galleys were again yawning; and that, had it not +been for the first, he should have relapsed into crime, and had it not +been for the second, into torment. + +His whole heart melted in gratitude, and he loved more and more. + +Many years passed in this manner; Cosette was growing up. + + +[THE END OF VOLUME II. "COSETTE"] + + + + + + +VOLUME III--MARIUS. + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Three 3frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Three 3titlepage] + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM + + + + +CHAPTER I--PARVULUS + +Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the +sparrow; the child is called the gamin. + +Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other +all the dawn; strike these two sparks together, Paris, childhood; there +leaps out from them a little being. Homuncio, Plautus would say. + +This little being is joyous. He has not food every day, and he goes to +the play every evening, if he sees good. He has no shirt on his body, +no shoes on his feet, no roof over his head; he is like the flies of +heaven, who have none of these things. He is from seven to thirteen +years of age, he lives in bands, roams the streets, lodges in the open +air, wears an old pair of trousers of his father's, which descend below +his heels, an old hat of some other father, which descends below his +ears, a single suspender of yellow listing; he runs, lies in wait, +rummages about, wastes time, blackens pipes, swears like a convict, +haunts the wine-shop, knows thieves, calls gay women thou, talks slang, +sings obscene songs, and has no evil in his heart. This is because he +has in his heart a pearl, innocence; and pearls are not to be dissolved +in mud. So long as man is in his childhood, God wills that he shall be +innocent. + +If one were to ask that enormous city: "What is this?" she would reply: +"It is my little one." + + + + +CHAPTER II--SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS + +The gamin--the street Arab--of Paris is the dwarf of the giant. + +Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt, +but, in that case, he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes, but then +they have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, for +he finds his mother there; but he prefers the street, because there he +finds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whose +foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar metaphors: +to be dead is to eat dandelions by the root; his own occupations, +calling hackney-coaches, letting down carriage-steps, establishing means +of transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains, which he +calls making the bridge of arts, crying discourses pronounced by the +authorities in favor of the French people, cleaning out the cracks +in the pavement; he has his own coinage, which is composed of all the +little morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets. +This curious money, which receives the name of loques--rags--has +an invariable and well-regulated currency in this little Bohemia of +children. + +Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively in +the corners; the lady-bird, the death's-head plant-louse, the +daddy-long-legs, "the devil," a black insect, which menaces by twisting +about its tail armed with two horns. He has his fabulous monster, which +has scales under its belly, but is not a lizard, which has pustules on +its back, but is not a toad, which inhabits the nooks of old lime-kilns +and wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which crawls +sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, which has no cry, but which has a +look, and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it; he calls this +monster "the deaf thing." The search for these "deaf things" among +the stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists in +suddenly prying up a paving-stone, and taking a look at the wood-lice. +Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which +are to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of the +Ursulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are tadpoles in +the ditches of the Champs-de-Mars. + +As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them as +Talleyrand. He is no less cynical, but he is more honest. He is endowed +with a certain indescribable, unexpected joviality; he upsets the +composure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter. He ranges boldly +from high comedy to farce. + +A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is a +doctor. "Hey there!" shouts some street Arab, "how long has it been +customary for doctors to carry home their own work?" + +Another is in a crowd. A grave man, adorned with spectacles and +trinkets, turns round indignantly: "You good-for-nothing, you have +seized my wife's waist!"--"I, sir? Search me!" + + + + +CHAPTER III--HE IS AGREEABLE + +In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means +to procure, the homuncio enters a theatre. On crossing that magic +threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street Arab, he becomes +the titi.[18] Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the +keel in the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. +The titi is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being +endowed with wings and soaring. It suffices for him to be there, with +his radiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with +his hand-clapping, which resembles a clapping of wings, to confer on +that narrow, dark, fetid, sordid, unhealthy, hideous, abominable keel, +the name of Paradise. + +Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary, +and you have the gamin. + +The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say +it with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classic +taste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, the +popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy +children was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her +Mademoiselle Muche--"hide yourself." + +This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like a +baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the +cesspool, extracts mirth from foulness, whips up the squares with his +wit, grins and bites, whistles and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempers +Alleluia with Matantur-lurette, chants every rhythm from the De +Profundis to the Jack-pudding, finds without seeking, knows what he is +ignorant of, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to wisdom, is +lyrical to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill +and emerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais +in this youth. + +He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket. + +He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he makes +songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twits +mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the poetry out +of stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas. +It is not that he is prosaic; far from that; but he replaces the solemn +vision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear to +him, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE + +Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two +beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which +contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; Prudhomme +and Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history. The whole of +the monarchy is contained in the lounger; the whole of anarchy in the +gamin. + +This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makes +connections, "grows supple" in suffering, in the presence of social +realities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himself +heedless; and he is not. He looks and is on the verge of laughter; he is +on the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name is +Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism, Injustice, +Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping gamin. + +The little fellow will grow up. + +Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes to hand. A handful +of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. A +God has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tiny +being. By the word "fortune" we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmy +kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. +Will that become an Ionian or a Boeotian? Wait, currit rota, the Spirit +of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the men +of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug an +amphora. + + + + +CHAPTER V--HIS FRONTIERS + +The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something +of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus; ruris amator, like +Flaccus. + +To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine +employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that +rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but +odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities, +notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal. +End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning +of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of +the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur, +beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest. + +Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the +passing stroller with the epithet: melancholy, the apparently objectless +promenades of the dreamer. + +He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers +of Paris, and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs. That +close-shaven turf, those pebbly paths, that chalk, those pools, +those harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands, the plants of early +market-garden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom, that mixture of +the savage and the citizen, those vast desert nooks where the garrison +drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of battle, those +hermits by day and cut-throats by night, that clumsy mill which turns +in the wind, the hoisting-wheels of the quarries, the tea-gardens at the +corners of the cemeteries; the mysterious charm of great, sombre walls +squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of land inundated with +sunshine and full of butterflies,--all this attracted him. + +There is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those +singular spots, the Glaciere, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle +all speckled with balls, Mont-Parnasse, the Fosse-aux-Loups, Aubiers on +the bank of the Marne, Mont-Souris, the Tombe-Issoire, the Pierre-Plate +de Chatillon, where there is an old, exhausted quarry which no longer +serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a +level with the ground, by a trap-door of rotten planks. The campagna of +Rome is one idea, the banlieue of Paris is another; to behold nothing +but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is +to remain on the surface; all aspects of things are thoughts of God. The +spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always stamped +with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both appeal +to you at the same time there. Local originalities there make their +appearance. + +Any one who, like ourselves, has wandered about in these solitudes +contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of +Paris, has seen here and there, in the most desert spot, at the +most unexpected moment, behind a meagre hedge, or in the corner of a +lugubrious wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, +dusty, ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with +corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape +from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the +suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There +they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or +rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of +May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with +their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile, +free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they +recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their +living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled +with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange +children are one of the charming and at the same time poignant graces of +the environs of Paris. + +Sometimes there are little girls among the throng of boys,--are they +their sisters?--who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with +sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of +rye, gay, haggard, barefooted. They can be seen devouring cherries among +the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These groups, +warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly seen in +the twilight, occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time, and these +visions mingle with his dreams. + +Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference; this constitutes all the earth +to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more +escape from the Parisian atmosphere than fish can escape from the +water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers: +Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Menilmontant, +Choisy-le-Roi, Billancourt, Mendon, Issy, Vanvre, Sevres, Puteaux, +Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnieres, +Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, +Gonesse; the universe ends there. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--A BIT OF HISTORY + +At the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the action of this +book takes place, there was not, as there is to-day, a policeman at +the corner of every street (a benefit which there is no time to discuss +here); stray children abounded in Paris. The statistics give an average +of two hundred and sixty homeless children picked up annually at that +period, by the police patrols, in unenclosed lands, in houses in process +of construction, and under the arches of the bridges. One of these +nests, which has become famous, produced "the swallows of the bridge of +Arcola." This is, moreover, the most disastrous of social symptoms. All +crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage of the child. + +Let us make an exception in favor of Paris, nevertheless. In a relative +measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled, the +exception is just. While in any other great city the vagabond child is +a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in +some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the +public vices which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy +of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured on the +surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to +put on record, and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our +popular revolutions, that a certain incorruptibility results from the +idea which exists in the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of +the ocean. To breathe Paris preserves the soul. + +What we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish of heart which +one experiences every time that one meets one of these children around +whom one fancies that he beholds floating the threads of a broken +family. In the civilization of the present day, incomplete as it still +is, it is not a very abnormal thing to behold these fractured families +pouring themselves out into the darkness, not knowing clearly what has +become of their children, and allowing their own entrails to fall on the +public highway. Hence these obscure destinies. This is called, for this +sad thing has given rise to an expression, "to be cast on the pavements +of Paris." + +Let it be said by the way, that this abandonment of children was not +discouraged by the ancient monarchy. A little of Egypt and Bohemia in +the lower regions suited the upper spheres, and compassed the aims of +the powerful. The hatred of instruction for the children of the people +was a dogma. What is the use of "half-lights"? Such was the countersign. +Now, the erring child is the corollary of the ignorant child. + +Besides this, the monarchy sometimes was in need of children, and in +that case it skimmed the streets. + +Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king rightly desired +to create a fleet. The idea was a good one. But let us consider +the means. There can be no fleet, if, beside the sailing ship, that +plaything of the winds, and for the purpose of towing it, in case of +necessity, there is not the vessel which goes where it pleases, either +by means of oars or of steam; the galleys were then to the marine what +steamers are to-day. Therefore, galleys were necessary; but the galley +is moved only by the galley-slave; hence, galley-slaves were required. +Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the parliaments make +as many convicts as possible. The magistracy showed a great deal of +complaisance in the matter. A man kept his hat on in the presence of a +procession--it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A +child was encountered in the streets; provided that he was fifteen +years of age and did not know where he was to sleep, he was sent to the +galleys. Grand reign; grand century. + +Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police carried them +off, for what mysterious purpose no one knew. People whispered with +terror monstrous conjectures as to the king's baths of purple. Barbier +speaks ingenuously of these things. It sometimes happened that the +exempts of the guard, when they ran short of children, took those who +had fathers. The fathers, in despair, attacked the exempts. In that +case, the parliament intervened and had some one hung. Who? The exempts? +No, the fathers. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE GAMIN SHOULD HAVE HIS PLACE IN THE CLASSIFICATIONS OF +INDIA + +The body of street Arabs in Paris almost constitutes a caste. One might +almost say: Not every one who wishes to belong to it can do so. + +This word gamin was printed for the first time, and reached popular +speech through the literary tongue, in 1834. It is in a little work +entitled Claude Gueux that this word made its appearance. The horror was +lively. The word passed into circulation. + +The elements which constitute the consideration of the gamins for each +other are very various. We have known and associated with one who was +greatly respected and vastly admired because he had seen a man fall from +the top of the tower of Notre-Dame; another, because he had succeeded in +making his way into the rear courtyard where the statues of the dome +of the Invalides had been temporarily deposited, and had "prigged" some +lead from them; a third, because he had seen a diligence tip over; still +another, because he "knew" a soldier who came near putting out the eye +of a citizen. + +This explains that famous exclamation of a Parisian gamin, a profound +epiphonema, which the vulgar herd laughs at without comprehending,--Dieu +de Dieu! What ill-luck I do have! to think that I have never yet seen +anybody tumble from a fifth-story window! (I have pronounced I'ave and +fifth pronounced fift'.) + +Surely, this saying of a peasant is a fine one: "Father So-and-So, your +wife has died of her malady; why did you not send for the doctor?" +"What would you have, sir, we poor folks die of ourselves." But if +the peasant's whole passivity lies in this saying, the whole of the +free-thinking anarchy of the brat of the faubourgs is, assuredly, +contained in this other saying. A man condemned to death is listening +to his confessor in the tumbrel. The child of Paris exclaims: "He is +talking to his black cap! Oh, the sneak!" + +A certain audacity on matters of religion sets off the gamin. To be +strong-minded is an important item. + +To be present at executions constitutes a duty. He shows himself at the +guillotine, and he laughs. He calls it by all sorts of pet names: The +End of the Soup, The Growler, The Mother in the Blue (the sky), The Last +Mouthful, etc., etc. In order not to lose anything of the affair, he +scales the walls, he hoists himself to balconies, he ascends trees, he +suspends himself to gratings, he clings fast to chimneys. The gamin is +born a tiler as he is born a mariner. A roof inspires him with no more +fear than a mast. There is no festival which comes up to an execution +on the Place de Greve. Samson and the Abbe Montes are the truly popular +names. They hoot at the victim in order to encourage him. They sometimes +admire him. Lacenaire, when a gamin, on seeing the hideous Dautin die +bravely, uttered these words which contain a future: "I was jealous of +him." In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine +is. "Politicians" are confused with assassins in the same legend. +They have a tradition as to everybody's last garment. It is known that +Tolleron had a fireman's cap, Avril an otter cap, Losvel a round hat, +that old Delaporte was bald and bare-headed, that Castaing was all ruddy +and very handsome, that Bories had a romantic small beard, that Jean +Martin kept on his suspenders, that Lecouffe and his mother quarrelled. +"Don't reproach each other for your basket," shouted a gamin to them. +Another, in order to get a look at Debacker as he passed, and being too +small in the crowd, caught sight of the lantern on the quay and climbed +it. A gendarme stationed opposite frowned. "Let me climb up, m'sieu le +gendarme," said the gamin. And, to soften the heart of the authorities +he added: "I will not fall." "I don't care if you do," retorted the +gendarme. + +In the brotherhood of gamins, a memorable accident counts for a great +deal. One reaches the height of consideration if one chances to cut +one's self very deeply, "to the very bone." + +The fist is no mediocre element of respect. One of the things that the +gamin is fondest of saying is: "I am fine and strong, come now!" To be +left-handed renders you very enviable. A squint is highly esteemed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A CHARMING SAYING OF THE +LAST KING + +In summer, he metamorphoses himself into a frog; and in the evening, +when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena, +from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen's boats, he hurls +himself headlong into the Seine, and into all possible infractions of +the laws of modesty and of the police. Nevertheless the police keep an +eye on him, and the result is a highly dramatic situation which +once gave rise to a fraternal and memorable cry; that cry which was +celebrated about 1830, is a strategic warning from gamin to gamin; it +scans like a verse from Homer, with a notation as inexpressible as the +eleusiac chant of the Panathenaea, and in it one encounters again the +ancient Evohe. Here it is: "Ohe, Titi, oheee! Here comes the bobby, here +comes the p'lice, pick up your duds and be off, through the sewer with +you!" + +Sometimes this gnat--that is what he calls himself--knows how to read; +sometimes he knows how to write; he always knows how to daub. He +does not hesitate to acquire, by no one knows what mysterious mutual +instruction, all the talents which can be of use to the public; from +1815 to 1830, he imitated the cry of the turkey; from 1830 to 1848, he +scrawled pears on the walls. One summer evening, when Louis Philippe was +returning home on foot, he saw a little fellow, no higher than his knee, +perspiring and climbing up to draw a gigantic pear in charcoal on one +of the pillars of the gate of Neuilly; the King, with that good-nature +which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin, finished the pear, +and gave the child a louis, saying: "The pear is on that also."[19] +The gamin loves uproar. A certain state of violence pleases him. He +execrates "the cures." One day, in the Rue de l'Universite, one of these +scamps was putting his thumb to his nose at the carriage gate of No. +69. "Why are you doing that at the gate?" a passer-by asked. The boy +replied: "There is a cure there." It was there, in fact, that the Papal +Nuncio lived. + +Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairianism of the small gamin, if +the occasion to become a chorister presents itself, it is quite possible +that he will accept, and in that case he serves the mass civilly. There +are two things to which he plays Tantalus, and which he always desires +without ever attaining them: to overthrow the government, and to get his +trousers sewed up again. + +The gamin in his perfect state possesses all the policemen of Paris, and +can always put the name to the face of any one which he chances to +meet. He can tell them off on the tips of his fingers. He studies their +habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the souls +of the police like an open book. He will tell you fluently and without +flinching: "Such an one is a traitor; such another is very malicious; +such another is great; such another is ridiculous." (All these words: +traitor, malicious, great, ridiculous, have a particular meaning in his +mouth.) That one imagines that he owns the Pont-Neuf, and he prevents +people from walking on the cornice outside the parapet; that other has a +mania for pulling person's ears; etc., etc. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL + +There was something of that boy in Poquelin, the son of the fish-market; +Beaumarchais had something of it. Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic +spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter, +as alcohol does to wine. Sometimes it is a defect. Homer repeats himself +eternally, granted; one may say that Voltaire plays the gamin. Camille +Desmoulins was a native of the faubourgs. Championnet, who treated +miracles brutally, rose from the pavements of Paris; he had, when a +small lad, inundated the porticos of Saint-Jean de Beauvais, and of +Saint-Etienne du Mont; he had addressed the shrine of Sainte-Genevieve +familiarly to give orders to the phial of Saint Januarius. + +The gamin of Paris is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has +villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and +handsome eyes because he has wit. If Jehovah himself were present, he +would go hopping up the steps of paradise on one foot. He is strong on +boxing. All beliefs are possible to him. He plays in the gutter, and +straightens himself up with a revolt; his effrontery persists even in +the presence of grape-shot; he was a scapegrace, he is a hero; like the +little Theban, he shakes the skin from the lion; Barra the drummer-boy +was a gamin of Paris; he Shouts: "Forward!" as the horse of Scripture +says "Vah!" and in a moment he has passed from the small brat to the +giant. + +This child of the puddle is also the child of the ideal. Measure that +spread of wings which reaches from Moliere to Barra. + +To sum up the whole, and in one word, the gamin is a being who amuses +himself, because he is unhappy. + + + + +CHAPTER X--ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO + +To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of to-day, like the +graeculus of Rome in days gone by, is the infant populace with the +wrinkle of the old world on his brow. + +The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; a +disease which must be cured, how? By light. + +Light renders healthy. + +Light kindles. + +All generous social irradiations spring from science, letters, arts, +education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm +you. Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education will +present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth; +and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French idea +will have to make this choice; the children of France or the gamins of +Paris; flames in the light or will-o'-the-wisps in the gloom. + +The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the world. + +For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. The whole +of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and living +manners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history with +heaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a capital, the +Town-Hall, a Parthenon, Notre-Dame, a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon, the Pantheon, a +Via Sacra, the Boulevard des Italiens, a temple of the winds, opinion; +and it replaces the Gemoniae by ridicule. Its majo is called "faraud," +its Transteverin is the man of the faubourgs, its hammal is the +market-porter, its lazzarone is the pegre, its cockney is the native of +Ghent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwoman +of Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides, the +discobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tight-rope dancer. +Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncoeur the +grenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy among +bric-a-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as +just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reyniere discovered +larded roast beef, as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog, we see the +trapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arc +of l'Etoile, the sword-eater of Poecilus encountered by Apuleius is a +sword-swallower on the Pont Neuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculio +the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to +Cambaceres by d'Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome: Alcesimarchus, +Phoedromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in +Labatut's posting-chaise; Aulus Gellius would halt no longer in front of +Congrio than would Charles Nodier in front of Punchinello; Marto is not +a tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the wag jeers in +the Cafe Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenor +in the Champs-Elysees, and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad like +Bobeche, takes up a collection; the bore who stops you by the button +of your coat in the Tuileries makes you repeat after a lapse of two +thousand years Thesprion's apostrophe: Quis properantem me prehendit +pallio? The wine on Surene is a parody of the wine of Alba, the red +border of Desaugiers forms a balance to the great cutting of Balatro, +Pere Lachaise exhales beneath nocturnal rains same gleams as the +Esquiliae, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is certainly +the equivalent of the slave's hived coffin. + +Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains +nothing that is not in Mesmer's tub; Ergaphilas lives again in +Cagliostro; the Brahmin Vasaphanta become incarnate in the Comte de +Saint-Germain; the cemetery of Saint-Medard works quite as good miracles +as the Mosque of Oumoumie at Damascus. + +Paris has an AEsop-Mayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand. It is +terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; it +makes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on the +throne, as Rome placed the courtesan there; and, taking it altogether, +if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better than +Messalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existed +and which we have elbowed, Grecian nudity, the Hebraic ulcer, and the +Gascon pun. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Jack-pudding, dresses up a +spectre in old numbers of the Constitutional, and makes Chodruc Duclos. + +Although Plutarch says: the tyrant never grows old, Rome, under Sylla as +under Domitian, resigned itself and willingly put water in its wine. The +Tiber was a Lethe, if the rather doctrinary eulogium made of it by Varus +Vibiscus is to be credited: Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus, Bibere +Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci. Paris drinks a million litres of +water a day, but that does not prevent it from occasionally beating the +general alarm and ringing the tocsin. + +With that exception, Paris is amiable. It accepts everything royally; +it is not too particular about its Venus; its Callipyge is Hottentot; +provided that it is made to laugh, it condones; ugliness cheers it, +deformity provokes it to laughter, vice diverts it; be eccentric and +you may be an eccentric; even hypocrisy, that supreme cynicism, does +not disgust it; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose before +Basile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than Horace +was repelled by the "hiccup" of Priapus. No trait of the universal face +is lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is not the polymnia +dance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies' wearing apparel there +devours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the procuress Staphyla +lay in wait for the virgin Planesium. The Barriere du Combat is not +the Coliseum, but people are as ferocious there as though Caesar were +looking on. The Syrian hostess has more grace than Mother Saguet, +but, if Virgil haunted the Roman wine-shop, David d'Angers, Balzac +and Charlet have sat at the tables of Parisian taverns. Paris reigns. +Geniuses flash forth there, the red tails prosper there. Adonai passes +on his chariot with its twelve wheels of thunder and lightning; Silenus +makes his entry there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. + +Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem, +Pantin. All civilizations are there in an abridged form, all barbarisms +also. Paris would greatly regret it if it had not a guillotine. + +A little of the Place de Greve is a good thing. What would all that +eternal festival be without this seasoning? Our laws are wisely +provided, and thanks to them, this blade drips on this Shrove Tuesday. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--TO SCOFF, TO REIGN + +There is no limit to Paris. No city has had that domination which +sometimes derides those whom it subjugates. To please you, O Athenians! +exclaimed Alexander. Paris makes more than the law, it makes the +fashion; Paris sets more than the fashion, it sets the routine. Paris +may be stupid, if it sees fit; it sometimes allows itself this luxury; +then the universe is stupid in company with it; then Paris awakes, rubs +its eyes, says: "How stupid I am!" and bursts out laughing in the face +of the human race. What a marvel is such a city! it is a strange thing +that this grandioseness and this burlesque should be amicable neighbors, +that all this majesty should not be thrown into disorder by all this +parody, and that the same mouth can to-day blow into the trump of the +Judgment Day, and to-morrow into the reed-flute! Paris has a sovereign +joviality. Its gayety is of the thunder and its farce holds a sceptre. + +Its tempest sometimes proceeds from a grimace. Its explosions, its days, +its masterpieces, its prodigies, its epics, go forth to the bounds of +the universe, and so also do its cock-and-bull stories. Its laugh is the +mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. +It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people; the highest +monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their +eternity to its mischievous pranks. It is superb; it has a prodigious +14th of July, which delivers the globe; it forces all nations to take +the oath of tennis; its night of the 4th of August dissolves in three +hours a thousand years of feudalism; it makes of its logic the muscle +of unanimous will; it multiplies itself under all sorts of forms of +the sublime; it fills with its light Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, +Bozzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; it is +everywhere where the future is being lighted up, at Boston in 1779, +at the Isle de Leon in 1820, at Pesth in 1848, at Palermo in 1860, it +whispers the mighty countersign: Liberty, in the ear of the American +abolitionists grouped about the boat at Harper's Ferry, and in the ear +of the patriots of Ancona assembled in the shadow, to the Archi before +the Gozzi inn on the seashore; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga; +it creates Pisacane; it irradiates the great on earth; it was while +proceeding whither its breath urge them, that Byron perished at +Missolonghi, and that Mazet died at Barcelona; it is the tribune under +the feet of Mirabeau, and a crater under the feet of Robespierre; +its books, its theatre, its art, its science, its literature, its +philosophy, are the manuals of the human race; it has Pascal, Regnier, +Corneille, Descartes, Jean-Jacques: Voltaire for all moments, Moliere +for all centuries; it makes its language to be talked by the universal +mouth, and that language becomes the word; it constructs in all minds +the idea of progress, the liberating dogmas which it forges are for the +generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and +its poets that all heroes of all nations have been made since 1789; this +does not prevent vagabondism, and that enormous genius which is called +Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal +Bouginier's nose on the wall of the temple of Theseus and writes +Credeville the thief on the Pyramids. + +Paris is always showing its teeth; when it is not scolding it is +laughing. + +Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A +heap of mud and stone, if you will, but, above all, a moral being. It is +more than great, it is immense. Why? Because it is daring. + +To dare; that is the price of progress. + +All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In +order that the Revolution should take place, it does not suffice that +Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that +Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it, +that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should premeditate it; it +is necessary that Danton should dare it. + +The cry: Audacity! is a Fiat lux. It is necessary, for the sake of the +forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of +courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are +one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To +attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's +self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount +of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to +insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground; +that is the example which nations need, that is the light which +electrifies them. The same formidable lightning proceeds from the torch +of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE FUTURE LATENT IN THE PEOPLE + +As for the Parisian populace, even when a man grown, it is always the +street Arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that +reason that we have studied this eagle in this arrant sparrow. It is in +the faubourgs, above all, we maintain, that the Parisian race appears; +there is the pure blood; there is the true physiognomy; there this +people toils and suffers, and suffering and toil are the two faces of +man. There exist there immense numbers of unknown beings, among whom +swarm types of the strangest, from the porter of la Rapee to the knacker +of Montfaucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero; mob, adds Burke, indignantly; +rabble, multitude, populace. These are words and quickly uttered. But +so be it. What does it matter? What is it to me if they do go barefoot! +They do not know how to read; so much the worse. Would you abandon them +for that? Would you turn their distress into a malediction? Cannot the +light penetrate these masses? Let us return to that cry: Light! and let +us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows whether +these opacities will not become transparent? Are not revolutions +transfigurations? Come, philosophers, teach, enlighten, light up, think +aloud, speak aloud, hasten joyously to the great sun, fraternize with +the public place, announce the good news, spend your alphabets lavishly, +proclaim rights, sing the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear green +boughs from the oaks. Make a whirlwind of the idea. This crowd may +be rendered sublime. Let us learn how to make use of that vast +conflagration of principles and virtues, which sparkles, bursts forth +and quivers at certain hours. These bare feet, these bare arms, these +rags, these ignorances, these abjectnesses, these darknesses, may be +employed in the conquest of the ideal. Gaze past the people, and you +will perceive truth. Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be +cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a +splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will +discover stars. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GAVROCHE + +[Illustration: Little Gavroche 3b1-13-gavroche] + +Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of this +story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of +the Chateau-d'Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would +have realized with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the gamin sketched +out above, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he had not had a +heart absolutely sombre and empty. This child was well muffled up in a +pair of man's trousers, but he did not get them from his father, and a +woman's chemise, but he did not get it from his mother. Some people or +other had clothed him in rags out of charity. Still, he had a father and +a mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother did not +love him. + +He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of +those who have father and mother, and who are orphans nevertheless. + +This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The +pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart. + +His parents had despatched him into life with a kick. + +He simply took flight. + +He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, jeering, lad, with a +vivacious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played at hopscotch, +scraped the gutters, stole a little, but, like cats and sparrows, gayly +laughed when he was called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief. +He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because +he was free. + +When these poor creatures grow to be men, the millstones of the social +order meet them and crush them, but so long as they are children, they +escape because of their smallness. The tiniest hole saves them. + +Nevertheless, abandoned as this child was, it sometimes happened, every +two or three months, that he said, "Come, I'll go and see mamma!" Then +he quitted the boulevard, the Cirque, the Porte Saint-Martin, descended +to the quays, crossed the bridges, reached the suburbs, arrived at the +Salpetriere, and came to a halt, where? Precisely at that double number +50-52 with which the reader is acquainted--at the Gorbeau hovel. + +At that epoch, the hovel 50-52 generally deserted and eternally +decorated with the placard: "Chambers to let," chanced to be, a rare +thing, inhabited by numerous individuals who, however, as is always the +case in Paris, had no connection with each other. All belonged to +that indigent class which begins to separate from the lowest of petty +bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery +to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings +in whom all the material things of civilization end, the sewer-man who +sweeps up the mud, and the ragpicker who collects scraps. + +The "principal lodger" of Jean Valjean's day was dead and had been +replaced by another exactly like her. I know not what philosopher has +said: "Old women are never lacking." + +This new old woman was named Madame Bourgon, and had nothing remarkable +about her life except a dynasty of three paroquets, who had reigned in +succession over her soul. + +The most miserable of those who inhabited the hovel were a family of +four persons, consisting of father, mother, and two daughters, already +well grown, all four of whom were lodged in the same attic, one of the +cells which we have already mentioned. + +At first sight, this family presented no very special feature except its +extreme destitution; the father, when he hired the chamber, had stated +that his name was Jondrette. Some time after his moving in, which had +borne a singular resemblance to the entrance of nothing at all, to +borrow the memorable expression of the principal tenant, this Jondrette +had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the same time +portress and stair-sweeper: "Mother So-and-So, if any one should chance +to come and inquire for a Pole or an Italian, or even a Spaniard, +perchance, it is I." + +This family was that of the merry barefoot boy. He arrived there and +found distress, and, what is still sadder, no smile; a cold hearth +and cold hearts. When he entered, he was asked: "Whence come you?" He +replied: "From the street." When he went away, they asked him: "Whither +are you going?" He replied: "Into the streets." His mother said to him: +"What did you come here for?" + +This child lived, in this absence of affection, like the pale plants +which spring up in cellars. It did not cause him suffering, and he +blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should +be. + +Nevertheless, his mother loved his sisters. + +We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this child +was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche? + +Probably because his father's name was Jondrette. + +It seems to be the instinct of certain wretched families to break the +thread. + +The chamber which the Jondrettes inhabited in the Gorbeau hovel was the +last at the end of the corridor. The cell next to it was occupied by a +very poor young man who was called M. Marius. + +Let us explain who this M. Marius was. + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE GREAT BOURGEOIS + + + + +CHAPTER I--NINETY YEARS AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH + +In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there +still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a +worthy man named M. Gillenormand, and who mention him with complaisance. +This good man was old when they were young. This silhouette has not yet +entirely disappeared--for those who regard with melancholy that vague +swarm of shadows which is called the past--from the labyrinth of streets +in the vicinity of the Temple to which, under Louis XIV., the names of +all the provinces of France were appended exactly as in our day, the +streets of the new Tivoli quarter have received the names of all the +capitals of Europe; a progression, by the way, in which progress is +visible. + +M.Gillenormand, who was as much alive as possible in 1831, was one of +those men who had become curiosities to be viewed, simply because +they have lived a long time, and who are strange because they formerly +resembled everybody, and now resemble nobody. He was a peculiar old man, +and in very truth, a man of another age, the real, complete and rather +haughty bourgeois of the eighteenth century, who wore his good, old +bourgeoisie with the air with which marquises wear their marquisates. He +was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw +clearly, drank neat, ate, slept, and snored. He had all thirty-two of +his teeth. He only wore spectacles when he read. He was of an amorous +disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly +and decidedly renounced women. He could no longer please, he said; he +did not add: "I am too old," but: "I am too poor." He said: "If I were +not ruined--Heee!" All he had left, in fact, was an income of about +fifteen thousand francs. His dream was to come into an inheritance and +to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did +not belong, as the reader will perceive, to that puny variety of +octogenaries who, like M. de Voltaire, have been dying all their life; +his was no longevity of a cracked pot; this jovial old man had always +had good health. He was superficial, rapid, easily angered. He flew into +a passion at everything, generally quite contrary to all reason. When +contradicted, he raised his cane; he beat people as he had done in the +great century. He had a daughter over fifty years of age, and unmarried, +whom he chastised severely with his tongue, when in a rage, and whom he +would have liked to whip. She seemed to him to be eight years old. He +boxed his servants' ears soundly, and said: "Ah! carogne!" One of his +oaths was: "By the pantoufloche of the pantouflochade!" He had singular +freaks of tranquillity; he had himself shaved every day by a barber who +had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on +account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand +admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was +extremely sagacious; here is one of his sayings: "I have, in truth, some +penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman it +came." + +The words which he uttered the most frequently were: the sensible man, +and nature. He did not give to this last word the grand acceptation +which our epoch has accorded to it, but he made it enter, after his own +fashion, into his little chimney-corner satires: "Nature," he said, "in +order that civilization may have a little of everything, gives it even +specimens of its amusing barbarism. Europe possesses specimens of Asia +and Africa on a small scale. The cat is a drawing-room tiger, the lizard +is a pocket crocodile. The dancers at the opera are pink female savages. +They do not eat men, they crunch them; or, magicians that they are, they +transform them into oysters and swallow them. The Caribbeans leave only +the bones, they leave only the shell. Such are our morals. We do not +devour, we gnaw; we do not exterminate, we claw." + + + + +CHAPTER II--LIKE MASTER, LIKE HOUSE + +He lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6. He owned the +house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number +has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the +streets of Paris undergo. He occupied an ancient and vast apartment +on the first floor, between street and gardens, furnished to the very +ceilings with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing +pastoral scenes; the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were +repeated in miniature on the arm-chairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast, +nine-leaved screen of Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from +the windows, and formed great, broken folds that were very magnificent. +The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that +one of them which formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or +fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with +great agility. In addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a +boudoir of which he thought a great deal, a gallant and elegant retreat, +with magnificent hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers and +fleurs-de-lys made on the galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his +convicts by M. de Vivonne for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had +inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a +centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners were something between +those of the courtier, which he had never been, and the lawyer, which +he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In +his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their +wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same +time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in +existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a +marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed +with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a confused +and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of +Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables +of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and +had followed the fashions. His coat was of light-weight cloth with +voluminous revers, a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons. With +this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands +into his fobs. He said authoritatively: "The French Revolution is a heap +of blackguards." + + + + +CHAPTER III--LUC-ESPRIT + +At the age of sixteen, one evening at the opera, he had had the honor +to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same +time--ripe and celebrated beauties then, and sung by Voltaire, the +Camargo and the Salle. Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic +retreat towards a little dancer, a young girl named Nahenry, who was +sixteen like himself, obscure as a cat, and with whom he was in love. +He abounded in memories. He was accustomed to exclaim: "How pretty she +was--that Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her +at Longchamps, her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her +come-and-see of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly +arrived, and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young +manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking about +effusively. "I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin," said he. +Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was twenty, had +described him as "a charming fool." He was horrified by all the names +which he saw in politics and in power, regarding them as vulgar and +bourgeois. He read the journals, the newspapers, the gazettes as he +said, stifling outbursts of laughter the while. "Oh!" he said, "what +people these are! Corbiere! Humann! Casimir Perier! There's a minister +for you! I can imagine this in a journal: 'M. Gillenorman, minister!' +that would be a farce. Well! They are so stupid that it would pass"; he +merrily called everything by its name, whether decent or indecent, and +did not restrain himself in the least before ladies. He uttered coarse +speeches, obscenities, and filth with a certain tranquillity and lack +of astonishment which was elegant. It was in keeping with the +unceremoniousness of his century. It is to be noted that the age of +periphrase in verse was the age of crudities in prose. His god-father +had predicted that he would turn out a man of genius, and had bestowed +on him these two significant names: Luc-Esprit. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A CENTENARIAN ASPIRANT + +He had taken prizes in his boyhood at the College of Moulins, where he +was born, and he had been crowned by the hand of the Duc de Nivernais, +whom he called the Duc de Nevers. Neither the Convention, nor the death +of Louis XVI., nor the Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, nor +anything else had been able to efface the memory of this crowning. The +Duc de Nevers was, in his eyes, the great figure of the century. "What a +charming grand seigneur," he said, "and what a fine air he had with his +blue ribbon!" + +In the eyes of M. Gillenormand, Catherine the Second had made reparation +for the crime of the partition of Poland by purchasing, for three +thousand roubles, the secret of the elixir of gold, from Bestucheff. He +grew animated on this subject: "The elixir of gold," he exclaimed, "the +yellow dye of Bestucheff, General Lamotte's drops, in the eighteenth +century,--this was the great remedy for the catastrophes of love, the +panacea against Venus, at one louis the half-ounce phial. Louis XV. +sent two hundred phials of it to the Pope." He would have been greatly +irritated and thrown off his balance, had any one told him that the +elixir of gold is nothing but the perchloride of iron. M. Gillenormand +adored the Bourbons, and had a horror of 1789; he was forever narrating +in what manner he had saved himself during the Terror, and how he had +been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to +escape having his head cut off. If any young man ventured to pronounce +an eulogium on the Republic in his presence, he turned purple and grew +so angry that he was on the point of swooning. He sometimes alluded to +his ninety years, and said, "I hope that I shall not see ninety-three +twice." On these occasions, he hinted to people that he meant to live to +be a hundred. + + + + +CHAPTER V--BASQUE AND NICOLETTE + +He had theories. Here is one of them: "When a man is passionately fond +of women, and when he has himself a wife for whom he cares but little, +who is homely, cross, legitimate, with plenty of rights, perched on the +code, and jealous at need, there is but one way of extricating himself +from the quandry and of procuring peace, and that is to let his wife +control the purse-strings. This abdication sets him free. Then his +wife busies herself, grows passionately fond of handling coin, gets her +fingers covered with verdigris in the process, undertakes the education +of half-share tenants and the training of farmers, convokes lawyers, +presides over notaries, harangues scriveners, visits limbs of the law, +follows lawsuits, draws up leases, dictates contracts, feels herself the +sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and compromises, binds fast +and annuls, yields, concedes and retrocedes, arranges, disarranges, +hoards, lavishes; she commits follies, a supreme and personal delight, +and that consoles her. While her husband disdains her, she has the +satisfaction of ruining her husband." This theory M. Gillenormand had +himself applied, and it had become his history. His wife--the second +one--had administered his fortune in such a manner that, one fine day, +when M. Gillenormand found himself a widower, there remained to him just +sufficient to live on, by sinking nearly the whole of it in an annuity +of fifteen thousand francs, three-quarters of which would expire with +him. He had not hesitated on this point, not being anxious to leave +a property behind him. Besides, he had noticed that patrimonies are +subject to adventures, and, for instance, become national property; he +had been present at the avatars of consolidated three per cents, and he +had no great faith in the Great Book of the Public Debt. "All that's +the Rue Quincampois!" he said. His house in the Rue Filles-du-Clavaire +belonged to him, as we have already stated. He had two servants, "a male +and a female." When a servant entered his establishment, M. Gillenormand +re-baptized him. He bestowed on the men the name of their province: +Nimois, Comtois, Poitevin, Picard. His last valet was a big, foundered, +short-winded fellow of fifty-five, who was incapable of running twenty +paces; but, as he had been born at Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him +Basque. All the female servants in his house were called Nicolette (even +the Magnon, of whom we shall hear more farther on). One day, a haughty +cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. +"How much wages do you want a month?" asked M. Gillenormand. "Thirty +francs." "What is your name?" "Olympie." "You shall have fifty francs, +and you shall be called Nicolette." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--IN WHICH MAGNON AND HER TWO CHILDREN ARE SEEN + +With M. Gillenormand, sorrow was converted into wrath; he was furious at +being in despair. He had all sorts of prejudices and took all sorts +of liberties. One of the facts of which his exterior relief and his +internal satisfaction was composed, was, as we have just hinted, that he +had remained a brisk spark, and that he passed energetically for such. +This he called having "royal renown." This royal renown sometimes drew +down upon him singular windfalls. One day, there was brought to him in +a basket, as though it had been a basket of oysters, a stout, newly +born boy, who was yelling like the deuce, and duly wrapped in +swaddling-clothes, which a servant-maid, dismissed six months +previously, attributed to him. M. Gillenormand had, at that time, +fully completed his eighty-fourth year. Indignation and uproar in the +establishment. And whom did that bold hussy think she could persuade to +believe that? What audacity! What an abominable calumny! M. Gillenormand +himself was not at all enraged. He gazed at the brat with the amiable +smile of a good man who is flattered by the calumny, and said in an +aside: "Well, what now? What's the matter? You are finely taken aback, +and really, you are excessively ignorant. M. le Duc d'Angouleme, the +bastard of his Majesty Charles IX., married a silly jade of fifteen +when he was eighty-five; M. Virginal, Marquis d'Alluye, brother to +the Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux, had, at the age of +eighty-three, by the maid of Madame la Presidente Jacquin, a son, a +real child of love, who became a Chevalier of Malta and a counsellor of +state; one of the great men of this century, the Abbe Tabaraud, is the +son of a man of eighty-seven. There is nothing out of the ordinary in +these things. And then, the Bible! Upon that I declare that this little +gentleman is none of mine. Let him be taken care of. It is not his +fault." This manner of procedure was good-tempered. The woman, whose +name was Magnon, sent him another parcel in the following year. It was a +boy again. Thereupon, M. Gillenormand capitulated. He sent the two brats +back to their mother, promising to pay eighty francs a month for their +maintenance, on the condition that the said mother would not do so any +more. He added: "I insist upon it that the mother shall treat them well. +I shall go to see them from time to time." And this he did. He had had +a brother who was a priest, and who had been rector of the Academy of +Poitiers for three and thirty years, and had died at seventy-nine. +"I lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom but little memory +remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself +bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met, but he never gave them +anything except bad or demonetized sous, thereby discovering a means of +going to hell by way of paradise. As for M. Gillenormand the elder, he +never haggled over his alms-giving, but gave gladly and nobly. He was +kindly, abrupt, charitable, and if he had been rich, his turn of mind +would have been magnificent. He desired that all which concerned him +should be done in a grand manner, even his rogueries. One day, having +been cheated by a business man in a matter of inheritance, in a gross +and apparent manner, he uttered this solemn exclamation: "That was +indecently done! I am really ashamed of this pilfering. Everything has +degenerated in this century, even the rascals. Morbleu! this is not the +way to rob a man of my standing. I am robbed as though in a forest, but +badly robbed. Silva, sint consule dignae!" He had had two wives, as +we have already mentioned; by the first he had had a daughter, who had +remained unmarried, and by the second another daughter, who had died +at about the age of thirty, who had wedded, through love, or chance, +or otherwise, a soldier of fortune who had served in the armies of the +Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had +been made colonel at Waterloo. "He is the disgrace of my family," +said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a +particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the +back of one hand. He believed very little in God. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--RULE: RECEIVE NO ONE EXCEPT IN THE EVENING + +Such was M. Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his hair,--which +was gray rather than white,--and which was always dressed in "dog's +ears." To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this. + +He had something of the eighteenth century about him; frivolous and +great. + +In 1814 and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand, +who was still young,--he was only seventy-four,--lived in the Faubourg +Saint Germain, Rue Servandoni, near Saint-Sulpice. He had only retired +to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of +eighty. + +And, on abandoning society, he had immured himself in his habits. The +principal one, and that which was invariable, was to keep his door +absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever +except in the evening. He dined at five o'clock, and after that his door +was open. That had been the fashion of his century, and he would not +swerve from it. "The day is vulgar," said he, "and deserves only a +closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the +zenith lights up its stars." And he barricaded himself against every +one, even had it been the king himself. This was the antiquated elegance +of his day. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR + +We have just spoken of M. Gillenormand's two daughters. They had come +into the world ten years apart. In their youth they had borne very +little resemblance to each other, either in character or countenance, +and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible. The +youngest had a charming soul, which turned towards all that belongs to +the light, was occupied with flowers, with verses, with music, which +fluttered away into glorious space, enthusiastic, ethereal, and was +wedded from her very youth, in ideal, to a vague and heroic figure. The +elder had also her chimera; she espied in the azure some very wealthy +purveyor, a contractor, a splendidly stupid husband, a million made man, +or even a prefect; the receptions of the Prefecture, an usher in the +antechamber with a chain on his neck, official balls, the harangues +of the town-hall, to be "Madame la Prefete,"--all this had created a +whirlwind in her imagination. Thus the two sisters strayed, each in her +own dream, at the epoch when they were young girls. Both had wings, the +one like an angel, the other like a goose. + +No ambition is ever fully realized, here below at least. No paradise +becomes terrestrial in our day. The younger wedded the man of her +dreams, but she died. The elder did not marry at all. + +At the moment when she makes her entrance into this history which we are +relating, she was an antique virtue, an incombustible prude, with one of +the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible +to see. A characteristic detail; outside of her immediate family, no one +had ever known her first name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand, +the elder. + +In the matter of cant, Mademoiselle Gillenormand could have given points +to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of blackness. +She cherished a frightful memory of her life; one day, a man had beheld +her garter. + +Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty. Her guimpe was +never sufficiently opaque, and never ascended sufficiently high. She +multiplied clasps and pins where no one would have dreamed of looking. +The peculiarity of prudery is to place all the more sentinels in +proportion as the fortress is the less menaced. + +Nevertheless, let him who can explain these antique mysteries of +innocence, she allowed an officer of the Lancers, her grand nephew, +named Theodule, to embrace her without displeasure. + +In spite of this favored Lancer, the label: Prude, under which we +have classed her, suited her to absolute perfection. Mademoiselle +Gillenormand was a sort of twilight soul. Prudery is a demi-virtue and a +demi-vice. + +To prudery she added bigotry, a well-assorted lining. She belonged +to the society of the Virgin, wore a white veil on certain festivals, +mumbled special orisons, revered "the holy blood," venerated "the sacred +heart," remained for hours in contemplation before a rococo-jesuit altar +in a chapel which was inaccessible to the rank and file of the faithful, +and there allowed her soul to soar among little clouds of marble, and +through great rays of gilded wood. + +She had a chapel friend, an ancient virgin like herself, named +Mademoiselle Vaubois, who was a positive blockhead, and beside whom +Mademoiselle Gillenormand had the pleasure of being an eagle. Beyond +the Agnus Dei and Ave Maria, Mademoiselle Vaubois had no knowledge of +anything except of the different ways of making preserves. Mademoiselle +Vaubois, perfect in her style, was the ermine of stupidity without a +single spot of intelligence. + +Let us say it plainly, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had gained rather than +lost as she grew older. This is the case with passive natures. She had +never been malicious, which is relative kindness; and then, years wear +away the angles, and the softening which comes with time had come to +her. She was melancholy with an obscure sadness of which she did not +herself know the secret. There breathed from her whole person the stupor +of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. + +She kept house for her father. M. Gillenormand had his daughter near +him, as we have seen that Monseigneur Bienvenu had his sister with him. +These households comprised of an old man and an old spinster are not +rare, and always have the touching aspect of two weaknesses leaning on +each other for support. + +There was also in this house, between this elderly spinster and this +old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the +presence of M. Gillenormand. M. Gillenormand never addressed this child +except in a severe voice, and sometimes, with uplifted cane: "Here, sir! +rascal, scoundrel, come here!--Answer me, you scamp! Just let me see +you, you good-for-nothing!" etc., etc. He idolized him. + +This was his grandson. We shall meet with this child again later on. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON + + + + +CHAPTER I--AN ANCIENT SALON + +When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he had frequented +many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. +Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measure of wit, +in the first place, that which was born with him, and secondly, that +which was attributed to him, he was even sought out and made much of. He +never went anywhere except on condition of being the chief person there. +There are people who will have influence at any price, and who will have +other people busy themselves over them; when they cannot be oracles, +they turn wags. M. Gillenormand was not of this nature; his domination +in the Royalist salons which he frequented cost his self-respect +nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his +own against M. de Bonald, and even against M. Bengy-Puy-Vallee. + +About 1817, he invariably passed two afternoons a week in a house in +his own neighborhood, in the Rue Ferou, with Madame la Baronne de T., +a worthy and respectable person, whose husband had been Ambassador of +France to Berlin under Louis XVI. Baron de T., who, during his lifetime, +had gone very passionately into ecstasies and magnetic visions, had died +bankrupt, during the emigration, leaving, as his entire fortune, +some very curious Memoirs about Mesmer and his tub, in ten manuscript +volumes, bound in red morocco and gilded on the edges. Madame de T. had +not published the memoirs, out of pride, and maintained herself on a +meagre income which had survived no one knew how. + +Madame de T. lived far from the Court; "a very mixed society," as she +said, in a noble isolation, proud and poor. A few friends assembled +twice a week about her widowed hearth, and these constituted a purely +Royalist salon. They sipped tea there, and uttered groans or cries of +horror at the century, the charter, the Bonapartists, the prostitution +of the blue ribbon, or the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII., according as the +wind veered towards elegy or dithyrambs; and they spoke in low tones of +the hopes which were presented by Monsieur, afterwards Charles X. + +The songs of the fishwomen, in which Napoleon was called Nicolas, were +received there with transports of joy. Duchesses, the most delicate and +charming women in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets like the +following, addressed to "the federates":-- + + Refoncez dans vos culottes[20] + Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend. + Qu'on n' dis' pas qu' les patriotes + Ont arbore l' drapeau blanc? + +There they amused themselves with puns which were considered terrible, +with innocent plays upon words which they supposed to be venomous, with +quatrains, with distiches even; thus, upon the Dessolles ministry, a +moderate cabinet, of which MM. Decazes and Deserre were members:-- + + Pour raffermir le trone ebranle sur sa base,[21] + Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case. + +Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, "an abominably Jacobin +chamber," and from this list they combined alliances of names, in such +a manner as to form, for example, phrases like the following: Damas. +Sabran. Gouvion-Saint-Cyr.--All this was done merrily. In that society, +they parodied the Revolution. They used I know not what desires to give +point to the same wrath in inverse sense. They sang their little Ca +ira:-- + + Ah! ca ira ca ira ca ira! + Les Bonapartistes a la lanterne! + +Songs are like the guillotine; they chop away indifferently, to-day this +head, to-morrow that. It is only a variation. + +In the Fualdes affair, which belongs to this epoch, 1816, they took +part for Bastide and Jausion, because Fualdes was "a Buonapartist." They +designated the liberals as friends and brothers; this constituted the +most deadly insult. + +Like certain church towers, Madame de T.'s salon had two cocks. One of +them was M. Gillenormand, the other was Comte de Lamothe-Valois, of whom +it was whispered about, with a sort of respect: "Do you know? That is +the Lamothe of the affair of the necklace." These singular amnesties do +occur in parties. + +Let us add the following: in the bourgeoisie, honored situations decay +through too easy relations; one must beware whom one admits; in the same +way that there is a loss of caloric in the vicinity of those who are +cold, there is a diminution of consideration in the approach of despised +persons. The ancient society of the upper classes held themselves above +this law, as above every other. Marigny, the brother of the Pompadour, +had his entry with M. le Prince de Soubise. In spite of? No, because. Du +Barry, the god-father of the Vaubernier, was very welcome at the house +of M. le Marechal de Richelieu. This society is Olympus. Mercury and +the Prince de Guemenee are at home there. A thief is admitted there, +provided he be a god. + +The Comte de Lamothe, who, in 1815, was an old man seventy-five years of +age, had nothing remarkable about him except his silent and sententious +air, his cold and angular face, his perfectly polished manners, his coat +buttoned up to his cravat, and his long legs always crossed in long, +flabby trousers of the hue of burnt sienna. His face was the same color +as his trousers. + +This M. de Lamothe was "held in consideration" in this salon on account +of his "celebrity" and, strange to say, though true, because of his name +of Valois. + +As for M. Gillenormand, his consideration was of absolutely first-rate +quality. He had, in spite of his levity, and without its interfering in +any way with his dignity, a certain manner about him which was imposing, +dignified, honest, and lofty, in a bourgeois fashion; and his great +age added to it. One is not a century with impunity. The years finally +produce around a head a venerable dishevelment. + +In addition to this, he said things which had the genuine sparkle of the +old rock. Thus, when the King of Prussia, after having restored Louis +XVIII., came to pay the latter a visit under the name of the Count de +Ruppin, he was received by the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat +as though he had been the Marquis de Brandebourg, and with the most +delicate impertinence. M. Gillenormand approved: "All kings who are +not the King of France," said he, "are provincial kings." One day, the +following question was put and the following answer returned in his +presence: "To what was the editor of the Courrier Francais condemned?" +"To be suspended." "Sus is superfluous," observed M. Gillenormand.[22] +Remarks of this nature found a situation. + +At the Te Deum on the anniversary of the return of the Bourbons, he +said, on seeing M. de Talleyrand pass by: "There goes his Excellency the +Evil One." + +M. Gillenormand was always accompanied by his daughter, that tall +mademoiselle, who was over forty and looked fifty, and by a handsome +little boy of seven years, white, rosy, fresh, with happy and trusting +eyes, who never appeared in that salon without hearing voices murmur +around him: "How handsome he is! What a pity! Poor child!" This child +was the one of whom we dropped a word a while ago. He was called "poor +child," because he had for a father "a brigand of the Loire." + +This brigand of the Loire was M. Gillenormand's son-in-law, who has +already been mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called "the disgrace of +his family." + + + + +CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH + +Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at +this epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumental +bridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hideous iron +cable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the +parapet, a man about fifty years of age wearing a leather cap, and +trousers and a waistcoat of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellow +which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tanned +by the sun, his face nearly black and his hair nearly white, a large +scar on his forehead which ran down upon his cheek, bowed, bent, +prematurely aged, who walked nearly every day, hoe and sickle in hand, +in one of those compartments surrounded by walls which abut on the +bridge, and border the left bank of the Seine like a chain of terraces, +charming enclosures full of flowers of which one could say, were they +much larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "these +are bouquets." All these enclosures abut upon the river at one end, and +on a house at the other. The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoes +of whom we have just spoken, inhabited the smallest of these enclosures +and the most humble of these houses about 1817. He lived there alone and +solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor +old, neither homely nor pretty, neither a peasant nor a bourgeoise, who +served him. The plot of earth which he called his garden was celebrated +in the town for the beauty of the flowers which he cultivated there. +These flowers were his occupation. + +By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets of +water, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and he had +invented certain tulips and certain dahlias which seemed to have been +forgotten by nature. He was ingenious; he had forestalled Soulange +Bodin in the formation of little clumps of earth of heath mould, for the +cultivation of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. He +was in his alleys from the break of day, in summer, planting, cutting, +hoeing, watering, walking amid his flowers with an air of kindness, +sadness, and sweetness, sometimes standing motionless and thoughtful +for hours, listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the babble of a +child in a house, or with his eyes fixed on a drop of dew at the tip of +a spear of grass, of which the sun made a carbuncle. His table was very +plain, and he drank more milk than wine. A child could make him give +way, and his servant scolded him. He was so timid that he seemed shy, he +rarely went out, and he saw no one but the poor people who tapped at his +pane and his cure, the Abbe Mabeuf, a good old man. Nevertheless, if the +inhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers, curious to +see his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened his door with a +smile. He was the "brigand of the Loire." + +Any one who had, at the same time, read military memoirs, biographies, +the Moniteur, and the bulletins of the grand army, would have been +struck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name +of Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had been +a soldier in Saintonge's regiment. The revolution broke out. Saintonge's +regiment formed a part of the army of the Rhine; for the old regiments +of the monarchy preserved their names of provinces even after the fall +of the monarchy, and were only divided into brigades in 1794. Pontmercy +fought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at +Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard's +rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corps +of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and only +rejoined the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had opened +a breach from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He was +under Kleber at Marchiennes and at the battle of Mont-Palissel, where +a ball from a biscaien broke his arm. Then he passed to the frontier +of Italy, and was one of the thirty grenadiers who defended the Col +de Tende with Joubert. Joubert was appointed its adjutant-general, and +Pontmercy sub-lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier's side in the midst +of the grape-shot of that day at Lodi which caused Bonaparte to say: +"Berthier has been cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier." He beheld his +old general, Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted +sabre, he was shouting: "Forward!" Having been embarked with his +company in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which was +proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the coast, he fell into +a wasps'-nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commander +wanted to throw his cannon into the sea, to hide the soldiers between +decks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy had +the colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past under the guns +of the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity having +increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English +transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded +down with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level of the +sea. In 1805 he was in that Malher division which took Gunzberg from the +Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a +storm of bullets, Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the +9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable +march in echelons effected under the enemy's fire. When the cavalry of +the Imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion of the 4th of the line, +Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew the +Guard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua, +Melas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession. +He formed a part of the eighth corps of the grand army which Mortier +commanded, and which captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the +55th of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylau +he was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroic +Captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustained +alone with his company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile +army. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that +cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Beresina, +then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of +Gelenhausen; then Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the +Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. At +Arnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword, +and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed up on +this occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his left +arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he had just +exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry. He had what was called +under the old regime, the double hand, that is to say, an equal aptitude +for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier, or a squadron or +a battalion as an officer. It is from this aptitude, perfected by a +military education, which certain special branches of the service arise, +the dragoons, for example, who are both cavalry-men and infantry at one +and the same time. He accompanied Napoleon to the Island of Elba. At +Waterloo, he was chief of a squadron of cuirassiers, in Dubois' brigade. +It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburg battalion. He came +and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He was covered with blood. +While tearing down the banner he had received a sword-cut across his +face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him: "You are a colonel, +you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion of Honor!" Pontmercy +replied: "Sire, I thank you for my widow." An hour later, he fell in the +ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He was this same +"brigand of the Loire." + +We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo, +Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it +will be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had dragged +himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the +Loire. + +The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him into +residence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon. King Louis +XVIII., regarding all that which had taken place during the Hundred +Days as not having occurred at all, did not recognize his quality as an +officer of the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his title +of baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing himself +"Colonel Baron Pontmercy." He had only an old blue coat, and he never +went out without fastening to it his rosette as an officer of the Legion +of Honor. The Attorney for the Crown had him warned that the authorities +would prosecute him for "illegal" wearing of this decoration. When this +notice was conveyed to him through an officious intermediary, Pontmercy +retorted with a bitter smile: "I do not know whether I no longer +understand French, or whether you no longer speak it; but the fact is +that I do not understand." Then he went out for eight successive days +with his rosette. They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times +the Minister of War and the general in command of the department wrote +to him with the following address: "A Monsieur le Commandant Pontmercy." +He sent back the letters with the seals unbroken. At the same moment, +Napoleon at Saint Helena was treating in the same fashion the missives +of Sir Hudson Lowe addressed to General Bonaparte. Pontmercy had ended, +may we be pardoned the expression, by having in his mouth the same +saliva as his Emperor. + +In the same way, there were at Rome Carthaginian prisoners who refused +to salute Flaminius, and who had a little of Hannibal's spirit. + +One day he encountered the district-attorney in one of the streets of +Vernon, stepped up to him, and said: "Mr. Crown Attorney, am I permitted +to wear my scar?" + +He had nothing save his meagre half-pay as chief of squadron. He had +hired the smallest house which he could find at Vernon. He lived there +alone, we have just seen how. Under the Empire, between two wars, he +had found time to marry Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, +thoroughly indignant at bottom, had given his consent with a sigh, +saying: "The greatest families are forced into it." In 1815, Madame +Pontmercy, an admirable woman in every sense, by the way, lofty in +sentiment and rare, and worthy of her husband, died, leaving a +child. This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude; but the +grandfather had imperatively claimed his grandson, declaring that if +the child were not given to him he would disinherit him. The father had +yielded in the little one's interest, and had transferred his love to +flowers. + +Moreover, he had renounced everything, and neither stirred up mischief +nor conspired. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things which +he was then doing and the great things which he had done. He passed his +time in expecting a pink or in recalling Austerlitz. + +M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his son-in-law. The colonel +was "a bandit" to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel, +except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to "his Baronship." +It had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt to see +his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed +over to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercy +was a man afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up the +child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these +conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right +and sacrificing no one but himself. + +The inheritance of Father Gillenormand did not amount to much; but the +inheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was considerable. +This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal +side, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, whose name was +Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one opened +his mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which his +grandfather took him, whispers, innuendoes, and winks, had eventually +enlightened the little boy's mind; he had finally understood something +of the case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions which +were, so to speak, the air he breathed, by a sort of infiltration and +slow penetration, he gradually came to think of his father only with +shame and with a pain at his heart. + +While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away every +two or three months, came to Paris on the sly, like a criminal breaking +his ban, and went and posted himself at Saint-Sulpice, at the hour when +Aunt Gillenormand led Marius to the mass. There, trembling lest the aunt +should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring to +breathe, he gazed at his child. The scarred veteran was afraid of that +old spinster. + +From this had arisen his connection with the cure of Vernon, M. l'Abbe +Mabeuf. + +That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who had +often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, +and the large tears in his eyes. That man, who had so manly an air, yet +who was weeping like a woman, had struck the warden. That face had clung +to his mind. One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he had +encountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and had recognized the man +of Saint-Sulpice. The warden had mentioned the circumstance to the cure, +and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. This +visit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved at +first, ended by opening his heart, and the cure and the warden finally +came to know the whole history, and how Pontmercy was sacrificing his +happiness to his child's future. This caused the cure to regard him with +veneration and tenderness, and the colonel, on his side, became fond +of the cure. And moreover, when both are sincere and good, no men so +penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old +priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has +devoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country on +high; that is the only difference. + +Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Marius +wrote duty letters to his father, which were dictated by his aunt, and +which one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula; this was +all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with +very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. + + + + +CHAPTER III--REQUIESCANT + +Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It +was the only opening through which he could get a glimpse of life. This +opening was sombre, and more cold than warmth, more night than day, came +to him through this skylight. This child, who had been all joy and light +on entering this strange world, soon became melancholy, and, what is +still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular +and imposing personages, he gazed about him with serious amazement. +Everything conspired to increase this astonishment in him. There were +in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, Noe, +Levis,--which was pronounced Levi,--Cambis, pronounced Cambyse. These +antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind +with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they +were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted +by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe profiles, their gray or +white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors +could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, words which +were both majestic and severe, little Marius stared at them with +frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but +patriarchs and magi, not real beings, but phantoms. + +With these phantoms, priests were sometimes mingled, frequenters of +this ancient salon, and some gentlemen; the Marquis de Sass****, private +secretary to Madame de Berry, the Vicomte de Val***, who published, +under the pseudonyme of Charles-Antoine, monorhymed odes, the Prince de +Beauff*******, who, though very young, had a gray head and a pretty and +witty wife, whose very low-necked toilettes of scarlet velvet with gold +torsades alarmed these shadows, the Marquis de C*****d'E******, the man +in all France who best understood "proportioned politeness," the Comte +d'Am*****, the kindly man with the amiable chin, and the Chevalier de +Port-de-Guy, a pillar of the library of the Louvre, called the King's +cabinet, M. de Port-de-Guy, bald, and rather aged than old, was wont +to relate that in 1793, at the age of sixteen, he had been put in the +galleys as refractory and chained with an octogenarian, the Bishop +of Mirepoix, also refractory, but as a priest, while he was so in the +capacity of a soldier. This was at Toulon. Their business was to go at +night and gather up on the scaffold the heads and bodies of the persons +who had been guillotined during the day; they bore away on their backs +these dripping corpses, and their red galley-slave blouses had a clot of +blood at the back of the neck, which was dry in the morning and wet at +night. These tragic tales abounded in Madame de T.'s salon, and by +dint of cursing Marat, they applauded Trestaillon. Some deputies of the +undiscoverable variety played their whist there; M. Thibord du Chalard, +M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated scoffer of the right, M. +Cornet-Dincourt. The bailiff de Ferrette, with his short breeches +and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de +Talleyrand. He had been M. le Comte d'Artois' companion in pleasures and +unlike Aristotle crouching under Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl +on all fours, and in that way he had exhibited to the ages a philosopher +avenged by a bailiff. As for the priests, there was the Abbe Halma, the +same to whom M. Larose, his collaborator on la Foudre, said: "Bah! Who +is there who is not fifty years old? a few greenhorns perhaps?" The Abbe +Letourneur, preacher to the King, the Abbe Frayssinous, who was not, as +yet, either count, or bishop, or minister, or peer, and who wore an old +cassock whose buttons were missing, and the Abbe Keravenant, Cure of +Saint-Germain-des-Pres; also the Pope's Nuncio, then Monsignor Macchi, +Archbishop of Nisibi, later on Cardinal, remarkable for his long, +pensive nose, and another Monsignor, entitled thus: Abbate Palmieri, +domestic prelate, one of the seven participant prothonotaries of the +Holy See, Canon of the illustrious Liberian basilica, Advocate of the +saints, Postulatore dei Santi, which refers to matters of canonization, +and signifies very nearly: Master of Requests of the section of +Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl****** +T*******. The Cardinal of Luzerne was a writer and was destined to have, +a few years later, the honor of signing in the Conservateur articles +side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl****** T******* was Archbishop +of Toul****, and often made trips to Paris, to his nephew, the Marquis +de T*******, who was Minister of Marine and War. The Cardinal of +Cl****** T******* was a merry little man, who displayed his red +stockings beneath his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred of +the Encyclopaedia, and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, +at that epoch, passed through the Rue M***** on summer evenings, where +the hotel de Cl****** T******* then stood, halted to listen to the shock +of the balls and the piercing voice of the Cardinal shouting to his +conclavist, Monseigneur Cotiret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste: "Mark, +Abbe, I make a cannon." The Cardinal de Cl****** T******* had been +brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, +former Bishop of Senlis, and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was +notable for his lofty figure and his assiduity at the Academy; through +the glass door of the neighboring hall of the library where the French +Academy then held its meetings, the curious could, on every Tuesday, +contemplate the Ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing erect, freshly +powdered, in violet hose, with his back turned to the door, apparently +for the purpose of allowing a better view of his little collar. All +these ecclesiastics, though for the most part as much courtiers as +churchmen, added to the gravity of the T. salon, whose seigniorial +aspect was accentuated by five peers of France, the Marquis de Vib****, +the Marquis de Tal***, the Marquis de Herb*******, the Vicomte Damb***, +and the Duc de Val********. This Duc de Val********, although Prince de +Mon***, that is to say a reigning prince abroad, had so high an idea of +France and its peerage, that he viewed everything through their medium. +It was he who said: "The Cardinals are the peers of France of Rome; +the lords are the peers of France of England." Moreover, as it is +indispensable that the Revolution should be everywhere in this century, +this feudal salon was, as we have said, dominated by a bourgeois. M. +Gillenormand reigned there. + +There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian white society. +There reputations, even Royalist reputations, were held in quarantine. +There is always a trace of anarchy in renown. Chateaubriand, had he +entered there, would have produced the effect of Pere Duchene. Some of +the scoffed-at did, nevertheless, penetrate thither on sufferance. Comte +Beug*** was received there, subject to correction. + +The "noble" salons of the present day no longer resemble those salons. +The Faubourg Saint-Germain reeks of the fagot even now. The Royalists of +to-day are demagogues, let us record it to their credit. + +At Madame de T.'s the society was superior, taste was exquisite and +haughty, under the cover of a great show of politeness. Manners there +admitted of all sorts of involuntary refinements which were the old +regime itself, buried but still alive. Some of these habits, especially +in the matter of language, seem eccentric. Persons but superficially +acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that which was only +antique. A woman was called Madame la Generale. Madame la Colonelle was +not entirely disused. The charming Madame de Leon, in memory, no +doubt, of the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred this +appellation to her title of Princesse. The Marquise de Crequy was also +called Madame la Colonelle. + +It was this little high society which invented at the Tuileries the +refinement of speaking to the King in private as the King, in the third +person, and never as Your Majesty, the designation of Your Majesty +having been "soiled by the usurper." + +Men and deeds were brought to judgment there. They jeered at the age, +which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted +each other in amazement. They communicated to each other that modicum +of light which they possessed. Methuselah bestowed information on +Epimenides. The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course +of things. They declared that the time which had elasped since Coblentz +had not existed. In the same manner that Louis XVIII. was by the grace +of God, in the five and twentieth year of his reign, the emigrants were, +by rights, in the five and twentieth year of their adolescence. + +All was harmonious; nothing was too much alive; speech hardly amounted +to a breath; the newspapers, agreeing with the salons, seemed a papyrus. +There were some young people, but they were rather dead. The liveries in +the antechamber were antiquated. These utterly obsolete personages were +served by domestics of the same stamp. + +They all had the air of having lived a long time ago, and of obstinately +resisting the sepulchre. Nearly the whole dictionary consisted of +Conserver, Conservation, Conservateur; to be in good odor,--that was the +point. There are, in fact, aromatics in the opinions of these venerable +groups, and their ideas smelled of it. It was a mummified society. The +masters were embalmed, the servants were stuffed with straw. + +A worthy old marquise, an emigree and ruined, who had but a solitary +maid, continued to say: "My people." + +What did they do in Madame de T.'s salon? They were ultra. + +To be ultra; this word, although what it represents may not have +disappeared, has no longer any meaning at the present day. Let us +explain it. + +To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of +the throne, and the mitre in the name of the attar; it is to ill-treat +the thing which one is dragging, it is to kick over the traces; it is +to cavil at the fagot on the score of the amount of cooking received by +heretics; it is to reproach the idol with its small amount of idolatry; +it is to insult through excess of respect; it is to discover that the +Pope is not sufficiently papish, that the King is not sufficiently +royal, and that the night has too much light; it is to be discontented +with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and the lily in the name of +whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming +their enemy; it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. + +The ultra spirit especially characterizes the first phase of the +Restoration. + +Nothing in history resembles that quarter of an hour which begins in +1814 and terminates about 1820, with the advent of M. de Villele, +the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary +moment; at one and the same time brilliant and gloomy, smiling and +sombre, illuminated as by the radiance of dawn and entirely covered, at +the same time, with the shadows of the great catastrophes which still +filled the horizon and were slowly sinking into the past. There existed +in that light and that shadow, a complete little new and old world, +comic and sad, juvenile and senile, which was rubbing its eyes; nothing +resembles an awakening like a return; a group which regarded France +with ill-temper, and which France regarded with irony; good old owls +of marquises by the streetful, who had returned, and of ghosts, the +"former" subjects of amazement at everything, brave and noble gentlemen +who smiled at being in France but wept also, delighted to behold +their country once more, in despair at not finding their monarchy; the +nobility of the Crusades treating the nobility of the Empire, that is to +say, the nobility of the sword, with scorn; historic races who had +lost the sense of history; the sons of the companions of Charlemagne +disdaining the companions of Napoleon. The swords, as we have just +remarked, returned the insult; the sword of Fontenoy was laughable and +nothing but a scrap of rusty iron; the sword of Marengo was odious and +was only a sabre. Former days did not recognize Yesterday. People no +longer had the feeling for what was grand. There was some one who called +Bonaparte Scapin. This Society no longer exists. Nothing of it, we +repeat, exists to-day. When we select from it some one figure at random, +and attempt to make it live again in thought, it seems as strange to us +as the world before the Deluge. It is because it, too, as a matter of +fact, has been engulfed in a deluge. It has disappeared beneath two +Revolutions. What billows are ideas! How quickly they cover all that it +is their mission to destroy and to bury, and how promptly they create +frightful gulfs! + +Such was the physiognomy of the salons of those distant and candid times +when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. + +These salons had a literature and politics of their own. They believed +in Fievee. M. Agier laid down the law in them. They commentated M. +Colnet, the old bookseller and publicist of the Quay Malaquais. Napoleon +was to them thoroughly the Corsican Ogre. Later on the introduction into +history of M. le Marquis de Bonaparte, Lieutenant-General of the King's +armies, was a concession to the spirit of the age. + +These salons did not long preserve their purity. Beginning with 1818, +doctrinarians began to spring up in them, a disturbing shade. Their way +was to be Royalists and to excuse themselves for being so. Where the +ultras were very proud, the doctrinarians were rather ashamed. They had +wit; they had silence; their political dogma was suitably impregnated +with arrogance; they should have succeeded. They indulged, and usefully +too, in excesses in the matter of white neckties and tightly buttoned +coats. The mistake or the misfortune of the doctrinarian party was to +create aged youth. They assumed the poses of wise men. They dreamed of +engrafting a temperate power on the absolute and excessive principle. +They opposed, and sometimes with rare intelligence, conservative +liberalism to the liberalism which demolishes. They were heard to say: +"Thanks for Royalism! It has rendered more than one service. It has +brought back tradition, worship, religion, respect. It is faithful, +brave, chivalric, loving, devoted. It has mingled, though with regret, +the secular grandeurs of the monarchy with the new grandeurs of the +nation. Its mistake is not to understand the Revolution, the Empire, +glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, the age. But this +mistake which it makes with regard to us,--have we not sometimes been +guilty of it towards them? The Revolution, whose heirs we are, ought to +be intelligent on all points. To attack Royalism is a misconstruction of +liberalism. What an error! And what blindness! Revolutionary France is +wanting in respect towards historic France, that is to say, towards its +mother, that is to say, towards itself. After the 5th of September, the +nobility of the monarchy is treated as the nobility of the Empire was +treated after the 5th of July. They were unjust to the eagle, we are +unjust to the fleur-de-lys. It seems that we must always have something +to proscribe! Does it serve any purpose to ungild the crown of Louis +XIV., to scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de +Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that +he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. +The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To +what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the +past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? +Why not love the whole of France?" + +It is thus that doctrinarians criticised and protected Royalism, which +was displeased at criticism and furious at protection. + +The ultras marked the first epoch of Royalism, congregation +characterized the second. Skill follows ardor. Let us confine ourselves +here to this sketch. + +In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered +in his path this curious moment of contemporary history; he has been +forced to cast a passing glance upon it, and to trace once more some of +the singular features of this society which is unknown to-day. But he +does it rapidly and without any bitter or derisive idea. Souvenirs both +respectful and affectionate, for they touch his mother, attach him to +this past. Moreover, let us remark, this same petty world had a grandeur +of its own. One may smile at it, but one can neither despise nor hate +it. It was the France of former days. + +Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he +emerged from the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather confided +him to a worthy professor of the most purely classic innocence. This +young soul which was expanding passed from a prude to a vulgar pedant. + +Marius went through his years of college, then he entered the law +school. He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his +grandfather much, as the latter's gayety and cynicism repelled him, and +his feelings towards his father were gloomy. + +He was, on the whole, a cold and ardent, noble, generous, proud, +religious, enthusiastic lad; dignified to harshness, pure to shyness. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--END OF THE BRIGAND + +The conclusion of Marius' classical studies coincided with M. +Gillenormand's departure from society. The old man bade farewell to +the Faubourg Saint-Germain and to Madame de T.'s salon, and established +himself in the Mardis, in his house of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. +There he had for servants, in addition to the porter, that chambermaid, +Nicolette, who had succeeded to Magnon, and that short-breathed and +pursy Basque, who have been mentioned above. + +In 1827, Marius had just attained his seventeenth year. One evening, on +his return home, he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand. + +"Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will set out for Vernon to-morrow." + +"Why?" said Marius. + +"To see your father." + +Marius was seized with a trembling fit. He had thought of everything +except this--that he should one day be called upon to see his father. +Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us admit +it, more disagreeable to him. It was forcing estrangement into +reconciliation. It was not an affliction, but it was an unpleasant duty. + +Marius, in addition to his motives of political antipathy, was convinced +that his father, the slasher, as M. Gillenormand called him on his +amiable days, did not love him; this was evident, since he had abandoned +him to others. Feeling that he was not beloved, he did not love. +"Nothing is more simple," he said to himself. + +He was so astounded that he did not question M. Gillenormand. The +grandfather resumed:-- + +"It appears that he is ill. He demands your presence." + +And after a pause, he added:-- + +"Set out to-morrow morning. I think there is a coach which leaves the +Cour des Fontaines at six o'clock, and which arrives in the evening. +Take it. He says that here is haste." + +Then he crushed the letter in his hand and thrust it into his pocket. +Marius might have set out that very evening and have been with his +father on the following morning. A diligence from the Rue du Bouloi +took the trip to Rouen by night at that date, and passed through Vernon. +Neither Marius nor M. Gillenormand thought of making inquiries about it. + +The next day, at twilight, Marius reached Vernon. People were just +beginning to light their candles. He asked the first person whom he +met for "M. Pontmercy's house." For in his own mind, he agreed with the +Restoration, and like it, did not recognize his father's claim to the +title of either colonel or baron. + +The house was pointed out to him. He rang; a woman with a little lamp in +her hand opened the door. + +"M. Pontmercy?" said Marius. + +The woman remained motionless. + +"Is this his house?" demanded Marius. + +The woman nodded affirmatively. + +"Can I speak with him?" + +The woman shook her head. + +"But I am his son!" persisted Marius. "He is expecting me." + +"He no longer expects you," said the woman. + +Then he perceived that she was weeping. + +She pointed to the door of a room on the ground-floor; he entered. + +In that room, which was lighted by a tallow candle standing on the +chimney-piece, there were three men, one standing erect, another +kneeling, and one lying at full length, on the floor in his shirt. The +one on the floor was the colonel. + +The other two were the doctor, and the priest, who was engaged in +prayer. + +The colonel had been attacked by brain fever three days previously. As +he had a foreboding of evil at the very beginning of his illness, he +had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown +worse. On the very evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon, the colonel had +had an attack of delirium; he had risen from his bed, in spite of the +servant's efforts to prevent him, crying: "My son is not coming! I shall +go to meet him!" Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate on the +floor of the antechamber. He had just expired. + +The doctor had been summoned, and the cure. The doctor had arrived too +late. The son had also arrived too late. + +By the dim light of the candle, a large tear could be distinguished on +the pale and prostrate colonel's cheek, where it had trickled from his +dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That +tear was his son's delay. + +Marius gazed upon that man whom he beheld for the first time, on that +venerable and manly face, on those open eyes which saw not, on those +white locks, those robust limbs, on which, here and there, brown +lines, marking sword-thrusts, and a sort of red stars, which indicated +bullet-holes, were visible. He contemplated that gigantic sear which +stamped heroism on that countenance upon which God had imprinted +goodness. He reflected that this man was his father, and that this man +was dead, and a chill ran over him. + +The sorrow which he felt was the sorrow which he would have felt in the +presence of any other man whom he had chanced to behold stretched out in +death. + +Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was +lamenting in a corner, the cure was praying, and his sobs were audible, +the doctor was wiping his eyes; the corpse itself was weeping. + +The doctor, the priest, and the woman gazed at Marius in the midst of +their affliction without uttering a word; he was the stranger there. +Marius, who was far too little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed at +his own attitude; he held his hat in his hand; and he dropped it on the +floor, in order to produce the impression that grief had deprived him of +the strength to hold it. + +At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for +behaving in this manner. But was it his fault? He did not love his +father? Why should he! + +The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture barely paid the +expenses of his burial. + +The servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. It +contained the following, in the colonel's handwriting:-- + +"For my son.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battle-field of +Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I +purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will +be worthy of it is a matter of course." Below, the colonel had added: +"At that same battle of Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. The man's +name was Thenardier. I think that he has recently been keeping a +little inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or +Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good he can to +Thenardier." + +Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, +but because of that vague respect for death which is always imperious in +the heart of man. + +Nothing remained of the colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and +uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the +garden and pillaged the rare flowers. The other plants turned to nettles +and weeds, and died. + +Marius remained only forty-eight hours at Vernon. After the interment he +returned to Paris, and applied himself again to his law studies, with +no more thought of his father than if the latter had never lived. In two +days the colonel was buried, and in three forgotten. + +Marius wore crape on his hat. That was all. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, IN ORDER TO BECOME A +REVOLUTIONIST + +Marius had preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, +when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the +Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he placed himself +behind a pillar, being more absent-minded and thoughtful than usual on +that occasion, and knelt down, without paying any special heed, upon a +chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this name: +Monsieur Mabeuf, warden. Mass had hardly begun when an old man presented +himself and said to Marius:-- + +"This is my place, sir." + +Marius stepped aside promptly, and the old man took possession of his +chair. + +The mass concluded, Marius still stood thoughtfully a few paces distant; +the old man approached him again and said:-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you a while ago, and for +again disturbing you at this moment; you must have thought me intrusive, +and I will explain myself." + +"There is no need of that, Sir," said Marius. + +"Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of +me. You see, I am attached to this place. It seems to me that the mass +is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that +I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three +months, for the last ten years, since he had no other opportunity and +no other way of seeing his child, because he was prevented by family +arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be +brought to mass. The little one never suspected that his father was +there. Perhaps he did not even know that he had a father, poor innocent! +The father kept behind a pillar, so that he might not be seen. He gazed +at his child and he wept. He adored that little fellow, poor man! I +could see that. This spot has become sanctified in my sight, and I have +contracted a habit of coming hither to listen to the mass. I prefer it +to the stall to which I have a right, in my capacity of warden. I knew +that unhappy gentleman a little, too. He had a father-in-law, a wealthy +aunt, relatives, I don't know exactly what all, who threatened to +disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him. He sacrificed himself +in order that his son might be rich and happy some day. He was separated +from him because of political opinions. Certainly, I approve of +political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop. +Mon Dieu! a man is not a monster because he was at Waterloo; a father +is not separated from his child for such a reason as that. He was one of +Bonaparte's colonels. He is dead, I believe. He lived at Vernon, where I +have a brother who is a cure, and his name was something like Pontmarie +or Montpercy. He had a fine sword-cut, on my honor." + +"Pontmercy," suggested Marius, turning pale. + +"Precisely, Pontmercy. Did you know him?" + +"Sir," said Marius, "he was my father." + +The old warden clasped his hands and exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this +time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you +dearly!" + +Marius offered his arm to the old man and conducted him to his lodgings. + +On the following day, he said to M. Gillenormand:-- + +"I have arranged a hunting-party with some friends. Will you permit me +to be absent for three days?" + +"Four!" replied his grandfather. "Go and amuse yourself." + +And he said to his daughter in a low tone, and with a wink, "Some love +affair!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVING MET A WARDEN + +Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on. + +Marius was absent for three days, then he returned to Paris, went +straight to the library of the law-school and asked for the files of the +Moniteur. + +He read the Moniteur, he read all the histories of the Republic and +the Empire, the Memorial de Sainte-Helene, all the memoirs, all the +newspapers, the bulletins, the proclamations; he devoured everything. +The first time that he came across his father's name in the bulletins of +the grand army, he had a fever for a week. He went to see the generals +under whom Georges Pontmercy had served, among others, Comte H. +Church-warden Mabeuf, whom he went to see again, told him about the life +at Vernon, the colonel's retreat, his flowers, his solitude. Marius came +to a full knowledge of that rare, sweet, and sublime man, that species +of lion-lamb who had been his father. + +In the meanwhile, occupied as he was with this study which absorbed all +his moments as well as his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenormands at +all. He made his appearance at meals; then they searched for him, and he +was not to be found. Father Gillenormand smiled. "Bah! bah! He is just +of the age for the girls!" Sometimes the old man added: "The deuce! +I thought it was only an affair of gallantry, It seems that it is an +affair of passion!" + +It was a passion, in fact. Marius was on the high road to adoring his +father. + +At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The +phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the +history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to +follow these phases step by step and to indicate them all. + +That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him. + +The first effect was to dazzle him. + +Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only +monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire, +a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where he had +expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a sort +of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, +Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, Camille, Desmoulins, +Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. He did not know where he stood. He +recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little, when his +astonishment had passed off, he grew accustomed to this radiance, he +contemplated these deeds without dizziness, he examined these personages +without terror; the Revolution and the Empire presented themselves +luminously, in perspective, before his mind's eye; he beheld each of +these groups of events and of men summed up in two tremendous facts: the +Republic in the sovereignty of civil right restored to the masses, +the Empire in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe; he +beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, and +the grand figure of France spring forth from the Empire. He asserted +in his conscience, that all this had been good. What his dazzled state +neglected in this, his first far too synthetic estimation, we do not +think it necessary to point out here. It is the state of a mind on the +march that we are recording. Progress is not accomplished in one stage. +That stated, once for all, in connection with what precedes as well as +with what is to follow, we continue. + +He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had comprehended his +country no more than he had comprehended his father. He had not known +either the one or the other, and a sort of voluntary night had obscured +his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other +he adored. + +He was filled with regret and remorse, and he reflected in despair that +all he had in his soul could now be said only to the tomb. Oh! if his +father had still been in existence, if he had still had him, if God, in +his compassion and his goodness, had permitted his father to be still +among the living, how he would have run, how he would have precipitated +himself, how he would have cried to his father: "Father! Here I am! It +is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!" How he would have +embraced that white head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar, +pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his +father died so early, before his time, before the justice, the love of +his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which +said to him every moment: "Alas!" At the same time, he became more truly +serious, more truly grave, more sure of his thought and his faith. At +each instant, gleams of the true came to complete his reason. An inward +growth seemed to be in progress within him. He was conscious of a sort +of natural enlargement, which gave him two things that were new to +him--his father and his country. + +As everything opens when one has a key, so he explained to himself that +which he had hated, he penetrated that which he had abhorred; henceforth +he plainly perceived the providential, divine and human sense of the +great things which he had been taught to detest, and of the great men +whom he had been instructed to curse. When he reflected on his former +opinions, which were but those of yesterday, and which, nevertheless, +seemed to him already so very ancient, he grew indignant, yet he smiled. + +From the rehabilitation of his father, he naturally passed to the +rehabilitation of Napoleon. + +But the latter, we will confess, was not effected without labor. + +From his infancy, he had been imbued with the judgments of the party of +1814, on Bonaparte. Now, all the prejudices of the Restoration, all its +interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated +him even more than it did Robespierre. It had very cleverly turned to +sufficiently good account the fatigue of the nation, and the hatred of +mothers. Bonaparte had become an almost fabulous monster, and in order +to paint him to the imagination of the people, which, as we lately +pointed out, resembles the imagination of children, the party of 1814 +made him appear under all sorts of terrifying masks in succession, from +that which is terrible though it remains grandiose to that which is +terrible and becomes grotesque, from Tiberius to the bugaboo. Thus, in +speaking of Bonaparte, one was free to sob or to puff up with +laughter, provided that hatred lay at the bottom. Marius had never +entertained--about that man, as he was called--any other ideas in his +mind. They had combined with the tenacity which existed in his nature. +There was in him a headstrong little man who hated Napoleon. + +On reading history, on studying him, especially in the documents and +materials for history, the veil which concealed Napoleon from the eyes +of Marius was gradually rent. He caught a glimpse of something immense, +and he suspected that he had been deceived up to that moment, on +the score of Bonaparte as about all the rest; each day he saw more +distinctly; and he set about mounting, slowly, step by step, almost +regretfully in the beginning, then with intoxication and as though +attracted by an irresistible fascination, first the sombre steps, then +the vaguely illuminated steps, at last the luminous and splendid steps +of enthusiasm. + +One night, he was alone in his little chamber near the roof. His candle +was burning; he was reading, with his elbows resting on his table close +to the open window. All sorts of reveries reached him from space, and +mingled with his thoughts. What a spectacle is the night! One hears dull +sounds, without knowing whence they proceed; one beholds Jupiter, which +is twelve hundred times larger than the earth, glowing like a firebrand, +the azure is black, the stars shine; it is formidable. + +He was perusing the bulletins of the grand army, those heroic strophes +penned on the field of battle; there, at intervals, he beheld his +father's name, always the name of the Emperor; the whole of that great +Empire presented itself to him; he felt a flood swelling and rising +within him; it seemed to him at moments that his father passed close +to him like a breath, and whispered in his ear; he gradually got into +a singular state; he thought that he heard drums, cannon, trumpets, +the measured tread of battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the +cavalry; from time to time, his eyes were raised heavenward, and gazed +upon the colossal constellations as they gleamed in the measureless +depths of space, then they fell upon his book once more, and there they +beheld other colossal things moving confusedly. His heart contracted +within him. He was in a transport, trembling, panting. All at once, +without himself knowing what was in him, and what impulse he was +obeying, he sprang to his feet, stretched both arms out of the window, +gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the +eternal immensity, and exclaimed: "Long live the Emperor!" + +From that moment forth, all was over; the Ogre of Corsica,--the +usurper,--the tyrant,--the monster who was the lover of his own +sisters,--the actor who took lessons of Talma,--the poisoner of +Jaffa,--the tiger,--Buonaparte,--all this vanished, and gave place +in his mind to a vague and brilliant radiance in which shone, at an +inaccessible height, the pale marble phantom of Caesar. The Emperor had +been for his father only the well-beloved captain whom one admires, for +whom one sacrifices one's self; he was something more to Marius. He was +the predestined constructor of the French group, succeeding the Roman +group in the domination of the universe. He was a prodigious architect, +of a destruction, the continuer of Charlemagne, of Louis XI., of Henry +IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, +having his spots, no doubt, his faults, his crimes even, being a man, +that is to say; but august in his faults, brilliant in his spots, +powerful in his crime. + +He was the predestined man, who had forced all nations to say: "The +great nation!" He was better than that, he was the very incarnation of +France, conquering Europe by the sword which he grasped, and the world +by the light which he shed. Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre +which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the +future. Despot but dictator; a despot resulting from a republic and +summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people as Jesus +Christ is the man-God. + +It will be perceived, that like all new converts to a religion, his +conversion intoxicated him, he hurled himself headlong into adhesion +and he went too far. His nature was so constructed; once on the downward +slope, it was almost impossible for him to put on the drag. Fanaticism +for the sword took possession of him, and complicated in his mind his +enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive that, along with genius, +and pell-mell, he was admitting force, that is to say, that he was +installing in two compartments of his idolatry, on the one hand that +which is divine, on the other that which is brutal. In many respects, he +had set about deceiving himself otherwise. He admitted everything. There +is a way of encountering error while on one's way to the truth. He had a +violent sort of good faith which took everything in the lump. In the new +path which he had entered on, in judging the mistakes of the old regime, +as in measuring the glory of Napoleon, he neglected the attenuating +circumstances. + +At all events, a tremendous step had been taken. Where he had formerly +beheld the fall of the monarchy, he now saw the advent of France. His +orientation had changed. What had been his East became the West. He had +turned squarely round. + +All these revolutions were accomplished within him, without his family +obtaining an inkling of the case. + +When, during this mysterious labor, he had entirely shed his old Bourbon +and ultra skin, when he had cast off the aristocrat, the Jacobite and +the Royalist, when he had become thoroughly a revolutionist, profoundly +democratic and republican, he went to an engraver on the Quai des +Orfevres and ordered a hundred cards bearing this name: Le Baron Marius +Pontmercy. + +This was only the strictly logical consequence of the change which had +taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his +father. + +Only, as he did not know any one and could not sow his cards with any +porter, he put them in his pocket. + +By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his +father, to the latter's memory, and to the things for which the +colonel had fought five and twenty years before, he receded from his +grandfather. We have long ago said, that M. Gillenormand's temper did +not please him. There already existed between them all the dissonances +of the grave young man and the frivolous old man. The gayety of Geronte +shocks and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same +political opinions and the same ideas had been common to them both, +Marius had met M. Gillenormand there as on a bridge. When the bridge +fell, an abyss was formed. And then, over and above all, Marius +experienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected that it +was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly +from the colonel, thus depriving the father of the child, and the child +of the father. + +By dint of pity for his father, Marius had nearly arrived at aversion +for his grandfather. + +Nothing of this sort, however, was betrayed on the exterior, as we have +already said. Only he grew colder and colder; laconic at meals, and rare +in the house. When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and +alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. +His grandfather never departed from his infallible diagnosis: "In love! +I know all about it." + +From time to time Marius absented himself. + +"Where is it that he goes off like this?" said his aunt. + +On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he went to +Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had +left him, and he sought the old sergeant to Waterloo, the inn-keeper +Thenardier. Thenardier had failed, the inn was closed, and no one knew +what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on +this quest. + +"He is getting decidedly wild," said his grandfather. + +They thought they had noticed that he wore something on his breast, +under his shirt, which was attached to his neck by a black ribbon. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--SOME PETTICOAT + +We have mentioned a lancer. + +He was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, +who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic +hearth. Lieutenant Theodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions +required to make what is called a fine officer. He had "a lady's waist," +a victorious manner of trailing his sword and of twirling his mustache +in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had +never seen him. The cousins knew each other only by name. We think +we have said that Theodule was the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who +preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits one +to attribute to them all possible perfections. + +One morning, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder returned to her +apartment as much disturbed as her placidity was capable of allowing. +Marius had just asked his grandfather's permission to take a little +trip, adding that he meant to set out that very evening. "Go!" had been +his grandfather's reply, and M. Gillenormand had added in an aside, as +he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead: "Here he is passing +the night out again." Mademoiselle Gillenormand had ascended to +her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this +exclamation: "This is too much!"--and this interrogation: "But where is +it that he goes?" She espied some adventure of the heart, more or less +illicit, a woman in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would +not have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into the affair. Tasting a +mystery resembles getting the first flavor of a scandal; sainted souls +do not detest this. There is some curiosity about scandal in the secret +compartments of bigotry. + +So she was the prey of a vague appetite for learning a history. + +In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond +her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping, +with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the +Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cart-wheels. +The work was clumsy, the worker cross. She had been seated at this for +several hours when the door opened. Mademoiselle Gillenormand raised +her nose. Lieutenant Theodule stood before her, making the regulation +salute. She uttered a cry of delight. One may be old, one may be a +prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable +to see a lancer enter one's chamber. + +"You here, Theodule!" she exclaimed. + +"On my way through town, aunt." + +"Embrace me." + +"Here goes!" said Theodule. + +And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writing-desk and opened +it. + +"You will remain with us a week at least?" + +"I leave this very evening, aunt." + +"It is not possible!" + +"Mathematically!" + +"Remain, my little Theodule, I beseech you." + +"My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple. +They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being +transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pass through Paris in order +to get from the old post to the new one. I said: 'I am going to see my +aunt.'" + +"Here is something for your trouble." + +And she put ten louis into his hand. + +"For my pleasure, you mean to say, my dear aunt." + +Theodule kissed her again, and she experienced the joy of having some of +the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform. + +"Are you making the journey on horseback, with your regiment?" she asked +him. + +"No, aunt. I wanted to see you. I have special permission. My servant is +taking my horse; I am travelling by diligence. And, by the way, I want +to ask you something." + +"What is it?" + +"Is my cousin Marius Pontmercy travelling so, too?" + +"How do you know that?" said his aunt, suddenly pricked to the quick +with a lively curiosity. + +"On my arrival, I went to the diligence to engage my seat in the coupe." + +"Well?" + +"A traveller had already come to engage a seat in the imperial. I saw +his name on the card." + +"What name?" + +"Marius Pontmercy." + +"The wicked fellow!" exclaimed his aunt. "Ah! your cousin is not a +steady lad like yourself. To think that he is to pass the night in a +diligence!" + +"Just as I am going to do." + +"But you--it is your duty; in his case, it is wildness." + +"Bosh!" said Theodule. + +Here an event occurred to Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,--an idea +struck her. If she had been a man, she would have slapped her brow. She +apostrophized Theodule:-- + +"Are you aware whether your cousin knows you?" + +"No. I have seen him; but he has never deigned to notice me." + +"So you are going to travel together?" + +"He in the imperial, I in the coupe." + +"Where does this diligence run?" + +"To Andelys." + +"Then that is where Marius is going?" + +"Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, +in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius' +plan of travel." + +"Marius! what an ugly name! what possessed them to name him Marius? +While you, at least, are called Theodule." + +"I would rather be called Alfred," said the officer. + +"Listen, Theodule." + +"I am listening, aunt." + +"Pay attention." + +"I am paying attention." + +"You understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Marius absents himself!" + +"Eh! eh!" + +"He travels." + +"Ah! ah!" + +"He spends the night out." + +"Oh! oh!" + +"We should like to know what there is behind all this." + +Theodule replied with the composure of a man of bronze:-- + +"Some petticoat or other." + +And with that inward laugh which denotes certainty, he added:-- + +"A lass." + +"That is evident," exclaimed his aunt, who thought she heard M. +Gillenormand speaking, and who felt her conviction become irresistible +at that word fillette, accentuated in almost the very same fashion by +the granduncle and the grandnephew. She resumed:-- + +"Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be +easy. Since a lass there is, try to get a sight of her. You must write +us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather." + +Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort of spying; but he was much +touched by the ten louis, and he thought he saw a chance for a possible +sequel. He accepted the commission and said: "As you please, aunt." + +And he added in an aside, to himself: "Here I am a duenna." + +Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him. + +"You are not the man to play such pranks, Theodule. You obey discipline, +you are the slave of orders, you are a man of scruples and duty, and you +would not quit your family to go and see a creature." + +The lancer made the pleased grimace of Cartouche when praised for his +probity. + +Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence +without suspecting that he was watched. As for the watcher, the +first thing he did was to fall asleep. His slumber was complete and +conscientious. Argus snored all night long. + +At daybreak, the conductor of the diligence shouted: "Vernon! relay of +Vernon! Travellers for Vernon!" And Lieutenant Theodule woke. + +"Good," he growled, still half asleep, "this is where I get out." + +Then, as his memory cleared by degrees, the effect of waking, he +recalled his aunt, the ten louis, and the account which he had +undertaken to render of the deeds and proceedings of Marius. This set +him to laughing. + +"Perhaps he is no longer in the coach," he thought, as he rebuttoned the +waistcoat of his undress uniform. "He may have stopped at Poissy; he may +have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have got +out at Mantes, unless he got out at Rolleboise, or if he did not go on +as far as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the left at Evreus, or to +the right at Laroche-Guyon. Run after him, aunty. What the devil am I to +write to that good old soul?" + +At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, +made its appearance at the window of the coupe. + +"Can that be Marius?" said the lieutenant. + +It was Marius. + +A little peasant girl, all entangled with the horses and the postilions +at the end of the vehicle, was offering flowers to the travellers. "Give +your ladies flowers!" she cried. + +Marius approached her and purchased the finest flowers in her flat +basket. + +"Come now," said Theodule, leaping down from the coupe, "this piques my +curiosity. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She +must be a splendidly handsome woman for so fine a bouquet. I want to see +her." + +And no longer in pursuance of orders, but from personal curiosity, like +dogs who hunt on their own account, he set out to follow Marius. + +Marius paid no attention to Theodule. Elegant women descended from the +diligence; he did not glance at them. He seemed to see nothing around +him. + +"He is pretty deeply in love!" thought Theodule. + +Marius directed his steps towards the church. + +"Capital," said Theodule to himself. "Rendezvous seasoned with a bit of +mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes +over the good God's head." + +On arriving at the church, Marius did not enter it, but skirted the +apse. He disappeared behind one of the angles of the apse. + +"The rendezvous is appointed outside," said Theodule. "Let's have a look +at the lass." + +And he advanced on the tips of his boots towards the corner which Marius +had turned. + +On arriving there, he halted in amazement. + +Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands, was kneeling upon the +grass on a grave. He had strewn his bouquet there. At the extremity of +the grave, on a little swelling which marked the head, there stood +a cross of black wood with this name in white letters: COLONEL BARON +PONTMERCY. Marius' sobs were audible. + +The "lass" was a grave. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE + +It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his +absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time +that M. Gillenormand had said: "He is sleeping out." + +Lieutenant Theodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this +unexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular and +disagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and which +was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the +colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and +there was discipline in this retreat. Death appeared to him with large +epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing +what to write to his aunt, he decided not to write at all; and it is +probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made +by Theodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those +mysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene at +Vernon had not had an almost immediate counter-shock at Paris. + +Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, in the middle of the +morning, descended at his grandfather's door, and, wearied by the two +nights spent in the diligence, and feeling the need of repairing his +loss of sleep by an hour at the swimming-school, he mounted rapidly to +his chamber, took merely time enough to throw off his travelling-coat, +and the black ribbon which he wore round his neck, and went off to the +bath. + +M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like all old men in good health, +had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his +old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived, +in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find +out where he had been. + +But the youth had taken less time to descend than the old man had to +ascend, and when Father Gillenormand entered the attic, Marius was no +longer there. + +The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bed lay, outspread, but not +defiantly the great-coat and the black ribbon. + +"I like this better," said M. Gillenormand. + +And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, where +Mademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering her +cart-wheels. + +The entrance was a triumphant one. + +M. Gillenormand held in one hand the great-coat, and in the other the +neck-ribbon, and exclaimed:-- + +"Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going to +learn the most minute details; we are going to lay our finger on the +debaucheries of our sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. I have +the portrait!" + +In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling a medallion portrait, was +suspended from the ribbon. + +The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening +it, with that air of enjoyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poor +hungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, pass +under his very nose. + +"For this evidently is a portrait. I know all about such things. That is +worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright +that will make us shudder, probably! Young men have such bad taste +nowadays!" + +"Let us see, father," said the old spinster. + +The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothing +but a carefully folded paper. + +"From the same to the same," said M. Gillenormand, bursting with +laughter. "I know what it is. A billet-doux." + +"Ah! let us read it!" said the aunt. + +And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as +follows:-- + +"For my son.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield of +Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I +purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will +be worthy of it is a matter of course." + +The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They felt +chilled as by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a +word. + +Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and as though speaking to +himself:-- + +"It is the slasher's handwriting." + +The aunt examined the paper, turned it about in all directions, then put +it back in its case. + +At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fell +from one of the pockets of the great-coat. Mademoiselle Gillenormand +picked it up and unfolded the blue paper. + +It contained Marius' hundred cards. She handed one of them to M. +Gillenormand, who read: Le Baron Marius Pontmercy. + +The old man rang the bell. Nicolette came. M. Gillenormand took the +ribbon, the case, and the coat, flung them all on the floor in the +middle of the room, and said:-- + +"Carry those duds away." + +A full hour passed in the most profound silence. The old man and the old +spinster had seated themselves with their backs to each other, and were +thinking, each on his own account, the same things, in all probability. + +At the expiration of this hour, Aunt Gillenormand said:--"A pretty state +of things!" + +A few moments later, Marius made his appearance. He entered. Even before +he had crossed the threshold, he saw his grandfather holding one of +his own cards in his hand, and on catching sight of him, the latter +exclaimed with his air of bourgeois and grinning superiority which was +something crushing:-- + +"Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my +compliments. What is the meaning of this?" + +Marius reddened slightly and replied:-- + +"It means that I am the son of my father." + +M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly:-- + +"I am your father." + +"My father," retorted Marius, with downcast eyes and a severe air, "was +a humble and heroic man, who served the Republic and France gloriously, +who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, who +lived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grape-shot and +bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two +flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and +who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two +ingrates, his country and myself." + +This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear to hear. At the word +republic, he rose, or, to speak more correctly, he sprang to his feet. +Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of the +old Royalist the effect of the puffs of air from a forge upon a blazing +brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from +purple, flame-colored. + +"Marius!" he cried. "Abominable child! I do not know what your father +was! I do not wish to know! I know nothing about that, and I do not know +him! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrels +among those men! They were all rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! I +say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius! +See here, you are no more a baron than my slipper is! They were all +bandits in the service of Robespierre! All who served B-u-o-naparte were +brigands! They were all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed their +legitimate king! All cowards who fled before the Prussians and the +English at Waterloo! That is what I do know! Whether Monsieur your +father comes in that category, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so much +the worse, your humble servant!" + +In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormand +who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what +would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds +all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a +passer-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been +uttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just been +trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By +his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the +other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it was +equally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the one +hand was a sacred grave, on the other hoary locks. + +He stood there for several moments, staggering as though intoxicated, +with all this whirlwind dashing through his head; then he raised +his eyes, gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and cried in a voice of +thunder:-- + +"Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of a Louis XVIII.!" + +Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but it was all the same to +him. + +The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiter than his hair. He +wheeled round towards a bust of M. le Duc de Berry, which stood on the +chimney-piece, and made a profound bow, with a sort of peculiar majesty. +Then he paced twice, slowly and in silence, from the fireplace to the +window and from the window to the fireplace, traversing the whole length +of the room, and making the polished floor creak as though he had been a +stone statue walking. + +On his second turn, he bent over his daughter, who was watching this +encounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to her +with a smile that was almost calm: "A baron like this gentleman, and a +bourgeois like myself cannot remain under the same roof." + +And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with +his brow rendered more lofty by the terrible radiance of wrath, he +extended his arm towards Marius and shouted to him:-- + +"Be off!" + +Marius left the house. + +On the following day, M. Gillenormand said to his daughter: + +"You will send sixty pistoles every six months to that blood-drinker, +and you will never mention his name to me." + +Having an immense reserve fund of wrath to get rid of, and not knowing +what to do with it, he continued to address his daughter as you instead +of thou for the next three months. + +Marius, on his side, had gone forth in indignation. There was one +circumstance which, it must be admitted, aggravated his exasperation. +There are always petty fatalities of the sort which complicate domestic +dramas. They augment the grievances in such cases, although, in reality, +the wrongs are not increased by them. While carrying Marius' "duds" +precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolette +had, inadvertently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, which +was dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paper +penned by the colonel. Neither paper nor case could afterwards be found. +Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forth +he never alluded to him otherwise--had flung "his father's testament" in +the fire. He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written, +and, consequently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writing, that +sacred relic,--all that was his very heart. What had been done with it? + +Marius had taken his departure without saying whither he was going, and +without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes +in a hand-bag. He had entered a hackney-coach, had engaged it by the +hour, and had directed his course at hap-hazard towards the Latin +quarter. + +What was to become of Marius? + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C + + + + +CHAPTER I--A GROUP WHICH BARELY MISSED BECOMING HISTORIC + +At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain +revolutionary quiver was vaguely current. Breaths which had started +forth from the depths of '89 and '93 were in the air. Youth was on +the point, may the reader pardon us the word, of moulting. People were +undergoing a transformation, almost without being conscious of it, +through the movement of the age. The needle which moves round the +compass also moves in souls. Each person was taking that step in advance +which he was bound to take. The Royalists were becoming liberals, +liberals were turning democrats. It was a flood tide complicated with +a thousand ebb movements; the peculiarity of ebbs is to create +intermixtures; hence the combination of very singular ideas; people +adored both Napoleon and liberty. We are making history here. These +were the mirages of that period. Opinions traverse phases. Voltairian +royalism, a quaint variety, had a no less singular sequel, Bonapartist +liberalism. + +Other groups of minds were more serious. In that direction, they +sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They +grew enthusiastic for the absolute, they caught glimpses of infinite +realizations; the absolute, by its very rigidity, urges spirits towards +the sky and causes them to float in illimitable space. There is nothing +like dogma for bringing forth dreams. And there is nothing like dreams +for engendering the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood to-morrow. + +These advanced opinions had a double foundation. A beginning of mystery +menaced "the established order of things," which was suspicious and +underhand. A sign which was revolutionary to the highest degree. The +second thoughts of power meet the second thoughts of the populace in +the mine. The incubation of insurrections gives the retort to the +premeditation of coups d'etat. + +There did not, as yet, exist in France any of those vast underlying +organizations, like the German tugendbund and Italian Carbonarism; but +here and there there were dark underminings, which were in process of +throwing off shoots. The Cougourde was being outlined at Aix; there +existed at Paris, among other affiliations of that nature, the society +of the Friends of the A B C. + +What were these Friends of the A B C? A society which had for its object +apparently the education of children, in reality the elevation of man. + +They declared themselves the Friends of the A B C,--the Abaisse,--the +debased,--that is to say, the people. They wished to elevate the people. +It was a pun which we should do wrong to smile at. Puns are sometimes +serious factors in politics; witness the Castratus ad castra, which made +a general of the army of Narses; witness: Barbari et Barberini; witness: +Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram, etc., etc. + +The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in +the state of embryo, we might almost say a coterie, if coteries ended in +heroes. They assembled in Paris in two localities, near the fish-market, +in a wine-shop called Corinthe, of which more will be heard later on, +and near the Pantheon in a little cafe in the Rue Saint-Michel called +the Cafe Musain, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was +close to the workingman, the second to the students. + +The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back +room of the Cafe Musain. + +This hall, which was tolerably remote from the cafe, with which it was +connected by an extremely long corridor, had two windows and an exit +with a private stairway on the little Rue des Gres. There they smoked +and drank, and gambled and laughed. There they conversed in very loud +tones about everything, and in whispers of other things. An old map +of France under the Republic was nailed to the wall,--a sign quite +sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent. + +The greater part of the Friends of the A B C were students, who were +on cordial terms with the working classes. Here are the names of the +principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history: Enjolras, +Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or +Laigle, Joly, Grantaire. + +These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship. +All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South. + +[Illustration: Friends of the A B C 3b4-1-abc-friends] + +This was a remarkable group. It vanished in the invisible depths which +lie behind us. At the point of this drama which we have now reached, +it will not perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of light upon these +youthful heads, before the reader beholds them plunging into the shadow +of a tragic adventure. + +Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned first of all,--the reader shall +see why later on,--was an only son and wealthy. + +Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He +was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said, +to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, +in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary +apocalypse. He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a +witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great +affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He +was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of +view, a soldier of the democracy; above the contemporary movement, the +priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his +lower lip was thick and easily became disdainful, his brow was lofty. A +great deal of brow in a face is like a great deal of horizon in a view. +Like certain young men at the beginning of this century and the end of +the last, who became illustrious at an early age, he was endowed with +excessive youth, and was as rosy as a young girl, although subject to +hours of pallor. Already a man, he still seemed a child. His two and +twenty years appeared to be but seventeen; he was serious, it did not +seem as though he were aware there was on earth a thing called woman. +He had but one passion--the right; but one thought--to overthrow +the obstacle. On Mount Aventine, he would have been Gracchus; in the +Convention, he would have been Saint-Just. He hardly saw the roses, he +ignored spring, he did not hear the carolling of the birds; the bare +throat of Evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved +Aristogeiton; he, like Harmodius, thought flowers good for nothing +except to conceal the sword. He was severe in his enjoyments. He +chastely dropped his eyes before everything which was not the Republic. +He was the marble lover of liberty. His speech was harshly inspired, +and had the thrill of a hymn. He was subject to unexpected outbursts of +soul. Woe to the love-affair which should have risked itself beside him! +If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, +seeing that face of a youth escaped from college, that page's mien, +those long, golden lashes, those blue eyes, that hair billowing in the +wind, those rosy cheeks, those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had +conceived an appetite for that complete aurora, and had tried her beauty +on Enjolras, an astounding and terrible glance would have promptly shown +her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty +cherub of Ezekiel with the gallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais. + +By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution, +Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the +Revolution and its philosophy there exists this difference--that its +logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace. +Combeferre complemented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty, but +broader. He desired to pour into all minds the extensive principles of +general ideas: he said: "Revolution, but civilization"; and around the +mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution +was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras. +Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its natural right. +The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself +to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world +more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to +attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise +man. Enjolras was the more virile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo and +vir, that was the exact effect of their different shades. Combeferre was +as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. He loved +the word citizen, but he preferred the word man. He would gladly +have said: Hombre, like the Spanish. He read everything, went to +the theatres, attended the courses of public lecturers, learned the +polarization of light from Arago, grew enthusiastic over a lesson in +which Geoffrey Sainte-Hilaire explained the double function of the +external carotid artery, and the internal, the one which makes the face, +and the one which makes the brain; he kept up with what was going +on, followed science step by step, compared Saint-Simon with Fourier, +deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebble which he found and reasoned +on geology, drew from memory a silkworm moth, pointed out the faulty +French in the Dictionary of the Academy, studied Puysegur and Deleuze, +affirmed nothing, not even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts; +turned over the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared that the +future lies in the hand of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with +educational questions. He desired that society should labor without +relaxation at the elevation of the moral and intellectual level, at +coining science, at putting ideas into circulation, at increasing the +mind in youthful persons, and he feared lest the present poverty of +method, the paltriness from a literary point of view confined to two +or three centuries called classic, the tyrannical dogmatism of official +pedants, scholastic prejudices and routines should end by converting our +colleges into artificial oyster beds. He was learned, a purist, exact, +a graduate of the Polytechnic, a close student, and at the same time, +thoughtful "even to chimaeras," so his friends said. He believed in +all dreams, railroads, the suppression of suffering in chirurgical +operations, the fixing of images in the dark chamber, the electric +telegraph, the steering of balloons. Moreover, he was not much alarmed +by the citadels erected against the human mind in every direction, by +superstition, despotism, and prejudice. He was one of those who think +that science will eventually turn the position. Enjolras was a chief, +Combeferre was a guide. One would have liked to fight under the one and +to march behind the other. It is not that Combeferre was not capable of +fighting, he did not refuse a hand-to-hand combat with the obstacle, and +to attack it by main force and explosively; but it suited him better to +bring the human race into accord with its destiny gradually, by means of +education, the inculcation of axioms, the promulgation of positive laws; +and, between two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than +for conflagration. A conflagration can create an aurora, no doubt, but +why not await the dawn? A volcano illuminates, but daybreak furnishes a +still better illumination. Possibly, Combeferre preferred the whiteness +of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime. A light troubled by smoke, +progress purchased at the expense of violence, only half satisfied this +tender and serious spirit. The headlong precipitation of a people into +the truth, a '93, terrified him; nevertheless, stagnation was still +more repulsive to him, in it he detected putrefaction and death; on the +whole, he preferred scum to miasma, and he preferred the torrent to the +cesspool, and the falls of Niagara to the lake of Montfaucon. In +short, he desired neither halt nor haste. While his tumultuous friends, +captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary +adventures, Combeferre was inclined to let progress, good progress, take +its own course; he may have been cold, but he was pure; methodical, but +irreproachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable. Combeferre would have +knelt and clasped his hands to enable the future to arrive in all +its candor, and that nothing might disturb the immense and virtuous +evolution of the races. The good must be innocent, he repeated +incessantly. And in fact, if the grandeur of the Revolution consists +in keeping the dazzling ideal fixedly in view, and of soaring thither +athwart the lightnings, with fire and blood in its talons, the beauty +of progress lies in being spotless; and there exists between Washington, +who represents the one, and Danton, who incarnates the other, that +difference which separates the swan from the angel with the wings of an +eagle. + +Jean Prouvaire was a still softer shade than Combeferre. His name +was Jehan, owing to that petty momentary freak which mingled with the +powerful and profound movement whence sprang the very essential study +of the Middle Ages. Jean Prouvaire was in love; he cultivated a pot +of flowers, played on the flute, made verses, loved the people, pitied +woman, wept over the child, confounded God and the future in the same +confidence, and blamed the Revolution for having caused the fall of a +royal head, that of Andre Chenier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, +but suddenly grew manly. He was learned even to erudition, and almost an +Orientalist. Above all, he was good; and, a very simple thing to those +who know how nearly goodness borders on grandeur, in the matter of +poetry, he preferred the immense. He knew Italian, Latin, Greek, and +Hebrew; and these served him only for the perusal of four poets: Dante, +Juvenal, AEschylus, and Isaiah. In French, he preferred Corneille to +Racine, and Agrippa d'Aubigne to Corneille. He loved to saunter through +fields of wild oats and corn-flowers, and busied himself with clouds +nearly as much as with events. His mind had two attitudes, one on +the side towards man, the other on that towards God; he studied or +he contemplated. All day long, he buried himself in social questions, +salary, capital, credit, marriage, religion, liberty of thought, +education, penal servitude, poverty, association, property, production +and sharing, the enigma of this lower world which covers the human +ant-hill with darkness; and at night, he gazed upon the planets, those +enormous beings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an only son. He spoke +softly, bowed his head, lowered his eyes, smiled with embarrassment, +dressed badly, had an awkward air, blushed at a mere nothing, and was +very timid. Yet he was intrepid. + +Feuilly was a workingman, a fan-maker, orphaned both of father and +mother, who earned with difficulty three francs a day, and had but +one thought, to deliver the world. He had one other preoccupation, to +educate himself; he called this also, delivering himself. He had taught +himself to read and write; everything that he knew, he had learned by +himself. Feuilly had a generous heart. The range of his embrace was +immense. This orphan had adopted the peoples. As his mother had +failed him, he meditated on his country. He brooded with the profound +divination of the man of the people, over what we now call the idea of +the nationality, had learned history with the express object of raging +with full knowledge of the case. In this club of young Utopians, +occupied chiefly with France, he represented the outside world. He had +for his specialty Greece, Poland, Hungary, Roumania, Italy. He uttered +these names incessantly, appropriately and inappropriately, with the +tenacity of right. The violations of Turkey on Greece and Thessaly, of +Russia on Warsaw, of Austria on Venice, enraged him. Above all things, +the great violence of 1772 aroused him. There is no more sovereign +eloquence than the true in indignation; he was eloquent with that +eloquence. He was inexhaustible on that infamous date of 1772, on the +subject of that noble and valiant race suppressed by treason, and that +three-sided crime, on that monstrous ambush, the prototype and pattern +of all those horrible suppressions of states, which, since that time, +have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of +birth, so to speak. All contemporary social crimes have their origin in +the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland is a theorem of which +all present political outrages are the corollaries. There has not been +a despot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back, who has not signed, +approved, counter-signed, and copied, ne variatur, the partition of +Poland. When the record of modern treasons was examined, that was the +first thing which made its appearance. The congress of Vienna consulted +that crime before consummating its own. 1772 sounded the onset; 1815 +was the death of the game. Such was Feuilly's habitual text. This +poor workingman had constituted himself the tutor of Justice, and she +recompensed him by rendering him great. The fact is, that there is +eternity in right. Warsaw can no more be Tartar than Venice can be +Teuton. Kings lose their pains and their honor in the attempt to make +them so. Sooner or later, the submerged part floats to the surface and +reappears. Greece becomes Greece again, Italy is once more Italy. The +protest of right against the deed persists forever. The theft of a +nation cannot be allowed by prescription. These lofty deeds of rascality +have no future. A nation cannot have its mark extracted like a pocket +handkerchief. + +Courfeyrac had a father who was called M. de Courfeyrac. One of +the false ideas of the bourgeoisie under the Restoration as regards +aristocracy and the nobility was to believe in the particle. The +particle, as every one knows, possesses no significance. But the +bourgeois of the epoch of la Minerve estimated so highly that poor de, +that they thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M. de Chauvelin +had himself called M. Chauvelin; M. de Caumartin, M. Caumartin; M. de +Constant de Robecque, Benjamin Constant; M. de Lafayette, M. Lafayette. +Courfeyrac had not wished to remain behind the rest, and called himself +plain Courfeyrac. + +We might almost, so far as Courfeyrac is concerned, stop here, +and confine ourselves to saying with regard to what remains: "For +Courfeyrac, see Tholomyes." + +Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youth which may be called +the beaute du diable of the mind. Later on, this disappears like the +playfulness of the kitten, and all this grace ends, with the bourgeois, +on two legs, and with the tomcat, on four paws. + +This sort of wit is transmitted from generation to generation of the +successive levies of youth who traverse the schools, who pass it from +hand to hand, quasi cursores, and is almost always exactly the same; +so that, as we have just pointed out, any one who had listened to +Courfeyrac in 1828 would have thought he heard Tholomyes in 1817. Only, +Courfeyrac was an honorable fellow. Beneath the apparent similarities +of the exterior mind, the difference between him and Tholomyes was very +great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different +in the first from what it was in the second. There was in Tholomyes a +district attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin. + +Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the +centre. The others gave more light, he shed more warmth; the truth is, +that he possessed all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance. + +Bahorel had figured in the bloody tumult of June, 1822, on the occasion +of the burial of young Lallemand. + +Bahorel was a good-natured mortal, who kept bad company, brave, a +spendthrift, prodigal, and to the verge of generosity, talkative, and +at times eloquent, bold to the verge of effrontery; the best fellow +possible; he had daring waistcoats, and scarlet opinions; a wholesale +blusterer, that is to say, loving nothing so much as a quarrel, unless +it were an uprising; and nothing so much as an uprising, unless it were +a revolution; always ready to smash a window-pane, then to tear up the +pavement, then to demolish a government, just to see the effect of it; +a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not +practise it. He had taken for his device: "Never a lawyer," and for his +armorial bearings a nightstand in which was visible a square cap. Every +time that he passed the law-school, which rarely happened, he buttoned +up his frock-coat,--the paletot had not yet been invented,--and took +hygienic precautions. Of the school porter he said: "What a fine +old man!" and of the dean, M. Delvincourt: "What a monument!" In his +lectures he espied subjects for ballads, and in his professors occasions +for caricature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance, something like +three thousand francs a year, in doing nothing. + +He had peasant parents whom he had contrived to imbue with respect for +their son. + +He said of them: "They are peasants and not bourgeois; that is the +reason they are intelligent." + +Bahorel, a man of caprice, was scattered over numerous cafes; the others +had habits, he had none. He sauntered. To stray is human. To saunter +is Parisian. In reality, he had a penetrating mind and was more of a +thinker than appeared to view. + +He served as a connecting link between the Friends of the A B C and +other still unorganized groups, which were destined to take form later +on. + +In this conclave of young heads, there was one bald member. + +The Marquis d'Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke for having assisted +him to enter a hackney-coach on the day when he emigrated, was wont +to relate, that in 1814, on his return to France, as the King was +disembarking at Calais, a man handed him a petition. + +"What is your request?" said the King. + +"Sire, a post-office." + +"What is your name?" + +"L'Aigle." + +The King frowned, glanced at the signature of the petition and beheld +the name written thus: LESGLE. This non-Bonoparte orthography touched +the King and he began to smile. "Sire," resumed the man with the +petition, "I had for ancestor a keeper of the hounds surnamed +Lesgueules. This surname furnished my name. I am called Lesgueules, by +contraction Lesgle, and by corruption l'Aigle." This caused the King +to smile broadly. Later on he gave the man the posting office of Meaux, +either intentionally or accidentally. + +The bald member of the group was the son of this Lesgle, or Legle, and +he signed himself, Legle [de Meaux]. As an abbreviation, his companions +called him Bossuet. + +Bossuet was a gay but unlucky fellow. His specialty was not to succeed +in anything. As an offset, he laughed at everything. At five and twenty +he was bald. His father had ended by owning a house and a field; but +he, the son, had made haste to lose that house and field in a bad +speculation. He had nothing left. He possessed knowledge and wit, but +all he did miscarried. Everything failed him and everybody deceived him; +what he was building tumbled down on top of him. If he were splitting +wood, he cut off a finger. If he had a mistress, he speedily discovered +that he had a friend also. Some misfortune happened to him every moment, +hence his joviality. He said: "I live under falling tiles." He was +not easily astonished, because, for him, an accident was what he had +foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, and smiled at the teasing of +fate, like a person who is listening to pleasantries. He was poor, but +his fund of good humor was inexhaustible. He soon reached his last sou, +never his last burst of laughter. When adversity entered his doors, he +saluted this old acquaintance cordially, he tapped all catastrophes on +the stomach; he was familiar with fatality to the point of calling it by +its nickname: "Good day, Guignon," he said to it. + +These persecutions of fate had rendered him inventive. He was full of +resources. He had no money, but he found means, when it seemed good to +him, to indulge in "unbridled extravagance." One night, he went so far +as to eat a "hundred francs" in a supper with a wench, which inspired +him to make this memorable remark in the midst of the orgy: "Pull off my +boots, you five-louis jade." + +Bossuet was slowly directing his steps towards the profession of a +lawyer; he was pursuing his law studies after the manner of Bahorel. +Bossuet had not much domicile, sometimes none at all. He lodged now with +one, now with another, most often with Joly. Joly was studying medicine. +He was two years younger than Bossuet. + +Joly was the "malade imaginaire" junior. What he had won in medicine was +to be more of an invalid than a doctor. At three and twenty he thought +himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue +in the mirror. He affirmed that man becomes magnetic like a needle, and +in his chamber he placed his bed with its head to the south, and the +foot to the north, so that, at night, the circulation of his blood +might not be interfered with by the great electric current of the globe. +During thunder storms, he felt his pulse. Otherwise, he was the gayest +of them all. All these young, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences lived +in harmony together, and the result was an eccentric and agreeable +being whom his comrades, who were prodigal of winged consonants, called +Jolllly. "You may fly away on the four L's," Jean Prouvaire said to +him.[23] + +Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is +an indication of a sagacious mind. + +All these young men who differed so greatly, and who, on the whole, can +only be discussed seriously, held the same religion: Progress. + +All were the direct sons of the French Revolution. The most giddy of +them became solemn when they pronounced that date: '89. Their fathers in +the flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires, it matters not what; +this confusion anterior to themselves, who were young, did not concern +them at all; the pure blood of principle ran in their veins. They +attached themselves, without intermediate shades, to incorruptible right +and absolute duty. + +Affiliated and initiated, they sketched out the ideal underground. + +Among all these glowing hearts and thoroughly convinced minds, there was +one sceptic. How came he there? By juxtaposition. This sceptic's name +was Grantaire, and he was in the habit of signing himself with this +rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in +anything. Moreover, he was one of the students who had learned the most +during their course at Paris; he knew that the best coffee was to be had +at the Cafe Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Cafe Voltaire, that +good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard +du Maine, spatchcocked chickens at Mother Sauget's, excellent matelotes +at the Barriere de la Cunette, and a certain thin white wine at the +Barriere du Com pat. He knew the best place for everything; in +addition, boxing and foot-fencing and some dances; and he was a thorough +single-stick player. He was a tremendous drinker to boot. He was +inordinately homely: the prettiest boot-stitcher of that day, Irma +Boissy, enraged with his homeliness, pronounced sentence on him as +follows: "Grantaire is impossible"; but Grantaire's fatuity was not to +be disconcerted. He stared tenderly and fixedly at all women, with the +air of saying to them all: "If I only chose!" and of trying to make his +comrades believe that he was in general demand. + +All those words: rights of the people, rights of man, the social +contract, the French Revolution, the Republic, democracy, humanity, +civilization, religion, progress, came very near to signifying nothing +whatever to Grantaire. He smiled at them. Scepticism, that caries of the +intelligence, had not left him a single whole idea. He lived with irony. +This was his axiom: "There is but one certainty, my full glass." He +sneered at all devotion in all parties, the father as well as the +brother, Robespierre junior as well as Loizerolles. "They are greatly in +advance to be dead," he exclaimed. He said of the crucifix: "There is a +gibbet which has been a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, +often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly: +"J'aimons les filles, et j'aimons le bon vin." Air: Vive Henri IV. + +However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a +dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. +Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this +anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To +the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his +ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. +A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of +complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the +light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad +always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in +its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith +soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, +upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly +aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having +occurred to him. He admired his opposite by instinct. His soft, +yielding, dislocated, sickly, shapeless ideas attached themselves +to Enjolras as to a spinal column. His moral backbone leaned on that +firmness. Grantaire in the presence of Enjolras became some one once +more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, +to all appearance, incompatible. He was ironical and cordial. His +indifference loved. His mind could get along without belief, but his +heart could not get along without friendship. A profound contradiction; +for an affection is a conviction. His nature was thus constituted. There +are men who seem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse, the wrong +side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. +They only exist on condition that they are backed up with another man; +their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction +and; and their existence is not their own; it is the other side of an +existence which is not theirs. Grantaire was one of these men. He was +the obverse of Enjolras. + +One might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the +alphabet. In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, at will, +pronounce O and P or Orestes and Pylades. + +Grantaire, Enjolras' true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men; +he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there; he followed them +everywhere. His joy was to see these forms go and come through the fumes +of wine. They tolerated him on account of his good humor. + +Enjolras, the believer, disdained this sceptic; and, a sober man +himself, scorned this drunkard. He accorded him a little lofty pity. +Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always harshly treated by Enjolras, +roughly repulsed, rejected yet ever returning to the charge, he said of +Enjolras: "What fine marble!" + + + + +CHAPTER II--BLONDEAU'S FUNERAL ORATION BY BOSSUET + +On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some +coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to +be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Cafe +Musain. He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation; he carried nothing +but his revery, however. He was staring at the Place Saint-Michel. +To lean one's back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while +standing erect, which attitude is not hated by thinkers. Laigle de Meaux +was pondering without melancholy, over a little misadventure which +had befallen him two days previously at the law-school, and which had +modified his personal plans for the future, plans which were rather +indistinct in any case. + +Revery does not prevent a cab from passing by, nor the dreamer from +taking note of that cab. Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying about +in a sort of diffuse lounging, perceived, athwart his somnambulism, a +two-wheeled vehicle proceeding through the place, at a foot pace and +apparently in indecision. For whom was this cabriolet? Why was it +driving at a walk? Laigle took a survey. In it, beside the coachman, sat +a young man, and in front of the young man lay a rather bulky hand-bag. +The bag displayed to passers-by the following name inscribed in large +black letters on a card which was sewn to the stuff: MARIUS PONTMERCY. + +This name caused Laigle to change his attitude. He drew himself up and +hurled this apostrophe at the young man in the cabriolet:-- + +"Monsieur Marius Pontmercy!" + +The cabriolet thus addressed came to a halt. + +The young man, who also seemed deeply buried in thought, raised his +eyes:-- + +"Hey?" said he. + +"You are M. Marius Pontmercy?" + +"Certainly." + +"I was looking for you," resumed Laigle de Meaux. + +"How so?" demanded Marius; for it was he: in fact, he had just quitted +his grandfather's, and had before him a face which he now beheld for the +first time. "I do not know you." + +"Neither do I know you," responded Laigle. + +Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the beginning of a +mystification in the open street. He was not in a very good humor at the +moment. He frowned. Laigle de Meaux went on imperturbably:-- + +"You were not at the school day before yesterday." + +"That is possible." + +"That is certain." + +"You are a student?" demanded Marius. + +"Yes, sir. Like yourself. Day before yesterday, I entered the school, by +chance. You know, one does have such freaks sometimes. The professor was +just calling the roll. You are not unaware that they are very ridiculous +on such occasions. At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased +from the list. Sixty francs in the gulf." + +Marius began to listen. + +"It was Blondeau who was making the call. You know Blondeau, he has a +very pointed and very malicious nose, and he delights to scent out the +absent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being +compromised by that letter. The call was not going badly. No erasures; +the universe was present. Blondeau was grieved. I said to myself: +'Blondeau, my love, you will not get the very smallest sort of an +execution to-day.' All at once Blondeau calls, 'Marius Pontmercy!' No +one answers. Blondeau, filled with hope, repeats more loudly: 'Marius +Pontmercy!' And he takes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of compassion. +I said to myself hastily: 'Here's a brave fellow who is going to get +scratched out. Attention. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact. +He's not a good student. Here is none of your heavy-sides, a student who +studies, a greenhorn pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and +sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square; a pin by profession. +He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who +cultivates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex, who is at +this very moment, perhaps, with my mistress. Let us save him. Death to +Blondeau!' At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, all black with +erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and +repeated for the third time: 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied: 'Present!' +This is why you were not crossed off." + +"Monsieur!--" said Marius. + +"And why I was," added Laigle de Meaux. + +"I do not understand you," said Marius. + +Laigle resumed:-- + +"Nothing is more simple. I was close to the desk to reply, and close +to the door for the purpose of flight. The professor gazed at me with a +certain intensity. All of a sudden, Blondeau, who must be the malicious +nose alluded to by Boileau, skipped to the letter L. L is my letter. I +am from Meaux, and my name is Lesgle." + +"L'Aigle!" interrupted Marius, "what fine name!" + +"Monsieur, Blondeau came to this fine name, and called: 'Laigle!' I +reply: 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a +tiger, and says to me: 'If you are Pontmercy, you are not Laigle.' A +phrase which has a disobliging air for you, but which was lugubrious +only for me. That said, he crossed me off." + +Marius exclaimed:-- + +"I am mortified, sir--" + +"First of all," interposed Laigle, "I demand permission to embalm +Blondeau in a few phrases of deeply felt eulogium. I will assume that he +is dead. There will be no great change required in his gauntness, in +his pallor, in his coldness, and in his smell. And I say: 'Erudimini +qui judicatis terram. Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, Blondeau +Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplinae, the bloodhound of the +password, the angel of the roll-call, who was upright, square exact, +rigid, honest, and hideous. God crossed him off as he crossed me off.'" + +Marius resumed:-- + +"I am very sorry--" + +"Young man," said Laigle de Meaux, "let this serve you as a lesson. In +future, be exact." + +"I really beg you a thousand pardons." + +"Do not expose your neighbor to the danger of having his name erased +again." + +"I am extremely sorry--" + +Laigle burst out laughing. + +"And I am delighted. I was on the brink of becoming a lawyer. This +erasure saves me. I renounce the triumphs of the bar. I shall not defend +the widow, and I shall not attack the orphan. No more toga, no more +stage. Here is my erasure all ready for me. It is to you that I am +indebted for it, Monsieur Pontmercy. I intend to pay a solemn call of +thanks upon you. Where do you live?" + +"In this cab," said Marius. + +"A sign of opulence," retorted Laigle calmly. "I congratulate you. You +have there a rent of nine thousand francs per annum." + +At that moment, Courfeyrac emerged from the cafe. + +Marius smiled sadly. + +"I have paid this rent for the last two hours, and I aspire to get rid +of it; but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know +where to go." + +"Come to my place, sir," said Courfeyrac. + +"I have the priority," observed Laigle, "but I have no home." + +"Hold your tongue, Bossuet," said Courfeyrac. + +"Bossuet," said Marius, "but I thought that your name was Laigle." + +"De Meaux," replied Laigle; "by metaphor, Bossuet." + +Courfeyrac entered the cab. + +"Coachman," said he, "hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques." + +And that very evening, Marius found himself installed in a chamber of +the hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques side by side with Courfeyrac. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS + +In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend. Youth is the +season for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars. Marius +breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new thing for him. +Courfeyrac put no questions to him. He did not even think of such a +thing. At that age, faces disclose everything on the spot. Words are +superfluous. There are young men of whom it can be said that their +countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them. + +One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation +to him:-- + +"By the way, have you any political opinions?" + +"The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question. + +"What are you?" + +"A democrat-Bonapartist." + +"The gray hue of a reassured rat," said Courfeyrac. + +On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Cafe Musain. +Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile: "I must give you your entry +to the revolution." And he led him to the hall of the Friends of the A B +C. He presented him to the other comrades, saying this simple word which +Marius did not understand: "A pupil." + +Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he was +silent and grave, he was, none the less, both winged and armed. + +Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy, and to +asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered by this covey +of young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited his +attention at once, and pulled him about. The tumultuous movements of +these minds at liberty and at work set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, +in his trouble, they fled so far from him, that he had difficulty in +recovering them. He heard them talk of philosophy, of literature, of +art, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpses +of strange aspects; and, as he did not place them in proper perspective, +he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped. On +abandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father, +he had supposed himself fixed; he now suspected, with uneasiness, and +without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not. The angle +at which he saw everything began to be displaced anew. A certain +oscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion. An odd +internal upsetting. He almost suffered from it. + +It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things" for those young +men. Marius heard singular propositions on every sort of subject, which +embarrassed his still timid mind. + +A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title of a tragedy +from the ancient repertory called classic: "Down with tragedy dear to +the bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And Marius heard Combeferre reply:-- + +"You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy, and the +bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy has +a reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order of +AEschylus, contest its right to existence. There are rough outlines in +nature; there are, in creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is not +a beak, wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws which +are not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there is +the duck. Now, since poultry exists by the side of the bird, I do +not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique +tragedy." + +Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau +between Enjolras and Courfeyrac. + +Courfeyrac took his arm:-- + +"Pay attention. This is the Rue Platriere, now called Rue Jean-Jacques +Rousseau, on account of a singular household which lived in it sixty +years ago. This consisted of Jean-Jacques and Therese. From time +to time, little beings were born there. Therese gave birth to them, +Jean-Jacques represented them as foundlings." + +And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly:-- + +"Silence in the presence of Jean-Jacques! I admire that man. He denied +his own children, that may be; but he adopted the people." + +Not one of these young men articulated the word: The Emperor. +Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all the others said +"Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it "Buonaparte." + +Marius was vaguely surprised. Initium sapientiae. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFE MUSAIN + +One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was +present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his +mind. + +This took place in the back room of the Cafe Musain. Nearly all the +Friends of the A B C had convened that evening. The argand lamp was +solemnly lighted. They talked of one thing and another, without passion +and with noise. With the exception of Enjolras and Marius, who held +their peace, all were haranguing rather at hap-hazard. Conversations +between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It +was a game and an uproar as much as a conversation. They tossed words +to each other and caught them up in turn. They were chattering in all +quarters. + +No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the dish-washer +of the cafe, who passed through it from time to time, to go to her +washing in the "lavatory." + +Grantaire, thoroughly drunk, was deafening the corner of which he had +taken possession, reasoning and contradicting at the top of his lungs, +and shouting:-- + +"I am thirsty. Mortals, I am dreaming: that the tun of Heidelberg has an +attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which will +be applied to it. I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a +hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is +worth nothing. One breaks one's neck in living. Life is a theatre set in +which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique +reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' +I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero not wishing +to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up +of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a +professor, an acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary +is a chemist, a wigmaker is an artist, a hodman is an architect, a +jockey is a sportsman, a wood-louse is a pterigybranche. Vanity has a +right and a wrong side; the right side is stupid, it is the negro with +his glass beads; the wrong side is foolish, it is the philosopher with +his rags. I weep over the one and I laugh over the other. What are +called honors and dignities, and even dignity and honor, are generally +of pinchbeck. Kings make playthings of human pride. Caligula made a +horse a consul; Charles II. made a knight of a sirloin. Wrap yourself +up now, then, between Consul Incitatus and Baronet Roastbeef. As for +the intrinsic value of people, it is no longer respectable in the least. +Listen to the panegyric which neighbor makes of neighbor. White on white +is ferocious; if the lily could speak, what a setting down it would give +the dove! A bigoted woman prating of a devout woman is more venomous +than the asp and the cobra. It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise +I would quote to you a mass of things; but I know nothing. For instance, +I have always been witty; when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of +daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; +rapin[24] is the masculine of rapine. So much for myself; as for +the rest of you, you are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your +perfections, excellencies, and qualities. Every good quality tends +towards a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous man is next +door to the prodigal, the brave man rubs elbows with the braggart; he +who says very pious says a trifle bigoted; there are just as many vices +in virtue as there are holes in Diogenes' cloak. Whom do you admire, the +slain or the slayer, Caesar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the +slayer. Long live Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, +granted, but madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The +Brutus who killed Caesar was in love with the statue of a little boy. +This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, +who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, +Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion +left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was +in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but +wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The +battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and +the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. +I don't attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to +conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If +you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what +wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys +success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain +the human race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you wish me +to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please? Shall it be +Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by, slew Phocion, +as we might say Coligny, and fawned upon tyrants to such an extent that +Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: "His urine attracts the bees." The most +prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas, +who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with +lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great +square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny; +this statue represented Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented +a trip. That sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass on to others. Shall I +admire England? Shall I admire France? France? Why? Because of Paris? +I have just told you my opinion of Athens. England? Why? Because of +London? I hate Carthage. And then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is +the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of +hunger in the parish of Charing-Cross alone. Such is Albion. I add, +as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of +roses and blue spectacles. A fig then for England! If I do not admire +John Bull, shall I admire Brother Jonathan? I have but little taste for +that slave-holding brother. Take away Time is money, what remains of +England? Take away Cotton is king, what remains of America? Germany is +the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? +Voltaire admired it. He also admired China. I admit that Russia has its +beauties, among others, a stout despotism; but I pity the despots. +Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, +a strangled Paul, another Paul crushed flat with kicks, divers Ivans +strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils +poisoned, all this indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia +is in a condition of flagrant insalubrity. All civilized peoples offer +this detail to the admiration of the thinker; war; now, war, civilized +war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the +brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding +of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. 'Bah!' you will say to +me, 'but Europe is certainly better than Asia?' I admit that Asia is a +farce; but I do not precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand +Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and +your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty +chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen +of the human race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels that +the most beer is consumed, at Stockholm the most brandy, at Madrid the +most chocolate, at Amsterdam the most gin, at London the most wine, at +Constantinople the most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe; there are +all the useful notions. Paris carries the day, in short. In Paris, +even the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a +rag-picker of the Place Maubert better than to be a philosopher at the +Piraeus. Learn this in addition; the wineshops of the ragpickers +are called bibines; the most celebrated are the Saucepan and The +Slaughter-House. Hence, tea-gardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis, +mastroquets, bastringues, manezingues, bibines of the rag-pickers, +caravanseries of the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat +at Richard's at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to roll +naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you, Louison. Good +day." + +Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into speech, catching +at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of +the Cafe Musain. + +Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on him, +and Grantaire began again worse than ever:-- + +"Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on me no effect with +your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bric-a-brac. I excuse +you from the task of soothing me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish +me to say to you? Man is evil, man is deformed; the butterfly is a +success, man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A +crowd offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch, +Femme--woman--rhymes with infame,--infamous. Yes, I have the spleen, +complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and +I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to +death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil!" + +"Silence then, capital R!" resumed Bossuet, who was discussing a point +of law behind the scenes, and who was plunged more than waist high in a +phrase of judicial slang, of which this is the conclusion:-- + +"--And as for me, although I am hardly a legist, and at the most, an +amateur attorney, I maintain this: that, in accordance with the terms +of the customs of Normandy, at Saint-Michel, and for each year, an +equivalent must be paid to the profit of the lord of the manor, saving +the rights of others, and by all and several, the proprietors as well +as those seized with inheritance, and that, for all emphyteuses, leases, +freeholds, contracts of domain, mortgages--" + +"Echo, plaintive nymph," hummed Grantaire. + +Near Grantaire, an almost silent table, a sheet of paper, an inkstand +and a pen between two glasses of brandy, announced that a vaudeville was +being sketched out. + +This great affair was being discussed in a low voice, and the two heads +at work touched each other: "Let us begin by finding names. When one has +the names, one finds the subject." + +"That is true. Dictate. I will write." + +"Monsieur Dorimon." + +"An independent gentleman?" + +"Of course." + +"His daughter, Celestine." + +"--tine. What next?" + +"Colonel Sainval." + +"Sainval is stale. I should say Valsin." + +Beside the vaudeville aspirants, another group, which was also taking +advantage of the uproar to talk low, was discussing a duel. An old +fellow of thirty was counselling a young one of eighteen, and explaining +to him what sort of an adversary he had to deal with. + +"The deuce! Look out for yourself. He is a fine swordsman. His play is +neat. He has the attack, no wasted feints, wrist, dash, lightning, a +just parade, mathematical parries, bigre! and he is left-handed." + +In the angle opposite Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were playing dominoes, +and talking of love. + +"You are in luck, that you are," Joly was saying. "You have a mistress +who is always laughing." + +"That is a fault of hers," returned Bahorel. "One's mistress does wrong +to laugh. That encourages one to deceive her. To see her gay removes +your remorse; if you see her sad, your conscience pricks you." + +"Ingrate! a woman who laughs is such a good thing! And you never +quarrel!" + +"That is because of the treaty which we have made. On forming our little +Holy Alliance we assigned ourselves each our frontier, which we never +cross. What is situated on the side of winter belongs to Vaud, on the +side of the wind to Gex. Hence the peace." + +"Peace is happiness digesting." + +"And you, Jolllly, where do you stand in your entanglement with +Mamselle--you know whom I mean?" + +"She sulks at me with cruel patience." + +"Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness." + +"Alas!" + +"In your place, I would let her alone." + +"That is easy enough to say." + +"And to do. Is not her name Musichetta?" + +"Yes. Ah! my poor Bahorel, she is a superb girl, very literary, with +tiny feet, little hands, she dresses well, and is white and dimpled, +with the eyes of a fortune-teller. I am wild over her." + +"My dear fellow, then in order to please her, you must be elegant, +and produce effects with your knees. Buy a good pair of trousers of +double-milled cloth at Staub's. That will assist." + +"At what price?" shouted Grantaire. + +The third corner was delivered up to a poetical discussion. Pagan +mythology was giving battle to Christian mythology. The question was +about Olympus, whose part was taken by Jean Prouvaire, out of pure +romanticism. + +Jean Prouvaire was timid only in repose. Once excited, he burst forth, +a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both +laughing and lyric. + +"Let us not insult the gods," said he. "The gods may not have taken +their departure. Jupiter does not impress me as dead. The gods are +dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is to-day, after the +flight of these dreams, we still find all the grand old pagan myths. +Such and such a mountain with the profile of a citadel, like the +Vignemale, for example, is still to me the headdress of Cybele; it has +not been proved to me that Pan does not come at night to breathe into +the hollow trunks of the willows, stopping up the holes in turn with his +fingers, and I have always believed that Io had something to do with the +cascade of Pissevache." + +In the last corner, they were talking politics. The Charter which had +been granted was getting roughly handled. Combeferre was upholding it +weakly. Courfeyrac was energetically making a breach in it. On the table +lay an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac had +seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the +rattling of this sheet of paper. + +"In the first place, I won't have any kings; if it were only from an +economical point of view, I don't want any; a king is a parasite. One +does not have kings gratis. Listen to this: the dearness of kings. At +the death of Francois I., the national debt of France amounted to an +income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two +milliards, six hundred millions, at twenty-eight livres the mark, which +was equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five +hundred millions, which would to-day be equivalent to twelve milliards. +In the second place, and no offence to Combeferre, a charter granted is +but a poor expedient of civilization. To save the transition, to soften +the passage, to deaden the shock, to cause the nation to pass insensibly +from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional +fictions,--what detestable reasons all those are! No! no! let us never +enlighten the people with false daylight. Principles dwindle and pale +in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant +from the king to the people. In all such grants there is an Article 14. +By the side of the hand which gives there is the claw which snatches +back. I refuse your charter point-blank. A charter is a mask; the lie +lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a charter abdicates. The law is +only the law when entire. No! no charter!" + +It was winter; a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This +was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor +Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper +flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn +philosophically, and contented himself with saying:-- + +"The charter metamorphosed into flame." + +And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called entrain, +and that English thing which is called humor, good and bad taste, +good and bad reasons, all the wild pyrotechnics of dialogue, mounting +together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a sort of +merry bombardment over their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER V--ENLARGEMENT OF HORIZON + +The shocks of youthful minds among themselves have this admirable +property, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightning +flash. What will dart out presently? No one knows. The burst of laughter +starts from a tender feeling. + +At the moment of jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend on +the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices +to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with +abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the +stage-manager of such conversations. + +A severe thought, starting oddly from a clash of words, suddenly +traversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire, +Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly fencing. + +How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it +suddenly impresses itself on the attention of those who hear it? We +have just said, that no one knows anything about it. In the midst of the +uproar, Bossuet all at once terminated some apostrophe to Combeferre, +with this date:-- + +"June 18th, 1815, Waterloo." + +At this name of Waterloo, Marius, who was leaning his elbows on a table, +beside a glass of water, removed his wrist from beneath his chin, and +began to gaze fixedly at the audience. + +"Pardieu!" exclaimed Courfeyrac ("Parbleu" was falling into disuse +at this period), "that number 18 is strange and strikes me. It is +Bonaparte's fatal number. Place Louis in front and Brumaire behind, you +have the whole destiny of the man, with this significant peculiarity, +that the end treads close on the heels of the commencement." + +Enjolras, who had remained mute up to that point, broke the silence and +addressed this remark to Combeferre:-- + +"You mean to say, the crime and the expiation." + +This word crime overpassed the measure of what Marius, who was already +greatly agitated by the abrupt evocation of Waterloo, could accept. + +He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the wall, and +at whose base an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid his +finger on this compartment and said:-- + +"Corsica, a little island which has rendered France very great." + +This was like a breath of icy air. All ceased talking. They felt that +something was on the point of occurring. + +Bahorel, replying to Bossuet, was just assuming an attitude of the torso +to which he was addicted. He gave it up to listen. + +Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed on any one, and who seemed to be +gazing at space, replied, without glancing at Marius:-- + +"France needs no Corsica to be great. France is great because she is +France. Quia nomina leo." + +Marius felt no desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras, and his +voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his very +being:-- + +"God forbid that I should diminish France! But amalgamating Napoleon +with her is not diminishing her. Come! let us argue the question. I am +a new comer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do we +stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanation +about the Emperor. I hear you say Buonaparte, accenting the u like the +Royalists. I warn you that my grandfather does better still; he +says Buonaparte'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is your +enthusiasm? And what are you doing with it? Whom do you admire, if you +do not admire the Emperor? And what more do you want? If you will +have none of that great man, what great men would you like? He had +everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human +faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his +conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the +thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins +are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of +Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, +at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences he +replied to Laplace, in the Council of State be held his own against +Merlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of the first, and to the +chicanery of the last, he was a legist with the attorneys and sidereal +with the astronomers; like Cromwell blowing out one of two candles, he +went to the Temple to bargain for a curtain tassel; he saw everything; +he knew everything; which did not prevent him from laughing +good-naturedly beside the cradle of his little child; and all at once, +frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks of +artillery rumbled, pontoons stretched over the rivers, clouds of cavalry +galloped in the storm, cries, trumpets, a trembling of thrones in every +direction, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the sound +of a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its sheath; they +beheld him, him, rise erect on the horizon with a blazing brand in his +hand, and a glow in his eyes, unfolding amid the thunder, his two wings, +the grand army and the old guard, and he was the archangel of war!" + +All held their peace, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence always +produces somewhat the effect of acquiescence, of the enemy being driven +to the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost +without pausing for breath:-- + +"Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be +the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it +adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, +to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to +take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of +dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make +you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the +sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne; +to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling +announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to +rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words +which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause +constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the +zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the +Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand +army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain +sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike +with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, +to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquer +the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what +greater thing is there?" + +"To be free," said Combeferre. + +Marius lowered his head in his turn; that cold and simple word had +traversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt it +vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer +there. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he had +just taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras, +had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with +Marius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied his +ideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten; there lingered in +him a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt, of +translating itself into syllogisms arrayed against Enjolras, when all of +a sudden, they heard some one singing on the stairs as he went. It was +Combeferre, and this is what he was singing:-- + + "Si Cesar m'avait donne[25] + La gloire et la guerre, + Et qu'il me fallait quitter + L'amour de ma mere, + Je dirais au grand Cesar: + Reprends ton sceptre et ton char, + J'aime mieux ma mere, o gue! + J'aime mieux ma mere!" + +The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated to +this couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, and +with his eyes diked on the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically: "My +mother?--" + +At that moment, he felt Enjolras' hand on his shoulder. + +"Citizen," said Enjolras to him, "my mother is the Republic." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--RES ANGUSTA + +That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy shadow +in his soul. He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the moment +when it is torn open with the iron, in order that grain may be deposited +within it; it feels only the wound; the quiver of the germ and the joy +of the fruit only arrive later. + +Marius was gloomy. He had but just acquired a faith; must he then reject +it already? He affirmed to himself that he would not. He declared to +himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of +himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you have +not as yet emerged, and another into which you have not yet entered, is +intolerable; and twilight is pleasing only to bat-like souls. Marius +was clear-eyed, and he required the true light. The half-lights of doubt +pained him. Whatever may have been his desire to remain where he was, +he could not halt there, he was irresistibly constrained to continue, to +advance, to examine, to think, to march further. Whither would this lead +him? He feared, after having taken so many steps which had brought him +nearer to his father, to now take a step which should estrange him from +that father. His discomfort was augmented by all the reflections which +occurred to him. An escarpment rose around him. He was in accord neither +with his grandfather nor with his friends; daring in the eyes of +the one, he was behind the times in the eyes of the others, and he +recognized the fact that he was doubly isolated, on the side of age and +on the side of youth. He ceased to go to the Cafe Musain. + +In the troubled state of his conscience, he no longer thought of +certain serious sides of existence. The realities of life do not allow +themselves to be forgotten. They soon elbowed him abruptly. + +One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius' room and said +to him:-- + +"Monsieur Courfeyrac answered for you." + +"Yes." + +"But I must have my money." + +"Request Courfeyrac to come and talk with me," said Marius. + +Courfeyrac having made his appearance, the host left them. Marius then +told him what it had not before occurred to him to relate, that he was +the same as alone in the world, and had no relatives. + +"What is to become of you?" said Courfeyrac. + +"I do not know in the least," replied Marius. + +"What are you going to do?" + +"I do not know." + +"Have you any money?" + +"Fifteen francs." + +"Do you want me to lend you some?" + +"Never." + +"Have you clothes?" + +"Here is what I have." + +"Have you trinkets?" + +"A watch." + +"Silver?" + +"Gold; here it is." + +"I know a clothes-dealer who will take your frock-coat and a pair of +trousers." + +"That is good." + +"You will then have only a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, a hat and a +coat." + +"And my boots." + +"What! you will not go barefoot? What opulence!" + +"That will be enough." + +"I know a watchmaker who will buy your watch." + +"That is good." + +"No; it is not good. What will you do after that?" + +"Whatever is necessary. Anything honest, that is to say." + +"Do you know English?" + +"No." + +"Do you know German?" + +"No." + +"So much the worse." + +"Why?" + +"Because one of my friends, a publisher, is getting up a sort of an +encyclopaedia, for which you might have translated English or German +articles. It is badly paid work, but one can live by it." + +"I will learn English and German." + +"And in the meanwhile?" + +"In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." + +The clothes-dealer was sent for. He paid twenty francs for the cast-off +garments. They went to the watchmaker's. He bought the watch for +forty-five francs. + +"That is not bad," said Marius to Courfeyrac, on their return to the +hotel, "with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty." + +"And the hotel bill?" observed Courfeyrac. + +"Hello, I had forgotten that," said Marius. + +The landlord presented his bill, which had to be paid on the spot. It +amounted to seventy francs. + +"I have ten francs left," said Marius. + +"The deuce," exclaimed Courfeyrac, "you will eat up five francs while +you are learning English, and five while learning German. That will be +swallowing a tongue very fast, or a hundred sous very slowly." + +In the meantime Aunt Gillenormand, a rather good-hearted person at +bottom in difficulties, had finally hunted up Marius' abode. + +One morning, on his return from the law-school, Marius found a letter +from his aunt, and the sixty pistoles, that is to say, six hundred +francs in gold, in a sealed box. + +Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful letter, +in which he stated that he had sufficient means of subsistence and that +he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that moment, +he had three francs left. + +His aunt did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of +exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the name +of that blood-drinker again!" + +Marius left the hotel de la Porte Saint-Jacques, as he did not wish to +run in debt there. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE + + + + +CHAPTER I--MARIUS INDIGENT + +[Illustration: Excellence of Misfortune 3b5-1-misfortune] + + +Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his +watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la +vache enrage; that is to say, he endured great hardships and privations. +A terrible thing it is, containing days without bread, nights without +sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without +work, a future without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat which +evokes the laughter of young girls, a door which one finds locked on one +at night because one's rent is not paid, the insolence of the porter +and the cook-shop man, the sneers of neighbors, humiliations, dignity +trampled on, work of whatever nature accepted, disgusts, bitterness, +despondency. Marius learned how all this is eaten, and how such are +often the only things which one has to devour. At that moment of his +existence when a man needs his pride, because he needs love, he felt +that he was jeered at because he was badly dressed, and ridiculous +because he was poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with +imperial pride, he dropped his eyes more than once on his dilapidated +boots, and he knew the unjust shame and the poignant blushes of +wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the feeble emerge +base, from which the strong emerge sublime. A crucible into which +destiny casts a man, whenever it desires a scoundrel or a demi-god. + +For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances +of bravery ignored and obstinate, which defend themselves step by +step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes. Noble and +mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited with no +renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life, misfortune, +isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have +their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the +heroes who win renown. + +Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a +step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of +soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good +milk for the magnanimous. + +There came a moment in Marius' life, when he swept his own landing, when +he bought his sou's worth of Brie cheese at the fruiterer's, when he +waited until twilight had fallen to slip into the baker's and purchase +a loaf, which he carried off furtively to his attic as though he had +stolen it. Sometimes there could be seen gliding into the butcher's shop +on the corner, in the midst of the bantering cooks who elbowed him, an +awkward young man, carrying big books under his arm, who had a timid yet +angry air, who, on entering, removed his hat from a brow whereon stood +drops of perspiration, made a profound bow to the butcher's astonished +wife, asked for a mutton cutlet, paid six or seven sous for it, wrapped +it up in a paper, put it under his arm, between two books, and went +away. It was Marius. On this cutlet, which he cooked for himself, he +lived for three days. + +On the first day he ate the meat, on the second he ate the fat, on the +third he gnawed the bone. Aunt Gillenormand made repeated attempts, and +sent him the sixty pistoles several times. Marius returned them on every +occasion, saying that he needed nothing. + +He was still in mourning for his father when the revolution which we +have just described was effected within him. From that time forth, he +had not put off his black garments. But his garments were quitting him. +The day came when he had no longer a coat. The trousers would go next. +What was to be done? Courfeyrac, to whom he had, on his side, done some +good turns, gave him an old coat. For thirty sous, Marius got it turned +by some porter or other, and it was a new coat. But this coat was green. +Then Marius ceased to go out until after nightfall. This made his coat +black. As he wished always to appear in mourning, he clothed himself +with the night. + +In spite of all this, he got admitted to practice as a lawyer. He was +supposed to live in Courfeyrac's room, which was decent, and where +a certain number of law-books backed up and completed by several +dilapidated volumes of romance, passed as the library required by the +regulations. He had his letters addressed to Courfeyrac's quarters. + +When Marius became a lawyer, he informed his grandfather of the fact +in a letter which was cold but full of submission and respect. M. +Gillenormand trembled as he took the letter, read it, tore it in four +pieces, and threw it into the waste-basket. Two or three days later, +Mademoiselle Gillenormand heard her father, who was alone in his room, +talking aloud to himself. He always did this whenever he was greatly +agitated. She listened, and the old man was saying: "If you were not a +fool, you would know that one cannot be a baron and a lawyer at the same +time." + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS POOR + +It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by +becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One +vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, +which is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the +existence of Marius Pontmercy was arranged: + +He had passed the worst straits; the narrow pass was opening out a +little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and +will, he had managed to draw from his work about seven hundred francs a +year. He had learned German and English; thanks to Courfeyrac, who had +put him in communication with his friend the publisher, Marius filled +the modest post of utility man in the literature of the publishing +house. He drew up prospectuses, translated newspapers, annotated +editions, compiled biographies, etc.; net product, year in and year +out, seven hundred francs. He lived on it. How? Not so badly. We will +explain. + +Marius occupied in the Gorbeau house, for an annual sum of thirty +francs, a den minus a fireplace, called a cabinet, which contained only +the most indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged +to him. He gave three francs a month to the old principal tenant to come +and sweep his hole, and to bring him a little hot water every morning, +a fresh egg, and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His +breakfast varied in cost from two to four sous, according as eggs +were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the +Rue Saint-Jacques to dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's, the +stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. +He took a six-sou plate of meat, a half-portion of vegetables for three +sous, and a three-sou dessert. For three sous he got as much bread as +he wished. As for wine, he drank water. When he paid at the desk +where Madam Rousseau, at that period still plump and rosy majestically +presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam Rousseau gave him a +smile. Then he went away. For sixteen sous he had a smile and a dinner. + +This Restaurant Rousseau, where so few bottles and so many water carafes +were emptied, was a calming potion rather than a restaurant. It no +longer exists. The proprietor had a fine nickname: he was called +Rousseau the Aquatic. + +Thus, breakfast four sous, dinner sixteen sous; his food cost him twenty +sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add +the thirty francs for rent, and the thirty-six francs to the old woman, +plus a few trifling expenses; for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius +was fed, lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, +his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not +exceed six hundred and fifty francs. He was rich. He sometimes lent ten +francs to a friend. Courfeyrac had once been able to borrow sixty francs +of him. As far as fire was concerned, as Marius had no fireplace, he had +"simplified matters." + +Marius always had two complete suits of clothes, the one old, "for every +day"; the other, brand new for special occasions. Both were black. He +had but three shirts, one on his person, the second in the commode, and +the third in the washerwoman's hands. He renewed them as they wore out. +They were always ragged, which caused him to button his coat to the +chin. + +It had required years for Marius to attain to this flourishing +condition. Hard years; difficult, some of them, to traverse, others to +climb. Marius had not failed for a single day. He had endured everything +in the way of destitution; he had done everything except contract debts. +He did himself the justice to say that he had never owed any one a sou. +A debt was, to him, the beginning of slavery. He even said to himself, +that a creditor is worse than a master; for the master possesses only +your person, a creditor possesses your dignity and can administer to +it a box on the ear. Rather than borrow, he went without food. He had +passed many a day fasting. Feeling that all extremes meet, and that, +if one is not on one's guard, lowered fortunes may lead to baseness of +soul, he kept a jealous watch on his pride. Such and such a formality +or action, which, in any other situation would have appeared merely a +deference to him, now seemed insipidity, and he nerved himself against +it. His face wore a sort of severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness. + +During all these trials he had felt himself encouraged and even +uplifted, at times, by a secret force that he possessed within himself. +The soul aids the body, and at certain moments, raises it. It is the +only bird which bears up its own cage. + +Besides his father's name, another name was graven in Marius' heart, +the name of Thenardier. Marius, with his grave and enthusiastic nature, +surrounded with a sort of aureole the man to whom, in his thoughts, +he owed his father's life,--that intrepid sergeant who had saved the +colonel amid the bullets and the cannon-balls of Waterloo. He never +separated the memory of this man from the memory of his father, and +he associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two +steps, with the grand altar for the colonel and the lesser one for +Thenardier. What redoubled the tenderness of his gratitude towards +Thenardier, was the idea of the distress into which he knew that +Thenardier had fallen, and which had engulfed the latter. Marius had +learned at Montfermeil of the ruin and bankruptcy of the unfortunate +inn-keeper. Since that time, he had made unheard-of efforts to find +traces of him and to reach him in that dark abyss of misery in which +Thenardier had disappeared. Marius had beaten the whole country; he +had gone to Chelles, to Bondy, to Gourney, to Nogent, to Lagny. He had +persisted for three years, expending in these explorations the little +money which he had laid by. No one had been able to give him any news of +Thenardier: he was supposed to have gone abroad. His creditors had also +sought him, with less love than Marius, but with as much assiduity, and +had not been able to lay their hands on him. Marius blamed himself, and +was almost angry with himself for his lack of success in his researches. +It was the only debt left him by the colonel, and Marius made it a +matter of honor to pay it. "What," he thought, "when my father lay dying +on the field of battle, did Thenardier contrive to find him amid the +smoke and the grape-shot, and bear him off on his shoulders, and yet he +owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thenardier, cannot join him +in this shadow where he is lying in the pangs of death, and in my +turn bring him back from death to life! Oh! I will find him!" To find +Thenardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue +him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see +Thenardier, to render Thenardier some service, to say to him: "You do +not know me; well, I do know you! Here I am. Dispose of me!" This was +Marius' sweetest and most magnificent dream. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS GROWN UP + +At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since +he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same +terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to +see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius +was the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot. + +We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He had +imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty, +harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed +and brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that +affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. +Marius was in error. There are fathers who do not love their children; +there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, +as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after +his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the +ear; but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart; +he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the while +secretly regretted that he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped that +this Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would +return. But the weeks passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand's +great despair, the "blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I could +not do otherwise than turn him out," said the grandfather to himself, +and he asked himself: "If the thing were to do over again, would I do +it?" His pride instantly answered "yes," but his aged head, which he +shook in silence, replied sadly "no." He had his hours of depression. +He missed Marius. Old men need affection as they need the sun. It is +warmth. Strong as his nature was, the absence of Marius had wrought some +change in him. Nothing in the world could have induced him to take a +step towards "that rogue"; but he suffered. He never inquired about him, +but he thought of him incessantly. He lived in the Marais in a more and +more retired manner; he was still merry and violent as of old, but +his merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences always +terminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy dejection. He sometimes said: +"Oh! if he only would return, what a good box on the ear I would give +him!" + +As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much; Marius was no +longer for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually +came to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the +paroquet which she probably had. What augmented Father Gillenormand's +secret suffering was, that he locked it all up within his breast, and +did not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those +recently invented furnaces which consume their own smoke. It sometimes +happened that officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and asked +him: "What is your grandson doing?" "What has become of him?" The old +bourgeois replied with a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving a +fillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay: "Monsieur le Baron de +Pontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other." + +While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case +with all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness. +He only thought of M. Gillenormand in an amiable light, but he had set +his mind on not receiving anything more from the man who had been +unkind to his father. This was the mitigated translation of his first +indignation. Moreover, he was happy at having suffered, and at suffering +still. It was for his father's sake. The hardness of his life satisfied +and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that--it was +certainly the least he could do; that it was an expiation;--that, had +it not been for that, he would have been punished in some other way and +later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a +father! that it would not have been just that his father should have all +the suffering, and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were his +toils and his destitution compared with the colonel's heroic life? that, +in short, the only way for him to approach his father and resemble him, +was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant +before the enemy; and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel had +meant to imply by the words: "He will be worthy of it." Words which +Marius continued to wear, not on his breast, since the colonel's writing +had disappeared, but in his heart. + +And then, on the day when his grandfather had turned him out of doors, +he had been only a child, now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, we +repeat, had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, has +this magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards +effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays +material life bare and renders it hideous; hence inexpressible bounds +towards the ideal life. The wealthy young man has a hundred coarse and +brilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming, +good repasts, and all the rest of it; occupations for the baser side +of the soul, at the expense of the loftier and more delicate sides. +The poor young man wins his bread with difficulty; he eats; when he has +eaten, he has nothing more but meditation. He goes to the spectacles +which God furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, +flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the +creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he +perceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he +beholds God. He dreams, he feels himself great; he dreams on, and feels +himself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the +compassion of the man who meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forth +in him, forgetfulness of self and pity for all. As he thinks of the +innumerable enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and lavishes to souls +which stand open, and refuses to souls that are closed, he comes to +pity, he the millionnaire of the mind, the millionnaire of money. All +hatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates his +spirit. And is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is never +miserable. The first young lad who comes to hand, however poor he may +be, with his strength, his health, his rapid walk, his brilliant eyes, +his warmly circulating blood, his black hair, his red lips, his white +teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. +And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning +his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column +gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to +ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his feet set +in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimes +in the mire; his head in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle, peaceful, +attentive, serious, content with little, kindly; and he thanks God for +having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many a rich +man lacks: work, which makes him free; and thought, which makes him +dignified. + +This is what had happened with Marius. To tell the truth, he inclined a +little too much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he had +succeeded in earning his living with some approach to certainty, he had +stopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his work +to give to thought; that is to say, he sometimes passed entire days +in meditation, absorbed, engulfed, like a visionary, in the mute +voluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propounded +the problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at material +labor, in order to toil as much as possible at the labor which is +impalpable; in other words, to bestow a few hours on real life, and to +cast the rest to the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, he +did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming +one of the forms of idleness; that he was contenting himself with +conquering the first necessities of life, and that he was resting from +his labors too soon. + +It was evident that, for this energetic and enthusiastic nature, this +could only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock against +the inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken. + +In the meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever Father +Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was +not even pettifogging. Meditation had turned him aside from pleading. To +haunt attorneys, to follow the court, to hunt up cases--what a bore! Why +should he do it? He saw no reason for changing the manner of gaining his +livelihood! The obscure and ill-paid publishing establishment had come +to mean for him a sure source of work which did not involve too much +labor, as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants. + +One of the publishers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offered +to take him into his own house, to lodge him well, to furnish him with +regular occupation, and to give him fifteen hundred francs a year. To be +well lodged! Fifteen hundred francs! No doubt. But renounce his liberty! +Be on fixed wages! A sort of hired man of letters! According to Marius' +opinion, if he accepted, his position would become both better and worse +at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was a +fine and complete unhappiness converted into a repulsive and ridiculous +state of torture: something like the case of a blind man who should +recover the sight of one eye. He refused. + +Marius dwelt in solitude. Owing to his taste for remaining outside of +everything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entered +decidedly into the group presided over by Enjolras. They had remained +good friends; they were ready to assist each other on occasion in every +possible way; but nothing more. Marius had two friends: one young, +Courfeyrac; and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined more to the old man. +In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken +place within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved his +father. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said. + +The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part. + +It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and +impassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightened +Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle +which some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one. + +As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally +incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it. + +As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be +superfluous. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--M. MABEUF + +On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius: "Certainly I approve of +political opinions," he expressed the real state of his mind. All +political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he approved +them all, without distinction, provided they left him in peace, as the +Greeks called the Furies "the beautiful, the good, the charming," the +Eumenides. M. Mabeuf's political opinion consisted in a passionate love +for plants, and, above all, for books. Like all the rest of the world, +he possessed the termination in ist, without which no one could exist at +that time, but he was neither a Royalist, a Bonapartist, a Chartist, +an Orleanist, nor an Anarchist; he was a bouquinist, a collector of old +books. He did not understand how men could busy themselves with +hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, +legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world +all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, +and heaps of folios, and even of 32mos, which they might turn over. He +took good care not to become useless; having books did not prevent his +reading, being a botanist did not prevent his being a gardener. When +he made Pontmercy's acquaintance, this sympathy had existed between the +colonel and himself--that what the colonel did for flowers, he did for +fruits. M. Mabeuf had succeeded in producing seedling pears as savory +as the pears of St. Germain; it is from one of his combinations, +apparently, that the October Mirabelle, now celebrated and no less +perfumed than the summer Mirabelle, owes its origin. He went to mass +rather from gentleness than from piety, and because, as he loved the +faces of men, but hated their noise, he found them assembled and silent +only in church. Feeling that he must be something in the State, he had +chosen the career of warden. However, he had never succeeded in loving +any woman as much as a tulip bulb, nor any man as much as an Elzevir. +He had long passed sixty, when, one day, some one asked him: "Have you +never been married?" "I have forgotten," said he. When it sometimes +happened to him--and to whom does it not happen?--to say: "Oh! if I were +only rich!" it was not when ogling a pretty girl, as was the case with +Father Gillenormand, but when contemplating an old book. He lived alone +with an old housekeeper. He was somewhat gouty, and when he was asleep, +his aged fingers, stiffened with rheumatism, lay crooked up in the folds +of his sheets. He had composed and published a Flora of the Environs of +Cauteretz, with colored plates, a work which enjoyed a tolerable +measure of esteem and which sold well. People rang his bell, in the Rue +Mesieres, two or three times a day, to ask for it. He drew as much as +two thousand francs a year from it; this constituted nearly the whole of +his fortune. Although poor, he had had the talent to form for himself, +by dint of patience, privations, and time, a precious collection of rare +copies of every sort. He never went out without a book under his arm, +and he often returned with two. The sole decoration of the four rooms +on the ground floor, which composed his lodgings, consisted of framed +herbariums, and engravings of the old masters. The sight of a sword or +a gun chilled his blood. He had never approached a cannon in his life, +even at the Invalides. He had a passable stomach, a brother who was a +cure, perfectly white hair, no teeth, either in his mouth or his mind, a +trembling in every limb, a Picard accent, an infantile laugh, the air of +an old sheep, and he was easily frightened. Add to this, that he had no +other friendship, no other acquaintance among the living, than an old +bookseller of the Porte-Saint-Jacques, named Royal. His dream was to +naturalize indigo in France. + +His servant was also a sort of innocent. The poor good old woman was a +spinster. Sultan, her cat, which might have mewed Allegri's miserere in +the Sixtine Chapel, had filled her heart and sufficed for the quantity +of passion which existed in her. None of her dreams had ever proceeded +as far as man. She had never been able to get further than her cat. Like +him, she had a mustache. Her glory consisted in her caps, which were +always white. She passed her time, on Sundays, after mass, in counting +over the linen in her chest, and in spreading out on her bed the dresses +in the piece which she bought and never had made up. She knew how to +read. M. Mabeuf had nicknamed her Mother Plutarque. + +M. Mabeuf had taken a fancy to Marius, because Marius, being young and +gentle, warmed his age without startling his timidity. Youth combined +with gentleness produces on old people the effect of the sun without +wind. When Marius was saturated with military glory, with gunpowder, +with marches and countermarches, and with all those prodigious battles +in which his father had given and received such tremendous blows of the +sword, he went to see M. Mabeuf, and M. Mabeuf talked to him of his hero +from the point of view of flowers. + +His brother the cure died about 1830, and almost immediately, as when +the night is drawing on, the whole horizon grew dark for M. Mabeuf. A +notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which +was all that he possessed in his brother's right and his own. The +Revolution of July brought a crisis to publishing. In a period of +embarrassment, the first thing which does not sell is a Flora. The Flora +of the Environs of Cauteretz stopped short. Weeks passed by without a +single purchaser. Sometimes M. Mabeuf started at the sound of the bell. +"Monsieur," said Mother Plutarque sadly, "it is the water-carrier." +In short, one day, M. Mabeuf quitted the Rue Mesieres, abdicated the +functions of warden, gave up Saint-Sulpice, sold not a part of his +books, but of his prints,--that to which he was the least attached,--and +installed himself in a little house on the Rue Montparnasse, where, +however, he remained but one quarter for two reasons: in the first +place, the ground floor and the garden cost three hundred francs, and he +dared not spend more than two hundred francs on his rent; in the second, +being near Faton's shooting-gallery, he could hear the pistol-shots; +which was intolerable to him. + +He carried off his Flora, his copper-plates, his herbariums, his +portfolios, and his books, and established himself near the Salpetriere, +in a sort of thatched cottage of the village of Austerlitz, where, +for fifty crowns a year, he got three rooms and a garden enclosed by a +hedge, and containing a well. He took advantage of this removal to sell +off nearly all his furniture. On the day of his entrance into his new +quarters, he was very gay, and drove the nails on which his engravings +and herbariums were to hang, with his own hands, dug in his garden the +rest of the day, and at night, perceiving that Mother Plutarque had a +melancholy air, and was very thoughtful, he tapped her on the shoulder +and said to her with a smile: "We have the indigo!" + +Only two visitors, the bookseller of the Porte-Saint-Jacques and Marius, +were admitted to view the thatched cottage at Austerlitz, a brawling +name which was, to tell the truth, extremely disagreeable to him. + +However, as we have just pointed out, brains which are absorbed in some +bit of wisdom, or folly, or, as it often happens, in both at once, are +but slowly accessible to the things of actual life. Their own destiny +is a far-off thing to them. There results from such concentration a +passivity, which, if it were the outcome of reasoning, would resemble +philosophy. One declines, descends, trickles away, even crumbles away, +and yet is hardly conscious of it one's self. It always ends, it is +true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it +seems as though we held ourselves neutral in the game which is going on +between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look +on at the game with indifference. + +It is thus that, athwart the cloud which formed about him, when all his +hopes were extinguished one after the other, M. Mabeuf remained rather +puerilely, but profoundly serene. His habits of mind had the regular +swing of a pendulum. Once mounted on an illusion, he went for a very +long time, even after the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not +stop short at the precise moment when the key is lost. + +M. Mabeuf had his innocent pleasures. These pleasures were inexpensive +and unexpected; the merest chance furnished them. One day, Mother +Plutarque was reading a romance in one corner of the room. She was +reading aloud, finding that she understood better thus. To read aloud is +to assure one's self of what one is reading. There are people who read +very loud, and who have the appearance of giving themselves their word +of honor as to what they are perusing. + +It was with this sort of energy that Mother Plutarque was reading the +romance which she had in hand. M. Mabeuf heard her without listening to +her. + +In the course of her reading, Mother Plutarque came to this phrase. It +was a question of an officer of dragoons and a beauty:-- + +"--The beauty pouted, and the dragoon--" + +Here she interrupted herself to wipe her glasses. + +"Bouddha and the Dragon," struck in M. Mabeuf in a low voice. "Yes, it +is true that there was a dragon, which, from the depths of its cave, +spouted flame through his maw and set the heavens on fire. Many stars +had already been consumed by this monster, which, besides, had the claws +of a tiger. Bouddha went into its den and succeeded in converting the +dragon. That is a good book that you are reading, Mother Plutarque. +There is no more beautiful legend in existence." + +And M. Mabeuf fell into a delicious revery. + + + + +CHAPTER V--POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR FOR MISERY + +Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into +the clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, little +by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius met +Courfeyrac and sought out M. Mabeuf. Very rarely, however; twice a month +at most. + +Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outer +boulevards, or in the Champs-de-Mars, or in the least frequented alleys +of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a market +garden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the dung-heap, the horse +turning the water-wheel. The passers-by stared at him in surprise, and +some of them thought his attire suspicious and his mien sinister. He was +only a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way. + +It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house, +and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abode +there. He was known there only under the name of M. Marius. + +Some of his father's old generals or old comrades had invited him to go +and see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused their +invitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father. +Thus he went from time to time, to Comte Pajol, to General Bellavesne, +to General Fririon, to the Invalides. There was music and dancing there. +On such evenings, Marius put on his new coat. But he never went to +these evening parties or balls except on days when it was freezing cold, +because he could not afford a carriage, and he did not wish to arrive +with boots otherwise than like mirrors. + +He said sometimes, but without bitterness: "Men are so made that in a +drawing-room you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In order +to insure a good reception there, only one irreproachable thing is asked +of you; your conscience? No, your boots." + +All passions except those of the heart are dissipated by revery. Marius' +political fevers vanished thus. The Revolution of 1830 assisted in the +process, by satisfying and calming him. He remained the same, setting +aside his fits of wrath. He still held the same opinions. Only, they had +been tempered. To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, he +had sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity. +Out of humanity he chose France; out of the Nation he chose the people; +out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all, +that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, a +poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event like +Marengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation, he returned +in the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse through +the branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the nameless +gleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery, all that which is only human +seemed very petty indeed to him. + +He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truth +of life and of human philosophy, and he had ended by gazing at nothing +but heaven, the only thing which Truth can perceive from the bottom of +her well. + +This did not prevent him from multiplying his plans, his combinations, +his scaffoldings, his projects for the future. In this state of revery, +an eye which could have cast a glance into Marius' interior would have +been dazzled with the purity of that soul. In fact, had it been given to +our eyes of the flesh to gaze into the consciences of others, we should +be able to judge a man much more surely according to what he dreams, +than according to what he thinks. There is will in thought, there is +none in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps, +even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing +proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our +soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards +the splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in +deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man +to be found. Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us. +Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance +with his nature. + +Towards the middle of this year 1831, the old woman who waited on Marius +told him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had been +turned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days out +of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors. + +"Why are they turned out?" he asked. + +"Because they do not pay their rent; they owe for two quarters." + +"How much is it?" + +"Twenty francs," said the old woman. + +Marius had thirty francs saved up in a drawer. + +"Here," he said to the old woman, "take these twenty-five francs. Pay +for the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them that +it was I." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE SUBSTITUTE + +It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Theodule belonged came +to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with +a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon the plan of +having Marius spied upon by Theodule; now she plotted to have Theodule +take Marius' place. + +At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of +a young face in the house,--these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to +ruin,--it was expedient to find another Marius. "Take it as a simple +erratum," she thought, "such as one sees in books. For Marius, read +Theodule." + +A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson; in default of a lawyer +one takes a lancer. + +One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the +Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice; +for the question concerned her favorite:-- + +"Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you this +morning." + +"Who's Theodule?" + +"Your grandnephew." + +"Ah!" said the grandfather. + +Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew, +who was merely some Theodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which +almost always happened when he read. The "sheet" which he held, although +Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without any +softening phrases, one of these little events which were of daily +occurrence at that date in Paris: "That the students of the schools +of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Pantheon, at +midday,--to deliberate." The discussion concerned one of the questions +of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict +between the Minister of War and "the citizen's militia," on the subject +of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were +to "deliberate" over this. It did not take much more than this to swell +M. Gillenormand's rage. + +He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with +the rest, to "deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Pantheon." + +As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Theodule entered +clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and +was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had +reasoned as follows: "The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life +pension. It is well to disguise one's self as a civilian from time to +time." + +Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:-- + +"Theodule, your grandnephew." + +And in a low voice to the lieutenant:-- + +"Approve of everything." + +And she withdrew. + +The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable +encounters, stammered with some timidity: "Good day, uncle,"--and made +a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the +military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute. + +"Ah! so it's you; that is well, sit down," said the old gentleman. + +That said, he totally forgot the lancer. + +Theodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose. + +M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, +talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two +watches which he wore in his two fobs. + +"That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Pantheon! by my life! +urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze +their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at +midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that +we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought +us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the +open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to +meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you +like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but +returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The Republicans and the +galley-slaves,--they form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used +to say: 'Where would you have me go, traitor?' Fouche replied: 'Wherever +you please, imbecile!' That's what the Republicans are like." + +"That is true," said Theodule. + +M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Theodule, and went on:-- + +"When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro! +Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican! Pssst! In +the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common +sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there +always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, +after all, they make sport of it, of your republic--do you understand, +idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Pere Duchesne, +to make sheep's-eyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on +the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all +these young fellows, such fools are they! They are all alike. Not one +escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the +street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The +first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's, +thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives. He's +a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean, romantic? Do me the +favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran +to Hernani. Now, I just ask you, Hernani! antitheses! abominations +which are not even written in French! And then, they have cannons in the +courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!" + +"You are right, uncle," said Theodule. + +M. Gillenormand resumed:-- + +"Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose? Do you want +to fire grape-shot at the Apollo Belvedere? What have those cartridges +to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! the young men of the present day are +all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And +those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to make +themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, in +the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the +girls into fits of laughter; on my word of honor, one would say the poor +creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they complete +themselves by being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and +Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse +linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and their +rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use of their jargon +to put new soles on their old shoes. And all this awkward batch of brats +has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions should be +strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they +demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the +attic in the cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they +turn Europe topsy-turvy, they reconstruct the world, and all their love +affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the laundresses as +these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! you blackguard! to +go and vociferate on the public place! to discuss, to debate, to take +measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder humbles itself +and becomes silly. I have seen chaos, I now see a mess. Students +deliberating on the National Guard,--such a thing could not be seen +among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with their +noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws, are less +of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The four-penny monkeys! And they +set up for judges! Those creatures deliberate and ratiocinate! The +end of the world is come! This is plainly the end of this miserable +terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted +it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go +and read the newspapers under the arcades of the Odeon. That costs them +a sou, and their good sense, and their intelligence, and their heart and +their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence, and decamp from their +families. All newspapers are pests; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At +bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of +having driven your grandfather to despair, that you may!" + +"That is evident," said Theodule. + +And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the +lancer added in a magisterial manner:-- + +"There should be no other newspaper than the Moniteur, and no other book +than the Annuaire Militaire." + +M. Gillenormand continued:-- + +"It is like their Sieyes! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is +the way they always end. They give themselves a scar with the address +of thou as citizens, in order to get themselves called, eventually, +Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of +September. The philosopher Sieyes! I will do myself the justice to say, +that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all +those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! +One day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles of +violet velvet sown with bees, with hats a la Henri IV. They were +hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. +Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your +humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that your republic +is a monster, that your young and virgin France comes from the brothel, +and I maintain it against all, whoever you may be, whether journalists, +economists, legists, or even were you better judges of liberty, of +equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And that I +announce to you, my fine fellows!" + +"Parbleu!" cried the lieutenant, "that is wonderfully true." + +M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round, +stared Lancer Theodule intently in the eyes, and said to him:-- + +"You are a fool." + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SOBRIQUET: MODE OF FORMATION OF FAMILY NAMES + +Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, +with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, +well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, +and with something indescribably proud, thoughtful, and innocent over +his whole countenance. His profile, all of whose lines were rounded, +without thereby losing their firmness, had a certain Germanic sweetness, +which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace +and Lorraine, and that complete absence of angles which rendered +the Sicambres so easily recognizable among the Romans, and which +distinguishes the leonine from the aquiline race. He was at that period +of life when the mind of men who think is composed, in nearly equal +parts, of depth and ingenuousness. A grave situation being given, he +had all that is required to be stupid: one more turn of the key, and he +might be sublime. His manners were reserved, cold, polished, not very +genial. As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth +the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face, +as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous smile +presented a singular contrast. His eyes were small, but his glance was +large. + +At the period of his most abject misery, he had observed that young +girls turned round when he passed by, and he fled or hid, with death in +his soul. He thought that they were staring at him because of his old +clothes, and that they were laughing at them; the fact is, that they +stared at him because of his grace, and that they dreamed of him. + +This mute misunderstanding between him and the pretty passers-by had +made him shy. He chose none of them for the excellent reason that +he fled from all of them. He lived thus indefinitely,--stupidly, as +Courfeyrac said. + +Courfeyrac also said to him: "Do not aspire to be venerable" [they +called each other thou; it is the tendency of youthful friendships to +slip into this mode of address]. "Let me give you a piece of advice, +my dear fellow. Don't read so many books, and look a little more at the +lasses. The jades have some good points about them, O Marius! By dint of +fleeing and blushing, you will become brutalized." + +On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said:--"Good morning, +Monsieur l'Abbe!" + +When Courfeyrac had addressed to him some remark of this nature, Marius +avoided women, both young and old, more than ever for a week to come, +and he avoided Courfeyrac to boot. + +Nevertheless, there existed in all the immensity of creation, two women +whom Marius did not flee, and to whom he paid no attention whatever. In +truth, he would have been very much amazed if he had been informed +that they were women. One was the bearded old woman who swept out his +chamber, and caused Courfeyrac to say: "Seeing that his servant woman +wears his beard, Marius does not wear his own beard." The other was a +sort of little girl whom he saw very often, and whom he never looked at. + +For more than a year, Marius had noticed in one of the walks of the +Luxembourg, the one which skirts the parapet of the Pepiniere, a man +and a very young girl, who were almost always seated side by side on the +same bench, at the most solitary end of the alley, on the Rue de l'Ouest +side. Every time that that chance which meddles with the strolls of +persons whose gaze is turned inwards, led Marius to that walk,--and it +was nearly every day,--he found this couple there. The man appeared to +be about sixty years of age; he seemed sad and serious; his whole person +presented the robust and weary aspect peculiar to military men who have +retired from the service. If he had worn a decoration, Marius would have +said: "He is an ex-officer." He had a kindly but unapproachable air, +and he never let his glance linger on the eyes of any one. He wore +blue trousers, a blue frock coat and a broad-brimmed hat, which always +appeared to be new, a black cravat, a quaker shirt, that is to say, it +was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near +him one day, said: "Here's a very tidy widower." His hair was very +white. + +The first time that the young girl who accompanied him came and seated +herself on the bench which they seemed to have adopted, she was a sort +of child thirteen or fourteen years of age, so thin as to be almost +homely, awkward, insignificant, and with a possible promise of +handsome eyes. Only, they were always raised with a sort of displeasing +assurance. Her dress was both aged and childish, like the dress of the +scholars in a convent; it consisted of a badly cut gown of black merino. +They had the air of being father and daughter. + +Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little +girl, who was not yet a person, for a few days, and thereafter paid no +attention to them. They, on their side, did not appear even to see him. +They conversed together with a peaceful and indifferent air. The girl +chattered incessantly and merrily. The old man talked but little, and, +at times, he fixed on her eyes overflowing with an ineffable paternity. + +Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He +invariably found them there. + +This is the way things went:-- + +Marius liked to arrive by the end of the alley which was furthest from +their bench; he walked the whole length of the alley, passed in front +of them, then returned to the extremity whence he had come, and began +again. This he did five or six times in the course of his promenade, +and the promenade was taken five or six times a week, without its +having occurred to him or to these people to exchange a greeting. That +personage, and that young girl, although they appeared,--and perhaps +because they appeared,--to shun all glances, had, naturally, caused some +attention on the part of the five or six students who strolled along +the Pepiniere from time to time; the studious after their lectures, +the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who was among the +last, had observed them several times, but, finding the girl homely, he +had speedily and carefully kept out of the way. He had fled, discharging +at them a sobriquet, like a Parthian dart. Impressed solely with +the child's gown and the old man's hair, he had dubbed the daughter +Mademoiselle Lanoire, and the father, Monsieur Leblanc, so that as no +one knew them under any other title, this nickname became a law in the +default of any other name. The students said: "Ah! Monsieur Leblanc is +on his bench." And Marius, like the rest, had found it convenient to +call this unknown gentleman Monsieur Leblanc. + +We shall follow their example, and we shall say M. Leblanc, in order to +facilitate this tale. + +So Marius saw them nearly every day, at the same hour, during the first +year. He found the man to his taste, but the girl insipid. + + + + +CHAPTER II--LUX FACTA EST + +During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which the +reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the Luxembourg was +interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly +six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley. One +day, at last, he returned thither once more; it was a serene summer +morning, and Marius was in joyous mood, as one is when the weather is +fine. It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the songs of the +birds that he was listening to, and all the bits of blue sky of which he +caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees. + +He went straight to "his alley," and when he reached the end of it he +perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known couple. Only, when +he approached, it certainly was the same man; but it seemed to him that +it was no longer the same girl. The person whom he now beheld was a tall +and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines of a +woman at the precise moment when they are still combined with all the +most ingenuous graces of the child; a pure and fugitive moment, which +can be expressed only by these two words,--"fifteen years." She had +wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads of gold, a brow that seemed +made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush, +an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles darted like +sunbeams, and words like music, a head such as Raphael would have given +to Mary, set upon a neck that Jean Goujon would have attributed to a +Venus. And, in order that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching +face, her nose was not handsome--it was pretty; neither straight nor +curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian nose, that is +to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,--which drives painters to +despair, and charms poets. + +When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were +constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut lashes, permeated with +shadow and modesty. + +This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she listened +to what the white-haired old man was saying to her, and nothing could +be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined with those drooping +eyes. + +For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same +man, a sister of the former, no doubt. But when the invariable habit of +his stroll brought him, for the second time, near the bench, and he had +examined her attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months +the little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing is more +frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment when girls blossom out +in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses all at once. One left +them children but yesterday; today, one finds them disquieting to the +feelings. + +This child had not only grown, she had become idealized. As three days +in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers, six months had +sufficed to clothe her with beauty. Her April had arrived. + +One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake up, pass +suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures of all sorts, +and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all of a sudden. That is +the result of having pocketed an income; a note fell due yesterday. The +young girl had received her quarterly income. + +And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat, her +merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her +with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with a sort of rich +and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black +damask, a cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her +white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the +carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined +the smallness of her foot. When one passed near her, her whole toilette +exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume. + +As for the man, he was the same as usual. + +The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised her +eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that veiled +azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child. She looked +at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running +beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the +bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought +about something else. + +He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times, +but without even turning his eyes in her direction. + +On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg; +as usual, he found there "the father and daughter;" but he paid no +further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl now that +she was beautiful than he had when she was homely. He passed very near +the bench where she sat, because such was his habit. + + + + +CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING + +One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with light +and shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it that +morning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in the depths +of the chestnut-trees. Marius had thrown open his whole soul to nature, +he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passed +near the bench, the young girl raised her eyes to him, the two glances +met. + +What was there in the young girl's glance on this occasion? Marius could +not have told. There was nothing and there was everything. It was a +strange flash. + +She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. + +What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a +child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly +closed again. + +There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to him +who chances to be there! + +That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is +like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant +and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that +unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable +shadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and +of all the passion of the future. It is a sort of undecided tenderness +which reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is a snare which +the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captures +hearts without either wishing or knowing it. It is a virgin looking like +a woman. + +It is rare that a profound revery does not spring from that glance, +where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestial +and fatal gleam which, more than all the best-planned tender glances of +coquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming, +in the depths of the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated with +perfume and with poison, which is called love. + +That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over +his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so +slovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk in +the Luxembourg with his "every-day clothes," that is to say, with a +hat battered near the band, coarse carter's boots, black trousers +which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the +elbows. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--BEGINNING OF A GREAT MALADY + +On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his +wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new +boots; he clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his gloves, a +tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg. + +On the way thither, he encountered Courfeyrac, and pretended not to see +him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends:-- + +"I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside +them. He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly +stupid." + +On arriving at the Luxembourg, Marius made the tour of the fountain +basin, and stared at the swans; then he remained for a long time in +contemplation before a statue whose head was perfectly black with mould, +and one of whose hips was missing. Near the basin there was a bourgeois +forty years of age, with a prominent stomach, who was holding by the +hand a little urchin of five, and saying to him: "Shun excess, my son, +keep at an equal distance from despotism and from anarchy." Marius +listened to this bourgeois. Then he made the circuit of the basin once +more. At last he directed his course towards "his alley," slowly, and as +if with regret. One would have said that he was both forced to go there +and withheld from doing so. He did not perceive it himself, and thought +that he was doing as he always did. + +On turning into the walk, he saw M. Leblanc and the young girl at the +other end, "on their bench." He buttoned his coat up to the very top, +pulled it down on his body so that there might be no wrinkles, examined, +with a certain complaisance, the lustrous gleams of his trousers, and +marched on the bench. This march savored of an attack, and certainly +of a desire for conquest. So I say that he marched on the bench, as I +should say: "Hannibal marched on Rome." + +However, all his movements were purely mechanical, and he had +interrupted none of the habitual preoccupations of his mind and labors. +At that moment, he was thinking that the Manuel du Baccalaureat was +a stupid book, and that it must have been drawn up by rare idiots, to +allow of three tragedies of Racine and only one comedy of Moliere being +analyzed therein as masterpieces of the human mind. There was a piercing +whistling going on in his ears. As he approached the bench, he held +fast to the folds in his coat, and fixed his eyes on the young girl. It +seemed to him that she filled the entire extremity of the alley with a +vague blue light. + +In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened more and more. On +arriving at some little distance from the bench, and long before he had +reached the end of the walk, he halted, and could not explain to himself +why he retraced his steps. He did not even say to himself that he would +not go as far as the end. It was only with difficulty that the young +girl could have perceived him in the distance and noted his fine +appearance in his new clothes. Nevertheless, he held himself very erect, +in case any one should be looking at him from behind. + +He attained the opposite end, then came back, and this time he +approached a little nearer to the bench. He even got to within three +intervals of trees, but there he felt an indescribable impossibility of +proceeding further, and he hesitated. He thought he saw the young girl's +face bending towards him. But he exerted a manly and violent effort, +subdued his hesitation, and walked straight ahead. A few seconds later, +he rushed in front of the bench, erect and firm, reddening to the very +ears, without daring to cast a glance either to the right or to the +left, with his hand thrust into his coat like a statesman. At the moment +when he passed,--under the cannon of the place,--he felt his heart beat +wildly. As on the preceding day, she wore her damask gown and her crape +bonnet. He heard an ineffable voice, which must have been "her voice." +She was talking tranquilly. She was very pretty. He felt it, although he +made no attempt to see her. "She could not, however," he thought, "help +feeling esteem and consideration for me, if she only knew that I am +the veritable author of the dissertation on Marcos Obregon de la Ronde, +which M. Francois de Neufchateau put, as though it were his own, at the +head of his edition of Gil Blas." He went beyond the bench as far as the +extremity of the walk, which was very near, then turned on his heel and +passed once more in front of the lovely girl. This time, he was very +pale. Moreover, all his emotions were disagreeable. As he went further +from the bench and the young girl, and while his back was turned to her, +he fancied that she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble. + +He did not attempt to approach the bench again; he halted near the +middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down, +and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit, +that after all, it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black +gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers +and his new coat. + +At the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he rose, as though he were +on the point of again beginning his march towards that bench which was +surrounded by an aureole. But he remained standing there, motionless. +For the first time in fifteen months, he said to himself that that +gentleman who sat there every day with his daughter, had, on his side, +noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular. + +For the first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in +designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the sobriquet +of M. le Blanc. + +He stood thus for several minutes, with drooping head, tracing figures +in the sand, with the cane which he held in his hand. + +Then he turned abruptly in the direction opposite to the bench, to M. +Leblanc and his daughter, and went home. + +That day he forgot to dine. At eight o'clock in the evening he perceived +this fact, and as it was too late to go down to the Rue Saint-Jacques, +he said: "Never mind!" and ate a bit of bread. + +He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up with +great care. + + + + +CHAPTER V--DIVRS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON + +On the following day, Ma'am Bougon, as Courfeyrac styled the old +portress-principal-tenant, housekeeper of the Gorbeau hovel, Ma'am +Bougon, whose name was, in reality, Madame Burgon, as we have found +out, but this iconoclast, Courfeyrac, respected nothing,--Ma'am Bougon +observed, with stupefaction, that M. Marius was going out again in his +new coat. + +He went to the Luxembourg again, but he did not proceed further than his +bench midway of the alley. He seated himself there, as on the preceding +day, surveying from a distance, and clearly making out, the white +bonnet, the black dress, and above all, that blue light. He did not stir +from it, and only went home when the gates of the Luxembourg closed. He +did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they +had quitted the garden by the gate on the Rue de l'Ouest. Later on, +several weeks afterwards, when he came to think it over, he could never +recall where he had dined that evening. + +On the following day, which was the third, Ma'am Bougon was +thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. "Three days in +succession!" she exclaimed. + +She tried to follow him, but Marius walked briskly, and with immense +strides; it was a hippopotamus undertaking the pursuit of a chamois. +She lost sight of him in two minutes, and returned breathless, +three-quarters choked with asthma, and furious. "If there is any sense," +she growled, "in putting on one's best clothes every day, and making +people run like this!" + +Marius betook himself to the Luxembourg. + +The young girl was there with M. Leblanc. Marius approached as near as +he could, pretending to be busy reading a book, but he halted afar off, +then returned and seated himself on his bench, where he spent four hours +in watching the house-sparrows who were skipping about the walk, and who +produced on him the impression that they were making sport of him. + +A fortnight passed thus. Marius went to the Luxembourg no longer for the +sake of strolling there, but to seat himself always in the same spot, +and that without knowing why. Once arrived there, he did not stir. +He put on his new coat every morning, for the purpose of not showing +himself, and he began all over again on the morrow. + +She was decidedly a marvellous beauty. The only remark approaching a +criticism, that could be made, was, that the contradiction between +her gaze, which was melancholy, and her smile, which was merry, gave +a rather wild effect to her face, which sometimes caused this sweet +countenance to become strange without ceasing to be charming. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--TAKEN PRISONER + +On one of the last days of the second week, Marius was seated on his +bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book, of which he had not +turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started. An event +was taking place at the other extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his +daughter had just left their seat, and the daughter had taken her +father's arm, and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the +alley where Marius was. Marius closed his book, then opened it again, +then forced himself to read; he trembled; the aureole was coming +straight towards him. "Ah! good Heavens!" thought he, "I shall not have +time to strike an attitude." Still the white-haired man and the girl +advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it +was but a second. "What are they coming in this direction for?" he asked +himself. "What! She will pass here? Her feet will tread this sand, this +walk, two paces from me?" He was utterly upset, he would have liked to +be very handsome, he would have liked to own the cross. He heard the +soft and measured sound of their approaching footsteps. He imagined that +M. Leblanc was darting angry glances at him. "Is that gentleman going to +address me?" he thought to himself. He dropped his head; when he raised +it again, they were very near him. The young girl passed, and as she +passed, she glanced at him. She gazed steadily at him, with a pensive +sweetness which thrilled Marius from head to foot. It seemed to him +that she was reproaching him for having allowed so long a time to elapse +without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to him: "I am +coming myself." Marius was dazzled by those eyes fraught with rays and +abysses. + +He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how +she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had +ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine and +angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and +Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure +heavens. At the same time, he was horribly vexed because there was dust +on his boots. + +He thought he felt sure that she had looked at his boots too. + +He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then he started +up and walked about the Luxembourg garden like a madman. It is possible +that, at times, he laughed to himself and talked aloud. He was so dreamy +when he came near the children's nurses, that each one of them thought +him in love with her. + +He quitted the Luxembourg, hoping to find her again in the street. + +He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odeon, and said to +him: "Come and dine with me." They went off to Rousseau's and spent +six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At +dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. "Have you read the paper? What a fine +discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!" + +He was desperately in love. + +After dinner, he said to Courfeyrac: "I will treat you to the play." +They went to the Porte-Sainte-Martin to see Frederick in l'Auberge des +Adrets. Marius was enormously amused. + +At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging +from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was +stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac, who said: "I should like to +put that woman in my collection," almost horrified him. + +Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Cafe Voltaire on the +following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even more than on the +preceding evening. He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would +have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh +uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the provinces, +who was presented to him. A circle of students formed round the table, +and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which was uttered +from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation fell upon the +faults and omissions in Guicherat's dictionaries and grammars. Marius +interrupted the discussion to exclaim: "But it is very agreeable, all +the same to have the cross!" + +"That's queer!" whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire. + +"No," responded Prouvaire, "that's serious." + +It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and +charming hour with which grand passions begin. + +A glance had wrought all this. + +When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is +more simple. A glance is a spark. + +It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering +the unknown. + +The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are +tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every +day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything. A +moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and come, +dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all is +over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has +caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought +which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. +You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious +forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human +succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from +agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, +your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power +of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from this +terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or transfigured +by passion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U DELIVERED OVER TO CONJECTURES + +Isolation, detachment from everything, pride, independence, the taste +of nature, the absence of daily and material activity, the life within +himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ecstasy towards +all creation, had prepared Marius for this possession which is called +passion. His worship of his father had gradually become a religion, +and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul. +Something was required in the foreground. Love came. + +A full month elapsed, during which Marius went every day to the +Luxembourg. When the hour arrived, nothing could hold him back.--"He +is on duty," said Courfeyrac. Marius lived in a state of delight. It is +certain that the young girl did look at him. + +He had finally grown bold, and approached the bench. Still, he did not +pass in front of it any more, in obedience to the instinct of timidity +and to the instinct of prudence common to lovers. He considered it +better not to attract "the attention of the father." He combined his +stations behind the trees and the pedestals of the statues with a +profound diplomacy, so that he might be seen as much as possible by the +young girl and as little as possible by the old gentleman. Sometimes, he +remained motionless by the half-hour together in the shade of a Leonidas +or a Spartacus, holding in his hand a book, above which his eyes, gently +raised, sought the beautiful girl, and she, on her side, turned her +charming profile towards him with a vague smile. While conversing in the +most natural and tranquil manner in the world with the white-haired man, +she bent upon Marius all the reveries of a virginal and passionate eye. +Ancient and time-honored manoeuvre which Eve understood from the very +first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very +first day of her life! her mouth replied to one, and her glance replied +to another. + +It must be supposed, that M. Leblanc finally noticed something, for +often, when Marius arrived, he rose and began to walk about. He had +abandoned their accustomed place and had adopted the bench by the +Gladiator, near the other end of the walk, as though with the object +of seeing whether Marius would pursue them thither. Marius did not +understand, and committed this error. "The father" began to grow +inexact, and no longer brought "his daughter" every day. Sometimes, he +came alone. Then Marius did not stay. Another blunder. + +Marius paid no heed to these symptoms. From the phase of timidity, he +had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness. +His love increased. He dreamed of it every night. And then, an +unexpected bliss had happened to him, oil on the fire, a redoubling of +the shadows over his eyes. One evening, at dusk, he had found, on +the bench which "M. Leblanc and his daughter" had just quitted, a +handkerchief, a very simple handkerchief, without embroidery, but white, +and fine, and which seemed to him to exhale ineffable perfume. He seized +it with rapture. This handkerchief was marked with the letters U. F. +Marius knew nothing about this beautiful child,--neither her family +name, her Christian name nor her abode; these two letters were the first +thing of her that he had gained possession of, adorable initials, upon +which he immediately began to construct his scaffolding. U was evidently +the Christian name. "Ursule!" he thought, "what a delicious name!" He +kissed the handkerchief, drank it in, placed it on his heart, on his +flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he +might fall asleep on it. + +"I feel that her whole soul lies within it!" he exclaimed. + +This handkerchief belonged to the old gentleman, who had simply let it +fall from his pocket. + +In the days which followed the finding of this treasure, he only +displayed himself at the Luxembourg in the act of kissing the +handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood +nothing of all this, and signified it to him by imperceptible signs. + +"O modesty!" said Marius. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE VETERANS THEMSELVES CAN BE HAPPY + +Since we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we conceal nothing, +we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in spite of his ecstasies, "his +Ursule" caused him very serious grief. It was on one of the days when +she persuaded M. Leblanc to leave the bench and stroll along the walk. +A brisk May breeze was blowing, which swayed the crests of the +plaintain-trees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had just passed +Marius' bench. Marius had risen to his feet behind them, and was +following them with his eyes, as was fitting in the desperate situation +of his soul. + +All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and probably +charged with performing the affairs of Springtime, swept down from +the nursery, flung itself on the alley, enveloped the young girl in +a delicious shiver, worthy of Virgil's nymphs, and the fawns of +Theocritus, and lifted her dress, the robe more sacred than that of +Isis, almost to the height of her garter. A leg of exquisite shape +appeared. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious. + +The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a divinely +troubled motion, but he was none the less angry for all that. He was +alone in the alley, it is true. But there might have been some one +there. And what if there had been some one there! Can any one comprehend +such a thing? What she had just done is horrible!--Alas, the poor child +had done nothing; there had been but one culprit, the wind; but Marius, +in whom quivered the Bartholo who exists in Cherubin, was determined to +be vexed, and was jealous of his own shadow. It is thus, in fact, that +the harsh and capricious jealousy of the flesh awakens in the human +heart, and takes possession of it, even without any right. Moreover, +setting aside even that jealousy, the sight of that charming leg had +contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of the first +woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him more pleasure. + +When "his Ursule," after having reached the end of the walk, retraced +her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which +Marius had seated himself once more, Marius darted a sullen and +ferocious glance at her. The young girl gave way to that slight +straightening up with a backward movement, accompanied by a raising of +the eyelids, which signifies: "Well, what is the matter?" + +This was "their first quarrel." + +Marius had hardly made this scene at her with his eyes, when some one +crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much bent, extremely wrinkled, +and pale, in a uniform of the Louis XV. pattern, bearing on his breast +the little oval plaque of red cloth, with the crossed swords, the +soldier's cross of Saint-Louis, and adorned, in addition, with a +coat-sleeve, which had no arm within it, with a silver chin and a wooden +leg. Marius thought he perceived that this man had an extremely well +satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he hobbled +along past him, addressed to him a very fraternal and very merry wink, +as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as +though they had shared some piece of good luck together. What did that +relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between +that wooden leg and the other? Marius reached a paroxysm of +jealousy.--"Perhaps he was there!" he said to himself; "perhaps he +saw!"--And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran. + +With the aid of time, all points grow dull. Marius' wrath against +"Ursule," just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally pardoned +her; but this cost him a great effort; he sulked for three days. + +Nevertheless, in spite of all this, and because of all this, his passion +augmented and grew to madness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--ECLIPSE + +The reader has just seen how Marius discovered, or thought that he +discovered, that She was named Ursule. + +Appetite grows with loving. To know that her name was Ursule was a great +deal; it was very little. In three or four weeks, Marius had devoured +this bliss. He wanted another. He wanted to know where she lived. + +He had committed his first blunder, by falling into the ambush of the +bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at +the Luxembourg when M. Leblanc came thither alone. He now committed a +third, and an immense one. He followed "Ursule." + +She lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, in the most unfrequented spot, in a +new, three-story house, of modest appearance. + +From that moment forth, Marius added to his happiness of seeing her at +the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home. + +His hunger was increasing. He knew her first name, at least, a charming +name, a genuine woman's name; he knew where she lived; he wanted to know +who she was. + +One evening, after he had followed them to their dwelling, and had seen +them disappear through the carriage gate, he entered in their train and +said boldly to the porter:-- + +"Is that the gentleman who lives on the first floor, who has just come +in?" + +"No," replied the porter. "He is the gentleman on the third floor." + +Another step gained. This success emboldened Marius. + +"On the front?" he asked. + +"Parbleu!" said the porter, "the house is only built on the street." + +"And what is that gentleman's business?" began Marius again. + +"He is a gentleman of property, sir. A very kind man who does good to +the unfortunate, though not rich himself." + +"What is his name?" resumed Marius. + +The porter raised his head and said:-- + +"Are you a police spy, sir?" + +Marius went off quite abashed, but delighted. He was getting on. + +"Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the +daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives +there, on the third floor, in the Rue de l'Ouest." + +On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a very +brief stay in the Luxembourg; they went away while it was still broad +daylight. Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up +the habit of doing. On arriving at the carriage entrance M. Leblanc made +his daughter pass in first, then paused, before crossing the threshold, +and stared intently at Marius. + +On the next day they did not come to the Luxembourg. Marius waited for +them all day in vain. + +At nightfall, he went to the Rue de l'Ouest, and saw a light in the +windows of the third story. + +He walked about beneath the windows until the light was extinguished. + +The next day, no one at the Luxembourg. Marius waited all day, then went +and did sentinel duty under their windows. This carried him on to ten +o'clock in the evening. + +His dinner took care of itself. Fever nourishes the sick man, and love +the lover. + +He spent a week in this manner. M. Leblanc no longer appeared at the +Luxembourg. + +Marius indulged in melancholy conjectures; he dared not watch the porte +cochere during the day; he contented himself with going at night to gaze +upon the red light of the windows. At times he saw shadows flit across +them, and his heart began to beat. + +On the eighth day, when he arrived under the windows, there was no light +in them. + +"Hello!" he said, "the lamp is not lighted yet. But it is dark. Can they +have gone out?" He waited until ten o'clock. Until midnight. Until one +in the morning. Not a light appeared in the windows of the third story, +and no one entered the house. + +He went away in a very gloomy frame of mind. + +On the morrow,--for he only existed from morrow to morrow, there was, +so to speak, no to-day for him,--on the morrow, he found no one at the +Luxembourg; he had expected this. At dusk, he went to the house. + +No light in the windows; the shades were drawn; the third floor was +totally dark. + +Marius rapped at the porte cochere, entered, and said to the porter:-- + +"The gentleman on the third floor?" + +"Has moved away," replied the porter. + +Marius reeled and said feebly:-- + +"How long ago?" + +"Yesterday." + +"Where is he living now?" + +"I don't know anything about it." + +"So he has not left his new address?" + +"No." + +And the porter, raising his eyes, recognized Marius. + +"Come! So it's you!" said he; "but you are decidedly a spy then?" + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE + + + + +CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS + +Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, a third +lower floor. The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for +good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the other. +There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and a +bottom in this obscure sub-soil, which sometimes gives way beneath +civilization, and which our indifference and heedlessness trample under +foot. The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a mine that was +almost open to the sky. The shades, those sombre hatchers of primitive +Christianity, only awaited an opportunity to bring about an explosion +under the Caesars and to inundate the human race with light. For in the +sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow +that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night. The +catacombs, in which the first mass was said, were not alone the cellar +of Rome, they were the vaults of the world. + +Beneath the social construction, that complicated marvel of a structure, +there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious mine, the +philosophical mine, the economic mine, the revolutionary mine. Such and +such a pick-axe with the idea, such a pick with ciphers. Such another +with wrath. People hail and answer each other from one catacomb to +another. Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes. There they +branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and fraternize +there. Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his +lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes Socinius +by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these +energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which +goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, +and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the +bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly even suspects this +digging which leaves its surface intact and changes its bowels. There +are as many different subterranean stages as there are varying works, +as there are extractions. What emerges from these deep excavations? The +future. + +The deeper one goes, the more mysterious are the toilers. The work +is good, up to a degree which the social philosophies are able to +recognize; beyond that degree it is doubtful and mixed; lower down, +it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer +penetrable by the spirit of civilization, the limit breathable by man +has been passed; a beginning of monsters is possible. + +The descending scale is a strange one; and each one of the rungs of this +ladder corresponds to a stage where philosophy can find foothold, and +where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine, sometimes +misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther; below Luther, there is +Descartes; below Descartes, there is Voltaire; below Voltaire, there +is Condorcet; below Condorcet, there is Robespierre; below Robespierre, +there is Marat; below Marat there is Babeuf. And so it goes on. Lower +down, confusedly, at the limit which separates the indistinct from the +invisible, one perceives other gloomy men, who perhaps do not exist as +yet. The men of yesterday are spectres; those of to-morrow are forms. +The eye of the spirit distinguishes them but obscurely. The embryonic +work of the future is one of the visions of philosophy. + +A world in limbo, in the state of foetus, what an unheard-of spectre! + +Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier, are there also, in lateral galleries. + +Surely, although a divine and invisible chain unknown to themselves, +binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always, think +themselves isolated, and who are not so, their works vary greatly, and +the light of some contrasts with the blaze of others. The first are +paradisiacal, the last are tragic. Nevertheless, whatever may be the +contrast, all these toilers, from the highest to the most nocturnal, +from the wisest to the most foolish, possess one likeness, and this +is it: disinterestedness. Marat forgets himself like Jesus. They +throw themselves on one side, they omit themselves, they think not of +themselves. They have a glance, and that glance seeks the absolute. The +first has the whole heavens in his eyes; the last, enigmatical though he +may be, has still, beneath his eyelids, the pale beam of the infinite. +Venerate the man, whoever he may be, who has this sign--the starry eye. + +The shadowy eye is the other sign. + +With it, evil commences. Reflect and tremble in the presence of any one +who has no glance at all. The social order has its black miners. + +There is a point where depth is tantamount to burial, and where light +becomes extinct. + +Below all these mines which we have just mentioned, below all these +galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of +progress and utopia, much further on in the earth, much lower than +Marat, lower than Babeuf, lower, much lower, and without any connection +with the upper levels, there lies the last mine. A formidable spot. This +is what we have designated as the le troisieme dessous. It is the grave +of shadows. It is the cellar of the blind. Inferi. + +This communicates with the abyss. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE LOWEST DEPTHS + +There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each +one is for himself. The _I_ in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and +gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf. + +The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost +phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress; they are ignorant +both of the idea and of the word; they take no thought for anything +but the satisfaction of their individual desires. They are almost +unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible +obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and +misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of satisfaction, +appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ferocious, not +after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. +From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy +creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in the social third lower +level is no longer complaint stifled by the absolute; it is the protest +of matter. Man there becomes a dragon. To be hungry, to be thirsty--that +is the point of departure; to be Satan--that is the point reached. From +that vault Lacenaire emerges. + +We have just seen, in Book Fourth, one of the compartments of the +upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical +excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified, +honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled; but error is worthy of +veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there +effected, taken as a whole has a name: Progress. + +The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, +hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, +and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, +the great cavern of evil. + +This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without +exception. This cavern knows no philosophers; its dagger has never cut +a pen. Its blackness has no connection with the sublime blackness of the +inkstand. Never have the fingers of night which contract beneath this +stifling ceiling, turned the leaves of a book nor unfolded a newspaper. +Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche; Marat is an aristocrat to +Schinderhannes. This cavern has for its object the destruction of +everything. + +Of everything. Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates. +It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social +order; it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it +undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines +progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder, assassination. +It is darkness, and it desires chaos. Its vault is formed of ignorance. + +All the others, those above it, have but one object--to suppress it. +It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their +organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by +their contemplation of the absolute. Destroy the cavern Ignorance and +you destroy the lair Crime. + +Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written. +The only social peril is darkness. + +Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no +difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow +in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But +ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable +blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there +converted into evil. + + + + +CHAPTER III--BABET, GUEULEMER, CLAQUESOUS, AND MONTPARNASSE + +A quartette of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse +governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. + +Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had the +sewer of the Arche-Marion. He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles +were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, +his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one +beheld the Farnese Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet +waistcoat. Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have +subdued monsters; he had found it more expeditious to be one. A low +brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, +harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild +boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for +work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. +He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He +had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter +at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned ruffian. + +The diaphaneity of Babet contrasted with the grossness of Gueulemer. +Babet was thin and learned. He was transparent but impenetrable. +Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He +declared that he was a chemist. He had been a jack of all trades. He had +played in vaudeville at Saint-Mihiel. He was a man of purpose, a fine +talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures. His +occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and +portraits of "the head of the State." In addition to this, he extracted +teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he had owned a booth +with a trumpet and this poster: "Babet, Dental Artist, Member of the +Academies, makes physical experiments on metals and metalloids, extracts +teeth, undertakes stumps abandoned by his brother practitioners. Price: +one tooth, one franc, fifty centimes; two teeth, two francs; three +teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity." This Take +advantage of this opportunity meant: Have as many teeth extracted as +possible. He had been married and had had children. He did not know what +had become of his wife and children. He had lost them as one loses his +handkerchief. Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the world +to which he belonged. One day, at the period when he had his family with +him in his booth on wheels, he had read in the Messager, that a woman +had just given birth to a child, who was doing well, and had a calf's +muzzle, and he exclaimed: "There's a fortune! my wife has not the wit to +present me with a child like that!" + +Later on he had abandoned everything, in order to "undertake Paris." +This was his expression. + +Who was Claquesous? He was night. He waited until the sky was daubed +with black, before he showed himself. At nightfall he emerged from the +hole whither he returned before daylight. Where was this hole? No one +knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, +and with his back turned to them. Was his name Claquesous? Certainly +not. If a candle was brought, he put on a mask. He was a ventriloquist. +Babet said: "Claquesous is a nocturne for two voices." Claquesous was +vague, terrible, and a roamer. No one was sure whether he had a name, +Claquesous being a sobriquet; none was sure that he had a voice, as his +stomach spoke more frequently than his voice; no one was sure that he +had a face, as he was never seen without his mask. He disappeared as +though he had vanished into thin air; when he appeared, it was as though +he sprang from the earth. + +A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than +twenty years of age, with a handsome face, lips like cherries, charming +black hair, the brilliant light of springtime in his eyes; he had all +vices and aspired to all crimes. + +The digestion of evil aroused in him an appetite for worse. It was the +street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket turned garroter. He was +genteel, effeminate, graceful, robust, sluggish, ferocious. The rim of +his hat was curled up on the left side, in order to make room for a tuft +of hair, after the style of 1829. He lived by robbery with violence. +His coat was of the best cut, but threadbare. Montparnasse was a +fashion-plate in misery and given to the commission of murders. The +cause of all this youth's crimes was the desire to be well-dressed. The +first grisette who had said to him: "You are handsome!" had cast the +stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. +Finding that he was handsome, he desired to be elegant: now, the +height of elegance is idleness; idleness in a poor man means crime. Few +prowlers were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he had already +numerous corpses in his past. More than one passer-by lay with +outstretched arms in the presence of this wretch, with his face in a +pool of blood. Curled, pomaded, with laced waist, the hips of a woman, +the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the +boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon +in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was this dandy of the +sepulchre. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE + +These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent +among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq's indiscreet glances +"under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain," lending each other their +names and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes with +secret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their +personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimes +simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual, +sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that Coco-Latour +himself took them for a whole throng. + +These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robber +with four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris; they were that +monstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society. + +Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying their +relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged +with the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department of +the Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal +imaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. They +furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the +preparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They were +always in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable to +all crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which were +sufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, they +under-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadows +at the disposition of all underground tragedies. + +They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when they +woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpetriere. There they held +their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; they +regulated their employment accordingly. + +Patron-Minette,--such was the name which was bestowed in the +subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the +fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day, +Patron-Minette signifies the morning, the same as entre chien et +loup--between dog and wolf--signifies the evening. This appellation, +Patron-Minette, was probably derived from the hour at which their work +ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the +separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title. +When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and +questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, "Who did +it?" demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical +so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police: +"Perhaps it was Patron-Minette." + +A piece can sometimes be divined on the enunciation of the personages; +in the same manner a band can almost be judged from the list of ruffians +composing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal members +of Patron-Minette answered,--for the names have survived in special +memoirs. + +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille. + +Brujon. [There was a Brujon dynasty; we cannot refrain from +interpolating this word.] + +Boulatruelle, the road-mender already introduced. + +Laveuve. + +Finistere. + +Homere-Hogu, a negro. + +Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.) + +Depeche. (Make haste.) + +Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetiere (the Flower Girl). + +Glorieux, a discharged convict. + +Barrecarrosse (Stop-carriage), called Monsieur Dupont. + +L'Esplanade-du-Sud. + +Poussagrive. + +Carmagnolet. + +Kruideniers, called Bizarro. + +Mangedentelle. (Lace-eater.) + +Les-pieds-en-l'Air. (Feet in the air.) + +Demi-Liard, called Deux-Milliards. + +Etc., etc. + +We pass over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces +attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of +these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the +under side of civilization. + +Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were not +among the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by the +wild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep, sometimes +in the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre or +Montrouge, sometimes in the sewers. They ran to earth. + +What became of these men? They still exist. They have always existed. +Horace speaks of them: Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolae, mendici, +mimae; and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain what +they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continually +born again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but always +identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are +no longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribe +subsists. + +They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the +race is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, they +scent out watches in fobs. Gold and silver possess an odor for them. +There exist ingenuous bourgeois, of whom it might be said, that they +have a "stealable" air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois. They +experience the quivers of a spider at the passage of a stranger or of a +man from the country. + +These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpse +of them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seem +to be men but forms composed of living mists; one would say that they +habitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are in +no wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than the +darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living +for a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from the +night. + +What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in +floods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn. Light up society from +below. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--MARIUS, WHILE SEEKING A GIRL IN A BONNET, ENCOUNTERS A MAN IN +A CAP + +Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the +young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, +Marius had but one thought,--to gaze once more on that sweet and +adorable face. He sought constantly, he sought everywhere; he found +nothing. He was no longer Marius, the enthusiastic dreamer, the firm, +resolute, ardent man, the bold defier of fate, the brain which erected +future on future, the young spirit encumbered with plans, with projects, +with pride, with ideas and wishes; he was a lost dog. He fell into a +black melancholy. All was over. Work disgusted him, walking tired him. +Vast nature, formerly so filled with forms, lights, voices, counsels, +perspectives, horizons, teachings, now lay empty before him. It seemed +to him that everything had disappeared. + +He thought incessantly, for he could not do otherwise; but he no longer +took pleasure in his thoughts. To everything that they proposed to him +in a whisper, he replied in his darkness: "What is the use?" + +He heaped a hundred reproaches on himself. "Why did I follow her? I +was so happy at the mere sight of her! She looked at me; was not that +immense? She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished +to have, what? There was nothing after that. I have been absurd. It is +my own fault," etc., etc. Courfeyrac, to whom he confided nothing,--it +was his nature,--but who made some little guess at everything,--that was +his nature,--had begun by congratulating him on being in love, though he +was amazed at it; then, seeing Marius fall into this melancholy state, +he ended by saying to him: "I see that you have been simply an animal. +Here, come to the Chaumiere." + +Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed +himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and +Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. +Of course he did not see the one he sought.--"But this is the place, +all the same, where all lost women are found," grumbled Grantaire in an +aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home on foot, +alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, +stunned by the noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing +creatures on their way home from the feast, which passed close to +him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in the acrid scent of the +walnut-trees, along the road, in order to refresh his head. + +He took to living more and more alone, utterly overwhelmed, wholly given +up to his inward anguish, going and coming in his pain like the wolf in +the trap, seeking the absent one everywhere, stupefied by love. + +On another occasion, he had an encounter which produced on him a +singular effect. He met, in the narrow streets in the vicinity of the +Boulevard des Invalides, a man dressed like a workingman and wearing a +cap with a long visor, which allowed a glimpse of locks of very +white hair. Marius was struck with the beauty of this white hair, and +scrutinized the man, who was walking slowly and as though absorbed in +painful meditation. Strange to say, he thought that he recognized M. +Leblanc. The hair was the same, also the profile, so far as the cap +permitted a view of it, the mien identical, only more depressed. But why +these workingman's clothes? What was the meaning of this? What signified +that disguise? Marius was greatly astonished. When he recovered himself, +his first impulse was to follow the man; who knows whether he did not +hold at last the clue which he was seeking? In any case, he must see the +man near at hand, and clear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him +too late, the man was no longer there. He had turned into some little +side street, and Marius could not find him. This encounter occupied +his mind for three days and then was effaced. "After all," he said to +himself, "it was probably only a resemblance." + + + + +CHAPTER II--TREASURE TROVE + +Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to any one +there. + +At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in the +house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, +without, moreover, ever having spoken to either father, mother, or +daughters. The other lodgers had moved away or had died, or had been +turned out in default of payment. + +One day during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in the +afternoon, but it was the 2d of February, that ancient Candlemas +day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell, +inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justice +remained classic:-- + + + Qu'il luise ou qu'il luiserne, + L'ours rentre dans en sa caverne.[26] + + +Marius had just emerged from his: night was falling. It was the hour for +his dinner; for he had been obliged to take to dining again, alas! oh, +infirmities of ideal passions! + +He had just crossed his threshold, where Ma'am Bougon was sweeping at +the moment, as she uttered this memorable monologue:-- + +"What is there that is cheap now? Everything is dear. There is nothing +in the world that is cheap except trouble; you can get that for nothing, +the trouble of the world!" + +Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order to +reach the Rue Saint-Jacques. He was walking along with drooping head. + +All at once, he felt some one elbow him in the dusk; he wheeled round, +and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a +little shorter, who were passing rapidly, all out of breath, in terror, +and with the appearance of fleeing; they had been coming to meet him, +had not seen him, and had jostled him as they passed. Through the +twilight, Marius could distinguish their livid faces, their wild heads, +their dishevelled hair, their hideous bonnets, their ragged petticoats, +and their bare feet. They were talking as they ran. The taller said in a +very low voice:-- + +"The bobbies have come. They came near nabbing me at the half-circle." +The other answered: "I saw them. I bolted, bolted, bolted!" + +Through this repulsive slang, Marius understood that gendarmes or the +police had come near apprehending these two children, and that the +latter had escaped. + +They plunged among the trees of the boulevard behind him, and there +created, for a few minutes, in the gloom, a sort of vague white spot, +then disappeared. + +Marius had halted for a moment. + +He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish +package lying on the ground at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. It +was a sort of envelope which appeared to contain papers. + +"Good," he said to himself, "those unhappy girls dropped it." + +He retraced his steps, he called, he did not find them; he reflected +that they must already be far away, put the package in his pocket, and +went off to dine. + +On the way, he saw in an alley of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin, +covered with a black cloth resting on three chairs, and illuminated by a +candle. The two girls of the twilight recurred to his mind. + +"Poor mothers!" he thought. "There is one thing sadder than to see one's +children die; it is to see them leading an evil life." + +Then those shadows which had varied his melancholy vanished from his +thoughts, and he fell back once more into his habitual preoccupations. +He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness +in the open air and the broad daylight, beneath the beautiful trees of +Luxembourg. + +"How gloomy my life has become!" he said to himself. "Young girls are +always appearing to me, only formerly they were angels and now they are +ghouls." + + + + +CHAPTER III--QUADRIFRONS + +That evening, as he was undressing preparatory to going to bed, his hand +came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he +had picked up on the boulevard. He had forgotten it. He thought that it +would be well to open it, and that this package might possibly contain +the address of the young girls, if it really belonged to them, and, in +any case, the information necessary to a restitution to the person who +had lost it. + +He opened the envelope. + +It was not sealed and contained four letters, also unsealed. + +They bore addresses. + +All four exhaled a horrible odor of tobacco. + +The first was addressed: "To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, +the place opposite the Chamber of Deputies, No.--" + +Marius said to himself, that he should probably find in it the +information which he sought, and that, moreover, the letter being open, +it was probable that it could be read without impropriety. + +It was conceived as follows:-- + + +Madame la Marquise: The virtue of clemency and piety is that which most +closely unites sosiety. Turn your Christian spirit and cast a look of +compassion on this unfortunate Spanish victim of loyalty and attachment +to the sacred cause of legitimacy, who has given with his blood, +consecrated his fortune, evverything, to defend that cause, and to-day +finds himself in the greatest missery. He doubts not that your honorable +person will grant succor to preserve an existence exteremely painful for +a military man of education and honor full of wounds, counts in advance +on the humanity which animates you and on the interest which Madame la +Marquise bears to a nation so unfortunate. Their prayer will not be in +vain, and their gratitude will preserve theirs charming souvenir. + + My respectful sentiments, with which I have the honor to be + Madame, + Don Alvares, Spanish Captain + of Cavalry, a royalist who + has take refuge in France, + who finds himself on travells + for his country, and the + resources are lacking him to + continue his travells. + + +No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address +in the second letter, whose superscription read: A Madame, Madame la +Comtesse de Montvernet, Rue Cassette, No. 9. This is what Marius read in +it:-- + + + Madame la Comtesse: It is an unhappy mother of a family of six + children the last of which is only eight months old. I sick + since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, + haveing no resources in the world the most frightful indigance. + + In the hope of Madame la Comtesse, she has the honor to be, + Madame, with profound respect, + Mistress Balizard. + + +Marius turned to the third letter, which was a petition like the +preceding; he read:-- + + Monsieur Pabourgeot, Elector, wholesale stocking merchant, + Rue Saint-Denis on the corner of the Rue aux Fers. + + I permit myself to address you this letter to beg you to grant me + the pretious favor of your simpaties and to interest yourself in a man + of letters who has just sent a drama to the Theatre-Francais. The subject + is historical, and the action takes place in Auvergne in the time + of the Empire; the style, I think, is natural, laconic, and may have + some merit. There are couplets to be sung in four places. The comic, + the serious, the unexpected, are mingled in a variety of characters, + and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue + which proceeds misteriously, and ends, after striking altarations, + in the midst of many beautiful strokes of brilliant scenes. + + My principal object is to satisfi the desire which progressively + animates the man of our century, that is to say, the fashion, + that capritious and bizarre weathervane which changes at almost + every new wind. + + In spite of these qualities I have reason to fear that jealousy, + the egotism of priviliged authors, may obtaine my exclusion from + the theatre, for I am not ignorant of the mortifications with which + new-comers are treated. + + Monsiuer Pabourgeot, your just reputation as an enlightened protector + of men of litters emboldens me to send you my daughter who will + explain our indigant situation to you, lacking bread and fire + in this wynter season. When I say to you that I beg you to accept + the dedication of my drama which I desire to make to you and of all + those that I shall make, is to prove to you how great is my ambition + to have the honor of sheltering myself under your protection, + and of adorning my writings with your name. If you deign to honor + me with the most modest offering, I shall immediately occupy myself + in making a piesse of verse to pay you my tribute of gratitude. + Which I shall endeavor to render this piesse as perfect as possible, + will be sent to you before it is inserted at the beginning of the + drama and delivered on the stage. + To Monsieur + and Madame Pabourgeot, + My most respectful complements, + Genflot, man of letters. + P. S. Even if it is only forty sous. + + Excuse me for sending my daughter and not presenting myself, + but sad motives connected with the toilet do not permit me, + alas! to go out. + + +Finally, Marius opened the fourth letter. The address ran: To the +benevolent Gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-haut-Pas. It +contained the following lines:-- + + + Benevolent Man: If you deign to accompany my daughter, you will + behold a misserable calamity, and I will show you my certificates. + + At the aspect of these writings your generous soul will be moved + with a sentiment of obvious benevolence, for true philosophers + always feel lively emotions. + + Admit, compassionate man, that it is necessary to suffer the most + cruel need, and that it is very painful, for the sake of obtaining + a little relief, to get oneself attested by the authorities as though + one were not free to suffer and to die of inanition while waiting + to have our misery relieved. Destinies are very fatal for several + and too prodigal or too protecting for others. + + I await your presence or your offering, if you deign to make one, + and I beseech you to accept the respectful sentiments with which I + have the honor to be, + truly magnanimous man, + your very humble + and very obedient servant, + P. Fabantou, dramatic artist. + + +After perusing these four letters, Marius did not find himself much +further advanced than before. + +In the first place, not one of the signers gave his address. + +Then, they seemed to come from four different individuals, Don Alveras, +Mistress Balizard, the poet Genflot, and dramatic artist Fabantou; but +the singular thing about these letters was, that all four were written +by the same hand. + +What conclusion was to be drawn from this, except that they all come +from the same person? + +Moreover, and this rendered the conjecture all the more probable, the +coarse and yellow paper was the same in all four, the odor of tobacco +was the same, and, although an attempt had been made to vary the +style, the same orthographical faults were reproduced with the greatest +tranquillity, and the man of letters Genflot was no more exempt from +them than the Spanish captain. + +It was waste of trouble to try to solve this petty mystery. Had it not +been a chance find, it would have borne the air of a mystification. +Marius was too melancholy to take even a chance pleasantry well, and to +lend himself to a game which the pavement of the street seemed desirous +of playing with him. It seemed to him that he was playing the part of +the blind man in blind man's buff between the four letters, and that +they were making sport of him. + +Nothing, however, indicated that these letters belonged to the two +young girls whom Marius had met on the boulevard. After all, they were +evidently papers of no value. Marius replaced them in their envelope, +flung the whole into a corner and went to bed. About seven o'clock in +the morning, he had just risen and breakfasted, and was trying to settle +down to work, when there came a soft knock at his door. + +As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless occasionally, +though very rarely, when he was engaged in some pressing work. Even when +absent he left his key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Ma'am +Bougon. "Of what?" said Marius. The truth is, however, that he had, one +day, been robbed of an old pair of boots, to the great triumph of Ma'am +Bougon. + +There came a second knock, as gentle as the first. + +"Come in," said Marius. + +The door opened. + +"What do you want, Ma'am Bougon?" asked Marius, without raising his eyes +from the books and manuscripts on his table. + +A voice which did not belong to Ma'am Bougon replied:-- + +"Excuse me, sir--" + +It was a dull, broken, hoarse, strangled voice, the voice of an old man, +roughened with brandy and liquor. + +Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY + +[Illustration: Rose in Misery 3b8-4-rose-in-misery] + +A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window +of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite +the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, +emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a +petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a +string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her +chemise, a blond and lymphatic pallor, earth-colored collar-bones, red +hands, a half-open and degraded mouth, missing teeth, dull, bold, base +eyes; she had the form of a young girl who has missed her youth, and the +look of a corrupt old woman; fifty years mingled with fifteen; one of +those beings which are both feeble and horrible, and which cause those +to shudder whom they do not cause to weep. + +Marius had risen, and was staring in a sort of stupor at this being, who +was almost like the forms of the shadows which traverse dreams. + +The most heart-breaking thing of all was, that this young girl had not +come into the world to be homely. In her early childhood she must even +have been pretty. The grace of her age was still struggling against the +hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of +beauty were dying away in that face of sixteen, like the pale sunlight +which is extinguished under hideous clouds at dawn on a winter's day. + +That face was not wholly unknown to Marius. He thought he remembered +having seen it somewhere. + +"What do you wish, Mademoiselle?" he asked. + +The young girl replied in her voice of a drunken convict:-- + +"Here is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius." + +She called Marius by his name; he could not doubt that he was the person +whom she wanted; but who was this girl? How did she know his name? + +Without waiting for him to tell her to advance, she entered. She entered +resolutely, staring, with a sort of assurance that made the heart bleed, +at the whole room and the unmade bed. Her feet were bare. Large holes +in her petticoat permitted glimpses of her long legs and her thin knees. +She was shivering. + +She held a letter in her hand, which she presented to Marius. + +Marius, as he opened the letter, noticed that the enormous wafer which +sealed it was still moist. The message could not have come from a +distance. He read:-- + + + My amiable neighbor, young man: I have learned of your goodness to me, + that you paid my rent six months ago. I bless you, young man. + My eldest daughter will tell you that we have been without a morsel + of bread for two days, four persons and my spouse ill. If I am + not deseaved in my opinion, I think I may hope that your generous + heart will melt at this statement and the desire will subjugate you + to be propitious to me by daigning to lavish on me a slight favor. + + I am with the distinguished consideration which is due to the + benefactors of humanity,-- + + Jondrette. + + P.S. My eldest daughter will await your orders, dear Monsieur Marius. + + +This letter, coming in the very midst of the mysterious adventure which +had occupied Marius' thoughts ever since the preceding evening, was like +a candle in a cellar. All was suddenly illuminated. + +This letter came from the same place as the other four. There was the +same writing, the same style, the same orthography, the same paper, the +same odor of tobacco. + +There were five missives, five histories, five signatures, and a single +signer. The Spanish Captain Don Alvares, the unhappy Mistress Balizard, +the dramatic poet Genflot, the old comedian Fabantou, were all four +named Jondrette, if, indeed, Jondrette himself were named Jondrette. + +Marius had lived in the house for a tolerably long time, and he had had, +as we have said, but very rare occasion to see, to even catch a glimpse +of, his extremely mean neighbors. His mind was elsewhere, and where the +mind is, there the eyes are also. He had been obliged more than once to +pass the Jondrettes in the corridor or on the stairs; but they were mere +forms to him; he had paid so little heed to them, that, on the preceding +evening, he had jostled the Jondrette girls on the boulevard, without +recognizing them, for it had evidently been they, and it was with great +difficulty that the one who had just entered his room had awakened in +him, in spite of disgust and pity, a vague recollection of having met +her elsewhere. + +Now he saw everything clearly. He understood that his neighbor +Jondrette, in his distress, exercised the industry of speculating on the +charity of benevolent persons, that he procured addresses, and that he +wrote under feigned names to people whom he judged to be wealthy and +compassionate, letters which his daughters delivered at their risk +and peril, for this father had come to such a pass, that he risked his +daughters; he was playing a game with fate, and he used them as the +stake. Marius understood that probably, judging from their flight on the +evening before, from their breathless condition, from their terror +and from the words of slang which he had overheard, these unfortunate +creatures were plying some inexplicably sad profession, and that the +result of the whole was, in the midst of human society, as it is now +constituted, two miserable beings who were neither girls nor women, a +species of impure and innocent monsters produced by misery. + +Sad creatures, without name, or sex, or age, to whom neither good nor +evil were any longer possible, and who, on emerging from childhood, +have already nothing in this world, neither liberty, nor virtue, nor +responsibility. Souls which blossomed out yesterday, and are faded +to-day, like those flowers let fall in the streets, which are soiled +with every sort of mire, while waiting for some wheel to crush them. +Nevertheless, while Marius bent a pained and astonished gaze on her, the +young girl was wandering back and forth in the garret with the audacity +of a spectre. She kicked about, without troubling herself as to her +nakedness. Occasionally her chemise, which was untied and torn, fell +almost to her waist. She moved the chairs about, she disarranged the +toilet articles which stood on the commode, she handled Marius' clothes, +she rummaged about to see what there was in the corners. + +"Hullo!" said she, "you have a mirror!" + +And she hummed scraps of vaudevilles, as though she had been alone, +frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural voice rendered +lugubrious. + +An indescribable constraint, weariness, and humiliation were perceptible +beneath this hardihood. Effrontery is a disgrace. + +Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room, +and, so to speak, flit with the movements of a bird which is frightened +by the daylight, or which has broken its wing. One felt that under other +conditions of education and destiny, the gay and over-free mien of this +young girl might have turned out sweet and charming. Never, even among +animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That +is only to be seen among men. + +Marius reflected, and allowed her to have her way. + +She approached the table. + +"Ah!" said she, "books!" + +A flash pierced her glassy eye. She resumed, and her accent expressed +the happiness which she felt in boasting of something, to which no human +creature is insensible:-- + +"I know how to read, I do!" + +She eagerly seized a book which lay open on the table, and read with +tolerable fluency:-- + +"--General Bauduin received orders to take the chateau of Hougomont +which stands in the middle of the plain of Waterloo, with five +battalions of his brigade." + +She paused. + +"Ah! Waterloo! I know about that. It was a battle long ago. My father +was there. My father has served in the armies. We are fine Bonapartists +in our house, that we are! Waterloo was against the English." + +She laid down the book, caught up a pen, and exclaimed:-- + +"And I know how to write, too!" + +She dipped her pen in the ink, and turning to Marius:-- + +"Do you want to see? Look here, I'm going to write a word to show you." + +And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper, +which lay in the middle of the table: "The bobbies are here." + +Then throwing down the pen:-- + +"There are no faults of orthography. You can look. We have received an +education, my sister and I. We have not always been as we are now. We +were not made--" + +Here she paused, fixed her dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing, +saying, with an intonation which contained every form of anguish, +stifled by every form of cynicism:-- + +"Bah!" + +And she began to hum these words to a gay air:-- + + "J'ai faim, mon pere." I am hungry, father. + Pas de fricot. I have no food. + J'ai froid, ma mere. I am cold, mother. + Pas de tricot. I have no clothes. + Grelotte, Lolotte! + Lolotte! Shiver, + Sanglote, Sob, + Jacquot!" Jacquot!" + + +She had hardly finished this couplet, when she exclaimed:-- + +"Do you ever go to the play, Monsieur Marius? I do. I have a little +brother who is a friend of the artists, and who gives me tickets +sometimes. But I don't like the benches in the galleries. One is cramped +and uncomfortable there. There are rough people there sometimes; and +people who smell bad." + +Then she scrutinized Marius, assumed a singular air and said:-- + +"Do you know, Mr. Marius, that you are a very handsome fellow?" + +And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made +her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his +shoulder: "You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you +here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named +Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I +have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have +your hair tumbled thus." + +She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very +deep. A portion of her words was lost in the transit from her larynx to +her lips, as though on a piano where some notes are missing. + +Marius had retreated gently. + +"Mademoiselle," said he, with his cool gravity, "I have here a package +which belongs to you, I think. Permit me to return it to you." + +And he held out the envelope containing the four letters. + +She clapped her hands and exclaimed:-- + +"We have been looking everywhere for that!" + +Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as +she did so:-- + +"Dieu de Dieu! how my sister and I have hunted! And it was you who found +it! On the boulevard, was it not? It must have been on the boulevard? +You see, we let it fall when we were running. It was that brat of a +sister of mine who was so stupid. When we got home, we could not find it +anywhere. As we did not wish to be beaten, as that is useless, as that +is entirely useless, as that is absolutely useless, we said that we had +carried the letters to the proper persons, and that they had said to us: +'Nix.' So here they are, those poor letters! And how did you find out +that they belonged to me? Ah! yes, the writing. So it was you that we +jostled as we passed last night. We couldn't see. I said to my sister: +'Is it a gentleman?' My sister said to me: 'I think it is a gentleman.'" + +In the meanwhile she had unfolded the petition addressed to "the +benevolent gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas." + +"Here!" said she, "this is for that old fellow who goes to mass. By the +way, this is his hour. I'll go and carry it to him. Perhaps he will give +us something to breakfast on." + +Then she began to laugh again, and added:-- + +"Do you know what it will mean if we get a breakfast today? It will mean +that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our +breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of to-day, and all that at once, and +this morning. Come! Parbleu! if you are not satisfied, dogs, burst!" + +This reminded Marius of the wretched girl's errand to himself. He +fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and found nothing there. + +The young girl went on, and seemed to have no consciousness of Marius' +presence. + +"I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last +winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges. +We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried. How +melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said +to myself: 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I +sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along +the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and +as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say +to myself: 'Why, there's water there!' The stars are like the lamps in +illuminations, one would say that they smoked and that the wind blew +them out, I am bewildered, as though horses were breathing in my ears; +although it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning-machines, and I +don't know what all. I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee +without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very +queer when you have had no food." + +And then she stared at him with a bewildered air. + +By dint of searching and ransacking his pockets, Marius had finally +collected five francs sixteen sous. This was all he owned in the world +for the moment. "At all events," he thought, "there is my dinner for +to-day, and to-morrow we will see." He kept the sixteen sous, and handed +the five francs to the young girl. + +She seized the coin. + +"Good!" said she, "the sun is shining!" + +And, as though the sun had possessed the property of melting the +avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on:-- + +"Five francs! the shiner! a monarch! in this hole! Ain't this fine! +You're a jolly thief! I'm your humble servant! Bravo for the good +fellows! Two days' wine! and meat! and stew! we'll have a royal feast! +and a good fill!" + +She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, +then a familiar sign with her hand, and went towards the door, saying:-- + +"Good morning, sir. It's all right. I'll go and find my old man." + +As she passed, she caught sight of a dry crust of bread on the commode, +which was moulding there amid the dust; she flung herself upon it and +bit into it, muttering:-- + +"That's good! it's hard! it breaks my teeth!" + +Then she departed. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A PROVIDENTIAL PEEP-HOLE + +Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in +distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True +misery he had but just had a view of. It was its spectre which had just +passed before his eyes. In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of +man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who +has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he must see the +misery of the child. + +When a man has reached his last extremity, he has reached his last +resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround +him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him +simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral +light within; in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of the +woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy. + +Then all horrors become possible. Despair is surrounded with fragile +partitions which all open on either vice or crime. + +Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the +heart, virginity, modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are manipulated +in sinister wise by that fumbling which seeks resources, which +encounters opprobrium, and which accommodates itself to it. Fathers, +mothers, children, brothers, sisters, men, women, daughters, adhere +and become incorporated, almost like a mineral formation, in that dusky +promiscuousness of sexes, relationships, ages, infamies, and innocences. +They crouch, back to back, in a sort of hut of fate. They exchange +woe-begone glances. Oh, the unfortunate wretches! How pale they are! How +cold they are! It seems as though they dwelt in a planet much further +from the sun than ours. + +This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm of sad +shadows. She revealed to him a hideous side of the night. + +Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of revery and +passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up +to that day. The payment of their rent had been a mechanical movement, +which any one would have yielded to; but he, Marius, should have done +better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned +beings who lived gropingly in the dark outside the pale of the rest of +the world, he was elbow to elbow with them, he was, in some sort, the +last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live, or +rather, rattle in the death agony beside him, and he paid no heed to +them! Every day, every instant, he heard them walking on the other side +of the wall, he heard them go, and come, and speak, and he did not even +lend an ear! And groans lay in those words, and he did not even listen +to them, his thoughts were elsewhere, given up to dreams, to impossible +radiances, to loves in the air, to follies; and all the while, human +creatures, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, +were agonizing in vain beside him! He even formed a part of their +misfortune, and he aggravated it. For if they had had another neighbor +who was less chimerical and more attentive, any ordinary and charitable +man, evidently their indigence would have been noticed, their signals of +distress would have been perceived, and they would have been taken hold +of and rescued! They appeared very corrupt and very depraved, no +doubt, very vile, very odious even; but those who fall without becoming +degraded are rare; besides, there is a point where the unfortunate and +the infamous unite and are confounded in a single word, a fatal word, +the miserable; whose fault is this? And then should not the charity be +all the more profound, in proportion as the fall is great? + +While reading himself this moral lesson, for there were occasions on +which Marius, like all truly honest hearts, was his own pedagogue and +scolded himself more than he deserved, he stared at the wall which +separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his +gaze, full of pity, penetrate that partition and warm these wretched +people. The wall was a thin layer of plaster upheld by lathes and beams, +and, as the reader had just learned, it allowed the sound of voices and +words to be clearly distinguished. Only a man as dreamy as Marius could +have failed to perceive this long before. There was no paper pasted on +the wall, either on the side of the Jondrettes or on that of Marius; the +coarse construction was visible in its nakedness. Marius examined the +partition, almost unconsciously; sometimes revery examines, observes, +and scrutinizes as thought would. All at once he sprang up; he had just +perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a triangular hole, which +resulted from the space between three lathes. The plaster which should +have filled this cavity was missing, and by mounting on the commode, +a view could be had through this aperture into the Jondrettes' attic. +Commiseration has, and should have, its curiosity. This aperture formed +a sort of peep-hole. It is permissible to gaze at misfortune like a +traitor in order to succor it.[27] + +"Let us get some little idea of what these people are like," thought +Marius, "and in what condition they are." + +He climbed upon the commode, put his eye to the crevice, and looked. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE WILD MAN IN HIS LAIR + +Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked +and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, +in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unclean, and +petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, that which conceals itself is +ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair +with another, the beast's is preferable to the man's. Caverns are better +than hovels. + +What Marius now beheld was a hovel. + +Marius was poor, and his chamber was poverty-stricken, but as his +poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The den upon which his eye now +rested was abject, dirty, fetid, pestiferous, mean, sordid. The only +furniture consisted of a straw chair, an infirm table, some old bits of +crockery, and in two of the corners, two indescribable pallets; all +the light was furnished by a dormer window of four panes, draped with +spiders' webs. Through this aperture there penetrated just enough light +to make the face of a man appear like the face of a phantom. The walls +had a leprous aspect, and were covered with seams and scars, like a +visage disfigured by some horrible malady; a repulsive moisture exuded +from them. Obscene sketches roughly sketched with charcoal could be +distinguished upon them. + +The chamber which Marius occupied had a dilapidated brick pavement; this +one was neither tiled nor planked; its inhabitants stepped directly +on the antique plaster of the hovel, which had grown black under the +long-continued pressure of feet. Upon this uneven floor, where the dirt +seemed to be fairly incrusted, and which possessed but one virginity, +that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old +shoes, socks, and repulsive rags; however, this room had a fireplace, +so it was let for forty francs a year. There was every sort of thing +in that fireplace, a brazier, a pot, broken boards, rags suspended +from nails, a bird-cage, ashes, and even a little fire. Two brands were +smouldering there in a melancholy way. + +One thing which added still more to the horrors of this garret was, that +it was large. It had projections and angles and black holes, the lower +sides of roofs, bays, and promontories. Hence horrible, unfathomable +nooks where it seemed as though spiders as big as one's fist, wood-lice +as large as one's foot, and perhaps even--who knows?--some monstrous +human beings, must be hiding. + +One of the pallets was near the door, the other near the window. One +end of each touched the fireplace and faced Marius. In a corner near the +aperture through which Marius was gazing, a colored engraving in a black +frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large +letters, was the inscription: THE DREAM. This represented a sleeping +woman, and a child, also asleep, the child on the woman's lap, an eagle +in a cloud, with a crown in his beak, and the woman thrusting the +crown away from the child's head, without awaking the latter; in the +background, Napoleon in a glory, leaning on a very blue column with a +yellow capital ornamented with this inscription: + + MARINGO + AUSTERLITS + IENA + WAGRAMME + ELOT + +Beneath this frame, a sort of wooden panel, which was no longer than it +was broad, stood on the ground and rested in a sloping attitude against +the wall. It had the appearance of a picture with its face turned to +the wall, of a frame probably showing a daub on the other side, of some +pier-glass detached from a wall and lying forgotten there while waiting +to be rehung. + +Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat +a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a +cunning, cruel, and uneasy air; a hideous scoundrel. + +If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture +mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger +rendering each other mutually hideous and complementing each other; the +pettifogger making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey making the +pettifogger horrible. + +This man had a long gray beard. He was clad in a woman's chemise, which +allowed his hairy breast and his bare arms, bristling with gray hair, +to be seen. Beneath this chemise, muddy trousers and boots through which +his toes projected were visible. + +He had a pipe in his mouth and was smoking. There was no bread in the +hovel, but there was still tobacco. + +He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had +read. + +On the corner of the table lay an ancient, dilapidated, reddish volume, +and the size, which was the antique 12mo of reading-rooms, betrayed a +romance. On the cover sprawled the following title, printed in large +capitals: GOD; THE KING; HONOR AND THE LADIES; BY DUCRAY DUMINIL, 1814. + +As the man wrote, he talked aloud, and Marius heard his words:-- + +"The idea that there is no equality, even when you are dead! Just look +at Pere Lachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the +acacia alley, which is paved. They can reach it in a carriage. The +little people, the poor, the unhappy, well, what of them? they are put +down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They +are put there so that they will decay the sooner! You cannot go to see +them without sinking into the earth." + +He paused, smote the table with his fist, and added, as he ground his +teeth:-- + +"Oh! I could eat the whole world!" + +A big woman, who might be forty years of age, or a hundred, was +crouching near the fireplace on her bare heels. + +She, too, was clad only in a chemise and a knitted petticoat patched +with bits of old cloth. A coarse linen apron concealed the half of her +petticoat. Although this woman was doubled up and bent together, it +could be seen that she was of very lofty stature. She was a sort of +giant, beside her husband. She had hideous hair, of a reddish blond +which was turning gray, and which she thrust back from time to time, +with her enormous shining hands, with their flat nails. + +Beside her, on the floor, wide open, lay a book of the same form as the +other, and probably a volume of the same romance. + +On one of the pallets, Marius caught a glimpse of a sort of tall pale +young girl, who sat there half naked and with pendant feet, and who did +not seem to be listening or seeing or living. + +No doubt the younger sister of the one who had come to his room. + +She seemed to be eleven or twelve years of age. On closer scrutiny it +was evident that she really was fourteen. She was the child who had +said, on the boulevard the evening before: "I bolted, bolted, bolted!" + +She was of that puny sort which remains backward for a long time, +then suddenly starts up rapidly. It is indigence which produces these +melancholy human plants. These creatures have neither childhood nor +youth. At fifteen years of age they appear to be twelve, at sixteen they +seem twenty. To-day a little girl, to-morrow a woman. One might say +that they stride through life, in order to get through with it the more +speedily. + +At this moment, this being had the air of a child. + +Moreover, no trace of work was revealed in that dwelling; no handicraft, +no spinning-wheel, not a tool. In one corner lay some ironmongery of +dubious aspect. It was the dull listlessness which follows despair and +precedes the death agony. + +Marius gazed for a while at this gloomy interior, more terrifying than +the interior of a tomb, for the human soul could be felt fluttering +there, and life was palpitating there. The garret, the cellar, the lowly +ditch where certain indigent wretches crawl at the very bottom of the +social edifice, is not exactly the sepulchre, but only its antechamber; +but, as the wealthy display their greatest magnificence at the entrance +of their palaces, it seems that death, which stands directly side by +side with them, places its greatest miseries in that vestibule. + +The man held his peace, the woman spoke no word, the young girl did +not even seem to breathe. The scratching of the pen on the paper was +audible. + +The man grumbled, without pausing in his writing. "Canaille! canaille! +everybody is canaille!" + +This variation to Solomon's exclamation elicited a sigh from the woman. + +"Calm yourself, my little friend," she said. "Don't hurt yourself, my +dear. You are too good to write to all those people, husband." + +Bodies press close to each other in misery, as in cold, but hearts draw +apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging +from the amount of love within her; but probably, in the daily and +reciprocal reproaches of the horrible distress which weighed on the +whole group, this had become extinct. There no longer existed in her +anything more than the ashes of affection for her husband. Nevertheless, +caressing appellations had survived, as is often the case. She called +him: My dear, my little friend, my good man, etc., with her mouth while +her heart was silent. + +The man resumed his writing. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--STRATEGY AND TACTICS + +Marius, with a load upon his breast, was on the point of descending +from the species of observatory which he had improvised, when a sound +attracted his attention and caused him to remain at his post. + +The door of the attic had just burst open abruptly. The eldest girl made +her appearance on the threshold. On her feet, she had large, coarse, +men's shoes, bespattered with mud, which had splashed even to her red +ankles, and she was wrapped in an old mantle which hung in tatters. +Marius had not seen it on her an hour previously, but she had probably +deposited it at his door, in order that she might inspire the more pity, +and had picked it up again on emerging. She entered, pushed the door to +behind her, paused to take breath, for she was completely breathless, +then exclaimed with an expression of triumph and joy:-- + +"He is coming!" + +The father turned his eyes towards her, the woman turned her head, the +little sister did not stir. + +"Who?" demanded her father. + +"The gentleman!" + +"The philanthropist?" + +"Yes." + +"From the church of Saint-Jacques?" + +"Yes." + +"That old fellow?" + +"Yes." + +"And he is coming?" + +"He is following me." + +"You are sure?" + +"I am sure." + +"There, truly, he is coming?" + +"He is coming in a fiacre." + +"In a fiacre. He is Rothschild." + +The father rose. + +"How are you sure? If he is coming in a fiacre, how is it that you +arrive before him? You gave him our address at least? Did you tell him +that it was the last door at the end of the corridor, on the right? If +he only does not make a mistake! So you found him at the church? Did he +read my letter? What did he say to you?" + +"Ta, ta, ta," said the girl, "how you do gallop on, my good man! See +here: I entered the church, he was in his usual place, I made him a +reverence, and I handed him the letter; he read it and said to me: +'Where do you live, my child?' I said: 'Monsieur, I will show you.' He +said to me: 'No, give me your address, my daughter has some purchases to +make, I will take a carriage and reach your house at the same time that +you do.' I gave him the address. When I mentioned the house, he seemed +surprised and hesitated for an instant, then he said: 'Never mind, I +will come.' When the mass was finished, I watched him leave the church +with his daughter, and I saw them enter a carriage. I certainly did tell +him the last door in the corridor, on the right." + +"And what makes you think that he will come?" + +"I have just seen the fiacre turn into the Rue Petit-Banquier. That is +what made me run so." + +"How do you know that it was the same fiacre?" + +"Because I took notice of the number, so there!" + +"What was the number?" + +"440." + +"Good, you are a clever girl." + +The girl stared boldly at her father, and showing the shoes which she +had on her feet:-- + +"A clever girl, possibly; but I tell you I won't put these shoes on +again, and that I won't, for the sake of my health, in the first place, +and for the sake of cleanliness, in the next. I don't know anything +more irritating than shoes that squelch, and go ghi, ghi, ghi, the whole +time. I prefer to go barefoot." + +"You are right," said her father, in a sweet tone which contrasted with +the young girl's rudeness, "but then, you will not be allowed to enter +churches, for poor people must have shoes to do that. One cannot go +barefoot to the good God," he added bitterly. + +Then, returning to the subject which absorbed him:-- + +"So you are sure that he will come?" + +"He is following on my heels," said she. + +The man started up. A sort of illumination appeared on his countenance. + +"Wife!" he exclaimed, "you hear. Here is the philanthropist. Extinguish +the fire." + +The stupefied mother did not stir. + +The father, with the agility of an acrobat, seized a broken-nosed jug +which stood on the chimney, and flung the water on the brands. + +Then, addressing his eldest daughter:-- + +"Here you! Pull the straw off that chair!" + +His daughter did not understand. + +He seized the chair, and with one kick he rendered it seatless. His leg +passed through it. + +As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter:-- + +"Is it cold?" + +"Very cold. It is snowing." + +The father turned towards the younger girl who sat on the bed near the +window, and shouted to her in a thundering voice:-- + +"Quick! get off that bed, you lazy thing! will you never do anything? +Break a pane of glass!" + +The little girl jumped off the bed with a shiver. + +"Break a pane!" he repeated. + +The child stood still in bewilderment. + +"Do you hear me?" repeated her father, "I tell you to break a pane!" + +The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, rose on tiptoe, and +struck a pane with her fist. The glass broke and fell with a loud +clatter. + +"Good," said the father. + +He was grave and abrupt. His glance swept rapidly over all the crannies +of the garret. One would have said that he was a general making the +final preparation at the moment when the battle is on the point of +beginning. + +The mother, who had not said a word so far, now rose and demanded in +a dull, slow, languid voice, whence her words seemed to emerge in a +congealed state:-- + +"What do you mean to do, my dear?" + +"Get into bed," replied the man. + +His intonation admitted of no deliberation. The mother obeyed, and threw +herself heavily on one of the pallets. + +In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner. + +"What's that?" cried the father. + +The younger daughter exhibited her bleeding fist, without quitting the +corner in which she was cowering. She had wounded herself while breaking +the window; she went off, near her mother's pallet and wept silently. + +It was now the mother's turn to start up and exclaim:-- + +"Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut herself breaking +that pane for you!" + +"So much the better!" said the man. "I foresaw that." + +"What? So much the better?" retorted his wife. + +"Peace!" replied the father, "I suppress the liberty of the press." + +Then tearing the woman's chemise which he was wearing, he made a strip +of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist. + +That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his torn chemise. + +"And the chemise too," said he, "this has a good appearance." + +An icy breeze whistled through the window and entered the room. The +outer mist penetrated thither and diffused itself like a whitish sheet +of wadding vaguely spread by invisible fingers. Through the broken pane +the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun +of the preceding day had actually come. + +The father cast a glance about him as though to make sure that he had +forgotten nothing. He seized an old shovel and spread ashes over the wet +brands in such a manner as to entirely conceal them. + +Then drawing himself up and leaning against the chimney-piece:-- + +"Now," said he, "we can receive the philanthropist." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE RAY OF LIGHT IN THE HOVEL + +The big girl approached and laid her hand in her father's. + +"Feel how cold I am," said she. + +"Bah!" replied the father, "I am much colder than that." + +The mother exclaimed impetuously:-- + +"You always have something better than any one else, so you do! even bad +things." + +"Down with you!" said the man. + +The mother, being eyed after a certain fashion, held her tongue. + +Silence reigned for a moment in the hovel. The elder girl was removing +the mud from the bottom of her mantle, with a careless air; her younger +sister continued to sob; the mother had taken the latter's head between +her hands, and was covering it with kisses, whispering to her the +while:-- + +"My treasure, I entreat you, it is nothing of consequence, don't cry, +you will anger your father." + +"No!" exclaimed the father, "quite the contrary! sob! sob! that's +right." + +Then turning to the elder:-- + +"There now! He is not coming! What if he were not to come! I shall have +extinguished my fire, wrecked my chair, torn my shirt, and broken my +pane all for nothing." + +"And wounded the child!" murmured the mother. + +"Do you know," went on the father, "that it's beastly cold in this +devil's garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you! He +makes us wait! He says to himself: 'Well! they will wait for me! +That's what they're there for.' Oh! how I hate them, and with what joy, +jubilation, enthusiasm, and satisfaction I could strangle all those rich +folks! all those rich folks! These men who pretend to be charitable, +who put on airs, who go to mass, who make presents to the priesthood, +preachy, preachy, in their skullcaps, and who think themselves above +us, and who come for the purpose of humiliating us, and to bring us +'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And +bread! That's not what I want, pack of rascals that they are, it's +money! Ah! money! Never! Because they say that we would go off and drink +it up, and that we are drunkards and idlers! And they! What are they, +then, and what have they been in their time! Thieves! They never could +have become rich otherwise! Oh! Society ought to be grasped by the four +corners of the cloth and tossed into the air, all of it! It would all +be smashed, very likely, but at least, no one would have anything, +and there would be that much gained! But what is that blockhead of +a benevolent gentleman doing? Will he come? Perhaps the animal has +forgotten the address! I'll bet that that old beast--" + +At that moment there came a light tap at the door, the man rushed to it +and opened it, exclaiming, amid profound bows and smiles of adoration:-- + +"Enter, sir! Deign to enter, most respected benefactor, and your +charming young lady, also." + +A man of ripe age and a young girl made their appearance on the +threshold of the attic. + +Marius had not quitted his post. His feelings for the moment surpassed +the powers of the human tongue. + +It was She! + +Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meanings contained in those +three letters of that word: She. + +It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the +luminous vapor which had suddenly spread before his eyes. It was that +sweet, absent being, that star which had beamed upon him for six months; +it was those eyes, that brow, that mouth, that lovely vanished face +which had created night by its departure. The vision had been eclipsed, +now it reappeared. + +It reappeared in that gloom, in that garret, in that misshapen attic, in +all that horror. + +Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his +heart troubled his sight. He felt that he was on the brink of bursting +into tears! What! He beheld her again at last, after having sought her +so long! It seemed to him that he had lost his soul, and that he had +just found it again. + +She was the same as ever, only a little pale; her delicate face was +framed in a bonnet of violet velvet, her figure was concealed beneath +a pelisse of black satin. Beneath her long dress, a glimpse could be +caught of her tiny foot shod in a silken boot. + +She was still accompanied by M. Leblanc. + +She had taken a few steps into the room, and had deposited a tolerably +bulky parcel on the table. + +The eldest Jondrette girl had retired behind the door, and was staring +with sombre eyes at that velvet bonnet, that silk mantle, and that +charming, happy face. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--JONDRETTE COMES NEAR WEEPING + +The hovel was so dark, that people coming from without felt on entering +it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two new-comers +advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able +to distinguish the vague forms surrounding them, while they could be +clearly seen and scrutinized by the eyes of the inhabitants of the +garret, who were accustomed to this twilight. + +M. Leblanc approached, with his sad but kindly look, and said to +Jondrette the father:-- + +"Monsieur, in this package you will find some new clothes and some +woollen stockings and blankets." + +"Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," said Jondrette, bowing to the +very earth. + +Then, bending down to the ear of his eldest daughter, while the two +visitors were engaged in examining this lamentable interior, he added in +a low and rapid voice:-- + +"Hey? What did I say? Duds! No money! They are all alike! By the way, +how was the letter to that old blockhead signed?" + +"Fabantou," replied the girl. + +"The dramatic artist, good!" + +It was lucky for Jondrette, that this had occurred to him, for at the +very moment, M. Leblanc turned to him, and said to him with the air of a +person who is seeking to recall a name:-- + +"I see that you are greatly to be pitied, Monsieur--" + +"Fabantou," replied Jondrette quickly. + +"Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember." + +"Dramatic artist, sir, and one who has had some success." + +Here Jondrette evidently judged the moment propitious for capturing the +"philanthropist." He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same +time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of +the mendicant on the highway:-- + +"A pupil of Talma! Sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune formerly smiled +on me--Alas! Now it is misfortune's turn. You see, my benefactor, no +bread, no fire. My poor babes have no fire! My only chair has no seat! A +broken pane! And in such weather! My spouse in bed! Ill!" + +"Poor woman!" said M. Leblanc. + +"My child wounded!" added Jondrette. + +The child, diverted by the arrival of the strangers, had fallen to +contemplating "the young lady," and had ceased to sob. + +"Cry! bawl!" said Jondrette to her in a low voice. + +At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the +talent of a juggler. + +The little girl gave vent to loud shrieks. + +The adorable young girl, whom Marius, in his heart, called "his Ursule," +approached her hastily. + +"Poor, dear child!" said she. + +"You see, my beautiful young lady," pursued Jondrette "her bleeding +wrist! It came through an accident while working at a machine to earn +six sous a day. It may be necessary to cut off her arm." + +"Really?" said the old gentleman, in alarm. + +The little girl, taking this seriously, fell to sobbing more violently +than ever. + +"Alas! yes, my benefactor!" replied the father. + +For several minutes, Jondrette had been scrutinizing "the benefactor" +in a singular fashion. As he spoke, he seemed to be examining the other +attentively, as though seeking to summon up his recollections. All at +once, profiting by a moment when the new-comers were questioning the +child with interest as to her injured hand, he passed near his wife, +who lay in her bed with a stupid and dejected air, and said to her in a +rapid but very low tone:-- + +"Take a look at that man!" + +Then, turning to M. Leblanc, and continuing his lamentations:-- + +"You see, sir! All the clothing that I have is my wife's chemise! And +all torn at that! In the depths of winter! I can't go out for lack of a +coat. If I had a coat of any sort, I would go and see Mademoiselle Mars, +who knows me and is very fond of me. Does she not still reside in the +Rue de la Tour-des-Dames? Do you know, sir? We played together in the +provinces. I shared her laurels. Celimene would come to my succor, sir! +Elmire would bestow alms on Belisaire! But no, nothing! And not a sou in +the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, +not a sou! My wife suffers from fits of suffocation. It comes from her +age, and besides, her nervous system is affected. She ought to have +assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! +How am I to pay them? I would kneel to a penny, sir! Such is the +condition to which the arts are reduced. And do you know, my charming +young lady, and you, my generous protector, do you know, you who breathe +forth virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter +sees you every day when she says her prayers?--For I have brought up my +children religiously, sir. I did not want them to take to the theatre. +Ah! the hussies! If I catch them tripping! I do not jest, that I don't! +I read them lessons on honor, on morality, on virtue! Ask them! They +have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who +begin by having no family, and end by espousing the public. One is +Mamselle Nobody, and one becomes Madame Everybody. Deuce take it! None +of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to bring them up virtuously, and +they shall be honest, and nice, and believe in God, by the sacred name! +Well, sir, my worthy sir, do you know what is going to happen to-morrow? +To-morrow is the fourth day of February, the fatal day, the last day of +grace allowed me by my landlord; if by this evening I have not paid my +rent, to-morrow my oldest daughter, my spouse with her fever, my child +with her wound,--we shall all four be turned out of here and thrown into +the street, on the boulevard, without shelter, in the rain, in the snow. +There, sir. I owe for four quarters--a whole year! that is to say, sixty +francs." + +Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have amounted to only forty francs, +and he could not owe four, because six months had not elapsed since +Marius had paid for two. + +M. Leblanc drew five francs from his pocket and threw them on the table. + +Jondrette found time to mutter in the ear of his eldest daughter:-- + +"The scoundrel! What does he think I can do with his five francs? +That won't pay me for my chair and pane of glass! That's what comes of +incurring expenses!" + +In the meanwhile, M. Leblanc had removed the large brown great-coat +which he wore over his blue coat, and had thrown it over the back of the +chair. + +"Monsieur Fabantou," he said, "these five francs are all that I have +about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this +evening,--it is this evening that you must pay, is it not?" + +Jondrette's face lighted up with a strange expression. He replied +vivaciously:-- + +"Yes, respected sir. At eight o'clock, I must be at my landlord's." + +"I will be here at six, and I will fetch you the sixty francs." + +"My benefactor!" exclaimed Jondrette, overwhelmed. And he added, in a +low tone: "Take a good look at him, wife!" + +M. Leblanc had taken the arm of the young girl, once more, and had +turned towards the door. + +"Farewell until this evening, my friends!" said he. + +"Six o'clock?" said Jondrette. + +"Six o'clock precisely." + +At that moment, the overcoat lying on the chair caught the eye of the +elder Jondrette girl. + +"You are forgetting your coat, sir," said she. + +Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a +formidable shrug of the shoulders. + +M. Leblanc turned back and said, with a smile:-- + +"I have not forgotten it, I am leaving it." + +"O my protector!" said Jondrette, "my august benefactor, I melt into +tears! Permit me to accompany you to your carriage." + +"If you come out," answered M. Leblanc, "put on this coat. It really is +very cold." + +Jondrette did not need to be told twice. He hastily donned the brown +great-coat. And all three went out, Jondrette preceding the two +strangers. + + + + +CHAPTER X--TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR + +Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had +seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart +had, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from the moment of +her very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, he +had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and +precipitates the whole soul on a single point. He contemplated, not that +girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. The +star Sirius might have entered the room, and he would not have been any +more dazzled. + +While the young girl was engaged in opening the package, unfolding the +clothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the +little injured girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, he sought +to catch her words. He knew her eyes, her brow, her beauty, her form, +her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied +that he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was not +absolutely sure of the fact. He would have given ten years of his life +to hear it, in order that he might bear away in his soul a little of +that music. But everything was drowned in the lamentable exclamations +and trumpet bursts of Jondrette. This added a touch of genuine wrath +to Marius' ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believe +that it really was that divine creature whom he saw in the midst of +those vile creatures in that monstrous lair. It seemed to him that he +beheld a humming-bird in the midst of toads. + +When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to +cling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where she +lived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously +re-discovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat. +As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point of +opening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor was +long, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had, +no doubt, not yet regained his carriage; if, on turning round in the +corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, +in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to +escape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was he +to do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriage +might drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk and +quitted his room. + +There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There was +no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the +boulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris. + +Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of +the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending +the Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and there +was no means of overtaking it; what! run after it? Impossible; and +besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individual +running at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father would +recognize him. At that moment, wonderful and unprecedented good luck, +Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There was but +one thing to be done, to jump into this cab and follow the fiacre. That +was sure, efficacious, and free from danger. + +Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him:-- + +"By the hour?" + +Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destitute +of buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom. + +The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius, rubbing +his forefinger gently with his thumb. + +"What is it?" said Marius. + +"Pay in advance," said the coachman. + +Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him. + +"How much?" he demanded. + +"Forty sous." + +"I will pay on my return." + +The driver's only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whip +up his horse. + +Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewildered air. For the +lack of four and twenty sous, he was losing his joy, his happiness, +his love! He had seen, and he was becoming blind again. He reflected +bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five +francs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl. +If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved, he would have +been born again, he would have emerged from the limbo and darkness, he +would have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from his widowed +state; he might have re-knotted the black thread of his destiny to that +beautiful golden thread, which had just floated before his eyes and +had broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to his hovel in +despair. + +He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return in +the evening, and that all he had to do was to set about the matter more +skilfully, so that he might follow him on that occasion; but, in his +contemplation, it is doubtful whether he had heard this. + +As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he perceived, on the +other side of the boulevard, near the deserted wall skirting the Rue De +la Barriere-des-Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped in the "philanthropist's" +great-coat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of disquieting +aspect who have been dubbed by common consent, prowlers of the barriers; +people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, who present the +air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in the daytime, which +suggests the supposition that they work by night. + +These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the +snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman +would surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed. + +Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain from +saying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrette +was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias +Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very +dangerous nocturnal roamer. This man's name the reader has learned in +the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, +figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a notorious rascal. +He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he exists in the state +of tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was at the head of +a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, at +nightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in whispers, he was +discussed at La Force in the Fosse-aux-Lions. One might even, in +that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served the +unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in 1843, +passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carved +by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts at +flight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on him, but he had not +as yet made a serious beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS + +Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment +when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder +Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of +this girl was odious to him; it was she who had his five francs, it was +too late to demand them back, the cab was no longer there, the fiacre +was far away. Moreover, she would not have given them back. As for +questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been +there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since the +letter signed Fabantou had been addressed "to the benevolent gentleman +of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas." + +Marius entered his room and pushed the door to after him. + +It did not close; he turned round and beheld a hand which held the door +half open. + +"What is it?" he asked, "who is there?" + +It was the Jondrette girl. + +"Is it you?" resumed Marius almost harshly, "still you! What do you want +with me?" + +She appeared to be thoughtful and did not look at him. She no longer had +the air of assurance which had characterized her that morning. She did +not enter, but held back in the darkness of the corridor, where Marius +could see her through the half-open door. + +"Come now, will you answer?" cried Marius. "What do you want with me?" + +She raised her dull eyes, in which a sort of gleam seemed to flicker +vaguely, and said:-- + +"Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?" + +"With me!" said Marius. + +"Yes, you." + +"There is nothing the matter with me." + +"Yes, there is!" + +"No." + +"I tell you there is!" + +"Let me alone!" + +Marius gave the door another push, but she retained her hold on it. + +"Stop," said she, "you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you +were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, +now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want +you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? +Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, +but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help you, since I +help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, +to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to follow any one, +I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what is the matter with +you, and I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes it is enough if +some one speaks to the persons, that suffices to let them understand +matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me." + +An idea flashed across Marius' mind. What branch does one disdain when +one feels that one is falling? + +He drew near to the Jondrette girl. + +"Listen--" he said to her. + +She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes. + +"Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better." + +"Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his +daughter!" + +"Yes." + +"Dost thou know their address?" + +"No." + +"Find it for me." + +The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. + +"Is that what you want?" she demanded. + +"Yes." + +"Do you know them?" + +"No." + +"That is to say," she resumed quickly, "you do not know her, but you +wish to know her." + +This them which had turned into her had something indescribably +significant and bitter about it. + +"Well, can you do it?" said Marius. + +"You shall have the beautiful lady's address." + +There was still a shade in the words "the beautiful lady" which troubled +Marius. He resumed:-- + +"Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their +address, indeed!" + +She gazed fixedly at him. + +"What will you give me?" + +"Anything you like." + +"Anything I like?" + +"Yes." + +"You shall have the address." + +She dropped her head; then, with a brusque movement, she pulled to the +door, which closed behind her. + +Marius found himself alone. + +He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on his bed, +absorbed in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as though a prey to +vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of +the angel, her disappearance, what that creature had just said to him, a +gleam of hope floating in an immense despair,--this was what filled his +brain confusedly. + +All at once he was violently aroused from his revery. + +He heard the shrill, hard voice of Jondrette utter these words, which +were fraught with a strange interest for him:-- + +"I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him." + +Of whom was Jondrette speaking? Whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc? The +father of "his Ursule"? What! Did Jondrette know him? Was Marius about +to obtain in this abrupt and unexpected fashion all the information +without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last +who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father +was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being +dispelled? Was the veil about to be rent? Ah! Heavens! + +He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post +near the little peep-hole in the partition wall. + +Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE USE MADE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE + +Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife +and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and +jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds. + +Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness +of out of doors. His daughters were seated on the floor near the +fireplace, the elder engaged in dressing the younger's wounded hand. His +wife had sunk back on the bed near the fireplace, with a face indicative +of astonishment. Jondrette was pacing up and down the garret with long +strides. His eyes were extraordinary. + +The woman, who seemed timid and overwhelmed with stupor in the presence +of her husband, turned to say:-- + +"What, really? You are sure?" + +"Sure! Eight years have passed! But I recognize him! Ah! I recognize +him. I knew him at once! What! Didn't it force itself on you?" + +"No." + +"But I told you: 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, it is his face, +only older,--there are people who do not grow old, I don't know how they +manage it,--it is the very sound of his voice. He is better dressed, +that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I've got you, that I have!" + +He paused, and said to his daughters:-- + +"Get out of here, you!--It's queer that it didn't strike you!" + +They arose to obey. + +The mother stammered:-- + +"With her injured hand." + +"The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Be off." + +It was plain that this man was of the sort to whom no one offers to +reply. The two girls departed. + +At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father +detained the elder by the arm, and said to her with a peculiar accent:-- + +"You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need +you." + +Marius redoubled his attention. + +On being left alone with his wife, Jondrette began to pace the room +again, and made the tour of it two or three times in silence. Then he +spent several minutes in tucking the lower part of the woman's chemise +which he wore into his trousers. + +All at once, he turned to the female Jondrette, folded his arms and +exclaimed:-- + +"And would you like to have me tell you something? The young lady--" + +"Well, what?" retorted his wife, "the young lady?" + +Marius could not doubt that it was really she of whom they were +speaking. He listened with ardent anxiety. His whole life was in his +ears. + +But Jondrette had bent over and spoke to his wife in a whisper. Then he +straightened himself up and concluded aloud:-- + +"It is she!" + +"That one?" said his wife. + +"That very one," said the husband. + +No expression can reproduce the significance of the mother's words. +Surprise, rage, hate, wrath, were mingled and combined in one monstrous +intonation. The pronunciation of a few words, the name, no doubt, which +her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge, +somnolent woman, and from being repulsive she became terrible. + +"It is not possible!" she cried. "When I think that my daughters are +going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin +pelisse, a velvet bonnet, boots, and everything; more than two hundred +francs' worth of clothes! so that one would think she was a lady! No, +you are mistaken! Why, in the first place, the other was hideous, and +this one is not so bad-looking! She really is not bad-looking! It can't +be she!" + +"I tell you that it is she. You will see." + +At this absolute assertion, the Jondrette woman raised her large, red, +blonde face and stared at the ceiling with a horrible expression. +At that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her +husband. She was a sow with the look of a tigress. + +"What!" she resumed, "that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at +my daughters with an air of pity,--she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should +like to kick her stomach in for her!" + +She sprang off of the bed, and remained standing for a moment, her +hair in disorder, her nostrils dilating, her mouth half open, her fists +clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The +man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female. + +After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female +Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done +a moment before:-- + +"And shall I tell you another thing?" + +"What is it?" she asked. + +He answered in a low, curt voice:-- + +"My fortune is made." + +The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: "Is the person who +is addressing me on the point of going mad?" + +He went on:-- + +"Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of +the parish of +die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have +had enough of misery! my share and other people's share! I am not joking +any longer, I don't find it comic any more, I've had enough of puns, +good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, +I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want +to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of +a millionnaire!" + +He took a turn round the hovel, and added:-- + +"Like other people." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked the woman. + +He shook his head, winked, screwed up one eye, and raised his voice like +a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration:-- + +"What do I mean by that? Listen!" + +"Hush!" muttered the woman, "not so loud! These are matters which must +not be overheard." + +"Bah! Who's here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. +Besides, he doesn't listen, the big booby. And I tell you that I saw him +go out." + +Nevertheless, by a sort of instinct, Jondrette lowered his voice, +although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One +favorable circumstance, which enabled Marius not to lose a word of this +conversation was the falling snow which deadened the sound of vehicles +on the boulevard. + +This is what Marius heard:-- + +"Listen carefully. The Croesus is caught, or as good as caught! That's +all settled already. Everything is arranged. I have seen some people. He +will come here this evening at six o'clock. To bring sixty francs, the +rascal! Did you notice how I played that game on him, my sixty francs, +my landlord, my fourth of February? I don't even owe for one quarter! +Isn't he a fool! So he will come at six o'clock! That's the hour when +our neighbor goes to his dinner. Mother Bougon is off washing dishes in +the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home +until eleven o'clock. The children shall stand on watch. You shall help +us. He will give in." + +"And what if he does not give in?" demanded his wife. + +Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said:-- + +"We'll fix him." + +And he burst out laughing. + +This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold +and sweet, and provoked a shudder. + +Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fireplace, and drew from it an old +cap, which he placed on his head, after brushing it with his sleeve. + +"Now," said he, "I'm going out. I have some more people that I must see. +Good ones. You'll see how well the whole thing will work. I shall be +away as short a time as possible, it's a fine stroke of business, do you +look after the house." + +And with both fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers, he stood +for a moment in thought, then exclaimed:-- + +"Do you know, it's mighty lucky, by the way, that he didn't recognize +me! If he had recognized me on his side, he would not have come back +again. He would have slipped through our fingers! It was my beard that +saved us! my romantic beard! my pretty little romantic beard!" + +And again he broke into a laugh. + +He stepped to the window. The snow was still falling, and streaking the +gray of the sky. + +"What beastly weather!" said he. + +Then lapping his overcoat across his breast:-- + +"This rind is too large for me. Never mind," he added, "he did a +devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoundrel! If it +hadn't been for that, I couldn't have gone out, and everything would +have gone wrong! What small points things hang on, anyway!" + +And pulling his cap down over his eyes, he quitted the room. + +He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when +the door opened again, and his savage but intelligent face made its +appearance once more in the opening. + +"I came near forgetting," said he. "You are to have a brazier of +charcoal ready." + +And he flung into his wife's apron the five-franc piece which the +"philanthropist" had left with him. + +"A brazier of charcoal?" asked his wife. + +"Yes." + +"How many bushels?" + +"Two good ones." + +"That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy something for +dinner." + +"The devil, no." + +"Why?" + +"Don't go and spend the hundred-sou piece." + +"Why?" + +"Because I shall have to buy something, too." + +"What?" + +"Something." + +"How much shall you need?" + +"Whereabouts in the neighborhood is there an ironmonger's shop?" + +"Rue Mouffetard." + +"Ah! yes, at the corner of a street; I can see the shop." + +"But tell me how much you will need for what you have to purchase?" + +"Fifty sous--three francs." + +"There won't be much left for dinner." + +"Eating is not the point to-day. There's something better to be done." + +"That's enough, my jewel." + +At this word from his wife, Jondrette closed the door again, and this +time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and +descend the staircase rapidly. + +At that moment, one o'clock struck from the church of Saint-Medard. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--SOLUS CUM SOLO, IN LOCO REMOTO, NON COGITABUNTUR ORARE +PATER NOSTER + +Marius, dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, firm and energetic by +nature. His habits of solitary meditation, while they had developed in +him sympathy and compassion, had, perhaps, diminished the faculty for +irritation, but had left intact the power of waxing indignant; he had +the kindliness of a brahmin, and the severity of a judge; he took pity +upon a toad, but he crushed a viper. Now, it was into a hole of vipers +that his glance had just been directed, it was a nest of monsters that +he had beneath his eyes. + +"These wretches must be stamped upon," said he. + +Not one of the enigmas which he had hoped to see solved had been +elucidated; on the contrary, all of them had been rendered more dense, +if anything; he knew nothing more about the beautiful maiden of the +Luxembourg and the man whom he called M. Leblanc, except that Jondrette +was acquainted with them. Athwart the mysterious words which had been +uttered, the only thing of which he caught a distinct glimpse was the +fact that an ambush was in course of preparation, a dark but terrible +trap; that both of them were incurring great danger, she probably, her +father certainly; that they must be saved; that the hideous plots of the +Jondrettes must be thwarted, and the web of these spiders broken. + +He scanned the female Jondrette for a moment. She had pulled an old +sheet-iron stove from a corner, and she was rummaging among the old heap +of iron. + +He descended from the commode as softly as possible, taking care not to +make the least noise. Amid his terror as to what was in preparation, and +in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced +a sort of joy at the idea that it might be granted to him perhaps to +render a service to the one whom he loved. + +But how was it to be done? How warn the persons threatened? He did not +know their address. They had reappeared for an instant before his eyes, +and had then plunged back again into the immense depths of Paris. Should +he wait for M. Leblanc at the door that evening at six o'clock, at the +moment of his arrival, and warn him of the trap? But Jondrette and his +men would see him on the watch, the spot was lonely, they were stronger +than he, they would devise means to seize him or to get him away, and +the man whom Marius was anxious to save would be lost. One o'clock had +just struck, the trap was to be sprung at six. Marius had five hours +before him. + +There was but one thing to be done. + +He put on his decent coat, knotted a silk handkerchief round his neck, +took his hat, and went out, without making any more noise than if he had +been treading on moss with bare feet. + +Moreover, the Jondrette woman continued to rummage among her old iron. + +Once outside of the house, he made for the Rue du Petit-Banquier. + +He had almost reached the middle of this street, near a very low wall +which a man can easily step over at certain points, and which abuts on +a waste space, and was walking slowly, in consequence of his preoccupied +condition, and the snow deadened the sound of his steps; all at once he +heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was +deserted, there was not a soul in it, it was broad daylight, and yet he +distinctly heard voices. + +It occurred to him to glance over the wall which he was skirting. + +There, in fact, sat two men, flat on the snow, with their backs against +the wall, talking together in subdued tones. + +These two persons were strangers to him; one was a bearded man in a +blouse, and the other a long-haired individual in rags. The bearded man +had on a fez, the other's head was bare, and the snow had lodged in his +hair. + +By thrusting his head over the wall, Marius could hear their remarks. + +The hairy one jogged the other man's elbow and said:-- + +"--With the assistance of Patron-Minette, it can't fail." + +"Do you think so?" said the bearded man. + +And the long-haired one began again:-- + +"It's as good as a warrant for each one, of five hundred balls, and the +worst that can happen is five years, six years, ten years at the most!" + +The other replied with some hesitation, and shivering beneath his fez:-- + +"That's a real thing. You can't go against such things." + +"I tell you that the affair can't go wrong," resumed the long-haired +man. "Father What's-his-name's team will be already harnessed." + +Then they began to discuss a melodrama that they had seen on the +preceding evening at the Gaite Theatre. + +Marius went his way. + +It seemed to him that the mysterious words of these men, so strangely +hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear +some relation to Jondrette's abominable projects. That must be the +affair. + +He directed his course towards the faubourg Saint-Marceau and asked at +the first shop he came to where he could find a commissary of police. + +He was directed to Rue de Pontoise, No. 14. + +Thither Marius betook himself. + +As he passed a baker's shop, he bought a two-penny roll, and ate it, +foreseeing that he should not dine. + +On the way, he rendered justice to Providence. He reflected that had he +not given his five francs to the Jondrette girl in the morning, he +would have followed M. Leblanc's fiacre, and consequently have remained +ignorant of everything, and that there would have been no obstacle to +the trap of the Jondrettes and that M. Leblanc would have been lost, and +his daughter with him, no doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--IN WHICH A POLICE AGENT BESTOWS TWO FISTFULS ON A LAWYER + +On arriving at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor +and inquired for the commissary of police. + +"The commissary of police is not here," said a clerk; "but there is an +inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you +in haste?" + +"Yes," said Marius. + +The clerk introduced him into the commissary's office. There stood a +tall man behind a grating, leaning against a stove, and holding up with +both hands the tails of a vast topcoat, with three collars. His face +was square, with a thin, firm mouth, thick, gray, and very ferocious +whiskers, and a look that was enough to turn your pockets inside out. +Of that glance it might have been well said, not that it penetrated, but +that it searched. + +This man's air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than +Jondrette's; the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the +wolf. + +"What do you want?" he said to Marius, without adding "monsieur." + +"Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?" + +"He is absent. I am here in his stead." + +"The matter is very private." + +"Then speak." + +"And great haste is required." + +"Then speak quick." + +This calm, abrupt man was both terrifying and reassuring at one and the +same time. He inspired fear and confidence. Marius related the adventure +to him: That a person with whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by +sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he +occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, +had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the wretch who +had planned the trap was a certain Jondrette; that there would be +accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a +certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette's +daughters were to lie in wait; that there was no way of warning the +threatened man, since he did not even know his name; and that, finally, +all this was to be carried out at six o'clock that evening, at the most +deserted point of the Boulevard de l'Hopital, in house No. 50-52. + +At the sound of this number, the inspector raised his head, and said +coldly:-- + +"So it is in the room at the end of the corridor?" + +"Precisely," answered Marius, and he added: "Are you acquainted with +that house?" + +The inspector remained silent for a moment, then replied, as he warmed +the heel of his boot at the door of the stove:-- + +"Apparently." + +He went on, muttering between his teeth, and not addressing Marius so +much as his cravat:-- + +"Patron-Minette must have had a hand in this." + +This word struck Marius. + +"Patron-Minette," said he, "I did hear that word pronounced, in fact." + +And he repeated to the inspector the dialogue between the long-haired +man and the bearded man in the snow behind the wall of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. + +The inspector muttered:-- + +"The long-haired man must be Brujon, and the bearded one Demi-Liard, +alias Deux-Milliards." + +He had dropped his eyelids again, and became absorbed in thought. + +"As for Father What's-his-name, I think I recognize him. Here, I've +burned my coat. They always have too much fire in these cursed stoves. +Number 50-52. Former property of Gorbeau." + +Then he glanced at Marius. + +"You saw only that bearded and that long-haired man?" + +"And Panchaud." + +"You didn't see a little imp of a dandy prowling about the premises?" + +"No." + +"Nor a big lump of matter, resembling an elephant in the Jardin des +Plantes?" + +"No." + +"Nor a scamp with the air of an old red tail?" + +"No." + +"As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, clerks, and +employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him." + +"No. Who are all those persons?" asked Marius. + +The inspector answered:-- + +"Besides, this is not the time for them." + +He relapsed into silence, then resumed:-- + +"50-52. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside +it without the artists seeing us, and then they will get off simply +by countermanding the vaudeville. They are so modest! An audience +embarrasses them. None of that, none of that. I want to hear them sing +and make them dance." + +This monologue concluded, he turned to Marius, and demanded, gazing at +him intently the while:-- + +"Are you afraid?" + +"Of what?" said Marius. + +"Of these men?" + +"No more than yourself!" retorted Marius rudely, who had begun to notice +that this police agent had not yet said "monsieur" to him. + +The inspector stared still more intently at Marius, and continued with +sententious solemnity:-- + +"There, you speak like a brave man, and like an honest man. Courage does +not fear crime, and honesty does not fear authority." + +Marius interrupted him:-- + +"That is well, but what do you intend to do?" + +The inspector contented himself with the remark:-- + +"The lodgers have pass-keys with which to get in at night. You must have +one." + +"Yes," said Marius. + +"Have you it about you?" + +"Yes." + +"Give it to me," said the inspector. + +Marius took his key from his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the +inspector and added:-- + +"If you will take my advice, you will come in force." + +The inspector cast on Marius such a glance as Voltaire might have +bestowed on a provincial academician who had suggested a rhyme to him; +with one movement he plunged his hands, which were enormous, into the +two immense pockets of his top-coat, and pulled out two small steel +pistols, of the sort called "knock-me-downs." Then he presented them to +Marius, saying rapidly, in a curt tone:-- + +"Take these. Go home. Hide in your chamber, so that you may be supposed +to have gone out. They are loaded. Each one carries two balls. You will +keep watch; there is a hole in the wall, as you have informed me. These +men will come. Leave them to their own devices for a time. When you +think matters have reached a crisis, and that it is time to put a stop +to them, fire a shot. Not too soon. The rest concerns me. A shot into +the ceiling, the air, no matter where. Above all things, not too soon. +Wait until they begin to put their project into execution; you are a +lawyer; you know the proper point." Marius took the pistols and put them +in the side pocket of his coat. + +"That makes a lump that can be seen," said the inspector. "Put them in +your trousers pocket." + +Marius hid the pistols in his trousers pockets. + +"Now," pursued the inspector, "there is not a minute more to be lost by +any one. What time is it? Half-past two. Seven o'clock is the hour?" + +"Six o'clock," answered Marius. + +"I have plenty of time," said the inspector, "but no more than enough. +Don't forget anything that I have said to you. Bang. A pistol shot." + +"Rest easy," said Marius. + +And as Marius laid his hand on the handle of the door on his way out, +the inspector called to him:-- + +"By the way, if you have occasion for my services between now and then, +come or send here. You will ask for Inspector Javert." + + + + +CHAPTER XV--JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASES + +A few moments later, about three o'clock, Courfeyrac chanced to be +passing along the Rue Mouffetard in company with Bossuet. The snow had +redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just saying to +Courfeyrac:-- + +"One would say, to see all these snow-flakes fall, that there was a +plague of white butterflies in heaven." All at once, Bossuet caught +sight of Marius coming up the street towards the barrier with a peculiar +air. + +"Hold!" said Bossuet. "There's Marius." + +"I saw him," said Courfeyrac. "Don't let's speak to him." + +"Why?" + +"He is busy." + +"With what?" + +"Don't you see his air?" + +"What air?" + +"He has the air of a man who is following some one." + +"That's true," said Bossuet. + +"Just see the eyes he is making!" said Courfeyrac. + +"But who the deuce is he following?" + +"Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love." + +"But," observed Bossuet, "I don't see any wench nor any flowery bonnet +in the street. There's not a woman round." + +Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:-- + +"He's following a man!" + +A man, in fact, wearing a gray cap, and whose gray beard could be +distinguished, although they only saw his back, was walking along about +twenty paces in advance of Marius. + +This man was dressed in a great-coat which was perfectly new and too +large for him, and in a frightful pair of trousers all hanging in rags +and black with mud. + +Bossuet burst out laughing. + +"Who is that man?" + +"He?" retorted Courfeyrac, "he's a poet. Poets are very fond of wearing +the trousers of dealers in rabbit skins and the overcoats of peers of +France." + +"Let's see where Marius will go," said Bossuet; "let's see where the man +is going, let's follow them, hey?" + +"Bossuet!" exclaimed Courfeyrac, "eagle of Meaux! You are a prodigious +brute. Follow a man who is following another man, indeed!" + +They retraced their steps. + +Marius had, in fact, seen Jondrette passing along the Rue Mouffetard, +and was spying on his proceedings. + +Jondrette walked straight ahead, without a suspicion that he was already +held by a glance. + +He quitted the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him enter one of the most +terrible hovels in the Rue Gracieuse; he remained there about a quarter +of an hour, then returned to the Rue Mouffetard. He halted at +an ironmonger's shop, which then stood at the corner of the Rue +Pierre-Lombard, and a few minutes later Marius saw him emerge from the +shop, holding in his hand a huge cold chisel with a white wood handle, +which he concealed beneath his great-coat. At the top of the Rue +Petit-Gentilly he turned to the left and proceeded rapidly to the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. The day was declining; the snow, which had ceased for a +moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the +very corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, which was deserted, as usual, +and did not follow Jondrette into it. It was lucky that he did so, +for, on arriving in the vicinity of the wall where Marius had heard the +long-haired man and the bearded man conversing, Jondrette turned round, +made sure that no one was following him, did not see him, then sprang +across the wall and disappeared. + +The waste land bordered by this wall communicated with the back yard of +an ex-livery stable-keeper of bad repute, who had failed and who still +kept a few old single-seated berlins under his sheds. + +Marius thought that it would be wise to profit by Jondrette's absence to +return home; moreover, it was growing late; every evening, Ma'am Bougon +when she set out for her dish-washing in town, had a habit of locking +the door, which was always closed at dusk. Marius had given his key to +the inspector of police; it was important, therefore, that he should +make haste. + +Evening had arrived, night had almost closed in; on the horizon and in +the immensity of space, there remained but one spot illuminated by the +sun, and that was the moon. + +It was rising in a ruddy glow behind the low dome of Salpetriere. + +Marius returned to No. 50-52 with great strides. The door was still open +when he arrived. He mounted the stairs on tip-toe and glided along the +wall of the corridor to his chamber. This corridor, as the reader will +remember, was bordered on both sides by attics, all of which were, for +the moment, empty and to let. Ma'am Bougon was in the habit of leaving +all the doors open. As he passed one of these attics, Marius thought +he perceived in the uninhabited cell the motionless heads of four men, +vaguely lighted up by a remnant of daylight, falling through a dormer +window. + +Marius made no attempt to see, not wishing to be seen himself. He +succeeded in reaching his chamber without being seen and without making +any noise. It was high time. A moment later he heard Ma'am Bougon take +her departure, locking the door of the house behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE WORDS TO AN ENGLISH AIR WHICH +WAS IN FASHION IN 1832 + +Marius seated himself on his bed. It might have been half-past five +o'clock. Only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. +He heard the beating of his arteries as one hears the ticking of a watch +in the dark. He thought of the double march which was going on at that +moment in the dark,--crime advancing on one side, justice coming up on +the other. He was not afraid, but he could not think without a shudder +of what was about to take place. As is the case with all those who are +suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced +upon him the effect of a dream, and in order to persuade himself that he +was not the prey of a nightmare, he had to feel the cold barrels of the +steel pistols in his trousers pockets. + +It was no longer snowing; the moon disengaged itself more and more +clearly from the mist, and its light, mingled with the white reflection +of the snow which had fallen, communicated to the chamber a sort of +twilight aspect. + +There was a light in the Jondrette den. Marius saw the hole in the wall +shining with a reddish glow which seemed bloody to him. + +It was true that the light could not be produced by a candle. However, +there was not a sound in the Jondrette quarters, not a soul was moving +there, not a soul speaking, not a breath; the silence was glacial and +profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought +himself next door to a sepulchre. + +Marius softly removed his boots and pushed them under his bed. + +Several minutes elapsed. Marius heard the lower door turn on its hinges; +a heavy step mounted the staircase, and hastened along the corridor; the +latch of the hovel was noisily lifted; it was Jondrette returning. + +Instantly, several voices arose. The whole family was in the garret. +Only, it had been silent in the master's absence, like wolf whelps in +the absence of the wolf. + +"It's I," said he. + +"Good evening, daddy," yelped the girls. + +"Well?" said the mother. + +"All's going first-rate," responded Jondrette, "but my feet are beastly +cold. Good! You have dressed up. You have done well! You must inspire +confidence." + +"All ready to go out." + +"Don't forget what I told you. You will do everything sure?" + +"Rest easy." + +"Because--" said Jondrette. And he left the phrase unfinished. + +Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel +which he had purchased. + +"By the way," said Jondrette, "have you been eating here?" + +"Yes," said the mother. "I got three large potatoes and some salt. I +took advantage of the fire to cook them." + +"Good," returned Jondrette. "To-morrow I will take you out to dine with +me. We will have a duck and fixings. You shall dine like Charles the +Tenth; all is going well!" + +Then he added:-- + +"The mouse-trap is open. The cats are there." + +He lowered his voice still further, and said:-- + +"Put this in the fire." + +Marius heard a sound of charcoal being knocked with the tongs or some +iron utensil, and Jondrette continued:-- + +"Have you greased the hinges of the door so that they will not squeak?" + +"Yes," replied the mother. + +"What time is it?" + +"Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago." + +"The devil!" ejaculated Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come +you, do you listen here." + +A whispering ensued. + +Jondrette's voice became audible again:-- + +"Has old Bougon left?" + +"Yes," said the mother. + +"Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor's room?" + +"He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his +dinner hour." + +"You are sure?" + +"Sure." + +"All the same," said Jondrette, "there's no harm in going to see whether +he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there." + +Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed. + +Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the +crack of his door. + +"P'pa," cried a voice, "he is not in here." + +He recognized the voice of the eldest daughter. + +"Did you go in?" demanded her father. + +"No," replied the girl, "but as his key is in the door, he must be out." + +The father exclaimed:-- + +"Go in, nevertheless." + +The door opened, and Marius saw the tall Jondrette come in with a candle +in her hand. She was as she had been in the morning, only still more +repulsive in this light. + +She walked straight up to the bed. Marius endured an indescribable +moment of anxiety; but near the bed there was a mirror nailed to the +wall, and it was thither that she was directing her steps. She raised +herself on tiptoe and looked at herself in it. In the neighboring room, +the sound of iron articles being moved was audible. + +She smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand, and smiled into the +mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice:-- + + Nos amours ont dure toute une semaine,[28] + Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts! + S'adorer huit jours, c' etait bien la peine! + Le temps des amours devait durer toujours! + Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours! + + +In the meantime, Marius trembled. It seemed impossible to him that she +should not hear his breathing. + +She stepped to the window and looked out with the half-foolish way she +had. + +"How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise!" said she. + +She returned to the mirror and began again to put on airs before it, +scrutinizing herself full-face and three-quarters face in turn. + +"Well!" cried her father, "what are you about there?" + +"I am looking under the bed and the furniture," she replied, continuing +to arrange her hair; "there's no one here." + +"Booby!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don't waste any +time about it!" + +"Coming! Coming!" said she. "One has no time for anything in this +hovel!" + +She hummed:-- + + Vous me quittez pour aller a la gloire;[29] + Mon triste coeur suivra partout. + + +She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door +behind her. + +A moment more, and Marius heard the sound of the two young girls' bare +feet in the corridor, and Jondrette's voice shouting to them:-- + +"Pay strict heed! One on the side of the barrier, the other at the +corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier. Don't lose sight for a moment of +the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on +the instant! as hard as you can go! You have a key to get in." + +The eldest girl grumbled:-- + +"The idea of standing watch in the snow barefoot!" + +"To-morrow you shall have some dainty little green silk boots!" said the +father. + +They ran down stairs, and a few seconds later the shock of the outer +door as it banged to announced that they were outside. + +There now remained in the house only Marius, the Jondrettes and +probably, also, the mysterious persons of whom Marius had caught a +glimpse in the twilight, behind the door of the unused attic. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--THE USE MADE OF MARIUS' FIVE-FRANC PIECE + +Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must resume his +post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his +age, he had reached the hole in the partition. + +He looked. + +The interior of the Jondrette apartment presented a curious aspect, and +Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed. +A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris, but +that was not what really lighted the chamber. The hovel was completely +illuminated, as it were, by the reflection from a rather large +sheet-iron brazier standing in the fireplace, and filled with burning +charcoal, the brazier prepared by the Jondrette woman that morning. The +charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red; a blue flame flickered +over it, and helped him to make out the form of the chisel purchased by +Jondrette in the Rue Pierre-Lombard, where it had been thrust into the +brazier to heat. In one corner, near the door, and as though prepared +for some definite use, two heaps were visible, which appeared to be, the +one a heap of old iron, the other a heap of ropes. All this would have +caused the mind of a person who knew nothing of what was in preparation, +to waver between a very sinister and a very simple idea. The lair thus +lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth of hell, but Jondrette, +in this light, had rather the air of a demon than of a smith. + +The heat of the brazier was so great, that the candle on the table was +melting on the side next the chafing-dish, and was drooping over. An old +dark-lantern of copper, worthy of Diogenes turned Cartouche, stood on +the chimney-piece. + +The brazier, placed in the fireplace itself, beside the nearly extinct +brands, sent its vapors up the chimney, and gave out no odor. + +The moon, entering through the four panes of the window, cast its +whiteness into the crimson and flaming garret; and to the poetic spirit +of Marius, who was dreamy even in the moment of action, it was like a +thought of heaven mingled with the misshapen reveries of earth. + +A breath of air which made its way in through the open pane, helped to +dissipate the smell of the charcoal and to conceal the presence of the +brazier. + +The Jondrette lair was, if the reader recalls what we have said of the +Gorbeau building, admirably chosen to serve as the theatre of a violent +and sombre deed, and as the envelope for a crime. It was the most +retired chamber in the most isolated house on the most deserted +boulevard in Paris. If the system of ambush and traps had not already +existed, they would have been invented there. + +The whole thickness of a house and a multitude of uninhabited rooms +separated this den from the boulevard, and the only window that existed +opened on waste lands enclosed with walls and palisades. + +Jondrette had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the seatless chair, +and was engaged in smoking. His wife was talking to him in a low tone. + +If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those men who +laugh on every occasion in life, he would have burst with laughter when +his gaze fell on the Jondrette woman. She had on a black bonnet with +plumes not unlike the hats of the heralds-at-arms at the coronation of +Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her knitted petticoat, and the +man's shoes which her daughter had scorned in the morning. It was this +toilette which had extracted from Jondrette the exclamation: "Good! You +have dressed up. You have done well. You must inspire confidence!" + +As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new surtout, which was too +large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and his costume +continued to present that contrast of coat and trousers which +constituted the ideal of a poet in Courfeyrac's eyes. + +All at once, Jondrette lifted up his voice:-- + +"By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a +carriage. Light the lantern, take it and go down stairs. You will stand +behind the lower door. The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, +you will open the door, instantly, he will come up, you will light the +staircase and the corridor, and when he enters here, you will go down +stairs again as speedily as possible, you will pay the coachman, and +dismiss the fiacre." + +"And the money?" inquired the woman. + +Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five francs. + +"What's this?" she exclaimed. + +Jondrette replied with dignity:-- + +"That is the monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning." + +And he added:-- + +"Do you know what? Two chairs will be needed here." + +"What for?" + +"To sit on." + +Marius felt a cold chill pass through his limbs at hearing this mild +answer from Jondrette. + +"Pardieu! I'll go and get one of our neighbor's." + +And with a rapid movement, she opened the door of the den, and went out +into the corridor. + +Marius absolutely had not the time to descend from the commode, reach +his bed, and conceal himself beneath it. + +"Take the candle," cried Jondrette. + +"No," said she, "it would embarrass me, I have the two chairs to carry. +There is moonlight." + +Marius heard Mother Jondrette's heavy hand fumbling at his lock in the +dark. The door opened. He remained nailed to the spot with the shock and +with horror. + +The Jondrette entered. + +The dormer window permitted the entrance of a ray of moonlight between +two blocks of shadow. One of these blocks of shadow entirely covered the +wall against which Marius was leaning, so that he disappeared within it. + +Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius, took the two +chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went away, letting the +door fall heavily to behind her. + +She re-entered the lair. + +"Here are the two chairs." + +"And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can." + +She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette was left alone. + +He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the +chisel in the brazier, set in front of the fireplace an old screen which +masked the chafing-dish, then went to the corner where lay the pile +of rope, and bent down as though to examine something. Marius then +recognized the fact, that what he had taken for a shapeless mass was a +very well-made rope-ladder, with wooden rungs and two hooks with which +to attach it. + +This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of iron, which were +mingled with the old iron piled up behind the door, had not been in the +Jondrette hovel in the morning, and had evidently been brought thither +in the afternoon, during Marius' absence. + +"Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker," thought Marius. + +Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he would have +recognized in what he took for the engines of an edge-tool maker, +certain instruments which will force a lock or pick a lock, and others +which will cut or slice, the two families of tools which burglars call +cadets and fauchants. + +The fireplace and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius. The +brazier being concealed, the only light in the room was now furnished +by the candle; the smallest bit of crockery on the table or on the +chimney-piece cast a large shadow. There was something indescribably +calm, threatening, and hideous about this chamber. One felt that there +existed in it the anticipation of something terrible. + +Jondrette had allowed his pipe to go out, a serious sign of +preoccupation, and had again seated himself. The candle brought out the +fierce and the fine angles of his countenance. He indulged in scowls and +in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to +the last counsels of a sombre inward monologue. In the course of one of +these dark replies which he was making to himself, he pulled the table +drawer rapidly towards him, took out a long kitchen knife which was +concealed there, and tried the edge of its blade on his nail. That done, +he put the knife back in the drawer and shut it. + +Marius, on his side, grasped the pistol in his right pocket, drew it out +and cocked it. + +The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it. + +Jondrette started, half rose, listened a moment, then began to laugh and +said:-- + +"What a fool I am! It's the partition cracking!" + +Marius kept the pistol in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--MARIUS' TWO CHAIRS FORM A VIS-A-VIS + +Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the +panes. Six o'clock was striking from Saint-Medard. + +Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth +had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers. + +Then he began to pace up and down the room, listened at the corridor, +walked on again, then listened once more. + +"Provided only that he comes!" he muttered, then he returned to his +chair. + +He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened. + +Mother Jondrette had opened it, and now remained in the corridor making +a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the holes of the dark-lantern +illuminated from below. + +"Enter, sir," she said. + +"Enter, my benefactor," repeated Jondrette, rising hastily. + +M. Leblanc made his appearance. + +He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. + +He laid four louis on the table. + +"Monsieur Fabantou," said he, "this is for your rent and your most +pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest hereafter." + +"May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor!" said Jondrette. + +And rapidly approaching his wife:-- + +"Dismiss the carriage!" + +She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes and offering +M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned and whispered in his +ear:-- + +"'Tis done." + +The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep +that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not +now hear its departure. + +Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself. + +Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc. + +Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the +reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes +of the Salpetriere covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in +the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone +redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows +of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, +the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of +darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the +midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single +candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil, +Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf, +in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not +losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and +pistol in hand. + +However, Marius experienced only an emotion of horror, but no fear. He +clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt reassured. "I shall be +able to stop that wretch whenever I please," he thought. + +He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for +the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out their arm. + +Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter between Jondrette +and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was +interested in learning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--OCCUPYING ONE'S SELF WITH OBSCURE DEPTHS + +Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the +pallets, which were empty. + +"How is the poor little wounded girl?" he inquired. + +"Bad," replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, "very +bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to +have her hurt dressed. You will see them presently; they will be back +immediately." + +"Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better," went on M. Leblanc, casting +his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood +between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed +at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat. + +"She is dying," said Jondrette. "But what do you expect, sir! She has so +much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox." + +The Jondrette, touched by his compliment, deprecated it with the +affected airs of a flattered monster. + +"You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette!" + +"Jondrette!" said M. Leblanc, "I thought your name was Fabantou?" + +"Fabantou, alias Jondrette!" replied the husband hurriedly. "An artistic +sobriquet!" + +And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did +not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of +voice:-- + +"Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I! What +would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my +respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will, +no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word +of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.[30] I don't +wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, +things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted to have my +girls taught the trade of paper-box makers. You will say to me: 'What! +a trade?' Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A bread-winner! What a fall, +my benefactor! What a degradation, when one has been what we have been! +Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing +only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing +to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live!" + +While Jondrette thus talked, with an apparent incoherence which +detracted nothing from the thoughtful and sagacious expression of his +physiognomy, Marius raised his eyes, and perceived at the other end of +the room a person whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, +so softly that the door had not been heard to turn on its hinges. This +man wore a violet knitted vest, which was old, worn, spotted, cut and +gaping at every fold, wide trousers of cotton velvet, wooden shoes on +his feet, no shirt, had his neck bare, his bare arms tattooed, and his +face smeared with black. He had seated himself in silence on the nearest +bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly +seen. + +That sort of magnetic instinct which turns aside the gaze, caused M. +Leblanc to turn round almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not +refrain from a gesture of surprise which did not escape Jondrette. + +"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Jondrette, buttoning up his coat with an air of +complaisance, "you are looking at your overcoat? It fits me! My faith, +but it fits me!" + +"Who is that man?" said M. Leblanc. + +"Him?" ejaculated Jondrette, "he's a neighbor of mine. Don't pay any +attention to him." + +The neighbor was a singular-looking individual. However, manufactories +of chemical products abound in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Many of the +workmen might have black faces. Besides this, M. Leblanc's whole person +was expressive of candid and intrepid confidence. + +He went on:-- + +"Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?" + +"I was telling you, sir, and dear protector," replied Jondrette placing +his elbows on the table and contemplating M. Leblanc with steady and +tender eyes, not unlike the eyes of the boa-constrictor, "I was telling +you, that I have a picture to sell." + +A slight sound came from the door. A second man had just entered and +seated himself on the bed, behind Jondrette. + +Like the first, his arms were bare, and he had a mask of ink or +lampblack. + +Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been +able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him. + +"Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the +house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable +picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it." + +He rose, went to the wall at the foot of which stood the panel which we +have already mentioned, and turned it round, still leaving it supported +against the wall. It really was something which resembled a picture, and +which the candle illuminated, somewhat. Marius could make nothing out of +it, as Jondrette stood between the picture and him; he only saw a coarse +daub, and a sort of principal personage colored with the harsh crudity +of foreign canvasses and screen paintings. + +"What is that?" asked M. Leblanc. + +Jondrette exclaimed:-- + +"A painting by a master, a picture of great value, my benefactor! I am +as much attached to it as I am to my two daughters; it recalls souvenirs +to me! But I have told you, and I will not take it back, that I am so +wretched that I will part with it." + +Either by chance, or because he had begun to feel a dawning uneasiness, +M. Leblanc's glance returned to the bottom of the room as he examined +the picture. + +There were now four men, three seated on the bed, one standing near the +door-post, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared +with black. One of those on the bed was leaning against the wall, with +closed eyes, and it might have been supposed that he was asleep. He +was old; his white hair contrasting with his blackened face produced a +horrible effect. The other two seemed to be young; one wore a beard, the +other wore his hair long. None of them had on shoes; those who did not +wear socks were barefooted. + +Jondrette noticed that M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on these men. + +"They are friends. They are neighbors," said he. "Their faces are black +because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don't trouble +yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on +my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is +worth?" + +"Well," said M. Leblanc, looking Jondrette full in the eye, and with the +manner of a man who is on his guard, "it is some signboard for a tavern, +and is worth about three francs." + +Jondrette replied sweetly:-- + +"Have you your pocket-book with you? I should be satisfied with a +thousand crowns." + +M. Leblanc sprang up, placed his back against the wall, and cast a rapid +glance around the room. He had Jondrette on his left, on the side next +the window, and the Jondrette woman and the four men on his right, on +the side next the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even seem +to be looking on. + +Jondrette had again begun to speak in a plaintive tone, with so vague +an eye, and so lamentable an intonation, that M. Leblanc might have +supposed that what he had before him was a man who had simply gone mad +with misery. + +"If you do not buy my picture, my dear benefactor," said Jondrette, "I +shall be left without resources; there will be nothing left for me but +to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wanted to have my +two girls taught the middle-class paper-box trade, the making of boxes +for New Year's gifts! Well! A table with a board at the end to keep the +glasses from falling off is required, then a special stove is needed, a +pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of +the paste, according as it is to be used for wood, paper, or stuff, a +paring-knife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to +nail the steels, pincers, how the devil do I know what all? And all that +in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a +day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! +And you can't wet the paper! And you mustn't spot anything! And you must +keep the paste hot. The devil, I tell you! Four sous a day! How do you +suppose a man is to live?" + +As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing +him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's eye was +fixed on the door. Marius' eager attention was transferred from one +to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself: "Is this man an +idiot?" Jondrette repeated two or three distinct times, with all manner +of varying inflections of the whining and supplicating order: "There +is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down +three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for +that purpose." + +All at once his dull eyes lighted up with a hideous flash; the little +man drew himself up and became terrible, took a step toward M. Leblanc +and cried in a voice of thunder: "That has nothing to do with the +question! Do you know me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX--THE TRAP + +The door of the garret had just opened abruptly, and allowed a view of +three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black +paper. The first was thin, and had a long, iron-tipped cudgel; the +second, who was a sort of colossus, carried, by the middle of the +handle, with the blade downward, a butcher's pole-axe for slaughtering +cattle. The third, a man with thick-set shoulders, not so slender as +the first, held in his hand an enormous key stolen from the door of some +prison. + +It appeared that the arrival of these men was what Jondrette had been +waiting for. A rapid dialogue ensued between him and the man with the +cudgel, the thin one. + +"Is everything ready?" said Jondrette. + +"Yes," replied the thin man. + +"Where is Montparnasse?" + +"The young principal actor stopped to chat with your girl." + +"Which?" + +"The eldest." + +"Is there a carriage at the door?" + +"Yes." + +"Is the team harnessed?" + +"Yes." + +"With two good horses?" + +"Excellent." + +"Is it waiting where I ordered?" + +"Yes." + +"Good," said Jondrette. + +M. Leblanc was very pale. He was scrutinizing everything around him in +the den, like a man who understands what he has fallen into, and his +head, directed in turn toward all the heads which surrounded him, moved +on his neck with an astonished and attentive slowness, but there +was nothing in his air which resembled fear. He had improvised +an intrenchment out of the table; and the man, who but an instant +previously, had borne merely the appearance of a kindly old man, had +suddenly become a sort of athlete, and placed his robust fist on the +back of his chair, with a formidable and surprising gesture. + +This old man, who was so firm and so brave in the presence of such a +danger, seemed to possess one of those natures which are as courageous +as they are kind, both easily and simply. The father of a woman whom we +love is never a stranger to us. Marius felt proud of that unknown man. + +Three of the men, of whom Jondrette had said: "They are +chimney-builders," had armed themselves from the pile of old iron, one +with a heavy pair of shears, the second with weighing-tongs, the third +with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without +uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely +opened his eyes. The Jondrette woman had seated herself beside him. + +Marius decided that in a few seconds more the moment for intervention +would arrive, and he raised his right hand towards the ceiling, in the +direction of the corridor, in readiness to discharge his pistol. + +Jondrette having terminated his colloquy with the man with the cudgel, +turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeated his question, accompanying +it with that low, repressed, and terrible laugh which was peculiar to +him:-- + +"So you do not recognize me?" + +M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:-- + +"No." + +Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across the candle, +crossing his arms, putting his angular and ferocious jaw close to M. +Leblanc's calm face, and advancing as far as possible without forcing M. +Leblanc to retreat, and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to +bite, he exclaimed:-- + +"My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is +Thenardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? +Thenardier! Now do you know me?" + +An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc's brow, and he replied +with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, +with his accustomed placidity:-- + +"No more than before." + +Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen him at that moment +through the darkness would have perceived that he was haggard, +stupid, thunder-struck. At the moment when Jondrette said: "My name is +Thenardier," Marius had trembled in every limb, and had leaned against +the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. +Then his right arm, all ready to discharge the signal shot, dropped +slowly, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, "Thenardier, do you +understand?" Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol +fall. Jondrette, by revealing his identity, had not moved M. Leblanc, +but he had quite upset Marius. That name of Thenardier, with which M. +Leblanc did not seem to be acquainted, Marius knew well. Let the reader +recall what that name meant to him! That name he had worn on his heart, +inscribed in his father's testament! He bore it at the bottom of his +mind, in the depths of his memory, in that sacred injunction: "A certain +Thenardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all +the good that lies in his power." That name, it will be remembered, +was one of the pieties of his soul; he mingled it with the name of +his father in his worship. What! This man was that Thenardier, that +inn-keeper of Montfermeil whom he had so long and so vainly sought! He +had found him at last, and how? His father's saviour was a ruffian! +That man, to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself, was +a monster! That liberator of Colonel Pontmercy was on the point +of committing a crime whose scope Marius did not, as yet, clearly +comprehend, but which resembled an assassination! And against whom, +great God! what a fatality! What a bitter mockery of fate! His father +had commanded him from the depths of his coffin to do all the good in +his power to this Thenardier, and for four years Marius had cherished +no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father's, and at the +moment when he was on the eve of having a brigand seized in the very +act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him: "This is Thenardier!" +He could at last repay this man for his father's life, saved amid a +hail-storm of grape-shot on the heroic field of Waterloo, and repay it +with the scaffold! He had sworn to himself that if ever he found that +Thenardier, he would address him only by throwing himself at his feet; +and now he actually had found him, but it was only to deliver him over +to the executioner! His father said to him: "Succor Thenardier!" And he +replied to that adored and sainted voice by crushing Thenardier! He was +about to offer to his father in his grave the spectacle of that man who +had torn him from death at the peril of his own life, executed on the +Place Saint-Jacques through the means of his son, of that Marius to whom +he had entrusted that man by his will! And what a mockery to have so +long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own +hand, only to act in so horribly contrary a sense! But, on the other +hand, now look on that trap and not prevent it! Condemn the victim and +to spare the assassin! Could one be held to any gratitude towards so +miserable a wretch? All the ideas which Marius had cherished for the +last four years were pierced through and through, as it were, by this +unforeseen blow. + +He shuddered. Everything depended on him. Unknown to themselves, he +held in his hand all those beings who were moving about there before his +eyes. If he fired his pistol, M. Leblanc was saved, and Thenardier lost; +if he did not fire, M. Leblanc would be sacrificed, and, who knows? +Thenardier would escape. Should he dash down the one or allow the other +to fall? Remorse awaited him in either case. + +What was he to do? What should he choose? Be false to the most imperious +souvenirs, to all those solemn vows to himself, to the most sacred duty, +to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father's testament, +or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him +that he heard "his Ursule" supplicating for her father and on the other, +the colonel commending Thenardier to his care. He felt that he was going +mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he had not even the time for +deliberation, so great was the fury with which the scene before his eyes +was hastening to its catastrophe. It was like a whirlwind of which he +had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He +was on the verge of swooning. + +In the meantime, Thenardier, whom we shall henceforth call by no other +name, was pacing up and down in front of the table in a sort of frenzy +and wild triumph. + +He seized the candle in his fist, and set it on the chimney-piece with +so violent a bang that the wick came near being extinguished, and the +tallow bespattered the wall. + +Then he turned to M. Leblanc with a horrible look, and spit out these +words:-- + +"Done for! Smoked brown! Cooked! Spitchcocked!" + +And again he began to march back and forth, in full eruption. + +"Ah!" he cried, "so I've found you again at last, Mister philanthropist! +Mister threadbare millionnaire! Mister giver of dolls! you old +ninny! Ah! so you don't recognize me! No, it wasn't you who came to +Montfermeil, to my inn, eight years ago, on Christmas eve, 1823! It +wasn't you who carried off that Fantine's child from me! The Lark! It +wasn't you who had a yellow great-coat! No! Nor a package of duds in +your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his +mania to carry packets of woollen stockings into houses! Old charity +monger, get out with you! Are you a hosier, Mister millionnaire? You +give away your stock in trade to the poor, holy man! What bosh! merry +Andrew! Ah! and you don't recognize me? Well, I recognize you, that I +do! I recognized you the very moment you poked your snout in here. Ah! +you'll find out presently, that it isn't all roses to thrust yourself +in that fashion into people's houses, under the pretext that they are +taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one +would give a sou, to deceive persons, to play the generous, to take away +their means of livelihood, and to make threats in the woods, and you +can't call things quits because afterwards, when people are ruined, you +bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you +old blackguard, you child-stealer!" + +He paused, and seemed to be talking to himself for a moment. One would +have said that his wrath had fallen into some hole, like the Rhone; +then, as though he were concluding aloud the things which he had been +saying to himself in a whisper, he smote the table with his fist, and +shouted:-- + +"And with his goody-goody air!" + +And, apostrophizing M. Leblanc:-- + +"Parbleu! You made game of me in the past! You are the cause of all my +misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you got a girl whom I had, and +who certainly belonged to rich people, and who had already brought in a +great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live +on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for everything that +I lost in that vile cook-shop, where there was nothing but one continual +row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all +the wine folks drank in my house had been poison to those who drank it! +Well, never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridiculous when you +went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the +stronger. Revenge. I'm the one to hold the trumps to-day! You're in a +sorry case, my good fellow! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn't +he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was +Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle +Muche, that my landlord insisted on being paid tomorrow, the 4th of +February, and he didn't even notice that the 8th of January, and not the +4th of February is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot! +And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me! Scoundrel! +He hadn't the heart even to go as high as a hundred francs! And how +he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself: +'Blockhead! Come, I've got you! I lick your paws this morning, but I'll +gnaw your heart this evening!'" + +Thenardier paused. He was out of breath. His little, narrow chest panted +like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a +feeble, cruel, and cowardly creature, which finds that it can, at last, +harass what it has feared, and insult what it has flattered, the joy of +a dwarf who should be able to set his heel on the head of Goliath, the +joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead +that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently alive to suffer +still. + +M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said to him when he paused:-- + +"I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very +poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are +mistaking me for some other person." + +"Ah!" roared Thenardier hoarsely, "a pretty lie! You stick to that +pleasantry, do you! You're floundering, my old buck! Ah! You don't +remember! You don't see who I am?" + +"Excuse me, sir," said M. Leblanc with a politeness of accent, which at +that moment seemed peculiarly strange and powerful, "I see that you are +a villain!" + +Who has not remarked the fact that odious creatures possess a +susceptibility of their own, that monsters are ticklish! At this word +"villain," the female Thenardier sprang from the bed, Thenardier grasped +his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you +stir!" he shouted to his wife; and, turning to M. Leblanc:-- + +"Villain! Yes, I know that you call us that, you rich gentlemen! Stop! +it's true that I became bankrupt, that I am in hiding, that I have no +bread, that I have not a single sou, that I am a villain! It's three +days since I have had anything to eat, so I'm a villain! Ah! you folks +warm your feet, you have Sakoski boots, you have wadded great-coats, +like archbishops, you lodge on the first floor in houses that have +porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch +in the month of January, and green peas, you gorge yourselves, and when +you want to know whether it is cold, you look in the papers to see what +the engineer Chevalier's thermometer says about it. We, it is we who are +thermometers. We don't need to go out and look on the quay at the corner +of the Tour de l'Horologe, to find out the number of degrees of cold; +we feel our blood congealing in our veins, and the ice forming round our +hearts, and we say: 'There is no God!' And you come to our caverns, yes +our caverns, for the purpose of calling us villains! But we'll devour +you! But we'll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister +millionnaire: I have been a solid man, I have held a license, I have +been an elector, I am a bourgeois, that I am! And it's quite possible +that you are not!" + +Here Thenardier took a step towards the men who stood near the door, and +added with a shudder:-- + +"When I think that he has dared to come here and talk to me like a +cobbler!" + +Then addressing M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy:-- + +"And listen to this also, Mister philanthropist! I'm not a suspicious +character, not a bit of it! I'm not a man whose name nobody knows, and +who comes and abducts children from houses! I'm an old French soldier, +I ought to have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, so I was! And in the +battle I saved a general called the Comte of I don't know what. He told +me his name, but his beastly voice was so weak that I didn't hear. All I +caught was Merci [thanks]. I'd rather have had his name than his thanks. +That would have helped me to find him again. The picture that you see +here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,--do you know what +it represents? It represents me. David wished to immortalize that +feat of prowess. I have that general on my back, and I am carrying him +through the grape-shot. There's the history of it! That general never +did a single thing for me; he was no better than the rest! But none the +less, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate +of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! +And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let's have an +end of it. I want money, I want a deal of money, I must have an enormous +lot of money, or I'll exterminate you, by the thunder of the good God!" + +Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was +listening. The last possibility of doubt had just vanished. It certainly +was the Thenardier of the will. Marius shuddered at that reproach of +ingratitude directed against his father, and which he was on the point +of so fatally justifying. His perplexity was redoubled. + +Moreover, there was in all these words of Thenardier, in his accent, in +his gesture, in his glance which darted flames at every word, there +was, in this explosion of an evil nature disclosing everything, in that +mixture of braggadocio and abjectness, of pride and pettiness, of rage +and folly, in that chaos of real griefs and false sentiments, in +that immodesty of a malicious man tasting the voluptuous delights +of violence, in that shameless nudity of a repulsive soul, in that +conflagration of all sufferings combined with all hatreds, something +which was as hideous as evil, and as heart-rending as the truth. + +The picture of the master, the painting by David which he had proposed +that M. Leblanc should purchase, was nothing else, as the reader has +divined, than the sign of his tavern painted, as it will be remembered, +by himself, the only relic which he had preserved from his shipwreck at +Montfermeil. + +As he had ceased to intercept Marius' visual ray, Marius could examine +this thing, and in the daub, he actually did recognize a battle, a +background of smoke, and a man carrying another man. It was the group +composed of Pontmercy and Thenardier; the sergeant the rescuer, the +colonel rescued. Marius was like a drunken man; this picture restored +his father to life in some sort; it was no longer the signboard of the +wine-shop at Montfermeil, it was a resurrection; a tomb had yawned, a +phantom had risen there. Marius heard his heart beating in his temples, +he had the cannon of Waterloo in his ears, his bleeding father, vaguely +depicted on that sinister panel terrified him, and it seemed to him that +the misshapen spectre was gazing intently at him. + +When Thenardier had recovered his breath, he turned his bloodshot eyes +on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, curt voice:-- + +"What have you to say before we put the handcuffs on you?" + +M. Leblanc held his peace. + +In the midst of this silence, a cracked voice launched this lugubrious +sarcasm from the corridor:-- + +"If there's any wood to be split, I'm there!" + +It was the man with the axe, who was growing merry. + +At the same moment, an enormous, bristling, and clayey face made its +appearance at the door, with a hideous laugh which exhibited not teeth, +but fangs. + +It was the face of the man with the butcher's axe. + +"Why have you taken off your mask?" cried Thenardier in a rage. + +"For fun," retorted the man. + +For the last few minutes M. Leblanc had appeared to be watching and +following all the movements of Thenardier, who, blinded and dazzled by +his own rage, was stalking to and fro in the den with full confidence +that the door was guarded, and of holding an unarmed man fast, he being +armed himself, of being nine against one, supposing that the female +Thenardier counted for but one man. + +During his address to the man with the pole-axe, he had turned his back +to M. Leblanc. + +M. Leblanc seized this moment, overturned the chair with his foot and +the table with his fist, and with one bound, with prodigious agility, +before Thenardier had time to turn round, he had reached the window. To +open it, to scale the frame, to bestride it, was the work of a second +only. He was half out when six robust fists seized him and dragged +him back energetically into the hovel. These were the three +"chimney-builders," who had flung themselves upon him. At the same time +the Thenardier woman had wound her hands in his hair. + +At the trampling which ensued, the other ruffians rushed up from the +corridor. The old man on the bed, who seemed under the influence +of wine, descended from the pallet and came reeling up, with a +stone-breaker's hammer in his hand. + +One of the "chimney-builders," whose smirched face was lighted up by +the candle, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of his daubing, +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, lifted above M. Leblanc's +head a sort of bludgeon made of two balls of lead, at the two ends of a +bar of iron. + +Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive +me!" + +And his finger sought the trigger of his pistol. + +The shot was on the point of being discharged when Thenardier's voice +shouted:-- + +"Don't harm him!" + +This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thenardier, +had calmed him. There existed in him two men, the ferocious man and +the adroit man. Up to that moment, in the excess of his triumph in the +presence of the prey which had been brought down, and which did not +stir, the ferocious man had prevailed; when the victim struggled and +tried to resist, the adroit man reappeared and took the upper hand. + +"Don't hurt him!" he repeated, and without suspecting it, his first +success was to arrest the pistol in the act of being discharged, and to +paralyze Marius, in whose opinion the urgency of the case disappeared, +and who, in the face of this new phase, saw no inconvenience in waiting +a while longer. + +Who knows whether some chance would not arise which would deliver him +from the horrible alternative of allowing Ursule's father to perish, or +of destroying the colonel's saviour? + +A herculean struggle had begun. With one blow full in the chest, M. +Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, rolling in the middle of the +room, then with two backward sweeps of his hand he had overthrown two +more assailants, and he held one under each of his knees; the wretches +were rattling in the throat beneath this pressure as under a granite +millstone; but the other four had seized the formidable old man by both +arms and the back of his neck, and were holding him doubled up over the +two "chimney-builders" on the floor. + +Thus, the master of some and mastered by the rest, crushing those +beneath him and stifling under those on top of him, endeavoring in vain +to shake off all the efforts which were heaped upon him, M. Leblanc +disappeared under the horrible group of ruffians like the wild boar +beneath a howling pile of dogs and hounds. + +They succeeded in overthrowing him upon the bed nearest the window, and +there they held him in awe. The Thenardier woman had not released her +clutch on his hair. + +"Don't you mix yourself up in this affair," said Thenardier. "You'll +tear your shawl." + +The Thenardier obeyed, as the female wolf obeys the male wolf, with a +growl. + +"Now," said Thenardier, "search him, you other fellows!" + +M. Leblanc seemed to have renounced the idea of resistance. + +They searched him. + +He had nothing on his person except a leather purse containing six +francs, and his handkerchief. + +Thenardier put the handkerchief into his own pocket. + +"What! No pocket-book?" he demanded. + +"No, nor watch," replied one of the "chimney-builders." + +"Never mind," murmured the masked man who carried the big key, in the +voice of a ventriloquist, "he's a tough old fellow." + +Thenardier went to the corner near the door, picked up a bundle of ropes +and threw them at the men. + +"Tie him to the leg of the bed," said he. + +And, catching sight of the old man who had been stretched across the +room by the blow from M. Leblanc's fist, and who made no movement, he +added:-- + +"Is Boulatruelle dead?" + +"No," replied Bigrenaille, "he's drunk." + +"Sweep him into a corner," said Thenardier. + +Two of the "chimney-builders" pushed the drunken man into the corner +near the heap of old iron with their feet. + +"Babet," said Thenardier in a low tone to the man with the cudgel, "why +did you bring so many; they were not needed." + +"What can you do?" replied the man with the cudgel, "they all wanted to +be in it. This is a bad season. There's no business going on." + +The pallet on which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital +bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn. + +M. Leblanc let them take their own course. + +The ruffians bound him securely, in an upright attitude, with his feet +on the ground at the head of the bed, the end which was most remote from +the window, and nearest to the fireplace. + +When the last knot had been tied, Thenardier took a chair and seated +himself almost facing M. Leblanc. + +Thenardier no longer looked like himself; in the course of a few moments +his face had passed from unbridled violence to tranquil and cunning +sweetness. + +Marius found it difficult to recognize in that polished smile of a man +in official life the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming but a +moment before; he gazed with amazement on that fantastic and alarming +metamorphosis, and he felt as a man might feel who should behold a tiger +converted into a lawyer. + +"Monsieur--" said Thenardier. + +And dismissing with a gesture the ruffians who still kept their hands on +M. Leblanc:-- + +"Stand off a little, and let me have a talk with the gentleman." + +All retired towards the door. + +He went on:-- + +"Monsieur, you did wrong to try to jump out of the window. You might +have broken your leg. Now, if you will permit me, we will converse +quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation +which I have made which is, that you have not uttered the faintest cry." + +Thenardier was right, this detail was correct, although it had escaped +Marius in his agitation. M. Leblanc had barely pronounced a few words, +without raising his voice, and even during his struggle with the six +ruffians near the window he had preserved the most profound and singular +silence. + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"Mon Dieu! You might have shouted 'stop thief' a bit, and I should not +have thought it improper. 'Murder!' That, too, is said occasionally, +and, so far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. +It is very natural that you should make a little row when you find +yourself with persons who don't inspire you with sufficient confidence. +You might have done that, and no one would have troubled you on that +account. You would not even have been gagged. And I will tell you why. +This room is very private. That's its only recommendation, but it has +that in its favor. You might fire off a mortar and it would produce +about as much noise at the nearest police station as the snores of a +drunken man. Here a cannon would make a boum, and the thunder would make +a pouf. It's a handy lodging. But, in short, you did not shout, and +it is better so. I present you my compliments, and I will tell you the +conclusion that I draw from that fact: My dear sir, when a man shouts, +who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! You have not +made an outcry; that is because you don't care to have the police and +the courts come in any more than we do. It is because,--I have long +suspected it,--you have some interest in hiding something. On our side +we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding." + +As he spoke thus, it seemed as though Thenardier, who kept his eyes +fixed on M. Leblanc, were trying to plunge the sharp points which darted +from the pupils into the very conscience of his prisoner. Moreover, his +language, which was stamped with a sort of moderated, subdued insolence +and crafty insolence, was reserved and almost choice, and in that +rascal, who had been nothing but a robber a short time previously, one +now felt "the man who had studied for the priesthood." + +The silence preserved by the prisoner, that precaution which had been +carried to the point of forgetting all anxiety for his own life, that +resistance opposed to the first impulse of nature, which is to utter +a cry, all this, it must be confessed, now that his attention had +been called to it, troubled Marius, and affected him with painful +astonishment. + +Thenardier's well-grounded observation still further obscured for Marius +the dense mystery which enveloped that grave and singular person on whom +Courfeyrac had bestowed the sobriquet of Monsieur Leblanc. + +But whoever he was, bound with ropes, surrounded with executioners, half +plunged, so to speak, in a grave which was closing in upon him to the +extent of a degree with every moment that passed, in the presence +of Thenardier's wrath, as in the presence of his sweetness, this man +remained impassive; and Marius could not refrain from admiring at such a +moment the superbly melancholy visage. + +Here, evidently, was a soul which was inaccessible to terror, and which +did not know the meaning of despair. Here was one of those men who +command amazement in desperate circumstances. Extreme as was the crisis, +inevitable as was the catastrophe, there was nothing here of the agony +of the drowning man, who opens his horror-filled eyes under the water. + +Thenardier rose in an unpretending manner, went to the fireplace, shoved +aside the screen, which he leaned against the neighboring pallet, and +thus unmasked the brazier full of glowing coals, in which the prisoner +could plainly see the chisel white-hot and spotted here and there with +tiny scarlet stars. + +Then Thenardier returned to his seat beside M. Leblanc. + +"I continue," said he. "We can come to an understanding. Let us arrange +this matter in an amicable way. I was wrong to lose my temper just now, +I don't know what I was thinking of, I went a great deal too far, I said +extravagant things. For example, because you are a millionnaire, I told +you that I exacted money, a lot of money, a deal of money. That would +not be reasonable. Mon Dieu, in spite of your riches, you have expenses +of your own--who has not? I don't want to ruin you, I am not a greedy +fellow, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have +the advantage of the position, profit by the fact to make themselves +ridiculous. Why, I'm taking things into consideration and making a +sacrifice on my side. I only want two hundred thousand francs." + +M. Leblanc uttered not a word. + +Thenardier went on:-- + +"You see that I put not a little water in my wine; I'm very moderate. I +don't know the state of your fortune, but I do know that you don't stick +at money, and a benevolent man like yourself can certainly give two +hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. +Certainly, you are reasonable, too; you haven't imagined that I should +take all the trouble I have to-day and organized this affair this +evening, which has been labor well bestowed, in the opinion of these +gentlemen, merely to wind up by asking you for enough to go and drink +red wine at fifteen sous and eat veal at Desnoyer's. Two hundred +thousand francs--it's surely worth all that. This trifle once out of +your pocket, I guarantee you that that's the end of the matter, and that +you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me: 'But I haven't +two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh! I'm not extortionate. I don't +demand that. I only ask one thing of you. Have the goodness to write +what I am about to dictate to you." + +Here Thenardier paused; then he added, emphasizing his words, and +casting a smile in the direction of the brazier:-- + +"I warn you that I shall not admit that you don't know how to write." + +A grand inquisitor might have envied that smile. + +Thenardier pushed the table close to M. Leblanc, and took an inkstand, +a pen, and a sheet of paper from the drawer which he left half open, and +in which gleamed the long blade of the knife. + +He placed the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc. + +"Write," said he. + +The prisoner spoke at last. + +"How do you expect me to write? I am bound." + +"That's true, excuse me!" ejaculated Thenardier, "you are quite right." + +And turning to Bigrenaille:-- + +"Untie the gentleman's right arm." + +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, executed Thenardier's +order. + +When the prisoner's right arm was free, Thenardier dipped the pen in the +ink and presented it to him. + +"Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power, at our +discretion, that no human power can get you out of this, and that we +shall be really grieved if we are forced to proceed to disagreeable +extremities. I know neither your name, nor your address, but I warn you, +that you will remain bound until the person charged with carrying the +letter which you are about to write shall have returned. Now, be so good +as to write." + +"What?" demanded the prisoner. + +"I will dictate." + +M. Leblanc took the pen. + +Thenardier began to dictate:-- + +"My daughter--" + +The prisoner shuddered, and raised his eyes to Thenardier. + +"Put down 'My dear daughter'--" said Thenardier. + +M. Leblanc obeyed. + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"Come instantly--" + +He paused:-- + +"You address her as thou, do you not?" + +"Who?" asked M. Leblanc. + +"Parbleu!" cried Thenardier, "the little one, the Lark." + +M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:-- + +"I do not know what you mean." + +"Go on, nevertheless," ejaculated Thenardier, and he continued to +dictate:-- + +"Come immediately, I am in absolute need of thee. The person who will +deliver this note to thee is instructed to conduct thee to me. I am +waiting for thee. Come with confidence." + +M. Leblanc had written the whole of this. + +Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Ah! erase 'come with confidence'; that might lead her to suppose that +everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible." + +M. Leblanc erased the three words. + +"Now," pursued Thenardier, "sign it. What's your name?" + +The prisoner laid down the pen and demanded:-- + +"For whom is this letter?" + +"You know well," retorted Thenardier, "for the little one I just told +you so." + +It was evident that Thenardier avoided naming the young girl in +question. He said "the Lark," he said "the little one," but he did not +pronounce her name--the precaution of a clever man guarding his secret +from his accomplices. To mention the name was to deliver the whole +"affair" into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was +any need of their knowing. + +He went on:-- + +"Sign. What is your name?" + +"Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner. + +Thenardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket +and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He +looked for the mark on it, and held it close to the candle. + +"U. F. That's it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F." + +The prisoner signed. + +"As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it to me, I will +fold it." + +That done, Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Address it, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that you live +a long distance from here, near Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas, because you go +to mass there every day, but I don't know in what street. I see that +you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name, you +will not lie about your address. Write it yourself." + +The prisoner paused thoughtfully for a moment, then he took the pen and +wrote:-- + +"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, Rue Saint-Dominique-D'Enfer, +No. 17." + +Thenardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion. + +"Wife!" he cried. + +The Thenardier woman hastened to him. + +"Here's the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a carriage at +the door. Set out at once, and return ditto." + +And addressing the man with the meat-axe:-- + +"Since you have taken off your nose-screen, accompany the mistress. You +will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team?" + +"Yes," said the man. + +And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thenardier. + +As they set off, Thenardier thrust his head through the half-open door, +and shouted into the corridor:-- + +"Above all things, don't lose the letter! remember that you carry two +hundred thousand francs with you!" + +The Thenardier's hoarse voice replied:-- + +"Be easy. I have it in my bosom." + +A minute had not elapsed, when the sound of the cracking of a whip was +heard, which rapidly retreated and died away. + +"Good!" growled Thenardier. "They're going at a fine pace. At such a +gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour." + +He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms, and presenting +his muddy boots to the brazier. + +"My feet are cold!" said he. + +Only five ruffians now remained in the den with Thenardier and the +prisoner. + +These men, through the black masks or paste which covered their faces, +and made of them, at fear's pleasure, charcoal-burners, negroes, or +demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they +perpetrated a crime like a bit of work, tranquilly, without either wrath +or mercy, with a sort of ennui. They were crowded together in one corner +like brutes, and remained silent. + +Thenardier warmed his feet. + +The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had +succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled the garret but a few +moments before. + +The candle, on which a large "stranger" had formed, cast but a dim +light in the immense hovel, the brazier had grown dull, and all those +monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows on the walls and ceiling. + +No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man, +who was fast asleep. + +Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by every trifle. +The enigma was more impenetrable than ever. + +Who was this "little one" whom Thenardier had called the Lark? Was she +his "Ursule"? The prisoner had not seemed to be affected by that word, +"the Lark," and had replied in the most natural manner in the world: +"I do not know what you mean." On the other hand, the two letters U. F. +were explained; they meant Urbain Fabre; and Ursule was no longer named +Ursule. This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all. + +A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which +he was observing and commanding this whole scene. There he stood, +almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though annihilated by the +abominable things viewed at such close quarters. He waited, in the hope +of some incident, no matter of what nature, since he could not collect +his thoughts and did not know upon what course to decide. + +"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the +Thenardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then +I will give my life and my blood if necessary, but I will deliver her! +Nothing shall stop me." + +Nearly half an hour passed in this manner. Thenardier seemed to be +absorbed in gloomy reflections, the prisoner did not stir. Still, Marius +fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had heard a +faint, dull noise in the direction of the prisoner. + +All at once, Thenardier addressed the prisoner: + +"By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to you at once." + +These few words appeared to be the beginning of an explanation. Marius +strained his ears. + +"My wife will be back shortly, don't get impatient. I think that the +Lark really is your daughter, and it seems to me quite natural that you +should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her +up with your letter. I told my wife to dress herself in the way she did, +so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. +They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind. Somewhere, +outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed to two very good horses. +Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from the fiacre. +My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife will come +back here to tell us: 'It's done.' As for the young lady, no harm will +be done to her; the trap will conduct her to a place where she will be +quiet, and just as soon as you have handed over to me those little two +hundred thousand francs, she will be returned to you. If you have me +arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the Lark, that's +all." + +The prisoner uttered not a syllable. After a pause, Thenardier +continued:-- + +"It's very simple, as you see. There'll be no harm done unless you wish +that there should be harm done. I'm telling you how things stand. I warn +you so that you may be prepared." + +He paused: the prisoner did not break the silence, and Thenardier +resumed:-- + +"As soon as my wife returns and says to me: 'The Lark is on the way,' we +will release you, and you will be free to go and sleep at home. You see +that our intentions are not evil." + +Terrible images passed through Marius' mind. What! That young girl whom +they were abducting was not to be brought back? One of those monsters +was to bear her off into the darkness? Whither? And what if it were she! + +It was clear that it was she. Marius felt his heart stop beating. + +What was he to do? Discharge the pistol? Place all those scoundrels in +the hands of justice? But the horrible man with the meat-axe would, none +the less, be out of reach with the young girl, and Marius reflected on +Thenardier's words, of which he perceived the bloody significance: "If +you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the +Lark." + +Now, it was not alone by the colonel's testament, it was by his own +love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he felt himself +restrained. + +This frightful situation, which had already lasted above half an hour, +was changing its aspect every moment. + +Marius had sufficient strength of mind to review in succession all the +most heart-breaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding none. + +The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the funereal silence of the +den. + +In the midst of this silence, the door at the bottom of the staircase +was heard to open and shut again. + +The prisoner made a movement in his bonds. + +"Here's the bourgeoise," said Thenardier. + +He had hardly uttered the words, when the Thenardier woman did in fact +rush hastily into the room, red, panting, breathless, with flaming eyes, +and cried, as she smote her huge hands on her thighs simultaneously:-- + +"False address!" + +The ruffian who had gone with her made his appearance behind her and +picked up his axe again. + +She resumed:-- + +"Nobody there! Rue Saint-Dominique, No. 17, no Monsieur Urbain Fabre! +They know not what it means!" + +She paused, choking, then went on:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good, +you see! If it had been me, I'd have chopped the beast in four quarters +to begin with! And if he had acted ugly, I'd have boiled him alive! He +would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where +he keeps his shiners! That's the way I should have managed matters! +People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal stupider +than women! Nobody at No. 17. It's nothing but a big carriage gate! No +Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all that racing +and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the +portress, a fine, stout woman, and they know nothing about him!" + +Marius breathed freely once more. + +She, Ursule or the Lark, he no longer knew what to call her, was safe. + +While his exasperated wife vociferated, Thenardier had seated himself on +the table. + +For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right foot, +which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of savage revery. + +Finally, he said to the prisoner, with a slow and singularly ferocious +tone: + +"A false address? What did you expect to gain by that?" + +"To gain time!" cried the prisoner in a thundering voice, and at the +same instant he shook off his bonds; they were cut. The prisoner was +only attached to the bed now by one leg. + +Before the seven men had time to collect their senses and dash forward, +he had bent down into the fireplace, had stretched out his hand to the +brazier, and had then straightened himself up again, and now Thenardier, +the female Thenardier, and the ruffians, huddled in amazement at the +extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction, as almost free +and in a formidable attitude, he brandished above his head the red-hot +chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. + +The judicial examination to which the ambush in the Gorbeau house +eventually gave rise, established the fact that a large sou piece, cut +and worked in a peculiar fashion, was found in the garret, when the +police made their descent on it. This sou piece was one of those marvels +of industry, which are engendered by the patience of the galleys in +the shadows and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than +instruments of escape. These hideous and delicate products of wonderful +art are to jewellers' work what the metaphors of slang are to poetry. +There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, just as there are Villons +in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance finds means +sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common wooden-handled knife, +to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these plates without +affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow on the edge of the sou +in such a manner that the plates will adhere again. This can be screwed +together and unscrewed at will; it is a box. In this box he hides a +watch-spring, and this watch-spring, properly handled, cuts good-sized +chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate convict is supposed to possess +merely a sou; not at all, he possesses liberty. It was a large sou of +this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found +under the bed near the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel +which would fit the sou. + +It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his person at the +moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal +it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he +unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords which fastened him, +which would explain the faint noise and almost imperceptible movements +which Marius had observed. + +As he had not been able to bend down, for fear of betraying himself, he +had not cut the bonds of his left leg. + +The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise. + +"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thenardier. "He still holds by one leg, +and he can't get away. I'll answer for that. I tied that paw for him." + +In the meanwhile, the prisoner had begun to speak:-- + +"You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it. +When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make me write +what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say what I do not +choose to say--" + +He stripped up his left sleeve, and added:-- + +"See here." + +At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing chisel +which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on his bare flesh. + +The crackling of the burning flesh became audible, and the odor peculiar +to chambers of torture filled the hovel. + +[Illustration: Red Hot Chisel 3b8-20-red-hot-chisel] + +Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered, hardly a +muscle of the old man's face contracted, and while the red-hot iron +sank into the smoking wound, impassive and almost august, he fixed on +Thenardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no hatred, and where +suffering vanished in serene majesty. + +With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses +when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and +make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force +the captain to show himself. + +"Wretches!" said he, "have no more fear of me than I have for you!" + +And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window, +which had been left open; the horrible, glowing tool disappeared into +the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow. + +The prisoner resumed:-- + +"Do what you please with me." He was disarmed. + +"Seize him!" said Thenardier. + +Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked +man with the ventriloquist's voice took up his station in front of him, +ready to smash his skull at the slightest movement. + +At the same time, Marius heard below him, at the base of the partition, +but so near that he could not see who was speaking, this colloquy +conducted in a low tone:-- + +"There is only one thing left to do." + +"Cut his throat." + +"That's it." + +It was the husband and wife taking counsel together. + +Thenardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer, and +took out the knife. Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol. +Unprecedented perplexity! For the last hour he had had two voices in his +conscience, the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the +other crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices continued +uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him to agony. Up to that +moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should find some means +of reconciling these two duties, but nothing within the limits of +possibility had presented itself. + +However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been +reached; Thenardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces distant from +the prisoner. + +Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource of +despair. All at once a shudder ran through him. + +At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the full moon +illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this +paper he read the following line written that very morning, in large +letters, by the eldest of the Thenardier girls:-- + +"THE BOBBIES ARE HERE." + +An idea, a flash, crossed Marius' mind; this was the expedient of which +he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem which was +torturing him, of sparing the assassin and saving the victim. + +He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized the sheet of +paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the wall, wrapped the paper +round it, and tossed the whole through the crevice into the middle of +the den. + +It was high time. Thenardier had conquered his last fears or his last +scruples, and was advancing on the prisoner. + +"Something is falling!" cried the Thenardier woman. + +"What is it?" asked her husband. + +The woman darted forward and picked up the bit of plaster. She handed it +to her husband. + +"Where did this come from?" demanded Thenardier. + +"Pardie!" ejaculated his wife, "where do you suppose it came from? +Through the window, of course." + +"I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille. + +Thenardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it close to the candle. + +"It's in Eponine's handwriting. The devil!" + +He made a sign to his wife, who hastily drew near, and showed her the +line written on the sheet of paper, then he added in a subdued voice:-- + +"Quick! The ladder! Let's leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp!" + +"Without cutting that man's throat?" asked, the Thenardier woman. + +"We haven't the time." + +"Through what?" resumed Bigrenaille. + +"Through the window," replied Thenardier. "Since Ponine has thrown the +stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on +that side." + +The mask with the ventriloquist's voice deposited his huge key on the +floor, raised both arms in the air, and opened and clenched his fists, +three times rapidly without uttering a word. + +This was the signal like the signal for clearing the decks for action on +board ship. + +The ruffians who were holding the prisoner released him; in the +twinkling of an eye the rope ladder was unrolled outside the window, and +solidly fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. + +The prisoner paid no attention to what was going on around him. He +seemed to be dreaming or praying. + +As soon as the ladder was arranged, Thenardier cried: + +"Come! the bourgeoise first!" + +And he rushed headlong to the window. + +But just as he was about to throw his leg over, Bigrenaille seized him +roughly by the collar. + +"Not much, come now, you old dog, after us!" + +"After us!" yelled the ruffians. + +"You are children," said Thenardier, "we are losing time. The police are +on our heels." + +"Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down +first." + +Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste +time, do you? Draw lots, do you? By a wet finger, by a short straw! With +written names! Thrown into a hat!--" + +"Would you like my hat?" cried a voice on the threshold. + +All wheeled round. It was Javert. + +He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS + +At nightfall, Javert had posted his men and had gone into ambush himself +between the trees of the Rue de la Barrieredes-Gobelins which faced +the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun +operations by opening "his pockets," and dropping into it the two young +girls who were charged with keeping a watch on the approaches to the +den. But he had only "caged" Azelma. As for Eponine, she was not at her +post, she had disappeared, and he had not been able to seize her. Then +Javert had made a point and had bent his ear to waiting for the signal +agreed upon. The comings and goings of the fiacres had greatly agitated +him. At last, he had grown impatient, and, sure that there was a nest +there, sure of being in "luck," having recognized many of the ruffians +who had entered, he had finally decided to go upstairs without waiting +for the pistol-shot. + +It will be remembered that he had Marius' pass-key. + +He had arrived just in the nick of time. + +The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had +abandoned in all the corners at the moment of flight. In less than a +second, these seven men, horrible to behold, had grouped themselves in +an attitude of defence, one with his meat-axe, another with his key, +another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. +Thenardier had his knife in his fist. The Thenardier woman snatched up +an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the window and served +her daughters as an ottoman. + +[Illustration: Snatched up a Paving Stone 3b8-21-paving-stone] + +Javert put on his hat again, and advanced a couple of paces into the +room, with arms folded, his cane under one arm, his sword in its sheath. + +"Halt there," said he. "You shall not go out by the window, you shall go +through the door. It's less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there +are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of +Auvergne." + +Bigrenaille drew out a pistol which he had kept concealed under his +blouse, and put it in Thenardier's hand, whispering in the latter's +ear:-- + +"It's Javert. I don't dare fire at that man. Do you dare?" + +"Parbleu!" replied Thenardier. + +"Well, then, fire." + +Thenardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert. + +Javert, who was only three paces from him, stared intently at him and +contented himself with saying:-- + +"Come now, don't fire. You'll miss fire." + +Thenardier pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. + +"Didn't I tell you so!" ejaculated Javert. + +Bigrenaille flung his bludgeon at Javert's feet. + +"You're the emperor of the fiends! I surrender." + +"And you?" Javert asked the rest of the ruffians. + +They replied:-- + +"So do we." + +Javert began again calmly:-- + +"That's right, that's good, I said so, you are nice fellows." + +"I only ask one thing," said Bigrenaille, "and that is, that I may not +be denied tobacco while I am in confinement." + +"Granted," said Javert. + +And turning round and calling behind him:-- + +"Come in now!" + +A squad of policemen, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons and +cudgels, rushed in at Javert's summons. They pinioned the ruffians. + +This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den +with shadows. + +"Handcuff them all!" shouted Javert. + +"Come on!" cried a voice which was not the voice of a man, but of which +no one would ever have said: "It is a woman's voice." + +The Thenardier woman had entrenched herself in one of the angles of the +window, and it was she who had just given vent to this roar. + +The policemen and agents recoiled. + +She had thrown off her shawl, but retained her bonnet; her husband, who +was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded +shawl, and she was shielding him with her body, as she elevated the +paving-stone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point +of hurling a rock. + +"Beware!" she shouted. + +All crowded back towards the corridor. A broad open space was cleared in +the middle of the garret. + +The Thenardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed +themselves to be pinioned, and muttered in hoarse and guttural +accents:-- + +"The cowards!" + +Javert smiled, and advanced across the open space which the Thenardier +was devouring with her eyes. + +"Don't come near me," she cried, "or I'll crush you." + +"What a grenadier!" ejaculated Javert; "you've got a beard like a man, +mother, but I have claws like a woman." + +And he continued to advance. + +The Thenardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw +herself backwards, and hurled the paving-stone at Javert's head. Javert +ducked, the stone passed over him, struck the wall behind, knocked off a +huge piece of plastering, and, rebounding from angle to angle across the +hovel, now luckily almost empty, rested at Javert's feet. + +At the same moment, Javert reached the Thenardier couple. One of his +big hands descended on the woman's shoulder; the other on the husband's +head. + +"The handcuffs!" he shouted. + +The policemen trooped in in force, and in a few seconds Javert's order +had been executed. + +The Thenardier female, overwhelmed, stared at her pinioned hands, and +at those of her husband, who had dropped to the floor, and exclaimed, +weeping:-- + +"My daughters!" + +"They are in the jug," said Javert. + +In the meanwhile, the agents had caught sight of the drunken man asleep +behind the door, and were shaking him:-- + +He awoke, stammering:-- + +"Is it all over, Jondrette?" + +"Yes," replied Javert. + +The six pinioned ruffians were standing, and still preserved their +spectral mien; all three besmeared with black, all three masked. + +"Keep on your masks," said Javert. + +And passing them in review with a glance of a Frederick II. at a Potsdam +parade, he said to the three "chimney-builders":-- + +"Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards!" + +Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the +meat-axe:-- + +"Good day, Gueulemer!" + +And to the man with the cudgel:-- + +"Good day, Babet!" + +And to the ventriloquist:-- + +"Your health, Claquesous." + +At that moment, he caught sight of the ruffians' prisoner, who, ever +since the entrance of the police, had not uttered a word, and had held +his head down. + +"Untie the gentleman!" said Javert, "and let no one go out!" + +That said, he seated himself with sovereign dignity before the table, +where the candle and the writing-materials still remained, drew a +stamped paper from his pocket, and began to prepare his report. + +When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never vary, +he raised his eyes:-- + +"Let the gentleman whom these gentlemen bound step forward." + +The policemen glanced round them. + +"Well," said Javert, "where is he?" + +The prisoner of the ruffians, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of +Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. + +The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he had found +himself released from his bonds, and while Javert was drawing up his +report, he had taken advantage of confusion, the crowd, the darkness, +and of a moment when the general attention was diverted from him, to +dash out of the window. + +An agent sprang to the opening and looked out. He saw no one outside. + +The rope ladder was still shaking. + +"The devil!" ejaculated Javert between his teeth, "he must have been the +most valuable of the lot." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--THE LITTLE ONE WHO WAS CRYING IN VOLUME TWO + +On the day following that on which these events took place in the house +on the Boulevard de l'Hopital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the +direction of the bridge of Austerlitz, was ascending the side-alley on +the right in the direction of the Barriere de Fontainebleau. + +Night had fully come. + +This lad was pale, thin, clad in rags, with linen trousers in the month +of February, and was singing at the top of his voice. + +At the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, a bent old woman was +rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern; the +child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming:-- + +"Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!" + +He pronounced the word enormous the second time with a jeering swell +of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: "an +enormous, ENORMOUS dog." + +The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. + +"Nasty brat!" she grumbled. "If I hadn't been bending over, I know well +where I would have planted my foot on you." + +The boy was already far away. + +"Kisss! kisss!" he cried. "After that, I don't think I was mistaken!" + +The old woman, choking with indignation, now rose completely upright, +and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face, all +hollowed into angles and wrinkles, with crow's-feet meeting the corners +of her mouth. + +Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible. One +would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light +from the night. + +The boy surveyed her. + +"Madame," said he, "does not possess that style of beauty which pleases +me." + +He then pursued his road, and resumed his song:-- + + "Le roi Coupdesabot + S'en allait a la chasse, + A la chasse aux corbeaux--" + + +At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of +No. 50-52, and finding the door fastened, he began to assault it with +resounding and heroic kicks, which betrayed rather the man's shoes that +he was wearing than the child's feet which he owned. + +In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the +corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier hastened up behind him, uttering +clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures. + +"What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's +knocking the house down." + +The kicks continued. + +The old woman strained her lungs. + +"Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays?" + +All at once she paused. + +She had recognized the gamin. + +"What! so it's that imp!" + +"Why, it's the old lady," said the lad. "Good day, Bougonmuche. I have +come to see my ancestors." + +The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful +improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness, +which was, unfortunately, wasted in the dark:-- + +"There's no one here." + +"Bah!" retorted the boy, "where's my father?" + +"At La Force." + +"Come, now! And my mother?" + +"At Saint-Lazare." + +"Well! And my sisters?" + +"At the Madelonettes." + +The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma'am Bougon, and +said:-- + +"Ah!" + +Then he executed a pirouette on his heel; a moment later, the old woman, +who had remained on the door-step, heard him singing in his clear, young +voice, as he plunged under the black elm-trees, in the wintry wind:-- + + "Le roi Coupdesabot[31] + S'en allait a la chasse, + A la chasse aux corbeaux, + Monte sur deux echasses. + Quand on passait dessous, + On lui payait deux sous." + + +[THE END OF VOLUME III. "MARIUS"] + + + + + +VOLUME IV.--SAINT-DENIS. + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Four] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Four] + + +THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINT-DENIS + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY + + + + +CHAPTER I--WELL CUT + +1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the +Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments +of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those +which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary +grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. The social masses, +the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and +adhering interests, the century-old profiles of the ancient French +formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm +clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories. These appearances +and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. +At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried +shining there. + +This remarkable epoch is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to +be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal +lines even at the present day. + +We shall make the attempt. + +The Restoration had been one of those intermediate phases, hard to +define, in which there is fatigue, buzzing, murmurs, sleep, tumult, +and which are nothing else than the arrival of a great nation at a +halting-place. + +These epochs are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to +convert them to profit. In the beginning, the nation asks nothing but +repose; it thirsts for but one thing, peace; it has but one ambition, +to be small. Which is the translation of remaining tranquil. Of great +events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we +have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads. We would +exchange Caesar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. "What +a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have +reached the evening of a long and toilsome day; we have made our first +change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with +Bonaparte; we are worn out. Each one demands a bed. + +Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which +are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, +what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of +tranquillity, of leisure; behold, they are content. But, at the same +time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in +their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they +are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, +and they do install themselves therein; and most of the time, facts +are the stewards of the household and fouriers[32] who do nothing but +prepare lodgings for principles. + +This, then, is what appears to philosophical politicians:-- + +At the same time that weary men demand repose, accomplished facts demand +guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose is to men. + +This is what England demanded of the Stuarts after the Protector; this +is what France demanded of the Bourbons after the Empire. + +These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be accorded. +Princes "grant" them, but in reality, it is the force of things which +gives them. A profound truth, and one useful to know, which the Stuarts +did not suspect in 1662 and which the Bourbons did not even obtain a +glimpse of in 1814. + +The predestined family, which returned to France when Napoleon fell, had +the fatal simplicity to believe that it was itself which bestowed, and +that what it had bestowed it could take back again; that the House of +Bourbon possessed the right divine, that France possessed nothing, and +that the political right conceded in the charter of Louis XVIII. was +merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the House of +Bourbon and graciously given to the people until such day as it should +please the King to reassume it. Still, the House of Bourbon should have +felt, from the displeasure created by the gift, that it did not come +from it. + +This house was churlish to the nineteenth century. It put on an +ill-tempered look at every development of the nation. To make use of a +trivial word, that is to say, of a popular and a true word, it looked +glum. The people saw this. + +It thought it possessed strength because the Empire had been carried +away before it like a theatrical stage-setting. It did not perceive that +it had, itself, been brought in in the same fashion. It did not perceive +that it also lay in that hand which had removed Napoleon. + +It thought that it had roots, because it was the past. It was mistaken; +it formed a part of the past, but the whole past was France. The roots +of French society were not fixed in the Bourbons, but in the nations. +These obscure and lively roots constituted, not the right of a family, +but the history of a people. They were everywhere, except under the +throne. + +The House of Bourbon was to France the illustrious and bleeding knot in +her history, but was no longer the principal element of her destiny, +and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the +Bourbons; she had done without them for two and twenty years; there +had been a break of continuity; they did not suspect the fact. And how +should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. reigned +on the 9th of Thermidor, and that Louis XVIII. was reigning at the +battle of Marengo? Never, since the origin of history, had princes been +so blind in the presence of facts and the portion of divine authority +which facts contain and promulgate. Never had that pretension here below +which is called the right of kings denied to such a point the right from +on high. + +A capital error which led this family to lay its hand once more on the +guarantees "granted" in 1814, on the concessions, as it termed them. +Sad. A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests; +what it termed our encroachments were our rights. + +When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing +itself victorious over Bonaparte and well-rooted in the country, that is +to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its +plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up +before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the +collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, +of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation +that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a +citizen. + +This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the +ordinances of July. The Restoration fell. + +It fell justly. But, we admit, it had not been absolutely hostile to +all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished, with it +alongside. + +Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm +discussion, which had been lacking under the Republic, and to grandeur +in peace, which had been wanting under the Empire. France free and +strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of +Europe. The Revolution had had the word under Robespierre; the cannon +had had the word under Bonaparte; it was under Louis XVIII. and Charles +X. that it was the turn of intelligence to have the word. The wind +ceased, the torch was lighted once more. On the lofty heights, the +pure light of mind could be seen flickering. A magnificent, useful, and +charming spectacle. For a space of fifteen years, those great principles +which are so old for the thinker, so new for the statesman, could be +seen at work in perfect peace, on the public square; equality before the +law, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, the +accessibility of all aptitudes to all functions. Thus it proceeded until +1830. The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the +hands of Providence. + +The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their side, but +on the side of the nation. They quitted the throne with gravity, but +without authority; their descent into the night was not one of those +solemn disappearances which leave a sombre emotion in history; it +was neither the spectral calm of Charles I., nor the eagle scream of +Napoleon. They departed, that is all. They laid down the crown, and +retained no aureole. They were worthy, but they were not august. They +lacked, in a certain measure, the majesty of their misfortune. Charles +X. during the voyage from Cherbourg, causing a round table to be cut +over into a square table, appeared to be more anxious about imperilled +etiquette than about the crumbling monarchy. This diminution saddened +devoted men who loved their persons, and serious men who honored their +race. The populace was admirable. The nation, attacked one morning with +weapons, by a sort of royal insurrection, felt itself in the possession +of so much force that it did not go into a rage. It defended itself, +restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to +law, the Bourbons to exile, alas! and then halted! It took the old king +Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and +set him gently on the ground. It touched the royal personages only with +sadness and precaution. It was not one man, it was not a few men, it +was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her +victory, who seemed to be coming to herself, and who put into practice, +before the eyes of the whole world, these grave words of Guillaume du +Vair after the day of the Barricades:-- + +"It is easy for those who are accustomed to skim the favors of the +great, and to spring, like a bird from bough to bough, from an afflicted +fortune to a flourishing one, to show themselves harsh towards their +Prince in his adversity; but as for me, the fortune of my Kings and +especially of my afflicted Kings, will always be venerable to me." + +The Bourbons carried away with them respect, but not regret. As we have +just stated, their misfortune was greater than they were. They faded out +in the horizon. + +The Revolution of July instantly had friends and enemies throughout the +entire world. The first rushed toward her with joy and enthusiasm, the +others turned away, each according to his nature. At the first blush, +the princes of Europe, the owls of this dawn, shut their eyes, wounded +and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be +comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had +hardly produced a shock; it had not even paid to vanquished royalty the +honor of treating it as an enemy, and of shedding its blood. In the eyes +of despotic governments, who are always interested in having liberty +calumniate itself, the Revolution of July committed the fault of being +formidable and of remaining gentle. Nothing, however, was attempted or +plotted against it. The most discontented, the most irritated, the most +trembling, saluted it; whatever our egotism and our rancor may be, a +mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the +collaboration of some one who is working above man. + +The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A +thing which is full of splendor. + +Right overthrowing the fact. Hence the brilliancy of the Revolution of +1830, hence, also, its mildness. Right triumphant has no need of being +violent. + +Right is the just and the true. + +The property of right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure. The +fact, even when most necessary to all appearances, even when most +thoroughly accepted by contemporaries, if it exist only as a fact, and +if it contain only too little of right, or none at all, is infallibly +destined to become, in the course of time, deformed, impure, perhaps, +even monstrous. If one desires to learn at one blow, to what degree of +hideousness the fact can attain, viewed at the distance of centuries, +let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a +demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer; he is nothing but the fact. +And he is not only the Italian fact; he is the European fact, the +fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the +presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth. + +This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin +of society. To terminate this duel, to amalgamate the pure idea with the +humane reality, to cause right to penetrate pacifically into the fact +and the fact into right, that is the task of sages. + + + + +CHAPTER II--BADLY SEWED + +But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another. +The Revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt. + +As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to +prepare the shipwreck. + +The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the title of +Statesmen; so that this word, statesmen, has ended by becoming somewhat +of a slang word. It must be borne in mind, in fact, that wherever +there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To say "the +skilful" amounts to saying "the mediocre." + +In the same way, to say "statesmen" is sometimes equivalent to saying +"traitors." If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions like +the Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature is +indispensable. The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken. Also, right +once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured, +attention must be directed to power. + +Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they +begin to be distrustful. Power, very good. But, in the first place, what +is power? In the second, whence comes it? The skilful do not seem to +hear the murmured objection, and they continue their manoeuvres. + +According to the politicians, who are ingenious in putting the mask +of necessity on profitable fictions, the first requirement of a people +after a revolution, when this people forms part of a monarchical +continent, is to procure for itself a dynasty. In this way, say they, +peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair +the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the +scaffolding and covers the ambulance. Now, it is not always easy to +procure a dynasty. + +If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the first +man of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of a +king. You have, in the first case, Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide. + +But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a +dynasty. There is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity in +a race, and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised. + +If we place ourselves at the point of view of the "statesmen," after +making all allowances, of course, after a revolution, what are the +qualities of the king which result from it? He may be and it is useful +for him to be a revolutionary; that is to say, a participant in his own +person in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, that +he should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein, that +he should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it. + +What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be national; that is to +say, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but by +reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic; +be composed of future and be sympathetic. + +All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with +finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon; and why the second absolutely +insisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House of +Orleans. + +Royal houses resemble those Indian fig-trees, each branch of which, +bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself. +Each branch may become a dynasty. On the sole condition that it shall +bend down to the people. + +Such is the theory of the skilful. + +Here, then, lies the great art: to make a little render to success the +sound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremble +from it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augment +the curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress, to dull +that aurora, to denounce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm, to +cut all angles and nails, to wad triumph, to muffle up right, to envelop +the giant-people in flannel, and to put it to bed very speedily, to +impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment +of a convalescent, to dilute the event with the expedient, to offer to +spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with a potion, +to take one's precautions against too much success, to garnish the +revolution with a shade. + +1830 practised this theory, already applied to England by 1688. + +1830 is a revolution arrested midway. Half of progress, quasi-right. +Now, logic knows not the "almost," absolutely as the sun knows not the +candle. + +Who arrests revolutions half-way? The bourgeoisie? + +Why? + +Because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction. +Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will be +satiety. + +The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after +Charles X. + +The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the +bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the +people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair +is not a caste. + +But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march +of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. + +One is not a class because one has committed a fault. Selfishness is not +one of the divisions of the social order. + +Moreover, we must be just to selfishness. The state to which that part +of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock +of 1830 was not the inertia which is complicated with indifference and +laziness, and which contains a little shame; it was not the slumber +which presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams; it was +the halt. + +The halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictory +sense: a troop on the march, that is to say, movement; a stand, that is +to say, repose. + +The halt is the restoration of forces; it is repose armed and on the +alert; it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holds +itself on its guard. + +The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of +to-morrow. + +It is the partition between 1830 and 1848. + +What we here call combat may also be designated as progress. + +The bourgeoisie then, as well as the statesmen, required a man who +should express this word Halt. An Although-Because. A composite +individuality, signifying revolution and signifying stability, in other +terms, strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of the +past with the future. + +This man was "already found." His name was Louis Philippe d'Orleans. + +The 221 made Louis Philippe King. Lafayette undertook the coronation. + +He called it the best of republics. The town-hall of Paris took the +place of the Cathedral of Rheims. + +This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was "the work of +1830." + +When the skilful had finished, the immense vice of their solution became +apparent. All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute +right. Absolute right cried: "I protest!" then, terrible to say, it +retired into the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER III--LOUIS PHILIPPE + +Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and +choose well. Even incomplete, even debased and abused and reduced to the +state of a junior revolution like the Revolution of 1830, they nearly +always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from +falling amiss. Their eclipse is never an abdication. + +Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly; revolutions also may be +deceived, and grave errors have been seen. + +Let us return to 1830. 1830, in its deviation, had good luck. In the +establishment which entitled itself order after the revolution had been +cut short, the King amounted to more than royalty. Louis Philippe was a +rare man. + +The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating +circumstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of +blame; possessing all private virtues and many public virtues; careful +of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing +the value of a minute and not always the value of a year; sober, serene, +peaceable, patient; a good man and a good prince; sleeping with his +wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing +the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular +sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate +displays of the elder branch; knowing all the languages of Europe, and, +what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking +them; an admirable representative of the "middle class," but +outstripping it, and in every way greater than it; possessing excellent +sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting +most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race, +very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly +the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene +Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king; diffuse in +public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at +bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own +fancy or duty; lettered, but not very sensitive to letters; a gentleman, +but not a chevalier; simple, calm, and strong; adored by his family and +his household; a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly +cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest +range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of +superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to +put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under +thrones; unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but +with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in +countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! +Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming +more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a +disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns +everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely +repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves +politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society +from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, +indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the +lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, +bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the Marseillaise +with conviction, inaccessible to despondency, to lassitude, to the taste +for the beautiful and the ideal, to daring generosity, to Utopia, to +chimeras, to wrath, to vanity, to fear; possessing all the forms +of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; +attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling. Brave as a +grenadier, courageous as a thinker; uneasy only in the face of the +chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political +adventures; always ready to risk his life, never his work; disguising +his will in influence, in order that he might be obeyed as an +intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not +with divination; not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is +to say requiring to see in order to judge; prompt and penetrating +good sense, practical wisdom, easy speech, prodigious memory; drawing +incessantly on this memory, his only point of resemblance with Caesar, +Alexander, and Napoleon; knowing deeds, facts, details, dates, proper +names, ignorant of tendencies, passions, the diverse geniuses of the +crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of +souls, in a word, all that can be designated as the invisible currents +of consciences; accepted by the surface, but little in accord with +France lower down; extricating himself by dint of tact; governing too +much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out +of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; +mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization, of order and +organization, an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery, the +founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and +something of an attorney; in short, a lofty and original figure, a +prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness +of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe. Louis Philippe +will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be +ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved +glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to +the same degree as the feeling for what is useful. + +Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained +graceful; not always approved by the nation, he always was so by the +masses; he pleased. He had that gift of charming. He lacked majesty; he +wore no crown, although a king, and no white hair, although an old man; +his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new; a +mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830; Louis Philippe +was transition reigning; he had preserved the ancient pronunciation +and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions +modern; he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote les Polonois, and he +pronounced les Hongrais. He wore the uniform of the national guard, like +Charles X., and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, like Napoleon. + +He went a little to chapel, not at all to the chase, never to the opera. +Incorruptible by sacristans, by whippers-in, by ballet-dancers; this +made a part of his bourgeois popularity. He had no heart. He went out +with his umbrella under his arm, and this umbrella long formed a part of +his aureole. He was a bit of a mason, a bit of a gardener, something +of a doctor; he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse; Louis +Philippe no more went about without his lancet, than did Henri IV. +without his poniard. The Royalists jeered at this ridiculous king, the +first who had ever shed blood with the object of healing. + +For the grievances against Louis Philippe, there is one deduction to be +made; there is that which accuses royalty, that which accuses the reign, +that which accuses the King; three columns which all give different +totals. Democratic right confiscated, progress becomes a matter of +secondary interest, the protests of the street violently repressed, +military execution of insurrections, the rising passed over by arms, the +Rue Transnonain, the counsels of war, the absorption of the real +country by the legal country, on half shares with three hundred thousand +privileged persons,--these are the deeds of royalty; Belgium refused, +Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the +English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to +Abd-el-Kader, Blaye, Deutz bought, Pritchard paid,--these are the doings +of the reign; the policy which was more domestic than national was the +doing of the King. + +As will be seen, the proper deduction having been made, the King's +charge is decreased. + +This is his great fault; he was modest in the name of France. + +Whence arises this fault? + +We will state it. + +Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king; that incubation +of a family with the object of founding a dynasty is afraid of +everything and does not like to be disturbed; hence excessive timidity, +which is displeasing to the people, who have the 14th of July in their +civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition. + +Moreover, if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled +first of all, that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his +family was deserved by the family. That domestic group was worthy of +admiration. Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents. One of Louis +Philippe's daughters, Marie d'Orleans, placed the name of her race among +artists, as Charles d'Orleans had placed it among poets. She made of +her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d'Arc. Two of Louis Philippe's +daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium: "They are young people +such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen." + +This, without any dissimulation, and also without any exaggeration, is +the truth about Louis Philippe. + +To be Prince Equality, to bear in his own person the contradiction of +the Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the +revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power, therein lay +the fortune of Louis Philippe in 1830; never was there a more complete +adaptation of a man to an event; the one entered into the other, and the +incarnation took place. Louis Philippe is 1830 made man. Moreover, he +had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne, exile. He had +been proscribed, a wanderer, poor. He had lived by his own labor. In +Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had +sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave +lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and +sewed. These souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie +enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of +Mont-Saint-Michel, built by Louis XI, and used by Louis XV. He was the +companion of Dumouriez, he was the friend of Lafayette; he had belonged +to the Jacobins' club; Mirabeau had slapped him on the shoulder; Danton +had said to him: "Young man!" At the age of four and twenty, in '93, +being then M. de Chartres, he had witnessed, from the depth of a box, +the trial of Louis XVI., so well named that poor tyrant. The blind +clairvoyance of the Revolution, breaking royalty in the King and the +King with royalty, did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce +crushing of the idea, the vast storm of the Assembly-Tribunal, the +public wrath interrogating, Capet not knowing what to reply, the +alarming, stupefied vacillation by that royal head beneath that sombre +breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those +who condemned as well as of the man condemned,--he had looked on those +things, he had contemplated that giddiness; he had seen the centuries +appear before the bar of the Assembly-Convention; he had beheld, behind +Louis XVI., that unfortunate passer-by who was made responsible, the +terrible culprit, the monarchy, rise through the shadows; and there had +lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of +the populace, which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God. + +The trace left in him by the Revolution was prodigious. Its memory was +like a living imprint of those great years, minute by minute. One day, +in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt, he +rectified from memory the whole of the letter A in the alphabetical list +of the Constituent Assembly. + +Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight. While he reigned the +press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. +The laws of September are open to sight. Although fully aware of the +gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the +light. History will do justice to him for this loyalty. + +Louis Philippe, like all historical men who have passed from the scene, +is to-day put on his trial by the human conscience. His case is, as yet, +only in the lower court. + +The hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent, has +not yet sounded for him; the moment has not come to pronounce a definite +judgment on this king; the austere and illustrious historian Louis Blanc +has himself recently softened his first verdict; Louis Philippe was +elected by those two almosts which are called the 221 and 1830, that is +to say, by a half-Parliament, and a half-revolution; and in any case, +from the superior point of view where philosophy must place itself, we +cannot judge him here, as the reader has seen above, except with certain +reservations in the name of the absolute democratic principle; in the +eyes of the absolute, outside these two rights, the right of man in the +first place, the right of the people in the second, all is usurpation; +but what we can say, even at the present day, that after making these +reserves is, that to sum up the whole, and in whatever manner he is +considered, Louis Philippe, taken in himself, and from the point of view +of human goodness, will remain, to use the antique language of ancient +history, one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne. + +What is there against him? That throne. Take away Louis Philippe the +king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times +even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest +souvenirs, after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the +continent, he returned at night to his apartments, and there, exhausted +with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death +sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit, considering +it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it was a still +greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner. He obstinately +maintained his opinion against his keeper of the seals; he disputed the +ground with the guillotine foot by foot against the crown attorneys, +those chatterers of the law, as he called them. Sometimes the pile of +sentences covered his table; he examined them all; it was anguish to +him to abandon these miserable, condemned heads. One day, he said to +the same witness to whom we have recently referred: "I won seven last +night." During the early years of his reign, the death penalty was +as good as abolished, and the erection of a scaffold was a violence +committed against the King. The Greve having disappeared with the elder +branch, a bourgeois place of execution was instituted under the name +of the Barriere-Saint-Jacques; "practical men" felt the necessity of +a quasi-legitimate guillotine; and this was one of the victories of +Casimir Perier, who represented the narrow sides of the bourgeoisie, +over Louis Philippe, who represented its liberal sides. Louis Philippe +annotated Beccaria with his own hand. After the Fieschi machine, he +exclaimed: "What a pity that I was not wounded! Then I might have +pardoned!" On another occasion, alluding to the resistance offered by +his ministry, he wrote in connection with a political criminal, who is +one of the most generous figures of our day: "His pardon is granted; it +only remains for me to obtain it." Louis Philippe was as gentle as Louis +IX. and as kindly as Henri IV. + +Now, to our mind, in history, where kindness is the rarest of pearls, +the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great. + +Louis Philippe having been severely judged by some, harshly, perhaps, by +others, it is quite natural that a man, himself a phantom at the present +day, who knew that king, should come and testify in his favor before +history; this deposition, whatever else it may be, is evidently and +above all things, entirely disinterested; an epitaph penned by a dead +man is sincere; one shade may console another shade; the sharing of the +same shadows confers the right to praise it; it is not greatly to +be feared that it will ever be said of two tombs in exile: "This one +flattered the other." + + + + +CHAPTER IV--CRACKS BENEATH THE FOUNDATION + +At the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of +penetrating into the depths of one of the tragic clouds which envelop +the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, it was necessary that there +should be no equivoque, and it became requisite that this book should +offer some explanation with regard to this king. + +Louis Philippe had entered into possession of his royal authority +without violence, without any direct action on his part, by virtue of a +revolutionary change, evidently quite distinct from the real aim of the +Revolution, but in which he, the Duc d'Orleans, exercised no personal +initiative. He had been born a Prince, and he believed himself to have +been elected King. He had not served this mandate on himself; he had not +taken it; it had been offered to him, and he had accepted it; convinced, +wrongly, to be sure, but convinced nevertheless, that the offer was in +accordance with right and that the acceptance of it was in accordance +with duty. Hence his possession was in good faith. Now, we say it in +good conscience, Louis Philippe being in possession in perfect good +faith, and the democracy being in good faith in its attack, the amount +of terror discharged by the social conflicts weighs neither on the +King nor on the democracy. A clash of principles resembles a clash of +elements. The ocean defends the water, the hurricane defends the +air, the King defends Royalty, the democracy defends the people; the +relative, which is the monarchy, resists the absolute, which is the +republic; society bleeds in this conflict, but that which constitutes +its suffering to-day will constitute its safety later on; and, in any +case, those who combat are not to be blamed; one of the two parties is +evidently mistaken; the right is not, like the Colossus of Rhodes, on +two shores at once, with one foot on the republic, and one in Royalty; +it is indivisible, and all on one side; but those who are in error are +so sincerely; a blind man is no more a criminal than a Vendean is a +ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these +formidable collisions. Whatever the nature of these tempests may be, +human irresponsibility is mingled with them. + +Let us complete this exposition. + +The government of 1830 led a hard life immediately. Born yesterday, it +was obliged to fight to-day. + +Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements +of traction on the apparatus of July so recently laid, and so lacking in +solidity. + +Resistance was born on the morrow; perhaps even, it was born on the +preceding evening. From month to month the hostility increased, and from +being concealed it became patent. + +The Revolution of July, which gained but little acceptance outside of +France by kings, had been diversely interpreted in France, as we have +said. + +God delivers over to men his visible will in events, an obscure text +written in a mysterious tongue. Men immediately make translations of it; +translations hasty, incorrect, full of errors, of gaps, and of nonsense. +Very few minds comprehend the divine language. The most sagacious, the +calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with +their text, the task has long been completed; there are already twenty +translations on the public place. From each remaining springs a party, +and from each misinterpretation a faction; and each party thinks that it +alone has the true text, and each faction thinks that it possesses the +light. + +Power itself is often a faction. + +There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current; they are +the old parties. + +For the old parties who clung to heredity by the grace of God, think +that revolutions, having sprung from the right to revolt, one has the +right to revolt against them. Error. For in these revolutions, the one +who revolts is not the people; it is the king. Revolution is precisely +the contrary of revolt. Every revolution, being a normal outcome, +contains within itself its legitimacy, which false revolutionists +sometimes dishonor, but which remains even when soiled, which survives +even when stained with blood. + +Revolutions spring not from an accident, but from necessity. A +revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real. It is because it +must be that it is. + +None the less did the old legitimist parties assail the Revolution of +1830 with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning. Errors +make excellent projectiles. They strike it cleverly in its vulnerable +spot, in default of a cuirass, in its lack of logic; they attacked this +revolution in its royalty. They shouted to it: "Revolution, why this +king?" Factions are blind men who aim correctly. + +This cry was uttered equally by the republicans. But coming from +them, this cry was logical. What was blindness in the legitimists was +clearness of vision in the democrats. 1830 had bankrupted the people. +The enraged democracy reproached it with this. + +Between the attack of the past and the attack of the future, the +establishment of July struggled. It represented the minute at +loggerheads on the one hand with the monarchical centuries, on the other +hand with eternal right. + +In addition, and beside all this, as it was no longer revolution and had +become a monarchy, 1830 was obliged to take precedence of all Europe. To +keep the peace, was an increase of complication. A harmony established +contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war. From this secret +conflict, always muzzled, but always growling, was born armed peace, +that ruinous expedient of civilization which in the harness of the +European cabinets is suspicious in itself. The Royalty of July reared +up, in spite of the fact that it caught it in the harness of European +cabinets. Metternich would gladly have put it in kicking-straps. Pushed +on in France by progress, it pushed on the monarchies, those loiterers +in Europe. After having been towed, it undertook to tow. + +Meanwhile, within her, pauperism, the proletariat, salary, education, +penal servitude, prostitution, the fate of the woman, wealth, misery, +production, consumption, division, exchange, coin, credit, the rights of +capital, the rights of labor,--all these questions were multiplied above +society, a terrible slope. + +Outside of political parties properly so called, another movement became +manifest. Philosophical fermentation replied to democratic fermentation. +The elect felt troubled as well as the masses; in another manner, but +quite as much. + +Thinkers meditated, while the soil, that is to say, the people, +traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled under them with +indescribably vague epileptic shocks. These dreamers, some isolated, +others united in families and almost in communion, turned over social +questions in a pacific but profound manner; impassive miners, who +tranquilly pushed their galleries into the depths of a volcano, hardly +disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught +glimpses. + +This tranquillity was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitated +epoch. + +These men left to political parties the question of rights, they +occupied themselves with the question of happiness. + +The well-being of man, that was what they wanted to extract from +society. + +They raised material questions, questions of agriculture, of industry, +of commerce, almost to the dignity of a religion. In civilization, such +as it has formed itself, a little by the command of God, a great deal by +the agency of man, interests combine, unite, and amalgamate in a +manner to form a veritable hard rock, in accordance with a dynamic law, +patiently studied by economists, those geologists of politics. These men +who grouped themselves under different appellations, but who may all be +designated by the generic title of socialists, endeavored to pierce that +rock and to cause it to spout forth the living waters of human felicity. + +From the question of the scaffold to the question of war, their works +embraced everything. To the rights of man, as proclaimed by the French +Revolution, they added the rights of woman and the rights of the child. + +The reader will not be surprised if, for various reasons, we do not +here treat in a thorough manner, from the theoretical point of view, the +questions raised by socialism. We confine ourselves to indicating them. + +All the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves, cosmogonic +visions, revery and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two +principal problems. + +First problem: To produce wealth. + +Second problem: To share it. + +The first problem contains the question of work. + +The second contains the question of salary. + +In the first problem the employment of forces is in question. + +In the second, the distribution of enjoyment. + +From the proper employment of forces results public power. + +From a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness. + +By a good distribution, not an equal but an equitable distribution must +be understood. + +From these two things combined, the public power without, individual +happiness within, results social prosperity. + +Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation +great. + +England solves the first of these two problems. She creates wealth +admirably, she divides it badly. This solution which is complete on +one side only leads her fatally to two extremes: monstrous opulence, +monstrous wretchedness. All enjoyments for some, all privations for the +rest, that is to say, for the people; privilege, exception, monopoly, +feudalism, born from toil itself. A false and dangerous situation, which +sates public power or private misery, which sets the roots of the State +in the sufferings of the individual. A badly constituted grandeur in +which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral +element enters. + +Communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem. +They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition +abolishes emulation; and consequently labor. It is a partition made +by the butcher, which kills that which it divides. It is therefore +impossible to pause over these pretended solutions. Slaying wealth is +not the same thing as dividing it. + +The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The +two problems must be combined and made but one. + +Solve only the first of the two problems; you will be Venice, you will +be England. You will have, like Venice, an artificial power, or, like +England, a material power; you will be the wicked rich man. You will die +by an act of violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, as England +will fall. And the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely +selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a +virtue or an idea. + +It is well understood here, that by the words Venice, England, we +designate not the peoples, but social structures; the oligarchies +superposed on nations, and not the nations themselves. The nations +always have our respect and our sympathy. Venice, as a people, will live +again; England, the aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is +immortal. That said, we continue. + +Solve the two problems, encourage the wealthy, and protect the poor, +suppress misery, put an end to the unjust farming out of the feeble by +the strong, put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who +is making his way against the man who has reached the goal, adjust, +mathematically and fraternally, salary to labor, mingle gratuitous and +compulsory education with the growth of childhood, and make of science +the base of manliness, develop minds while keeping arms busy, be at one +and the same time a powerful people and a family of happy men, render +property democratic, not by abolishing it, but by making it universal, +so that every citizen, without exception, may be a proprietor, an easier +matter than is generally supposed; in two words, learn how to produce +wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have at once moral and +material greatness; and you will be worthy to call yourself France. + +This is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have +gone astray; that is what it sought in facts, that is what it sketched +out in minds. + +Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts! + +These doctrines, these theories, these resistances, the unforeseen +necessity for the statesman to take philosophers into account, confused +evidences of which we catch a glimpse, a new system of politics to be +created, which shall be in accord with the old world without too much +disaccord with the new revolutionary ideal, a situation in which it +became necessary to use Lafayette to defend Polignac, the intuition of +progress transparent beneath the revolt, the chambers and streets, the +competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him, his faith in +the Revolution, perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the +vague acceptance of a superior definitive right, his desire to remain of +his race, his domestic spirit, his sincere respect for the people, his +own honesty, preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully, and there were +moments when strong and courageous as he was, he was overwhelmed by the +difficulties of being a king. + +He felt under his feet a formidable disaggregation, which was not, +nevertheless, a reduction to dust, France being more France than ever. + +Piles of shadows covered the horizon. A strange shade, gradually drawing +nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas; +a shade which came from wraths and systems. Everything which had been +hastily stifled was moving and fermenting. At times the conscience of +the honest man resumed its breathing, so great was the discomfort +of that air in which sophisms were intermingled with truths. Spirits +trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm. +The electric tension was such that at certain instants, the first comer, +a stranger, brought light. Then the twilight obscurity closed in again. +At intervals, deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed +as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud. + +Twenty months had barely elapsed since the Revolution of July, the year +1832 had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening. + +The distress of the people, the laborers without bread, the last Prince +de Conde engulfed in the shadows, Brussels expelling the Nassaus as +Paris did the Bourbons, Belgium offering herself to a French Prince +and giving herself to an English Prince, the Russian hatred of Nicolas, +behind us the demons of the South, Ferdinand in Spain, Miguel in +Portugal, the earth quaking in Italy, Metternich extending his hand over +Bologna, France treating Austria sharply at Ancona, at the North no one +knew what sinister sound of the hammer nailing up Poland in her coffin, +irritated glances watching France narrowly all over Europe, England, a +suspected ally, ready to give a push to that which was tottering and to +hurl herself on that which should fall, the peerage sheltering itself +behind Beccaria to refuse four heads to the law, the fleurs-de-lys +erased from the King's carriage, the cross torn from Notre Dame, +Lafayette lessened, Laffitte ruined, Benjamin Constant dead in +indigence, Casimir Perier dead in the exhaustion of his power; political +and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the +kingdom, the one in the city of thought, the other in the city of toil; +at Paris civil war, at Lyons servile war; in the two cities, the same +glare of the furnace; a crater-like crimson on the brow of the people; +the South rendered fanatic, the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in +la Vendee, plots, conspiracies, risings, cholera, added the sombre roar +of tumult of events to the sombre roar of ideas. + + + + +CHAPTER V--FACTS WHENCE HISTORY SPRINGS AND WHICH HISTORY IGNORES + +Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The +fermentation entered the boiling state. Ever since 1830, petty partial +revolts had been going on here and there, which were quickly suppressed, +but ever bursting forth afresh, the sign of a vast underlying +conflagration. Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could be +caught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly lighted, of a +possible revolution. France kept an eye on Paris; Paris kept an eye on +the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its +ebullition. + +[Illustration: A Street Orator 4b1-5-street-orator] + +The wine-shops of the Rue de Charonne were, although the union of +the two epithets seems singular when applied to wine-shops, grave and +stormy. + +The government was there purely and simply called in question. There +people publicly discussed the question of fighting or of keeping quiet. +There were back shops where workingmen were made to swear that they +would hasten into the street at the first cry of alarm, and "that they +would fight without counting the number of the enemy." This engagement +once entered into, a man seated in the corner of the wine-shop "assumed +a sonorous tone," and said, "You understand! You have sworn!" + +Sometimes they went up stairs, to a private room on the first floor, +and there scenes that were almost masonic were enacted. They made the +initiated take oaths to render service to himself as well as to the +fathers of families. That was the formula. + +In the tap-rooms, "subversive" pamphlets were read. They treated the +government with contempt, says a secret report of that time. + +Words like the following could be heard there:-- + +"I don't know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the day +until two hours beforehand." One workman said: "There are three hundred +of us, let each contribute ten sous, that will make one hundred and +fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot." + +Another said: "I don't ask for six months, I don't ask for even two. +In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. With +twenty-five thousand men we can face them." Another said: "I don't sleep +at night, because I make cartridges all night." From time to time, +men "of bourgeois appearance, and in good coats" came and "caused +embarrassment," and with the air of "command," shook hands with the most +important, and then went away. They never stayed more than ten minutes. +Significant remarks were exchanged in a low tone: "The plot is ripe, the +matter is arranged." "It was murmured by all who were there," to borrow +the very expression of one of those who were present. The exaltation was +such that one day, a workingman exclaimed, before the whole wine-shop: +"We have no arms!" One of his comrades replied: "The soldiers have!" +thus parodying without being aware of the fact, Bonaparte's proclamation +to the army in Italy: "When they had anything of a more secret nature on +hand," adds one report, "they did not communicate it to each other." It +is not easy to understand what they could conceal after what they said. + +These reunions were sometimes periodical. At certain ones of them, there +were never more than eight or ten persons present, and they were always +the same. In others, any one entered who wished, and the room was +so full that they were forced to stand. Some went thither through +enthusiasm and passion; others because it was on their way to their +work. As during the Revolution, there were patriotic women in some of +these wine-shops who embraced new-comers. + +Other expressive facts came to light. + +A man would enter a shop, drink, and go his way with the remark: +"Wine-merchant, the revolution will pay what is due to you." + +Revolutionary agents were appointed in a wine-shop facing the Rue de +Charonne. The balloting was carried on in their caps. + +Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons in +the Rue de Cotte. There there was a trophy of arms formed of wooden +broadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day, the buttons were removed +from the foils. + +A workman said: "There are twenty-five of us, but they don't count +on me, because I am looked upon as a machine." Later on, that machine +became Quenisset. + +The indefinite things which were brewing gradually acquired a strange +and indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps said +to another woman: "For a long time, there has been a strong force busy +making cartridges." In the open street, proclamation could be seen +addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these +proclamations was signed: Burtot, wine-merchant. + +One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian +accent mounted a stone post at the door of a liquor-seller in the Marche +Lenoir, and read aloud a singular document, which seemed to emanate from +an occult power. Groups formed around him, and applauded. + +The passages which touched the crowd most deeply were collected and +noted down. "--Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, our +bill-stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison."--"The breakdown +which has recently taken place in cottons has converted to us many +mediums."--"The future of nations is being worked out in our obscure +ranks."--"Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or +counter-revolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in +inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the +question. There is no other."--"On the day when we cease to suit you, +break us, but up to that day, help us to march on." All this in broad +daylight. + +Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of the +people by reason of their very audacity. On the 4th of April, 1832, a +passer-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the +Rue Sainte-Marguerite and shouted: "I am a Babouvist!" But beneath +Babeuf, the people scented Gisquet. + +Among other things, this man said:-- + +"Down with property! The opposition of the left is cowardly and +treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches +revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and +royalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beasts +with feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens of the laboring +classes." + +"Silence, citizen spy!" cried an artisan. + +This shout put an end to the discourse. + +Mysterious incidents occurred. + +At nightfall, a workingman encountered near the canal a "very well +dressed man," who said to him: "Whither are you bound, citizen?" "Sir," +replied the workingman, "I have not the honor of your acquaintance." "I +know you very well, however." And the man added: "Don't be alarmed, I +am an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quite +faithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed on +you." Then he shook hands with the workingman and went away, saying: "We +shall meet again soon." + +The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not +only in the wine-shops, but in the street. + +"Get yourself received very soon," said a weaver to a cabinet-maker. + +"Why?" + +"There is going to be a shot to fire." + +Two ragged pedestrians exchanged these remarkable replies, fraught with +evident Jacquerie:-- + +"Who governs us?" + +"M. Philippe." + +"No, it is the bourgeoisie." + +The reader is mistaken if he thinks that we take the word Jacquerie in a +bad sense. The Jacques were the poor. + +On another occasion two men were heard to say to each other as they +passed by: "We have a good plan of attack." + +Only the following was caught of a private conversation between four men +who were crouching in a ditch of the circle of the Barriere du Trone:-- + +"Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris any +more." + +Who was the he? Menacing obscurity. + +"The principal leaders," as they said in the faubourg, held themselves +apart. It was supposed that they met for consultation in a wine-shop +near the point Saint-Eustache. A certain Aug--, chief of the Society +aid for tailors, Rue Mondetour, had the reputation of serving as +intermediary central between the leaders and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +Nevertheless, there was always a great deal of mystery about these +leaders, and no certain fact can invalidate the singular arrogance of +this reply made later on by a man accused before the Court of Peers:-- + +"Who was your leader?" + +"I knew of none and I recognized none." + +There was nothing but words, transparent but vague; sometimes idle +reports, rumors, hearsay. Other indications cropped up. + +A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around the ground +on which a house was in process of construction, in the Rue de Reuilly +found on that plot the torn fragment of a letter on which were still +legible the following lines:-- + + +The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections +for the different societies. + + +And, as a postscript:-- + + +We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere, +No. 5 [bis], to the number of five or six thousand, in the house of a +gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms. + + +What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to his +neighbors was the fact, that a few paces further on he picked up another +paper, torn like the first, and still more significant, of which we +reproduce a facsimile, because of the historical interest attaching to +these strange documents:-- + +[Illustration: Code Table 4b1-5 page 26] + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Q | C | D | E | Learn this list by heart. After so doing + | | | | | | you will tear it up. The men admitted + | | | | | | will do the same when you have transmitted + | | | | | | their orders to them. + | | | | | | Health and Fraternity, + | | | | | | u og a fe L. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + +It was only later on that the persons who were in the secret of this +find at the time, learned the significance of those four capital +letters: quinturions, centurions, decurions, eclaireurs [scouts], and +the sense of the letters: u og a fe, which was a date, and meant April +15th, 1832. Under each capital letter were inscribed names followed by +very characteristic notes. Thus: Q. Bannerel. 8 guns, 83 cartridges. A +safe man.--C. Boubiere. 1 pistol, 40 cartridges.--D. Rollet. 1 foil, +1 pistol, 1 pound of powder.--E. Tessier. 1 sword, 1 cartridge-box. +Exact.--Terreur. 8 guns. Brave, etc. + +Finally, this carpenter found, still in the same enclosure, a third +paper on which was written in pencil, but very legibly, this sort of +enigmatical list:-- + + Unite: Blanchard: Arbre-Sec. 6. + Barra. Soize. Salle-au-Comte. + Kosciusko. Aubry the Butcher? + J. J. R. + Caius Gracchus. + Right of revision. Dufond. Four. + Fall of the Girondists. Derbac. Maubuee. + Washington. Pinson. 1 pistol, 86 cartridges. + Marseillaise. + Sovereignty of the people. Michel. Quincampoix. Sword. + Hoche. + Marceau. Plato. Arbre-Sec. + Warsaw. Tilly, crier of the Populaire. + + +The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its +significance. It appears that this list was the complete nomenclature of +the sections of the fourth arondissement of the Society of the Rights +of Man, with the names and dwellings of the chiefs of sections. To-day, +when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, +we may publish them. It should be added, that the foundation of the +Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date +when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only a rough draft. + +Still, according to all the remarks and the words, according to written +notes, material facts begin to make their appearance. + +In the Rue Popincourt, in the house of a dealer in bric-abrac, there +were seized seven sheets of gray paper, all folded alike lengthwise +and in four; these sheets enclosed twenty-six squares of this same +gray paper folded in the form of a cartridge, and a card, on which was +written the following:-- + + Saltpetre . . . . . . . . . . . 12 ounces. + Sulphur . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces. + Charcoal . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces and a half. + Water . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces. + + +The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a strong smell +of powder. + +A mason returning from his day's work, left behind him a little package +on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. This package was taken to +the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed +dialogues, signed Lahautiere, a song entitled: "Workmen, band together," +and a tin box full of cartridges. + +One artisan drinking with a comrade made the latter feel him to see how +warm he was; the other man felt a pistol under his waistcoat. + +In a ditch on the boulevard, between Pere-Lachaise and the Barriere +du Trone, at the most deserted spot, some children, while playing, +discovered beneath a mass of shavings and refuse bits of wood, a +bag containing a bullet-mould, a wooden punch for the preparation of +cartridges, a wooden bowl, in which there were grains of hunting-powder, +and a little cast-iron pot whose interior presented evident traces of +melted lead. + +Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five +o'clock in the morning, into the dwelling of a certain Pardon, who +was afterwards a member of the Barricade-Merry section and got himself +killed in the insurrection of April, 1834, found him standing near his +bed, and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of +preparing. + +Towards the hour when workingmen repose, two men were seen to meet +between the Barriere Picpus and the Barriere Charenton in a little lane +between two walls, near a wine-shop, in front of which there was a "Jeu +de Siam."[33] One drew a pistol from beneath his blouse and handed it to +the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration +of his chest had made the powder damp. He primed the pistol and added +more powder to what was already in the pan. Then the two men parted. + +A certain Gallais, afterwards killed in the Rue Beaubourg in the affair +of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and +twenty-four flints. + +The government one day received a warning that arms and two hundred +thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg. On +the following week thirty thousand cartridges were distributed. The +remarkable point about it was, that the police were not able to seize a +single one. + +An intercepted letter read: "The day is not far distant when, within +four hours by the clock, eighty thousand patriots will be under arms." + +All this fermentation was public, one might almost say tranquil. The +approaching insurrection was preparing its storm calmly in the face of +the government. No singularity was lacking to this still subterranean +crisis, which was already perceptible. The bourgeois talked peaceably to +the working-classes of what was in preparation. They said: "How is the +rising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said: +"How is your wife?" + +A furniture-dealer, of the Rue Moreau, inquired: "Well, when are you +going to make the attack?" + +Another shop-keeper said:-- + +"The attack will be made soon." + +"I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there +are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a +small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs. + +Moreover, the revolutionary fever was growing. Not a point in Paris nor +in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere. Like +those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the +human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the +country. From the associations of the Friends of the People, which was +at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of +Man, which also dated from one of the orders of the day: Pluviose, Year +40 of the republican era, which was destined to survive even the mandate +of the Court of Assizes which pronounced its dissolution, and which +did not hesitate to bestow on its sections significant names like the +following:-- + + Pikes. + Tocsin. + Signal cannon. + Phrygian cap. + January 21. + The beggars. + The vagabonds. + Forward march. + Robespierre. + Level. + Ca Ira. + +The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action. These +were impatient individuals who broke away and hastened ahead. Other +associations sought to recruit themselves from the great mother +societies. The members of sections complained that they were torn +asunder. Thus, the Gallic Society, and the committee of organization of +the Municipalities. Thus the associations for the liberty of the press, +for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people against +indirect taxes. Then the Society of Equal Workingmen which was divided +into three fractions, the levellers, the communists, the reformers. +Then the Army of the Bastilles, a sort of cohort organized on a military +footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by +a sub-lieutenant, forty by a lieutenant; there were never more than +five men who knew each other. Creation where precaution is combined with +audacity and which seemed stamped with the genius of Venice. + +The central committee, which was at the head, had two arms, the Society +of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles. + +A legitimist association, the Chevaliers of Fidelity, stirred about +among these the republican affiliations. It was denounced and repudiated +there. + +The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyons, +Nantes, Lille, Marseilles, and each had its Society of the Rights of +Man, the Charbonniere, and The Free Men. All had a revolutionary society +which was called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned this word. + +In Paris, the Faubourg Saint-Marceau kept up an equal buzzing with the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the schools were no less moved than the +faubourgs. A cafe in the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe and the wine-shop of the +Seven Billiards, Rue des Mathurins-Saint-Jacques, served as rallying +points for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A B C +affiliated to the Mutualists of Angers, and to the Cougourde of Aix, +met, as we have seen, in the Cafe Musain. These same young men assembled +also, as we have stated already, in a restaurant wine-shop of the Rue +Mondetour which was called Corinthe. These meetings were secret. Others +were as public as possible, and the reader can judge of their boldness +from these fragments of an interrogatory undergone in one of the +ulterior prosecutions: "Where was this meeting held?" "In the Rue de la +Paix." "At whose house?" "In the street." "What sections were there?" +"Only one." "Which?" "The Manuel section." "Who was its leader?" +"I." "You are too young to have decided alone upon the bold course of +attacking the government. Where did your instructions come from?" "From +the central committee." + +The army was mined at the same time as the population, as was proved +subsequently by the operations of Beford, Luneville, and Epinard. They +counted on the fifty-second regiment, on the fifth, on the eighth, on +the thirty-seventh, and on the twentieth light cavalry. In Burgundy and +in the southern towns they planted the liberty tree; that is to say, a +pole surmounted by a red cap. + +Such was the situation. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, more than any other group of the population, +as we stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made +it felt. That was the sore point. This old faubourg, peopled like +an ant-hill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was +quivering with expectation and with the desire for a tumult. Everything +was in a state of agitation there, without any interruption, however, of +the regular work. It is impossible to convey an idea of this lively yet +sombre physiognomy. In this faubourg exists poignant distress hidden +under attic roofs; there also exist rare and ardent minds. It is +particularly in the matter of distress and intelligence that it is +dangerous to have extremes meet. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine had also other causes to tremble; for it +received the counter-shock of commercial crises, of failures, strikes, +slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times +of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals +rebounds upon it. This population full of proud virtue, capable to the +highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt to +explode, irritated, deep, undermined, seemed to be only awaiting the +fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float on the horizon chased +by the wind of events, it is impossible not to think of the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine and of the formidable chance which has placed at the very +gates of Paris that powder-house of suffering and ideas. + +The wine-shops of the Faubourg Antoine, which have been more than +once drawn in the sketches which the reader has just perused, possess +historical notoriety. In troublous times people grow intoxicated there +more on words than on wine. A sort of prophetic spirit and an afflatus +of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and enlarging souls. The +cabarets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine resemble those taverns of Mont +Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with +the profound and sacred breath; taverns where the tables were almost +tripods, and where was drunk what Ennius calls the sibylline wine. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is a reservoir of people. Revolutionary +agitations create fissures there, through which trickles the popular +sovereignty. This sovereignty may do evil; it can be mistaken like any +other; but, even when led astray, it remains great. We may say of it as +of the blind cyclops, Ingens. + +In '93, according as the idea which was floating about was good or evil, +according as it was the day of fanaticism or of enthusiasm, there leaped +forth from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine now savage legions, now heroic +bands. + +Savage. Let us explain this word. When these bristling men, who in the +early days of the revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with +uplifted bludgeon, pike on high, hurled themselves upon ancient Paris in +an uproar, what did they want? They wanted an end to oppression, an +end to tyranny, an end to the sword, work for men, instruction for the +child, social sweetness for the woman, liberty, equality, fraternity, +bread for all, the idea for all, the Edenizing of the world. Progress; +and that holy, sweet, and good thing, progress, they claimed in terrible +wise, driven to extremities as they were, half naked, club in fist, +a roar in their mouths. They were savages, yes; but the savages of +civilization. + +They proclaimed right furiously; they were desirous, if only with +fear and trembling, to force the human race to paradise. They seemed +barbarians, and they were saviours. They demanded light with the mask of +night. + +Facing these men, who were ferocious, we admit, and terrifying, but +ferocious and terrifying for good ends, there are other men, smiling, +embroidered, gilded, beribboned, starred, in silk stockings, in white +plumes, in yellow gloves, in varnished shoes, who, with their elbows on +a velvet table, beside a marble chimney-piece, insist gently on demeanor +and the preservation of the past, of the Middle Ages, of divine right, +of fanaticism, of innocence, of slavery, of the death penalty, of war, +glorifying in low tones and with politeness, the sword, the stake, and +the scaffold. For our part, if we were forced to make a choice between +the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we +should choose the barbarians. + +But, thank Heaven, still another choice is possible. No perpendicular +fall is necessary, in front any more than in the rear. + +Neither despotism nor terrorism. We desire progress with a gentle slope. + +God takes care of that. God's whole policy consists in rendering slopes +less steep. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS + +It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible +catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census. + +All were present at a secret meeting at the Cafe Musain. + +Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few half-enigmatical but +significant metaphors:-- + +"It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may +count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no +harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have more +chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when there +are none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How many of us +are there? There is no question of postponing this task until to-morrow. +Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has no time to lose. +Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught unprepared. We must +go over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast. +This business ought to be concluded to-day. Courfeyrac, you will see the +polytechnic students. It is their day to go out. To-day is Wednesday. +Feuilly, you will see those of the Glaciere, will you not? Combeferre +has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an +excellent one there. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the +masons are growing lukewarm; you will bring us news from the lodge of +the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore. Joly will go to Dupuytren's clinical +lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school. Bossuet will take a +little turn in the court and talk with the young law licentiates. I will +take charge of the Cougourde myself." + +"That arranges everything," said Courfeyrac. + +"No." + +"What else is there?" + +"A very important thing." + +"What is that?" asked Courfeyrac. + +"The Barriere du Maine," replied Enjolras. + +Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he +resumed:-- + +"At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and +journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, +but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with +them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are +becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is +urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but +with firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there +between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow. +For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good +fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for +the Barriere du Maine. I have no one." + +"What about me?" said Grantaire. "Here am I." + +"You?" + +"I." + +"You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold +in the name of principle!" + +"Why not?" + +"Are you good for anything?" + +"I have a vague ambition in that direction," said Grantaire. + +"You do not believe in everything." + +"I believe in you." + +"Grantaire will you do me a service?" + +"Anything. I'll black your boots." + +"Well, don't meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your +absinthe." + +"You are an ingrate, Enjolras." + +"You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You capable of it!" + +"I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing the Place +Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking +the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue +d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the +Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vielles Tuileries, of striding +across the boulevard, of following the Chaussee du Maine, of passing +the barrier, and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes are +capable of that." + +"Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?" + +"Not much. We only address each other as thou." + +"What will you say to them?" + +"I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles." + +"You?" + +"I. But I don't receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I +have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution +of the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where the +liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have +an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the +sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I +can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in +hand." + +"Be serious," said Enjolras. + +"I am wild," replied Grantaire. + +Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who +has taken a resolution. + +"Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to try you. You shall go to the +Barriere du Maine." + +Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went +out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a +Robespierre waistcoat. + +"Red," said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then, +with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of +the waistcoat across his breast. + +And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:-- + +"Be easy." + +He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed. + +A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Cafe Musain was +deserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own +direction, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved the +Cougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave. + +Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on the +plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous in +that side of Paris. + +As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation +in review in his own mind. The gravity of events was self-evident. When +facts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily, +the slightest complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whence +arises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a luminous uplifting +beneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps the moment +was at hand. The people were again taking possession of right, and +what a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically taking +possession of France and saying to the world: "The sequel to-morrow!" +Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had at that +moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He composed, +in his own mind, with Combeferre's philosophical and penetrating +eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's dash, +Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, Bossuet's +sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere at +once. All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort. +This was well. This made him think of Grantaire. + +"Hold," said he to himself, "the Barriere du Maine will not take me far +out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have +a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on." + +One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras +reached the Richefeu smoking-room. + +He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fall +to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, +men, and smoke. + +A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another +voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary. + +Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Anne +table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was +hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:-- + +"Double-six." + +"Fours." + +"The pig! I have no more." + +"You are dead. A two." + +"Six." + +"Three." + +"One." + +"It's my move." + +"Four points." + +"Not much." + +"It's your turn." + +"I have made an enormous mistake." + +"You are doing well." + +"Fifteen." + +"Seven more." + +"That makes me twenty-two." [Thoughtfully, "Twenty-two!"] + +"You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the +beginning, the whole play would have been changed." + +"A two again." + +"One." + +"One! Well, five." + +"I haven't any." + +"It was your play, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"Blank." + +"What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two." + +"One." + +"Neither five nor one. That's bad for you." + +"Domino." + +"Plague take it!" + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--EPONINE + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW + +Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose +track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, +bearing off his prisoners in three hackney-coaches, than Marius also +glided out of the house. It was only nine o'clock in the evening. Marius +betook himself to Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac was no longer the imperturbable +inhabitant of the Latin Quarter, he had gone to live in the Rue de la +Verrerie "for political reasons"; this quarter was one where, at that +epoch, insurrection liked to install itself. Marius said to Courfeyrac: +"I have come to sleep with you." Courfeyrac dragged a mattress off his +bed, which was furnished with two, spread it out on the floor, and said: +"There." + +At seven o'clock on the following morning, Marius returned to the hovel, +paid the quarter's rent which he owed to Ma'am Bougon, had his books, +his bed, his table, his commode, and his two chairs loaded on a +hand-cart and went off without leaving his address, so that when Javert +returned in the course of the morning, for the purpose of questioning +Marius as to the events of the preceding evening, he found only Ma'am +Bougon, who answered: "Moved away!" + +Ma'am Bougon was convinced that Marius was to some extent an accomplice +of the robbers who had been seized the night before. "Who would ever +have said it?" she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, "a young +man like that, who had the air of a girl!" + +Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence. The first +was, that he now had a horror of that house, where he had beheld, so +close at hand, and in its most repulsive and most ferocious development, +a social deformity which is, perhaps, even more terrible than the wicked +rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish +to figure in the lawsuit which would insue in all probability, and be +brought in to testify against Thenardier. + +Javert thought that the young man, whose name he had forgotten, was +afraid, and had fled, or perhaps, had not even returned home at the time +of the ambush; he made some efforts to find him, however, but without +success. + +A month passed, then another. Marius was still with Courfeyrac. He had +learned from a young licentiate in law, an habitual frequenter of the +courts, that Thenardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, +Marius had five francs handed in to the clerk's office of La Force for +Thenardier. + +As Marius had no longer any money, he borrowed the five francs from +Courfeyrac. It was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed +money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac +who lent and to Thenardier who received them. "To whom can they go?" +thought Courfeyrac. "Whence can this come to me?" Thenardier asked +himself. + +Moreover, Marius was heart-broken. Everything had plunged through a +trap-door once more. He no longer saw anything before him; his life +was again buried in mystery where he wandered fumblingly. He had for a +moment beheld very close at hand, in that obscurity, the young girl whom +he loved, the old man who seemed to be her father, those unknown beings, +who were his only interest and his only hope in this world; and, at the +very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them, a +gust had swept all these shadows away. Not a spark of certainty and +truth had been emitted even in the most terrible of collisions. No +conjecture was possible. He no longer knew even the name that he thought +he knew. It certainly was not Ursule. And the Lark was a nickname. And +what was he to think of the old man? Was he actually in hiding from +the police? The white-haired workman whom Marius had encountered in the +vicinity of the Invalides recurred to his mind. It now seemed probable +that that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he +disguised himself? That man had his heroic and his equivocal sides. Why +had he not called for help? Why had he fled? Was he, or was he not, +the father of the young girl? Was he, in short, the man whom Thenardier +thought that he recognized? Thenardier might have been mistaken. These +formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted +nothing from the angelic charms of the young girl of the Luxembourg. +Heart-rending distress; Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night +over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not +stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the +instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which +burns us lights us also a little, and casts some useful gleams without. +But Marius no longer even heard these mute counsels of passion. He never +said to himself: "What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were +to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call +Ursule was evidently somewhere; nothing warned Marius in what direction +he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; +absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog. To see her once again; +he still aspired to this, but he no longer expected it. + +To crown all, his poverty had returned. He felt that icy breath close to +him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before +this, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than +discontinued work; it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy +to get rid of, and difficult to take up again. + +A certain amount of dreaming is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. +It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes +severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects +the over-harsh contours of pure thought, fills in gaps here and there, +binds together and rounds off the angles of the ideas. But too much +dreaming sinks and drowns. Woe to the brain-worker who allows himself to +fall entirely from thought into revery! He thinks that he can re-ascend +with equal ease, and he tells himself that, after all, it is the same +thing. Error! + +Thought is the toil of the intelligence, revery its voluptuousness. To +replace thought with revery is to confound a poison with a food. + +Marius had begun in that way, as the reader will remember. Passion had +supervened and had finished the work of precipitating him into chimaeras +without object or bottom. One no longer emerges from one's self except +for the purpose of going off to dream. Idle production. Tumultuous and +stagnant gulf. And, in proportion as labor diminishes, needs increase. +This is a law. Man, in a state of revery, is generally prodigal and +slack; the unstrung mind cannot hold life within close bounds. + +There is, in that mode of life, good mingled with evil, for if +enervation is baleful, generosity is good and healthful. But the poor +man who is generous and noble, and who does not work, is lost. Resources +are exhausted, needs crop up. + +Fatal declivity down which the most honest and the firmest as well as +the most feeble and most vicious are drawn, and which ends in one of two +holds, suicide or crime. + +By dint of going outdoors to think, the day comes when one goes out to +throw one's self in the water. + +Excess of revery breeds men like Escousse and Lebras. + +Marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace, with his eyes +fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems +strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being kindles in +the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared, the more it +beams; the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon; +the star of the inner night. She--that was Marius' whole thought. He +meditated of nothing else; he was confusedly conscious that his old coat +was becoming an impossible coat, and that his new coat was growing old, +that his shirts were wearing out, that his hat was wearing out, that his +boots were giving out, and he said to himself: "If I could but see her +once again before I die!" + +One sweet idea alone was left to him, that she had loved him, that her +glance had told him so, that she did not know his name, but that she did +know his soul, and that, wherever she was, however mysterious the place, +she still loved him perhaps. Who knows whether she were not thinking of +him as he was thinking of her? Sometimes, in those inexplicable hours +such as are experienced by every heart that loves, though he had no +reasons for anything but sadness and yet felt an obscure quiver of joy, +he said to himself: "It is her thoughts that are coming to me!" Then he +added: "Perhaps my thoughts reach her also." + +This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was +sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, +into his soul. From time to time, especially at that evening hour which +is the most depressing to even the dreamy, he allowed the purest, the +most impersonal, the most ideal of the reveries which filled his brain, +to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else. He called this +"writing to her." + +It must not be supposed that his reason was deranged. Quite the +contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly +towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clear-sightedness +and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although +peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent +deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort +of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which +was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and soared +on high. + +In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and +every moment he was discovering the foundation of life, of humanity, and +of destiny. Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has +given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed +the things of this world and the heart of man under this double light +has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true. + +The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity. + +However, day followed day, and nothing new presented itself. It +merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which still remained to be +traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant. He thought that +he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss. + +"What!" he repeated to himself, "shall I not see her again before then!" + +When you have ascended the Rue Saint-Jacques, left the barrier on one +side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance, you reach +the Rue de la Sante, then the Glaciere, and, a little while before +arriving at the little river of the Gobelins, you come to a sort of +field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the +boulevards of Paris, where Ruysdeel would be tempted to sit down. + +There is something indescribable there which exhales grace, a green +meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines, from which flutter rags +drying in the wind, and an old market-gardener's house, built in the +time of Louis XIII., with its great roof oddly pierced with dormer +windows, dilapidated palisades, a little water amid poplar-trees, +women, voices, laughter; on the horizon the Pantheon, the pole of +the Deaf-Mutes, the Val-de-Grace, black, squat, fantastic, amusing, +magnificent, and in the background, the severe square crests of the +towers of Notre Dame. + +As the place is worth looking at, no one goes thither. Hardly one cart +or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour. + +It chanced that Marius' solitary strolls led him to this plot of +ground, near the water. That day, there was a rarity on the boulevard, +a passer-by. Marius, vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of +the place, asked this passer-by:--"What is the name of this spot?" + +The person replied: "It is the Lark's meadow." + +And he added: "It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry." + +But after the word "Lark" Marius heard nothing more. These sudden +congealments in the state of revery, which a single word suffices to +evoke, do occur. The entire thought is abruptly condensed around an +idea, and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else. + +The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of +Marius' melancholy.--"Stop," said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor +peculiar to these mysterious asides, "this is her meadow. I shall know +where she lives now." + +It was absurd, but irresistible. + +And every day he returned to that meadow of the Lark. + + + + +CHAPTER II--EMBRYONIC FORMATION OF CRIMES IN THE INCUBATION OF PRISONS + +Javert's triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been +so. + +In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert +had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees +is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this +personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be +no less fine a prize for the authorities. + +And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert. + +Another opportunity of laying hands on that "devil's dandy" must be +waited for. Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered Eponine as she stood +on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off, +preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes +with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for +Eponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation. +Eponine had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes. + +And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the +principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. It was not known how +this had been effected, the police agents and the sergeants "could +not understand it at all." He had converted himself into vapor, he had +slipped through the handcuffs, he had trickled through the crevices of +the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled; all that they +were able to say was, that on arriving at the prison, there was no +Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had +Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had there +been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man belong +to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric with +infraction and repression? Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime and +his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such comminations, and +would have bristled up against such compromises; but his squad included +other inspectors besides himself, who were more initiated than he, +perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the +Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make +a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for ruffianism and an +admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate juggling terms +with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist. However that may +be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found again. Javert appeared +to be more irritated than amazed at this. + +As for Marius, "that booby of a lawyer," who had probably become +frightened, and whose name Javert had forgotten, Javert attached very +little importance to him. Moreover, a lawyer can be hunted up at any +time. But was he a lawyer after all? + +The investigation had begun. + +The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of these men of +the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he +would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and +the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him. + +This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that hideous +courtyard, called the court of the Batiment-Neuf (New Building), which +the administration called the court Saint-Bernard, and which the robbers +called the Fosseaux-Lions (The Lion's Ditch), on that wall covered with +scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a level with the roofs, +near an old door of rusty iron which led to the ancient chapel of the +ducal residence of La Force, then turned in a dormitory for ruffians, +there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly +carved in the stone with a nail, and beneath it this signature:-- + + BRUJON, 1811. + + +The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832. + +The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau +house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered +and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive air that the +magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in the Charlemagne +yard than in close confinement. + +Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands +of justice. They do not let themselves be put out by such a trifle as +that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on +another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and +who toil, none the less, on a new work in their studios. + +Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen +standing by the hour together in front of the sutler's window in the +Charlemagne yard, staring like an idiot at the sordid list of prices +which began with: garlic, 62 centimes, and ended with: cigar, 5 +centimes. Or he passed his time in trembling, chattering his teeth, +saying that he had a fever, and inquiring whether one of the eight and +twenty beds in the fever ward was vacant. + +All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that +Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions +executed by the errand-men of the establishment, not under his own name, +but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him in all +fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention of the +prison corporal. + +Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions +posted in the convict's parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous could +be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Pantheon, ten +sous; one to Val-de-Grace, fifteen sous; and one to the Barriere de +Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole +tariff. Now, at the Pantheon, at the Val-de-Grace, and at the Barriere +de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable +prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarre, Glorieux, an +ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police was +directed by this incident. It was thought that these men were members +of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been +captured. It was supposed that the messages, which had been addressed, +not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in the street, +must have contained information with regard to some crime that had been +plotted. They were in possession of other indications; they laid hand on +the three prowlers, and supposed that they had circumvented some one or +other of Brujon's machinations. + +About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the +superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower dormitory +in the Batiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the box--this +was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed their +duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the +boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitories--a watchman looked through +the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and +writing something by the light of the hall-lamp. The guardian entered, +Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to +seize what he had written. The police learned nothing further about it. + +What is certain is, that on the following morning, a "postilion" +was flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions' Ditch, over the +five-story building which separated the two court-yards. + +What prisoners call a "postilion" is a pellet of bread artistically +moulded, which is sent into Ireland, that is to say, over the roofs of a +prison, from one courtyard to another. Etymology: over England; from one +land to another; into Ireland. This little pellet falls in the yard. The +man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed to some +prisoner in that yard. If it is a prisoner who finds the treasure, he +forwards the note to its destination; if it is a keeper, or one of the +prisoners secretly sold who are called sheep in prisons and foxes in the +galleys, the note is taken to the office and handed over to the police. + +On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person +to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary confinement. +This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads of Patron +Minette. + +The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines +were written:-- + +"Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden." + +This is what Brujon had written the night before. + +In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note on +from La Force to the Salpetriere, to a "good friend" whom he had and who +was shut up there. This woman in turn transmitted the note to another +woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly suspected +by the police, though not yet arrested. This Magnon, whose name the +reader has already seen, had relations with the Thenardier, which will +be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to see Eponine, +serve as a bridge between the Salpetriere and Les Madelonettes. + +It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting +in the investigation directed against Thenardier in the matter of his +daughters, Eponine and Azelma were released. When Eponine came out, +Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her +Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. + +Eponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden, +observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to +Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon +transmitted to Babet's mistress in the Salpetriere. A biscuit, in the +shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done. + +So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in +the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other +on his way from it:-- + +"Well?" asked Brujon, "the Rue P.?" + +"Biscuit," replied Babet. Thus did the foetus of crime engendered by +Brujon in La Force miscarry. + +This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly +distinct from Brujon's programme. The reader will see what they were. + +Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite +another. + + + + +CHAPTER III--APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF + +Marius no longer went to see any one, but he sometimes encountered +Father Mabeuf by chance. + +While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be +called the cellar stairs, and which lead to places without light, where +the happy can be heard walking overhead, M. Mabeuf was descending on his +side. + +The Flora of Cauteretz no longer sold at all. The experiments on indigo +had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which had +a bad exposure. M. Mabeuf could cultivate there only a few plants which +love shade and dampness. Nevertheless, he did not become discouraged. He +had obtained a corner in the Jardin des Plantes, with a good exposure, +to make his trials with indigo "at his own expense." For this purpose he +had pawned his copperplates of the Flora. He had reduced his breakfast +to two eggs, and he left one of these for his old servant, to whom he +had paid no wages for the last fifteen months. And often his breakfast +was his only meal. He no longer smiled with his infantile smile, he had +grown morose and no longer received visitors. Marius did well not to +dream of going thither. Sometimes, at the hour when M. Mabeuf was on his +way to the Jardin des Plantes, the old man and the young man passed +each other on the Boulevard de l'Hopital. They did not speak, and only +exchanged a melancholy sign of the head. A heart-breaking thing it is +that there comes a moment when misery looses bonds! Two men who have +been friends become two chance passers-by. + +Royal the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, +his garden, or his indigo: these were the three forms which happiness, +pleasure, and hope had assumed for him. This sufficed him for his +living. He said to himself: "When I shall have made my balls of blueing, +I shall be rich, I will withdraw my copperplates from the pawn-shop, +I will put my Flora in vogue again with trickery, plenty of money and +advertisements in the newspapers and I will buy, I know well where, a +copy of Pierre de Medine's Art de Naviguer, with wood-cuts, edition of +1655." In the meantime, he toiled all day over his plot of indigo, and +at night he returned home to water his garden, and to read his books. At +that epoch, M. Mabeuf was nearly eighty years of age. + +One evening he had a singular apparition. + +He had returned home while it was still broad daylight. Mother +Plutarque, whose health was declining, was ill and in bed. He had dined +on a bone, on which a little meat lingered, and a bit of bread that he +had found on the kitchen table, and had seated himself on an overturned +stone post, which took the place of a bench in his garden. + +Near this bench there rose, after the fashion in orchard-gardens, a sort +of large chest, of beams and planks, much dilapidated, a rabbit-hutch on +the ground floor, a fruit-closet on the first. There was nothing in the +hutch, but there were a few apples in the fruit-closet,--the remains of +the winter's provision. + +M. Mabeuf had set himself to turning over and reading, with the aid of +his glasses, two books of which he was passionately fond and in which, +a serious thing at his age, he was interested. His natural timidity +rendered him accessible to the acceptance of superstitions in a certain +degree. The first of these books was the famous treatise of President +Delancre, De l'inconstance des Demons; the other was a quarto by Mutor +de la Rubaudiere, Sur les Diables de Vauvert et les Gobelins de la +Bievre. This last-mentioned old volume interested him all the more, +because his garden had been one of the spots haunted by goblins in +former times. The twilight had begun to whiten what was on high and to +blacken all below. As he read, over the top of the book which he held +in his hand, Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants, and among others a +magnificent rhododendron which was one of his consolations; four days of +heat, wind, and sun without a drop of rain, had passed; the stalks were +bending, the buds drooping, the leaves falling; all this needed water, +the rhododendron was particularly sad. Father Mabeuf was one of those +persons for whom plants have souls. The old man had toiled all day over +his indigo plot, he was worn out with fatigue, but he rose, laid +his books on the bench, and walked, all bent over and with tottering +footsteps, to the well, but when he had grasped the chain, he could not +even draw it sufficiently to unhook it. Then he turned round and cast a +glance of anguish toward heaven which was becoming studded with stars. + +The evening had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man +beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to +be as arid as the day had been. + +"Stars everywhere!" thought the old man; "not the tiniest cloud! Not a +drop of water!" + +And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his +breast. + +He raised it again, and once more looked at the sky, murmuring:-- + +"A tear of dew! A little pity!" + +He tried again to unhook the chain of the well, and could not. + +At that moment, he heard a voice saying:-- + +"Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you?" + +At the same time, a noise as of a wild animal passing became audible +in the hedge, and he beheld emerging from the shrubbery a sort of tall, +slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at +him. She had less the air of a human being than of a form which had just +blossomed forth from the twilight. + +Before Father Mabeuf, who was easily terrified, and who was, as we have +said, quick to take alarm, was able to reply by a single syllable, this +being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had +unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the +watering-pot, and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare +feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds +distributing life around her. The sound of the watering-pot on the +leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that +the rhododendron was happy now. + +The first bucketful emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third. She +watered the whole garden. + +There was something about her, as she thus ran about among paths, where +her outline appeared perfectly black, waving her angular arms, and with +her fichu all in rags, that resembled a bat. + +When she had finished, Father Mabeuf approached her with tears in his +eyes, and laid his hand on her brow. + +"God will bless you," said he, "you are an angel since you take care of +the flowers." + +"No," she replied. "I am the devil, but that's all the same to me." + +The old man exclaimed, without either waiting for or hearing her +response:-- + +"What a pity that I am so unhappy and so poor, and that I can do nothing +for you!" + +"You can do something," said she. + +"What?" + +"Tell me where M. Marius lives." + +The old man did not understand. "What Monsieur Marius?" + +He raised his glassy eyes and seemed to be seeking something that had +vanished. + +"A young man who used to come here." + +In the meantime, M. Mabeuf had searched his memory. + +"Ah! yes--" he exclaimed. "I know what you mean. Wait! Monsieur +Marius--the Baron Marius Pontmercy, parbleu! He lives,--or rather, he no +longer lives,--ah well, I don't know." + +As he spoke, he had bent over to train a branch of rhododendron, and he +continued:-- + +"Hold, I know now. He very often passes along the boulevard, and goes in +the direction of the Glaciere, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. +Go there. It is not hard to meet him." + +When M. Mabeuf straightened himself up, there was no longer any one +there; the girl had disappeared. + +He was decidedly terrified. + +"Really," he thought, "if my garden had not been watered, I should think +that she was a spirit." + +An hour later, when he was in bed, it came back to him, and as he fell +asleep, at that confused moment when thought, like that fabulous bird +which changes itself into a fish in order to cross the sea, little by +little assumes the form of a dream in order to traverse slumber, he said +to himself in a bewildered way:-- + +"In sooth, that greatly resembles what Rubaudiere narrates of the +goblins. Could it have been a goblin?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AN APPARITION TO MARIUS + +Some days after this visit of a "spirit" to Farmer Mabeuf, one +morning,--it was on a Monday, the day when Marius borrowed the +hundred-sou piece from Courfeyrac for Thenardier--Marius had put this +coin in his pocket, and before carrying it to the clerk's office, he +had gone "to take a little stroll," in the hope that this would make him +work on his return. It was always thus, however. As soon as he rose, he +seated himself before a book and a sheet of paper in order to scribble +some translation; his task at that epoch consisted in turning into +French a celebrated quarrel between Germans, the Gans and Savigny +controversy; he took Savigny, he took Gans, read four lines, tried to +write one, could not, saw a star between him and his paper, and rose +from his chair, saying: "I shall go out. That will put me in spirits." + +And off he went to the Lark's meadow. + +There he beheld more than ever the star, and less than ever Savigny and +Gans. + +He returned home, tried to take up his work again, and did not succeed; +there was no means of re-knotting a single one of the threads which +were broken in his brain; then he said to himself: "I will not go out +to-morrow. It prevents my working." And he went out every day. + +He lived in the Lark's meadow more than in Courfeyrac's lodgings. That +was his real address: Boulevard de la Sante, at the seventh tree from +the Rue Croulebarbe. + +That morning he had quitted the seventh tree and had seated himself on +the parapet of the River des Gobelins. A cheerful sunlight penetrated +the freshly unfolded and luminous leaves. + +He was dreaming of "Her." And his meditation turning to a reproach, fell +back upon himself; he reflected dolefully on his idleness, his paralysis +of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing +more dense every moment before him, to such a point that he no longer +even saw the sun. + +Nevertheless, athwart this painful extrication of indistinct ideas which +was not even a monologue, so feeble had action become in him, and he +had no longer the force to care to despair, athwart this melancholy +absorption, sensations from without did reach him. He heard behind him, +beneath him, on both banks of the river, the laundresses of the Gobelins +beating their linen, and above his head, the birds chattering and +singing in the elm-trees. On the one hand, the sound of liberty, the +careless happiness of the leisure which has wings; on the other, the +sound of toil. What caused him to meditate deeply, and almost reflect, +were two cheerful sounds. + +All at once, in the midst of his dejected ecstasy, he heard a familiar +voice saying:-- + +"Come! Here he is!" + +He raised his eyes, and recognized that wretched child who had come to +him one morning, the elder of the Thenardier daughters, Eponine; he knew +her name now. Strange to say, she had grown poorer and prettier, +two steps which it had not seemed within her power to take. She had +accomplished a double progress, towards the light and towards distress. +She was barefooted and in rags, as on the day when she had so resolutely +entered his chamber, only her rags were two months older now, the holes +were larger, the tatters more sordid. It was the same harsh voice, +the same brow dimmed and wrinkled with tan, the same free, wild, and +vacillating glance. She had besides, more than formerly, in her face +that indescribably terrified and lamentable something which sojourn in a +prison adds to wretchedness. + +She had bits of straw and hay in her hair, not like Ophelia through +having gone mad from the contagion of Hamlet's madness, but because she +had slept in the loft of some stable. + +And in spite of it all, she was beautiful. What a star art thou, O +youth! + +In the meantime, she had halted in front of Marius with a trace of joy +in her livid countenance, and something which resembled a smile. + +She stood for several moments as though incapable of speech. + +"So I have met you at last!" she said at length. "Father Mabeuf was +right, it was on this boulevard! How I have hunted for you! If you only +knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They let me out! +seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not +reached years of discretion. I lack two months of it. Oh! how I have +hunted for you! These six weeks! So you don't live down there any more?" + +"No," said Marius. + +"Ah! I understand. Because of that affair. Those take-downs are +disagreeable. You cleared out. Come now! Why do you wear old hats like +this! A young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, +Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don't know +what. It isn't true that you are a baron? Barons are old fellows, they +go to the Luxembourg, in front of the chateau, where there is the most +sun, and they read the Quotidienne for a sou. I once carried a letter to +a baron of that sort. He was over a hundred years old. Say, where do you +live now?" + +Marius made no reply. + +"Ah!" she went on, "you have a hole in your shirt. I must sew it up for +you." + +She resumed with an expression which gradually clouded over:-- + +"You don't seem glad to see me." + +Marius held his peace; she remained silent for a moment, then +exclaimed:-- + +"But if I choose, nevertheless, I could force you to look glad!" + +"What?" demanded Marius. "What do you mean?" + +"Ah! you used to call me thou," she retorted. + +"Well, then, what dost thou mean?" + +She bit her lips; she seemed to hesitate, as though a prey to some sort +of inward conflict. At last she appeared to come to a decision. + +"So much the worse, I don't care. You have a melancholy air, I want you +to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you +smile and hear you say: 'Ah, well, that's good.' Poor Mr. Marius! you +know? You promised me that you would give me anything I like--" + +"Yes! Only speak!" + +She looked Marius full in the eye, and said:-- + +"I have the address." + +Marius turned pale. All the blood flowed back to his heart. + +"What address?" + +"The address that you asked me to get!" + +She added, as though with an effort:-- + +"The address--you know very well!" + +"Yes!" stammered Marius. + +"Of that young lady." + +This word uttered, she sighed deeply. + +Marius sprang from the parapet on which he had been sitting and seized +her hand distractedly. + +"Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where +is it?" + +"Come with me," she responded. "I don't know the street or number very +well; it is in quite the other direction from here, but I know the house +well, I will take you to it." + +She withdrew her hand and went on, in a tone which could have rent +the heart of an observer, but which did not even graze Marius in his +intoxicated and ecstatic state:-- + +"Oh! how glad you are!" + +A cloud swept across Marius' brow. He seized Eponine by the arm:-- + +"Swear one thing to me!" + +"Swear!" said she, "what does that mean? Come! You want me to swear?" + +And she laughed. + +"Your father! promise me, Eponine! Swear to me that you will not give +this address to your father!" + +She turned to him with a stupefied air. + +"Eponine! How do you know that my name is Eponine?" + +"Promise what I tell you!" + +But she did not seem to hear him. + +"That's nice! You have called me Eponine!" + +Marius grasped both her arms at once. + +"But answer me, in the name of Heaven! pay attention to what I am saying +to you, swear to me that you will not tell your father this address that +you know!" + +"My father!" said she. "Ah yes, my father! Be at ease. He's in close +confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father!" + +"But you do not promise me!" exclaimed Marius. + +"Let go of me!" she said, bursting into a laugh, "how you do shake me! +Yes! Yes! I promise that! I swear that to you! What is that to me? I +will not tell my father the address. There! Is that right? Is that it?" + +"Nor to any one?" said Marius. + +"Nor to any one." + +"Now," resumed Marius, "take me there." + +"Immediately?" + +"Immediately." + +"Come along. Ah! how pleased he is!" said she. + +After a few steps she halted. + +"You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, +and follow me so, without seeming to do it. A nice young man like you +must not be seen with a woman like me." + +No tongue can express all that lay in that word, woman, thus pronounced +by that child. + +She proceeded a dozen paces and then halted once more; Marius joined +her. She addressed him sideways, and without turning towards him:-- + +"By the way, you know that you promised me something?" + +Marius fumbled in his pocket. All that he owned in the world was the +five francs intended for Thenardier the father. He took them and laid +them in Eponine's hand. + +She opened her fingers and let the coin fall to the ground, and gazed at +him with a gloomy air. + +"I don't want your money," said she. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE WITH A SECRET + +About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliament +of Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that period +the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeois +concealed them, had "a little house" built in the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, in the deserted Rue Blomet, which is now called Rue +Plumet, not far from the spot which was then designated as Combat des +Animaux. + +This house was composed of a single-storied pavilion; two rooms on the +ground floor, two chambers on the first floor, a kitchen down stairs, +a boudoir up stairs, an attic under the roof, the whole preceded by a +garden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was about +an acre and a half in extent. This was all that could be seen by +passers-by; but behind the pavilion there was a narrow courtyard, and +at the end of the courtyard a low building consisting of two rooms and +a cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nurse +in case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a masked +door which opened by a secret spring, with a long, narrow, paved winding +corridor, open to the sky, hemmed in with two lofty walls, which, hidden +with wonderful art, and lost as it were between garden enclosures and +cultivated land, all of whose angles and detours it followed, ended in +another door, also with a secret lock which opened a quarter of a league +away, almost in another quarter, at the solitary extremity of the Rue du +Babylone. + +Through this the chief justice entered, so that even those who were +spying on him and following him would merely have observed that the +justice betook himself every day in a mysterious way somewhere, and +would never have suspected that to go to the Rue de Babylone was to go +to the Rue Blomet. Thanks to clever purchasers of land, the magistrate +had been able to make a secret, sewer-like passage on his own property, +and consequently, without interference. Later on, he had sold in little +parcels, for gardens and market gardens, the lots of ground adjoining +the corridor, and the proprietors of these lots on both sides thought +they had a party wall before their eyes, and did not even suspect the +long, paved ribbon winding between two walls amid their flower-beds and +their orchards. Only the birds beheld this curiosity. It is probable +that the linnets and tomtits of the last century gossiped a great deal +about the chief justice. + +The pavilion, built of stone in the taste of Mansard, wainscoted and +furnished in the Watteau style, rocaille on the inside, old-fashioned +on the outside, walled in with a triple hedge of flowers, had something +discreet, coquettish, and solemn about it, as befits a caprice of love +and magistracy. + +This house and corridor, which have now disappeared, were in existence +fifteen years ago. In '93 a coppersmith had purchased the house with +the idea of demolishing it, but had not been able to pay the price; the +nation made him bankrupt. So that it was the house which demolished the +coppersmith. After that, the house remained uninhabited, and fell slowly +to ruin, as does every dwelling to which the presence of man does not +communicate life. It had remained fitted with its old furniture, was +always for sale or to let, and the ten or a dozen people who passed +through the Rue Plumet were warned of the fact by a yellow and illegible +bit of writing which had hung on the garden wall since 1819. + +Towards the end of the Restoration, these same passers-by might have +noticed that the bill had disappeared, and even that the shutters on the +first floor were open. The house was occupied, in fact. The windows had +short curtains, a sign that there was a woman about. + +In the month of October, 1829, a man of a certain age had presented +himself and had hired the house just as it stood, including, of course, +the back building and the lane which ended in the Rue de Babylone. He +had had the secret openings of the two doors to this passage repaired. +The house, as we have just mentioned, was still very nearly furnished +with the justice's old fitting; the new tenant had ordered some +repairs, had added what was lacking here and there, had replaced the +paving-stones in the yard, bricks in the floors, steps in the stairs, +missing bits in the inlaid floors and the glass in the lattice windows, +and had finally installed himself there with a young girl and an elderly +maid-servant, without commotion, rather like a person who is slipping +in than like a man who is entering his own house. The neighbors did not +gossip about him, for the reason that there were no neighbors. + +This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette. +The servant was a woman named Toussaint, whom Jean Valjean had saved +from the hospital and from wretchedness, and who was elderly, a +stammerer, and from the provinces, three qualities which had decided +Jean Valjean to take her with him. He had hired the house under the name +of M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman. In all that has been +related heretofore, the reader has, doubtless, been no less prompt than +Thenardier to recognize Jean Valjean. + +Why had Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Petit-Picpus? What had +happened? + +Nothing had happened. + +It will be remembered that Jean Valjean was happy in the convent, so +happy that his conscience finally took the alarm. He saw Cosette every +day, he felt paternity spring up and develop within him more and more, +he brooded over the soul of that child, he said to himself that she +was his, that nothing could take her from him, that this would last +indefinitely, that she would certainly become a nun, being thereto +gently incited every day, that thus the convent was henceforth the +universe for her as it was for him, that he should grow old there, and +that she would grow up there, that she would grow old there, and that +he should die there; that, in short, delightful hope, no separation +was possible. On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. He +interrogated himself. He asked himself if all that happiness were +really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of +the happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating and +stealing; if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this child +had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in +advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under +the pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of her +ignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation +germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie +to God. And who knows if, when she came to be aware of all this some +day, and found herself a nun to her sorrow, Cosette would not come to +hate him? A last, almost selfish thought, and less heroic than the rest, +but which was intolerable to him. He resolved to quit the convent. + +He resolved on this; he recognized with anguish, the fact that it was +necessary. As for objections, there were none. Five years' sojourn +between these four walls and of disappearance had necessarily destroyed +or dispersed the elements of fear. He could return tranquilly among men. +He had grown old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognize +him now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger only for himself, +and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reason +that he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in +comparison with the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudent +and taking his precautions. + +As for Cosette's education, it was almost finished and complete. + +His determination once taken, he awaited an opportunity. It was not long +in presenting itself. Old Fauchelevent died. + +Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told her +that, having come into a little inheritance at the death of his brother, +which permitted him henceforth to live without working, he should leave +the service of the convent and take his daughter with him; but that, as +it was not just that Cosette, since she had not taken the vows, should +have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend +Prioress to see fit that he should offer to the community, as indemnity, +for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of five +thousand francs. + +It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Perpetual +Adoration. + +On leaving the convent, he took in his own arms the little valise the +key to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter to +touch it. This puzzled Cosette, because of the odor of embalming which +proceeded from it. + +Let us state at once, that this trunk never quitted him more. He always +had it in his chamber. It was the first and only thing sometimes, that +he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it, +and called this valise his inseparable, saying: "I am jealous of it." + +Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without +profound anxiety. + +He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from +sight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the name:--Ultime +Fauchelevent. + +At the same time he hired two other apartments in Paris, in order that +he might attract less attention than if he were to remain always in the +same quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at the +slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that +he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had +so miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were very +pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote +from each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. + +He went from time to time, now to the Rue de l'Homme Arme, now to the +Rue de l'Ouest, to pass a month or six weeks, without taking Toussaint. +He had himself served by the porters, and gave himself out as a +gentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a little +temporary resting-place in town. This lofty virtue had three domiciles +in Paris for the sake of escaping from the police. + + + + +CHAPTER II--JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD + +However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had +arranged his existence there in the following fashion:-- + +Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big +sleeping-room with the painted pier-glasses, the boudoir with the gilded +fillets, the justice's drawing-room furnished with tapestries and vast +arm-chairs; she had the garden. Jean Valjean had a canopied bed of +antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in +the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul at Mother Gaucher's, put into Cosette's +chamber, and, in order to redeem the severity of these magnificent +old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-a-brac all the gay and +graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an etagere, +a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, +paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt +dressing-case, a toilet service in Japanese porcelain. Long damask +curtains with a red foundation and three colors, like those on the +bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the +curtains were of tapestry. All winter long, Cosette's little house was +heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's +lodge which was situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a +mattress on a folding-bed, a white wood table, two straw chairs, an +earthenware water-jug, a few old volumes on a shelf, his beloved valise +in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with Cosette, and he had a +loaf of black bread on the table for his own use. + +When Toussaint came, he had said to her: "It is the young lady who is +the mistress of this house."--"And you, monsieur?" Toussaint replied in +amazement.--"I am a much better thing than the master, I am the father." + +Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated +their expenditure, which was very modest. Every day, Jean Valjean put +his arm through Cosette's and took her for a walk. He led her to the +Luxembourg, to the least frequented walk, and every Sunday he took her +to mass at Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, because that was a long way off. +As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the +poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn down upon him +Thenardier's epistle: "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of +Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas." He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the +poor and the sick. No stranger ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet. +Toussaint brought their provisions, and Jean Valjean went himself for +water to a fountain near by on the boulevard. Their wood and wine were +put into a half-subterranean hollow lined with rock-work which lay near +the Rue de Babylone and which had formerly served the chief-justice as +a grotto; for at the epoch of follies and "Little Houses" no love was +without a grotto. + +In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box destined for +the reception of letters and papers; only, as the three inhabitants of +the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither papers nor letters, the +entire usefulness of that box, formerly the go-between of a love +affair, and the confidant of a love-lorn lawyer, was now limited to +the tax-collector's notices, and the summons of the guard. For M. +Fauchelevent, independent gentleman, belonged to the national guard; +he had not been able to escape through the fine meshes of the census of +1831. The municipal information collected at that time had even reached +the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud, +whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise, and, consequently, +worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the townhall. + +Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform and mounted +guard; he did this willingly, however; it was a correct disguise which +mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary. Jean Valjean had +just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age of legal exemption; but he +did not appear to be over fifty; moreover, he had no desire to escape +his sergeant-major nor to quibble with Comte de Lobau; he possessed +no civil status, he was concealing his name, he was concealing his +identity, so he concealed his age, he concealed everything; and, as we +have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard; the sum +of his ambition lay in resembling any other man who paid his taxes. This +man had for his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois. + +Let us note one detail, however; when Jean Valjean went out with +Cosette, he dressed as the reader has already seen, and had the air of +a retired officer. When he went out alone, which was generally at night, +he was always dressed in a workingman's trousers and blouse, and wore +a cap which concealed his face. Was this precaution or humility? Both. +Cosette was accustomed to the enigmatical side of her destiny, and +hardly noticed her father's peculiarities. As for Toussaint, she +venerated Jean Valjean, and thought everything he did right. + +One day, her butcher, who had caught a glimpse of Jean Valjean, said to +her: "That's a queer fish." She replied: "He's a saint." + +Neither Jean Valjean nor Cosette nor Toussaint ever entered or emerged +except by the door on the Rue de Babylone. Unless seen through the +garden gate it would have been difficult to guess that they lived in +the Rue Plumet. That gate was always closed. Jean Valjean had left the +garden uncultivated, in order not to attract attention. + +In this, possibly, he made a mistake. + + + + +CHAPTER III--FOLIIS AC FRONDIBUS + +The garden thus left to itself for more than half a century had become +extraordinary and charming. The passers-by of forty years ago halted to +gaze at it, without a suspicion of the secrets which it hid in its fresh +and verdant depths. More than one dreamer of that epoch often allowed +his thoughts and his eyes to penetrate indiscreetly between the bars of +that ancient, padlocked gate, twisted, tottering, fastened to two +green and moss-covered pillars, and oddly crowned with a pediment of +undecipherable arabesque. + +There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues, +several lattices which had lost their nails with time, were rotting on +the wall, and there were no walks nor turf; but there was enough grass +everywhere. Gardening had taken its departure, and nature had returned. +Weeds abounded, which was a great piece of luck for a poor corner of +land. The festival of gilliflowers was something splendid. Nothing +in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life; +venerable growth reigned there among them. The trees had bent over +towards the nettles, the plant had sprung upward, the branch had +inclined, that which crawls on the earth had gone in search of that +which expands in the air, that which floats on the wind had bent over +towards that which trails in the moss; trunks, boughs, leaves, fibres, +clusters, tendrils, shoots, spines, thorns, had mingled, crossed, +married, confounded themselves in each other; vegetation in a deep +and close embrace, had celebrated and accomplished there, under the +well-pleased eye of the Creator, in that enclosure three hundred feet +square, the holy mystery of fraternity, symbol of the human fraternity. +This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is +to say, something as impenetrable as a forest, as peopled as a city, +quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, +solitary as a tomb, living as a throng. + +In Floreal[34] this enormous thicket, free behind its gate and within +its four walls, entered upon the secret labor of germination, quivered +in the rising sun, almost like an animal which drinks in the breaths of +cosmic love, and which feels the sap of April rising and boiling in +its veins, and shakes to the wind its enormous wonderful green locks, +sprinkled on the damp earth, on the defaced statues, on the crumbling +steps of the pavilion, and even on the pavement of the deserted street, +flowers like stars, dew like pearls, fecundity, beauty, life, joy, +perfumes. At midday, a thousand white butterflies took refuge there, and +it was a divine spectacle to see that living summer snow whirling about +there in flakes amid the shade. There, in those gay shadows of verdure, +a throng of innocent voices spoke sweetly to the soul, and what the +twittering forgot to say the humming completed. In the evening, a dreamy +vapor exhaled from the garden and enveloped it; a shroud of mist, a +calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the +honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an +exquisite and subtle poison; the last appeals of the woodpeckers and +the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the +sacred intimacy of the birds and the trees; by day the wings rejoice the +leaves, by night the leaves protect the wings. + +In winter the thicket was black, dripping, bristling, shivering, and +allowed some glimpse of the house. Instead of flowers on the branches +and dew in the flowers, the long silvery tracks of the snails were +visible on the cold, thick carpet of yellow leaves; but in any fashion, +under any aspect, at all seasons, spring, winter, summer, autumn, this +tiny enclosure breathed forth melancholy, contemplation, solitude, +liberty, the absence of man, the presence of God; and the rusty old gate +had the air of saying: "This garden belongs to me." + +It was of no avail that the pavements of Paris were there on every side, +the classic and splendid hotels of the Rue de Varennes a couple of paces +away, the dome of the Invalides close at hand, the Chamber of Deputies +not far off; the carriages of the Rue de Bourgogne and of the Rue +Saint-Dominique rumbled luxuriously, in vain, in the vicinity, in vain +did the yellow, brown, white, and red omnibuses cross each other's +course at the neighboring cross-roads; the Rue Plumet was the desert; +and the death of the former proprietors, the revolution which had passed +over it, the crumbling away of ancient fortunes, absence, forgetfulness, +forty years of abandonment and widowhood, had sufficed to restore to +this privileged spot ferns, mulleins, hemlock, yarrow, tall weeds, great +crimped plants, with large leaves of pale green cloth, lizards, beetles, +uneasy and rapid insects; to cause to spring forth from the depths +of the earth and to reappear between those four walls a certain +indescribable and savage grandeur; and for nature, which disconcerts +the petty arrangements of man, and which sheds herself always thoroughly +where she diffuses herself at all, in the ant as well as in the eagle, +to blossom out in a petty little Parisian garden with as much rude force +and majesty as in a virgin forest of the New World. + +Nothing is small, in fact; any one who is subject to the profound +and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute +satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause +or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable +ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. +Everything toils at everything. + +Algebra is applied to the clouds; the radiation of the star profits +the rose; no thinker would venture to affirm that the perfume of the +hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the +course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not +determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal +ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the +reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches +of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the +little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision +for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; +in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises +the other; all have need of each other. The light does not bear away +terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is +doing; the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. +All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. +Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with +the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the +birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope +ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field +of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an +ant-hill of stars. The same promiscuousness, and yet more unprecedented, +exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of +substance. Elements and principles mingle, combine, wed, multiply with +each other, to such a point that the material and the moral world are +brought eventually to the same clearness. The phenomenon is perpetually +returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life +goes and comes in unknown quantities, rolling entirely in the invisible +mystery of effluvia, employing everything, not losing a single dream, +not a single slumber, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling to bits a +planet there, oscillating and winding, making of light a force and of +thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, +except that geometrical point, the I; bringing everything back to the +soul-atom; expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from +summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the +flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who +knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the +comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop +of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of +which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is the zodiac. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--CHANGE OF GATE + +It seemed that this garden, created in olden days to conceal wanton +mysteries, had been transformed and become fitted to shelter chaste +mysteries. There were no longer either arbors, or bowling greens, or +tunnels, or grottos; there was a magnificent, dishevelled obscurity +falling like a veil over all. Paphos had been made over into Eden. It is +impossible to say what element of repentance had rendered this retreat +wholesome. This flower-girl now offered her blossom to the soul. This +coquettish garden, formerly decidedly compromised, had returned to +virginity and modesty. A justice assisted by a gardener, a goodman who +thought that he was a continuation of Lamoignon, and another goodman who +thought that he was a continuation of Lenotre, had turned it about, cut, +ruffled, decked, moulded it to gallantry; nature had taken possession of +it once more, had filled it with shade, and had arranged it for love. + +There was, also, in this solitude, a heart which was quite ready. Love +had only to show himself; he had here a temple composed of verdure, +grass, moss, the sight of birds, tender shadows, agitated branches, and +a soul made of sweetness, of faith, of candor, of hope, of aspiration, +and of illusion. + +Cosette had left the convent when she was still almost a child; she was +a little more than fourteen, and she was at the "ungrateful age"; we +have already said, that with the exception of her eyes, she was homely +rather than pretty; she had no ungraceful feature, but she was awkward, +thin, timid and bold at once, a grown-up little girl, in short. + +Her education was finished, that is to say, she has been taught +religion, and even and above all, devotion; then "history," that is to +say the thing that bears that name in convents, geography, grammar, +the participles, the kings of France, a little music, a little drawing, +etc.; but in all other respects she was utterly ignorant, which is a +great charm and a great peril. The soul of a young girl should not be +left in the dark; later on, mirages that are too abrupt and too lively +are formed there, as in a dark chamber. She should be gently and +discreetly enlightened, rather with the reflection of realities than +with their harsh and direct light. A useful and graciously austere +half-light which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls. There is +nothing but the maternal instinct, that admirable intuition composed of +the memories of the virgin and the experience of the woman, which knows +how this half-light is to be created and of what it should consist. + +Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world +are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's +soul. + +Cosette had had no mother. She had only had many mothers, in the plural. + +As for Jean Valjean, he was, indeed, all tenderness, all solicitude; but +he was only an old man and he knew nothing at all. + +Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a +woman for life, what science is required to combat that vast ignorance +which is called innocence! + +Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the convent. The convent +turns the thoughts in the direction of the unknown. The heart, thus +thrown back upon itself, works downward within itself, since it cannot +overflow, and grows deep, since it cannot expand. Hence visions, +suppositions, conjectures, outlines of romances, a desire for +adventures, fantastic constructions, edifices built wholly in the inner +obscurity of the mind, sombre and secret abodes where the passions +immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to +enter. The convent is a compression which, in order to triumph over the +human heart, should last during the whole life. + +On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more sweet and +more dangerous than the house in the Rue Plumet. It was the continuation +of solitude with the beginning of liberty; a garden that was closed, but +a nature that was acrid, rich, voluptuous, and fragrant; the same dreams +as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men; a grating, but one +that opened on the street. + +Still, when she arrived there, we repeat, she was only a child. Jean +Valjean gave this neglected garden over to her. "Do what you like with +it," he said to her. This amused Cosette; she turned over all the clumps +and all the stones, she hunted for "beasts"; she played in it, while +awaiting the time when she would dream in it; she loved this garden +for the insects that she found beneath her feet amid the grass, while +awaiting the day when she would love it for the stars that she would see +through the boughs above her head. + +And then, she loved her father, that is to say, Jean Valjean, with +all her soul, with an innocent filial passion which made the goodman +a beloved and charming companion to her. It will be remembered that M. +Madeleine had been in the habit of reading a great deal. Jean Valjean +had continued this practice; he had come to converse well; he possessed +the secret riches and the eloquence of a true and humble mind which has +spontaneously cultivated itself. He retained just enough sharpness to +season his kindness; his mind was rough and his heart was soft. During +their conversations in the Luxembourg, he gave her explanations of +everything, drawing on what he had read, and also on what he had +suffered. As she listened to him, Cosette's eyes wandered vaguely about. + +This simple man sufficed for Cosette's thought, the same as the wild +garden sufficed for her eyes. When she had had a good chase after the +butterflies, she came panting up to him and said: "Ah! How I have run!" +He kissed her brow. + +Cosette adored the goodman. She was always at his heels. Where Jean +Valjean was, there happiness was. Jean Valjean lived neither in the +pavilion nor the garden; she took greater pleasure in the paved back +courtyard, than in the enclosure filled with flowers, and in his little +lodge furnished with straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room +hung with tapestry, against which stood tufted easy-chairs. Jean Valjean +sometimes said to her, smiling at his happiness in being importuned: "Do +go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little!" + +She gave him those charming and tender scoldings which are so graceful +when they come from a daughter to her father. + +"Father, I am very cold in your rooms; why don't you have a carpet here +and a stove?" + +"Dear child, there are so many people who are better than I and who have +not even a roof over their heads." + +"Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed?" + +"Because you are a woman and a child." + +"Bah! must men be cold and feel uncomfortable?" + +"Certain men." + +"That is good, I shall come here so often that you will be obliged to +have a fire." + +And again she said to him:-- + +"Father, why do you eat horrible bread like that?" + +"Because, my daughter." + +"Well, if you eat it, I will eat it too." + +Then, in order to prevent Cosette eating black bread, Jean Valjean ate +white bread. + +Cosette had but a confused recollection of her childhood. She prayed +morning and evening for her mother whom she had never known. The +Thenardiers had remained with her as two hideous figures in a dream. She +remembered that she had gone "one day, at night," to fetch water in a +forest. She thought that it had been very far from Paris. It seemed to +her that she had begun to live in an abyss, and that it was Jean Valjean +who had rescued her from it. Her childhood produced upon her the effect +of a time when there had been nothing around her but millepeds, spiders, +and serpents. When she meditated in the evening, before falling asleep, +as she had not a very clear idea that she was Jean Valjean's daughter, +and that he was her father, she fancied that the soul of her mother had +passed into that good man and had come to dwell near her. + +When he was seated, she leaned her cheek against his white hair, and +dropped a silent tear, saying to herself: "Perhaps this man is my +mother." + +Cosette, although this is a strange statement to make, in the profound +ignorance of a girl brought up in a convent,--maternity being also +absolutely unintelligible to virginity,--had ended by fancying that she +had had as little mother as possible. She did not even know her mother's +name. Whenever she asked Jean Valjean, Jean Valjean remained silent. If +she repeated her question, he responded with a smile. Once she insisted; +the smile ended in a tear. + +This silence on the part of Jean Valjean covered Fantine with darkness. + +Was it prudence? Was it respect? Was it a fear that he should deliver +this name to the hazards of another memory than his own? + +So long as Cosette had been small, Jean Valjean had been willing to talk +to her of her mother; when she became a young girl, it was impossible +for him to do so. It seemed to him that he no longer dared. Was it +because of Cosette? Was it because of Fantine? He felt a certain +religious horror at letting that shadow enter Cosette's thought; and of +placing a third in their destiny. The more sacred this shade was to him, +the more did it seem that it was to be feared. He thought of Fantine, +and felt himself overwhelmed with silence. + +Through the darkness, he vaguely perceived something which appeared +to have its finger on its lips. Had all the modesty which had been +in Fantine, and which had violently quitted her during her lifetime, +returned to rest upon her after her death, to watch in indignation over +the peace of that dead woman, and in its shyness, to keep her in her +grave? Was Jean Valjean unconsciously submitting to the pressure? We +who believe in death, are not among the number who will reject this +mysterious explanation. + +Hence the impossibility of uttering, even for Cosette, that name of +Fantine. + +One day Cosette said to him:-- + +"Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two big wings. +My mother must have been almost a saint during her life." + +"Through martyrdom," replied Jean Valjean. + +However, Jean Valjean was happy. + +When Cosette went out with him, she leaned on his arm, proud and happy, +in the plenitude of her heart. Jean Valjean felt his heart melt within +him with delight, at all these sparks of a tenderness so exclusive, so +wholly satisfied with himself alone. The poor man trembled, inundated +with angelic joy; he declared to himself ecstatically that this would +last all their lives; he told himself that he really had not suffered +sufficiently to merit so radiant a bliss, and he thanked God, in the +depths of his soul, for having permitted him to be loved thus, he, a +wretch, by that innocent being. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE ROSE PERCEIVES THAT IT IS AN ENGINE OF WAR + +One day, Cosette chanced to look at herself in her mirror, and she said +to herself: "Really!" It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This +threw her in a singularly troubled state of mind. Up to that moment she +had never thought of her face. She saw herself in her mirror, but she +did not look at herself. And then, she had so often been told that she +was homely; Jean Valjean alone said gently: "No indeed! no indeed!" At +all events, Cosette had always thought herself homely, and had grown up +in that belief with the easy resignation of childhood. And here, all +at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said: "No +indeed!" That night, she did not sleep. "What if I were pretty!" she +thought. "How odd it would be if I were pretty!" And she recalled those +of her companions whose beauty had produced a sensation in the convent, +and she said to herself: "What! Am I to be like Mademoiselle So-and-So?" + +The next morning she looked at herself again, not by accident this time, +and she was assailed with doubts: "Where did I get such an idea?" said +she; "no, I am ugly." She had not slept well, that was all, her eyes +were sunken and she was pale. She had not felt very joyous on the +preceding evening in the belief that she was beautiful, but it made her +very sad not to be able to believe in it any longer. She did not look at +herself again, and for more than a fortnight she tried to dress her hair +with her back turned to the mirror. + +In the evening, after dinner, she generally embroidered in wool or +did some convent needlework in the drawing-room, and Jean Valjean read +beside her. Once she raised her eyes from her work, and was rendered +quite uneasy by the manner in which her father was gazing at her. + +On another occasion, she was passing along the street, and it seemed +to her that some one behind her, whom she did not see, said: "A pretty +woman! but badly dressed." "Bah!" she thought, "he does not mean me. +I am well dressed and ugly." She was then wearing a plush hat and her +merino gown. + +At last, one day when she was in the garden, she heard poor old +Toussaint saying: "Do you notice how pretty Cosette is growing, sir?" +Cosette did not hear her father's reply, but Toussaint's words caused +a sort of commotion within her. She fled from the garden, ran up to +her room, flew to the looking-glass,--it was three months since she +had looked at herself,--and gave vent to a cry. She had just dazzled +herself. + +She was beautiful and lovely; she could not help agreeing with Toussaint +and her mirror. Her figure was formed, her skin had grown white, her +hair was lustrous, an unaccustomed splendor had been lighted in her blue +eyes. The consciousness of her beauty burst upon her in an instant, like +the sudden advent of daylight; other people noticed it also, Toussaint +had said so, it was evidently she of whom the passer-by had spoken, +there could no longer be any doubt of that; she descended to the garden +again, thinking herself a queen, imagining that she heard the birds +singing, though it was winter, seeing the sky gilded, the sun among +the trees, flowers in the thickets, distracted, wild, in inexpressible +delight. + +Jean Valjean, on his side, experienced a deep and undefinable oppression +at heart. + +In fact, he had, for some time past, been contemplating with terror that +beauty which seemed to grow more radiant every day on Cosette's sweet +face. The dawn that was smiling for all was gloomy for him. + +Cosette had been beautiful for a tolerably long time before she became +aware of it herself. But, from the very first day, that unexpected light +which was rising slowly and enveloping the whole of the young girl's +person, wounded Jean Valjean's sombre eye. He felt that it was a change +in a happy life, a life so happy that he did not dare to move for fear +of disarranging something. This man, who had passed through all manner +of distresses, who was still all bleeding from the bruises of fate, who +had been almost wicked and who had become almost a saint, who, after +having dragged the chain of the galleys, was now dragging the invisible +but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not +released from its grasp and who could be seized at any moment and +brought back from the obscurity of his virtue to the broad daylight of +public opprobrium, this man accepted all, excused all, pardoned all, and +merely asked of Providence, of man, of the law, of society, of nature, +of the world, one thing, that Cosette might love him! + +That Cosette might continue to love him! That God would not prevent +the heart of the child from coming to him, and from remaining with him! +Beloved by Cosette, he felt that he was healed, rested, appeased, loaded +with benefits, recompensed, crowned. Beloved by Cosette, it was well +with him! He asked nothing more! Had any one said to him: "Do you want +anything better?" he would have answered: "No." God might have said to +him: "Do you desire heaven?" and he would have replied: "I should lose +by it." + +Everything which could affect this situation, if only on the surface, +made him shudder like the beginning of something new. He had never +known very distinctly himself what the beauty of a woman means; but he +understood instinctively, that it was something terrible. + +He gazed with terror on this beauty, which was blossoming out ever more +triumphant and superb beside him, beneath his very eyes, on the innocent +and formidable brow of that child, from the depths of her homeliness, of +his old age, of his misery, of his reprobation. + +He said to himself: "How beautiful she is! What is to become of me?" + +There, moreover, lay the difference between his tenderness and the +tenderness of a mother. What he beheld with anguish, a mother would have +gazed upon with joy. + +The first symptoms were not long in making their appearance. + +On the very morrow of the day on which she had said to herself: +"Decidedly I am beautiful!" Cosette began to pay attention to her +toilet. She recalled the remark of that passer-by: "Pretty, but badly +dressed," the breath of an oracle which had passed beside her and had +vanished, after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which are +destined, later on, to fill the whole life of woman, coquetry. Love is +the other. + +With faith in her beauty, the whole feminine soul expanded within her. +She conceived a horror for her merinos, and shame for her plush hat. Her +father had never refused her anything. She at once acquired the whole +science of the bonnet, the gown, the mantle, the boot, the cuff, the +stuff which is in fashion, the color which is becoming, that science +which makes of the Parisian woman something so charming, so deep, and so +dangerous. The words heady woman were invented for the Parisienne. + +In less than a month, little Cosette, in that Thebaid of the Rue de +Babylone, was not only one of the prettiest, but one of the "best +dressed" women in Paris, which means a great deal more. + +She would have liked to encounter her "passer-by," to see what he would +say, and to "teach him a lesson!" The truth is, that she was ravishing +in every respect, and that she distinguished the difference between a +bonnet from Gerard and one from Herbaut in the most marvellous way. + +Jean Valjean watched these ravages with anxiety. He who felt that +he could never do anything but crawl, walk at the most, beheld wings +sprouting on Cosette. + +Moreover, from the mere inspection of Cosette's toilet, a woman +would have recognized the fact that she had no mother. Certain little +proprieties, certain special conventionalities, were not observed by +Cosette. A mother, for instance, would have told her that a young girl +does not dress in damask. + +The first day that Cosette went out in her black damask gown and mantle, +and her white crape bonnet, she took Jean Valjean's arm, gay, radiant, +rosy, proud, dazzling. "Father," she said, "how do you like me in this +guise?" Jean Valjean replied in a voice which resembled the bitter voice +of an envious man: "Charming!" He was the same as usual during their +walk. On their return home, he asked Cosette:-- + +"Won't you put on that other gown and bonnet again,--you know the ones I +mean?" + +This took place in Cosette's chamber. Cosette turned towards the +wardrobe where her cast-off schoolgirl's clothes were hanging. + +"That disguise!" said she. "Father, what do you want me to do with it? +Oh no, the idea! I shall never put on those horrors again. With that +machine on my head, I have the air of Madame Mad-dog." + +Jean Valjean heaved a deep sigh. + +From that moment forth, he noticed that Cosette, who had always +heretofore asked to remain at home, saying: "Father, I enjoy myself more +here with you," now was always asking to go out. In fact, what is the +use of having a handsome face and a delicious costume if one does not +display them? + +He also noticed that Cosette had no longer the same taste for the back +garden. Now she preferred the garden, and did not dislike to promenade +back and forth in front of the railed fence. Jean Valjean, who was shy, +never set foot in the garden. He kept to his back yard, like a dog. + +Cosette, in gaining the knowledge that she was beautiful, lost the grace +of ignoring it. An exquisite grace, for beauty enhanced by ingenuousness +is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent +creature who walks along, holding in her hand the key to paradise +without being conscious of it. But what she had lost in ingenuous grace, +she gained in pensive and serious charm. Her whole person, permeated +with the joy of youth, of innocence, and of beauty, breathed forth a +splendid melancholy. + +It was at this epoch that Marius, after the lapse of six months, saw her +once more at the Luxembourg. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE BATTLE BEGUN + +Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. +Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together +these two beings, all charged and all languishing with the stormy +electricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love as +two clouds are laden with lightning, and which were bound to overflow +and mingle in a look like the clouds in a flash of fire. + +The glance has been so much abused in love romances that it has finally +fallen into disrepute. One hardly dares to say, nowadays, that two +beings fell in love because they looked at each other. That is the way +people do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest is +nothing, but the rest comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these +great shocks which two souls convey to each other by the exchange of +that spark. + +At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glance +which troubled Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he had also launched +a look which disturbed Cosette. + +He caused her the same good and the same evil. + +She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time, and she had +scrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see, while looking elsewhere. +Marius still considered Cosette ugly, when she had already begun to +think Marius handsome. But as he paid no attention to her, the young man +was nothing to her. + +Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he had +beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, handsome teeth, a charming tone of voice +when she heard him conversing with his comrades, that he held himself +badly when he walked, if you like, but with a grace that was all his +own, that he did not appear to be at all stupid, that his whole person +was noble, gentle, simple, proud, and that, in short, though he seemed +to be poor, yet his air was fine. + +On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other those +first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did +not immediately understand. She returned thoughtfully to the house in +the Rue de l'Ouest, where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, had +come to spend six weeks. The next morning, on waking, she thought of +that strange young man, so long indifferent and icy, who now seemed to +pay attention to her, and it did not appear to her that this attention +was the least in the world agreeable to her. She was, on the contrary, +somewhat incensed at this handsome and disdainful individual. A +substratum of war stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea caused +her a wholly childish joy, that she was going to take her revenge at +last. + +Knowing that she was beautiful, she was thoroughly conscious, though +in an indistinct fashion, that she possessed a weapon. Women play with +their beauty as children do with a knife. They wound themselves. + +The reader will recall Marius' hesitations, his palpitations, his +terrors. He remained on his bench and did not approach. This vexed +Cosette. One day, she said to Jean Valjean: "Father, let us stroll about +a little in that direction." Seeing that Marius did not come to her, +she went to him. In such cases, all women resemble Mahomet. And then, +strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man is +timidity; in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yet +nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each +other and assuming, each the other's qualities. + +That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius' +glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette +uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. + +The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound +melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since the +day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young +girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It +melts in love, which is its sun. + +Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word uttered +in its terrestrial sense. On the books of profane music which entered +the convent, amour (love) was replaced by tambour (drum) or pandour. +This created enigmas which exercised the imaginations of the big girls, +such as: Ah, how delightful is the drum! or, Pity is not a pandour. But +Cosette had left the convent too early to have occupied herself much +with the "drum." Therefore, she did not know what name to give to what +she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one does not know the name +of one's malady? + +She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. She +did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful or +dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited; she loved. She +would have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her: "You do not +sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You +have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You +blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the +end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!" She would not have +understood, and she would have replied: "What fault is there of mine in +a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?" + +It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to +the state of her soul. It was a sort of admiration at a distance, a mute +contemplation, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition of +youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining +a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but +having as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nor +defect; in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, a +chimaera with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would have +alarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed in +the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children +and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with +which she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still in +the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything +tremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was not +even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as +something charming, luminous, and impossible. + +As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with +all frankness. + +Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with +impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, +and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought +when she said to Jean Valjean:-- + +"What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!" + +Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did not +address each other, they did not salute each other, they did not know +each other; they saw each other; and like stars of heaven which are +separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. + +It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, +beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of her beauty, and in +ignorance of her love. She was a coquette to boot through her ignorance. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--TO ONE SADNESS OPPOSE A SADNESS AND A HALF + +All situations have their instincts. Old and eternal Mother Nature +warned Jean Valjean in a dim way of the presence of Marius. Jean Valjean +shuddered to the very bottom of his soul. Jean Valjean saw nothing, knew +nothing, and yet he scanned with obstinate attention, the darkness +in which he walked, as though he felt on one side of him something in +process of construction, and on the other, something which was crumbling +away. Marius, also warned, and, in accordance with the deep law of God, +by that same Mother Nature, did all he could to keep out of sight of +"the father." Nevertheless, it came to pass that Jean Valjean sometimes +espied him. Marius' manners were no longer in the least natural. He +exhibited ambiguous prudence and awkward daring. He no longer came quite +close to them as formerly. He seated himself at a distance and pretended +to be reading; why did he pretend that? Formerly he had come in his old +coat, now he wore his new one every day; Jean Valjean was not sure +that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore +gloves; in short, Jean Valjean cordially detested this young man. + +Cosette allowed nothing to be divined. Without knowing just what was the +matter with her she was convinced that there was something in it, and +that it must be concealed. + +There was a coincidence between the taste for the toilet which had +recently come to Cosette, and the habit of new clothes developed by +that stranger which was very repugnant to Jean Valjean. It might be +accidental, no doubt, certainly, but it was a menacing accident. + +He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger. One day, +however, he could not refrain from so doing, and, with that vague +despair which suddenly casts the lead into the depths of its despair, he +said to her: "What a very pedantic air that young man has!" + +Cosette, but a year before only an indifferent little girl, would have +replied: "Why, no, he is charming." Ten years later, with the love +of Marius in her heart, she would have answered: "A pedant, and +insufferable to the sight! You are right!"--At the moment in life +and the heart which she had then attained, she contented herself with +replying, with supreme calmness: "That young man!" + +As though she now beheld him for the first time in her life. + +"How stupid I am!" thought Jean Valjean. "She had not noticed him. It is +I who have pointed him out to her." + +Oh, simplicity of the old! oh, the depth of children! + +It is one of the laws of those fresh years of suffering and trouble, of +those vivacious conflicts between a first love and the first obstacles, +that the young girl does not allow herself to be caught in any trap +whatever, and that the young man falls into every one. Jean Valjean +had instituted an undeclared war against Marius, which Marius, with +the sublime stupidity of his passion and his age, did not divine. Jean +Valjean laid a host of ambushes for him; he changed his hour, he changed +his bench, he forgot his handkerchief, he came alone to the Luxembourg; +Marius dashed headlong into all these snares; and to all the +interrogation marks planted by Jean Valjean in his pathway, he +ingenuously answered "yes." But Cosette remained immured in her apparent +unconcern and in her imperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean +arrived at the following conclusion: "That ninny is madly in love with +Cosette, but Cosette does not even know that he exists." + +None the less did he bear in his heart a mournful tremor. The minute +when Cosette would love might strike at any moment. Does not everything +begin with indifference? + +Only once did Cosette make a mistake and alarm him. He rose from his +seat to depart, after a stay of three hours, and she said: "What, +already?" + +Jean Valjean had not discontinued his trips to the Luxembourg, as he +did not wish to do anything out of the way, and as, above all things, +he feared to arouse Cosette; but during the hours which were so sweet +to the lovers, while Cosette was sending her smile to the intoxicated +Marius, who perceived nothing else now, and who now saw nothing in all +the world but an adored and radiant face, Jean Valjean was fixing on +Marius flashing and terrible eyes. He, who had finally come to believe +himself incapable of a malevolent feeling, experienced moments when +Marius was present, in which he thought he was becoming savage and +ferocious once more, and he felt the old depths of his soul, which +had formerly contained so much wrath, opening once more and rising up +against that young man. It almost seemed to him that unknown craters +were forming in his bosom. + +What! he was there, that creature! What was he there for? He came +creeping about, smelling out, examining, trying! He came, saying: "Hey! +Why not?" He came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean's, life! to prowl +about his happiness, with the purpose of seizing it and bearing it away! + +Jean Valjean added: "Yes, that's it! What is he in search of? An +adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! +I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, +and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered +everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been +young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without +friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every +stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have +been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although +others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in +spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and +have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment +when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the +moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what +I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all +this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, +and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a +great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg." + +Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam. + +It was no longer a man gazing at a man; it was no longer an enemy +surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief. + +The reader knows the rest. Marius pursued his senseless course. One day +he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to +the porter. The porter, on his side, spoke, and said to Jean Valjean: +"Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you?" On the +morrow Jean Valjean bestowed on Marius that glance which Marius at last +perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore +to himself that he would never again set foot either in the Luxembourg +or in the Rue de l'Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet. + +Cosette did not complain, she said nothing, she asked no questions, she +did not seek to learn his reasons; she had already reached the point +where she was afraid of being divined, and of betraying herself. Jean +Valjean had no experience of these miseries, the only miseries which +are charming and the only ones with which he was not acquainted; the +consequence was that he did not understand the grave significance of +Cosette's silence. + +He merely noticed that she had grown sad, and he grew gloomy. On his +side and on hers, inexperience had joined issue. + +Once he made a trial. He asked Cosette:-- + +"Would you like to come to the Luxembourg?" + +A ray illuminated Cosette's pale face. + +"Yes," said she. + +They went thither. Three months had elapsed. Marius no longer went +there. Marius was not there. + +On the following day, Jean Valjean asked Cosette again:-- + +"Would you like to come to the Luxembourg?" + +She replied, sadly and gently:-- + +"No." + +Jean Valjean was hurt by this sadness, and heart-broken at this +gentleness. + +What was going on in that mind which was so young and yet already so +impenetrable? What was on its way there within? What was taking place +in Cosette's soul? Sometimes, instead of going to bed, Jean Valjean +remained seated on his pallet, with his head in his hands, and he passed +whole nights asking himself: "What has Cosette in her mind?" and in +thinking of the things that she might be thinking about. + +Oh! at such moments, what mournful glances did he cast towards that +cloister, that chaste peak, that abode of angels, that inaccessible +glacier of virtue! How he contemplated, with despairing ecstasy, that +convent garden, full of ignored flowers and cloistered virgins, where +all perfumes and all souls mount straight to heaven! How he adored that +Eden forever closed against him, whence he had voluntarily and madly +emerged! How he regretted his abnegation and his folly in having brought +Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled +to the earth by his very self-devotion! How he said to himself, "What +have I done?" + +However, nothing of all this was perceptible to Cosette. No ill-temper, +no harshness. His face was always serene and kind. Jean Valjean's +manners were more tender and more paternal than ever. If anything could +have betrayed his lack of joy, it was his increased suavity. + +On her side, Cosette languished. She suffered from the absence of Marius +as she had rejoiced in his presence, peculiarly, without exactly being +conscious of it. When Jean Valjean ceased to take her on their customary +strolls, a feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of her +heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Luxembourg garden, and +that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father +would take her thither once more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed. Jean +Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it. +It was too late. So Marius had disappeared; all was over. The day on +which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What +was to be done? Should she ever find him again? She felt an anguish at +her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no +longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or +shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for +dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than +the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home +was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done "her +marketing" well or ill; and she remained dejected, absorbed, attentive +to but a single thought, her eyes vague and staring as when one gazes by +night at a black and fathomless spot where an apparition has vanished. + +However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, +except her pallor. + +She still wore her sweet face for him. + +This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean. +Sometimes he asked her:-- + +"What is the matter with you?" + +She replied: "There is nothing the matter with me." + +And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would +add:-- + +"And you, father--is there anything wrong with you?" + +"With me? Nothing," said he. + +These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so +touching an affection, and who had lived so long for each other +now suffered side by side, each on the other's account; without +acknowledging it to each other, without anger towards each other, and +with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG + +Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its +sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. + +At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is +the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear. He +had an unconquerable conviction that Cosette was escaping from him. He +would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by +some external and brilliant matter. These ideas, puerile, as we have +just said, and at the same time senile, conveyed to him, by their very +childishness, a tolerably just notion of the influence of gold lace on +the imaginations of young girls. He once chanced to see a general on +horseback, in full uniform, pass along the street, Comte Coutard, the +commandant of Paris. He envied that gilded man; what happiness it +would be, he said to himself, if he could put on that suit which was an +incontestable thing; and if Cosette could behold him thus, she would be +dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the +Tuileries, the guard would present arms to him, and that would suffice +for Cosette, and would dispel her idea of looking at young men. + +An unforeseen shock was added to these sad reflections. + +In the isolated life which they led, and since they had come to dwell +in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one habit. They sometimes took +a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which +befits those who are entering life and those who are quitting it. + +For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent +to a stroll by night, with the cheerfulness of nature added. The streets +are deserted and the birds are singing. Cosette, a bird herself, liked +to rise early. These matutinal excursions were planned on the preceding +evening. He proposed, and she agreed. It was arranged like a plot, they +set out before daybreak, and these trips were so many small delights for +Cosette. These innocent eccentricities please young people. + +Jean Valjean's inclination led him, as we have seen, to the least +frequented spots, to solitary nooks, to forgotten places. There then +existed, in the vicinity of the barriers of Paris, a sort of poor +meadows, which were almost confounded with the city, where grew in +summer sickly grain, and which, in autumn, after the harvest had been +gathered, presented the appearance, not of having been reaped, but +peeled. Jean Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored +there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a +little girl once more, she could run and almost play; she took off her +hat, laid it on Jean Valjean's knees, and gathered bunches of flowers. +She gazed at the butterflies on the flowers, but did not catch them; +gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who +cherishes within her breast a trembling and fragile ideal has mercy on +the wing of a butterfly. She wove garlands of poppies, which she placed +on her head, and which, crossed and penetrated with sunlight, glowing +until they flamed, formed for her rosy face a crown of burning embers. + +Even after their life had grown sad, they kept up their custom of early +strolls. + +One morning in October, therefore, tempted by the serene perfection of +the autumn of 1831, they set out, and found themselves at break of +day near the Barriere du Maine. It was not dawn, it was daybreak; a +delightful and stern moment. A few constellations here and there in the +deep, pale azure, the earth all black, the heavens all white, a quiver +amid the blades of grass, everywhere the mysterious chill of twilight. A +lark, which seemed mingled with the stars, was carolling at a prodigious +height, and one would have declared that that hymn of pettiness calmed +immensity. In the East, the Valde-Grace projected its dark mass on the +clear horizon with the sharpness of steel; Venus dazzlingly brilliant +was rising behind that dome and had the air of a soul making its escape +from a gloomy edifice. + +All was peace and silence; there was no one on the road; a few stray +laborers, of whom they caught barely a glimpse, were on their way to +their work along the side-paths. + +Jean Valjean was sitting in a cross-walk on some planks deposited at the +gate of a timber-yard. His face was turned towards the highway, his back +towards the light; he had forgotten the sun which was on the point of +rising; he had sunk into one of those profound absorptions in which the +mind becomes concentrated, which imprison even the eye, and which are +equivalent to four walls. There are meditations which may be called +vertical; when one is at the bottom of them, time is required to return +to earth. Jean Valjean had plunged into one of these reveries. He was +thinking of Cosette, of the happiness that was possible if nothing came +between him and her, of the light with which she filled his life, a +light which was but the emanation of her soul. He was almost happy in +his revery. Cosette, who was standing beside him, was gazing at the +clouds as they turned rosy. + +All at once Cosette exclaimed: "Father, I should think some one was +coming yonder." Jean Valjean raised his eyes. + +Cosette was right. The causeway which leads to the ancient Barriere du +Maine is a prolongation, as the reader knows, of the Rue de Sevres, +and is cut at right angles by the inner boulevard. At the elbow of the +causeway and the boulevard, at the spot where it branches, they heard a +noise which it was difficult to account for at that hour, and a sort of +confused pile made its appearance. Some shapeless thing which was coming +from the boulevard was turning into the road. + +It grew larger, it seemed to move in an orderly manner, though it was +bristling and quivering; it seemed to be a vehicle, but its load could +not be distinctly made out. There were horses, wheels, shouts; whips +were cracking. By degrees the outlines became fixed, although bathed +in shadows. It was a vehicle, in fact, which had just turned from the +boulevard into the highway, and which was directing its course towards +the barrier near which sat Jean Valjean; a second, of the same aspect, +followed, then a third, then a fourth; seven chariots made their +appearance in succession, the heads of the horses touching the rear of +the wagon in front. Figures were moving on these vehicles, flashes were +visible through the dusk as though there were naked swords there, a +clanking became audible which resembled the rattling of chains, and as +this something advanced, the sound of voices waxed louder, and it turned +into a terrible thing such as emerges from the cave of dreams. + +As it drew nearer, it assumed a form, and was outlined behind the trees +with the pallid hue of an apparition; the mass grew white; the day, +which was slowly dawning, cast a wan light on this swarming heap which +was at once both sepulchral and living, the heads of the figures turned +into the faces of corpses, and this is what it proved to be:-- + +Seven wagons were driving in a file along the road. The first six were +singularly constructed. They resembled coopers' drays; they consisted +of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear +extremities. Each dray, or rather let us say, each ladder, was attached +to four horses harnessed tandem. On these ladders strange clusters of +men were being drawn. In the faint light, these men were to be divined +rather than seen. Twenty-four on each vehicle, twelve on a side, back to +back, facing the passers-by, their legs dangling in the air,--this was +the manner in which these men were travelling, and behind their backs +they had something which clanked, and which was a chain, and on their +necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had +his collar, but the chain was for all; so that if these four and twenty +men had occasion to alight from the dray and walk, they were seized with +a sort of inexorable unity, and were obliged to wind over the ground +with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds. +In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets +stood erect, each holding one end of the chain under his foot. The iron +necklets were square. The seventh vehicle, a huge rack-sided baggage +wagon, without a hood, had four wheels and six horses, and carried a +sonorous pile of iron boilers, cast-iron pots, braziers, and chains, +among which were mingled several men who were pinioned and stretched at +full length, and who seemed to be ill. This wagon, all lattice-work, +was garnished with dilapidated hurdles which appeared to have served for +former punishments. These vehicles kept to the middle of the road. On +each side marched a double hedge of guards of infamous aspect, wearing +three-cornered hats, like the soldiers under the Directory, shabby, +covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the +trousers of undertakers' men, half gray, half blue, which were almost +hanging in rags, with red epaulets, yellow shoulder belts, short sabres, +muskets, and cudgels; they were a species of soldier-blackguards. +These myrmidons seemed composed of the abjectness of the beggar and the +authority of the executioner. The one who appeared to be their chief +held a postilion's whip in his hand. All these details, blurred by the +dimness of dawn, became more and more clearly outlined as the light +increased. At the head and in the rear of the convoy rode mounted +gendarmes, serious and with sword in fist. + +This procession was so long that when the first vehicle reached the +barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng, +sprung, it is impossible to say whence, and formed in a twinkling, as +is frequently the case in Paris, pressed forward from both sides of +the road and looked on. In the neighboring lanes the shouts of people +calling to each other and the wooden shoes of market-gardeners hastening +up to gaze were audible. + +The men massed upon the drays allowed themselves to be jolted along in +silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen +trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest +of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were +horribly incongruous; nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in +rags. Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hideous woollen nightcaps, +and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow; +many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy +breasts were visible, and through the rent in their garments tattooed +designs could be descried; temples of Love, flaming hearts, Cupids; +eruptions and unhealthy red blotches could also be seen. Two or three +had a straw rope attached to the cross-bar of the dray, and suspended +under them like a stirrup, which supported their feet. One of them held +in his hand and raised to his mouth something which had the appearance +of a black stone and which he seemed to be gnawing; it was bread which +he was eating. There were no eyes there which were not either dry, +dulled, or flaming with an evil light. The escort troop cursed, the men +in chains did not utter a syllable; from time to time the sound of +a blow became audible as the cudgels descended on shoulder-blades or +skulls; some of these men were yawning; their rags were terrible; +their feet hung down, their shoulders oscillated, their heads clashed +together, their fetters clanked, their eyes glared ferociously, their +fists clenched or fell open inertly like the hands of corpses; in the +rear of the convoy ran a band of children screaming with laughter. + +This file of vehicles, whatever its nature was, was mournful. It +was evident that to-morrow, that an hour hence, a pouring rain might +descend, that it might be followed by another and another, and that +their dilapidated garments would be drenched, that once soaked, these +men would not get dry again, that once chilled, they would not again +get warm, that their linen trousers would be glued to their bones by the +downpour, that the water would fill their shoes, that no lashes from +the whips would be able to prevent their jaws from chattering, that the +chain would continue to bind them by the neck, that their legs would +continue to dangle, and it was impossible not to shudder at the sight +of these human beings thus bound and passive beneath the cold clouds of +autumn, and delivered over to the rain, to the blast, to all the furies +of the air, like trees and stones. + +Blows from the cudgel were not omitted even in the case of the sick men, +who lay there knotted with ropes and motionless on the seventh wagon, +and who appeared to have been tossed there like sacks filled with +misery. + +Suddenly, the sun made its appearance; the immense light of the Orient +burst forth, and one would have said that it had set fire to all those +ferocious heads. Their tongues were unloosed; a conflagration of grins, +oaths, and songs exploded. The broad horizontal sheet of light severed +the file in two parts, illuminating heads and bodies, leaving feet and +wheels in the obscurity. Thoughts made their appearance on these faces; +it was a terrible moment; visible demons with their masks removed, +fierce souls laid bare. Though lighted up, this wild throng remained in +gloom. Some, who were gay, had in their mouths quills through which they +blew vermin over the crowd, picking out the women; the dawn accentuated +these lamentable profiles with the blackness of its shadows; there +was not one of these creatures who was not deformed by reason of +wretchedness; and the whole was so monstrous that one would have +said that the sun's brilliancy had been changed into the glare of the +lightning. The wagon-load which headed the line had struck up a song, +and were shouting at the top of their voices with a haggard joviality, +a potpourri by Desaugiers, then famous, called The Vestal; the trees +shivered mournfully; in the cross-lanes, countenances of bourgeois +listened in an idiotic delight to these coarse strains droned by +spectres. + +All sorts of distress met in this procession as in chaos; here were to +be found the facial angles of every sort of beast, old men, youths, +bald heads, gray beards, cynical monstrosities, sour resignation, savage +grins, senseless attitudes, snouts surmounted by caps, heads like those +of young girls with corkscrew curls on the temples, infantile visages, +and by reason of that, horrible thin skeleton faces, to which death +alone was lacking. On the first cart was a negro, who had been a slave, +in all probability, and who could make a comparison of his chains. The +frightful leveller from below, shame, had passed over these brows; at +that degree of abasement, the last transformations were suffered by all +in their extremest depths, and ignorance, converted into dulness, was +the equal of intelligence converted into despair. There was no choice +possible between these men who appeared to the eye as the flower of the +mud. It was evident that the person who had had the ordering of that +unclean procession had not classified them. These beings had been +fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and +loaded hap-hazard on those carts. Nevertheless, horrors, when grouped +together, always end by evolving a result; all additions of wretched men +give a sum total, each chain exhaled a common soul, and each dray-load +had its own physiognomy. By the side of the one where they were singing, +there was one where they were howling; a third where they were begging; +one could be seen in which they were gnashing their teeth; another load +menaced the spectators, another blasphemed God; the last was as silent +as the tomb. Dante would have thought that he beheld his seven circles +of hell on the march. The march of the damned to their tortures, +performed in sinister wise, not on the formidable and flaming chariot +of the Apocalypse, but, what was more mournful than that, on the gibbet +cart. + +One of the guards, who had a hook on the end of his cudgel, made a +pretence from time to time, of stirring up this mass of human filth. +An old woman in the crowd pointed them out to her little boy five years +old, and said to him: "Rascal, let that be a warning to you!" + +As the songs and blasphemies increased, the man who appeared to be the +captain of the escort cracked his whip, and at that signal a fearful +dull and blind flogging, which produced the sound of hail, fell upon the +seven dray-loads; many roared and foamed at the mouth; which redoubled +the delight of the street urchins who had hastened up, a swarm of flies +on these wounds. + +Jean Valjean's eyes had assumed a frightful expression. They were no +longer eyes; they were those deep and glassy objects which replace the +glance in the case of certain wretched men, which seem unconscious +of reality, and in which flames the reflection of terrors and of +catastrophes. He was not looking at a spectacle, he was seeing a vision. +He tried to rise, to flee, to make his escape; he could not move his +feet. Sometimes, the things that you see seize upon you and hold you +fast. He remained nailed to the spot, petrified, stupid, asking himself, +athwart confused and inexpressible anguish, what this sepulchral +persecution signified, and whence had come that pandemonium which was +pursuing him. All at once, he raised his hand to his brow, a gesture +habitual to those whose memory suddenly returns; he remembered that this +was, in fact, the usual itinerary, that it was customary to make this +detour in order to avoid all possibility of encountering royalty on the +road to Fontainebleau, and that, five and thirty years before, he had +himself passed through that barrier. + +Cosette was no less terrified, but in a different way. She did not +understand; what she beheld did not seem to her to be possible; at +length she cried:-- + +"Father! What are those men in those carts?" + +Jean Valjean replied: "Convicts." + +"Whither are they going?" + +"To the galleys." + +At that moment, the cudgelling, multiplied by a hundred hands, became +zealous, blows with the flat of the sword were mingled with it, it was a +perfect storm of whips and clubs; the convicts bent before it, a hideous +obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting +glances like chained wolves. + +Cosette trembled in every limb; she resumed:-- + +"Father, are they still men?" + +"Sometimes," answered the unhappy man. + +It was the chain-gang, in fact, which had set out before daybreak from +Bicetre, and had taken the road to Mans in order to avoid Fontainebleau, +where the King then was. This caused the horrible journey to last three +or four days longer; but torture may surely be prolonged with the object +of sparing the royal personage a sight of it. + +Jean Valjean returned home utterly overwhelmed. Such encounters are +shocks, and the memory that they leave behind them resembles a thorough +shaking up. + +Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not observe that, on his way back to +the Rue de Babylone with Cosette, the latter was plying him with other +questions on the subject of what they had just seen; perhaps he was +too much absorbed in his own dejection to notice her words and reply to +them. But when Cosette was leaving him in the evening, to betake herself +to bed, he heard her say in a low voice, and as though talking to +herself: "It seems to me, that if I were to find one of those men in my +pathway, oh, my God, I should die merely from the sight of him close at +hand." + +Fortunately, chance ordained that on the morrow of that tragic day, +there was some official solemnity apropos of I know not what,--fetes in +Paris, a review in the Champ de Mars, jousts on the Seine, theatrical +performances in the Champs-Elysees, fireworks at the Arc de l'Etoile, +illuminations everywhere. Jean Valjean did violence to his habits, and +took Cosette to see these rejoicings, for the purpose of diverting her +from the memory of the day before, and of effacing, beneath the smiling +tumult of all Paris, the abominable thing which had passed before her. +The review with which the festival was spiced made the presence of +uniforms perfectly natural; Jean Valjean donned his uniform of a +national guard with the vague inward feeling of a man who is betaking +himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object. +Cosette, who made it her law to please her father, and to whom, +moreover, all spectacles were a novelty, accepted this diversion +with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too +disdainfully at that flutter of enjoyment called a public fete; so that +Jean Valjean was able to believe that he had succeeded, and that no +trace of that hideous vision remained. + +Some days later, one morning, when the sun was shining brightly, and +they were both on the steps leading to the garden, another infraction of +the rules which Jean Valjean seemed to have imposed upon himself, and +to the custom of remaining in her chamber which melancholy had caused +Cosette to adopt, Cosette, in a wrapper, was standing erect in that +negligent attire of early morning which envelops young girls in an +adorable way and which produces the effect of a cloud drawn over a star; +and, with her head bathed in light, rosy after a good sleep, submitting +to the gentle glances of the tender old man, she was picking a daisy +to pieces. Cosette did not know the delightful legend, I love a little, +passionately, etc.--who was there who could have taught her? She was +handling the flower instinctively, innocently, without a suspicion that +to pluck a daisy apart is to do the same by a heart. If there were a +fourth, and smiling Grace called Melancholy, she would have worn the air +of that Grace. Jean Valjean was fascinated by the contemplation of those +tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance +emitted by that child. A red-breast was warbling in the thicket, on one +side. White cloudlets floated across the sky, so gayly, that one would +have said that they had just been set at liberty. Cosette went on +attentively tearing the leaves from her flower; she seemed to be +thinking about something; but whatever it was, it must be something +charming; all at once she turned her head over her shoulder with the +delicate languor of a swan, and said to Jean Valjean: "Father, what are +the galleys like?" + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH + + + + +CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN + +Thus their life clouded over by degrees. + +But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to +them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing +to those who were cold. Cosette often accompanied Jean Valjean on these +visits to the poor, on which they recovered some remnants of their +former free intercourse; and sometimes, when the day had been a good +one, and they had assisted many in distress, and cheered and warmed many +little children, Cosette was rather merry in the evening. It was at this +epoch that they paid their visit to the Jondrette den. + +On the day following that visit, Jean Valjean made his appearance in the +pavilion in the morning, calm as was his wont, but with a large wound on +his left arm which was much inflamed, and very angry, which resembled a +burn, and which he explained in some way or other. This wound resulted +in his being detained in the house for a month with fever. He would not +call in a doctor. When Cosette urged him, "Call the dog-doctor," said +he. + +Cosette dressed the wound morning and evening with so divine an air and +such angelic happiness at being of use to him, that Jean Valjean felt +all his former joy returning, his fears and anxieties dissipating, and +he gazed at Cosette, saying: "Oh! what a kindly wound! Oh! what a good +misfortune!" + +Cosette on perceiving that her father was ill, had deserted the pavilion +and again taken a fancy to the little lodging and the back courtyard. +She passed nearly all her days beside Jean Valjean and read to him +the books which he desired. Generally they were books of travel. Jean +Valjean was undergoing a new birth; his happiness was reviving in these +ineffable rays; the Luxembourg, the prowling young stranger, Cosette's +coldness,--all these clouds upon his soul were growing dim. He had +reached the point where he said to himself: "I imagined all that. I am +an old fool." + +His happiness was so great that the horrible discovery of the +Thenardiers made in the Jondrette hovel, unexpected as it was, had, +after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making +his escape; all trace of him was lost--what more did he care for! he +only thought of those wretched beings to pity them. "Here they are in +prison, and henceforth they will be incapacitated for doing any harm," +he thought, "but what a lamentable family in distress!" + +As for the hideous vision of the Barriere du Maine, Cosette had not +referred to it again. + +Sister Sainte-Mechtilde had taught Cosette music in the convent; Cosette +had the voice of a linnet with a soul, and sometimes, in the evening, +in the wounded man's humble abode, she warbled melancholy songs which +delighted Jean Valjean. + +Spring came; the garden was so delightful at that season of the year, +that Jean Valjean said to Cosette:-- + +"You never go there; I want you to stroll in it." + +"As you like, father," said Cosette. + +And for the sake of obeying her father, she resumed her walks in the +garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who +was probably afraid of being seen through the fence, hardly ever went +there. + +Jean Valjean's wound had created a diversion. + +When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was +convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a +contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally +had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing +longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a +portion of our sadness; then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh +as dawn always is, gay like every childhood; a little inclined to weep +at times like the new-born being that it is. In that month, nature +has charming gleams which pass from the sky, from the trees, from the +meadows and the flowers into the heart of man. + +Cosette was still too young to escape the penetrating influence of that +April joy which bore so strong a resemblance to herself. Insensibly, and +without her suspecting the fact, the blackness departed from her spirit. +In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday. +Cosette was no longer sad. However, though this was so, she did not +account for it to herself. In the morning, about ten o'clock, after +breakfast, when she had succeeded in enticing her father into the garden +for a quarter of an hour, and when she was pacing up and down in the +sunlight in front of the steps, supporting his left arm for him, she did +not perceive that she laughed every moment and that she was happy. + +Jean Valjean, intoxicated, beheld her growing fresh and rosy once more. + +"Oh! What a good wound!" he repeated in a whisper. + +And he felt grateful to the Thenardiers. + +His wound once healed, he resumed his solitary twilight strolls. + +It is a mistake to suppose that a person can stroll alone in that +fashion in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some +adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A +PHENOMENON + +One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat; he remembered +that he had not dined on the preceding day either; this was becoming +tiresome. He resolved to make an effort to secure some supper. He +strolled out beyond the Salpetriere into deserted regions; that is +where windfalls are to be found; where there is no one, one always +finds something. He reached a settlement which appeared to him to be the +village of Austerlitz. + +In one of his preceding lounges he had noticed there an old garden +haunted by an old man and an old woman, and in that garden, a passable +apple-tree. Beside the apple-tree stood a sort of fruit-house, which was +not securely fastened, and where one might contrive to get an apple. One +apple is a supper; one apple is life. That which was Adam's ruin might +prove Gavroche's salvation. The garden abutted on a solitary, unpaved +lane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting the arrival of houses; the +garden was separated from it by a hedge. + +Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden; he found the lane, he +recognized the apple-tree, he verified the fruit-house, he examined the +hedge; a hedge means merely one stride. The day was declining, there was +not even a cat in the lane, the hour was propitious. Gavroche began +the operation of scaling the hedge, then suddenly paused. Some one was +talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of the breaks in the +hedge. + +[Illustration: Succor from Below 4b4-1-succor-from-below] + +A couple of paces distant, at the foot of the hedge on the other side, +exactly at the point where the gap which he was meditating would have +been made, there was a sort of recumbent stone which formed a bench, and +on this bench was seated the old man of the garden, while the old woman +was standing in front of him. The old woman was grumbling. Gavroche, who +was not very discreet, listened. + +"Monsieur Mabeuf!" said the old woman. + +"Mabeuf!" thought Gavroche, "that name is a perfect farce." + +The old man who was thus addressed, did not stir. The old woman +repeated:-- + +"Monsieur Mabeuf!" + +The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind +to answer:-- + +"What is it, Mother Plutarque?" + +"Mother Plutarque!" thought Gavroche, "another farcical name." + +Mother Plutarque began again, and the old man was forced to accept the +conversation:-- + +"The landlord is not pleased." + +"Why?" + +"We owe three quarters rent." + +"In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters." + +"He says that he will turn you out to sleep." + +"I will go." + +"The green-grocer insists on being paid. She will no longer leave her +fagots. What will you warm yourself with this winter? We shall have no +wood." + +"There is the sun." + +"The butcher refuses to give credit; he will not let us have any more +meat." + +"That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. It is too heavy." + +"What shall we have for dinner?" + +"Bread." + +"The baker demands a settlement, and says, 'no money, no bread.'" + +"That is well." + +"What will you eat?" + +"We have apples in the apple-room." + +"But, Monsieur, we can't live like that without money." + +"I have none." + +The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell into +thought. Gavroche became thoughtful also. It was almost dark. + +The first result of Gavroche's meditation was, that instead of scaling +the hedge, he crouched down under it. The branches stood apart a little +at the foot of the thicket. + +"Come," exclaimed Gavroche mentally, "here's a nook!" and he curled up +in it. His back was almost in contact with Father Mabeuf's bench. He +could hear the octogenarian breathe. + +Then, by way of dinner, he tried to sleep. + +It was a cat-nap, with one eye open. While he dozed, Gavroche kept on +the watch. + +The twilight pallor of the sky blanched the earth, and the lane formed a +livid line between two rows of dark bushes. + +All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance. +One was in front, the other some distance in the rear. + +"There come two creatures," muttered Gavroche. + +The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent and +thoughtful, dressed more than plainly, and who was walking slowly +because of his age, and strolling about in the open evening air. + +The second was straight, firm, slender. It regulated its pace by that +of the first; but in the voluntary slowness of its gait, suppleness +and agility were discernible. This figure had also something fierce and +disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called +an elegant; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, +probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at the waist. The head was +held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale +profile of a young man could be made out in the dim light. The profile +had a rose in its mouth. This second form was well known to Gavroche; it +was Montparnasse. + +He could have told nothing about the other, except that he was a +respectable old man. + +Gavroche immediately began to take observations. + +One of these two pedestrians evidently had a project connected with +the other. Gavroche was well placed to watch the course of events. The +bedroom had turned into a hiding-place at a very opportune moment. + +Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in such a place, betokened +something threatening. Gavroche felt his gamin's heart moved with +compassion for the old man. + +What was he to do? Interfere? One weakness coming to the aid of another! +It would be merely a laughing matter for Montparnasse. Gavroche did not +shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the +child in the second, would make but two mouthfuls for that redoubtable +ruffian eighteen years of age. + +While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and +hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the +spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded +upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, +and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of +these men was underneath the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee +of marble upon his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had +expected. The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse; the one who +was on top was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from +Gavroche. + +The old man had received the shock, had returned it, and that in such +a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed +had exchanged roles. + +"Here's a hearty veteran!" thought Gavroche. + +He could not refrain from clapping his hands. But it was applause +wasted. It did not reach the combatants, absorbed and deafened as they +were, each by the other, as their breath mingled in the struggle. + +Silence ensued. Montparnasse ceased his struggles. Gavroche indulged in +this aside: "Can he be dead!" + +The goodman had not uttered a word, nor given vent to a cry. He rose to +his feet, and Gavroche heard him say to Montparnasse:-- + +"Get up." + +Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast. Montparnasse's +attitude was the humiliated and furious attitude of the wolf who has +been caught by a sheep. + +Gavroche looked on and listened, making an effort to reinforce his eyes +with his ears. He was enjoying himself immensely. + +He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety in the character of a +spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue which borrowed +from the darkness an indescribably tragic accent. The goodman +questioned, Montparnasse replied. + +"How old are you?" + +"Nineteen." + +"You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work?" + +"It bores me." + +"What is your trade?" + +"An idler." + +"Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to +be?" + +"A thief." + +A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbed in profound thought. He +stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse. + +Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the +twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a +crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made efforts to +escape. + +The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one +hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force. + +The old man's revery lasted for some time, then, looking steadily at +Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the +darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue, of which Gavroche did not +lose a single syllable:-- + +"My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most +laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare to +toil. There is a certain formidable machine, have you seen it? It is +the rolling-mill. You must be on your guard against it, it is crafty +and ferocious; if it catches hold of the skirt of your coat, you will be +drawn in bodily. That machine is laziness. Stop while there is yet time, +and save yourself! Otherwise, it is all over with you; in a short time +you will be among the gearing. Once entangled, hope for nothing more. +Toil, lazybones! there is no more repose for you! The iron hand of +implacable toil has seized you. You do not wish to earn your living, to +have a task, to fulfil a duty! It bores you to be like other men? Well! +You will be different. Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find +ennui his torment. You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a +slave. Toil lets go of you on one side only to grasp you again on the +other. You do not desire to be its friend, you shall be its negro slave. +Ah! You would have none of the honest weariness of men, you shall have +the sweat of the damned. Where others sing, you will rattle in your +throat. You will see afar off, from below, other men at work; it will +seem to you that they are resting. The laborer, the harvester, the +sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in glory like the blessed +spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the +plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, +what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your +halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing +is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have +free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. +Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather +to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become steep +acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, +to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will +produce on you the effect of weighing a hundred pounds. Whether you +shall walk here rather than there, will become a problem that must be +solved. Any one who wants to go out simply gives his door a push, and +there he is in the open air. If you wish to go out, you will be obliged +to pierce your wall. What does every one who wants to step into the +street do? He goes down stairs; you will tear up your sheets, little +by little you will make of them a rope, then you will climb out of your +window, and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and +it will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the rope +is too short, but one way of descending will remain to you, to fall. To +drop hap-hazard into the gulf, from an unknown height, on what? On what +is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up a chimney-flue, at the +risk of burning; or you will creep through a sewer-pipe, at the risk of +drowning; I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, +of the stones which you will have to take up and replace twenty times a +day, of the plaster that you will have to hide in your straw pallet. A +lock presents itself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a +locksmith. If you wish to pass out, you will be condemned to execute a +terrible work of art; you will take a large sou, you will cut it in +two plates; with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your +business. Then you will hollow out the interior of these plates, taking +great care of the outside, and you will make on the edges a thread, so +that they can be adjusted one upon the other like a box and its cover. +The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected. To +the overseers it will be only a sou; to you it will be a box. What will +you put in this box? A small bit of steel. A watch-spring, in which you +will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw. With this saw, as long +as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you +will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain, and the bar at your window, +and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy +accomplished, all these miracles of art, address, skill, and patience +executed, what will be your recompense if it becomes known that you +are the author? The dungeon. There is your future. What precipices are +idleness and pleasure! Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy +resolution? To live in idleness on the property of society! to be +useless, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth +of wretchedness. Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will +become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! You have but +one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well. You will drink +water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter +whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to +your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well. +You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat +grass like the beasts of the forest. And you will be recaptured. And +then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for +your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness +which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten +before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on +yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less +than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I +conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, +varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on +your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven +clean, and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings +on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. If you +glance at a woman, you will receive a blow. And you will enter there at +the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty! You will enter young, +rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, and all your white teeth, and your +handsome, youthful hair; you will come out broken, bent, wrinkled, +toothless, horrible, with white locks! Ah! my poor child, you are on the +wrong road; idleness is counselling you badly; the hardest of all work +is thieving. Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of +an idle man. It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less +disagreeable to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said +to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is." + +And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the latter's +hand; Montparnasse weighed it for a moment, after which he allowed it to +slide gently into the back pocket of his coat, with the same mechanical +precaution as though he had stolen it. + +All this having been said and done, the goodman turned his back and +tranquilly resumed his stroll. + +"The blockhead!" muttered Montparnasse. + +Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt, already divined. + +Montparnasse watched him with amazement, as he disappeared in the dusk. +This contemplation was fatal to him. + +While the old man was walking away, Gavroche drew near. + +Gavroche had assured himself, with a sidelong glance, that Father Mabeuf +was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep. Then the gamin +emerged from his thicket, and began to crawl after Montparnasse in the +dark, as the latter stood there motionless. In this manner he came up +to Montparnasse without being seen or heard, gently insinuated his hand +into the back pocket of that frock-coat of fine black cloth, seized the +purse, withdrew his hand, and having recourse once more to his crawling, +he slipped away like an adder through the shadows. Montparnasse, who +had no reason to be on his guard, and who was engaged in thought for the +first time in his life, perceived nothing. When Gavroche had once more +attained the point where Father Mabeuf was, he flung the purse over the +hedge, and fled as fast as his legs would carry him. + +The purse fell on Father Mabeuf's foot. This commotion roused him. + +He bent over and picked up the purse. + +He did not understand in the least, and opened it. + +The purse had two compartments; in one of them there was some small +change; in the other lay six napoleons. + +M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter to his housekeeper. + +"That has fallen from heaven," said Mother Plutarque. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING + + + + +CHAPTER I--SOLITUDE AND THE BARRACKS COMBINED + +Cosette's grief, which had been so poignant and lively four or five +months previously, had, without her being conscious of the fact, entered +upon its convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love for her father, +the gayety of the birds and flowers, caused something almost resembling +forgetfulness to filter gradually, drop by drop, into that soul, which +was so virgin and so young. Was the fire wholly extinct there? Or was +it merely that layers of ashes had formed? The truth is, that she hardly +felt the painful and burning spot any longer. + +One day she suddenly thought of Marius: "Why!" said she, "I no longer +think of him." + +That same week, she noticed a very handsome officer of lancers, with +a wasp-like waist, a delicious uniform, the cheeks of a young girl, a +sword under his arm, waxed mustaches, and a glazed schapka, passing the +gate. Moreover, he had light hair, prominent blue eyes, a round face, +was vain, insolent and good-looking; quite the reverse of Marius. He +had a cigar in his mouth. Cosette thought that this officer doubtless +belonged to the regiment in barracks in the Rue de Babylone. + +On the following day, she saw him pass again. She took note of the hour. + +From that time forth, was it chance? she saw him pass nearly every day. + +The officer's comrades perceived that there was, in that "badly kept" +garden, behind that malicious rococo fence, a very pretty creature, +who was almost always there when the handsome lieutenant,--who is not +unknown to the reader, and whose name was Theodule Gillenormand,--passed +by. + +"See here!" they said to him, "there's a little creature there who is +making eyes at you, look." + +"Have I the time," replied the lancer, "to look at all the girls who +look at me?" + +This was at the precise moment when Marius was descending heavily +towards agony, and was saying: "If I could but see her before I +die!"--Had his wish been realized, had he beheld Cosette at that moment +gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and +he would have expired with grief. + +Whose fault was it? No one's. + +Marius possessed one of those temperaments which bury themselves in +sorrow and there abide; Cosette was one of those persons who plunge into +sorrow and emerge from it again. + +Cosette was, moreover, passing through that dangerous period, the fatal +phase of feminine revery abandoned to itself, in which the isolated +heart of a young girl resembles the tendrils of the vine which cling, +as chance directs, to the capital of a marble column or to the post of +a wine-shop: A rapid and decisive moment, critical for every orphan, be +she rich or poor, for wealth does not prevent a bad choice; misalliances +are made in very high circles, real misalliance is that of souls; and as +many an unknown young man, without name, without birth, without fortune, +is a marble column which bears up a temple of grand sentiments and grand +ideas, so such and such a man of the world satisfied and opulent, who +has polished boots and varnished words, if looked at not outside, but +inside, a thing which is reserved for his wife, is nothing more than a +block obscurely haunted by violent, unclean, and vinous passions; the +post of a drinking-shop. + +What did Cosette's soul contain? Passion calmed or lulled to sleep; +something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy +lower down. The image of the handsome officer was reflected in +the surface. Did a souvenir linger in the depths?--Quite at the +bottom?--Possibly. Cosette did not know. + +A singular incident supervened. + + + + +CHAPTER II--COSETTE'S APPREHENSIONS + +During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This, +as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals. +He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Where did he go? No +one knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these +departures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as far as a +little blind-alley at the corner of which she read: Impasse de la +Planchette. There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette back to the +Rue de Babylone. It was usually when money was lacking in the house that +Jean Valjean took these little trips. + +So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: "I shall return in three days." + +That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to get +rid of her ennui, she had opened her piano-organ, and had begun to sing, +accompanying herself the while, the chorus from Euryanthe: "Hunters +astray in the wood!" which is probably the most beautiful thing in all +the sphere of music. When she had finished, she remained wrapped in +thought. + +All at once, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of footsteps in +the garden. + +It could not be her father, he was absent; it could not be Toussaint, +she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night. + +She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room, which was closed, and +laid her ear against it. + +It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man, and that he was walking +very softly. + +She mounted rapidly to the first floor, to her own chamber, opened a +small wicket in her shutter, and peeped into the garden. The moon was at +the full. Everything could be seen as plainly as by day. + +There was no one there. + +She opened the window. The garden was absolutely calm, and all that was +visible was that the street was deserted as usual. + +Cosette thought that she had been mistaken. She thought that she had +heard a noise. It was a hallucination produced by the melancholy and +magnificent chorus of Weber, which lays open before the mind terrified +depths, which trembles before the gaze like a dizzy forest, and in which +one hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of the +huntsmen of whom one catches a glimpse through the twilight. + +She thought no more about it. + +Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in her +veins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runs +barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. +There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her. + +On the following day, at an earlier hour, towards nightfall, she was +strolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts which +occupied her, she fancied that she caught for an instant a sound similar +to that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walking +beneath the trees in the dusk, and not very far from her; but she told +herself that nothing so closely resembles a step on the grass as the +friction of two branches which have moved from side to side, and she +paid no heed to it. Besides, she could see nothing. + +She emerged from "the thicket"; she had still to cross a small lawn to +regain the steps. + +The moon, which had just risen behind her, cast Cosette's shadow in +front of her upon this lawn, as she came out from the shrubbery. + +Cosette halted in alarm. + +Beside her shadow, the moon outlined distinctly upon the turf another +shadow, which was particularly startling and terrible, a shadow which +had a round hat. + +It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border of +the clump of shrubbery, a few paces in the rear of Cosette. + +She stood for a moment without the power to speak, or cry, or call, or +stir, or turn her head. + +Then she summoned up all her courage, and turned round resolutely. + +There was no one there. + +She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared. + +She re-entered the thicket, searched the corners boldly, went as far as +the gate, and found nothing. + +She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Was this another +hallucination? What! Two days in succession! One hallucination might +pass, but two hallucinations? The disquieting point about it was, that +the shadow had assuredly not been a phantom. Phantoms do not wear round +hats. + +On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what she +thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see +her father shrug his shoulders and say to her: "You are a little goose." + +Jean Valjean grew anxious. + +"It cannot be anything," said he. + +He left her under some pretext, and went into the garden, and she saw +him examining the gate with great attention. + +During the night she woke up; this time she was sure, and she distinctly +heard some one walking close to the flight of steps beneath her window. +She ran to her little wicket and opened it. In point of fact, there +was a man in the garden, with a large club in his hand. Just as she +was about to scream, the moon lighted up the man's profile. It was her +father. She returned to her bed, saying to herself: "He is very uneasy!" + +Jean Valjean passed that night and the two succeeding nights in the +garden. Cosette saw him through the hole in her shutter. + +On the third night, the moon was on the wane, and had begun to rise +later; at one o'clock in the morning, possibly, she heard a loud burst +of laughter and her father's voice calling her:-- + +"Cosette!" + +She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened her +window. + +Her father was standing on the grass-plot below. + +"I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you," said he; "look, +there is your shadow with the round hat." + +And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadow cast by the moon, and +which did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a man +wearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimney-pipe of +sheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof. + +Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions were +allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, +she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of iron +chimney-pots. + +Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more; as for Cosette, she did +not pay much attention to the question whether the chimney-pot was +really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought she +had seen, and whether the moon had been in the same spot in the sky. + +She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-pot +which is afraid of being caught in the act, and which retires when some +one looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosette +had turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this. +Cosette's serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her to +be complete, and it quite vanished from her mind, whether there could +possibly be any one walking in the garden during the evening or at +night. + +A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred. + + + + +CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT + +In the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, +screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yoke-elms, +but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the +outside, past the trees and the gate. + +One evening during that same month of April, Jean Valjean had gone out; +Cosette had seated herself on this bench after sundown. The breeze was +blowing briskly in the trees, Cosette was meditating; an objectless +sadness was taking possession of her little by little, that invincible +sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, +from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour. + +Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow. + +Cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden, walking on the +grass drenched in dew, and saying to herself, through the species of +melancholy somnambulism in which she was plunged: "Really, one needs +wooden shoes for the garden at this hour. One takes cold." + +She returned to the bench. + +As she was about to resume her seat there, she observed on the spot +which she had quitted, a tolerably large stone which had, evidently, not +been there a moment before. + +Cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what it meant. All at once +the idea occurred to her that the stone had not reached the bench all by +itself, that some one had placed it there, that an arm had been thrust +through the railing, and this idea appeared to alarm her. This time, the +fear was genuine; the stone was there. No doubt was possible; she did +not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the +house, and immediately closed with shutter, bolt, and bar the door-like +window opening on the flight of steps. She inquired of Toussaint:-- + +"Has my father returned yet?" + +"Not yet, Mademoiselle." + +[We have already noted once for all the fact that Toussaint stuttered. +May we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. The musical +notation of an infirmity is repugnant to us.] + +Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and given to nocturnal strolls, often +returned quite late at night. + +"Toussaint," went on Cosette, "are you careful to thoroughly barricade +the shutters opening on the garden, at least with bars, in the evening, +and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?" + +"Oh! be easy on that score, Miss." + +Toussaint did not fail in her duty, and Cosette was well aware of the +fact, but she could not refrain from adding:-- + +"It is so solitary here." + +"So far as that is concerned," said Toussaint, "it is true. We might be +assassinated before we had time to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep +in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters up +like prisons. Lone women! That is enough to make one shudder, I believe +you! Just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at +night and say: 'Hold your tongue!' and begin to cut your throat. It's +not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and that's all right; +it's the abomination of feeling those people touch you. And then, their +knives; they can't be able to cut well with them! Ah, good gracious!" + +"Be quiet," said Cosette. "Fasten everything thoroughly." + +Cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvised by Toussaint, and +possibly, also, by the recollection of the apparitions of the past week, +which recurred to her memory, dared not even say to her: "Go and look at +the stone which has been placed on the bench!" for fear of opening the +garden gate and allowing "the men" to enter. She saw that all the doors +and windows were carefully fastened, made Toussaint go all over the +house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, +bolted her door, looked under her couch, went to bed and slept badly. +All night long she saw that big stone, as large as a mountain and full +of caverns. + +At sunrise,--the property of the rising sun is to make us laugh at all +our terrors of the past night, and our laughter is in direct proportion +to our terror which they have caused,--at sunrise Cosette, when she +woke, viewed her fright as a nightmare, and said to herself: "What have +I been thinking of? It is like the footsteps that I thought I heard a +week or two ago in the garden at night! It is like the shadow of the +chimney-pot! Am I becoming a coward?" The sun, which was glowing through +the crevices in her shutters, and turning the damask curtains crimson, +reassured her to such an extent that everything vanished from her +thoughts, even the stone. + +"There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round +hat in the garden; I dreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest." + +She dressed herself, descended to the garden, ran to the bench, and +broke out in a cold perspiration. The stone was there. + +But this lasted only for a moment. That which is terror by night is +curiosity by day. + +"Bah!" said she, "come, let us see what it is." + +She lifted the stone, which was tolerably large. Beneath it was +something which resembled a letter. It was a white envelope. Cosette +seized it. There was no address on one side, no seal on the other. +Yet the envelope, though unsealed, was not empty. Papers could be seen +inside. + +Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity; +it was a beginning of anxiety. + +Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, +each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and +rather pretty handwriting, as Cosette thought. + +Cosette looked for a name; there was none. To whom was this addressed? +To her, probably, since a hand had deposited the packet on her bench. +From whom did it come? An irresistible fascination took possession +of her; she tried to turn away her eyes from the leaflets which were +trembling in her hand, she gazed at the sky, the street, the acacias +all bathed in light, the pigeons fluttering over a neighboring roof, +and then her glance suddenly fell upon the manuscript, and she said to +herself that she must know what it contained. + +This is what she read. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A HEART BENEATH A STONE + +[Illustration: Cosette with Letter 4b4-5-cosette-after-letter] + +The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a +single being even to God, that is love. + + +Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. + + +How sad is the soul, when it is sad through love! + + +What a void in the absence of the being who, by herself alone fills the +world! Oh! how true it is that the beloved being becomes God. One could +comprehend that God might be jealous of this had not God the Father of +all evidently made creation for the soul, and the soul for love. + + +The glimpse of a smile beneath a white crape bonnet with a lilac curtain +is sufficient to cause the soul to enter into the palace of dreams. + + +God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are +black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being +transparent. + + +Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the +attitude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees. + + +Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which +possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing +each other, they cannot write to each other; they discover a multitude +of mysterious means to correspond. They send each other the song of the +birds, the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of children, the light of +the sun, the sighings of the breeze, the rays of stars, all creation. +And why not? All the works of God are made to serve love. Love is +sufficiently potent to charge all nature with its messages. + +Oh Spring! Thou art a letter that I write to her. + + +The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that +is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, +the inexhaustible is requisite. + + +Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like +it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, +imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is +immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can +extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and +we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven. + + +Oh Love! Adorations! voluptuousness of two minds which understand each +other, of two hearts which exchange with each other, of two glances +which penetrate each other! You will come to me, will you not, bliss! +strolls by twos in the solitudes! Blessed and radiant days! I have +sometimes dreamed that from time to time hours detached themselves from +the lives of the angels and came here below to traverse the destinies of +men. + + +God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give +them endless duration. After a life of love, an eternity of love is, in +fact, an augmentation; but to increase in intensity even the ineffable +felicity which love bestows on the soul even in this world, is +impossible, even to God. God is the plenitude of heaven; love is the +plenitude of man. + + +You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because +it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater +mystery, woman. + + +All of us, whoever we may be, have our respirable beings. We lack +air and we stifle. Then we die. To die for lack of love is horrible. +Suffocation of the soul. + + +When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic +unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are +concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of +the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the +same spirit. Love, soar. + + +On the day when a woman as she passes before you emits light as she +walks, you are lost, you love. But one thing remains for you to do: to +think of her so intently that she is constrained to think of you. + + +What love commences can be finished by God alone. + + +True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or a +handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its devotion and its +hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely great and the infinitely +little. + + +If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the sensitive +plant; if you are a man, be love. + + +Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire paradise; we +possess paradise, we desire heaven. + +Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love. Understand +how to find it there. Love has contemplation as well as heaven, and more +than heaven, it has voluptuousness. + + +"Does she still come to the Luxembourg?" "No, sir." "This is the church +where she attends mass, is it not?" "She no longer comes here." "Does +she still live in this house?" "She has moved away." "Where has she gone +to dwell?" + +"She did not say." + +What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one's soul! + +Love has its childishness, other passions have their pettinesses. Shame +on the passions which belittle man! Honor to the one which makes a child +of him! + + +There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwell in the night. There +is a being who carried off my sky when she went away. + + +Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand +in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a +finger,--that would suffice for my eternity! + + +Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live +in it. + + +Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration is mingled with this torture. +There is ecstasy in agony. + + +Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing. + + +Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise. + + +Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it; it is a long +trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown destiny. This +destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the +tomb. Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the +definitive. The definitive, meditate upon that word. The living perceive +the infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead. +In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to +him who shall have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will +deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. + + +I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who was in love. His +hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes; water trickled +through his shoes, and the stars through his soul. + + +What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is +to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer +composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything +that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more +germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, +inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds +and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its +vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels +anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests +of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. + + +If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct. + + + + +CHAPTER V--COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER + +As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought. At the very moment +when she raised her eyes from the last line of the note-book, the +handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,--it was his +hour; Cosette thought him hideous. + +She resumed her contemplation of the book. It was written in the most +charming of chirography, thought Cosette; in the same hand, but with +divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been +added to the inkstand, and consequently on different days. It was, +then, a mind which had unfolded itself there, sigh by sigh, irregularly, +without order, without choice, without object, hap-hazard. Cosette +had never read anything like it. This manuscript, in which she already +perceived more light than obscurity, produced upon her the effect of a +half-open sanctuary. Each one of these mysterious lines shone before +her eyes and inundated her heart with a strange radiance. The education +which she had received had always talked to her of the soul, and never +of love, very much as one might talk of the firebrand and not of the +flame. This manuscript of fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed +to her all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, the beginning, +the end. It was as if a hand had opened and suddenly flung upon her +a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, +ardent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will, an immense sorrow, and +an immense despair, a suffering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What +was this manuscript? A letter. A letter without name, without address, +without date, without signature, pressing and disinterested, an enigma +composed of truths, a message of love made to be brought by an angel and +read by a virgin, an appointment made beyond the bounds of earth, the +love-letter of a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one, tranquil and +dejected, who seemed ready to take refuge in death and who sent to the +absent love, his lady, the secret of fate, the key of life, love. This +had been written with one foot in the grave and one finger in heaven. +These lines, which had fallen one by one on the paper, were what might +be called drops of soul. + +Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them? + +Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only. + +He! + +Day had dawned once more in her spirit; all had reappeared. She felt an +unheard-of joy, and a profound anguish. It was he! he who had written! +he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust through that railing! +While she was forgetful of him, he had found her again! But had she +forgotten him? No, never! She was foolish to have thought so for a +single moment. She had always loved him, always adored him. The fire had +been smothered, and had smouldered for a time, but she saw all plainly +now; it had but made headway, and now it had burst forth afresh, and +had inflamed her whole being. This note-book was like a spark which +had fallen from that other soul into hers. She felt the conflagration +starting up once more. + +She imbued herself thoroughly with every word of the manuscript: "Oh +yes!" said she, "how perfectly I recognize all that! That is what I had +already read in his eyes." As she was finishing it for the third time, +Lieutenant Theodule passed the gate once more, and rattled his spurs +upon the pavement. Cosette was forced to raise her eyes. She thought him +insipid, silly, stupid, useless, foppish, displeasing, impertinent, and +extremely ugly. The officer thought it his duty to smile at her. + +She turned away as in shame and indignation. She would gladly have +thrown something at his head. + +She fled, re-entered the house, and shut herself up in her chamber to +peruse the manuscript once more, to learn it by heart, and to dream. +When she had thoroughly mastered it she kissed it and put it in her +bosom. + +All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep, seraphic love. The +abyss of Eden had yawned once more. + +All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment. She scarcely +thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled skein in her brain, +she could not manage to conjecture anything, she hoped through a tremor, +what? vague things. She dared make herself no promises, and she did +not wish to refuse herself anything. Flashes of pallor passed over her +countenance, and shivers ran through her frame. It seemed to her, at +intervals, that she was entering the land of chimaeras; she said to +herself: "Is this reality?" Then she felt of the dear paper within her +bosom under her gown, she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles +against her flesh; and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he +would have shuddered in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, +which overflowed from beneath her eyelids.--"Oh yes!" she thought, "it +is certainly he! This comes from him, and is for me!" + +And she told herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestial +chance, had given him back to her. + +Oh transfiguration of love! Oh dreams! That celestial chance, that +intervention of the angels, was a pellet of bread tossed by one thief to +another thief, from the Charlemagne Courtyard to the Lion's Ditch, over +the roofs of La Force. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--OLD PEOPLE ARE MADE TO GO OUT OPPORTUNELY + +When evening came, Jean Valjean went out; Cosette dressed herself. She +arranged her hair in the most becoming manner, and she put on a dress +whose bodice had received one snip of the scissors too much, and which, +through this slope, permitted a view of the beginning of her throat, and +was, as young girls say, "a trifle indecent." It was not in the least +indecent, but it was prettier than usual. She made her toilet thus +without knowing why she did so. + +Did she mean to go out? No. + +Was she expecting a visitor? No. + +At dusk, she went down to the garden. Toussaint was busy in her kitchen, +which opened on the back yard. + +She began to stroll about under the trees, thrusting aside the branches +from time to time with her hand, because there were some which hung very +low. + +In this manner she reached the bench. + +The stone was still there. + +She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she +wished to caress and thank it. + +All at once, she experienced that indefinable impression which one +undergoes when there is some one standing behind one, even when she does +not see the person. + +She turned her head and rose to her feet. + +It was he. + +His head was bare. He appeared to have grown thin and pale. His black +clothes were hardly discernible. The twilight threw a wan light on +his fine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Beneath a veil of +incomparable sweetness, he had something about him that suggested death +and night. His face was illuminated by the light of the dying day, and +by the thought of a soul that is taking flight. + +He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was no longer a man. + +He had flung away his hat in the thicket, a few paces distant. + +Cosette, though ready to swoon, uttered no cry. She retreated slowly, +for she felt herself attracted. He did not stir. By virtue of something +ineffable and melancholy which enveloped him, she felt the look in his +eyes which she could not see. + +Cosette, in her retreat, encountered a tree and leaned against it. Had +it not been for this tree, she would have fallen. + +Then she heard his voice, that voice which she had really never heard, +barely rising above the rustle of the leaves, and murmuring:-- + +"Pardon me, here I am. My heart is full. I could not live on as I was +living, and I have come. Have you read what I placed there on the bench? +Do you recognize me at all? Have no fear of me. It is a long time, you +remember the day, since you looked at me at the Luxembourg, near the +Gladiator. And the day when you passed before me? It was on the 16th of +June and the 2d of July. It is nearly a year ago. I have not seen you +for a long time. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs, and she +told me that she no longer saw you. You lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, on +the third floor, in the front apartments of a new house,--you see that +I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you +disappeared. I thought I saw you pass once, while I was reading the +newspapers under the arcade of the Odeon. I ran after you. But no. It +was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither. Do +not be afraid, no one sees me. I come to gaze upon your windows near +at hand. I walk very softly, so that you may not hear, for you might be +alarmed. The other evening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled. +Once, I heard you singing. I was happy. Did it affect you because I +heard you singing through the shutters? That could not hurt you. No, +it is not so? You see, you are my angel! Let me come sometimes; I think +that I am going to die. If you only knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I +speak to you, but I do not know what I am saying; I may have displeased +you; have I displeased you?" + +"Oh! my mother!" said she. + +And she sank down as though on the point of death. + +He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms, he pressed her close, +without knowing what he was doing. He supported her, though he was +tottering himself. It was as though his brain were full of smoke; +lightnings darted between his lips; his ideas vanished; it seemed to him +that he was accomplishing some religious act, and that he was committing +a profanation. Moreover, he had not the least passion for this lovely +woman whose force he felt against his breast. He was beside himself with +love. + +She took his hand and laid it on her heart. He felt the paper there, he +stammered:-- + +"You love me, then?" + +She replied in a voice so low that it was no longer anything more than a +barely audible breath:-- + +"Hush! Thou knowest it!" + +And she hid her blushing face on the breast of the superb and +intoxicated young man. + +He fell upon the bench, and she beside him. They had no words more. The +stars were beginning to gleam. How did it come to pass that their lips +met? How comes it to pass that the birds sing, that snow melts, that +the rose unfolds, that May expands, that the dawn grows white behind the +black trees on the shivering crest of the hills? + +A kiss, and that was all. + +Both started, and gazed into the darkness with sparkling eyes. + +They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp +earth, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts +were full of thoughts. They had clasped hands unconsciously. + +She did not ask him, she did not even wonder, how he had entered there, +and how he had made his way into the garden. It seemed so simple to her +that he should be there! + +From time to time, Marius' knee touched Cosette's knee, and both +shivered. + +At intervals, Cosette stammered a word. Her soul fluttered on her lips +like a drop of dew on a flower. + +Little by little they began to talk to each other. Effusion followed +silence, which is fulness. The night was serene and splendid overhead. +These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their +dreams, their intoxications, their ecstasies, their chimaeras, their +weaknesses, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had +longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each +other. They confided to each other in an ideal intimacy, which nothing +could augment, their most secret and most mysterious thoughts. They +related to each other, with candid faith in their illusions, all that +love, youth, and the remains of childhood which still lingered about +them, suggested to their minds. Their two hearts poured themselves out +into each other in such wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of an +hour, it was the young man who had the young girl's soul, and the young +girl who had the young man's soul. Each became permeated with the other, +they were enchanted with each other, they dazzled each other. + +When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she +laid her head on his shoulder and asked him:-- + +"What is your name?" + +"My name is Marius," said he. "And yours?" + +"My name is Cosette." + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--LITTLE GAVROCHE + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE MALICIOUS PLAYFULNESS OF THE WIND + +Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck +and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but +in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thenardier pair had had two other +children; both males. That made five; two girls and three boys. + +Madame Thenardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still +young and very small, with remarkable luck. + +Got rid of is the word. There was but a mere fragment of nature in that +woman. A phenomenon, by the way, of which there is more than one example +extant. Like the Marechale de La Mothe-Houdancourt, the Thenardier was +a mother to her daughters only. There her maternity ended. Her hatred of +the human race began with her own sons. In the direction of her sons her +evil disposition was uncompromising, and her heart had a lugubrious wall +in that quarter. As the reader has seen, she detested the eldest; she +cursed the other two. Why? Because. The most terrible of motives, the +most unanswerable of retorts--Because. "I have no need of a litter of +squalling brats," said this mother. + +Let us explain how the Thenardiers had succeeded in getting rid of their +last two children; and even in drawing profit from the operation. + +The woman Magnon, who was mentioned a few pages further back, was the +same one who had succeeded in making old Gillenormand support the two +children which she had had. She lived on the Quai des Celestins, at the +corner of this ancient street of the Petit-Musc which afforded her the +opportunity of changing her evil repute into good odor. The reader will +remember the great epidemic of croup which ravaged the river districts +of the Seine in Paris thirty-five years ago, and of which science took +advantage to make experiments on a grand scale as to the efficacy of +inhalations of alum, so beneficially replaced at the present day by the +external tincture of iodine. During this epidemic, the Magnon lost both +her boys, who were still very young, one in the morning, the other +in the evening of the same day. This was a blow. These children were +precious to their mother; they represented eighty francs a month. These +eighty francs were punctually paid in the name of M. Gillenormand, by +collector of his rents, M. Barge, a retired tip-staff, in the Rue du +Roi-de-Sicile. The children dead, the income was at an end. The Magnon +sought an expedient. In that dark free-masonry of evil of which she +formed a part, everything is known, all secrets are kept, and all lend +mutual aid. Magnon needed two children; the Thenardiers had two. +The same sex, the same age. A good arrangement for the one, a good +investment for the other. The little Thenardiers became little Magnons. +Magnon quitted the Quai des Celestins and went to live in the Rue +Clocheperce. In Paris, the identity which binds an individual to himself +is broken between one street and another. + +The registry office being in no way warned, raised no objections, and +the substitution was effected in the most simple manner in the world. +Only, the Thenardier exacted for this loan of her children, ten francs a +month, which Magnon promised to pay, and which she actually did pay. +It is unnecessary to add that M. Gillenormand continued to perform +his compact. He came to see the children every six months. He did not +perceive the change. "Monsieur," Magnon said to him, "how much they +resemble you!" + +Thenardier, to whom avatars were easy, seized this occasion to become +Jondrette. His two daughters and Gavroche had hardly had time to +discover that they had two little brothers. When a certain degree +of misery is reached, one is overpowered with a sort of spectral +indifference, and one regards human beings as though they were spectres. +Your nearest relations are often no more for you than vague shadowy +forms, barely outlined against a nebulous background of life and easily +confounded again with the invisible. + +On the evening of the day when she had handed over her two little +ones to Magnon, with express intention of renouncing them forever, the +Thenardier had felt, or had appeared to feel, a scruple. She said to her +husband: "But this is abandoning our children!" Thenardier, masterful +and phlegmatic, cauterized the scruple with this saying: "Jean Jacques +Rousseau did even better!" From scruples, the mother proceeded to +uneasiness: "But what if the police were to annoy us? Tell me, Monsieur +Thenardier, is what we have done permissible?" Thenardier replied: +"Everything is permissible. No one will see anything but true blue in +it. Besides, no one has any interest in looking closely after children +who have not a sou." + +Magnon was a sort of fashionable woman in the sphere of crime. She was +careful about her toilet. She shared her lodgings, which were furnished +in an affected and wretched style, with a clever gallicized English +thief. This English woman, who had become a naturalized Parisienne, +recommended by very wealthy relations, intimately connected with the +medals in the Library and Mademoiselle Mar's diamonds, became celebrated +later on in judicial accounts. She was called Mamselle Miss. + +The two little creatures who had fallen to Magnon had no reason to +complain of their lot. Recommended by the eighty francs, they were well +cared for, as is everything from which profit is derived; they were +neither badly clothed, nor badly fed; they were treated almost like +"little gentlemen,"--better by their false mother than by their real +one. Magnon played the lady, and talked no thieves' slang in their +presence. + +Thus passed several years. Thenardier augured well from the fact. One +day, he chanced to say to Magnon as she handed him his monthly stipend +of ten francs: "The father must give them some education." + +All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been +protected tolerably well, even by their evil fate, were abruptly hurled +into life and forced to begin it for themselves. + +A wholesale arrest of malefactors, like that in the Jondrette garret, +necessarily complicated by investigations and subsequent incarcerations, +is a veritable disaster for that hideous and occult counter-society +which pursues its existence beneath public society; an adventure of this +description entails all sorts of catastrophes in that sombre world. The +Thenardier catastrophe involved the catastrophe of Magnon. + + +One day, a short time after Magnon had handed to Eponine the note +relating to the Rue Plumet, a sudden raid was made by the police in the +Rue Clocheperce; Magnon was seized, as was also Mamselle Miss; and all +the inhabitants of the house, which was of a suspicious character, were +gathered into the net. While this was going on, the two little boys were +playing in the back yard, and saw nothing of the raid. When they tried +to enter the house again, they found the door fastened and the house +empty. A cobbler opposite called them to him, and delivered to them a +paper which "their mother" had left for them. On this paper there was an +address: M. Barge, collector of rents, Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, No. 8. The +proprietor of the stall said to them: "You cannot live here any longer. +Go there. It is near by. The first street on the left. Ask your way from +this paper." + +The children set out, the elder leading the younger, and holding in his +hand the paper which was to guide them. It was cold, and his benumbed +little fingers could not close very firmly, and they did not keep a very +good hold on the paper. At the corner of the Rue Clocheperce, a gust of +wind tore it from him, and as night was falling, the child was not able +to find it again. + +They began to wander aimlessly through the streets. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IN WHICH LITTLE GAVROCHE EXTRACTS PROFIT FROM NAPOLEON THE +GREAT + +Spring in Paris is often traversed by harsh and piercing breezes which +do not precisely chill but freeze one; these north winds which sadden +the most beautiful days produce exactly the effect of those puffs of +cold air which enter a warm room through the cracks of a badly fitting +door or window. It seems as though the gloomy door of winter had +remained ajar, and as though the wind were pouring through it. In the +spring of 1832, the epoch when the first great epidemic of this century +broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing +than ever. It was a door even more glacial than that of winter which +was ajar. It was the door of the sepulchre. In these winds one felt the +breath of the cholera. + +From a meteorological point of view, these cold winds possessed this +peculiarity, that they did not preclude a strong electric tension. +Frequent storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, burst forth at +this epoch. + +One evening, when these gales were blowing rudely, to such a degree that +January seemed to have returned and that the bourgeois had resumed their +cloaks, Little Gavroche, who was always shivering gayly under his rags, +was standing as though in ecstasy before a wig-maker's shop in the +vicinity of the Orme-Saint-Gervais. He was adorned with a woman's +woollen shawl, picked up no one knows where, and which he had converted +into a neck comforter. Little Gavroche appeared to be engaged in intent +admiration of a wax bride, in a low-necked dress, and crowned with +orange-flowers, who was revolving in the window, and displaying her +smile to passers-by, between two argand lamps; but in reality, he was +taking an observation of the shop, in order to discover whether he +could not "prig" from the shop-front a cake of soap, which he would then +proceed to sell for a sou to a "hair-dresser" in the suburbs. He had +often managed to breakfast off of such a roll. He called his species of +work, for which he possessed special aptitude, "shaving barbers." + +While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered +between his teeth: "Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps +it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday." + +No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred. + +Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last +occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now +Friday. + +The barber in his shop, which was warmed by a good stove, was shaving +a customer and casting a glance from time to time at the enemy, that +freezing and impudent street urchin both of whose hands were in his +pockets, but whose mind was evidently unsheathed. + +While Gavroche was scrutinizing the shop-window and the cakes of windsor +soap, two children of unequal stature, very neatly dressed, and still +smaller than himself, one apparently about seven years of age, the other +five, timidly turned the handle and entered the shop, with a request for +something or other, alms possibly, in a plaintive murmur which resembled +a groan rather than a prayer. They both spoke at once, and their words +were unintelligible because sobs broke the voice of the younger, and the +teeth of the elder were chattering with cold. The barber wheeled round +with a furious look, and without abandoning his razor, thrust back the +elder with his left hand and the younger with his knee, and slammed +his door, saying: "The idea of coming in and freezing everybody for +nothing!" + +The two children resumed their march in tears. In the meantime, a cloud +had risen; it had begun to rain. + +Little Gavroche ran after them and accosted them:-- + +"What's the matter with you, brats?" + +"We don't know where we are to sleep," replied the elder. + +"Is that all?" said Gavroche. "A great matter, truly. The idea of +bawling about that. They must be greenies!" + +And adopting, in addition to his superiority, which was rather +bantering, an accent of tender authority and gentle patronage:-- + +"Come along with me, young 'uns!" + +"Yes, sir," said the elder. + +And the two children followed him as they would have followed an +archbishop. They had stopped crying. + +Gavroche led them up the Rue Saint-Antoine in the direction of the +Bastille. + +As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the +barber's shop. + +"That fellow has no heart, the whiting,"[35] he muttered. "He's an +Englishman." + +A woman who caught sight of these three marching in a file, with +Gavroche at their head, burst into noisy laughter. This laugh was +wanting in respect towards the group. + +"Good day, Mamselle Omnibus," said Gavroche to her. + +An instant later, the wig-maker occurred to his mind once more, and he +added:-- + +"I am making a mistake in the beast; he's not a whiting, he's a serpent. +Barber, I'll go and fetch a locksmith, and I'll have a bell hung to your +tail." + +This wig-maker had rendered him aggressive. As he strode over a gutter, +he apostrophized a bearded portress who was worthy to meet Faust on the +Brocken, and who had a broom in her hand. + +"Madam," said he, "so you are going out with your horse?" + +And thereupon, he spattered the polished boots of a pedestrian. + +"You scamp!" shouted the furious pedestrian. + +Gavroche elevated his nose above his shawl. + +"Is Monsieur complaining?" + +"Of you!" ejaculated the man. + +"The office is closed," said Gavroche, "I do not receive any more +complaints." + +In the meanwhile, as he went on up the street, he perceived a +beggar-girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, and clad in so short a +gown that her knees were visible, lying thoroughly chilled under a +porte-cochere. The little girl was getting to be too old for such a +thing. Growth does play these tricks. The petticoat becomes short at the +moment when nudity becomes indecent. + +"Poor girl!" said Gavroche. "She hasn't even trousers. Hold on, take +this." + +And unwinding all the comfortable woollen which he had around his neck, +he flung it on the thin and purple shoulders of the beggar-girl, where +the scarf became a shawl once more. + +The child stared at him in astonishment, and received the shawl in +silence. When a certain stage of distress has been reached in his +misery, the poor man no longer groans over evil, no longer returns +thanks for good. + +That done: "Brrr!" said Gavroche, who was shivering more than Saint +Martin, for the latter retained one-half of his cloak. + +At this brrr! the downpour of rain, redoubled in its spite, became +furious. The wicked skies punish good deeds. + +"Ah, come now!" exclaimed Gavroche, "what's the meaning of this? It's +re-raining! Good Heavens, if it goes on like this, I shall stop my +subscription." + +And he set out on the march once more. + +"It's all right," he resumed, casting a glance at the beggar-girl, as +she coiled up under the shawl, "she's got a famous peel." + +And looking up at the clouds he exclaimed:-- + +"Caught!" + +The two children followed close on his heels. + +As they were passing one of these heavy grated lattices, which indicate +a baker's shop, for bread is put behind bars like gold, Gavroche turned +round:-- + +"Ah, by the way, brats, have we dined?" + +"Monsieur," replied the elder, "we have had nothing to eat since this +morning." + +"So you have neither father nor mother?" resumed Gavroche majestically. + +"Excuse us, sir, we have a papa and a mamma, but we don't know where +they are." + +"Sometimes that's better than knowing where they are," said Gavroche, +who was a thinker. + +"We have been wandering about these two hours," continued the elder, "we +have hunted for things at the corners of the streets, but we have found +nothing." + +"I know," ejaculated Gavroche, "it's the dogs who eat everything." + +He went on, after a pause:-- + +"Ah! we have lost our authors. We don't know what we have done with +them. This should not be, gamins. It's stupid to let old people stray +off like that. Come now! we must have a snooze all the same." + +However, he asked them no questions. What was more simple than that they +should have no dwelling place! + +The elder of the two children, who had almost entirely recovered the +prompt heedlessness of childhood, uttered this exclamation:-- + +"It's queer, all the same. Mamma told us that she would take us to get a +blessed spray on Palm Sunday." + +"Bosh," said Gavroche. + +"Mamma," resumed the elder, "is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss." + +"Tanflute!" retorted Gavroche. + +Meanwhile he had halted, and for the last two minutes he had been +feeling and fumbling in all sorts of nooks which his rags contained. + +At last he tossed his head with an air intended to be merely satisfied, +but which was triumphant, in reality. + +"Let us be calm, young 'uns. Here's supper for three." + +And from one of his pockets he drew forth a sou. + +Without allowing the two urchins time for amazement, he pushed both of +them before him into the baker's shop, and flung his sou on the counter, +crying:-- + +"Boy! five centimes' worth of bread." + +The baker, who was the proprietor in person, took up a loaf and a knife. + +"In three pieces, my boy!" went on Gavroche. + +And he added with dignity:-- + +"There are three of us." + +And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had +taken down a black loaf, he thrust his finger far up his nose with +an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the great +Frederick's snuff on the tip of his thumb, and hurled this indignant +apostrophe full in the baker's face:-- + +"Keksekca?" + +Those of our readers who might be tempted to espy in this interpellation +of Gavroche's to the baker a Russian or a Polish word, or one of those +savage cries which the Yoways and the Botocudos hurl at each other from +bank to bank of a river, athwart the solitudes, are warned that it is a +word which they [our readers] utter every day, and which takes the place +of the phrase: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?" The baker understood +perfectly, and replied:-- + +"Well! It's bread, and very good bread of the second quality." + +"You mean larton brutal [black bread]!" retorted Gavroche, calmly and +coldly disdainful. "White bread, boy! white bread [larton savonne]! I'm +standing treat." + +The baker could not repress a smile, and as he cut the white bread he +surveyed them in a compassionate way which shocked Gavroche. + +"Come, now, baker's boy!" said he, "what are you taking our measure like +that for?" + +All three of them placed end to end would have hardly made a measure. + +When the bread was cut, the baker threw the sou into his drawer, and +Gavroche said to the two children:-- + +"Grub away." + +The little boys stared at him in surprise. + +Gavroche began to laugh. + +"Ah! hullo, that's so! they don't understand yet, they're too small." + +And he repeated:-- + +"Eat away." + +At the same time, he held out a piece of bread to each of them. + +And thinking that the elder, who seemed to him the more worthy of +his conversation, deserved some special encouragement and ought to be +relieved from all hesitation to satisfy his appetite, he added, as be +handed him the largest share:-- + +"Ram that into your muzzle." + +One piece was smaller than the others; he kept this for himself. + +The poor children, including Gavroche, were famished. As they tore their +bread apart in big mouthfuls, they blocked up the shop of the baker, +who, now that they had paid their money, looked angrily at them. + +"Let's go into the street again," said Gavroche. + +They set off once more in the direction of the Bastille. + +From time to time, as they passed the lighted shop-windows, the smallest +halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from +his neck by a cord. + +"Well, he is a very green 'un," said Gavroche. + +Then, becoming thoughtful, he muttered between his teeth:-- + +"All the same, if I had charge of the babes I'd lock 'em up better than +that." + +Just as they were finishing their morsel of bread, and had reached the +angle of that gloomy Rue des Ballets, at the other end of which the low +and threatening wicket of La Force was visible:-- + +"Hullo, is that you, Gavroche?" said some one. + +"Hullo, is that you, Montparnasse?" said Gavroche. + +A man had just accosted the street urchin, and the man was no other +than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to +Gavroche. + +"The bow-wows!" went on Gavroche, "you've got a hide the color of a +linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor. You're putting on style, +'pon my word!" + +"Hush!" ejaculated Montparnasse, "not so loud." + +And he drew Gavroche hastily out of range of the lighted shops. + +The two little ones followed mechanically, holding each other by the +hand. + +When they were ensconced under the arch of a portecochere, sheltered +from the rain and from all eyes:-- + +"Do you know where I'm going?" demanded Montparnasse. + +"To the Abbey of Ascend-with-Regret,"[36] replied Gavroche. + +"Joker!" + +And Montparnasse went on:-- + +"I'm going to find Babet." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Gavroche, "so her name is Babet." + +Montparnasse lowered his voice:-- + +"Not she, he." + +"Ah! Babet." + +"Yes, Babet." + +"I thought he was buckled." + +"He has undone the buckle," replied Montparnasse. + +And he rapidly related to the gamin how, on the morning of that very +day, Babet, having been transferred to La Conciergerie, had made his +escape, by turning to the left instead of to the right in "the police +office." + +Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill. + +"What a dentist!" he cried. + +Montparnasse added a few details as to Babet's flight, and ended with:-- + +"Oh! That's not all." + +Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparnasse held in +his hand, and mechanically pulled at the upper part, and the blade of a +dagger made its appearance. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, "you have brought +along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois." + +Montparnasse winked. + +"The deuce!" resumed Gavroche, "so you're going to have a bout with the +bobbies?" + +"You can't tell," replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. "It's +always a good thing to have a pin about one." + +Gavroche persisted:-- + +"What are you up to to-night?" + +Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable: +"Things." + +And abruptly changing the conversation:-- + +"By the way!" + +"What?" + +"Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes +me a present of a sermon and his purse. I put it in my pocket. A minute +later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there." + +"Except the sermon," said Gavroche. + +"But you," went on Montparnasse, "where are you bound for now?" + +Gavroche pointed to his two proteges, and said:-- + +"I'm going to put these infants to bed." + +"Whereabouts is the bed?" + +"At my house." + +"Where's your house?" + +"At my house." + +"So you have a lodging?" + +"Yes, I have." + +"And where is your lodging?" + +"In the elephant," said Gavroche. + +Montparnasse, though not naturally inclined to astonishment, could not +restrain an exclamation. + +"In the elephant!" + +"Well, yes, in the elephant!" retorted Gavroche. "Kekcaa?" + +This is another word of the language which no one writes, and which +every one speaks. + +Kekcaa signifies: Quest que c'est que cela a? [What's the matter with +that?] + +The urchin's profound remark recalled Montparnasse to calmness and +good sense. He appeared to return to better sentiments with regard to +Gavroche's lodging. + +"Of course," said he, "yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?" + +"Very," said Gavroche. "It's really bully there. There ain't any +draughts, as there are under the bridges." + +"How do you get in?" + +"Oh, I get in." + +"So there is a hole?" demanded Montparnasse. + +"Parbleu! I should say so. But you mustn't tell. It's between the fore +legs. The bobbies haven't seen it." + +"And you climb up? Yes, I understand." + +"A turn of the hand, cric, crac, and it's all over, no one there." + +After a pause, Gavroche added:-- + +"I shall have a ladder for these children." + +Montparnasse burst out laughing:-- + +"Where the devil did you pick up those young 'uns?" + +Gavroche replied with great simplicity:-- + +"They are some brats that a wig-maker made me a present of." + +Meanwhile, Montparnasse had fallen to thinking:-- + +"You recognized me very readily," he muttered. + +He took from his pocket two small objects which were nothing more than +two quills wrapped in cotton, and thrust one up each of his nostrils. +This gave him a different nose. + +"That changes you," remarked Gavroche, "you are less homely so, you +ought to keep them on all the time." + +Montparnasse was a handsome fellow, but Gavroche was a tease. + +"Seriously," demanded Montparnasse, "how do you like me so?" + +The sound of his voice was different also. In a twinkling, Montparnasse +had become unrecognizable. + +"Oh! Do play Porrichinelle for us!" exclaimed Gavroche. + +The two children, who had not been listening up to this point, being +occupied themselves in thrusting their fingers up their noses, drew +near at this name, and stared at Montparnasse with dawning joy and +admiration. + +Unfortunately, Montparnasse was troubled. + +He laid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said to him, emphasizing +his words: "Listen to what I tell you, boy! if I were on the square with +my dog, my knife, and my wife, and if you were to squander ten sous on +me, I wouldn't refuse to work, but this isn't Shrove Tuesday." + +This odd phrase produced a singular effect on the gamin. He wheeled +round hastily, darted his little sparkling eyes about him with profound +attention, and perceived a police sergeant standing with his back to +them a few paces off. Gavroche allowed an: "Ah! good!" to escape him, +but immediately suppressed it, and shaking Montparnasse's hand:-- + +"Well, good evening," said he, "I'm going off to my elephant with my +brats. Supposing that you should need me some night, you can come and +hunt me up there. I lodge on the entresol. There is no porter. You will +inquire for Monsieur Gavroche." + +"Very good," said Montparnasse. + +And they parted, Montparnasse betaking himself in the direction of +the Greve, and Gavroche towards the Bastille. The little one of five, +dragged along by his brother who was dragged by Gavroche, turned his +head back several times to watch "Porrichinelle" as he went. + +The ambiguous phrase by means of which Montparnasse had warned Gavroche +of the presence of the policeman, contained no other talisman than +the assonance dig repeated five or six times in different forms. This +syllable, dig, uttered alone or artistically mingled with the words of +a phrase, means: "Take care, we can no longer talk freely." There was +besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was +lost upon Gavroche, that is mon dogue, ma dague et ma digue, a slang +expression of the Temple, which signifies my dog, my knife, and my wife, +greatly in vogue among clowns and the red-tails in the great century +when Moliere wrote and Callot drew. + +Twenty years ago, there was still to be seen in the southwest corner of +the Place de la Bastille, near the basin of the canal, excavated in the +ancient ditch of the fortress-prison, a singular monument, which has +already been effaced from the memories of Parisians, and which deserved +to leave some trace, for it was the idea of a "member of the Institute, +the General-in-chief of the army of Egypt." + +We say monument, although it was only a rough model. But this model +itself, a marvellous sketch, the grandiose skeleton of an idea of +Napoleon's, which successive gusts of wind have carried away and thrown, +on each occasion, still further from us, had become historical and had +acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional +aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and +masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly +painted green by some dauber, and now painted black by heaven, the wind, +and time. In this deserted and unprotected corner of the place, the +broad brow of the colossus, his trunk, his tusks, his tower, his +enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under +the starry heavens, a surprising and terrible form. It was a sort of +symbol of popular force. It was sombre, mysterious, and immense. It was +some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside +the invisible spectre of the Bastille. + +Few strangers visited this edifice, no passer-by looked at it. It was +falling into ruins; every season the plaster which detached itself +from its sides formed hideous wounds upon it. "The aediles," as the +expression ran in elegant dialect, had forgotten it ever since 1814. +There it stood in its corner, melancholy, sick, crumbling, surrounded +by a rotten palisade, soiled continually by drunken coachmen; cracks +meandered athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass +flourished between its legs; and, as the level of the place had been +rising all around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and +continuous movement which insensibly elevates the soil of large towns, +it stood in a hollow, and it looked as though the ground were giving way +beneath it. It was unclean, despised, repulsive, and superb, ugly in the +eyes of the bourgeois, melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. There was +something about it of the dirt which is on the point of being swept out, +and something of the majesty which is on the point of being decapitated. +As we have said, at night, its aspect changed. Night is the real element +of everything that is dark. As soon as twilight descended, the old +elephant became transfigured; he assumed a tranquil and redoubtable +appearance in the formidable serenity of the shadows. Being of the past, +he belonged to night; and obscurity was in keeping with his grandeur. + +This rough, squat, heavy, hard, austere, almost misshapen, but assuredly +majestic monument, stamped with a sort of magnificent and savage +gravity, has disappeared, and left to reign in peace, a sort of gigantic +stove, ornamented with its pipe, which has replaced the sombre fortress +with its nine towers, very much as the bourgeoisie replaces the feudal +classes. It is quite natural that a stove should be the symbol of an +epoch in which a pot contains power. This epoch will pass away, people +have already begun to understand that, if there can be force in a +boiler, there can be no force except in the brain; in other words, +that which leads and drags on the world, is not locomotives, but ideas. +Harness locomotives to ideas,--that is well done; but do not mistake the +horse for the rider. + +At all events, to return to the Place de la Bastille, the architect +of this elephant succeeded in making a grand thing out of plaster; the +architect of the stove has succeeded in making a pretty thing out of +bronze. + +This stove-pipe, which has been baptized by a sonorous name, and called +the column of July, this monument of a revolution that miscarried, +was still enveloped in 1832, in an immense shirt of woodwork, which we +regret, for our part, and by a vast plank enclosure, which completed the +task of isolating the elephant. + +It was towards this corner of the place, dimly lighted by the reflection +of a distant street lamp, that the gamin guided his two "brats." + +The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him +that we are dealing with simple reality, and that twenty years ago, the +tribunals were called upon to judge, under the charge of vagabondage, +and mutilation of a public monument, a child who had been caught asleep +in this very elephant of the Bastille. This fact noted, we proceed. + +On arriving in the vicinity of the colossus, Gavroche comprehended the +effect which the infinitely great might produce on the infinitely small, +and said:-- + +"Don't be scared, infants." + +Then he entered through a gap in the fence into the elephant's enclosure +and helped the young ones to clamber through the breach. The two +children, somewhat frightened, followed Gavroche without uttering a +word, and confided themselves to this little Providence in rags which +had given them bread and had promised them a shelter. + +There, extended along the fence, lay a ladder which by day served +the laborers in the neighboring timber-yard. Gavroche raised it with +remarkable vigor, and placed it against one of the elephant's forelegs. +Near the point where the ladder ended, a sort of black hole in the belly +of the colossus could be distinguished. + +Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole to his guests, and said to +them:-- + +"Climb up and go in." + +The two little boys exchanged terrified glances. + +"You're afraid, brats!" exclaimed Gavroche. + +And he added:-- + +"You shall see!" + +He clasped the rough leg of the elephant, and in a twinkling, without +deigning to make use of the ladder, he had reached the aperture. He +entered it as an adder slips through a crevice, and disappeared within, +and an instant later, the two children saw his head, which looked pale, +appear vaguely, on the edge of the shadowy hole, like a wan and whitish +spectre. + +"Well!" he exclaimed, "climb up, young 'uns! You'll see how snug it is +here! Come up, you!" he said to the elder, "I'll lend you a hand." + +The little fellows nudged each other, the gamin frightened and inspired +them with confidence at one and the same time, and then, it was raining +very hard. The elder one undertook the risk. The younger, on seeing his +brother climbing up, and himself left alone between the paws of this +huge beast, felt greatly inclined to cry, but he did not dare. + +The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder; +Gavroche, in the meanwhile, encouraging him with exclamations like a +fencing-master to his pupils, or a muleteer to his mules. + +"Don't be afraid!--That's it!--Come on!--Put your feet there!--Give us +your hand here!--Boldly!" + +And when the child was within reach, he seized him suddenly and +vigorously by the arm, and pulled him towards him. + +"Nabbed!" said he. + +The brat had passed through the crack. + +"Now," said Gavroche, "wait for me. Be so good as to take a seat, +Monsieur." + +And making his way out of the hole as he had entered it, he slipped down +the elephant's leg with the agility of a monkey, landed on his feet in +the grass, grasped the child of five round the body, and planted him +fairly in the middle of the ladder, then he began to climb up behind +him, shouting to the elder:-- + +"I'm going to boost him, do you tug." + +And in another instant, the small lad was pushed, dragged, pulled, +thrust, stuffed into the hole, before he had time to recover himself, +and Gavroche, entering behind him, and repulsing the ladder with a kick +which sent it flat on the grass, began to clap his hands and to cry:-- + +"Here we are! Long live General Lafayette!" + +This explosion over, he added:-- + +"Now, young 'uns, you are in my house." + +Gavroche was at home, in fact. + +Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great things! Goodness +of giants! This huge monument, which had embodied an idea of the +Emperor's, had become the box of a street urchin. The brat had been +accepted and sheltered by the colossus. The bourgeois decked out in +their Sunday finery who passed the elephant of the Bastille, were fond +of saying as they scanned it disdainfully with their prominent eyes: +"What's the good of that?" It served to save from the cold, the frost, +the hail, and rain, to shelter from the winds of winter, to preserve +from slumber in the mud which produces fever, and from slumber in the +snow which produces death, a little being who had no father, no mother, +no bread, no clothes, no refuge. It served to receive the innocent whom +society repulsed. It served to diminish public crime. It was a lair +open to one against whom all doors were shut. It seemed as though the +miserable old mastodon, invaded by vermin and oblivion, covered with +warts, with mould, and ulcers, tottering, worm-eaten, abandoned, +condemned, a sort of mendicant colossus, asking alms in vain with a +benevolent look in the midst of the cross-roads, had taken pity on that +other mendicant, the poor pygmy, who roamed without shoes to his feet, +without a roof over his head, blowing on his fingers, clad in rags, fed +on rejected scraps. That was what the elephant of the Bastille was good +for. This idea of Napoleon, disdained by men, had been taken back by +God. That which had been merely illustrious, had become august. In order +to realize his thought, the Emperor should have had porphyry, brass, +iron, gold, marble; the old collection of planks, beams and plaster +sufficed for God. The Emperor had had the dream of a genius; in that +Titanic elephant, armed, prodigious, with trunk uplifted, bearing its +tower and scattering on all sides its merry and vivifying waters, he +wished to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he +had lodged a child there. + +The hole through which Gavroche had entered was a breach which was +hardly visible from the outside, being concealed, as we have stated, +beneath the elephant's belly, and so narrow that it was only cats and +homeless children who could pass through it. + +"Let's begin," said Gavroche, "by telling the porter that we are not at +home." + +And plunging into the darkness with the assurance of a person who is +well acquainted with his apartments, he took a plank and stopped up the +aperture. + +Again Gavroche plunged into the obscurity. The children heard the +crackling of the match thrust into the phosphoric bottle. The chemical +match was not yet in existence; at that epoch the Fumade steel +represented progress. + +A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one +of those bits of cord dipped in resin which are called cellar rats. The +cellar rat, which emitted more smoke than light, rendered the interior +of the elephant confusedly visible. + +Gavroche's two guests glanced about them, and the sensation which they +experienced was something like that which one would feel if shut up in +the great tun of Heidelberg, or, better still, like what Jonah must have +felt in the biblical belly of the whale. An entire and gigantic skeleton +appeared enveloping them. Above, a long brown beam, whence started at +regular distances, massive, arching ribs, represented the vertebral +column with its sides, stalactites of plaster depended from them like +entrails, and vast spiders' webs stretching from side to side, formed +dirty diaphragms. Here and there, in the corners, were visible large +blackish spots which had the appearance of being alive, and which +changed places rapidly with an abrupt and frightened movement. + +Fragments which had fallen from the elephant's back into his belly had +filled up the cavity, so that it was possible to walk upon it as on a +floor. + +The smaller child nestled up against his brother, and whispered to +him:-- + +"It's black." + +This remark drew an exclamation from Gavroche. The petrified air of the +two brats rendered some shock necessary. + +"What's that you are gabbling about there?" he exclaimed. "Are +you scoffing at me? Are you turning up your noses? Do you want the +tuileries? Are you brutes? Come, say! I warn you that I don't belong to +the regiment of simpletons. Ah, come now, are you brats from the Pope's +establishment?" + +A little roughness is good in cases of fear. It is reassuring. The two +children drew close to Gavroche. + +Gavroche, paternally touched by this confidence, passed from grave to +gentle, and addressing the smaller:-- + +"Stupid," said he, accenting the insulting word, with a caressing +intonation, "it's outside that it is black. Outside it's raining, here +it does not rain; outside it's cold, here there's not an atom of wind; +outside there are heaps of people, here there's no one; outside there +ain't even the moon, here there's my candle, confound it!" + +The two children began to look upon the apartment with less terror; but +Gavroche allowed them no more time for contemplation. + +"Quick," said he. + +And he pushed them towards what we are very glad to be able to call the +end of the room. + +There stood his bed. + +Gavroche's bed was complete; that is to say, it had a mattress, a +blanket, and an alcove with curtains. + +The mattress was a straw mat, the blanket a rather large strip of +gray woollen stuff, very warm and almost new. This is what the alcove +consisted of:-- + +Three rather long poles, thrust into and consolidated, with the rubbish +which formed the floor, that is to say, the belly of the elephant, two +in front and one behind, and united by a rope at their summits, so as to +form a pyramidal bundle. This cluster supported a trellis-work of brass +wire which was simply placed upon it, but artistically applied, and held +by fastenings of iron wire, so that it enveloped all three holes. A row +of very heavy stones kept this network down to the floor so that nothing +could pass under it. This grating was nothing else than a piece of the +brass screens with which aviaries are covered in menageries. Gavroche's +bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an +Esquimaux tent. + +This trellis-work took the place of curtains. + +Gavroche moved aside the stones which fastened the net down in front, +and the two folds of the net which lapped over each other fell apart. + +"Down on all fours, brats!" said Gavroche. + +He made his guests enter the cage with great precaution, then he crawled +in after them, pulled the stones together, and closed the opening +hermetically again. + +All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the cellar +rat in his hand. + +"Now," said he, "go to sleep! I'm going to suppress the candelabra." + +"Monsieur," the elder of the brothers asked Gavroche, pointing to the +netting, "what's that for?" + +"That," answered Gavroche gravely, "is for the rats. Go to sleep!" + +Nevertheless, he felt obliged to add a few words of instruction for the +benefit of these young creatures, and he continued:-- + +"It's a thing from the Jardin des Plantes. It's used for fierce animals. +There's a whole shopful of them there. All you've got to do is to climb +over a wall, crawl through a window, and pass through a door. You can +get as much as you want." + +As he spoke, he wrapped the younger one up bodily in a fold of the +blanket, and the little one murmured:-- + +"Oh! how good that is! It's warm!" + +Gavroche cast a pleased eye on the blanket. + +"That's from the Jardin des Plantes, too," said he. "I took that from +the monkeys." + +And, pointing out to the eldest the mat on which he was lying, a very +thick and admirably made mat, he added:-- + +"That belonged to the giraffe." + +After a pause he went on:-- + +"The beasts had all these things. I took them away from them. It didn't +trouble them. I told them: 'It's for the elephant.'" + +He paused, and then resumed:-- + +"You crawl over the walls and you don't care a straw for the government. +So there now!" + +The two children gazed with timid and stupefied respect on this +intrepid and ingenious being, a vagabond like themselves, isolated +like themselves, frail like themselves, who had something admirable +and all-powerful about him, who seemed supernatural to them, and whose +physiognomy was composed of all the grimaces of an old mountebank, +mingled with the most ingenuous and charming smiles. + +"Monsieur," ventured the elder timidly, "you are not afraid of the +police, then?" + +Gavroche contented himself with replying:-- + +"Brat! Nobody says 'police,' they say 'bobbies.'" + +The smaller had his eyes wide open, but he said nothing. As he was on +the edge of the mat, the elder being in the middle, Gavroche tucked the +blanket round him as a mother might have done, and heightened the mat +under his head with old rags, in such a way as to form a pillow for the +child. Then he turned to the elder:-- + +"Hey! We're jolly comfortable here, ain't we?" + +"Ah, yes!" replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of +a saved angel. + +The two poor little children who had been soaked through, began to grow +warm once more. + +"Ah, by the way," continued Gavroche, "what were you bawling about?" + +And pointing out the little one to his brother:-- + +"A mite like that, I've nothing to say about, but the idea of a big +fellow like you crying! It's idiotic; you looked like a calf." + +"Gracious," replied the child, "we have no lodging." + +"Bother!" retorted Gavroche, "you don't say 'lodgings,' you say 'crib.'" + +"And then, we were afraid of being alone like that at night." + +"You don't say 'night,' you say 'darkmans.'" + +"Thank you, sir," said the child. + +"Listen," went on Gavroche, "you must never bawl again over anything. +I'll take care of you. You shall see what fun we'll have. In summer, +we'll go to the Glaciere with Navet, one of my pals, we'll bathe in +the Gare, we'll run stark naked in front of the rafts on the bridge at +Austerlitz,--that makes the laundresses raging. They scream, they get +mad, and if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go and see the +man-skeleton. And then I'll take you to the play. I'll take you to see +Frederick Lemaitre. I have tickets, I know some of the actors, I even +played in a piece once. There were a lot of us fellers, and we ran +under a cloth, and that made the sea. I'll get you an engagement at my +theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages +ain't. They wear pink tights that go all in wrinkles, and you can see +where their elbows have been darned with white. Then, we'll go to the +Opera. We'll get in with the hired applauders. The Opera claque is well +managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the +Opera, just fancy! some of them pay twenty sous, but they're ninnies. +They're called dishclouts. And then we'll go to see the guillotine work. +I'll show you the executioner. He lives in the Rue des Marais. Monsieur +Sanson. He has a letter-box at his door. Ah! we'll have famous fun!" + +At that moment a drop of wax fell on Gavroche's finger, and recalled him +to the realities of life. + +"The deuce!" said he, "there's the wick giving out. Attention! I can't +spend more than a sou a month on my lighting. When a body goes to bed, +he must sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul de Kock's +romances. And besides, the light might pass through the cracks of the +porte-cochere, and all the bobbies need to do is to see it." + +"And then," remarked the elder timidly,--he alone dared talk to +Gavroche, and reply to him, "a spark might fall in the straw, and we +must look out and not burn the house down." + +"People don't say 'burn the house down,'" remarked Gavroche, "they say +'blaze the crib.'" + +The storm increased in violence, and the heavy downpour beat upon the +back of the colossus amid claps of thunder. "You're taken in, rain!" +said Gavroche. "It amuses me to hear the decanter run down the legs of +the house. Winter is a stupid; it wastes its merchandise, it loses +its labor, it can't wet us, and that makes it kick up a row, old +water-carrier that it is." + +This allusion to the thunder, all the consequences of which Gavroche, in +his character of a philosopher of the nineteenth century, accepted, was +followed by a broad flash of lightning, so dazzling that a hint of it +entered the belly of the elephant through the crack. Almost at the same +instant, the thunder rumbled with great fury. The two little creatures +uttered a shriek, and started up so eagerly that the network came near +being displaced, but Gavroche turned his bold face to them, and took +advantage of the clap of thunder to burst into a laugh. + +"Calm down, children. Don't topple over the edifice. That's fine, +first-class thunder; all right. That's no slouch of a streak of +lightning. Bravo for the good God! Deuce take it! It's almost as good as +it is at the Ambigu." + +That said, he restored order in the netting, pushed the two children +gently down on the bed, pressed their knees, in order to stretch them +out at full length, and exclaimed:-- + +"Since the good God is lighting his candle, I can blow out mine. Now, +babes, now, my young humans, you must shut your peepers. It's very bad +not to sleep. It'll make you swallow the strainer, or, as they say, in +fashionable society, stink in the gullet. Wrap yourself up well in the +hide! I'm going to put out the light. Are you ready?" + +"Yes," murmured the elder, "I'm all right. I seem to have feathers under +my head." + +"People don't say 'head,'" cried Gavroche, "they say 'nut'." + +The two children nestled close to each other, Gavroche finished +arranging them on the mat, drew the blanket up to their very ears, then +repeated, for the third time, his injunction in the hieratical tongue:-- + +"Shut your peepers!" + +And he snuffed out his tiny light. + +Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling began +to affect the netting under which the three children lay. + +It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallic +sound, as if claws and teeth were gnawing at the copper wire. This was +accompanied by all sorts of little piercing cries. + +The little five-year-old boy, on hearing this hubbub overhead, and +chilled with terror, jogged his brother's elbow; but the elder brother +had already shut his peepers, as Gavroche had ordered. Then the little +one, who could no longer control his terror, questioned Gavroche, but in +a very low tone, and with bated breath:-- + +"Sir?" + +"Hey?" said Gavroche, who had just closed his eyes. + +"What is that?" + +"It's the rats," replied Gavroche. + +And he laid his head down on the mat again. + +The rats, in fact, who swarmed by thousands in the carcass of the +elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already +mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as +it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same +as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good +story-teller Perrault calls "fresh meat," they had hurled themselves in +throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun +to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce this new-fangled trap. + +Still the little one could not sleep. + +"Sir?" he began again. + +"Hey?" said Gavroche. + +"What are rats?" + +"They are mice." + +This explanation reassured the child a little. He had seen white mice in +the course of his life, and he was not afraid of them. Nevertheless, he +lifted up his voice once more. + +"Sir?" + +"Hey?" said Gavroche again. + +"Why don't you have a cat?" + +"I did have one," replied Gavroche, "I brought one here, but they ate +her." + +This second explanation undid the work of the first, and the little +fellow began to tremble again. + +The dialogue between him and Gavroche began again for the fourth time:-- + +"Monsieur?" + +"Hey?" + +"Who was it that was eaten?" + +"The cat." + +"And who ate the cat?" + +"The rats." + +"The mice?" + +"Yes, the rats." + +The child, in consternation, dismayed at the thought of mice which ate +cats, pursued:-- + +"Sir, would those mice eat us?" + +"Wouldn't they just!" ejaculated Gavroche. + +The child's terror had reached its climax. But Gavroche added:-- + +"Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch +hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!" + +At the same time Gavroche grasped the little fellow's hand across his +brother. The child pressed the hand close to him, and felt reassured. +Courage and strength have these mysterious ways of communicating +themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their +voices had frightened off the rats; at the expiration of a few minutes, +they came raging back, but in vain, the three little fellows were fast +asleep and heard nothing more. + +The hours of the night fled away. Darkness covered the vast Place de la +Bastille. A wintry gale, which mingled with the rain, blew in gusts, the +patrol searched all the doorways, alleys, enclosures, and obscure nooks, +and in their search for nocturnal vagabonds they passed in silence +before the elephant; the monster, erect, motionless, staring open-eyed +into the shadows, had the appearance of dreaming happily over his good +deed; and sheltered from heaven and from men the three poor sleeping +children. + +In order to understand what is about to follow, the reader must +remember, that, at that epoch, the Bastille guard-house was situated at +the other end of the square, and that what took place in the vicinity of +the elephant could neither be seen nor heard by the sentinel. + +Towards the end of that hour which immediately precedes the dawn, a +man turned from the Rue Saint-Antoine at a run, made the circuit of the +enclosure of the column of July, and glided between the palings until he +was underneath the belly of the elephant. If any light had illuminated +that man, it might have been divined from the thorough manner in which +he was soaked that he had passed the night in the rain. Arrived beneath +the elephant, he uttered a peculiar cry, which did not belong to any +human tongue, and which a paroquet alone could have imitated. Twice he +repeated this cry, of whose orthography the following barely conveys an +idea:-- + +"Kirikikiou!" + +At the second cry, a clear, young, merry voice responded from the belly +of the elephant:-- + +"Yes!" + +Almost immediately, the plank which closed the hole was drawn aside, +and gave passage to a child who descended the elephant's leg, and fell +briskly near the man. It was Gavroche. The man was Montparnasse. + +As for his cry of Kirikikiou,--that was, doubtless, what the child had +meant, when he said:-- + +"You will ask for Monsieur Gavroche." + +On hearing it, he had waked with a start, had crawled out of his +"alcove," pushing apart the netting a little, and carefully drawing it +together again, then he had opened the trap, and descended. + +The man and the child recognized each other silently amid the gloom: +Montparnasse confined himself to the remark:-- + +"We need you. Come, lend us a hand." + +The lad asked for no further enlightenment. + +"I'm with you," said he. + +And both took their way towards the Rue Saint-Antoine, whence +Montparnasse had emerged, winding rapidly through the long file of +market-gardeners' carts which descend towards the markets at that hour. + +The market-gardeners, crouching, half-asleep, in their wagons, amid the +salads and vegetables, enveloped to their very eyes in their mufflers +on account of the beating rain, did not even glance at these strange +pedestrians. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE VICISSITUDES OF FLIGHT + +This is what had taken place that same night at the La Force:-- + +An escape had been planned between Babet, Brujon, Guelemer, and +Thenardier, although Thenardier was in close confinement. Babet had +arranged the matter for his own benefit, on the same day, as the reader +has seen from Montparnasse's account to Gavroche. Montparnasse was to +help them from outside. + +Brujon, after having passed a month in the punishment cell, had had +time, in the first place, to weave a rope, in the second, to mature a +plan. In former times, those severe places where the discipline of the +prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four +stone walls, a stone ceiling, a flagged pavement, a camp bed, a grated +window, and a door lined with iron, and were called dungeons; but the +dungeon was judged to be too terrible; nowadays they are composed of an +iron door, a grated window, a camp bed, a flagged pavement, four stone +walls, and a stone ceiling, and are called chambers of punishment. A +little light penetrates towards mid-day. The inconvenient point about +these chambers which, as the reader sees, are not dungeons, is that they +allow the persons who should be at work to think. + +So Brujon meditated, and he emerged from the chamber of punishment with +a rope. As he had the name of being very dangerous in the Charlemagne +courtyard, he was placed in the New Building. The first thing he found +in the New Building was Guelemer, the second was a nail; Guelemer, that +is to say, crime; a nail, that is to say, liberty. Brujon, of whom it +is high time that the reader should have a complete idea, was, with an +appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a +polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, +and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his +smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed +to roofs. He had made great progress in the industry of the men who tear +off lead, who plunder the roofs and despoil the gutters by the process +called double pickings. + +The circumstance which put the finishing touch on the moment peculiarly +favorable for an attempt at escape, was that the roofers were re-laying +and re-jointing, at that very moment, a portion of the slates on the +prison. The Saint-Bernard courtyard was no longer absolutely isolated +from the Charlemagne and the Saint-Louis courts. Up above there were +scaffoldings and ladders; in other words, bridges and stairs in the +direction of liberty. + +The New Building, which was the most cracked and decrepit thing to be +seen anywhere in the world, was the weak point in the prison. The walls +were eaten by saltpetre to such an extent that the authorities had been +obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, +because stones were in the habit of becoming detached and falling on +the prisoners in their beds. In spite of this antiquity, the authorities +committed the error of confining in the New Building the most +troublesome prisoners, of placing there "the hard cases," as they say in +prison parlance. + +The New Building contained four dormitories, one above the other, and a +top story which was called the Bel-Air (Fine Air). A large chimney-flue, +probably from some ancient kitchen of the Dukes de la Force, started +from the groundfloor, traversed all four stories, cut the dormitories, +where it figured as a flattened pillar, into two portions, and finally +pierced the roof. + +Guelemer and Brujon were in the same dormitory. They had been placed, by +way of precaution, on the lower story. Chance ordained that the heads of +their beds should rest against the chimney. + +Thenardier was directly over their heads in the top story known as +Fine-Air. The pedestrian who halts on the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, +after passing the barracks of the firemen, in front of the porte-cochere +of the bathing establishment, beholds a yard full of flowers and shrubs +in wooden boxes, at the extremity of which spreads out a little white +rotunda with two wings, brightened up with green shutters, the bucolic +dream of Jean Jacques. + +Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous +black, hideous, bare wall by which it was backed up. + +This was the outer wall of La Force. + +This wall, beside that rotunda, was Milton viewed through Berquin. + +Lofty as it was, this wall was overtopped by a still blacker roof, which +could be seen beyond. This was the roof of the New Building. There +one could descry four dormer-windows, guarded with bars; they were the +windows of the Fine-Air. + +A chimney pierced the roof; this was the chimney which traversed the +dormitories. + +The Bel-Air, that top story of the New Building, was a sort of large +hall, with a Mansard roof, guarded with triple gratings and double doors +of sheet iron, which were studded with enormous bolts. When one entered +from the north end, one had on one's left the four dormer-windows, on +one's right, facing the windows, at regular intervals, four square, +tolerably vast cages, separated by narrow passages, built of masonry +to about the height of the elbow, and the rest, up to the roof, of iron +bars. + +Thenardier had been in solitary confinement in one of these cages since +the night of the 3d of February. No one was ever able to discover how, +and by what connivance, he succeeded in procuring, and secreting a +bottle of wine, invented, so it is said, by Desrues, with which +a narcotic is mixed, and which the band of the Endormeurs, or +Sleep-compellers, rendered famous. + +There are, in many prisons, treacherous employees, half-jailers, +half-thieves, who assist in escapes, who sell to the police an +unfaithful service, and who turn a penny whenever they can. + +On that same night, then, when Little Gavroche picked up the two lost +children, Brujon and Guelemer, who knew that Babet, who had escaped that +morning, was waiting for them in the street as well as Montparnasse, +rose softly, and with the nail which Brujon had found, began to pierce +the chimney against which their beds stood. The rubbish fell on Brujon's +bed, so that they were not heard. Showers mingled with thunder shook +the doors on their hinges, and created in the prison a terrible and +opportune uproar. Those of the prisoners who woke, pretended to fall +asleep again, and left Guelemer and Brujon to their own devices. Brujon +was adroit; Guelemer was vigorous. Before any sound had reached the +watcher, who was sleeping in the grated cell which opened into the +dormitory, the wall had, been pierced, the chimney scaled, the iron +grating which barred the upper orifice of the flue forced, and the two +redoubtable ruffians were on the roof. The wind and rain redoubled, the +roof was slippery. + +"What a good night to leg it!" said Brujon. + +An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the +surrounding wall. At the bottom of this abyss, they could see the musket +of a sentinel gleaming through the gloom. They fastened one end of the +rope which Brujon had spun in his dungeon to the stumps of the iron bars +which they had just wrenched off, flung the other over the outer wall, +crossed the abyss at one bound, clung to the coping of the wall, got +astride of it, let themselves slip, one after the other, along the rope, +upon a little roof which touches the bath-house, pulled their rope after +them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bath-house, traversed it, +pushed open the porter's wicket, beside which hung his rope, pulled +this, opened the porte-cochere, and found themselves in the street. + +Three-quarters of an hour had not elapsed since they had risen in bed in +the dark, nail in hand, and their project in their heads. + +A few moments later they had joined Babet and Montparnasse, who were +prowling about the neighborhood. + +They had broken their rope in pulling it after them, and a bit of it +remained attached to the chimney on the roof. They had sustained no +other damage, however, than that of scratching nearly all the skin off +their hands. + +That night, Thenardier was warned, without any one being able to explain +how, and was not asleep. + +Towards one o'clock in the morning, the night being very dark, he saw +two shadows pass along the roof, in the rain and squalls, in front of +the dormer-window which was opposite his cage. One halted at the window, +long enough to dart in a glance. This was Brujon. + +Thenardier recognized him, and understood. This was enough. + +Thenardier, rated as a burglar, and detained as a measure of precaution +under the charge of organizing a nocturnal ambush, with armed force, was +kept in sight. The sentry, who was relieved every two hours, marched +up and down in front of his cage with loaded musket. The Fine-Air was +lighted by a skylight. The prisoner had on his feet fetters weighing +fifty pounds. Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a jailer, +escorted by two dogs,--this was still in vogue at that time,--entered +his cage, deposited beside his bed a loaf of black bread weighing two +pounds, a jug of water, a bowl filled with rather thin bouillon, in +which swam a few Mayagan beans, inspected his irons and tapped the bars. +This man and his dogs made two visits during the night. + +Thenardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron bolt which he +used to spike his bread into a crack in the wall, "in order to preserve +it from the rats," as he said. As Thenardier was kept in sight, +no objection had been made to this spike. Still, it was remembered +afterwards, that one of the jailers had said: "It would be better to let +him have only a wooden spike." + +At two o'clock in the morning, the sentinel, who was an old soldier, was +relieved, and replaced by a conscript. A few moments later, the man with +the dogs paid his visit, and went off without noticing anything, except, +possibly, the excessive youth and "the rustic air" of the "raw recruit." +Two hours afterwards, at four o'clock, when they came to relieve the +conscript, he was found asleep on the floor, lying like a log near +Thenardier's cage. As for Thenardier, he was no longer there. There was +a hole in the ceiling of his cage, and, above it, another hole in the +roof. One of the planks of his bed had been wrenched off, and probably +carried away with him, as it was not found. They also seized in his cell +a half-empty bottle which contained the remains of the stupefying wine +with which the soldier had been drugged. The soldier's bayonet had +disappeared. + +At the moment when this discovery was made, it was assumed that +Thenardier was out of reach. The truth is, that he was no longer in the +New Building, but that he was still in great danger. + +Thenardier, on reaching the roof of the New Building, had found the +remains of Brujon's rope hanging to the bars of the upper trap of the +chimney, but, as this broken fragment was much too short, he had not +been able to escape by the outer wall, as Brujon and Guelemer had done. + +When one turns from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, +one almost immediately encounters a repulsive ruin. There stood on +that spot, in the last century, a house of which only the back wall now +remains, a regular wall of masonry, which rises to the height of the +third story between the adjoining buildings. This ruin can be recognized +by two large square windows which are still to be seen there; the middle +one, that nearest the right gable, is barred with a worm-eaten beam +adjusted like a prop. Through these windows there was formerly visible a +lofty and lugubrious wall, which was a fragment of the outer wall of La +Force. + +The empty space on the street left by the demolished house is +half-filled by a fence of rotten boards, shored up by five stone posts. +In this recess lies concealed a little shanty which leans against the +portion of the ruin which has remained standing. The fence has a gate, +which, a few years ago, was fastened only by a latch. + +It was the crest of this ruin that Thenardier had succeeded in reaching, +a little after one o'clock in the morning. + +How had he got there? That is what no one has ever been able to explain +or understand. The lightning must, at the same time, have hindered +and helped him. Had he made use of the ladders and scaffoldings of the +slaters to get from roof to roof, from enclosure to enclosure, from +compartment to compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court, +then to the buildings of the Saint-Louis court, to the outer wall, and +thence to the hut on the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile? But in that itinerary +there existed breaks which seemed to render it an impossibility. Had +he placed the plank from his bed like a bridge from the roof of the +Fine-Air to the outer wall, and crawled flat, on his belly on the coping +of the outer wall the whole distance round the prison as far as the hut? +But the outer wall of La Force formed a crenellated and unequal line; +it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen's barracks, it rose +towards the bath-house, it was cut in twain by buildings, it was not +even of the same height on the Hotel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pavee; +everywhere occurred falls and right angles; and then, the sentinels must +have espied the dark form of the fugitive; hence, the route taken by +Thenardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two manners, flight was +impossible. Had Thenardier, spurred on by that thirst for liberty which +changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into wattles of osier, a +legless man into an athlete, a gouty man into a bird, stupidity into +instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had +Thenardier invented a third mode? No one has ever found out. + +The marvels of escape cannot always be accounted for. The man who makes +his escape, we repeat, is inspired; there is something of the star and +of the lightning in the mysterious gleam of flight; the effort towards +deliverance is no less surprising than the flight towards the sublime, +and one says of the escaped thief: "How did he contrive to scale that +wall?" in the same way that one says of Corneille: "Where did he find +the means of dying?" + +At all events, dripping with perspiration, drenched with rain, with his +clothes hanging in ribbons, his hands flayed, his elbows bleeding, his +knees torn, Thenardier had reached what children, in their figurative +language, call the edge of the wall of the ruin, there he had stretched +himself out at full length, and there his strength had failed him. A +steep escarpment three stories high separated him from the pavement of +the street. + +The rope which he had was too short. + +There he waited, pale, exhausted, desperate with all the despair which +he had undergone, still hidden by the night, but telling himself that +the day was on the point of dawning, alarmed at the idea of hearing the +neighboring clock of Saint-Paul strike four within a few minutes, an +hour when the sentinel was relieved and when the latter would be found +asleep under the pierced roof, staring in horror at a terrible depth, at +the light of the street lanterns, the wet, black pavement, that pavement +longed for yet frightful, which meant death, and which meant liberty. + +He asked himself whether his three accomplices in flight had succeeded, +if they had heard him, and if they would come to his assistance. He +listened. With the exception of the patrol, no one had passed through +the street since he had been there. Nearly the whole of the descent of +the market-gardeners from Montreuil, from Charonne, from Vincennes, +and from Bercy to the markets was accomplished through the Rue +Saint-Antoine. + +Four o'clock struck. Thenardier shuddered. A few moments later, that +terrified and confused uproar which follows the discovery of an escape +broke forth in the prison. The sound of doors opening and shutting, the +creaking of gratings on their hinges, a tumult in the guard-house, the +hoarse shouts of the turnkeys, the shock of musket-butts on the pavement +of the courts, reached his ears. Lights ascended and descended past the +grated windows of the dormitories, a torch ran along the ridge-pole of +the top story of the New Building, the firemen belonging in the barracks +on the right had been summoned. Their helmets, which the torch lighted +up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, +Thenardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness +lighting up the edge of the sky in doleful wise. + +He was on top of a wall ten inches wide, stretched out under the heavy +rains, with two gulfs to right and left, unable to stir, subject to the +giddiness of a possible fall, and to the horror of a certain arrest, +and his thoughts, like the pendulum of a clock, swung from one of these +ideas to the other: "Dead if I fall, caught if I stay." In the midst of +this anguish, he suddenly saw, the street being still dark, a man who +was gliding along the walls and coming from the Rue Pavee, halt in the +recess above which Thenardier was, as it were, suspended. Here this +man was joined by a second, who walked with the same caution, then by +a third, then by a fourth. When these men were re-united, one of them +lifted the latch of the gate in the fence, and all four entered +the enclosure in which the shanty stood. They halted directly under +Thenardier. These men had evidently chosen this vacant space in order +that they might consult without being seen by the passers-by or by the +sentinel who guards the wicket of La Force a few paces distant. It +must be added, that the rain kept this sentinel blocked in his box. +Thenardier, not being able to distinguish their visages, lent an ear to +their words with the desperate attention of a wretch who feels himself +lost. + +Thenardier saw something resembling a gleam of hope flash before his +eyes,--these men conversed in slang. + +The first said in a low but distinct voice:-- + +"Let's cut. What are we up to here?" + +The second replied: "It's raining hard enough to put out the very +devil's fire. And the bobbies will be along instanter. There's a soldier +on guard yonder. We shall get nabbed here." + +These two words, icigo and icicaille, both of which mean ici, and which +belong, the first to the slang of the barriers, the second to the slang +of the Temple, were flashes of light for Thenardier. By the icigo he +recognized Brujon, who was a prowler of the barriers, by the icicaille +he knew Babet, who, among his other trades, had been an old-clothes +broker at the Temple. + +The antique slang of the great century is no longer spoken except in +the Temple, and Babet was really the only person who spoke it in all +its purity. Had it not been for the icicaille, Thenardier would not have +recognized him, for he had entirely changed his voice. + +In the meanwhile, the third man had intervened. + +"There's no hurry yet, let's wait a bit. How do we know that he doesn't +stand in need of us?" + +By this, which was nothing but French, Thenardier recognized +Montparnasse, who made it a point in his elegance to understand all +slangs and to speak none of them. + +As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed +him. Thenardier did not hesitate. It was Guelemer. + +Brujon replied almost impetuously but still in a low tone:-- + +"What are you jabbering about? The tavern-keeper hasn't managed to cut +his stick. He don't tumble to the racket, that he don't! You have to be +a pretty knowing cove to tear up your shirt, cut up your sheet to make +a rope, punch holes in doors, get up false papers, make false keys, file +your irons, hang out your cord, hide yourself, and disguise yourself! +The old fellow hasn't managed to play it, he doesn't understand how to +work the business." + +Babet added, still in that classical slang which was spoken by +Poulailler and Cartouche, and which is to the bold, new, highly colored +and risky argot used by Brujon what the language of Racine is to the +language of Andre Chenier:-- + +"Your tavern-keeper must have been nabbed in the act. You have to be +knowing. He's only a greenhorn. He must have let himself be taken in +by a bobby, perhaps even by a sheep who played it on him as his pal. +Listen, Montparnasse, do you hear those shouts in the prison? You have +seen all those lights. He's recaptured, there! He'll get off with twenty +years. I ain't afraid, I ain't a coward, but there ain't anything more +to do, or otherwise they'd lead us a dance. Don't get mad, come with us, +let's go drink a bottle of old wine together." + +"One doesn't desert one's friends in a scrape," grumbled Montparnasse. + +"I tell you he's nabbed!" retorted Brujon. "At the present moment, the +inn-keeper ain't worth a ha'penny. We can't do nothing for him. Let's be +off. Every minute I think a bobby has got me in his fist." + +Montparnasse no longer offered more than a feeble resistance; the fact +is, that these four men, with the fidelity of ruffians who never abandon +each other, had prowled all night long about La Force, great as was +their peril, in the hope of seeing Thenardier make his appearance on the +top of some wall. But the night, which was really growing too fine,--for +the downpour was such as to render all the streets deserted,--the cold +which was overpowering them, their soaked garments, their hole-ridden +shoes, the alarming noise which had just burst forth in the prison, the +hours which had elapsed, the patrol which they had encountered, the +hope which was vanishing, all urged them to beat a retreat. Montparnasse +himself, who was, perhaps, almost Thenardier's son-in-law, yielded. A +moment more, and they would be gone. Thenardier was panting on his wall +like the shipwrecked sufferers of the Meduse on their raft when they +beheld the vessel which had appeared in sight vanish on the horizon. + +He dared not call to them; a cry might be heard and ruin everything. An +idea occurred to him, a last idea, a flash of inspiration; he drew from +his pocket the end of Brujon's rope, which he had detached from the +chimney of the New Building, and flung it into the space enclosed by the +fence. + +This rope fell at their feet. + +"A widow,"[37] said Babet. + +"My tortouse!"[38] said Brujon. + +"The tavern-keeper is there," said Montparnasse. + +They raised their eyes. Thenardier thrust out his head a very little. + +"Quick!" said Montparnasse, "have you the other end of the rope, +Brujon?" + +"Yes." + +"Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten +it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with." + +Thenardier ran the risk, and spoke:-- + +"I am paralyzed with cold." + +"We'll warm you up." + +"I can't budge." + +"Let yourself slide, we'll catch you." + +"My hands are benumbed." + +"Only fasten the rope to the wall." + +"I can't." + +"Then one of us must climb up," said Montparnasse. + +"Three stories!" ejaculated Brujon. + +An ancient plaster flue, which had served for a stove that had been used +in the shanty in former times, ran along the wall and mounted almost +to the very spot where they could see Thenardier. This flue, then much +damaged and full of cracks, has since fallen, but the marks of it are +still visible. + +It was very narrow. + +"One might get up by the help of that," said Montparnasse. + +"By that flue?" exclaimed Babet, "a grown-up cove, never! it would take +a brat." + +"A brat must be got," resumed Brujon. + +"Where are we to find a young 'un?" said Guelemer. + +"Wait," said Montparnasse. "I've got the very article." + +He opened the gate of the fence very softly, made sure that no one was +passing along the street, stepped out cautiously, shut the gate behind +him, and set off at a run in the direction of the Bastille. + +Seven or eight minutes elapsed, eight thousand centuries to Thenardier; +Babet, Brujon, and Guelemer did not open their lips; at last the gate +opened once more, and Montparnasse appeared, breathless, and followed by +Gavroche. The rain still rendered the street completely deserted. + +Little Gavroche entered the enclosure and gazed at the forms of these +ruffians with a tranquil air. The water was dripping from his hair. +Guelemer addressed him:-- + +"Are you a man, young 'un?" + +Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied:-- + +"A young 'un like me's a man, and men like you are babes." + +"The brat's tongue's well hung!" exclaimed Babet. + +"The Paris brat ain't made of straw," added Brujon. + +"What do you want?" asked Gavroche. + +Montparnasse answered:-- + +"Climb up that flue." + +"With this rope," said Babet. + +"And fasten it," continued Brujon. + +"To the top of the wall," went on Babet. + +"To the cross-bar of the window," added Brujon. + +"And then?" said Gavroche. + +"There!" said Guelemer. + +The gamin examined the rope, the flue, the wall, the windows, and made +that indescribable and disdainful noise with his lips which signifies:-- + +"Is that all!" + +"There's a man up there whom you are to save," resumed Montparnasse. + +"Will you?" began Brujon again. + +"Greenhorn!" replied the lad, as though the question appeared a most +unprecedented one to him. + +And he took off his shoes. + +Guelemer seized Gavroche by one arm, set him on the roof of the shanty, +whose worm-eaten planks bent beneath the urchin's weight, and handed +him the rope which Brujon had knotted together during Montparnasse's +absence. The gamin directed his steps towards the flue, which it was +easy to enter, thanks to a large crack which touched the roof. At the +moment when he was on the point of ascending, Thenardier, who saw life +and safety approaching, bent over the edge of the wall; the first light +of dawn struck white upon his brow dripping with sweat, upon his livid +cheek-bones, his sharp and savage nose, his bristling gray beard, and +Gavroche recognized him. + +"Hullo! it's my father! Oh, that won't hinder." + +And taking the rope in his teeth, he resolutely began the ascent. + +He reached the summit of the hut, bestrode the old wall as though it had +been a horse, and knotted the rope firmly to the upper cross-bar of the +window. + +A moment later, Thenardier was in the street. + +As soon as he touched the pavement, as soon as he found himself out +of danger, he was no longer either weary, or chilled or trembling; the +terrible things from which he had escaped vanished like smoke, all that +strange and ferocious mind awoke once more, and stood erect and free, +ready to march onward. + +These were this man's first words:-- + +"Now, whom are we to eat?" + +It is useless to explain the sense of this frightfully transparent +remark, which signifies both to kill, to assassinate, and to plunder. To +eat, true sense: to devour. + +"Let's get well into a corner," said Brujon. "Let's settle it in three +words, and part at once. There was an affair that promised well in the +Rue Plumet, a deserted street, an isolated house, an old rotten gate on +a garden, and lone women." + +"Well! why not?" demanded Thenardier. + +"Your girl, Eponine, went to see about the matter," replied Babet. + +"And she brought a biscuit to Magnon," added Guelemer. "Nothing to be +made there." + +"The girl's no fool," said Thenardier. "Still, it must be seen to." + +"Yes, yes," said Brujon, "it must be looked up." + +In the meanwhile, none of the men seemed to see Gavroche, who, during +this colloquy, had seated himself on one of the fence-posts; he waited +a few moments, thinking that perhaps his father would turn towards him, +then he put on his shoes again, and said:-- + +"Is that all? You don't want any more, my men? Now you're out of your +scrape. I'm off. I must go and get my brats out of bed." + +And off he went. + +The five men emerged, one after another, from the enclosure. + +When Gavroche had disappeared at the corner of the Rue des Ballets, +Babet took Thenardier aside. + +"Did you take a good look at that young 'un?" he asked. + +"What young 'un?" + +"The one who climbed the wall and carried you the rope." + +"Not particularly." + +"Well, I don't know, but it strikes me that it was your son." + +"Bah!" said Thenardier, "do you think so?" + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--SLANG + +[Illustration: Slang b7-1-slang] + + + + +CHAPTER I--ORIGIN + +Pigritia is a terrible word. + +It engenders a whole world, la pegre, for which read theft, and a hell, +la pegrenne, for which read hunger. + +Thus, idleness is the mother. + +She has a son, theft, and a daughter, hunger. + +Where are we at this moment? In the land of slang. + +What is slang? It is at one and the same time, a nation and a dialect; +it is theft in its two kinds; people and language. + +When, four and thirty years ago, the narrator of this grave and sombre +history introduced into a work written with the same aim as this[39] a +thief who talked argot, there arose amazement and clamor.--"What! How! +Argot! Why, argot is horrible! It is the language of prisons, galleys, +convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society!" etc., etc. + +We have never understood this sort of objections. + +Since that time, two powerful romancers, one of whom is a profound +observer of the human heart, the other an intrepid friend of the people, +Balzac and Eugene Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking +their natural language, as the author of The Last Day of a Condemned +Man did in 1828, the same objections have been raised. People repeated: +"What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang +makes one shudder!" + +Who denies that? Of course it does. + +When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when +has it been considered wrong to go too far? to go to the bottom? We have +always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a +simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty +accepted and fulfilled merits. Why should one not explore everything, +and study everything? Why should one halt on the way? The halt is a +matter depending on the sounding-line, and not on the leadsman. + +Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to +undertake an investigation into the lowest depths of the social order, +where terra firma comes to an end and where mud begins, to rummage in +those vague, murky waves, to follow up, to seize and to fling, still +quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with +filth when thus brought to the light, that pustulous vocabulary each +word of which seems an unclean ring from a monster of the mire and the +shadows. Nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in +its nudity, in the broad light of thought, of the horrible swarming of +slang. It seems, in fact, to be a sort of horrible beast made for the +night which has just been torn from its cesspool. One thinks one beholds +a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, +wavers, returns to shadow, threatens and glares. One word resembles a +claw, another an extinguished and bleeding eye, such and such a phrase +seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with +the hideous vitality of things which have been organized out of +disorganization. + +Now, when has horror ever excluded study? Since when has malady banished +medicine? Can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper, the +bat, the scorpion, the centipede, the tarantula, and one who would +cast them back into their darkness, saying: "Oh! how ugly that is!" The +thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon +who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like +a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher +hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. For, it must be stated +to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary +phenomenon and a social result. What is slang, properly speaking? It is +the language of wretchedness. + +We may be stopped; the fact may be put to us in general terms, which is +one way of attenuating it; we may be told, that all trades, professions, +it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all +forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: +"Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change +who says: "Assets at end of current month," the gambler who says: "Tiers +et tout, refait de pique," the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says: +"The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the +fruits of that estate during the hereditary seizure of the real estate +by the mortgagor," the playwright who says: "The piece was hissed," +the comedian who says: "I've made a hit," the philosopher who says: +"Phenomenal triplicity," the huntsman who says: "Voileci allais, +Voileci fuyant," the phrenologist who says: "Amativeness, combativeness, +secretiveness," the infantry soldier who says: "My shooting-iron," the +cavalry-man who says: "My turkey-cock," the fencing-master who says: +"Tierce, quarte, break," the printer who says: "My shooting-stick and +galley,"--all, printer, fencing-master, cavalry dragoon, infantry-man, +phrenologist, huntsman, philosopher, comedian, playwright, sheriff, +gambler, stock-broker, and merchant, speak slang. The painter who says: +"My grinder," the notary who says: "My Skip-the-Gutter," the hairdresser +who says: "My mealyback," the cobbler who says: "My cub," talks slang. +Strictly speaking, if one absolutely insists on the point, all the +different fashions of saying the right and the left, the sailor's port +and starboard, the scene-shifter's court-side, and garden-side, the +beadle's Gospel-side and Epistle-side, are slang. There is the slang of +the affected lady as well as of the precieuses. The Hotel Rambouillet +nearly adjoins the Cour des Miracles. There is a slang of duchesses, +witness this phrase contained in a love-letter from a very great lady +and a very pretty woman of the Restoration: "You will find in this +gossip a fultitude of reasons why I should libertize."[40] Diplomatic +ciphers are slang; the pontifical chancellery by using 26 for Rome, +grkztntgzyal for despatch, and abfxustgrnogrkzu tu XI. for the Due de +Modena, speaks slang. The physicians of the Middle Ages who, for +carrot, radish, and turnip, said Opoponach, perfroschinum, +reptitalmus, dracatholicum, angelorum, postmegorum, talked slang. The +sugar-manufacturer who says: "Loaf, clarified, lumps, bastard, common, +burnt,"--this honest manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of +criticism twenty years ago, which used to say: "Half of the works of +Shakespeare consists of plays upon words and puns,"--talked slang. The +poet, and the artist who, with profound understanding, would designate +M. de Montmorency as "a bourgeois," if he were not a judge of verses and +statues, speak slang. The classic Academician who calls flowers "Flora," +fruits, "Pomona," the sea, "Neptune," love, "fires," beauty, "charms," +a horse, "a courser," the white or tricolored cockade, "the rose of +Bellona," the three-cornered hat, "Mars' triangle,"--that classical +Academician talks slang. Algebra, medicine, botany, have each their +slang. The tongue which is employed on board ship, that wonderful +language of the sea, which is so complete and so picturesque, which was +spoken by Jean Bart, Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperre, which mingles with +the whistling of the rigging, the sound of the speaking-trumpets, the +shock of the boarding-irons, the roll of the sea, the wind, the gale, +the cannon, is wholly a heroic and dazzling slang, which is to the +fierce slang of the thieves what the lion is to the jackal. + +No doubt. But say what we will, this manner of understanding the word +slang is an extension which every one will not admit. For our part, +we reserve to the word its ancient and precise, circumscribed and +determined significance, and we restrict slang to slang. The veritable +slang and the slang that is pre-eminently slang, if the two words can be +coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing +else, we repeat, than the homely, uneasy, crafty, treacherous, venomous, +cruel, equivocal, vile, profound, fatal tongue of wretchedness. There +exists, at the extremity of all abasement and all misfortunes, a last +misery which revolts and makes up its mind to enter into conflict +with the whole mass of fortunate facts and reigning rights; a fearful +conflict, where, now cunning, now violent, unhealthy and ferocious +at one and the same time, it attacks the social order with pin-pricks +through vice, and with club-blows through crime. To meet the needs of +this conflict, wretchedness has invented a language of combat, which is +slang. + +To keep afloat and to rescue from oblivion, to hold above the gulf, were +it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, +otherwise, be lost, that is to say, one of the elements, good or bad, of +which civilization is composed, or by which it is complicated, to extend +the records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself. This +service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously, by making two +Carthaginian soldiers talk Phoenician; that service Moliere rendered, +by making so many of his characters talk Levantine and all sorts of +dialects. Here objections spring up afresh. Phoenician, very good! +Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues +which have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is the use +of preserving slang? What is the good of assisting slang "to survive"? + +To this we reply in one word, only. Assuredly, if the tongue which a +nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest, the language +which has been spoken by a misery is still more worthy of attention and +study. + +It is the language which has been spoken, in France, for example, for +more than four centuries, not only by a misery, but by every possible +human misery. + +And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and +infirmities, and the task of pointing them out with a view to remedy, +is not a business in which choice is permitted. The historian of manners +and ideas has no less austere a mission than the historian of events. +The latter has the surface of civilization, the conflicts of crowns, the +births of princes, the marriages of kings, battles, assemblages, great +public men, revolutions in the daylight, everything on the exterior; +the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, +suffer, wait, the oppressed woman, the agonizing child, the secret war +between man and man, obscure ferocities, prejudices, plotted +iniquities, the subterranean, the indistinct tremors of multitudes, the +die-of-hunger, the counter-blows of the law, the secret evolution of +souls, the go-bare-foot, the bare-armed, the disinherited, the orphans, +the unhappy, and the infamous, all the forms which roam through the +darkness. He must descend with his heart full of charity, and severity +at the same time, as a brother and as a judge, to those impenetrable +casemates where crawl, pell-mell, those who bleed and those who deal the +blow, those who weep and those who curse, those who fast and those +who devour, those who endure evil and those who inflict it. Have these +historians of hearts and souls duties at all inferior to the historians +of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer +things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any +less important than the upper side merely because it is deeper and more +sombre? Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted +with the cavern? + +Let us say, moreover, parenthetically, that from a few words of what +precedes a marked separation might be inferred between the two classes +of historians which does not exist in our mind. No one is a good +historian of the patent, visible, striking, and public life of peoples, +if he is not, at the same time, in a certain measure, the historian +of their deep and hidden life; and no one is a good historian of the +interior unless he understands how, at need, to be the historian of the +exterior also. The history of manners and ideas permeates the history +of events, and this is true reciprocally. They constitute two different +orders of facts which correspond to each other, which are always +interlaced, and which often bring forth results. All the lineaments +which providence traces on the surface of a nation have their parallels, +sombre but distinct, in their depths, and all convulsions of the depths +produce ebullitions on the surface. True history being a mixture of all +things, the true historian mingles in everything. + +Man is not a circle with a single centre; he is an ellipse with a double +focus. Facts form one of these, and ideas the other. + +Slang is nothing but a dressing-room where the tongue having some +bad action to perform, disguises itself. There it clothes itself in +word-masks, in metaphor-rags. In this guise it becomes horrible. + +One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the +great human tongue? Behold it ready to step upon the stage and to retort +upon crime, and prepared for all the employments of the repertory of +evil. It no longer walks, it hobbles; it limps on the crutch of the +Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club; it is called +vagrancy; every sort of spectre, its dressers, have painted its face, it +crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt +at all roles, it is made suspicious by the counterfeiter, covered with +verdigris by the forger, blacked by the soot of the incendiary; and the +murderer applies its rouge. + +When one listens, by the side of honest men, at the portals of society, +one overhears the dialogues of those who are on the outside. +One distinguishes questions and replies. One perceives, without +understanding it, a hideous murmur, sounding almost like human accents, +but more nearly resembling a howl than an articulate word. It is slang. +The words are misshapen and stamped with an indescribable and fantastic +bestiality. One thinks one hears hydras talking. + +It is unintelligible in the dark. It gnashes and whispers, completing +the gloom with mystery. It is black in misfortune, it is blacker still +in crime; these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity +in the atmosphere, obscurity in acts, obscurity in voices. Terrible, +toad-like tongue which goes and comes, leaps, crawls, slobbers, and +stirs about in monstrous wise in that immense gray fog composed of rain +and night, of hunger, of vice, of falsehood, of injustice, of nudity, of +suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. + +Let us have compassion on the chastised. Alas! Who are we ourselves? Who +am I who now address you? Who are you who are listening to me? And are +you very sure that we have done nothing before we were born? The earth +is not devoid of resemblance to a jail. Who knows whether man is not a +recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is +so made, that everywhere we feel the sense of punishment. + +Are you what is called a happy man? Well! you are sad every day. Each +day has its own great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were +trembling for a health that is dear to you, to-day you fear for your +own; to-morrow it will be anxiety about money, the day after to-morrow +the diatribe of a slanderer, the day after that, the misfortune of some +friend; then the prevailing weather, then something that has been broken +or lost, then a pleasure with which your conscience and your vertebral +column reproach you; again, the course of public affairs. This without +reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is +dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day out of a hundred which +is wholly joyous and sunny. And you belong to that small class who are +happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnating night rests upon them. + +Thoughtful minds make but little use of the phrase: the fortunate and +the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, +there are no fortunate. + +The real human division is this: the luminous and the shady. To diminish +the number of the shady, to augment the number of the luminous,--that +is the object. That is why we cry: Education! science! To teach reading, +means to light the fire; every syllable spelled out sparkles. + +However, he who says light does not, necessarily, say joy. People suffer +in the light; excess burns. The flame is the enemy of the wing. To burn +without ceasing to fly,--therein lies the marvel of genius. + +When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. +The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ROOTS + +Slang is the tongue of those who sit in darkness. + +Thought is moved in its most sombre depths, social philosophy is bidden +to its most poignant meditations, in the presence of that enigmatic +dialect at once so blighted and rebellious. Therein lies chastisement +made visible. Every syllable has an air of being marked. The words of +the vulgar tongue appear therein wrinkled and shrivelled, as it were, +beneath the hot iron of the executioner. Some seem to be still smoking. +Such and such a phrase produces upon you the effect of the shoulder of a +thief branded with the fleur-de-lys, which has suddenly been laid bare. +Ideas almost refuse to be expressed in these substantives which are +fugitives from justice. Metaphor is sometimes so shameless, that one +feels that it has worn the iron neck-fetter. + +Moreover, in spite of all this, and because of all this, this strange +dialect has by rights, its own compartment in that great impartial case +of pigeon-holes where there is room for the rusty farthing as well as +for the gold medal, and which is called literature. Slang, whether the +public admit the fact or not has its syntax and its poetry. It is a +language. Yes, by the deformity of certain terms, we recognize the +fact that it was chewed by Mandrin, and by the splendor of certain +metonymies, we feel that Villon spoke it. + +That exquisite and celebrated verse-- + + Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? + But where are the snows of years gone by? + +is a verse of slang. Antam--ante annum--is a word of Thunes slang, which +signified the past year, and by extension, formerly. Thirty-five years +ago, at the epoch of the departure of the great chain-gang, there could +be read in one of the cells at Bicetre, this maxim engraved with a +nail on the wall by a king of Thunes condemned to the galleys: Les dabs +d'antan trimaient siempre pour la pierre du Coesre. This means Kings in +days gone by always went and had themselves anointed. In the opinion of +that king, anointment meant the galleys. + +The word decarade, which expresses the departure of heavy vehicles at +a gallop, is attributed to Villon, and it is worthy of him. This word, +which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up in a masterly +onomatopoeia the whole of La Fontaine's admirable verse:-- + + Six forts chevaux tiraient un coche. + Six stout horses drew a coach. + + +From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more +curious and fruitful than the study of slang. It is a whole language +within a language, a sort of sickly excrescence, an unhealthy graft +which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the +old Gallic trunk, and whose sinister foliage crawls all over one side of +the language. This is what may be called the first, the vulgar aspect of +slang. But, for those who study the tongue as it should be studied, that +is to say, as geologists study the earth, slang appears like a veritable +alluvial deposit. According as one digs a longer or shorter distance +into it, one finds in slang, below the old popular French, Provencal, +Spanish, Italian, Levantine, that language of the Mediterranean ports, +English and German, the Romance language in its three varieties, French, +Italian, and Romance Romance, Latin, and finally Basque and Celtic. A +profound and unique formation. A subterranean edifice erected in common +by all the miserable. Each accursed race has deposited its layer, each +suffering has dropped its stone there, each heart has contributed its +pebble. A throng of evil, base, or irritated souls, who have traversed +life and have vanished into eternity, linger there almost entirely +visible still beneath the form of some monstrous word. + +Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang abounded in it. Here is +boffete, a box on the ear, which is derived from bofeton; vantane, +window (later on vanterne), which comes from vantana; gat, cat, which +comes from gato; acite, oil, which comes from aceyte. Do you want +Italian? Here is spade, sword, which comes from spada; carvel, boat, +which comes from caravella. Do you want English? Here is bichot, which +comes from bishop; raille, spy, which comes from rascal, rascalion; +pilche, a case, which comes from pilcher, a sheath. Do you want German? +Here is the caleur, the waiter, kellner; the hers, the master, herzog +(duke). Do you want Latin? Here is frangir, to break, frangere; affurer, +to steal, fur; cadene, chain, catena. There is one word which crops up +in every language of the continent, with a sort of mysterious power and +authority. It is the word magnus; the Scotchman makes of it his mac, +which designates the chief of the clan; Mac-Farlane, Mac-Callumore, the +great Farlane, the great Callumore[41]; slang turns it into meck and +later le meg, that is to say, God. Would you like Basque? Here is +gahisto, the devil, which comes from gaiztoa, evil; sorgabon, good +night, which comes from gabon, good evening. Do you want Celtic? Here is +blavin, a handkerchief, which comes from blavet, gushing water; menesse, +a woman (in a bad sense), which comes from meinec, full of stones; +barant, brook, from baranton, fountain; goffeur, locksmith, from goff, +blacksmith; guedouze, death, which comes from guenn-du, black-white. +Finally, would you like history? Slang calls crowns les malteses, a +souvenir of the coin in circulation on the galleys of Malta. + +In addition to the philological origins just indicated, slang possesses +other and still more natural roots, which spring, so to speak, from the +mind of man itself. + +In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the +mystery of tongues. To paint with words, which contains figures +one knows not how or why, is the primitive foundation of all human +languages, what may be called their granite. + +Slang abounds in words of this description, immediate words, words +created instantaneously no one knows either where or by whom, without +etymology, without analogies, without derivatives, solitary, barbarous, +sometimes hideous words, which at times possess a singular power of +expression and which live. The executioner, le taule; the forest, +le sabri; fear, flight, taf; the lackey, le larbin; the mineral, +the prefect, the minister, pharos; the devil, le rabouin. Nothing is +stranger than these words which both mask and reveal. Some, le rabouin, +for example, are at the same time grotesque and terrible, and produce on +you the effect of a cyclopean grimace. + +In the second place, metaphor. The peculiarity of a language which is +desirous of saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. +Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, +the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more +metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist +the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a +rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure +which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique +lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and +which compresses into a single word the popular expression: it rains +halberds. Sometimes, in proportion as slang progresses from the first +epoch to the second, words pass from the primitive and savage sense to +the metaphorical sense. The devil ceases to be le rabouin, and becomes +le boulanger (the baker), who puts the bread into the oven. This is +more witty, but less grand, something like Racine after Corneille, like +Euripides after AEschylus. Certain slang phrases which participate +in the two epochs and have at once the barbaric character and the +metaphorical character resemble phantasmagories. Les sorgueuers vont +solliciter des gails a la lune--the prowlers are going to steal horses +by night,--this passes before the mind like a group of spectres. One +knows not what one sees. + +In the third place, the expedient. Slang lives on the language. It uses +it in accordance with its fancy, it dips into it hap-hazard, and it +often confines itself, when occasion arises, to alter it in a gross and +summary fashion. Occasionally, with the ordinary words thus deformed and +complicated with words of pure slang, picturesque phrases are formed, in +which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the +direct creation and the metaphor: le cab jaspine, je marronne que la +roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect +that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est +sinve, la dabuge est merloussiere, la fee est bative, the bourgeois is +stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, +to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to +all the words of the language without distinction, an ignoble tail, a +termination in aille, in orgue, in iergue, or in uche. Thus: Vousiergue +trouvaille bonorgue ce gigotmuche? Do you think that leg of mutton +good? A phrase addressed by Cartouche to a turnkey in order to find out +whether the sum offered for his escape suited him. + +The termination in mar has been added recently. + +Slang, being the dialect of corruption, quickly becomes corrupted +itself. Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as +it feels that it is understood, it changes its form. Contrary to what +happens with every other vegetation, every ray of light which falls +upon it kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of +decomposition and recomposition; an obscure and rapid work which never +pauses. It passes over more ground in ten years than a language in ten +centuries. Thus le larton (bread) becomes le lartif; le gail (horse) +becomes le gaye; la fertanche (straw) becomes la fertille; le momignard +(brat), le momacque; les fiques (duds), frusques; la chique (the +church), l'egrugeoir; le colabre (neck), le colas. The devil is at +first, gahisto, then le rabouin, then the baker; the priest is a +ratichon, then the boar (le sanglier); the dagger is le vingt-deux +(twenty-two), then le surin, then le lingre; the police are railles, +then roussins, then rousses, then marchands de lacets (dealers in +stay-laces), then coquers, then cognes; the executioner is le taule, +then Charlot, l'atigeur, then le becquillard. In the seventeenth +century, to fight was "to give each other snuff"; in the nineteenth +it is "to chew each other's throats." There have been twenty different +phrases between these two extremes. Cartouche's talk would have been +Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of this language are perpetually +engaged in flight like the men who utter them. + +Still, from time to time, and in consequence of this very movement, +the ancient slang crops up again and becomes new once more. It has its +headquarters where it maintains its sway. The Temple preserved the slang +of the seventeenth century; Bicetre, when it was a prison, preserved the +slang of Thunes. There one could hear the termination in anche of +the old Thuneurs. Boyanches-tu (bois-tu), do you drink? But perpetual +movement remains its law, nevertheless. + +If the philosopher succeeds in fixing, for a moment, for purposes of +observation, this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls +into doleful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and +more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in +slang, which does not contain a lesson. Among these men, to beat means +to feign; one beats a malady; ruse is their strength. + +For them, the idea of the man is not separated from the idea of +darkness. The night is called la sorgue; man, l'orgue. Man is a +derivative of the night. + +They have taken up the practice of considering society in the light +of an atmosphere which kills them, of a fatal force, and they speak of +their liberty as one would speak of his health. A man under arrest is a +sick man; one who is condemned is a dead man. + +The most terrible thing for the prisoner within the four walls in which +he is buried, is a sort of glacial chastity, and he calls the dungeon +the castus. In that funereal place, life outside always presents itself +under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his feet; you +think, perhaps, that his thought is that it is with the feet that one +walks? No; he is thinking that it is with the feet that one dances; so, +when he has succeeded in severing his fetters, his first idea is that +now he can dance, and he calls the saw the bastringue (public-house +ball).--A name is a centre; profound assimilation.--The ruffian has two +heads, one of which reasons out his actions and leads him all his life +long, and the other which he has upon his shoulders on the day of his +death; he calls the head which counsels him in crime la sorbonne, +and the head which expiates it la tronche.--When a man has no longer +anything but rags upon his body and vices in his heart, when he has +arrived at that double moral and material degradation which the word +blackguard characterizes in its two acceptations, he is ripe for crime; +he is like a well-whetted knife; he has two cutting edges, his +distress and his malice; so slang does not say a blackguard, it says +un reguise.--What are the galleys? A brazier of damnation, a hell. The +convict calls himself a fagot.--And finally, what name do malefactors +give to their prison? The college. A whole penitentiary system can be +evolved from that word. + +Does the reader wish to know where the majority of the songs of the +galleys, those refrains called in the special vocabulary lirlonfa, have +had their birth? + +Let him listen to what follows:-- + +There existed at the Chatelet in Paris a large and long cellar. This +cellar was eight feet below the level of the Seine. It had neither +windows nor air-holes, its only aperture was the door; men could enter +there, air could not. This vault had for ceiling a vault of stone, and +for floor ten inches of mud. It was flagged; but the pavement had rotted +and cracked under the oozing of the water. Eight feet above the floor, +a long and massive beam traversed this subterranean excavation from side +to side; from this beam hung, at short distances apart, chains three +feet long, and at the end of these chains there were rings for the +neck. In this vault, men who had been condemned to the galleys were +incarcerated until the day of their departure for Toulon. They were +thrust under this beam, where each one found his fetters swinging in the +darkness and waiting for him. + +The chains, those pendant arms, and the necklets, those open hands, +caught the unhappy wretches by the throat. They were rivetted and +left there. As the chain was too short, they could not lie down. They +remained motionless in that cavern, in that night, beneath that beam, +almost hanging, forced to unheard-of efforts to reach their bread, jug, +or their vault overhead, mud even to mid-leg, filth flowing to their +very calves, broken asunder with fatigue, with thighs and knees giving +way, clinging fast to the chain with their hands in order to obtain some +rest, unable to sleep except when standing erect, and awakened every +moment by the strangling of the collar; some woke no more. In order to +eat, they pushed the bread, which was flung to them in the mud, along +their leg with their heel until it reached their hand. + +How long did they remain thus? One month, two months, six months +sometimes; one stayed a year. It was the antechamber of the galleys. +Men were put there for stealing a hare from the king. In this +sepulchre-hell, what did they do? What man can do in a sepulchre, they +went through the agonies of death, and what can man do in hell, they +sang; for song lingers where there is no longer any hope. In the waters +of Malta, when a galley was approaching, the song could be heard before +the sound of the oars. Poor Survincent, the poacher, who had gone +through the prison-cellar of the Chatelet, said: "It was the rhymes that +kept me up." Uselessness of poetry. What is the good of rhyme? + +It is in this cellar that nearly all the slang songs had their birth. +It is from the dungeon of the Grand-Chatelet of Paris that comes +the melancholy refrain of the Montgomery galley: "Timaloumisaine, +timaloumison." The majority of these: + + Icicaille est la theatre Here is the theatre + Du petit dardant. Of the little archer (Cupid). + + +Do what you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic in the heart +of man, love. + +In this world of dismal deeds, people keep their secrets. The secret is +the thing above all others. The secret, in the eyes of these wretches, +is unity which serves as a base of union. To betray a secret is to +tear from each member of this fierce community something of his own +personality. To inform against, in the energetic slang dialect, is +called: "to eat the bit." As though the informer drew to himself a +little of the substance of all and nourished himself on a bit of each +one's flesh. + +What does it signify to receive a box on the ear? Commonplace metaphor +replies: "It is to see thirty-six candles." + +Here slang intervenes and takes it up: Candle, camoufle. Thereupon, the +ordinary tongue gives camouflet[42] as the synonym for soufflet. Thus, +by a sort of infiltration from below upwards, with the aid of metaphor, +that incalculable, trajectory slang mounts from the cavern to the +Academy; and Poulailler saying: "I light my camoufle," causes Voltaire +to write: "Langleviel La Beaumelle deserves a hundred camouflets." + +Researches in slang mean discoveries at every step. Study and +investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of +intersection of regular society with society which is accursed. + +The thief also has his food for cannon, stealable matter, you, I, +whoever passes by; le pantre. (Pan, everybody.) + +Slang is language turned convict. + +That the thinking principle of man be thrust down ever so low, that it +can be dragged and pinioned there by obscure tyrannies of fatality, +that it can be bound by no one knows what fetters in that abyss, is +sufficient to create consternation. + +Oh, poor thought of miserable wretches! + +Alas! will no one come to the succor of the human soul in that darkness? +Is it her destiny there to await forever the mind, the liberator, the +immense rider of Pegasi and hippo-griffs, the combatant of heroes of +the dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant +knight of the future? Will she forever summon in vain to her assistance +the lance of light of the ideal? Is she condemned to hear the fearful +approach of Evil through the density of the gulf, and to catch glimpses, +nearer and nearer at hand, beneath the hideous water of that dragon's +head, that maw streaked with foam, and that writhing undulation of +claws, swellings, and rings? Must it remain there, without a gleam +of light, without hope, given over to that terrible approach, vaguely +scented out by the monster, shuddering, dishevelled, wringing its arms, +forever chained to the rock of night, a sombre Andromeda white and naked +amid the shadows! + + + + +CHAPTER III--SLANG WHICH WEEPS AND SLANG WHICH LAUGHS + +As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred +years ago, like the slang of to-day, is permeated with that sombre, +symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful, +now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those +vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of +their own, some of which have come down to us. The eight of clubs, for +instance, represented a huge tree bearing eight enormous trefoil leaves, +a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this +tree a fire was burning, over which three hares were roasting a huntsman +on a spit, and behind him, on another fire, hung a steaming pot, whence +emerged the head of a dog. Nothing can be more melancholy than these +reprisals in painting, by a pack of cards, in the presence of stakes +for the roasting of smugglers and of the cauldron for the boiling of +counterfeiters. The diverse forms assumed by thought in the realm +of slang, even song, even raillery, even menace, all partook of this +powerless and dejected character. All the songs, the melodies of some +of which have been collected, were humble and lamentable to the point of +evoking tears. The pegre is always the poor pegre, and he is always +the hare in hiding, the fugitive mouse, the flying bird. He hardly +complains, he contents himself with sighing; one of his moans has come +down to us: "I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture +his children and his grandchildren and hear them cry, without himself +suffering torture."[43] The wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes +himself small before the low, and frail in the presence of society; +he lies down flat on his face, he entreats, he appeals to the side of +compassion; we feel that he is conscious of his guilt. + +Towards the middle of the last century a change took place, prison songs +and thieves' ritournelles assumed, so to speak, an insolent and jovial +mien. The plaintive malure was replaced by the larifla. We find in the +eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, +a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting +refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent +gleam, and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a +will-o'-the-wisp playing the fife:-- + + Miralabi suslababo + Mirliton ribonribette + Surlababi mirlababo + Mirliton ribonribo. + + +This was sung in a cellar or in a nook of the forest while cutting a +man's throat. + +A serious symptom. In the eighteenth century, the ancient melancholy of +the dejected classes vanishes. They began to laugh. They rally the grand +meg and the grand dab. Given Louis XV. they call the King of France "le +Marquis de Pantin." And behold, they are almost gay. A sort of gleam +proceeds from these miserable wretches, as though their consciences were +not heavy within them any more. These lamentable tribes of darkness have +no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, they possess the +heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing the sense of +their criminality, and that they feel, even among thinkers and dreamers, +some indefinable support which the latter themselves know not of. A +sign that theft and pillage are beginning to filter into doctrines and +sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their ugliness, while +communicating much of it to sophisms and doctrines. A sign, in short, of +some outbreak which is prodigious and near unless some diversion shall +arise. + +Let us pause a moment. Whom are we accusing here? Is it the eighteenth +century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work of the eighteenth +century is healthy and good and wholesome. The encyclopedists, Diderot +at their head; the physiocrates, Turgot at their head; the philosophers, +Voltaire at their head; the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,--these are +four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due +to them. They are the four vanguards of the human race, marching towards +the four cardinal points of progress. Diderot towards the beautiful, +Turgot towards the useful, Voltaire towards the true, Rousseau towards +the just. But by the side of and above the philosophers, there were the +sophists, a venomous vegetation mingled with a healthy growth, hemlock +in the virgin forest. While the executioner was burning the great +books of the liberators of the century on the grand staircase of the +court-house, writers now forgotten were publishing, with the King's +sanction, no one knows what strangely disorganizing writings, which were +eagerly read by the unfortunate. Some of these publications, odd to +say, which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret +Library. These facts, significant but unknown, were imperceptible on the +surface. Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. +It is obscure because it is underhand. Of all these writers, the one +who probably then excavated in the masses the most unhealthy gallery was +Restif de La Bretonne. + +This work, peculiar to the whole of Europe, effected more ravages in +Germany than anywhere else. In Germany, during a given period, summed up +by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers, theft and pillage rose up +in protest against property and labor, assimilated certain specious and +false elementary ideas, which, though just in appearance, were absurd in +reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them, +after a fashion, assumed an abstract name, passed into the state of +theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and +honest masses, unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared +the mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact +of this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders +wrath; and while the prosperous classes blind themselves or fall asleep, +which is the same thing as shutting one's eyes, the hatred of the +unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made +spirit which dreams in a corner, and sets itself to the scrutiny of +society. The scrutiny of hatred is a terrible thing. + +Hence, if the ill-fortune of the times so wills it, those fearful +commotions which were formerly called jacqueries, beside which purely +political agitations are the merest child's play, which are no longer +the conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor, but the revolt of +discomfort against comfort. Then everything crumbles. + +Jacqueries are earthquakes of the people. + +It is this peril, possibly imminent towards the close of the eighteenth +century, which the French Revolution, that immense act of probity, cut +short. + +The French Revolution, which is nothing else than the idea armed with +the sword, rose erect, and, with the same abrupt movement, closed the +door of ill and opened the door of good. + +It put a stop to torture, promulgated the truth, expelled miasma, +rendered the century healthy, crowned the populace. + +It may be said of it that it created man a second time, by giving him a +second soul, the right. + +The nineteenth century has inherited and profited by its work, and +to-day, the social catastrophe to which we lately alluded is simply +impossible. Blind is he who announces it! Foolish is he who fears it! +Revolution is the vaccine of Jacquerie. + +Thanks to the Revolution, social conditions have changed. Feudal and +monarchical maladies no longer run in our blood. There is no more of +the Middle Ages in our constitution. We no longer live in the days when +terrible swarms within made irruptions, when one heard beneath his feet +the obscure course of a dull rumble, when indescribable elevations from +mole-like tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization, where the +soil cracked open, where the roofs of caverns yawned, and where one +suddenly beheld monstrous heads emerging from the earth. + +The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once +developed, develops the sentiment of duty. The law of all is +liberty, which ends where the liberty of others begins, according to +Robespierre's admirable definition. Since '89, the whole people has +been dilating into a sublime individual; there is not a poor man, who, +possessing his right, has not his ray of sun; the die-of-hunger feels +within him the honesty of France; the dignity of the citizen is an +internal armor; he who is free is scrupulous; he who votes reigns. Hence +incorruptibility; hence the miscarriage of unhealthy lusts; hence eyes +heroically lowered before temptations. The revolutionary wholesomeness +is such, that on a day of deliverance, a 14th of July, a 10th of August, +there is no longer any populace. The first cry of the enlightened and +increasing throngs is: death to thieves! Progress is an honest man; the +ideal and the absolute do not filch pocket-handkerchiefs. By whom were +the wagons containing the wealth of the Tuileries escorted in 1848? By +the rag-pickers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard over +the treasure. Virtue rendered these tatterdemalions resplendent. In +those wagons in chests, hardly closed, and some, even, half-open, amid a +hundred dazzling caskets, was that ancient crown of France, studded with +diamonds, surmounted by the carbuncle of royalty, by the Regent diamond, +which was worth thirty millions. Barefooted, they guarded that crown. + +Hence, no more Jacquerie. I regret it for the sake of the skilful. The +old fear has produced its last effects in that quarter; and henceforth +it can no longer be employed in politics. The principal spring of the +red spectre is broken. Every one knows it now. The scare-crow scares +no longer. The birds take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures +alight upon it, the bourgeois laugh at it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE TWO DUTIES: TO WATCH AND TO HOPE + +This being the case, is all social danger dispelled? Certainly not. +There is no Jacquerie; society may rest assured on that point; blood +will no longer rush to its head. But let society take heed to the manner +in which it breathes. Apoplexy is no longer to be feared, but phthisis +is there. Social phthisis is called misery. + +One can perish from being undermined as well as from being struck by +lightning. + +Let us not weary of repeating, and sympathetic souls must not forget +that this is the first of fraternal obligations, and selfish hearts must +understand that the first of political necessities consists in thinking +first of all of the disinherited and sorrowing throngs, in solacing, +airing, enlightening, loving them, in enlarging their horizon to a +magnificent extent, in lavishing upon them education in every form, in +offering them the example of labor, never the example of idleness, +in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the +universal aim, in setting a limit to poverty without setting a limit +to wealth, in creating vast fields of public and popular activity, in +having, like Briareus, a hundred hands to extend in all directions to +the oppressed and the feeble, in employing the collective power for that +grand duty of opening workshops for all arms, schools for all aptitudes, +and laboratories for all degrees of intelligence, in augmenting +salaries, diminishing trouble, balancing what should be and what is, +that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need; +in a word, in evolving from the social apparatus more light and more +comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant. + +And, let us say it, all this is but the beginning. The true question is +this: labor cannot be a law without being a right. + +We will not insist upon this point; this is not the proper place for +that. + +If nature calls itself Providence, society should call itself foresight. + +Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material +improvement. To know is a sacrament, to think is the prime necessity, +truth is nourishment as well as grain. A reason which fasts from science +and wisdom grows thin. Let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and +minds which do not eat. If there is anything more heart-breaking than +a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from +hunger for the light. + +The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we +shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge +naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be +accomplished by a simple elevation of level. + +We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation. + +The past is very strong, it is true, at the present moment. It censures. +This rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising. Behold, it is walking and +advancing. It seems a victor; this dead body is a conqueror. He arrives +with his legions, superstitions, with his sword, despotism, with his +banner, ignorance; a while ago, he won ten battles. He advances, he +threatens, he laughs, he is at our doors. Let us not despair, on our +side. Let us sell the field on which Hannibal is encamped. + +What have we to fear, we who believe? + +No such thing as a back-flow of ideas exists any more than there exists +a return of a river on its course. + +But let those who do not desire a future reflect on this matter. When +they say "no" to progress, it is not the future but themselves that +they are condemning. They are giving themselves a sad malady; they are +inoculating themselves with the past. There is but one way of rejecting +To-morrow, and that is to die. + +Now, no death, that of the body as late as possible, that of the soul +never,--this is what we desire. + +Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak, the problem +will be solved. + +Yes, the people, sketched out by the eighteenth century, will be +finished by the nineteenth. He who doubts this is an idiot! The future +blossoming, the near blossoming forth of universal well-being, is a +divinely fatal phenomenon. + +Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them +within a given time to a logical state, that is to say, to a state of +equilibrium; that is to say, to equity. A force composed of earth and +heaven results from humanity and governs it; this force is a worker +of miracles; marvellous issues are no more difficult to it than +extraordinary vicissitudes. Aided by science, which comes from one man, +and by the event, which comes from another, it is not greatly alarmed +by these contradictions in the attitude of problems, which seem +impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less skilful at causing a +solution to spring forth from the reconciliation of ideas, than a lesson +from the reconciliation of facts, and we may expect anything from that +mysterious power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occident +face to face one fine day, in the depths of a sepulchre, and made the +imaums converse with Bonaparte in the interior of the Great Pyramid. + +In the meantime, let there be no halt, no hesitation, no pause in the +grandiose onward march of minds. Social philosophy consists essentially +in science and peace. Its object is, and its result must be, to dissolve +wrath by the study of antagonisms. It examines, it scrutinizes, it +analyzes; then it puts together once more, it proceeds by means of +reduction, discarding all hatred. + +More than once, a society has been seen to give way before the wind +which is let loose upon mankind; history is full of the shipwrecks of +nations and empires; manners, customs, laws, religions,--and some fine +day that unknown force, the hurricane, passes by and bears them all +away. The civilizations of India, of Chaldea, of Persia, of Syria, of +Egypt, have disappeared one after the other. Why? We know not. What are +the causes of these disasters? We do not know. Could these societies +have been saved? Was it their fault? Did they persist in the fatal vice +which destroyed them? What is the amount of suicide in these terrible +deaths of a nation and a race? Questions to which there exists no reply. +Darkness enwraps condemned civilizations. They sprung a leak, then they +sank. We have nothing more to say; and it is with a sort of terror that +we look on, at the bottom of that sea which is called the past, behind +those colossal waves, at the shipwreck of those immense vessels, +Babylon, Nineveh, Tarsus, Thebes, Rome, beneath the fearful gusts which +emerge from all the mouths of the shadows. But shadows are there, and +light is here. We are not acquainted with the maladies of these ancient +civilizations, we do not know the infirmities of our own. Everywhere +upon it we have the right of light, we contemplate its beauties, we +lay bare its defects. Where it is ill, we probe; and the sickness once +diagnosed, the study of the cause leads to the discovery of the remedy. +Our civilization, the work of twenty centuries, is its law and its +prodigy; it is worth the trouble of saving. It will be saved. It is +already much to have solaced it; its enlightenment is yet another point. +All the labors of modern social philosophies must converge towards +this point. The thinker of to-day has a great duty--to auscultate +civilization. + +We repeat, that this auscultation brings encouragement; it is by this +persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages, an +austere interlude in a mournful drama. Beneath the social mortality, we +feel human imperishableness. The globe does not perish, because it has +these wounds, craters, eruptions, sulphur pits, here and there, nor +because of a volcano which ejects its pus. The maladies of the people do +not kill man. + +And yet, any one who follows the course of social clinics shakes his +head at times. The strongest, the tenderest, the most logical have their +hours of weakness. + +Will the future arrive? It seems as though we might almost put +this question, when we behold so much terrible darkness. Melancholy +face-to-face encounter of selfish and wretched. On the part of +the selfish, the prejudices, shadows of costly education, appetite +increasing through intoxication, a giddiness of prosperity which dulls, +a fear of suffering which, in some, goes as far as an aversion for the +suffering, an implacable satisfaction, the I so swollen that it bars the +soul; on the side of the wretched covetousness, envy, hatred of seeing +others enjoy, the profound impulses of the human beast towards assuaging +its desires, hearts full of mist, sadness, need, fatality, impure and +simple ignorance. + +Shall we continue to raise our eyes to heaven? is the luminous point +which we distinguish there one of those which vanish? The ideal +is frightful to behold, thus lost in the depths, small, isolated, +imperceptible, brilliant, but surrounded by those great, black menaces, +monstrously heaped around it; yet no more in danger than a star in the +maw of the clouds. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT + +The reader has probably understood that Eponine, having recognized +through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had +sent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue Plumet, +and had then conducted Marius thither, and that, after many days spent +in ecstasy before that gate, Marius, drawn on by that force which draws +the iron to the magnet and a lover towards the stones of which is built +the house of her whom he loves, had finally entered Cosette's garden as +Romeo entered the garden of Juliet. This had even proved easier for him +than for Romeo; Romeo was obliged to scale a wall, Marius had only +to use a little force on one of the bars of the decrepit gate which +vacillated in its rusty recess, after the fashion of old people's teeth. +Marius was slender and readily passed through. + +As there was never any one in the street, and as Marius never entered +the garden except at night, he ran no risk of being seen. + +Beginning with that blessed and holy hour when a kiss betrothed these +two souls, Marius was there every evening. If, at that period of +her existence, Cosette had fallen in love with a man in the least +unscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost; for there are +generous natures which yield themselves, and Cosette was one of them. +One of woman's magnanimities is to yield. Love, at the height where it +is absolute, is complicated with some indescribably celestial blindness +of modesty. But what dangers you run, O noble souls! Often you give the +heart, and we take the body. Your heart remains with you, you gaze upon +it in the gloom with a shudder. Love has no middle course; it either +ruins or it saves. All human destiny lies in this dilemma. This dilemma, +ruin, or safety, is set forth no more inexorably by any fatality than +by love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; also coffin. The same +sentiment says "yes" and "no" in the human heart. Of all the things that +God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, +alas! and the most darkness. + +God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves which +save. + +Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year 1832, there were +there, in every night, in that poor, neglected garden, beneath that +thicket which grew thicker and more fragrant day by day, two beings +composed of all chastity, all innocence, overflowing with all the +felicity of heaven, nearer to the archangels than to mankind, pure, +honest, intoxicated, radiant, who shone for each other amid the shadows. +It seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown, and to Marius that Cosette +had a nimbus. They touched each other, they gazed at each other, they +clasped each other's hands, they pressed close to each other; but there +was a distance which they did not pass. Not that they respected it; +they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, +Cosette's innocence; and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. The +first kiss had also been the last. Marius, since that time, had not gone +further than to touch Cosette's hand, or her kerchief, or a lock of her +hair, with his lips. For him, Cosette was a perfume and not a woman. +He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was +happy, and Marius was satisfied. They lived in this ecstatic state which +can be described as the dazzling of one soul by another soul. It was +the ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal. Two swans +meeting on the Jungfrau. + +At that hour of love, an hour when voluptuousness is absolutely mute, +beneath the omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, the pure and seraphic +Marius, would rather have gone to a woman of the town than have raised +Cosette's robe to the height of her ankle. Once, in the moonlight, +Cosette stooped to pick up something on the ground, her bodice fell +apart and permitted a glimpse of the beginning of her throat. Marius +turned away his eyes. + +What took place between these two beings? Nothing. They adored each +other. + +At night, when they were there, that garden seemed a living and a sacred +spot. All flowers unfolded around them and sent them incense; and they +opened their souls and scattered them over the flowers. The wanton and +vigorous vegetation quivered, full of strength and intoxication, around +these two innocents, and they uttered words of love which set the trees +to trembling. + +What words were these? Breaths. Nothing more. These breaths sufficed to +trouble and to touch all nature round about. Magic power which we +should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these +conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke +wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two +lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies +them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; you +say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, +laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most +sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of +saying and hearing! + +The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these +absurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a malicious +fellow. Cosette said to Marius:-- + +"Dost thou know?--" + +[In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without either +of them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to call +each other thou.] + +"Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie." + +"Euphrasie? Why, no, thy name is Cosette." + +"Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was +a little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like that +name--Euphrasie?" + +"Yes. But Cosette is not ugly." + +"Do you like it better than Euphrasie?" + +"Why, yes." + +"Then I like it better too. Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call me +Cosette." + +And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of a +grove situated in heaven. On another occasion she gazed intently at him +and exclaimed:-- + +"Monsieur, you are handsome, you are good-looking, you are witty, you +are not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bid +you defiance with this word: I love you!" + +And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by a +star. + +Or she bestowed on him a gentle tap because he coughed, and she said to +him:-- + +"Don't cough, sir; I will not have people cough on my domain without my +permission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you to +be well, because, in the first place, if you were not well, I should be +very unhappy. What should I do then?" + +And this was simply divine. + +Once Marius said to Cosette:-- + +"Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule." + +This made both of them laugh the whole evening. + +In the middle of another conversation, he chanced to exclaim:-- + +"Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breaking +up a veteran!" But he stopped short, and went no further. He would have +been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible. +This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense +and innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright. + +Marius pictured life with Cosette to himself like this, without anything +else; to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old and +accommodating bar of the chief-justice's gate, to sit elbow to elbow +on that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of the +on-coming night, to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into the +ample fall of Cosette's gown, to caress her thumb-nail, to call her +thou, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever, +indefinitely. During this time, clouds passed above their heads. Every +time that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men than +of the clouds of heaven. + +This chaste, almost shy love was not devoid of gallantry, by any means. +To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of +bestowing caresses, and he is half audacious who tries it. A compliment +is something like a kiss through a veil. Voluptuousness mingles there +with its sweet tiny point, while it hides itself. The heart draws back +before voluptuousness only to love the more. Marius' blandishments, all +saturated with fancy, were, so to speak, of azure hue. The birds when +they fly up yonder, in the direction of the angels, must hear such +words. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, all +the positiveness of which Marius was capable. It was what is said in +the bower, a prelude to what will be said in the chamber; a lyrical +effusion, strophe and sonnet intermingled, pleasing hyperboles of +cooing, all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet and +exhaling a celestial perfume, an ineffable twitter of heart to heart. + +"Oh!" murmured Marius, "how beautiful you are! I dare not look at you. +It is all over with me when I contemplate you. You are a grace. I know +not what is the matter with me. The hem of your gown, when the tip of +your shoe peeps from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchanted +gleam when you open your thought even but a little! You talk +astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a +dream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! how strange it is and how +charming! I am really beside myself. You are adorable, Mademoiselle. I +study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope." + +And Cosette answered:-- + +"I have been loving a little more all the time that has passed since +this morning." + +Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which +always turned with mutual consent upon love, as the little pith figures +always turn on their peg. + +Cosette's whole person was ingenuousness, ingenuity, transparency, +whiteness, candor, radiance. It might have been said of Cosette that she +was clear. She produced on those who saw her the sensation of April +and dawn. There was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of the +auroral light in the form of a woman. + +It was quite simple that Marius should admire her, since he adored her. +But the truth is, that this little school-girl, fresh from the convent, +talked with exquisite penetration and uttered, at times, all sorts of +true and delicate sayings. Her prattle was conversation. She never made +a mistake about anything, and she saw things justly. The woman feels and +speaks with the tender instinct of the heart, which is infallible. + +No one understands so well as a woman, how to say things that are, at +once, both sweet and deep. Sweetness and depth, they are the whole of +woman; in them lies the whole of heaven. + +In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. A +crushed lady-bug, a feather fallen from a nest, a branch of hawthorn +broken, aroused their pity, and their ecstasy, sweetly mingled with +melancholy, seemed to ask nothing better than to weep. The most +sovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is, at times, almost +unbearable. + +And, in addition to this,--all these contradictions are the lightning +play of love,--they were fond of laughing, they laughed readily and with +a delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the +air of two boys. + +Still, though unknown to hearts intoxicated with purity, nature is +always present and will not be forgotten. She is there with her brutal +and sublime object; and however great may be the innocence of souls, one +feels in the most modest private interview, the adorable and mysterious +shade which separates a couple of lovers from a pair of friends. + +They idolized each other. + +The permanent and the immutable are persistent. People live, they smile, +they laugh, they make little grimaces with the tips of their lips, they +interlace their fingers, they call each other thou, and that does not +prevent eternity. + +Two lovers hide themselves in the evening, in the twilight, in the +invisible, with the birds, with the roses; they fascinate each other in +the darkness with their hearts which they throw into their eyes, they +murmur, they whisper, and in the meantime, immense librations of the +planets fill the infinite universe. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS + +They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice +the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They +had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extended +much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was an +orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that +he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a +colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on +bad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had also hinted at being +a baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not +know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius. On her side, she +had confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus +convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's name +was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great deal +to the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himself +everything though he denied her nothing. + +Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he +had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recent +past, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette told +him satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell her +about the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thenardier, about the +burn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father. +Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did not +even know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he had +breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears which +rendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hours +when he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite natural +that he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burden +of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called +lovers. + +Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there +come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go on +afterwards? + +Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent +forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will. +There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than there +is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosette +and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universe +around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. There +was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius +that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Of +what did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the flowers, and +the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of +important things. They had told each other everything except everything. +The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities, that +lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very +sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they +adored each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing else +existed. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is +inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there +any? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloud +hangs over it. + +So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that +improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the +zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in +the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot; +already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with +humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are +waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny; +ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow; amazed, rapturous, +floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight +out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity. +They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the +real overwhelmed by the ideal. + +Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her +presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes. + +Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them. +They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange claim on +man's part to wish that love should lead to something. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BEGINNING OF SHADOW + +Jean Valjean suspected nothing. + +Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that +sufficed for Jean Valjean's happiness. The thoughts which Cosette +cherished, her tender preoccupations, Marius' image which filled her +heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, +chaste, and smiling brow. She was at the age when the virgin bears her +love as the angel his lily. So Jean Valjean was at ease. And then, when +two lovers have come to an understanding, things always go well; the +third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect +blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the +same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of +Jean Valjean's proposals. Did she want to take a walk? "Yes, dear little +father." Did she want to stay at home? Very good. Did he wish to pass +the evening with Cosette? She was delighted. As he always went to bed at +ten o'clock, Marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until +after that hour, when, from the street, he heard Cosette open the long +glass door on the veranda. Of course, no one ever met Marius in the +daytime. Jean Valjean never even dreamed any longer that Marius was in +existence. Only once, one morning, he chanced to say to Cosette: "Why, +you have whitewash on your back!" On the previous evening, Marius, in a +transport, had pushed Cosette against the wall. + +Old Toussaint, who retired early, thought of nothing but her sleep, and +was as ignorant of the whole matter as Jean Valjean. + +Marius never set foot in the house. When he was with Cosette, they hid +themselves in a recess near the steps, in order that they might neither +be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently +contenting themselves, by way of conversation, with pressing each +other's hands twenty times a minute as they gazed at the branches of the +trees. At such times, a thunderbolt might have fallen thirty paces from +them, and they would not have noticed it, so deeply was the revery of +the one absorbed and sunk in the revery of the other. + +Limpid purity. Hours wholly white; almost all alike. This sort of love +is a recollection of lily petals and the plumage of the dove. + +The whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street. Every +time that Marius entered and left, he carefully adjusted the bar of the +gate in such a manner that no displacement was visible. + +He usually went away about midnight, and returned to Courfeyrac's +lodgings. Courfeyrac said to Bahorel:-- + +"Would you believe it? Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the +morning." + +Bahorel replied:-- + +"What do you expect? There's always a petard in a seminary fellow." + +At times, Courfeyrac folded his arms, assumed a serious air, and said to +Marius:-- + +"You are getting irregular in your habits, young man." + +Courfeyrac, being a practical man, did not take in good part this +reflection of an invisible paradise upon Marius; he was not much in the +habit of concealed passions; it made him impatient, and now and then he +called upon Marius to come back to reality. + +One morning, he threw him this admonition:-- + +"My dear fellow, you produce upon me the effect of being located in +the moon, the realm of dreams, the province of illusions, capital, +soap-bubble. Come, be a good boy, what's her name?" + +But nothing could induce Marius "to talk." They might have torn out his +nails before one of the two sacred syllables of which that ineffable +name, Cosette, was composed. True love is as luminous as the dawn and as +silent as the tomb. Only, Courfeyrac saw this change in Marius, that his +taciturnity was of the beaming order. + +During this sweet month of May, Marius and Cosette learned to know these +immense delights. To dispute and to say you for thou, simply that they +might say thou the better afterwards. To talk at great length with very +minute details, of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest +in the world; another proof that in that ravishing opera called love, +the libretto counts for almost nothing. + +For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery. + +For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics; + +To listen, knee pressed to knee, to the carriages rolling along the Rue +de Babylone; + +To gaze upon the same planet in space, or at the same glowworm gleaming +in the grass; + +To hold their peace together; a still greater delight than conversation; + +Etc., etc. + +In the meantime, divers complications were approaching. + +One evening, Marius was on his way to the rendezvous, by way of the +Boulevard des Invalides. He habitually walked with drooping head. As he +was on the point of turning the corner of the Rue Plumet, he heard some +one quite close to him say:-- + +"Good evening, Monsieur Marius." + +He raised his head and recognized Eponine. + +This produced a singular effect upon him. He had not thought of that +girl a single time since the day when she had conducted him to the Rue +Plumet, he had not seen her again, and she had gone completely out of +his mind. He had no reasons for anything but gratitude towards her, he +owed her his happiness, and yet, it was embarrassing to him to meet her. + +It is an error to think that passion, when it is pure and happy, leads +man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we have noted, to +a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets to be bad, but +he also forgets to be good. Gratitude, duty, matters essential and +important to be remembered, vanish. At any other time, Marius would have +behaved quite differently to Eponine. Absorbed in Cosette, he had not +even clearly put it to himself that this Eponine was named Eponine +Thenardier, and that she bore the name inscribed in his father's will, +that name, for which, but a few months before, he would have so ardently +sacrificed himself. We show Marius as he was. His father himself was +fading out of his soul to some extent, under the splendor of his love. + +He replied with some embarrassment:-- + +"Ah! so it's you, Eponine?" + +"Why do you call me you? Have I done anything to you?" + +"No," he answered. + +Certainly, he had nothing against her. Far from it. Only, he felt that +he could not do otherwise, now that he used thou to Cosette, than say +you to Eponine. + +As he remained silent, she exclaimed:-- + +"Say--" + +Then she paused. It seemed as though words failed that creature formerly +so heedless and so bold. She tried to smile and could not. Then she +resumed:-- + +"Well?" + +Then she paused again, and remained with downcast eyes. + +"Good evening, Mr. Marius," said she suddenly and abruptly; and away she +went. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A CAB RUNS IN ENGLISH AND BARKS IN SLANG + +The following day was the 3d of June, 1832, a date which it is necessary +to indicate on account of the grave events which at that epoch hung on +the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged clouds. Marius, +at nightfall, was pursuing the same road as on the preceding evening, +with the same thoughts of delight in his heart, when he caught sight +of Eponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days +in succession--this was too much. He turned hastily aside, quitted the +boulevard, changed his course and went to the Rue Plumet through the Rue +Monsieur. + +This caused Eponine to follow him to the Rue Plumet, a thing which +she had not yet done. Up to that time, she had contented herself with +watching him on his passage along the boulevard without ever seeking to +encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted +to address him. + +So Eponine followed him, without his suspecting the fact. She saw him +displace the bar and slip into the garden. + +She approached the railing, felt of the bars one after the other, and +readily recognized the one which Marius had moved. + +She murmured in a low voice and in gloomy accents:-- + +"None of that, Lisette!" + +She seated herself on the underpinning of the railing, close beside the +bar, as though she were guarding it. It was precisely at the point where +the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there, in +which Eponine was entirely concealed. + +She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without +breathing, a prey to her thoughts. + +Towards ten o'clock in the evening, one of the two or three persons who +passed through the Rue Plumet, an old, belated bourgeois who was making +haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute, as he skirted +the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, +heard a dull and threatening voice saying:-- + +"I'm no longer surprised that he comes here every evening." + +The passer-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into +the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace. + +This passer-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, +six men, who were marching separately and at some distance from each +other, along the wall, and who might have been taken for a gray patrol, +entered the Rue Plumet. + +The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the +others; a second later, all six were reunited. + +These men began to talk in a low voice. + +"This is the place," said one of them. + +"Is there a cab [dog] in the garden?" asked another. + +"I don't know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that we'll make him +eat." + +"Have you some putty to break the pane with?" + +"Yes." + +"The railing is old," interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a +ventriloquist. + +"So much the better," said the second who had spoken. "It won't screech +under the saw, and it won't be hard to cut." + +The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect +the gate, as Eponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in +succession, and shaking them cautiously. + +Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the +point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, +fell upon his arm; he felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push +in the middle of his breast, and a hoarse voice said to him, but not +loudly:-- + +"There's a dog." + +At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. + +The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He +bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as +ferocious beasts who are uneasy; their terrified air evokes terror. + +He recoiled and stammered:-- + +"What jade is this?" + +"Your daughter." + +It was, in fact, Eponine, who had addressed Thenardier. + +At the apparition of Eponine, the other five, that is to say, +Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly +drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the +sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night. + +Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. +Guelemer held one of those pairs of curved pincers which prowlers call +fanchons. + +"Ah, see here, what are you about there? What do you want with us? Are +you crazy?" exclaimed Thenardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still +speak low; "what have you come here to hinder our work for?" + +Eponine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck. + +"I am here, little father, because I am here. Isn't a person allowed to +sit on the stones nowadays? It's you who ought not to be here. What +have you come here for, since it's a biscuit? I told Magnon so. There's +nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little father! It's a +long time since I've seen you! So you're out?" + +Thenardier tried to disentangle himself from Eponine's arms, and +grumbled:-- + +"That's good. You've embraced me. Yes, I'm out. I'm not in. Now, get +away with you." + +But Eponine did not release her hold, and redoubled her caresses. + +"But how did you manage it, little pa? You must have been very clever to +get out of that. Tell me about it! And my mother? Where is mother? Tell +me about mamma." + +Thenardier replied:-- + +"She's well. I don't know, let me alone, and be off, I tell you." + +"I won't go, so there now," pouted Eponine like a spoiled child; "you +send me off, and it's four months since I saw you, and I've hardly had +time to kiss you." + +And she caught her father round the neck again. + +"Come, now, this is stupid!" said Babet. + +"Make haste!" said Guelemer, "the cops may pass." + +The ventriloquist's voice repeated his distich:-- + + + "Nous n' sommes pas le jour de l'an, + "This isn't New Year's day + A becoter papa, maman." + To peck at pa and ma." + + +Eponine turned to the five ruffians. + +"Why, it's Monsieur Brujon. Good day, Monsieur Babet. Good day, +Monsieur Claquesous. Don't you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, +Montparnasse?" + +"Yes, they know you!" ejaculated Thenardier. "But good day, good +evening, sheer off! leave us alone!" + +"It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens," said Montparnasse. + +"You see the job we have on hand here," added Babet. + +Eponine caught Montparnasse's hand. + +"Take care," said he, "you'll cut yourself, I've a knife open." + +"My little Montparnasse," responded Eponine very gently, "you must have +confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur +Babet, Monsieur Guelemer, I'm the person who was charged to investigate +this matter." + +It is remarkable that Eponine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue +had become impossible to her since she had known Marius. + +She pressed in her hand, small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton, +Guelemer's huge, coarse fingers, and continued:-- + +"You know well that I'm no fool. Ordinarily, I am believed. I have +rendered you service on various occasions. Well, I have made inquiries; +you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that +there is nothing in this house." + +"There are lone women," said Guelemer. + +"No, the persons have moved away." + +"The candles haven't, anyway!" ejaculated Babet. + +And he pointed out to Eponine, across the tops of the trees, a light +which was wandering about in the mansard roof of the pavilion. It was +Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry. + +Eponine made a final effort. + +"Well," said she, "they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there +isn't a sou." + +"Go to the devil!" cried Thenardier. "When we've turned the house upside +down and put the cellar at the top and the attic below, we'll tell +you what there is inside, and whether it's francs or sous or +half-farthings." + +And he pushed her aside with the intention of entering. + +"My good friend, Mr. Montparnasse," said Eponine, "I entreat you, you +are a good fellow, don't enter." + +"Take care, you'll cut yourself," replied Montparnasse. + +Thenardier resumed in his decided tone:-- + +"Decamp, my girl, and leave men to their own affairs!" + +Eponine released Montparnasse's hand, which she had grasped again, and +said:-- + +"So you mean to enter this house?" + +"Rather!" grinned the ventriloquist. + +Then she set her back against the gate, faced the six ruffians who were +armed to the teeth, and to whom the night lent the visages of demons, +and said in a firm, low voice:-- + +"Well, I don't mean that you shall." + +They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. +She went on:-- + +"Friends! Listen well. This is not what you want. Now I'm talking. In +the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this +gate, I'll scream, I'll beat on the door, I'll rouse everybody, I'll +have the whole six of you seized, I'll call the police." + +"She'd do it, too," said Thenardier in a low tone to Brujon and the +ventriloquist. + +She shook her head and added:-- + +"Beginning with my father!" + +Thenardier stepped nearer. + +"Not so close, my good man!" said she. + +He retreated, growling between his teeth:-- + +"Why, what's the matter with her?" + +And he added:-- + +"Bitch!" + +She began to laugh in a terrible way:-- + +"As you like, but you shall not enter here. I'm not the daughter of +a dog, since I'm the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you, what +matters that to me? You are men. Well, I'm a woman. You don't frighten +me. I tell you that you shan't enter this house, because it doesn't suit +me. If you approach, I'll bark. I told you, I'm the dog, and I don't +care a straw for you. Go your way, you bore me! Go where you please, but +don't come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I'll use kicks; +it's all the same to me, come on!" + +She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible, she burst out +laughing:-- + +"Pardine! I'm not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer, and I shall be +cold this winter. Aren't they ridiculous, these ninnies of men, to think +they can scare a girl! What! Scare? Oh, yes, much! Because you have +finical poppets of mistresses who hide under the bed when you put on a +big voice, forsooth! I ain't afraid of anything, that I ain't!" + +She fastened her intent gaze upon Thenardier and said:-- + +"Not even of you, father!" + +Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot, spectre-like eyes upon +the ruffians in turn:-- + +"What do I care if I'm picked up to-morrow morning on the pavement of +the Rue Plumet, killed by the blows of my father's club, or whether I'm +found a year from now in the nets at Saint-Cloud or the Isle of Swans in +the midst of rotten old corks and drowned dogs?" + +She was forced to pause; she was seized by a dry cough, her breath came +from her weak and narrow chest like the death-rattle. + +She resumed:-- + +"I have only to cry out, and people will come, and then slap, bang! +There are six of you; I represent the whole world." + +Thenardier made a movement towards her. + +"Don't approach!" she cried. + +He halted, and said gently:-- + +"Well, no; I won't approach, but don't speak so loud. So you intend to +hinder us in our work, my daughter? But we must earn our living all the +same. Have you no longer any kind feeling for your father?" + +"You bother me," said Eponine. + +"But we must live, we must eat--" + +"Burst!" + +So saying, she seated herself on the underpinning of the fence and +hummed:-- + + "Mon bras si dodu, "My arm so plump, + Ma jambe bien faite My leg well formed, + Et le temps perdu." And time wasted." + + +She had set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she +swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted +a view of her thin shoulder-blades. The neighboring street lantern +illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more +surprising could be seen. + +The six rascals, speechless and gloomy at being held in check by a girl, +retreated beneath the shadow cast by the lantern, and held counsel with +furious and humiliated shrugs. + +In the meantime she stared at them with a stern but peaceful air. + +"There's something the matter with her," said Babet. "A reason. Is she +in love with the dog? It's a shame to miss this, anyway. Two women, an +old fellow who lodges in the back-yard, and curtains that ain't so bad +at the windows. The old cove must be a Jew. I think the job's a good +one." + +"Well, go in, then, the rest of you," exclaimed Montparnasse. "Do the +job. I'll stay here with the girl, and if she fails us--" + +He flashed the knife, which he held open in his hand, in the light of +the lantern. + +Thenardier said not a word, and seemed ready for whatever the rest +pleased. + +Brujon, who was somewhat of an oracle, and who had, as the reader knows, +"put up the job," had not as yet spoken. He seemed thoughtful. He had +the reputation of not sticking at anything, and it was known that he +had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this he made +verses and songs, which gave him great authority. + +Babet interrogated him:-- + +"You say nothing, Brujon?" + +Brujon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in +various ways, and finally concluded to speak:-- + +"See here; this morning I came across two sparrows fighting, this +evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's +quit." + +They went away. + +As they went, Montparnasse muttered:-- + +"Never mind! if they had wanted, I'd have cut her throat." + +Babet responded + +"I wouldn't. I don't hit a lady." + +At the corner of the street they halted and exchanged the following +enigmatical dialogue in a low tone:-- + +"Where shall we go to sleep to-night?" + +"Under Pantin [Paris]." + +"Have you the key to the gate, Thenardier?" + +"Pardi." + +Eponine, who never took her eyes off of them, saw them retreat by the +road by which they had come. She rose and began to creep after them +along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the +boulevard. + +There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom, +where they appeared to melt away. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THINGS OF THE NIGHT + +After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its +tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this +street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, +the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in +a sombre manner; the savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden +apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes, +through the mists, that which is beyond man; and the things of which we +living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night. Nature, +bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which she +fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know +each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws +fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious +appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails +and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out +uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect +in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with +a dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, +entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity +condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops +the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates +and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear the +sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--MARIUS BECOMES PRACTICAL ONCE MORE TO THE EXTENT OF GIVING +COSETTE HIS ADDRESS + +While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the +gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by +Cosette's side. + +Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the +trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had +the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had +all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the +inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, +more ecstatic. + +But he had found Cosette sad; Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were +red. + +This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. + +Marius' first word had been: "What is the matter?" + +And she had replied: "This." + +Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he +tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued:-- + +"My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he +has business, and we may go away from here." + +Marius shivered from head to foot. + +When one is at the end of one's life, to die means to go away; when one +is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die. + +For the last six weeks, Marius had little by little, slowly, by degrees, +taken possession of Cosette each day. As we have already explained, in +the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the body; later +on, one takes the body long before the soul; sometimes one does not take +the soul at all; the Faublas and the Prudhommes add: "Because there is +none"; but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy. So Marius possessed +Cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her with all his soul, and +seized her jealously with incredible conviction. He possessed her smile, +her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the +sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand, the charming mark which +she had on her neck, all her thoughts. Therefore, he possessed all +Cosette's dreams. + +He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his +breath, the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to +himself that there was not one of those short hairs which did not belong +to him, Marius. He gazed upon and adored the things that she wore, her +knot of ribbon, her gloves, her sleeves, her shoes, her cuffs, as sacred +objects of which he was the master. He dreamed that he was the lord of +those pretty shell combs which she wore in her hair, and he even said to +himself, in confused and suppressed stammerings of voluptuousness which +did not make their way to the light, that there was not a ribbon of her +gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold in her bodice, which was +not his. Beside Cosette he felt himself beside his own property, his +own thing, his own despot and his slave. It seemed as though they had +so intermingled their souls, that it would have been impossible to tell +them apart had they wished to take them back again.--"This is mine." +"No, it is mine." "I assure you that you are mistaken. This is my +property." "What you are taking as your own is myself."--Marius was +something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette was something which +made a part of Marius. Marius felt Cosette within him. To have Cosette, +to possess Cosette, this, to him, was not to be distinguished from +breathing. It was in the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of +this virgin possession, unprecedented and absolute, of this sovereignty, +that these words: "We are going away," fell suddenly, at a blow, and +that the harsh voice of reality cried to him: "Cosette is not yours!" + +Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, +outside of life; those words, going away! caused him to re-enter it +harshly. + +He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very +cold. She said to him in her turn: "What is the matter?" + +He replied in so low a tone that Cosette hardly heard him:-- + +"I did not understand what you said." + +She began again:-- + +"This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to +hold myself in readiness, that he would give me his linen to put in a +trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away, +that it is necessary to have a large trunk for me and a small one for +him, and that all is to be ready in a week from now, and that we might +go to England." + +"But this is outrageous!" exclaimed Marius. + +It is certain, that, at that moment, no abuse of power, no violence, not +one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Busiris, of +Tiberius, or of Henry VIII., could have equalled this in atrocity, +in the opinion of Marius; M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to +England because he had business there. + +He demanded in a weak voice:-- + +"And when do you start?" + +"He did not say when." + +"And when shall you return?" + +"He did not say when." + +Marius rose and said coldly:-- + +"Cosette, shall you go?" + +Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, +and replied in a sort of bewilderment:-- + +"Where?" + +"To England. Shall you go?" + +"Why do you say you to me?" + +"I ask you whether you will go?" + +"What do you expect me to do?" she said, clasping her hands. + +"So, you will go?" + +"If my father goes." + +"So, you will go?" + +Cosette took Marius' hand, and pressed it without replying. + +"Very well," said Marius, "then I will go elsewhere." + +Cosette felt rather than understood the meaning of these words. +She turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She +stammered:-- + +"What do you mean?" + +Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered: +"Nothing." + +When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a +woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night. + +"How silly we are! Marius, I have an idea." + +"What is it?" + +"If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me +wherever I am." + +Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into reality. +He cried to Cosette:-- + +"Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I +have none! Go to England? But I am in debt now, I owe, I don't know how +much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom you +are not acquainted! I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, +I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my +elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I +have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only +see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the +daytime, you would give me a sou! Go to England! Eh! I haven't enough to +pay for a passport!" + +He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow +pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed his +skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he +stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of despair. + +He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such +abysses. At last he turned round. He heard behind him a faint stifled +noise, which was sweet yet sad. + +It was Cosette sobbing. + +She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he +meditated. + +He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he +took the tip of her foot which peeped out from beneath her robe, and +kissed it. + +She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman +accepts, like a sombre and resigned goddess, the religion of love. + +"Do not weep," he said. + +She murmured:-- + +"Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!" + +He went on:-- + +"Do you love me?" + +She replied, sobbing, by that word from paradise which is never more +charming than amid tears:-- + +"I adore you!" + +He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress:-- + +"Do not weep. Tell me, will you do this for me, and cease to weep?" + +"Do you love me?" said she. + +He took her hand. + +"Cosette, I have never given my word of honor to any one, because my +word of honor terrifies me. I feel that my father is by my side. Well, I +give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall die." + +In the tone with which he uttered these words there lay a melancholy so +solemn and so tranquil, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which +is produced by a true and gloomy thing as it passes by. The shock made +her cease weeping. + +"Now, listen," said he, "do not expect me to-morrow." + +"Why?" + +"Do not expect me until the day after to-morrow." + +"Oh! Why?" + +"You will see." + +"A day without seeing you! But that is impossible!" + +"Let us sacrifice one day in order to gain our whole lives, perhaps." + +And Marius added in a low tone and in an aside:-- + +"He is a man who never changes his habits, and he has never received any +one except in the evening." + +"Of what man are you speaking?" asked Cosette. + +"I? I said nothing." + +"What do you hope, then?" + +"Wait until the day after to-morrow." + +"You wish it?" + +"Yes, Cosette." + +She took his head in both her hands, raising herself on tiptoe in order +to be on a level with him, and tried to read his hope in his eyes. + +Marius resumed:-- + +"Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address: something might +happen, one never knows; I live with that friend named Courfeyrac, Rue +de la Verrerie, No. 16." + +He searched in his pocket, pulled out his penknife, and with the blade +he wrote on the plaster of the wall:-- + +"16 Rue de la Verrerie." + +In the meantime, Cosette had begun to gaze into his eyes once more. + +"Tell me your thought, Marius; you have some idea. Tell it to me. Oh! +tell me, so that I may pass a pleasant night." + +"This is my idea: that it is impossible that God should mean to part us. +Wait; expect me the day after to-morrow." + +"What shall I do until then?" said Cosette. "You are outside, you go, +and come! How happy men are! I shall remain entirely alone! Oh! How sad +I shall be! What is it that you are going to do to-morrow evening? tell +me." + +"I am going to try something." + +"Then I will pray to God and I will think of you here, so that you may +be successful. I will question you no further, since you do not wish it. +You are my master. I shall pass the evening to-morrow in singing that +music from Euryanthe that you love, and that you came one evening to +listen to, outside my shutters. But day after to-morrow you will come +early. I shall expect you at dusk, at nine o'clock precisely, I warn +you. Mon Dieu! how sad it is that the days are so long! On the stroke of +nine, do you understand, I shall be in the garden." + +"And I also." + +And without having uttered it, moved by the same thought, impelled by +those electric currents which place lovers in continual communication, +both being intoxicated with delight even in their sorrow, they fell into +each other's arms, without perceiving that their lips met while their +uplifted eyes, overflowing with rapture and full of tears, gazed upon +the stars. + +When Marius went forth, the street was deserted. This was the moment +when Eponine was following the ruffians to the boulevard. + +While Marius had been dreaming with his head pressed to the tree, an +idea had crossed his mind; an idea, alas! that he himself judged to be +senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART IN THE PRESENCE OF EACH +OTHER + +At that epoch, Father Gillenormand was well past his ninety-first +birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the old house which he owned. He was, as +the reader will remember, one of those antique old men who await death +perfectly erect, whom age bears down without bending, and whom even +sorrow cannot curve. + +Still, his daughter had been saying for some time: "My father is +sinking." He no longer boxed the maids' ears; he no longer thumped +the landing-place so vigorously with his cane when Basque was slow in +opening the door. The Revolution of July had exasperated him for the +space of barely six months. He had viewed, almost tranquilly, that +coupling of words, in the Moniteur: M. Humblot-Conte, peer of France. +The fact is, that the old man was deeply dejected. He did not bend, he +did not yield; this was no more a characteristic of his physical than +of his moral nature, but he felt himself giving way internally. For four +years he had been waiting for Marius, with his foot firmly planted, that +is the exact word, in the conviction that that good-for-nothing young +scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached +the point, where, at certain gloomy hours, he said to himself, that +if Marius made him wait much longer--It was not death that was +insupportable to him; it was the idea that perhaps he should never see +Marius again. The idea of never seeing Marius again had never entered +his brain until that day; now the thought began to recur to him, and +it chilled him. Absence, as is always the case in genuine and natural +sentiments, had only served to augment the grandfather's love for the +ungrateful child, who had gone off like a flash. It is during December +nights, when the cold stands at ten degrees, that one thinks oftenest of +the son. + +M. Gillenormand was, or thought himself, above all things, incapable +of taking a single step, he--the grandfather, towards his grandson; "I +would die rather," he said to himself. He did not consider himself +as the least to blame; but he thought of Marius only with profound +tenderness, and the mute despair of an elderly, kindly old man who is +about to vanish in the dark. + +He began to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness. + +M. Gillenormand, without however acknowledging it to himself, for it +would have rendered him furious and ashamed, had never loved a mistress +as he loved Marius. + +He had had placed in his chamber, opposite the head of his bed, so that +it should be the first thing on which his eyes fell on waking, an +old portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, +a portrait which had been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed +incessantly at that portrait. One day, he happened to say, as he gazed +upon it:-- + +"I think the likeness is strong." + +"To my sister?" inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. "Yes, certainly." + +"The old man added:-- + +"And to him also." + +Once as he sat with his knees pressed together, and his eyes almost +closed, in a despondent attitude, his daughter ventured to say to him:-- + +"Father, are you as angry with him as ever?" + +She paused, not daring to proceed further. + +"With whom?" he demanded. + +"With that poor Marius." + +He raised his aged head, laid his withered and emaciated fist on the +table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone:-- + +"Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a wretched +scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty, and +wicked man!" + +And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that +stood in his eye. + +Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours, to say +to his daughter point-blank:-- + +"I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to mention him +to me." + +Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute +diagnosis: "My father never cared very much for my sister after her +folly. It is clear that he detests Marius." + +"After her folly" meant: "after she had married the colonel." + +However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle +Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favorite, the +officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Theodule, had not been a +success. M. Gillenormand had not accepted the quid pro quo. A vacancy +in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stop-gap. Theodule, on his +side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted at the task +of pleasing. The goodman bored the lancer; and the lancer shocked the +goodman. Lieutenant Theodule was gay, no doubt, but a chatter-box, +frivolous, but vulgar; a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company; he +had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to say about them, +it is true also; but he talked badly. All his good qualities had a +defect. M. Gillenormand was worn out with hearing him tell about the +love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks in the Rue +de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his +uniform, with the tricolored cockade. This rendered him downright +intolerable. Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his daughter: +"I've had enough of that Theodule. I haven't much taste for warriors +in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know but I prefer +slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in +battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on +the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and +lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass, is doubly +ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof +from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a +finnicky-hearted man. Keep your Theodule for yourself." + +It was in vain that his daughter said to him: "But he is your +grandnephew, nevertheless,"--it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who +was a grandfather to the very finger-tips, was not in the least a +grand-uncle. + +In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Theodule +had only served to make him regret Marius all the more. + +One evening,--it was the 24th of June, which did not prevent Father +Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,--he had dismissed his +daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in +his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the +andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with +its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two +candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in +his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according +to his wont, like an incroyable, and resembled an antique portrait by +Garat. This would have made people run after him in the street, had not +his daughter covered him up, whenever he went out, in a vast bishop's +wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At home, he never wore a +dressing gown, except when he rose and retired. "It gives one a look of +age," said he. + +Father Gillenormand was thinking of Marius lovingly and bitterly; and, +as usual, bitterness predominated. His tenderness once soured always +ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point +where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends his +heart. He was explaining to himself that there was no longer any reason +why Marius should return, that if he intended to return, he should +have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was trying to +accustom himself to the thought that all was over, and that he should +die without having beheld "that gentleman" again. But his whole nature +revolted; his aged paternity would not consent to this. "Well!" said +he,--this was his doleful refrain,--"he will not return!" His bald head +had fallen upon his breast, and he fixed a melancholy and irritated gaze +upon the ashes on his hearth. + +In the very midst of his revery, his old servant Basque entered, and +inquired:-- + +"Can Monsieur receive M. Marius?" + +The old man sat up erect, pallid, and like a corpse which rises under +the influence of a galvanic shock. All his blood had retreated to his +heart. He stammered:-- + +"M. Marius what?" + +"I don't know," replied Basque, intimidated and put out of countenance +by his master's air; "I have not seen him. Nicolette came in and said to +me: 'There's a young man here; say that it is M. Marius.'" + +Father Gillenormand stammered in a low voice:-- + +"Show him in." + +And he remained in the same attitude, with shaking head, and his eyes +fixed on the door. It opened once more. A young man entered. It was +Marius. + +Marius halted at the door, as though waiting to be bidden to enter. + +His almost squalid attire was not perceptible in the obscurity caused by +the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, but strangely sad +face. + +It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with amazement +and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the +presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning; he saw +Marius through a dazzling light. It certainly was he, it certainly was +Marius. + +At last! After the lapse of four years! He grasped him entire, so to +speak, in a single glance. He found him noble, handsome, distinguished, +well-grown, a complete man, with a suitable mien and a charming air. He +felt a desire to open his arms, to call him, to fling himself forward; +his heart melted with rapture, affectionate words swelled and overflowed +his breast; at length all his tenderness came to the light and reached +his lips, and, by a contrast which constituted the very foundation of +his nature, what came forth was harshness. He said abruptly:-- + +"What have you come here for?" + +Marius replied with embarrassment:-- + +"Monsieur--" + +M. Gillenormand would have liked to have Marius throw himself into his +arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious +that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman +unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn +within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He +interrupted Marius in a peevish tone:-- + +"Then why did you come?" + +That "then" signified: If you do not come to embrace me. Marius looked +at his grandfather, whose pallor gave him a face of marble. + +"Monsieur--" + +"Have you come to beg my pardon? Do you acknowledge your faults?" + +He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that "the child" +would yield. Marius shivered; it was the denial of his father that was +required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:-- + +"No, sir." + +"Then," exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was +poignant and full of wrath, "what do you want of me?" + +Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and +trembling voice:-- + +"Sir, have pity on me." + +These words touched M. Gillenormand; uttered a little sooner, they would +have rendered him tender, but they came too late. The grandfather rose; +he supported himself with both hands on his cane; his lips were white, +his brow wavered, but his lofty form towered above Marius as he bowed. + +"Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of +ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the +play, to balls, to the cafe, to the billiard-hall; you have wit, you +please the women, you are a handsome fellow; as for me, I spit on my +brands in the heart of summer; you are rich with the only riches that +are really such, I possess all the poverty of age; infirmity, isolation! +You have your thirty-two teeth, a good digestion, bright eyes, strength, +appetite, health, gayety, a forest of black hair; I have no longer even +white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my legs, I am losing my +memory; there are three names of streets that I confound incessantly, +the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue Saint-Claude, that +is what I have come to; you have before you the whole future, full of +sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so far am I advancing +into the night; you are in love, that is a matter of course, I am +beloved by no one in all the world; and you ask pity of me! Parbleu! +Moliere forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the courthouse, +Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll." + +And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice:-- + +"Come, now, what do you want of me?" + +"Sir," said Marius, "I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but +I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away +immediately." + +"You are a fool!" said the old man. "Who said that you were to go away?" + +This was the translation of the tender words which lay at the bottom of +his heart:-- + +"Ask my pardon! Throw yourself on my neck!" + +M. Gillenormand felt that Marius would leave him in a few moments, that +his harsh reception had repelled the lad, that his hardness was driving +him away; he said all this to himself, and it augmented his grief; and +as his grief was straightway converted into wrath, it increased his +harshness. He would have liked to have Marius understand, and Marius did +not understand, which made the goodman furious. + +He began again:-- + +"What! you deserted me, your grandfather, you left my house to go no +one knows whither, you drove your aunt to despair, you went off, it is +easily guessed, to lead a bachelor life; it's more convenient, to play +the dandy, to come in at all hours, to amuse yourself; you have given me +no signs of life, you have contracted debts without even telling me to +pay them, you have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and, at +the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to say +to me!" + +This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive +only of silence on the part of Marius. M. Gillenormand folded his arms; +a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophized +Marius bitterly:-- + +"Let us make an end of this. You have come to ask something of me, you +say? Well, what? What is it? Speak!" + +"Sir," said Marius, with the look of a man who feels that he is falling +over a precipice, "I have come to ask your permission to marry." + +M. Gillenormand rang the bell. Basque opened the door half-way. + +"Call my daughter." + +A second later, the door was opened once more, Mademoiselle Gillenormand +did not enter, but showed herself; Marius was standing, mute, with +pendant arms and the face of a criminal; M. Gillenormand was pacing back +and forth in the room. He turned to his daughter and said to her:-- + +"Nothing. It is Monsieur Marius. Say good day to him. Monsieur wishes to +marry. That's all. Go away." + +The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree +of excitement. The aunt gazed at Marius with a frightened air, hardly +appeared to recognize him, did not allow a gesture or a syllable to +escape her, and disappeared at her father's breath more swiftly than a +straw before the hurricane. + +In the meantime, Father Gillenormand had returned and placed his back +against the chimney-piece once more. + +"You marry! At one and twenty! You have arranged that! You have only +a permission to ask! a formality. Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a +revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the +upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican since +you are a Baron? You can make that agree. The Republic makes a good +sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have you +taken the Louvre at all, sir? Quite near here, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, +opposite the Rue des Nonamdieres, there is a cannon-ball incrusted in +the wall of the third story of a house with this inscription: 'July +28th, 1830.' Go take a look at that. It produces a good effect. Ah! +those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way, aren't they +erecting a fountain in the place of the monument of M. le Duc de Berry? +So you want to marry? Whom? Can one inquire without indiscretion?" + +He paused, and, before Marius had time to answer, he added violently:-- + +"Come now, you have a profession? A fortune made? How much do you earn +at your trade of lawyer?" + +"Nothing," said Marius, with a sort of firmness and resolution that was +almost fierce. + +"Nothing? Then all that you have to live upon is the twelve hundred +livres that I allow you?" + +Marius did not reply. M. Gillenormand continued:-- + +"Then I understand the girl is rich?" + +"As rich as I am." + +"What! No dowry?" + +"No." + +"Expectations?" + +"I think not." + +"Utterly naked! What's the father?" + +"I don't know." + +"And what's her name?" + +"Mademoiselle Fauchelevent." + +"Fauchewhat?" + +"Fauchelevent." + +"Pttt!" ejaculated the old gentleman. + +"Sir!" exclaimed Marius. + +M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking +to himself:-- + +"That's right, one and twenty years of age, no profession, twelve +hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and +purchase a couple of sous' worth of parsley from the fruiterer." + +"Sir," repeated Marius, in the despair at the last hope, which was +vanishing, "I entreat you! I conjure you in the name of Heaven, with +clasped hands, sir, I throw myself at your feet, permit me to marry +her!" + +The old man burst into a shout of strident and mournful laughter, +coughing and laughing at the same time. + +"Ah! ah! ah! You said to yourself: 'Pardine! I'll go hunt up that old +blockhead, that absurd numskull! What a shame that I'm not twenty-five! +How I'd treat him to a nice respectful summons! How nicely I'd get along +without him! It's nothing to me, I'd say to him: "You're only too happy +to see me, you old idiot, I want to marry, I desire to wed Mamselle +No-matter-whom, daughter of Monsieur No-matter-what, I have no shoes, +she has no chemise, that just suits; I want to throw my career, my +future, my youth, my life to the dogs; I wish to take a plunge into +wretchedness with a woman around my neck, that's an idea, and you must +consent to it!" and the old fossil will consent.' Go, my lad, do as +you like, attach your paving-stone, marry your Pousselevent, your +Coupelevent--Never, sir, never!" + +"Father--" + +"Never!" + +At the tone in which that "never" was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He +traversed the chamber with slow steps, with bowed head, tottering and +more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M. +Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the +door opened, and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four +paces, with the senile vivacity of impetuous and spoiled old gentlemen, +seized Marius by the collar, brought him back energetically into the +room, flung him into an armchair and said to him:-- + +"Tell me all about it!" + +"It was that single word "father" which had effected this revolution. + +Marius stared at him in bewilderment. M. Gillenormand's mobile face was +no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable good-nature. +The grandsire had given way before the grandfather. + +"Come, see here, speak, tell me about your love affairs, jabber, tell me +everything! Sapristi! how stupid young folks are!" + +"Father--" repeated Marius. + +The old man's entire countenance lighted up with indescribable radiance. + +"Yes, that's right, call me father, and you'll see!" + +There was now something so kind, so gentle, so openhearted, and so +paternal in this brusqueness, that Marius, in the sudden transition from +discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it, as it were. +He was seated near the table, the light from the candles brought out +the dilapidation of his costume, which Father Gillenormand regarded with +amazement. + +"Well, father--" said Marius. + +"Ah, by the way," interrupted M. Gillenormand, "you really have not a +penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket." + +He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he laid on the table: +"Here are a hundred louis, buy yourself a hat." + +"Father," pursued Marius, "my good father, if you only knew! I love her. +You cannot imagine it; the first time I saw her was at the Luxembourg, +she came there; in the beginning, I did not pay much heed to her, and +then, I don't know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how +unhappy that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day, at her own +home, her father does not know it, just fancy, they are going away, it +is in the garden that we meet, in the evening, her father means to take +her to England, then I said to myself: 'I'll go and see my grandfather +and tell him all about the affair. I should go mad first, I should die, +I should fall ill, I should throw myself into the water. I absolutely +must marry her, since I should go mad otherwise.' This is the whole +truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a +garden with an iron fence, in the Rue Plumet. It is in the neighborhood +of the Invalides." + +Father Gillenormand had seated himself, with a beaming countenance, +beside Marius. As he listened to him and drank in the sound of his +voice, he enjoyed at the same time a protracted pinch of snuff. At +the words "Rue Plumet" he interrupted his inhalation and allowed the +remainder of his snuff to fall upon his knees. + +"The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?--Let us see!--Are there +not barracks in that vicinity?--Why, yes, that's it. Your cousin +Theodule has spoken to me about it. The lancer, the officer. A gay girl, +my good friend, a gay girl!--Pardieu, yes, the Rue Plumet. It is what +used to be called the Rue Blomet.--It all comes back to me now. I have +heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a +garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy +creature. Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been +courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not +to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I +think it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It's +the right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than as a +Jacobin. I like you better in love with a petticoat, sapristi! with +twenty petticoats, than with M. de Robespierre. For my part, I will do +myself the justice to say, that in the line of sans-culottes, I have +never loved any one but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the deuce! +There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you +without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of +things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More than one. +Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously; +one does not precipitate himself into the tragic; one does not make +one's mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One simply +behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip along, +mortals; don't marry. You come and look up your grandfather, who is a +good-natured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of louis +in an old drawer; you say to him: 'See here, grandfather.' And the +grandfather says: 'That's a simple matter. Youth must amuse itself, and +old age must wear out. I have been young, you will be old. Come, my boy, +you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are two hundred pistoles. +Amuse yourself, deuce take it!' Nothing better! That's the way the +affair should be treated. You don't marry, but that does no harm. You +understand me?" + +Marius, petrified and incapable of uttering a syllable, made a sign with +his head that he did not. + +The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye, gave him a slap on +the knee, stared him full in the face with a mysterious and beaming air, +and said to him, with the tenderest of shrugs of the shoulder:-- + +"Booby! make her your mistress." + +Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather +had just said. This twaddle about the Rue Blomet, Pamela, the barracks, +the lancer, had passed before Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of +all that could bear any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good +man was wandering in his mind. But this wandering terminated in words +which Marius did understand, and which were a mortal insult to Cosette. +Those words, "make her your mistress," entered the heart of the strict +young man like a sword. + +He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and walked to the +door with a firm, assured step. There he turned round, bowed deeply to +his grandfather, raised his head erect again, and said:-- + +"Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have insulted my +wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell." + +Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his +arms, tried to rise, and before he could utter a word, the door closed +once more, and Marius had disappeared. + +The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though +struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though +a clenched fist grasped his throat. At last he tore himself from his +arm-chair, ran, so far as a man can run at ninety-one, to the door, +opened it, and cried:-- + +"Help! Help!" + +His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again, +with a pitiful rattle: "Run after him! Bring him back! What have I done +to him? He is mad! He is going away! Ah! my God! Ah! my God! This time +he will not come back!" + +He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open with +his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while Basque +and Nicolette held him behind, and shouted:-- + +"Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius!" + +But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning +the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis. + +The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times +with an expression of anguish, recoiled tottering, and fell back into an +arm-chair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and lips +which moved with a stupid air, with nothing in his eyes and nothing +any longer in his heart except a gloomy and profound something which +resembled night. + + + + +BOOK NINTH.--WHITHER ARE THEY GOING? + + + + +CHAPTER I--JEAN VALJEAN + +That same day, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, Jean Valjean was +sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the +Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to meditate, or +simply in consequence of one of those insensible changes of habit which +gradually introduce themselves into the existence of every one, he now +rarely went out with Cosette. He had on his workman's waistcoat, +and trousers of gray linen; and his long-visored cap concealed his +countenance. + +He was calm and happy now beside Cosette; that which had, for a time, +alarmed and troubled him had been dissipated; but for the last week or +two, anxieties of another nature had come up. One day, while walking +on the boulevard, he had caught sight of Thenardier; thanks to his +disguise, Thenardier had not recognized him; but since that day, Jean +Valjean had seen him repeatedly, and he was now certain that Thenardier +was prowling about in their neighborhood. + +This had been sufficient to make him come to a decision. + +Moreover, Paris was not tranquil: political troubles presented this +inconvenient feature, for any one who had anything to conceal in his +life, that the police had grown very uneasy and very suspicious, and +that while seeking to ferret out a man like Pepin or Morey, they might +very readily discover a man like Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had made up his mind to quit Paris, and even France, and go +over to England. + +He had warned Cosette. He wished to set out before the end of the week. + +He had seated himself on the slope in the Champ-de-Mars, turning over +all sorts of thoughts in his mind,--Thenardier, the police, the journey, +and the difficulty of procuring a passport. + +He was troubled from all these points of view. + +Last of all, an inexplicable circumstance which had just attracted his +attention, and from which he had not yet recovered, had added to his +state of alarm. + +On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was +stirring, while strolling in the garden before Cosette's shutters +were open, he had suddenly perceived on the wall, the following line, +engraved, probably with a nail:-- + +16 Rue de la Verrerie. + +This was perfectly fresh, the grooves in the ancient black mortar were +white, a tuft of nettles at the foot of the wall was powdered with the +fine, fresh plaster. + +This had probably been written on the preceding night. + +What was this? A signal for others? A warning for himself? + +In any case, it was evident that the garden had been violated, and that +strangers had made their way into it. + +He recalled the odd incidents which had already alarmed the household. + +His mind was now filling in this canvas. + +He took good care not to speak to Cosette of the line written on the +wall, for fear of alarming her. + +In the midst of his preoccupations, he perceived, from a shadow cast by +the sun, that some one had halted on the crest of the slope immediately +behind him. + +He was on the point of turning round, when a paper folded in four fell +upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. + +He took the paper, unfolded it, and read these words written in large +characters, with a pencil:-- + +"MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE." + +Jean Valjean sprang hastily to his feet; there was no one on the slope; +he gazed all around him and perceived a creature larger than a +child, not so large as a man, clad in a gray blouse and trousers of +dust-colored cotton velvet, who was jumping over the parapet and who +slipped into the moat of the Champde-Mars. + +Jean Valjean returned home at once, in a very thoughtful mood. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS + +Marius had left M. Gillenormand in despair. He had entered the house +with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. + +However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will +understand this, the officer, the lancer, the ninny, Cousin Theodule, +had left no trace in his mind. Not the slightest. The dramatic poet +might, apparently, expect some complications from this revelation made +point-blank by the grandfather to the grandson. But what the drama would +gain thereby, truth would lose. Marius was at an age when one believes +nothing in the line of evil; later on comes the age when one believes +everything. Suspicions are nothing else than wrinkles. Early youth +has none of them. That which overwhelmed Othello glides innocuous over +Candide. Suspect Cosette! There are hosts of crimes which Marius could +sooner have committed. + +He began to wander about the streets, the resource of those who suffer. +He thought of nothing, so far as he could afterwards remember. At two +o'clock in the morning he returned to Courfeyrac's quarters and flung +himself, without undressing, on his mattress. The sun was shining +brightly when he sank into that frightful leaden slumber which permits +ideas to go and come in the brain. When he awoke, he saw Courfeyrac, +Enjolras, Feuilly, and Combeferre standing in the room with their hats +on and all ready to go out. + +Courfeyrac said to him:-- + +"Are you coming to General Lamarque's funeral?" + +It seemed to him that Courfeyrac was speaking Chinese. + +He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which +Javert had given him at the time of the adventure on the 3d of February, +and which had remained in his hands. These pistols were still loaded. It +would be difficult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he +took them with him. + +All day long he prowled about, without knowing where he was going; it +rained at times, he did not perceive it; for his dinner, he purchased a +penny roll at a baker's, put it in his pocket and forgot it. It appears +that he took a bath in the Seine without being aware of it. There are +moments when a man has a furnace within his skull. Marius was passing +through one of those moments. He no longer hoped for anything; this +step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with +feverish impatience, he had but one idea clearly before his mind;--this +was, that at nine o'clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness +now constituted his whole future; after that, gloom. At intervals, as +he roamed through the most deserted boulevards, it seemed to him that he +heard strange noises in Paris. He thrust his head out of his revery and +said: "Is there fighting on hand?" + +At nightfall, at nine o'clock precisely, as he had promised Cosette, +he was in the Rue Plumet. When he approached the grating he forgot +everything. It was forty-eight hours since he had seen Cosette; he was +about to behold her once more; every other thought was effaced, and +he felt only a profound and unheard-of joy. Those minutes in which one +lives centuries always have this sovereign and wonderful property, that +at the moment when they are passing they fill the heart completely. + +Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette +was not at the spot where she ordinarily waited for him. He traversed +the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps: "She +is waiting for me there," said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his +eyes, and saw that the shutters of the house were closed. He made the +tour of the garden, the garden was deserted. Then he returned to +the house, and, rendered senseless by love, intoxicated, terrified, +exasperated with grief and uneasiness, like a master who returns home at +an evil hour, he tapped on the shutters. He knocked and knocked again, +at the risk of seeing the window open, and her father's gloomy face +make its appearance, and demand: "What do you want?" This was nothing in +comparison with what he dimly caught a glimpse of. When he had rapped, +he lifted up his voice and called Cosette.--"Cosette!" he cried; +"Cosette!" he repeated imperiously. There was no reply. All was over. No +one in the garden; no one in the house. + +Marius fixed his despairing eyes on that dismal house, which was as +black and as silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone +seat on which he had passed so many adorable hours with Cosette. Then he +seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness +and resolution, he blessed his love in the depths of his thought, and +he said to himself that, since Cosette was gone, all that there was left +for him was to die. + +All at once he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the street, +and which was calling to him through the trees:-- + +"Mr. Marius!" + +He started to his feet. + +"Hey?" said he. + +"Mr. Marius, are you there?" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Marius," went on the voice, "your friends are waiting for you at +the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie." + +This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the hoarse, +rough voice of Eponine. Marius hastened to the gate, thrust aside the +movable bar, passed his head through the aperture, and saw some one who +appeared to him to be a young man, disappearing at a run into the gloom. + + + + +CHAPTER III--M. MABEUF + +Jean Valjean's purse was of no use to M. Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf, in his +venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars; +he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis d'or. He +had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavroche. +He had taken the purse to the police commissioner of the quarter, as +a lost article placed by the finder at the disposal of claimants. The +purse was actually lost. It is unnecessary to say that no one claimed +it, and that it did not succor M. Mabeuf. + +Moreover, M. Mabeuf had continued his downward course. + +His experiments on indigo had been no more successful in the Jardin des +Plantes than in his garden at Austerlitz. The year before he had owed +his housekeeper's wages; now, as we have seen, he owed three quarters +of his rent. The pawnshop had sold the plates of his Flora after the +expiration of thirteen months. Some coppersmith had made stewpans of +them. His copper plates gone, and being unable to complete even the +incomplete copies of his Flora which were in his possession, he had +disposed of the text, at a miserable price, as waste paper, to a +second-hand bookseller. Nothing now remained to him of his life's work. +He set to work to eat up the money for these copies. When he saw that +this wretched resource was becoming exhausted, he gave up his garden +and allowed it to run to waste. Before this, a long time before, he had +given up his two eggs and the morsel of beef which he ate from time +to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his +furniture, then all duplicates of his bedding, his clothing and his +blankets, then his herbariums and prints; but he still retained his most +precious books, many of which were of the greatest rarity, among others, +Les Quadrins Historiques de la Bible, edition of 1560; La Concordance +des Bibles, by Pierre de Besse; Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, of +Jean de La Haye, with a dedication to the Queen of Navarre; the book de +la Charge et Dignite de l'Ambassadeur, by the Sieur de Villiers +Hotman; a Florilegium Rabbinicum of 1644; a Tibullus of 1567, with this +magnificent inscription: Venetiis, in aedibus Manutianis; and lastly, a +Diogenes Laertius, printed at Lyons in 1644, which contained the famous +variant of the manuscript 411, thirteenth century, of the Vatican, and +those of the two manuscripts of Venice, 393 and 394, consulted with +such fruitful results by Henri Estienne, and all the passages in Doric +dialect which are only found in the celebrated manuscript of the twelfth +century belonging to the Naples Library. M. Mabeuf never had any fire +in his chamber, and went to bed at sundown, in order not to consume +any candles. It seemed as though he had no longer any neighbors: people +avoided him when he went out; he perceived the fact. The wretchedness of +a child interests a mother, the wretchedness of a young man interests a +young girl, the wretchedness of an old man interests no one. It is, of +all distresses, the coldest. Still, Father Mabeuf had not entirely lost +his childlike serenity. His eyes acquired some vivacity when they rested +on his books, and he smiled when he gazed at the Diogenes Laertius, +which was a unique copy. His bookcase with glass doors was the +only piece of furniture which he had kept beyond what was strictly +indispensable. + +One day, Mother Plutarque said to him:-- + +"I have no money to buy any dinner." + +What she called dinner was a loaf of bread and four or five potatoes. + +"On credit?" suggested M. Mabeuf. + +"You know well that people refuse me." + +M. Mabeuf opened his bookcase, took a long look at all his books, one +after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze +upon them before making a choice, then seized one hastily, put it +in under his arm and went out. He returned two hours later, without +anything under his arm, laid thirty sous on the table, and said:-- + +"You will get something for dinner." + +From that moment forth, Mother Plutarque saw a sombre veil, which was +never more lifted, descend over the old man's candid face. + +On the following day, on the day after, and on the day after that, it +had to be done again. + +M. Mabeuf went out with a book and returned with a coin. As the +second-hand dealers perceived that he was forced to sell, they purchased +of him for twenty sous that for which he had paid twenty francs, +sometimes at those very shops. Volume by volume, the whole library +went the same road. He said at times: "But I am eighty;" as though he +cherished some secret hope that he should arrive at the end of his days +before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, +however, he had a pleasure. He had gone out with a Robert Estienne, +which he had sold for thirty-five sous under the Quai Malaquais, and he +returned with an Aldus which he had bought for forty sous in the Rue des +Gres.--"I owe five sous," he said, beaming on Mother Plutarque. That day +he had no dinner. + +He belonged to the Horticultural Society. His destitution became known +there. The president of the society came to see him, promised to +speak to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce about him, and did +so.--"Why, what!" exclaimed the Minister, "I should think so! An old +savant! a botanist! an inoffensive man! Something must be done for him!" +On the following day, M. Mabeuf received an invitation to dine with the +Minister. Trembling with joy, he showed the letter to Mother Plutarque. +"We are saved!" said he. On the day appointed, he went to the Minister's +house. He perceived that his ragged cravat, his long, square coat, and +his waxed shoes astonished the ushers. No one spoke to him, not even the +Minister. About ten o'clock in the evening, while he was still waiting +for a word, he heard the Minister's wife, a beautiful woman in a +low-necked gown whom he had not ventured to approach, inquire: "Who is +that old gentleman?" He returned home on foot at midnight, in a driving +rain-storm. He had sold an Elzevir to pay for a carriage in which to go +thither. + +He had acquired the habit of reading a few pages in his Diogenes +Laertius every night, before he went to bed. He knew enough Greek to +enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other +enjoyment. Several weeks passed. All at once, Mother Plutarque fell ill. +There is one thing sadder than having no money with which to buy bread +at the baker's and that is having no money to purchase drugs at the +apothecary's. One evening, the doctor had ordered a very expensive +potion. And the malady was growing worse; a nurse was required. M. +Mabeuf opened his bookcase; there was nothing there. The last volume had +taken its departure. All that was left to him was Diogenes Laertius. +He put this unique copy under his arm, and went out. It was the 4th of +June, 1832; he went to the Porte Saint-Jacques, to Royal's successor, +and returned with one hundred francs. He laid the pile of five-franc +pieces on the old serving-woman's nightstand, and returned to his +chamber without saying a word. + +On the following morning, at dawn, he seated himself on the overturned +post in his garden, and he could be seen over the top of the hedge, +sitting the whole morning motionless, with drooping head, his eyes +vaguely fixed on the withered flower-beds. It rained at intervals; the +old man did not seem to perceive the fact. + +In the afternoon, extraordinary noises broke out in Paris. They +resembled shots and the clamors of a multitude. + +Father Mabeuf raised his head. He saw a gardener passing, and +inquired:-- + +"What is it?" + +The gardener, spade on back, replied in the most unconcerned tone:-- + +"It is the riots." + +"What riots?" + +"Yes, they are fighting." + +"Why are they fighting?" + +"Ah, good Heavens!" ejaculated the gardener. + +"In what direction?" went on M. Mabeuf. + +"In the neighborhood of the Arsenal." + +Father Mabeuf went to his room, took his hat, mechanically sought for a +book to place under his arm, found none, said: "Ah! truly!" and went off +with a bewildered air. + + + + +BOOK TENTH.--THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832 + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SURFACE OF THE QUESTION + +Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an +electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting +forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath encounters +heads which speak, brains which dream, souls which suffer, passions +which burn, wretchedness which howls, and bears them away. + +Whither? + +At random. Athwart the state, the laws, athwart prosperity and the +insolence of others. + +Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations, +instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has +been exalted, generous blindness; curiosity, the taste for change, +the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to +take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love, +the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors, +disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted +it; discomfort, empty dreams, ambitious that are hedged about, whoever +hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short, at the very bottom, the +rabble, that mud which catches fire,--such are the elements of revolt. +That which is grandest and that which is basest; the beings who prowl +outside of all bounds, awaiting an occasion, bohemians, vagrants, +vagabonds of the cross-roads, those who sleep at night in a desert of +houses with no other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who, +each day, demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown +of poverty and nothingness, the bare-armed, the bare-footed, belong to +revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against any deed +whatever on the part of the state, of life or of fate, is ripe for riot, +and, as soon as it makes its appearance, he begins to quiver, and to +feel himself borne away with the whirlwind. + +Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which forms +suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies +about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes, +uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and the +feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom it +bears away as well as to him whom it strikes! It breaks the one against +the other. + +It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and +extraordinary power. It fills the first-comer with the force of events; +it converts everything into projectiles. It makes a cannon-ball of a +rough stone, and a general of a porter. + +If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a little +revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System: revolt +strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow. It puts +the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out +the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social +framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics; it is almost hygiene. Power +is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing +down. + +Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. + +There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself "good sense"; +Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and the +true; explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which, because +it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom, and is often +only pedantry. A whole political school called "the golden mean" has +been the outcome of this. As between cold water and hot water, it is +the lukewarm water party. This school with its false depth, all on the +surface, which dissects effects without going back to first causes, +chides from its height of a demi-science, the agitation of the public +square. + +If we listen to this school, "The riots which complicated the affair +of 1830 deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The +Revolution of July had been a fine popular gale, abruptly followed +by blue sky. They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that +revolution, at first so remarkable for its unanimity, to degenerate into +a quarrel. In the Revolution of July, as in all progress accomplished by +fits and starts, there had been secret fractures; these riots rendered +them perceptible. It might have been said: 'Ah! this is broken.' After +the Revolution of July, one was sensible only of deliverance; after the +riots, one was conscious of a catastrophe. + +"All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange +into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business, precipitates +failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public credit +shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing, work at a discount, +fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town. Hence gulfs. It has been +calculated that the first day of a riot costs France twenty millions, +the second day forty, the third sixty, a three days' uprising costs +one hundred and twenty millions, that is to say, if only the financial +result be taken into consideration, it is equivalent to a disaster, a +shipwreck or a lost battle, which should annihilate a fleet of sixty +ships of the line. + +"No doubt, historically, uprisings have their beauty; the war of the +pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war of +thickets: in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other the +heart of cities; the one has Jean Chouan, the other has a Jeanne. +Revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points +of the Parisian character, generosity, devotion, stormy gayety, students +proving that bravery forms part of intelligence, the National Guard +invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street urchins, +contempt of death on the part of passers-by. Schools and legions clashed +together. After all, between the combatants, there was only a difference +of age; the race is the same; it is the same stoical men who died at the +age of twenty for their ideas, at forty for their families. The +army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. +Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage +of the bourgeois. + +"This is well. But is all this worth the bloodshed? And to the bloodshed +add the future darkness, progress compromised, uneasiness among the +best men, honest liberals in despair, foreign absolutism happy in these +wounds dealt to revolution by its own hand, the vanquished of 1830 +triumphing and saying: 'We told you so!' Add Paris enlarged, possibly, +but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, +the massacres which have too often dishonored the victory of order grown +ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been +disastrous." + +Thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie, +that approximation to the people, so willingly contents itself. + +For our parts, we reject this word uprisings as too large, and +consequently as too convenient. We make a distinction between one +popular movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire whether +an uprising costs as much as a battle. Why a battle, in the first place? +Here the question of war comes up. Is war less of a scourge than an +uprising is of a calamity? And then, are all uprisings calamities? And +what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The +establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France two milliards. Even at +the same price, we should prefer the 14th of July. However, we reject +these figures, which appear to be reasons and which are only words. An +uprising being given, we examine it by itself. In all that is said by +the doctrinarian objection above presented, there is no question of +anything but effect, we seek the cause. + +We will be explicit. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER + +There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as +insurrection; these are two separate phases of wrath; one is in the +wrong, the other is in the right. In democratic states, the only ones +which are founded on justice, it sometimes happens that the fraction +usurps; then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may +proceed as far as resort to arms. In all questions which result from +collective sovereignty, the war of the whole against the fraction is +insurrection; the attack of the fraction against the whole is revolt; +according as the Tuileries contain a king or the Convention, they +are justly or unjustly attacked. The same cannon, pointed against the +populace, is wrong on the 10th of August, and right on the 14th of +Vendemiaire. Alike in appearance, fundamentally different in reality; +the Swiss defend the false, Bonaparte defends the true. That which +universal suffrage has effected in its liberty and in its sovereignty +cannot be undone by the street. It is the same in things pertaining +purely to civilization; the instinct of the masses, clear-sighted +to-day, may be troubled to-morrow. The same fury legitimate when +directed against Terray and absurd when directed against Turgot. The +destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of +rails, the demolition of docks, the false routes of multitudes, the +refusal by the people of justice to progress, Ramus assassinated by +students, Rousseau driven out of Switzerland and stoned,--that is +revolt. Israel against Moses, Athens against Phocian, Rome against +Cicero,--that is an uprising; Paris against the Bastille,--that is +insurrection. The soldiers against Alexander, the sailors against +Christopher Columbus,--this is the same revolt; impious revolt; +why? Because Alexander is doing for Asia with the sword that which +Christopher Columbus is doing for America with the compass; Alexander +like Columbus, is finding a world. These gifts of a world to +civilization are such augmentations of light, that all resistance in +that case is culpable. Sometimes the populace counterfeits fidelity to +itself. The masses are traitors to the people. Is there, for example, +anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in +contraband salt, a legitimate chronic revolt, which, at the decisive +moment, on the day of salvation, at the very hour of popular victory, +espouses the throne, turns into chouannerie, and, from having been an +insurrection against, becomes an uprising for, sombre masterpieces of +ignorance! The contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets, and +with a rope's end round his neck, mounts the white cockade. "Death to +the salt duties," brings forth, "Long live the King!" The assassins of +Saint-Barthelemy, the cut-throats of September, the manslaughterers of +Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, the assassins of Madam Lamballe, the +assassins of Brune, Miquelets, Verdets, Cadenettes, the companions of +Jehu, the chevaliers of Brassard,--behold an uprising. La Vendee is +a grand, catholic uprising. The sound of right in movement is +recognizable, it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited +masses; there are mad rages, there are cracked bells, all tocsins do not +give out the sound of bronze. The brawl of passions and ignorances +is quite another thing from the shock of progress. Show me in what +direction you are going. Rise, if you will, but let it be that you may +grow great. There is no insurrection except in a forward direction. Any +other sort of rising is bad; every violent step towards the rear is a +revolt; to retreat is to commit a deed of violence against the human +race. Insurrection is a fit of rage on the part of truth; the pavements +which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right. These +pavements bequeath to the uprising only their mud. Danton against Louis +XIV. is insurrection; Hebert against Danton is revolt. + +Hence it results that if insurrection in given cases may be, as +Lafayette says, the most holy of duties, an uprising may be the most +fatal of crimes. + +There is also a difference in the intensity of heat; insurrection is +often a volcano, revolt is often only a fire of straw. + +Revolt, as we have said, is sometimes found among those in power. +Polignac is a rioter; Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers. + +Insurrection is sometimes resurrection. + +The solution of everything by universal suffrage being an absolutely +modern fact, and all history anterior to this fact being, for the space +of four thousand years, filled with violated right, and the suffering of +peoples, each epoch of history brings with it that protest of which it +is capable. Under the Caesars, there was no insurrection, but there was +Juvenal. + +The facit indignatio replaces the Gracchi. + +Under the Caesars, there is the exile to Syene; there is also the man of +the Annales. We do not speak of the immense exile of Patmos who, on his +part also, overwhelms the real world with a protest in the name of the +ideal world, who makes of his vision an enormous satire and casts on +Rome-Nineveh, on Rome-Babylon, on Rome-Sodom, the flaming reflection of +the Apocalypse. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal; we may +understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes +the Annales is of the Latin race, let us rather say he is a Roman. + +As the Neros reign in a black way, they should be painted to match. The +work of the graving-tool alone would be too pale; there must be poured +into the channel a concentrated prose which bites. + +Despots count for something in the question of philosophers. A word that +is chained is a terrible word. The writer doubles and trebles his style +when silence is imposed on a nation by its master. From this silence +there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought +and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces +conciseness in the historian. The granite solidity of such and such a +celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant. + +Tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are +augmentations of force. The Ciceronian period, which hardly sufficed +for Verres, would be blunted on Caligula. The less spread of sail in +the phrase, the more intensity in the blow. Tacitus thinks with all his +might. + +The honesty of a great heart, condensed in justice and truth, overwhelms +as with lightning. + +Be it remarked, in passing, that Tacitus is not historically superposed +upon Caesar. The Tiberii were reserved for him. Caesar and Tacitus +are two successive phenomena, a meeting between whom seems to be +mysteriously avoided, by the One who, when He sets the centuries on the +stage, regulates the entrances and the exits. Caesar is great, Tacitus +is great; God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash +with one another. The guardian of justice, in striking Caesar, might +strike too hard and be unjust. God does not will it. The great wars +of Africa and Spain, the pirates of Sicily destroyed, civilization +introduced into Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,--all this glory +covers the Rubicon. There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine +justice, hesitating to let loose upon the illustrious usurper the +formidable historian, sparing Caesar Tacitus, and according extenuating +circumstances to genius. + +Certainly, despotism remains despotism, even under the despot of genius. +There is corruption under all illustrious tyrants, but the moral pest is +still more hideous under infamous tyrants. In such reigns, nothing veils +the shame; and those who make examples, Tacitus as well as Juvenal, +slap this ignominy which cannot reply, in the face, more usefully in the +presence of all humanity. + +Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sylla. Under Claudius and +under Domitian, there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the +repulsiveness of the tyrant. The villainy of slaves is a direct product +of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein +the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; +consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, +thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from +the Roman Senate, under Caesar, there comes nothing but the odor of the +dung which is peculiar to the eyries of the eagles. + +Hence the advent, apparently tardy, of the Tacituses and the Juvenals; +it is in the hour for evidence, that the demonstrator makes his +appearance. + +But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like Dante in +the Middle Ages, is man; riot and insurrection are the multitude, which +is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. + +In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact; +insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; +insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the +stomach; Gaster grows irritated; but Gaster, assuredly, is not always in +the wrong. In questions of famine, riot, Buzancais, for example, holds a +true, pathetic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains +a riot. Why? It is because, right at bottom, it was wrong in form. Shy +although in the right, violent although strong, it struck at random; it +walked like a blind elephant; it left behind it the corpses of old +men, of women, and of children; it wished the blood of inoffensive and +innocent persons without knowing why. The nourishment of the people is a +good object; to massacre them is a bad means. + +All armed protests, even the most legitimate, even that of the 10th of +August, even that of July 14th, begin with the same troubles. Before +the right gets set free, there is foam and tumult. In the beginning, the +insurrection is a riot, just as a river is a torrent. Ordinarily it ends +in that ocean: revolution. Sometimes, however, coming from those lofty +mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, +right, formed of the pure snow of the ideal, after a long fall from +rock to rock, after having reflected the sky in its transparency and +increased by a hundred affluents in the majestic mien of triumph, +insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire, as the Rhine is in a +swamp. + +All this is of the past, the future is another thing. Universal suffrage +has this admirable property, that it dissolves riot in its inception, +and, by giving the vote to insurrection, it deprives it of its arms. +The disappearance of wars, of street wars as well as of wars on the +frontiers, such is the inevitable progression. Whatever To-day may be, +To-morrow will be peace. + +However, insurrection, riot, and points of difference between the former +and the latter,--the bourgeois, properly speaking, knows nothing of such +shades. In his mind, all is sedition, rebellion pure and simple, the +revolt of the dog against his master, an attempt to bite whom must be +punished by the chain and the kennel, barking, snapping, until such day +as the head of the dog, suddenly enlarged, is outlined vaguely in the +gloom face to face with the lion. + +Then the bourgeois shouts: "Long live the people!" + +This explanation given, what does the movement of June, 1832, signify, +so far as history is concerned? Is it a revolt? Is it an insurrection? + +It may happen to us, in placing this formidable event on the stage, to +say revolt now and then, but merely to distinguish superficial facts, +and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form, and +insurrection, the foundation. + +This movement of 1832 had, in its rapid outbreak and in its melancholy +extinction, so much grandeur, that even those who see in it only an +uprising, never refer to it otherwise than with respect. For them, it +is like a relic of 1830. Excited imaginations, say they, are not to be +calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs +undergo some undulations before it returns to a state of rest, like a +mountain sinking into the plain. There are no Alps without their Jura, +nor Pyrenees without the Asturias. + +This pathetic crisis of contemporary history which the memory of +Parisians calls "the epoch of the riots," is certainly a characteristic +hour amid the stormy hours of this century. A last word, before we enter +on the recital. + +The facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and +living reality, which the historian sometimes neglects for lack of time +and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, +human tremor. Petty details, as we think we have already said, are, so +to speak, the foliage of great events, and are lost in the distance of +history. The epoch, surnamed "of the riots," abounds in details of +this nature. Judicial inquiries have not revealed, and perhaps have not +sounded the depths, for another reason than history. We shall therefore +bring to light, among the known and published peculiarities, things +which have not heretofore been known, about facts over which have passed +the forgetfulness of some, and the death of others. The majority of the +actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared; beginning with the +very next day they held their peace; but of what we shall relate, we +shall be able to say: "We have seen this." We alter a few names, for +history relates and does not inform against, but the deed which we shall +paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book +which we are now writing, we shall show only one side and one episode, +and certainly, the least known at that, of the two days, the 5th and the +6th of June, 1832, but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may +catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of +the real form of this frightful public adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A BURIAL; AN OCCASION TO BE BORN AGAIN + +In the spring of 1832, although the cholera had been chilling all +minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an +indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long been ripe +for commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of +artillery; when it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the +shot is discharged. In June, 1832, the spark was the death of General +Lamarque. + +Lamarque was a man of renown and of action. He had had in succession, +under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery +requisite for the two epochs, the bravery of the battle-field and the +bravery of the tribune. He was as eloquent as he had been valiant; a +sword was discernible in his speech. Like Foy, his predecessor, after +upholding the command, he upheld liberty; he sat between the left and +the extreme left, beloved of the people because he accepted the chances +of the future, beloved of the populace because he had served the +Emperor well; he was, in company with Comtes Gerard and Drouet, one +of Napoleon's marshals in petto. The treaties of 1815 removed him as +a personal offence. He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which +pleased the multitude; and, for seventeen years, he majestically +preserved the sadness of Waterloo, paying hardly any attention to +intervening events. In his death agony, at his last hour, he clasped to +his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of +the Hundred Days. Napoleon had died uttering the word army, Lamarque +uttering the word country. + +His death, which was expected, was dreaded by the people as a loss, and +by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like +everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what +took place. + +On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the 5th of June, the day +appointed for Lamarque's burial, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which the +procession was to touch at, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous +network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best +they might. Joiners carried off door-weights of their establishment +"to break down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a +stocking-weaver's hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the +stump. Another, who was in a fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed +for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him: +"Whither are you going?" "Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?" +"I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I don't +know," said Lombier. A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man, accosted +some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to ten sous' +worth of wine and said: "Have you work?" "No." "Go to Filspierre, +between the Barriere Charonne and the Barriere Montreuil, and you will +find work." At Filspierre's they found cartridges and arms. Certain +well-known leaders were going the rounds, that is to say, running from +one house to another, to collect their men. At Barthelemy's, near the +Barriere du Trone, at Capel's, near the Petit-Chapeau, the drinkers +accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say: "Have you +your pistol?" "Under my blouse." "And you?" "Under my shirt." In the +Rue Traversiere, in front of the Bland workshop, and in the yard of +the Maison-Brulee, in front of tool-maker Bernier's, groups whispered +together. Among them was observed a certain Mavot, who never remained +more than a week in one shop, as the masters always discharged him +"because they were obliged to dispute with him every day." Mavot was +killed on the following day at the barricade of the Rue Menilmontant. +Pretot, who was destined to perish also in the struggle, seconded Mavot, +and to the question: "What is your object?" he replied: "Insurrection." +Workmen assembled at the corner of the Rue de Bercy, waited for a +certain Lemarin, the revolutionary agent for the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. +Watchwords were exchanged almost publicly. + +On the 5th of June, accordingly, a day of mingled rain and sun, General +Lamarque's funeral procession traversed Paris with official military +pomp, somewhat augmented through precaution. Two battalions, with draped +drums and reversed arms, ten thousand National Guards, with their swords +at their sides, escorted the coffin. The hearse was drawn by young men. +The officers of the Invalides came immediately behind it, bearing laurel +branches. Then came an innumerable, strange, agitated multitude, the +sectionaries of the Friends of the People, the Law School, the Medical +School, refugees of all nationalities, and Spanish, Italian, German, +and Polish flags, tricolored horizontal banners, every possible sort of +banner, children waving green boughs, stone-cutters and carpenters who +were on strike at the moment, printers who were recognizable by their +paper caps, marching two by two, three by three, uttering cries, nearly +all of them brandishing sticks, some brandishing sabres, without order +and yet with a single soul, now a tumultuous rout, again a column. +Squads chose themselves leaders; a man armed with a pair of pistols in +full view, seemed to pass the host in review, and the files separated +before him. On the side alleys of the boulevards, in the branches of the +trees, on balconies, in windows, on the roofs, swarmed the heads of men, +women, and children; all eyes were filled with anxiety. An armed throng +was passing, and a terrified throng looked on. + +The Government, on its side, was taking observations. It observed with +its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be seen in +the Place Louis XV. in their saddles, with their trumpets at their head, +cartridge-boxes filled and muskets loaded, all in readiness to march; +in the Latin country and at the Jardin des Plantes, the Municipal Guard +echelonned from street to street; at the Halle-aux-Vins, a squadron of +dragoons; at the Greve half of the 12th Light Infantry, the other +half being at the Bastille; the 6th Dragoons at the Celestins; and the +courtyard of the Louvre full of artillery. The remainder of the troops +were confined to their barracks, without reckoning the regiments of the +environs of Paris. Power being uneasy, held suspended over the menacing +multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city and thirty thousand +in the banlieue. + +Divers reports were in circulation in the cortege. Legitimist tricks +were hinted at; they spoke of the Duc de Reichstadt, whom God had marked +out for death at that very moment when the populace were designating +him for the Empire. One personage, whose name has remained unknown, +announced that at a given hour two overseers who had been won over, +would throw open the doors of a factory of arms to the people. That +which predominated on the uncovered brows of the majority of those +present was enthusiasm mingled with dejection. Here and there, also, in +that multitude given over to such violent but noble emotions, there were +visible genuine visages of criminals and ignoble mouths which said: "Let +us plunder!" There are certain agitations which stir up the bottoms of +marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water. A phenomenon to +which "well drilled" policemen are no strangers. + +The procession proceeded, with feverish slowness, from the house of the +deceased, by way of the boulevards as far as the Bastille. It rained +from time to time; the rain mattered nothing to that throng. Many +incidents, the coffin borne round the Vendome column, stones thrown at +the Duc de Fitz-James, who was seen on a balcony with his hat on his +head, the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and dragged in the mire, +a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte Saint-Martin, +an officer of the 12th Light Infantry saying aloud: "I am a Republican," +the Polytechnic School coming up unexpectedly against orders to remain +at home, the shouts of: "Long live the Polytechnique! Long live the +Republic!" marked the passage of the funeral train. At the Bastille, +long files of curious and formidable people who descended from the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine, effected a junction with the procession, and a +certain terrible seething began to agitate the throng. + +One man was heard to say to another: "Do you see that fellow with a +red beard, he's the one who will give the word when we are to fire." It +appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Quenisset +affair, entrusted with this same function. + +The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and reached +the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted. The crowd, +surveyed at that moment with a bird'seye view, would have presented the +aspect of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread +out over the Quai Bourdon, covered the Bastille, and was prolonged on +the boulevard as far as the Porte Saint-Martin. A circle was traced +around the hearse. The vast rout held their peace. Lafayette spoke and +bade Lamarque farewell. This was a touching and august instant, all +heads uncovered, all hearts beat high. + +All at once, a man on horseback, clad in black, made his appearance +in the middle of the group with a red flag, others say, with a pike +surmounted with a red liberty-cap. Lafayette turned aside his head. +Exelmans quitted the procession. + +This red flag raised a storm, and disappeared in the midst of it. From +the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors +which resemble billows stirred the multitude. Two prodigious shouts went +up: "Lamarque to the Pantheon!--Lafayette to the Town-hall!" Some young +men, amid the declamations of the throng, harnessed themselves and +began to drag Lamarque in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and +Lafayette in a hackney-coach along the Quai Morland. + +In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed +that a German showed himself named Ludwig Snyder, who died a centenarian +afterwards, who had also been in the war of 1776, and who had fought at +Trenton under Washington, and at Brandywine under Lafayette. + +In the meantime, the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been set +in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons +emerged from the Celestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men +who were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner +of the quay and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a +walk, in silence, with their pistols in their holsters, their swords in +their scabbards, their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air +of gloomy expectation. + +They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The carriage in +which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and allowed it +to pass, and then closed behind it. At that moment the dragoons and the +crowd touched. The women fled in terror. What took place during that +fatal minute? No one can say. It is the dark moment when two clouds come +together. Some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was +heard in the direction of the Arsenal others that a blow from a dagger +was given by a child to a dragoon. The fact is, that three shots were +suddenly discharged: the first killed Cholet, chief of the squadron, +the second killed an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her +window, the third singed the shoulder of an officer; a woman screamed: +"They are beginning too soon!" and all at once, a squadron of dragoons +which had remained in the barracks up to this time, was seen to debouch +at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue Bassompierre and the +Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them. + +Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade +breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and +pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the +Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, +stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men +who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, +and the municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their +swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to +all four quarters of Paris, men shout: "To arms!" they run, tumble down, +flee, resist. Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS + +Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. +Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it +prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From +the clouds. Here insurrection assumes the character of a plot; there +of an improvisation. The first comer seizes a current of the throng +and leads it whither he wills. A beginning full of terror, in which is +mingled a sort of formidable gayety. First come clamors, the shops are +closed, the displays of the merchants disappear; then come isolated +shots; people flee; blows from gun-stocks beat against portes cocheres, +servants can be heard laughing in the courtyards of houses and saying: +"There's going to be a row!" + +A quarter of an hour had not elapsed when this is what was taking place +at twenty different spots in Paris at once. + +In the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, twenty young men, bearded and +with long hair, entered a dram-shop and emerged a moment later, carrying +a horizontal tricolored flag covered with crape, and having at their +head three men armed, one with a sword, one with a gun, and the third +with a pike. + +In the Rue des Nonaindieres, a very well-dressed bourgeois, who had a +prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black +beard, and one of these stiff mustaches which will not lie flat, offered +cartridges publicly to passers-by. + +In the Rue Saint-Pierre-Montmartre, men with bare arms carried about a +black flag, on which could be read in white letters this inscription: +"Republic or Death!" In the Rue des Jeuneurs, Rue du Cadran, Rue +Montorgueil, Rue Mandar, groups appeared waving flags on which could be +distinguished in gold letters, the word section with a number. One of +these flags was red and blue with an almost imperceptible stripe of +white between. + +They pillaged a factory of small-arms on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, and +three armorers' shops, the first in the Rue Beaubourg, the second in the +Rue Michel-le-Comte, the other in the Rue du Temple. In a few minutes, +the thousand hands of the crowd had seized and carried off two hundred +and thirty guns, nearly all double-barrelled, sixty-four swords, and +eighty-three pistols. In order to provide more arms, one man took the +gun, the other the bayonet. + +Opposite the Quai de la Greve, young men armed with muskets installed +themselves in the houses of some women for the purpose of firing. One +of them had a flint-lock. They rang, entered, and set about making +cartridges. One of these women relates: "I did not know what cartridges +were; it was my husband who told me." + +One cluster broke into a curiosity shop in the Rue des Vielles +Haudriettes, and seized yataghans and Turkish arms. + +The body of a mason who had been killed by a gun-shot lay in the Rue de +la Perle. + +And then on the right bank, the left bank, on the quays, on the +boulevards, in the Latin country, in the quarter of the Halles, panting +men, artisans, students, members of sections read proclamations and +shouted: "To arms!" broke street lanterns, unharnessed carriages, +unpaved the streets, broke in the doors of houses, uprooted trees, +rummaged cellars, rolled out hogsheads, heaped up paving-stones, rough +slabs, furniture and planks, and made barricades. + +They forced the bourgeois to assist them in this. They entered the +dwellings of women, they forced them to hand over the swords and guns +of their absent husbands, and they wrote on the door, with whiting: "The +arms have been delivered"; some signed "their names" to receipts for +the guns and swords and said: "Send for them to-morrow at the Mayor's +office." They disarmed isolated sentinels and National Guardsmen in +the streets on their way to the Townhall. They tore the epaulets from +officers. In the Rue du Cimitiere-Saint-Nicholas, an officer of the +National Guard, on being pursued by a crowd armed with clubs and foils, +took refuge with difficulty in a house, whence he was only able to +emerge at nightfall and in disguise. + +In the Quartier Saint-Jacques, the students swarmed out of their +hotels and ascended the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe to the Cafe du Progress, +or descended to the Cafe des Sept-Billards, in the Rue des Mathurins. +There, in front of the door, young men mounted on the stone +corner-posts, distributed arms. They plundered the timber-yard in the +Rue Transnonain in order to obtain material for barricades. On a single +point the inhabitants resisted, at the corner of the Rue Sainte-Avoye +and the Rue Simon-Le-Franc, where they destroyed the barricade with +their own hands. At a single point the insurgents yielded; they +abandoned a barricade begun in the Rue de Temple after having fired on +a detachment of the National Guard, and fled through the Rue de la +Corderie. The detachment picked up in the barricade a red flag, a +package of cartridges, and three hundred pistol-balls. The National +Guardsmen tore up the flag, and carried off its tattered remains on the +points of their bayonets. + +All that we are here relating slowly and successively took place +simultaneously at all points of the city in the midst of a vast tumult, +like a mass of tongues of lightning in one clap of thunder. In less than +an hour, twenty-seven barricades sprang out of the earth in the quarter +of the Halles alone. In the centre was that famous house No. 50, which +was the fortress of Jeanne and her six hundred companions, and which, +flanked on the one hand by a barricade at Saint-Merry, and on the other +by a barricade of the Rue Maubuee, commanded three streets, the Rue +des Arcis, the Rue Saint-Martin, and the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, which +it faced. The barricades at right angles fell back, the one of the +Rue Montorgueil on the Grande-Truanderie, the other of the Rue +Geoffroy-Langevin on the Rue Sainte-Avoye. Without reckoning innumerable +barricades in twenty other quarters of Paris, in the Marais, at +Mont-Sainte-Genevieve; one in the Rue Menilmontant, where was visible +a porte cochere torn from its hinges; another near the little bridge of +the Hotel-Dieu made with an "ecossais," which had been unharnessed and +overthrown, three hundred paces from the Prefecture of Police. + +At the barricade of the Rue des Menetriers, a well-dressed man +distributed money to the workmen. At the barricade of the Rue Grenetat, +a horseman made his appearance and handed to the one who seemed to be +the commander of the barricade what had the appearance of a roll of +silver. "Here," said he, "this is to pay expenses, wine, et caetera." +A light-haired young man, without a cravat, went from barricade to +barricade, carrying pass-words. Another, with a naked sword, a blue +police cap on his head, placed sentinels. In the interior, beyond the +barricades, the wine-shops and porters' lodges were converted into +guard-houses. Otherwise the riot was conducted after the most scientific +military tactics. The narrow, uneven, sinuous streets, full of angles +and turns, were admirably chosen; the neighborhood of the Halles, in +particular, a network of streets more intricate than a forest. The +Society of the Friends of the People had, it was said, undertaken to +direct the insurrection in the Quartier Sainte-Avoye. A man killed in +the Rue du Ponceau who was searched had on his person a plan of Paris. + +That which had really undertaken the direction of the uprising was a +sort of strange impetuosity which was in the air. The insurrection +had abruptly built barricades with one hand, and with the other seized +nearly all the posts of the garrison. In less than three hours, like a +train of powder catching fire, the insurgents had invaded and occupied, +on the right bank, the Arsenal, the Mayoralty of the Place Royale, the +whole of the Marais, the Popincourt arms manufactory, la Galiote, the +Chateau-d'Eau, and all the streets near the Halles; on the left bank, +the barracks of the Veterans, Sainte-Pelagie, the Place Maubert, the +powder magazine of the Deux-Moulins, and all the barriers. At five +o'clock in the evening, they were masters of the Bastille, of the +Lingerie, of the Blancs-Manteaux; their scouts had reached the Place +des Victoires, and menaced the Bank, the Petits-Peres barracks, and the +Post-Office. A third of Paris was in the hands of the rioters. + +The conflict had been begun on a gigantic scale at all points; and, as a +result of the disarming domiciliary visits, and armorers' shops hastily +invaded, was, that the combat which had begun with the throwing of +stones was continued with gun-shots. + +About six o'clock in the evening, the Passage du Saumon became the field +of battle. The uprising was at one end, the troops were at the other. +They fired from one gate to the other. An observer, a dreamer, the +author of this book, who had gone to get a near view of this volcano, +found himself in the passage between the two fires. All that he had to +protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half-columns which +separate the shops; he remained in this delicate situation for nearly +half an hour. + +Meanwhile the call to arms was beaten, the National Guard armed in +haste, the legions emerged from the Mayoralities, the regiments from +their barracks. Opposite the passage de l'Ancre a drummer received a +blow from a dagger. Another, in the Rue du Cygne, was assailed by thirty +young men who broke his instrument, and took away his sword. Another was +killed in the Rue Grenier-Saint-Lazare. In the Rue-Michelle-Comte, three +officers fell dead one after the other. Many of the Municipal Guards, on +being wounded, in the Rue des Lombards, retreated. + +In front of the Cour-Batave, a detachment of National Guards found a red +flag bearing the following inscription: Republican revolution, No. 127. +Was this a revolution, in fact? + +The insurrection had made of the centre of Paris a sort of inextricable, +tortuous, colossal citadel. + +There was the hearth; there, evidently, was the question. All the rest +was nothing but skirmishes. The proof that all would be decided there +lay in the fact that there was no fighting going on there as yet. + +In some regiments, the soldiers were uncertain, which added to the +fearful uncertainty of the crisis. They recalled the popular ovation +which had greeted the neutrality of the 53d of the Line in July, 1830. +Two intrepid men, tried in great wars, the Marshal Lobau and General +Bugeaud, were in command, Bugeaud under Lobau. Enormous patrols, +composed of battalions of the Line, enclosed in entire companies of the +National Guard, and preceded by a commissary of police wearing his scarf +of office, went to reconnoitre the streets in rebellion. The insurgents, +on their side, placed videttes at the corners of all open spaces, and +audaciously sent their patrols outside the barricades. Each side was +watching the other. The Government, with an army in its hand, hesitated; +the night was almost upon them, and the Saint-Merry tocsin began to make +itself heard. The Minister of War at that time, Marshal Soult, who had +seen Austerlitz, regarded this with a gloomy air. + +These old sailors, accustomed to correct manoeuvres and having as +resource and guide only tactics, that compass of battles, are utterly +disconcerted in the presence of that immense foam which is called public +wrath. + +The National Guards of the suburbs rushed up in haste and disorder. A +battalion of the 12th Light came at a run from Saint-Denis, the 14th of +the Line arrived from Courbevoie, the batteries of the Military School +had taken up their position on the Carrousel; cannons were descending +from Vincennes. + +Solitude was formed around the Tuileries. Louis Philippe was perfectly +serene. + + + + +CHAPTER V--ORIGINALITY OF PARIS + +During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more +than one insurrection. Nothing is, generally, more singularly calm than +the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of +the rebellious quarters. Paris very speedily accustoms herself to +anything,--it is only a riot,--and Paris has so many affairs on hand, +that she does not put herself out for so small a matter. These colossal +cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone +can contain at the same time civil war and an odd and indescribable +tranquillity. Ordinarily, when an insurrection commences, when the +shop-keeper hears the drum, the call to arms, the general alarm, he +contents himself with the remark:-- + +"There appears to be a squabble in the Rue Saint-Martin." + +Or:-- + +"In the Faubourg Saint-Antoine." + +Often he adds carelessly:-- + +"Or somewhere in that direction." + +Later on, when the heart-rending and mournful hubbub of musketry and +firing by platoons becomes audible, the shopkeeper says:-- + +"It's getting hot! Hullo, it's getting hot!" + +A moment later, the riot approaches and gains in force, he shuts up his +shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform, that is to say, he places +his merchandise in safety and risks his own person. + +Men fire in a square, in a passage, in a blind alley; they take and +re-take the barricade; blood flows, the grape-shot riddles the fronts +of the houses, the balls kill people in their beds, corpses encumber the +streets. A few streets away, the shock of billiard-balls can be heard in +the cafes. + +The theatres open their doors and present vaudevilles; the curious laugh +and chat a couple of paces distant from these streets filled with +war. Hackney-carriages go their way; passers-by are going to a dinner +somewhere in town. Sometimes in the very quarter where the fighting is +going on. + +In 1831, a fusillade was stopped to allow a wedding party to pass. + +At the time of the insurrection of 1839, in the Rue Saint-Martin a +little, infirm old man, pushing a hand-cart surmounted by a tricolored +rag, in which he had carafes filled with some sort of liquid, went and +came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering +his glasses of cocoa impartially,--now to the Government, now to +anarchy. + +Nothing can be stranger; and this is the peculiar character of uprisings +in Paris, which cannot be found in any other capital. To this end, two +things are requisite, the size of Paris and its gayety. The city of +Voltaire and Napoleon is necessary. + +On this occasion, however, in the resort to arms of June 25th, 1832, the +great city felt something which was, perhaps, stronger than itself. It +was afraid. + +Closed doors, windows, and shutters were to be seen everywhere, in the +most distant and most "disinterested" quarters. The courageous took to +arms, the poltroons hid. The busy and heedless passer-by disappeared. +Many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning. + +Alarming details were hawked about, fatal news was disseminated,--that +they were masters of the Bank;--that there were six hundred of them +in the Cloister of Saint-Merry alone, entrenched and embattled in the +church; that the line was not to be depended on; that Armand Carrel +had been to see Marshal Clausel and that the Marshal had said: "Get a +regiment first"; that Lafayette was ill, but that he had said to them, +nevertheless: "I am with you. I will follow you wherever there is room +for a chair"; that one must be on one's guard; that at night there would +be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris +(there the imagination of the police, that Anne Radcliffe mixed up with +the Government was recognizable); that a battery had been established +in the Rue Aubry le Boucher; that Lobau and Bugeaud were putting their +heads together, and that, at midnight, or at daybreak at latest, four +columns would march simultaneously on the centre of the uprising, the +first coming from the Bastille, the second from the Porte Saint-Martin, +the third from the Greve, the fourth from the Halles; that perhaps, +also, the troops would evacuate Paris and withdraw to the Champ-de-Mars; +that no one knew what would happen, but that this time, it certainly was +serious. + +People busied themselves over Marshal Soult's hesitations. Why did not +he attack at once? It is certain that he was profoundly absorbed. The +old lion seemed to scent an unknown monster in that gloom. + +Evening came, the theatres did not open; the patrols circulated with +an air of irritation; passers-by were searched; suspicious persons were +arrested. By nine o'clock, more than eight hundred persons had been +arrested, the Prefecture of Police was encumbered with them, so was the +Conciergerie, so was La Force. + +At the Conciergerie in particular, the long vault which is called the +Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap +of prisoners, whom the man of Lyons, Lagrange, harangued valiantly. +All that straw rustled by all these men, produced the sound of a heavy +shower. Elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows, piled +on top of each other. + +Anxiety reigned everywhere, and a certain tremor which was not habitual +with Paris. + +People barricaded themselves in their houses; wives and mothers were +uneasy; nothing was to be heard but this: "Ah! my God! He has not come +home!" There was hardly even the distant rumble of a vehicle to be +heard. + +People listened on their thresholds, to the rumors, the shouts, the +tumult, the dull and indistinct sounds, to the things that were +said: "It is cavalry," or: "Those are the caissons galloping," to the +trumpets, the drums, the firing, and, above all, to that lamentable +alarm peal from Saint-Merry. + +They waited for the first cannon-shot. Men sprang up at the corners of +the streets and disappeared, shouting: "Go home!" And people made haste +to bolt their doors. They said: "How will all this end?" From moment to +moment, in proportion as the darkness descended, Paris seemed to take on +a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt. + + + + +BOOK ELEVENTH.--THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH THE HURRICANE + + + + +CHAPTER I--SOME EXPLANATIONS WITH REGARD TO THE ORIGIN OF GAVROCHE'S +POETRY. THE INFLUENCE OF AN ACADEMICIAN ON THIS POETRY + +At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the +populace and the military in front of the Arsenal, started a movement +in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was following the +hearse and which, through the whole length of the boulevards, weighed, +so to speak, on the head of the procession, there arose a frightful ebb. +The rout was shaken, their ranks were broken, all ran, fled, made their +escape, some with shouts of attack, others with the pallor of flight. +The great river which covered the boulevards divided in a twinkling, +overflowed to right and left, and spread in torrents over two hundred +streets at once with the roar of a sewer that has broken loose. + +At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue +Menilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which +he had just plucked on the heights of Belleville, caught sight of an old +holster-pistol in the show-window of a bric-a-brac merchant's shop. + +"Mother What's-your-name, I'm going to borrow your machine." + +And off he ran with the pistol. + +Two minutes later, a flood of frightened bourgeois who were fleeing +through the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad +brandishing his pistol and singing:-- + + La nuit on ne voit rien, + Le jour on voit tres bien, + D'un ecrit apocrypha + Le bourgeois s'ebouriffe, + Pratiquez la vertu, + Tutu, chapeau pointu![44] + + +It was little Gavroche on his way to the wars. + +On the boulevard he noticed that the pistol had no trigger. + +Who was the author of that couplet which served to punctuate his march, +and of all the other songs which he was fond of singing on occasion? We +know not. Who does know? Himself, perhaps. However, Gavroche was well +up in all the popular tunes in circulation, and he mingled with them his +own chirpings. An observing urchin and a rogue, he made a potpourri of +the voices of nature and the voices of Paris. He combined the repertory +of the birds with the repertory of the workshops. He was acquainted with +thieves, a tribe contiguous to his own. He had, it appears, been +for three months apprenticed to a printer. He had one day executed a +commission for M. Baour-Lormian, one of the Forty. Gavroche was a gamin +of letters. + +Moreover, Gavroche had no suspicion of the fact that when he had offered +the hospitality of his elephant to two brats on that villainously +rainy night, it was to his own brothers that he had played the part of +Providence. His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning; +that is what his night had been like. On quitting the Rue des Ballets +at daybreak, he had returned in haste to the elephant, had artistically +extracted from it the two brats, had shared with them some sort of +breakfast which he had invented, and had then gone away, confiding +them to that good mother, the street, who had brought him up, almost +entirely. On leaving them, he had appointed to meet them at the same +spot in the evening, and had left them this discourse by way of a +farewell: "I break a cane, otherwise expressed, I cut my stick, or, as +they say at the court, I file off. If you don't find papa and mamma, +young 'uns, come back here this evening. I'll scramble you up some +supper, and I'll give you a shakedown." The two children, picked up by +some policeman and placed in the refuge, or stolen by some mountebank, +or having simply strayed off in that immense Chinese puzzle of a Paris, +did not return. The lowest depths of the actual social world are full of +these lost traces. Gavroche did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks +had elapsed since that night. More than once he had scratched the back +of his head and said: "Where the devil are my two children?" + +In the meantime, he had arrived, pistol in hand, in the Rue du +Pont-aux-Choux. He noticed that there was but one shop open in that +street, and, a matter worthy of reflection, that was a pastry-cook's +shop. This presented a providential occasion to eat another +apple-turnover before entering the unknown. Gavroche halted, fumbled in +his fob, turned his pocket inside out, found nothing, not even a sou, +and began to shout: "Help!" + +It is hard to miss the last cake. + +Nevertheless, Gavroche pursued his way. + +Two minutes later he was in the Rue Saint-Louis. While traversing the +Rue du Parc-Royal, he felt called upon to make good the loss of the +apple-turnover which had been impossible, and he indulged himself in the +immense delight of tearing down the theatre posters in broad daylight. + +A little further on, on catching sight of a group of comfortable-looking +persons, who seemed to be landed proprietors, he shrugged his shoulders +and spit out at random before him this mouthful of philosophical bile as +they passed: + +"How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk! They just wallow in good +dinners. Ask 'em what they do with their money. They don't know. They +eat it, that's what they do! As much as their bellies will hold." + + + + +CHAPTER II--GAVROCHE ON THE MARCH + +The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one's hand in the +open street, is so much of a public function that Gavroche felt his +fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Marseillaise +which he was singing, he shouted:-- + +"All goes well. I suffer a great deal in my left paw, I'm all broken +up with rheumatism, but I'm satisfied, citizens. All that the bourgeois +have to do is to bear themselves well, I'll sneeze them out subversive +couplets. What are the police spies? Dogs. And I'd just like to have +one of them at the end of my pistol. I'm just from the boulevard, my +friends. It's getting hot there, it's getting into a little boil, it's +simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men! Let an impure +blood inundate the furrows! I give my days to my country, I shall never +see my concubine more, Nini, finished, yes, Nini? But never mind! Long +live joy! Let's fight, crebleu! I've had enough of despotism." + +At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having +fallen, Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, and picked up the +man, then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his +pistol and resumed his way. In the Rue de Thorigny, all was peace and +silence. This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast with +the vast surrounding uproar. Four gossips were chatting in a doorway. + +Scotland has trios of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping +hags; and the "Thou shalt be King" could be quite as mournfully hurled +at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of +Armuyr. The croak would be almost identical. + +The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their own +concerns. Three of them were portresses, and the fourth was a rag-picker +with her basket on her back. + +All four of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, +which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness. + +The rag-picker was humble. In this open-air society, it is the +rag-picker who salutes and the portress who patronizes. This is caused +by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of +the portresses, and after the fancy of the one who makes the heap. There +may be kindness in the broom. + +This rag-picker was a grateful creature, and she smiled, with what a +smile! on the three portresses. Things of this nature were said:-- + +"Ah, by the way, is your cat still cross?" + +"Good gracious, cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know. It's +the dogs who complain." + +"And people also." + +"But the fleas from a cat don't go after people." + +"That's not the trouble, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year +when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the +newspapers. That was at the time when there were at the Tuileries great +sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember +the King of Rome?" + +"I liked the Duc de Bordeau better." + +"I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII." + +"Meat is awfully dear, isn't it, Mother Patagon?" + +"Ah! don't mention it, the butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible +horror--one can't afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays." + +Here the rag-picker interposed:-- + +"Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one throws +anything away any more. They eat everything." + +"There are poorer people than you, la Vargouleme." + +"Ah, that's true," replied the rag-picker, with deference, "I have a +profession." + +A pause succeeded, and the rag-picker, yielding to that necessity for +boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added:-- + +"In the morning, on my return home, I pick over my basket, I sort my +things. This makes heaps in my room. I put the rags in a basket, the +cores and stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen +stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, +the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of glass in my +fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed." + +Gavroche had stopped behind her and was listening. + +"Old ladies," said he, "what do you mean by talking politics?" + +He was assailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl. + +"Here's another rascal." + +"What's that he's got in his paddle? A pistol?" + +"Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is?" + +"That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the +authorities." + +Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with +elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hand wide. + +The rag-picker cried:-- + +"You malicious, bare-pawed little wretch!" + +The one who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together +in horror. + +"There's going to be evil doings, that's certain. The errand-boy next +door has a little pointed beard, I have seen him pass every day with a +young person in a pink bonnet on his arm; to-day I saw him pass, and +he had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux says, that last week there was a +revolution at--at--at--where's the calf!--at Pontoise. And then, there +you see him, that horrid scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the +Celestins are full of pistols. What do you suppose the Government can +do with good-for-nothings who don't know how to do anything but contrive +ways of upsetting the world, when we had just begun to get a little +quiet after all the misfortunes that have happened, good Lord! to that +poor queen whom I saw pass in the tumbril! And all this is going to +make tobacco dearer. It's infamous! And I shall certainly go to see him +beheaded on the guillotine, the wretch!" + +"You've got the sniffles, old lady," said Gavroche. "Blow your +promontory." + +And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavee, the rag-picker occurred +to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy:-- + +"You're in the wrong to insult the revolutionists, Mother +Dust-Heap-Corner. This pistol is in your interests. It's so that you may +have more good things to eat in your basket." + +All at once, he heard a shout behind him; it was the portress Patagon +who had followed him, and who was shaking her fist at him in the +distance and crying:-- + +"You're nothing but a bastard." + +"Oh! Come now," said Gavroche, "I don't care a brass farthing for that!" + +Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this +appeal:-- + +"Forward march to the battle!" + +And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with +an air of reproach which seemed an attempt to appease it:-- + +"I'm going off," said he, "but you won't go off!" + +One dog may distract the attention from another dog.[45] A very gaunt +poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him. + +"My poor doggy," said he, "you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for +all the hoops are visible." + +Then he directed his course towards l'Orme-Saint-Gervais. + + + + +CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER + +The worthy hair-dresser who had chased from his shop the two little +fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the +elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old +soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were +talking. The hair-dresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the +riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had passed to +the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and +soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with +arabesques, and which he would have entitled: "Dialogue between the +razor and the sword." + +"How did the Emperor ride, sir?" said the barber. + +"Badly. He did not know how to fall--so he never fell." + +"Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses!" + +"On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a +racing mare, perfectly white. Her ears were very wide apart, her saddle +deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly +articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders and a powerful +crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height." + +"A pretty horse," remarked the hair-dresser. + +"It was His Majesty's beast." + +The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence +would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on:-- + +"The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?" + +The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who +had been there:-- + +"In the heel. At Ratisbon. I never saw him so well dressed as on that +day. He was as neat as a new sou." + +"And you, Mr. Veteran, you must have been often wounded?" + +"I?" said the soldier, "ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I +received two sabre-blows on the back of my neck, a bullet in the right +arm at Austerlitz, another in the left hip at Jena. At Friedland, +a thrust from a bayonet, there,--at the Moskowa seven or eight +lance-thrusts, no matter where, at Lutzen a splinter of a shell crushed +one of my fingers. Ah! and then at Waterloo, a ball from a biscaien in +the thigh, that's all." + +"How fine that is!" exclaimed the hair-dresser, in Pindaric accents, "to +die on the field of battle! On my word of honor, rather than die in bed, +of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, +syringes, medicines, I should prefer to receive a cannon-ball in my +belly!" + +"You're not over fastidious," said the soldier. + +He had hardly spoken when a fearful crash shook the shop. The +show-window had suddenly been fractured. + +The wig-maker turned pale. + +"Ah, good God!" he exclaimed, "it's one of them!" + +"What?" + +"A cannon-ball." + +"Here it is," said the soldier. + +And he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a +pebble. + +The hair-dresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing +at the full speed, towards the Marche Saint-Jean. As he passed the +hair-dresser's shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, +had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had +flung a stone through his panes. + +"You see!" shrieked the hair-dresser, who from white had turned blue, +"that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What +has any one done to that gamin?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN + +In the meantime, in the Marche Saint-Jean, where the post had already +been disarmed, Gavroche had just "effected a junction" with a band led +by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Feuilly. They were armed after +a fashion. Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire had found them and swelled the +group. Enjolras had a double-barrelled hunting-gun, Combeferre the gun +of a National Guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt, +two pistols which his unbuttoned coat allowed to be seen, Jean Prouvaire +an old cavalry musket, Bahorel a rifle; Courfeyrac was brandishing an +unsheathed sword-cane. Feuilly, with a naked sword in his hand, marched +at their head shouting: "Long live Poland!" + +They reached the Quai Morland. Cravatless, hatless, breathless, soaked +by the rain, with lightning in their eyes. Gavroche accosted them +calmly:-- + +"Where are we going?" + +"Come along," said Courfeyrac. + +Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish +in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in +the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a +passer-by, who cried in bewilderment:-- + +"Here are the reds!" + +"The reds, the reds!" retorted Bahorel. "A queer kind of fear, +bourgeois. For my part I don't tremble before a poppy, the little red +hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave +fear of the red to horned cattle." + +He caught sight of a corner of the wall on which was placarded the +most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a +Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his "flock." + +Bahorel exclaimed:-- + +"'Flock'; a polite way of saying geese." + +And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that +instant Gavroche set himself to study Bahorel. + +"Bahorel," observed Enjolras, "you are wrong. You should have let that +charge alone, he is not the person with whom we have to deal, you are +wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not +fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun." + +"Each one in his own fashion, Enjolras," retorted Bahorel. "This +bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. +Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not +wasting myself, I'm getting a start; and if I tore down that charge, +Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite." + +This word, Hercle, struck Gavroche. He sought all occasions for +learning, and that tearer-down of posters possessed his esteem. He +inquired of him:-- + +"What does Hercle mean?" + +Bahorel answered:-- + +"It means cursed name of a dog, in Latin." + +Here Bahorel recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard +who was watching them as they passed, probably a Friend of the A B C. He +shouted to him:-- + +"Quick, cartridges, para bellum." + +"A fine man! that's true," said Gavroche, who now understood Latin. + +A tumultuous retinue accompanied them,--students, artists, young men +affiliated to the Cougourde of Aix, artisans, longshoremen, armed with +clubs and bayonets; some, like Combeferre, with pistols thrust into +their trousers. + +An old man, who appeared to be extremely aged, was walking in the band. + +He had no arms, and he made great haste, so that he might not be left +behind, although he had a thoughtful air. + +Gavroche caught sight of him:-- + +"Keksekca?" said he to Courfeyrac. + +"He's an old duffer." + +It was M. Mabeuf. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE OLD MAN + +Let us recount what had taken place. + +Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon, near the +public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their +charge. Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had +taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: "To the barricades!" In the Rue +Lesdiguieres they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted +their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though +he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it +had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the +very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through +having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was +acquainted with the peaceful and more than timid habits of the old +beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst +of that uproar, a couple of paces from the cavalry charges, almost in +the midst of a fusillade, hatless in the rain, and strolling about among +the bullets, he had accosted him, and the following dialogue had been +exchanged between the rioter of fire and the octogenarian:-- + +"M. Mabeuf, go to your home." + +"Why?" + +"There's going to be a row." + +"That's well." + +"Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf." + +"That is well." + +"Firing from cannon." + +"That is good. Where are the rest of you going?" + +"We are going to fling the government to the earth." + +"That is good." + +And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not +uttered a word. His step had suddenly become firm; artisans had offered +him their arms; he had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced +nearly to the front rank of the column, with the movement of a man who +is marching and the countenance of a man who is sleeping. + +"What a fierce old fellow!" muttered the students. The rumor spread +through the troop that he was a former member of the Convention,--an old +regicide. The mob had turned in through the Rue de la Verrerie. + +Little Gavroche marched in front with that deafening song which made of +him a sort of trumpet. + +He sang: "Voici la lune qui paratt, + Quand irons-nous dans la foret? + Demandait Charlot a Charlotte. + + Tou tou tou + Pour Chatou. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "Pour avoir bu de grand matin + La rosee a meme le thym, + Deux moineaux etaient en ribotte. + + Zi zi zi + Pour Passy. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "Et ces deux pauvres petits loups, + Comme deux grives estaient souls; + Une tigre en riait dans sa grotte. + + Don don don + Pour Meudon. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "L'un jurait et l'autre sacrait. + Quand irons nous dans la foret? + Demandait Charlot a Charlotte. + + Tin tin tin + Pour Pantin. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte."[46] + +They directed their course towards Saint-Merry. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--RECRUITS + +The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of +lofty stature, whose hair was turning gray, and whose bold and daring +mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, but whom +none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, +whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the +shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol; paid no attention to this +man. + +It chanced that in the Rue de la Verrerie, they passed in front of +Courfeyrac's door. + +"This happens just right," said Courfeyrac, "I have forgotten my purse, +and I have lost my hat." + +He quitted the mob and ran up to his quarters at full speed. He seized +an old hat and his purse. + +He also seized a large square coffer, of the dimensions of a large +valise, which was concealed under his soiled linen. + +As he descended again at a run, the portress hailed him:-- + +"Monsieur de Courfeyrac!" + +"What's your name, portress?" + +The portress stood bewildered. + +"Why, you know perfectly well, I'm the concierge; my name is Mother +Veuvain." + +"Well, if you call me Monsieur de Courfeyrac again, I shall call you +Mother de Veuvain. Now speak, what's the matter? What do you want?" + +"There is some one who wants to speak with you." + +"Who is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Where is he?" + +"In my lodge." + +"The devil!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. + +"But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour," said the +portress. + +At the same time, a sort of pale, thin, small, freckled, and youthful +artisan, clad in a tattered blouse and patched trousers of ribbed +velvet, and who had rather the air of a girl accoutred as a man than of +a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Courfeyrac in a voice which +was not the least in the world like a woman's voice:-- + +"Monsieur Marius, if you please." + +"He is not here." + +"Will he return this evening?" + +"I know nothing about it." + +And Courfeyrac added:-- + +"For my part, I shall not return." + +The young man gazed steadily at him and said:-- + +"Why not?" + +"Because." + +"Where are you going, then?" + +"What business is that of yours?" + +"Would you like to have me carry your coffer for you?" + +"I am going to the barricades." + +"Would you like to have me go with you?" + +"If you like!" replied Courfeyrac. "The street is free, the pavements +belong to every one." + +And he made his escape at a run to join his friends. When he had +rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only +a quarter of an hour after this that he saw the young man, who had +actually followed them. + +A mob does not go precisely where it intends. We have explained that +a gust of wind carries it away. They overshot Saint-Merry and found +themselves, without precisely knowing how, in the Rue Saint-Denis. + + + + +BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE + + + + +CHAPTER I--HISTORY OF CORINTHE FROM ITS FOUNDATION + +The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambuteau at the end +near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondetour, a +basket-maker's shop having for its sign a basket in the form of Napoleon +the Great with this inscription:-- + + NAPOLEON IS MADE + WHOLLY OF WILLOW, + +have no suspicion of the terrible scenes which this very spot witnessed +hardly thirty years ago. + +It was there that lay the Rue de la Chanvrerie, which ancient deeds +spell Chanverrerie, and the celebrated public-house called Corinthe. + +The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade +effected at this point, and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade +Saint-Merry. It was on this famous barricade of the Rue de la +Chanvrerie, now fallen into profound obscurity, that we are about to +shed a little light. + +May we be permitted to recur, for the sake of clearness in the recital, +to the simple means which we have already employed in the case of +Waterloo. Persons who wish to picture to themselves in a tolerably exact +manner the constitution of the houses which stood at that epoch near the +Pointe Saint-Eustache, at the northeast angle of the Halles of Paris, +where to-day lies the embouchure of the Rue Rambuteau, have only to +imagine an N touching the Rue Saint-Denis with its summit and the Halles +with its base, and whose two vertical bars should form the Rue de la +Grande-Truanderie, and the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and whose transverse +bar should be formed by the Rue de la Petite-Truanderie. The old Rue +Mondetour cut the three strokes of the N at the most crooked angles, +so that the labyrinthine confusion of these four streets sufficed to +form, on a space three fathoms square, between the Halles and the Rue +Saint-Denis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue +des Precheurs on the other, seven islands of houses, oddly cut up, of +varying sizes, placed crosswise and hap-hazard, and barely separated, +like the blocks of stone in a dock, by narrow crannies. + +We say narrow crannies, and we can give no more just idea of those dark, +contracted, many-angled alleys, lined with eight-story buildings. These +buildings were so decrepit that, in the Rue de la Chanvrerie and the Rue +de la Petite-Truanderie, the fronts were shored up with beams running +from one house to another. The street was narrow and the gutter broad, +the pedestrian there walked on a pavement that was always wet, skirting +little stalls resembling cellars, big posts encircled with iron hoops, +excessive heaps of refuse, and gates armed with enormous, century-old +gratings. The Rue Rambuteau has devastated all that. + +The name of Mondetour paints marvellously well the sinuosities of that +whole set of streets. A little further on, they are found still better +expressed by the Rue Pirouette, which ran into the Rue Mondetour. + +The passer-by who got entangled from the Rue Saint-Denis in the Rue de +la Chanvrerie beheld it gradually close in before him as though he had +entered an elongated funnel. At the end of this street, which was very +short, he found further passage barred in the direction of the Halles +by a tall row of houses, and he would have thought himself in a blind +alley, had he not perceived on the right and left two dark cuts through +which he could make his escape. This was the Rue Mondetour, which on +one side ran into the Rue de Precheurs, and on the other into the Rue +du Cygne and the Petite-Truanderie. At the bottom of this sort of +cul-de-sac, at the angle of the cutting on the right, there was to be +seen a house which was not so tall as the rest, and which formed a sort +of cape in the street. It is in this house, of two stories only, that +an illustrious wine-shop had been merrily installed three hundred years +before. This tavern created a joyous noise in the very spot which old +Theophilus described in the following couplet:-- + + La branle le squelette horrible + D'un pauvre amant qui se pendit.[47] + + +The situation was good, and tavern-keepers succeeded each other there, +from father to son. + +In the time of Mathurin Regnier, this cabaret was called the +Pot-aux-Roses, and as the rebus was then in fashion, it had for its +sign-board, a post (poteau) painted rose-color. In the last century, the +worthy Natoire, one of the fantastic masters nowadays despised by the +stiff school, having got drunk many times in this wine-shop at the +very table where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of +gratitude, a bunch of Corinth grapes on the pink post. The keeper of the +cabaret, in his joy, had changed his device and had caused to be placed +in gilt letters beneath the bunch these words: "At the Bunch of Corinth +Grapes" ("Au Raisin de Corinthe"). Hence the name of Corinthe. Nothing +is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the +zig-zag of the phrase. Corinthe gradually dethroned the Pot-aux-Roses. +The last proprietor of the dynasty, Father Hucheloup, no longer +acquainted even with the tradition, had the post painted blue. + +A room on the ground floor, where the bar was situated, one on the first +floor containing a billiard-table, a wooden spiral staircase piercing +the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad +daylight,--this was the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a +trap-door in the lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were +the lodgings of the Hucheloup family. They were reached by a staircase +which was a ladder rather than a staircase, and had for their entrance +only a private door in the large room on the first floor. Under the +roof, in two mansard attics, were the nests for the servants. The +kitchen shared the ground-floor with the tap-room. + +Father Hucheloup had, possibly, been born a chemist, but the fact is +that he was a cook; people did not confine themselves to drinking alone +in his wine-shop, they also ate there. Hucheloup had invented a capital +thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house, stuffed carps, +which he called carpes au gras. These were eaten by the light of a +tallow candle or of a lamp of the time of Louis XVI., on tables to which +were nailed waxed cloths in lieu of table-cloths. People came thither +from a distance. Hucheloup, one fine morning, had seen fit to notify +passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black +paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as +a cook after his own fashion, he had improvised on his wall this +remarkable inscription:-- + + CARPES HO GRAS. + + +One winter, the rain-storms and the showers had taken a fancy to +obliterate the S which terminated the first word, and the G which began +the third; this is what remained:-- + + CARPE HO RAS. + + +Time and rain assisting, a humble gastronomical announcement had become +a profound piece of advice. + +In this way it came about, that though he knew no French, Father +Hucheloup understood Latin, that he had evoked philosophy from his +kitchen, and that, desirous simply of effacing Lent, he had equalled +Horace. And the striking thing about it was, that that also meant: +"Enter my wine-shop." + +Nothing of all this is in existence now. The Mondetour labyrinth was +disembowelled and widely opened in 1847, and probably no longer exists +at the present moment. The Rue de la Chanvrerie and Corinthe have +disappeared beneath the pavement of the Rue Rambuteau. + +As we have already said, Corinthe was the meeting-place if not the +rallying-point, of Courfeyrac and his friends. It was Grantaire who had +discovered Corinthe. He had entered it on account of the Carpe horas, +and had returned thither on account of the Carpes au gras. There they +drank, there they ate, there they shouted; they did not pay much, they +paid badly, they did not pay at all, but they were always welcome. +Father Hucheloup was a jovial host. + +Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine-shop-keeper +with a mustache; an amusing variety. He always had an ill-tempered air, +seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who +entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel +with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon +the word, people were always welcome there. This oddity had attracted +customers to his shop, and brought him young men, who said to each +other: "Come hear Father Hucheloup growl." He had been a fencing-master. +All of a sudden, he would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good +fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked +nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes +which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. + +Mother Hucheloup, his wife, was a bearded and a very homely creature. + +About 1830, Father Hucheloup died. With him disappeared the secret of +stuffed carps. His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wine-shop. +But the cooking deteriorated, and became execrable; the wine, which had +always been bad, became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Courfeyrac and his +friends continued to go to Corinthe,--out of pity, as Bossuet said. + +The Widow Hucheloup was breathless and misshapen and given to rustic +recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. +She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her +reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly been +her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the loups-de-gorge (rouges-gorges) +chanter dans les ogrepines (aubepines)--to hear the redbreasts sing in +the hawthorn-trees. + +The hall on the first floor, where "the restaurant" was situated, was +a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and +tables, and with a crippled, lame, old billiard-table. It was reached +by a spiral staircase which terminated in the corner of the room at a +square hole like the hatchway of a ship. + +This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was +always burning, had the air of a garret. All the four-footed furniture +comported itself as though it had but three legs--the whitewashed walls +had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame +Hucheloup:-- + + Elle etonne a dix pas, elle epouvente a deux, + Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux; + On tremble a chaque instant qu'elle ne vous la mouche + Et qu'un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche.[48] + + +This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall. + +Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from morning till +night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquillity. Two +serving-maids, named Matelote and Gibelotte,[49] and who had never been +known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables +the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the +hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelote, large, plump, redhaired, +and noisy, the favorite ex-sultana of the defunct Hucheloup, was +homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may; still, as it +becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was +less homely than Mame Hucheloup. Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a +lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always +languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, +the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even +the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a +vague and sleepy smile. + +Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the +following line written there in chalk by Courfeyrac:-- + + Regale si tu peux et mange si tu l'oses.[50] + + + + +CHAPTER II--PRELIMINARY GAYETIES + +Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than +elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The +two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had +everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what +the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini. On the +morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast. Joly, +who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to +share. Laigle's coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed. + +It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of +Corinthe. + +They ascended to the first floor. + +Matelote and Gibelotte received them. + +"Oysters, cheese, and ham," said Laigle. + +And they seated themselves at a table. + +The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves. + +Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table. + +While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the +hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:-- + +"I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie +cheese. I enter." It was Grantaire. + +Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table. + +At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the +table. + +That made three. + +"Are you going to drink those two bottles?" Laigle inquired of +Grantaire. + +Grantaire replied:-- + +"All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous. Two bottles never yet +astonished a man." + +The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a +bottle was rapidly gulped down. + +"So you have a hole in your stomach?" began Laigle again. + +"You have one in your elbow," said Grantaire. + +And after having emptied his glass, he added:-- + +"Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old." + +"I should hope so," retorted Laigle. "That's why we get on well +together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind +me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my +movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm. Old coats +are just like old friends." + +"That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, "an old goat +is an old abi" (ami, friend). + +"Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up," said +Grantaire. + +"Grantaire," demanded Laigle, "have you just come from the boulevard?" + +"No." + +"We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I." + +"It's a marvellous sight," said Joly. + +"How quiet this street is!" exclaimed Laigle. "Who would suspect that +Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in +former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood! +Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abbe Lebeuf. +They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, +shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, +Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustines--there +was no end of them." + +"Don't let's talk of monks," interrupted Grantaire, "it makes one want +to scratch one's self." + +Then he exclaimed:-- + +"Bouh! I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking +possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly. +I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front +of the big public library. That pile of oyster-shells which is called +a library is disgusting even to think of. What paper! What ink! What +scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal was it who said +that man was a featherless biped?[51] And then, I met a pretty girl of +my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called +Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, +because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with +small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the +watch for a protector as much as for a lover; cats chase mice as well +as birds. Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she +adjusted little brass rings in the eyelet-holes of corsets, what do +you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot +of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress. This +transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in +high spirits. The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty +to-day as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face. +Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces +left upon them by caterpillars are visible. Ah! there is no morality on +earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, +the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the +apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the +fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you know what +right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands +what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers: 'The wrong that +Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the +Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your +neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as +you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.' Rome said: 'You +shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: 'Vae victis!' +That is what right is. Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world! +What eagles! It makes my flesh creep." + +He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, +having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, +not even himself, had taken any notice:-- + +"Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes the grisette +is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other. +So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality: drink. Whatever your +opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or +in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, +drink. You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et caetera, +et caetera. Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This +poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep +greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch, it won't +work. Quick, a revolution! The good God has his hands perpetually black +with that cart-grease. If I were in his place, I'd be perfectly simple +about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the +human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, +without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, +I would have no extraordinary repertory. What the rest of you call +progress advances by means of two motors, men and events. But, sad to +say, from time to time, the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary +troupe suffices neither for event nor for men: among men geniuses are +required, among events revolutions. Great accidents are the law; the +order of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition +of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds actors +needed for its performance. At the moment when one expects it the least, +God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star +turns up, underlined by an enormous tail. And that causes the death +of Caesar. Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with a +comet. Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold +a great man; '93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 +at the head of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded +with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise your +eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama. +Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources, gathered from +exception, seem magnificence and poverty. My friends, Providence has +come down to expedients. What does a revolution prove? That God is in a +quandry. He effects a coup d'etat because he, God, has not been able to +make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as +to Jehovah's fortune; and when I see so much distress in heaven and on +earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a +hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is +very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness +the Prince de Conde hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent +in the zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even +in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, when +I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that +paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so +many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so +much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance +exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up. He gives a revolution +as a tradesman whose money-box is empty gives a ball. God must not be +judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive +a poverty-stricken universe. Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am +discontented. Here it is the 4th of June, it is almost night; ever since +this morning I have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, +and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an +ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything +else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, +everything goes awry; the universe is a tease. It's like children, those +who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total: +I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. +It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. +However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. +I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, +Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah! +by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not +intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever, like a +shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the loungers to +the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental +houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as +sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a +Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewomen, or a petty German prince, +furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to the Germanic confederation, and +occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to +say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I +have said a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people +can habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points; +respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with +odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is +ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a +great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, +all those imbeciles, and to break each other's profiles and to massacre +each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might +go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of +new-mown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether +too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a +bric-a-brac merchant's suggests a reflection to my mind; it is time to +enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That's what comes +of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing +melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each +other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!" + +And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which +was well earned. + +"A propos of revolution," said Joly, "it is decidedly abberent that +Barius is in lub." + +"Does any one know with whom?" demanded Laigle. + +"Do." + +"No?" + +"Do! I tell you." + +"Marius' love affairs!" exclaimed Grantaire. "I can imagine it. Marius +is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of +poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbraeus Apollo. Marius and +his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make +a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which +they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls +possessed of senses. They lie among the stars." + +Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second +harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the +stairs. It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged, very small, +yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair +drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air. + +The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed +himself to Laigle de Meaux. + +"Are you Monsieur Bossuet?" + +"That is my nickname," replied Laigle. "What do you want with me?" + +"This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me: 'Do you know +Mother Hucheloup?' I said: 'Yes, Rue Chanvrerie, the old man's widow;' +he said to me: 'Go there. There you will find M. Bossuet. Tell him from +me: "A B C".' It's a joke that they're playing on you, isn't it. He gave +me ten sous." + +"Joly, lend me ten sous," said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: +"Grantaire, lend me ten sous." + +This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad. + +"Thank you, sir," said the urchin. + +"What is your name?" inquired Laigle. + +"Navet, Gavroche's friend." + +"Stay with us," said Laigle. + +"Breakfast with us," said Grantaire. + +The child replied:-- + +"I can't, I belong in the procession, I'm the one to shout 'Down with +Polignac!'" + +And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the +most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure. + +The child gone, Grantaire took the word:-- + +"That is the pure-bred gamin. There are a great many varieties of the +gamin species. The notary's gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter, the cook's +gamin is called a scullion, the baker's gamin is called a mitron, +the lackey's gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the +cabin-boy, the soldier's gamin is called the drummer-boy, the painter's +gamin is called paint-grinder, the tradesman's gamin is called an +errand-boy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion, the kingly gamin +is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino." + +In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection; he said half aloud:-- + +"A B C, that is to say: the burial of Lamarque." + +"The tall blonde," remarked Grantaire, "is Enjolras, who is sending you +a warning." + +"Shall we go?" ejaculated Bossuet. + +"It's raiding," said Joly. "I have sworn to go through fire, but not +through water. I don't wand to ged a gold." + +"I shall stay here," said Grantaire. "I prefer a breakfast to a hearse." + +"Conclusion: we remain," said Laigle. "Well, then, let us drink. +Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot." + +"Ah! the riot, I am with you!" cried Joly. + +Laigle rubbed his hands. + +"Now we're going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter of +fact, it does hurt the people along the seams." + +"I don't think much of your revolution," said Grantaire. "I don't +execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton +night-cap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think +that to-day, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his +royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre end +against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven." + +The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of +daylight. There was no one in the wine-shop, or in the street, every one +having gone off "to watch events." + +"Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your hand +before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light." + +Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way. + +"Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: 'Joly is ill, +Grantaire is drunk.' It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had +come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! +I won't go to his funeral." + +This resolution once arrived at, Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire did not +stir from the wine-shop. By two o'clock in the afternoon, the table at +which they sat was covered with empty bottles. Two candles were burning +on it, one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the +other in the neck of a cracked carafe. Grantaire had seduced Joly and +Bossuet to wine; Bossuet and Joly had conducted Grantaire back towards +cheerfulness. + +As for Grantaire, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate +inspirer of dreams, ever since mid-day. Wine enjoys only a conventional +popularity with serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter +of inebriety, white magic and black magic; wine is only white magic. +Grantaire was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible +fit of drunkenness yawning before him, far from arresting him, attracted +him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beerglass. The +beer-glass is the abyss. Having neither opium nor hashish on hand, and +being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse +to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the +most terrible of lethargies. It is of these three vapors, beer, brandy, +and absinthe, that the lead of the soul is composed. They are three +grooms; the celestial butterfly is drowned in them; and there are formed +there in a membranous smoke, vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, +three mute furies, Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the +slumbering Psyche. + +Grantaire had not yet reached that lamentable phase; far from it. He was +tremendously gay, and Bossuet and Joly retorted. They clinked glasses. +Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation of words and ideas, +a peculiarity of gesture; he rested his left fist on his knee with +dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated +astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand, he hurled solemn +words at the big maid-servant Matelote:-- + +"Let the doors of the palace be thrown open! Let every one be a member +of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup. +Let us drink." + +And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added:-- + +"Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate +thee!" + +And Joly exclaimed:-- + +"Matelote and Gibelotte, dod't gib Grantaire anything more to drink. +He has already devoured, since this bording, in wild prodigality, two +francs and ninety-five centibes." + +And Grantaire began again:-- + +"Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting +them on the table in the guise of candles?" + +Bossuet, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity. + +He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back in the +falling rain, and gazing at his two friends. + +All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of +"To arms!" He turned round and saw in the Rue Saint-Denis, at the end +of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing, gun in hand, and Gavroche +with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword, Courfeyrac with his sword, and +Jean Prouvaire with his blunderbuss, Combeferre with his gun, Bahorel +with his gun, and the whole armed and stormy rabble which was following +them. + +The Rue de la Chanvrerie was not more than a gunshot long. Bossuet +improvised a speaking-trumpet from his two hands placed around his +mouth, and shouted:-- + +"Courfeyrac! Courfeyrac! Hohee!" + +Courfeyrac heard the shout, caught sight of Bossuet, and advanced a few +paces into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, shouting: "What do you want?" which +crossed a "Where are you going?" + +"To make a barricade," replied Courfeyrac. + +"Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here!" + +"That's true, Aigle," said Courfeyrac. + +And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into the Rue +de la Chanvrerie. + + + + +CHAPTER III--NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE + +The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted, the entrance to the street +widened out, the other extremity narrowed together into a pocket +without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondetour was easily +barricaded on the right and the left, no attack was possible except +from the Rue Saint-Denis, that is to say, in front, and in full sight. +Bossuet had the comprehensive glance of a fasting Hannibal. + +Terror had seized on the whole street at the irruption of the mob. There +was not a passer-by who did not get out of sight. In the space of a +flash of lightning, in the rear, to right and left, shops, stables, +area-doors, windows, blinds, attic skylights, shutters of every +description were closed, from the ground floor to the roof. A terrified +old woman fixed a mattress in front of her window on two clothes-poles +for drying linen, in order to deaden the effect of musketry. The +wine-shop alone remained open; and that for a very good reason, that the +mob had rushed into it.--"Ah my God! Ah my God!" sighed Mame Hucheloup. + +Bossuet had gone down to meet Courfeyrac. + +Joly, who had placed himself at the window, exclaimed:-- + +"Courfeyrac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will gatch +gold." + +In the meantime, in the space of a few minutes, twenty iron bars had +been wrenched from the grated front of the wine-shop, ten fathoms of +street had been unpaved; Gavroche and Bahorel had seized in its passage, +and overturned, the dray of a lime-dealer named Anceau; this dray +contained three barrels of lime, which they placed beneath the piles +of paving-stones: Enjolras raised the cellar trap, and all the widow +Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank the barrels of lime; Feuilly, +with his fingers skilled in painting the delicate sticks of fans, had +backed up the barrels and the dray with two massive heaps of blocks of +rough stone. Blocks which were improvised like the rest and procured +no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from +the neighboring house-fronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and +Courfeyrac turned round, half the street was already barred with +a rampart higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the +populace for building everything that is built by demolishing. + +Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went and +came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She +served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a sleepy air. + +An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street. + +Bossuet strode over the paving-stones, ran to it, stopped the driver, +made the passengers alight, offered his hand to "the ladies," dismissed +the conductor, and returned, leading the vehicle and the horses by the +bridle. + +"Omnibuses," said he, "do not pass the Corinthe. Non licet omnibus adire +Corinthum." + +An instant later, the horses were unharnessed and went off at their +will, through the Rue Mondetour, and the omnibus lying on its side +completed the bar across the street. + +Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story. + +Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she cried +in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her +throat. + +"The end of the world has come," she muttered. + +Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, and +said to Grantaire: "My dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman's +neck as an infinitely delicate thing." + +But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote +had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized her round her +waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. + +"Matelote is homely!" he cried: "Matelote is of a dream of ugliness! +Matelote is a chimaera. This is the secret of her birth: a Gothic +Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with +one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to +give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has +chromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian's mistress, and she is a good +girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains +a hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her +moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She +will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the +banlieue. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there +are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid; +however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. Gentlemen, my +father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. +I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow. +Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the +result is that I have never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there +would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the +kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I +picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune! How much good he +would do! Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have +cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss +of a lover." + +"Hold your tongue, you cask!" said Courfeyrac. + +Grantaire retorted:-- + +"I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!" + +Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, +raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had +something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would +have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with +Cromwell. + +"Grantaire," he shouted, "go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere +else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. +Don't disgrace the barricade!" + +This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would +have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He +seemed to be rendered suddenly sober. + +He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at +Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him:-- + +"Let me sleep here." + +"Go and sleep somewhere else," cried Enjolras. + +But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, +replied:-- + +"Let me sleep here,--until I die." + +Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes:-- + +"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of +living, and of dying." + +Grantaire replied in a grave tone:-- + +"You will see." + +He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily +on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of +inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an +instant later he had fallen asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP + +Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:-- + +"Here's the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!" + +Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to +console the widowed proprietress. + +"Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you +had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because Gibelotte +shook a counterpane out of your window?" + +"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going +to put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the +counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic +window into the street, that the government collected a fine of a +hundred francs. If that isn't an abomination, what is!" + +"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you." + +Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit +which she was to derive from these reprisals made on her account. She +was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received +a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain to her father, and +cried for vengeance, saying: "Father, you owe my husband affront for +affront." The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" +"On the left cheek." The father slapped her right cheek and said: "Now +you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter's +ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife's." + +The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought under +their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of +vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket filled with +fire-pots, "left over from the King's festival." This festival was very +recent, having taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these +munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pepin. +They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, +the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all +the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondetour, du Cygne, des +Precheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie. + +Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades +were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting on the +Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut off the Rue +de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondetour, on the side of +the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was +constructed only of casks and paving-stones. There were about fifty +workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had +effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop. + +Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this +troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols, +another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-horn +slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper +and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who was shouting: +"Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the point of our +bayonet." This man had no bayonet. Another spread out over his coat the +cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman, the cover of the +cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription in red worsted: +Public Order. There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the +legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to +this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed +longshoremen. All were in haste; and as they helped each other, they +discussed the possible chances. That they would receive succor about +three o'clock in the morning--that they were sure of one regiment, that +Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of +cordial joviality. One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did +not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, +that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. A fire had been +lighted in the kitchen, and there they were engaged in moulding into +bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of +the establishment. In the midst of it all, they drank. Caps and +buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with glasses of wine. In +the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously +modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another +breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and +making lint; three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, +jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen +with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble. + +The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had +observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the +Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making +himself useful there. Gavroche was working on the larger one. As for the +young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who +had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when +the omnibus had been overturned. + +Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get +everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted, +whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for the encouragement of +all. Had he any incentive? Yes, certainly, his poverty; had he wings? +yes, certainly, his joy. Gavroche was a whirlwind. He was constantly +visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was +everywhere at once. He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt +was possible with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches. +He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated the weary, +he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in some, +and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now pricking +a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted, paused, flew off again, +hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party to +another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole company; a fly on +the immense revolutionary coach. + +Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor in his +little lungs. + +"Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines! Where are you +now? A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with! Your barricade +is very small. It must be carried up. Put everything on it, fling +everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is +Mother Gibou's tea. Hullo, here's a glass door." + +This elicited an exclamation from the workers. + +"A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door, tubercle?" + +"Hercules yourselves!" retorted Gavroche. "A glass door is an excellent +thing in a barricade. It does not prevent an attack, but it prevents the +enemy taking it. So you've never prigged apples over a wall where there +were broken bottles? A glass door cuts the corns of the National Guard +when they try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a treacherous +thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades." + +However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went from one to +another, demanding: "A gun, I want a gun! Why don't you give me a gun?" + +"Give you a gun!" said Combeferre. + +"Come now!" said Gavroche, "why not? I had one in 1830 when we had a +dispute with Charles X." + +Enjolras shrugged his shoulders. + +"When there are enough for the men, we will give some to the children." + +Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:-- + +"If you are killed before me, I shall take yours." + +"Gamin!" said Enjolras. + +"Greenhorn!" said Gavroche. + +A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the street +created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:-- + +"Come with us, young fellow! well now, don't we do anything for this old +country of ours?" + +The dandy fled. + + + + +CHAPTER V--PREPARATIONS + +The journals of the day which said that that nearly impregnable +structure, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call +it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The fact is, +that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was +built in such a manner that the combatants could, at their will, either +disappear behind it or dominate the barrier and even scale its crest by +means of a quadruple row of paving-stones placed on top of each other +and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the +barricade, composed of piles of paving-stones and casks bound together +by beams and planks, which were entangled in the wheels of Anceau's dray +and of the overturned omnibus, had a bristling and inextricable aspect. + +An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made +between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which +was furthest from the wine-shop, so that an exit was possible at this +point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with +ropes, and a red flag, fastened to this pole, floated over the +barricade. + +The little Mondetour barricade, hidden behind the wine-shop building, +was not visible. The two barricades united formed a veritable redoubt. +Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought fit to barricade the other +fragment of the Rue Mondetour which opens through the Rue des Precheurs +an issue into the Halles, wishing, no doubt, to preserve a possible +communication with the outside, and not entertaining much fear of +an attack through the dangerous and difficult street of the Rue des +Precheurs. + +With the exception of this issue which was left free, and which +constituted what Folard in his strategical style would have termed a +branch and taking into account, also, the narrow cutting arranged on the +Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, where the wine-shop +formed a salient angle, presented an irregular square, closed on all +sides. There existed an interval of twenty paces between the grand +barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street, +so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all +inhabited, but closed from top to bottom. + +All this work was performed without any hindrance, in less than an hour, +and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bear-skin cap or +a single bayonet make their appearance. The very bourgeois who still +ventured at this hour of riot to enter the Rue Saint-Denis cast a +glance at the Rue de la Chanvrerie, caught sight of the barricade, and +redoubled their pace. + +The two barricades being finished, and the flag run up, a table was +dragged out of the wine-shop; and Courfeyrac mounted on the table. +Enjolras brought the square coffer, and Courfeyrac opened it. This +coffer was filled with cartridges. When the mob saw the cartridges, a +tremor ran through the bravest, and a momentary silence ensued. + +Courfeyrac distributed them with a smile. + +Each one received thirty cartridges. Many had powder, and set about +making others with the bullets which they had run. As for the barrel of +powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in +reserve. + +The alarm beat which ran through all Paris, did not cease, but it had +finally come to be nothing more than a monotonous noise to which they no +longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times, and again drew +near, with melancholy undulations. + +They loaded the guns and carbines, all together, without haste, with +solemn gravity. Enjolras went and stationed three sentinels outside the +barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des +Precheurs, the third at the corner of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. + +Then, the barricades having been built, the posts assigned, the guns +loaded, the sentinels stationed, they waited, alone in those redoubtable +streets through which no one passed any longer, surrounded by those +dumb houses which seemed dead and in which no human movement palpitated, +enveloped in the deepening shades of twilight which was drawing on, +in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt +advancing, and which had about it something tragic and terrifying, +isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WAITING + +During those hours of waiting, what did they do? + +We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history. + +While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan +of melted brass and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a +glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the +barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an +eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, +Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and +united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their +student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been +converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt +which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting +against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to +a supreme hour, began to recite love verses. + +What verses? These:-- + + Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie, + Lorsque nous etions si jeunes tous deux, + Et que nous n'avions au coeur d'autre envie + Que d'etre bien mis et d'etre amoureux, + + Lorsqu'en ajoutant votre age a mon age, + Nous ne comptions pas a deux quarante ans, + Et que, dans notre humble et petit menage, + Tout, meme l'hiver, nous etait printemps? + + Beaux jours! Manuel etait fier et sage, + Paris s'asseyait a de saints banquets, + Foy lancait la foudre, et votre corsage + Avait une epingle ou je me piquais. + + Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes, + Quand je vous menais au Prado diner, + Vous etiez jolie au point que les roses + Me faisaient l'effet de se retourner. + + Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle! + Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux a flots! + Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile, + Son bonnet charmant est a peine eclos. + + J'errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple. + Les passants crovaient que l'amour charme + Avait marie, dans notre heureux couple, + Le doux mois d'avril au beau mois de mai. + + Nous vivions caches, contents, porte close, + Devorant l'amour, bon fruit defendu, + Ma bouche n'avait pas dit une chose + Que deja ton coeur avait repondu. + + La Sorbonne etait l'endroit bucolique + Ou je t'adorais du soir au matin. + C'est ainsi qu'une ame amoureuse applique + La carte du Tendre au pays Latin. + + O place Maubert! o place Dauphine! + Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier, + Tu tirais ton bas sur ton jambe fine, + Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier. + + J'ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m'en reste; + Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, + Tu me demontrais la bonte celeste + Avec une fleur que tu me donnais. + + Je t'obeissais, tu m' etais soumise; + O grenier dore! te lacer! te voir + Aller et venir des l'aube en chemise, + Mirant ton jeune front a ton vieux miroir. + + Et qui done pourrait perde la memoire + De ces temps d'aurore et de firmament, + De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire, + Ou l'amour begaye un argot charmant? + + Nos jardins etaient un pot de tulipe; + Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon; + Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe, + Et je te donnais le tasse en japon. + + Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire! + Ton manchon brule, ton boa perdu! + Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakespeare + Qu'un soir pour souper nons avons vendu! + + J'etais mendiant et toi charitable. + Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds. + Dante in folio nous servait de table + Pour manger gaiment un cent de marrons. + + La premiere fois qu'en mon joyeux bouge + Je pris un baiser a ton levre en feu, + Quand tu t'en allais decoiffee et rouge, + Je restai tout pale et je crus en Dieu! + + Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre, + Et tous ces fichus changes en chiffons? + Oh que de soupirs, de nos coeurs pleins d'ombre, + Se sont envoles dans les cieux profonds![53] + + +The hour, the spot, these souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars +which began to twinkle in the sky, the funeral repose of those deserted +streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in +preparation, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low +tone in the dusk by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we have said, was a gentle +poet. + +In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in +the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on +Shrove-Tuesday in front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way +to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +The torch had been placed in a sort of cage of paving-stones closed on +three sides to shelter it from the wind, and disposed in such a fashion +that all the light fell on the flag. The street and the barricade +remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag +formidably illuminated as by an enormous dark-lantern. + +This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag, with an indescribable and +terrible purple. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES + +Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard +was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, +badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, +was a sign that the Government was taking its time, and collecting its +forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand. + +Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls +on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, +who had set to making cartridges in the tap-room, by the dubious light +of two candles placed on the counter by way of precaution, on account of +the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no +gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any +light in the upper stories. + +Gavroche was deeply preoccupied at that moment, but not precisely with +his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered +the tap-room and had seated himself at the table which was the least +lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it +between his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, distracted +by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man. + +When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, +admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street +urchin sprang to his feet. Any one who had spied upon that man up to +that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the +barricade and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention; but, +from the moment when he had entered this room, he had fallen into a sort +of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on. +The gamin approached this pensive personage, and began to step around +him on tiptoe, as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is +afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which +was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so +gay and so heart-breaking, passed all those grimaces of an old man which +signify: Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this +be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his +heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a +bird, expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip. He +was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, dazzled. He had the +mien of the chief of the eunuchs in the slave mart, discovering a +Venus among the blowsy females, and the air of an amateur recognizing +a Raphael in a heap of daubs. His whole being was at work, the instinct +which scents out, and the intelligence which combines. It was evident +that a great event had happened in Gavroche's life. + +It was at the most intense point of this preoccupation that Enjolras +accosted him. + +"You are small," said Enjolras, "you will not be seen. Go out of the +barricade, slip along close to the houses, skirmish about a bit in the +streets, and come back and tell me what is going on." + +Gavroche raised himself on his haunches. + +"So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll +go! In the meanwhile, trust to the little fellows, and distrust the big +ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, +as he indicated the man of the Rue des Billettes: "Do you see that big +fellow there?" + +"Well?" + +"He's a police spy." + +"Are you sure of it?" + +"It isn't two weeks since he pulled me off the cornice of the Port +Royal, where I was taking the air, by my ear." + +Enjolras hastily quitted the urchin and murmured a few words in a very +low tone to a longshoreman from the winedocks who chanced to be at hand. +The man left the room, and returned almost immediately, accompanied by +three others. The four men, four porters with broad shoulders, went +and placed themselves without doing anything to attract his attention, +behind the table on which the man of the Rue des Billettes was leaning +with his elbows. They were evidently ready to hurl themselves upon him. + +Then Enjolras approached the man and demanded of him:-- + +"Who are you?" + +At this abrupt query, the man started. He plunged his gaze deep into +Enjolras' clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter's meaning. He +smiled with a smile than which nothing more disdainful, more energetic, +and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty +gravity:-- + +"I see what it is. Well, yes!" + +"You are a police spy?" + +"I am an agent of the authorities." + +"And your name?" + +"Javert." + +Enjolras made a sign to the four men. In the twinkling of an eye, before +Javert had time to turn round, he was collared, thrown down, pinioned +and searched. + +They found on him a little round card pasted between two pieces of +glass, and bearing on one side the arms of France, engraved, and with +this motto: Supervision and vigilance, and on the other this note: +"JAVERT, inspector of police, aged fifty-two," and the signature of the +Prefect of Police of that day, M. Gisquet. + +Besides this, he had his watch and his purse, which contained several +gold pieces. They left him his purse and his watch. Under the watch, +at the bottom of his fob, they felt and seized a paper in an envelope, +which Enjolras unfolded, and on which he read these five lines, written +in the very hand of the Prefect of Police:-- + +"As soon as his political mission is accomplished, Inspector Javert +will make sure, by special supervision, whether it is true that the +malefactors have instituted intrigues on the right bank of the Seine, +near the Jena bridge." + +The search ended, they lifted Javert to his feet, bound his arms behind +his back, and fastened him to that celebrated post in the middle of the +room which had formerly given the wine-shop its name. + +Gavroche, who had looked on at the whole of this scene and had approved +of everything with a silent toss of his head, stepped up to Javert and +said to him:-- + +"It's the mouse who has caught the cat." + +All this was so rapidly executed, that it was all over when those about +the wine-shop noticed it. + +Javert had not uttered a single cry. + +At the sight of Javert bound to the post, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, +Combeferre, and the men scattered over the two barricades came running +up. + +Javert, with his back to the post, and so surrounded with ropes that he +could not make a movement, raised his head with the intrepid serenity of +the man who has never lied. + +"He is a police spy," said Enjolras. + +And turning to Javert: "You will be shot ten minutes before the +barricade is taken." + +Javert replied in his most imperious tone:-- + +"Why not at once?" + +"We are saving our powder." + +"Then finish the business with a blow from a knife." + +"Spy," said the handsome Enjolras, "we are judges and not assassins." + +Then he called Gavroche:-- + +"Here you! go about your business! Do what I told you!" + +"I'm going!" cried Gavroche. + +And halting as he was on the point of setting out:-- + +"By the way, you will give me his gun!" and he added: "I leave you the +musician, but I want the clarionet." + +The gamin made the military salute and passed gayly through the opening +in the large barricade. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MANY INTERROGATION POINTS WITH REGARD TO A CERTAIN LE +CABUC WHOSE NAME MAY NOT HAVE BEEN LE CABUC + +The tragic picture which we have undertaken would not be complete, the +reader would not see those grand moments of social birth-pangs in a +revolutionary birth, which contain convulsion mingled with effort, +in their exact and real relief, were we to omit, in the sketch here +outlined, an incident full of epic and savage horror which occurred +almost immediately after Gavroche's departure. + +Mobs, as the reader knows, are like a snowball, and collect as they +roll along, a throng of tumultuous men. These men do not ask each other +whence they come. Among the passers-by who had joined the rabble led by +Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, there had been a person wearing +the jacket of a street porter, which was very threadbare on the +shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated, and who had the look of a +drunken savage. This man, whose name or nickname was Le Cabuc, and who +was, moreover, an utter stranger to those who pretended to know him, +was very drunk, or assumed the appearance of being so, and had seated +himself with several others at a table which they had dragged outside +of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk +seemed to be examining with a thoughtful air the large house at the +extremity of the barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole +street and faced the Rue Saint-Denis. All at once he exclaimed:-- + +"Do you know, comrades, it is from that house yonder that we must fire. +When we are at the windows, the deuce is in it if any one can advance +into the street!" + +"Yes, but the house is closed," said one of the drinkers. + +"Let us knock!" + +"They will not open." + +"Let us break in the door!" + +Le Cabuc runs to the door, which had a very massive knocker, and knocks. +The door opens not. He strikes a second blow. No one answers. A third +stroke. The same silence. + +"Is there any one here?" shouts Cabuc. + +Nothing stirs. + +Then he seizes a gun and begins to batter the door with the butt end. + +It was an ancient alley door, low, vaulted, narrow, solid, entirely of +oak, lined on the inside with a sheet of iron and iron stays, a genuine +prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house +tremble, but did not shake the door. + +Nevertheless, it is probable that the inhabitants were disturbed, for a +tiny, square window was finally seen to open on the third story, and at +this aperture appeared the reverend and terrified face of a gray-haired +old man, who was the porter, and who held a candle. + +The man who was knocking paused. + +"Gentlemen," said the porter, "what do you want?" + +"Open!" said Cabuc. + +"That cannot be, gentlemen." + +"Open, nevertheless." + +"Impossible, gentlemen." + +Le Cabuc took his gun and aimed at the porter; but as he was below, and +as it was very dark, the porter did not see him. + +"Will you open, yes or no?" + +"No, gentlemen." + +"Do you say no?" + +"I say no, my goo--" + +The porter did not finish. The shot was fired; the ball entered under +his chin and came out at the nape of his neck, after traversing the +jugular vein. + +The old man fell back without a sigh. The candle fell and was +extinguished, and nothing more was to be seen except a motionless head +lying on the sill of the small window, and a little whitish smoke which +floated off towards the roof. + +"There!" said Le Cabuc, dropping the butt end of his gun to the +pavement. + +He had hardly uttered this word, when he felt a hand laid on his +shoulder with the weight of an eagle's talon, and he heard a voice +saying to him:-- + +"On your knees." + +The murderer turned round and saw before him Enjolras' cold, white face. + +Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. + +He had hastened up at the sound of the discharge. + +He had seized Cabuc's collar, blouse, shirt, and suspender with his left +hand. + +"On your knees!" he repeated. + +And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent +the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees +in the mire. + +Le Cabuc attempted to resist, but he seemed to have been seized by a +superhuman hand. + +Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman's +face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. +His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek +profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, +as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice. + +The whole barricade hastened up, then all ranged themselves in a circle +at a distance, feeling that it was impossible to utter a word in the +presence of the thing which they were about to behold. + +Le Cabuc, vanquished, no longer tried to struggle, and trembled in every +limb. + +Enjolras released him and drew out his watch. + +"Collect yourself," said he. "Think or pray. You have one minute." + +"Mercy!" murmured the murderer; then he dropped his head and stammered a +few inarticulate oaths. + +Enjolras never took his eyes off of him: he allowed a minute to pass, +then he replaced his watch in his fob. That done, he grasped Le Cabuc +by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and +shrieked, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to his ear. Many of those +intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of +adventures, turned aside their heads. + +An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement face +downwards. + +Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced and severe glance +around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said:-- + +"Throw that outside." + +Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which was still +agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the life that had fled, +and flung it over the little barricade into the Rue Mondetour. + +Enjolras was thoughtful. It is impossible to say what grandiose shadows +slowly spread over his redoubtable serenity. All at once he raised his +voice. + +A silence fell upon them. + +"Citizens," said Enjolras, "what that man did is frightful, what I have +done is horrible. He killed, therefore I killed him. I had to do it, +because insurrection must have its discipline. Assassination is even +more of a crime here than elsewhere; we are under the eyes of the +Revolution, we are the priests of the Republic, we are the victims of +duty, and must not be possible to slander our combat. I have, therefore, +tried that man, and condemned him to death. As for myself, constrained +as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged +myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself." + +Those who listened to him shuddered. + +"We will share thy fate," cried Combeferre. + +"So be it," replied Enjolras. "One word more. In executing this man, +I have obeyed necessity; but necessity is a monster of the old world, +necessity's name is Fatality. Now, the law of progress is, that monsters +shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before +Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I +do pronounce it. And I glorify it. Love, the future is thine. Death, I +make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will +be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor +bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no +more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth +will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, +citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it +will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to +die." + +Enjolras ceased. His virgin lips closed; and he remained for some time +standing on the spot where he had shed blood, in marble immobility. His +staring eye caused those about him to speak in low tones. + +Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each other's hands silently, and, +leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched +with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young +man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also +of rock. + +Let us say at once that later on, after the action, when the bodies were +taken to the morgue and searched, a police agent's card was found on Le +Cabuc. The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special +report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832. + +We will add, that if we are to believe a tradition of the police, which +is strange but probably well founded, Le Cabuc was Claquesous. The fact +is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any +question of Claquesous. Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his +disappearance; he would seem to have amalgamated himself with the +invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night. + +The whole insurgent group was still under the influence of the emotion +of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly +terminated, when Courfeyrac again beheld on the barricade, the small +young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius. + +This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the +insurgents. + + + + +BOOK THIRTEENTH.--MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW + + + + +CHAPTER I--FROM THE RUE PLUMET TO THE QUARTIER SAINT-DENIS + +The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the +barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect +of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented +itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness +offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the +gloom before despair, are tempting. Marius thrust aside the bar which +had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said: "I +will go." + +Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid in his +brain, incapable of accepting anything thenceforth of fate after those +two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love, overwhelmed at +once by all the reveries of despair, he had but one desire remaining, to +make a speedy end of all. + +He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed, as he +had Javert's pistols with him. + +The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had +vanished from his sight in the street. + +Marius, who had emerged from the Rue Plumet by the boulevard, traversed +the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champs Elysees, the +Place Louis XV., and reached the Rue de Rivoli. The shops were open +there, the gas was burning under the arcades, women were making their +purchases in the stalls, people were eating ices in the Cafe Laiter, +and nibbling small cakes at the English pastry-cook's shop. Only a few +posting-chaises were setting out at a gallop from the Hotel des Princes +and the Hotel Meurice. + +Marius entered the Rue Saint-Honore through the Passage Delorme. There +the shops were closed, the merchants were chatting in front of their +half-open doors, people were walking about, the street lanterns were +lighted, beginning with the first floor, all the windows were lighted as +usual. There was cavalry on the Place du Palais-Royal. + +Marius followed the Rue Saint-Honore. In proportion as he left the +Palais-Royal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows, the shops +were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew +sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the +passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in +this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull, deep murmur. + +Near the fountain of the Arbre-Sec, there were "assemblages", motionless +and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came as stones in the +midst of running water. + +At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked. +It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable +block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in low tones. +There were hardly any black coats or round hats now, but smock frocks, +blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads. This multitude +undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the +hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not one of them was walking, a +dull trampling was audible in the mire. Beyond this dense portion of +the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the Rue des Prouvaires, and in the +extension of the Rue Saint-Honore, there was no longer a single window +in which a candle was burning. Only the solitary and diminishing rows +of lanterns could be seen vanishing into the street in the distance. The +lanterns of that date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes, and +shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider. +These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns, +moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer passed that +limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and the army +began. + +Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been +summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng and to +pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols, he avoided the +sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Bethisy, and directed +his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais, +there were no longer any lanterns. + +After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits of +the troops; he found himself in something startling. There was no longer +a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light, there was no one; +solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized hold upon +one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar. + +He continued to advance. + +He took a few steps. Some one passed close to him at a run. Was it a +man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told. It had +passed and vanished. + +Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he judged +to be the Rue de la Poterie; near the middle of this street, he came in +contact with an obstacle. He extended his hands. It was an overturned +wagon; his foot recognized pools of water, gullies, and paving-stones +scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. +He climbed over the stones and found himself on the other side of the +barrier. He walked very near the street-posts, and guided himself along +the walls of the houses. A little beyond the barricade, it seemed to him +that he could make out something white in front of him. He approached, +it took on a form. It was two white horses; the horses of the omnibus +harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying at random all +day from street to street, and had finally halted there, with the weary +patience of brutes who no more understand the actions of men, than man +understands the actions of Providence. + +Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which +seemed to him to be the Rue du Contrat-Social, a shot coming no one +knows whence, and traversing the darkness at random, whistled close by +him, and the bullet pierced a brass shaving-dish suspended above his +head over a hairdresser's shop. This pierced shaving-dish was still +to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the +pillars of the market. + +This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered +nothing more. + +The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. + +Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward. + + + + +CHAPTER II--AN OWL'S VIEW OF PARIS + +A being who could have hovered over Paris that night with the wing of +the bat or the owl would have had beneath his eyes a gloomy spectacle. + +All that old quarter of the Halles, which is like a city within a +city, through which run the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, where a +thousand lanes cross, and of which the insurgents had made their +redoubt and their stronghold, would have appeared to him like a dark and +enormous cavity hollowed out in the centre of Paris. There the glance +fell into an abyss. Thanks to the broken lanterns, thanks to the closed +windows, there all radiance, all life, all sound, all movement ceased. +The invisible police of the insurrection were on the watch everywhere, +and maintained order, that is to say, night. The necessary tactics of +insurrection are to drown small numbers in a vast obscurity, to multiply +every combatant by the possibilities which that obscurity contains. At +dusk, every window where a candle was burning received a shot. The light +was extinguished, sometimes the inhabitant was killed. Hence nothing was +stirring. There was nothing but fright, mourning, stupor in the houses; +and in the streets, a sort of sacred horror. Not even the long rows of +windows and stores, the indentations of the chimneys, and the roofs, +and the vague reflections which are cast back by the wet and muddy +pavements, were visible. An eye cast upward at that mass of shadows +might, perhaps, have caught a glimpse here and there, at intervals, +of indistinct gleams which brought out broken and eccentric lines, and +profiles of singular buildings, something like the lights which go and +come in ruins; it was at such points that the barricades were situated. +The rest was a lake of obscurity, foggy, heavy, and funereal, above +which, in motionless and melancholy outlines, rose the tower of +Saint-Jacques, the church of Saint-Merry, and two or three more of those +grand edifices of which man makes giants and the night makes phantoms. + +All around this deserted and disquieting labyrinth, in the quarters +where the Parisian circulation had not been annihilated, and where a +few street lanterns still burned, the aerial observer might have +distinguished the metallic gleam of swords and bayonets, the dull rumble +of artillery, and the swarming of silent battalions whose ranks were +swelling from minute to minute; a formidable girdle which was slowly +drawing in and around the insurrection. + +The invested quarter was no longer anything more than a monstrous +cavern; everything there appeared to be asleep or motionless, and, as we +have just seen, any street which one might come to offered nothing but +darkness. + +A wild darkness, full of traps, full of unseen and formidable shocks, +into which it was alarming to penetrate, and in which it was terrible to +remain, where those who entered shivered before those whom they awaited, +where those who waited shuddered before those who were coming. Invisible +combatants were entrenched at every corner of the street; snares of the +sepulchre concealed in the density of night. All was over. No more +light was to be hoped for, henceforth, except the lightning of guns, +no further encounter except the abrupt and rapid apparition of death. +Where? How? When? No one knew, but it was certain and inevitable. In +this place which had been marked out for the struggle, the Government +and the insurrection, the National Guard, and popular societies, the +bourgeois and the uprising, groping their way, were about to come into +contact. The necessity was the same for both. The only possible issue +thenceforth was to emerge thence killed or conquerors. A situation so +extreme, an obscurity so powerful, that the most timid felt themselves +seized with resolution, and the most daring with terror. + +Moreover, on both sides, the fury, the rage, and the determination were +equal. For the one party, to advance meant death, and no one dreamed of +retreating; for the other, to remain meant death, and no one dreamed of +flight. + +It was indispensable that all should be ended on the following day, that +triumph should rest either here or there, that the insurrection should +prove itself a revolution or a skirmish. The Government understood this +as well as the parties; the most insignificant bourgeois felt it. Hence +a thought of anguish which mingled with the impenetrable gloom of this +quarter where all was at the point of being decided; hence a redoubled +anxiety around that silence whence a catastrophe was on the point of +emerging. Here only one sound was audible, a sound as heart-rending +as the death rattle, as menacing as a malediction, the tocsin of +Saint-Merry. Nothing could be more blood-curdling than the clamor of +that wild and desperate bell, wailing amid the shadows. + +As it often happens, nature seemed to have fallen into accord with what +men were about to do. Nothing disturbed the harmony of the whole effect. +The stars had disappeared, heavy clouds filled the horizon with their +melancholy folds. A black sky rested on these dead streets, as though an +immense winding-sheet were being outspread over this immense tomb. + +While a battle that was still wholly political was in preparation in the +same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, +while youth, the secret associations, the schools, in the name of +principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were +approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and +throwing each other, while each one hastened and invited the last and +decisive hour of the crisis, far away and quite outside of this fatal +quarter, in the most profound depths of the unfathomable cavities of +that wretched old Paris which disappears under the splendor of happy +and opulent Paris, the sombre voice of the people could be heard giving +utterance to a dull roar. + +A fearful and sacred voice which is composed of the roar of the brute +and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the +wise, which comes both from below like the voice of the lion, and from +on high like the voice of the thunder. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE EXTREME EDGE + +Marius had reached the Halles. + +There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless than +in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace +of the sepulchre had sprung forth from the earth and had spread over the +heavens. + +Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the +lofty roofs of the houses which barred the Rue de la Chanvrerie on +the Saint-Eustache side. It was the reflection of the torch which was +burning in the Corinthe barricade. Marius directed his steps towards +that red light. It had drawn him to the Marche-aux-Poirees, and he +caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Precheurs. He entered +it. The insurgents' sentinel, who was guarding the other end, did not +see him. He felt that he was very close to that which he had come in +search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow +of that short section of the Rue Mondetour which was, as the reader will +remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with the +outside world. At the corner of the last house, on his left, he thrust +his head forward, and looked into the fragment of the Rue Mondetour. + +A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie which +cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, +he perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wine-shop, and +beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men +crouching down with guns on their knees. All this was ten fathoms +distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade. + +The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of +the wine-shop, the large barricade, and the flag from him. + +Marius had but a step more to take. + +Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms, +and fell to thinking about his father. + +He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy, who had been so proud a +soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and +had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa, +Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who +had left on all the victorious battle-fields of Europe drops of that +same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray +before his time in discipline and command, who had lived with his +sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade +blackened with powder, his brow furrowed with his helmet, in barracks, +in camp, in the bivouac, in ambulances, and who, at the expiration of +twenty years, had returned from the great wars with a scarred cheek, a +smiling countenance, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done +everything for France and nothing against her. + +He said to himself that his day had also come now, that his hour had +struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself +brave, intrepid, bold, to run to meet the bullets, to offer his breast +to bayonets, to shed his blood, to seek the enemy, to seek death, that +he was about to wage war in his turn and descend to the field of battle, +and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the +street, and that the war in which he was about to engage was civil war! + +He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this he +was about to fall. Then he shuddered. + +He thought of his father's sword, which his grandfather had sold to a +second-hand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted. He said to +himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done well to escape from +him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom; that if it had thus fled, it +was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future; +that it had had a presentiment of this rebellion, the war of the +gutters, the war of the pavements, fusillades through cellar-windows, +blows given and received in the rear; it was because, coming from +Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish to go to the Rue de la +Chanvrerie; it was because, after what it had done with the father, it +did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that sword +were there, if after taking possession of it at his father's pillow, +he had dared to take it and carry it off for this combat of darkness +between Frenchmen in the streets, it would assuredly have scorched his +hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword of the angel! +He told himself that it was fortunate that it was not there and that +it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was just, that his +grandfather had been the true guardian of his father's glory, and that +it was far better that the colonel's sword should be sold at auction, +sold to the old-clothes man, thrown among the old junk, than that it +should, to-day, wound the side of his country. + +And then he fell to weeping bitterly. + +This was horrible. But what was he to do? Live without Cosette he could +not. Since she was gone, he must needs die. Had he not given her his +word of honor that he would die? She had gone knowing that; this meant +that it pleased her that Marius should die. And then, it was clear that +she no longer loved him, since she had departed thus without warning, +without a word, without a letter, although she knew his address! What +was the good of living, and why should he live now? And then, what! +should he retreat after going so far? should he flee from danger after +having approached it? should he slip away after having come and peeped +into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying: "After all, I +have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is +civil war, and I shall take my leave!" Should he abandon his friends who +were expecting him? Who were in need of him possibly! who were a mere +handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to +country, to his word? Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of +patriotism? But this was impossible, and if the phantom of his father +was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on +the loins with the flat of his sword, and shout to him: "March on, you +poltroon!" + +Thus a prey to the conflicting movements of his thoughts, he dropped his +head. + +All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been +effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought which +is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave; it makes one see clearly to +be near death. The vision of the action into which he felt that he +was, perhaps, on the point of entering, appeared to him no more +as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly +transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before the +eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery +recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left none of +them unanswered. + +Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases +where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? What was there that was +degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was about +to begin? It is no longer Montmirail nor Champaubert; it is something +quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,--but +of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. +But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty +smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her +wound. And then if we look at things from a still more lofty point of +view, why do we speak of civil war? + +Civil war--what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war +between men, war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object. +There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is only just and +unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, +war, that at least which is the effort of the future, which is hastening +on against the past, which is lagging in the rear, may be necessary. +What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, +the sword does not become a disgrace, except when it is used for +assassinating the right, progress, reason, civilization, truth. Then +war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous; it is called crime. +Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does +one form of man despise another? By what right should the sword of +Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Leonidas against the +stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is +the defender, the other the liberator. Shall we brand every appeal +to arms within a city's limits without taking the object into a +consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von +Blankenheim, Coligny, Hedgerow war? War of the streets? Why not? That +was the war of Ambiorix, of Artevelde, of Marnix, of Pelagius. But +Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against +Spain, Pelagius against the Moors; all against the foreigner. Well, the +monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is +a stranger. Despotism violates the moral frontier, an invasion violates +the geographical frontier. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the +English, in both cases, regaining possession of one's own territory. +There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices; after +philosophy, action is required; live force finishes what the idea +has sketched out; Prometheus chained begins, Arostogeiton ends; the +encyclopedia enlightens souls, the 10th of August electrifies them. +After AEschylus, Thrasybulus; after Diderot, Danton. Multitudes have +a tendency to accept the master. Their mass bears witness to apathy. +A crowd is easily led as a whole to obedience. Men must be stirred up, +pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance, +their eyes must be wounded by the true, light must be hurled at them +in terrible handfuls. They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at +their own well-being; this dazzling awakens them. Hence the necessity +of tocsins and wars. Great combatants must rise, must enlighten nations +with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered +with gloom by the right divine, Caesarian glory, force, fanaticism, +irresponsible power, and absolute majesty; a rabble stupidly occupied in +the contemplation, in their twilight splendor, of these sombre triumphs +of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking? Do you +call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No; no more than Louis XVI. Both of them +are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles +are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the +peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no concessions, +then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine +right in Louis XVI., there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe; both +represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in order +to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated; it must +be done, France being always the one to begin. When the master falls +in France, he falls everywhere. In short, what cause is more just, and +consequently, what war is greater, than that which re-establishes +social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores the people to the +people, restores sovereignty to man, replaces the purple on the head of +France, restores equity and reason in their plenitude, suppresses every +germ of antagonism by restoring each one to himself, annihilates the +obstacle which royalty presents to the whole immense universal concord, +and places the human race once more on a level with the right? These +wars build up peace. An enormous fortress of prejudices, privileges, +superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses, violences, iniquities, and +darkness still stands erect in this world, with its towers of hatred. +It must be cast down. This monstrous mass must be made to crumble. To +conquer at Austerlitz is grand; to take the Bastille is immense. + +There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case--the soul,--and +therein lies the marvel of its unity complicated with ubiquity, has +a strange aptitude for reasoning almost coldly in the most violent +extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound +despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects +and discuss theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion, and the thread +of the syllogism floats, without breaking, in the mournful storm of +thought. This was the situation of Marius' mind. + +As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, hesitating in every +direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his +glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents +were here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there +was perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of +expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius +descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly +attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Below, +by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the paving-stones, +this head could be vaguely distinguished. Nothing could be stranger, in +that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless, astonished +face, with its bristling hair, its eyes fixed and staring, and its +yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of curiosity. One +would have said that the man who was dead was surveying those who were +about to die. A long trail of blood which had flowed from that head, +descended in reddish threads from the window to the height of the first +floor, where it stopped. + + + + +BOOK FOURTEENTH.--THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR + +[Illustration: The Grandeurs of Despair 4b-14-1-despair] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE FLAG: ACT FIRST + +As yet, nothing had come. Ten o'clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. +Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in +hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer addressed +each other, they listened, seeking to catch even the faintest and most +distant sound of marching. + +Suddenly, in the midst of the dismal calm, a clear, gay, young voice, +which seemed to come from the Rue Saint-Denis, rose and began to sing +distinctly, to the old popular air of "By the Light of the Moon," this +bit of poetry, terminated by a cry like the crow of a cock:-- + + Mon nez est en larmes, + Mon ami Bugeaud, + Prete moi tes gendarmes + Pour leur dire un mot. + + En capote bleue, + La poule au shako, + Voici la banlieue! + Co-cocorico![54] + + +They pressed each other's hands. + +"That is Gavroche," said Enjolras. + +"He is warning us," said Combeferre. + +A hasty rush troubled the deserted street; they beheld a being more +agile than a clown climb over the omnibus, and Gavroche bounded into the +barricade, all breathless, saying:-- + +"My gun! Here they are!" + +An electric quiver shot through the whole barricade, and the sound of +hands seeking their guns became audible. + +"Would you like my carbine?" said Enjolras to the lad. + +"I want a big gun," replied Gavroche. + +And he seized Javert's gun. + +Two sentinels had fallen back, and had come in almost at the same moment +as Gavroche. They were the sentinels from the end of the street, and the +vidette of the Rue de la Petite-Truanderie. The vidette of the Lane des +Precheurs had remained at his post, which indicated that nothing was +approaching from the direction of the bridges and Halles. + +The Rue de la Chanvrerie, of which a few paving-stones alone were dimly +visible in the reflection of the light projected on the flag, offered +to the insurgents the aspect of a vast black door vaguely opened into a +smoke. + +Each man had taken up his position for the conflict. + +Forty-three insurgents, among whom were Enjolras, Combeferre, +Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and Gavroche, were kneeling inside +the large barricade, with their heads on a level with the crest of the +barrier, the barrels of their guns and carbines aimed on the stones as +though at loop-holes, attentive, mute, ready to fire. Six, commanded +by Feuilly, had installed themselves, with their guns levelled at their +shoulders, at the windows of the two stories of Corinthe. + +Several minutes passed thus, then a sound of footsteps, measured, heavy, +and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of Saint-Leu. +This sound, faint at first, then precise, then heavy and sonorous, +approached slowly, without halt, without intermission, with a tranquil +and terrible continuity. Nothing was to be heard but this. It was that +combined silence and sound, of the statue of the commander, but this +stony step had something indescribably enormous and multiple about it +which awakened the idea of a throng, and, at the same time, the idea +of a spectre. One thought one heard the terrible statue Legion marching +onward. This tread drew near; it drew still nearer, and stopped. It +seemed as though the breathing of many men could be heard at the end of +the street. Nothing was to be seen, however, but at the bottom of that +dense obscurity there could be distinguished a multitude of metallic +threads, as fine as needles and almost imperceptible, which moved about +like those indescribable phosphoric networks which one sees beneath +one's closed eyelids, in the first mists of slumber at the moment +when one is dropping off to sleep. These were bayonets and gun-barrels +confusedly illuminated by the distant reflection of the torch. + +A pause ensued, as though both sides were waiting. All at once, from the +depths of this darkness, a voice, which was all the more sinister, since +no one was visible, and which appeared to be the gloom itself speaking, +shouted:-- + +"Who goes there?" + +At the same time, the click of guns, as they were lowered into position, +was heard. + +Enjolras replied in a haughty and vibrating tone:-- + +"The French Revolution!" + +"Fire!" shouted the voice. + +A flash empurpled all the facades in the street as though the door of a +furnace had been flung open, and hastily closed again. + +A fearful detonation burst forth on the barricade. The red flag fell. +The discharge had been so violent and so dense that it had cut the +staff, that is to say, the very tip of the omnibus pole. + +Bullets which had rebounded from the cornices of the houses penetrated +the barricade and wounded several men. + +The impression produced by this first discharge was freezing. The attack +had been rough, and of a nature to inspire reflection in the boldest. +It was evident that they had to deal with an entire regiment at the very +least. + +"Comrades!" shouted Courfeyrac, "let us not waste our powder. Let us +wait until they are in the street before replying." + +"And, above all," said Enjolras, "let us raise the flag again." + +He picked up the flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. + +Outside, the clatter of the ramrods in the guns could be heard; the +troops were re-loading their arms. + +Enjolras went on:-- + +"Who is there here with a bold heart? Who will plant the flag on the +barricade again?" + +Not a man responded. To mount on the barricade at the very moment when, +without any doubt, it was again the object of their aim, was simply +death. The bravest hesitated to pronounce his own condemnation. Enjolras +himself felt a thrill. He repeated:-- + +"Does no one volunteer?" + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE FLAG: ACT SECOND + +Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of +the barricade, no attention had been paid to Father Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf +had not quitted the mob, however; he had entered the ground-floor of the +wine-shop and had seated himself behind the counter. There he had, so to +speak, retreated into himself. He no longer seemed to look or to think. +Courfeyrac and others had accosted him two or three times, warning him +of his peril, beseeching him to withdraw, but he did not hear them. +When they were not speaking to him, his mouth moved as though he were +replying to some one, and as soon as he was addressed, his lips became +motionless and his eyes no longer had the appearance of being alive. + +Several hours before the barricade was attacked, he had assumed an +attitude which he did not afterwards abandon, with both fists planted +on his knees and his head thrust forward as though he were gazing over a +precipice. Nothing had been able to move him from this attitude; it did +not seem as though his mind were in the barricade. When each had gone +to take up his position for the combat, there remained in the tap-room +where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent with a naked +sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf. At the moment of the +attack, at the detonation, the physical shock had reached him and had, +as it were, awakened him; he started up abruptly, crossed the room, +and at the instant when Enjolras repeated his appeal: "Does no one +volunteer?" the old man was seen to make his appearance on the threshold +of the wine-shop. His presence produced a sort of commotion in the +different groups. A shout went up:-- + +"It is the voter! It is the member of the Convention! It is the +representative of the people!" + +It is probable that he did not hear them. + +He strode straight up to Enjolras, the insurgents withdrawing before him +with a religious fear; he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled in +amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him, this +old man of eighty, with shaking head but firm foot, began slowly to +ascend the staircase of paving-stones arranged in the barricade. This +was so melancholy and so grand that all around him cried: "Off with your +hats!" At every step that he mounted, it was a frightful spectacle; his +white locks, his decrepit face, his lofty, bald, and wrinkled brow, +his amazed and open mouth, his aged arm upholding the red banner, rose +through the gloom and were enlarged in the bloody light of the torch, +and the bystanders thought that they beheld the spectre of '93 emerging +from the earth, with the flag of terror in his hand. + +When he had reached the last step, when this trembling and terrible +phantom, erect on that pile of rubbish in the presence of twelve hundred +invisible guns, drew himself up in the face of death and as though +he were more powerful than it, the whole barricade assumed amid the +darkness, a supernatural and colossal form. + +There ensued one of those silences which occur only in the presence of +prodigies. In the midst of this silence, the old man waved the red flag +and shouted:-- + +"Long live the Revolution! Long live the Republic! Fraternity! Equality! +and Death!" + +Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur +of a priest who is despatching a prayer in haste. It was probably the +commissary of police who was making the legal summons at the other end +of the street. + +Then the same piercing voice which had shouted: "Who goes there?" +shouted:-- + +"Retire!" + +M. Mabeuf, pale, haggard, his eyes lighted up with the mournful flame of +aberration, raised the flag above his head and repeated:-- + +"Long live the Republic!" + +"Fire!" said the voice. + +A second discharge, similar to the first, rained down upon the +barricade. + +The old man fell on his knees, then rose again, dropped the flag +and fell backwards on the pavement, like a log, at full length, with +outstretched arms. + +Rivulets of blood flowed beneath him. His aged head, pale and sad, +seemed to be gazing at the sky. + +One of those emotions which are superior to man, which make him forget +even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached +the body with respectful awe. + +"What men these regicides were!" said Enjolras. + +Courfeyrac bent down to Enjolras' ear:-- + +"This is for yourself alone, I do not wish to dampen the enthusiasm. But +this man was anything rather than a regicide. I knew him. His name was +Father Mabeuf. I do not know what was the matter with him to-day. But he +was a brave blockhead. Just look at his head." + +"The head of a blockhead and the heart of a Brutus," replied Enjolras. + +Then he raised his voice:-- + +"Citizens! This is the example which the old give to the young. We +hesitated, he came! We were drawing back, he advanced! This is what +those who are trembling with age teach to those who tremble with fear! +This aged man is august in the eyes of his country. He has had a long +life and a magnificent death! Now, let us place the body under cover, +that each one of us may defend this old man dead as he would his +father living, and may his presence in our midst render the barricade +impregnable!" + +A murmur of gloomy and energetic assent followed these words. + +Enjolras bent down, raised the old man's head, and fierce as he was, he +kissed him on the brow, then, throwing wide his arms, and handling this +dead man with tender precaution, as though he feared to hurt it, he +removed his coat, showed the bloody holes in it to all, and said:-- + +"This is our flag now." + + + + +CHAPTER III--GAVROCHE WOULD HAVE DONE BETTER TO ACCEPT ENJOLRAS' CARBINE + +They threw a long black shawl of Widow Hucheloup's over Father Mabeuf. +Six men made a litter of their guns; on this they laid the body, and +bore it, with bared heads, with solemn slowness, to the large table in +the tap-room. + +These men, wholly absorbed in the grave and sacred task in which they +were engaged, thought no more of the perilous situation in which they +stood. + +When the corpse passed near Javert, who was still impassive, Enjolras +said to the spy:-- + +"It will be your turn presently!" + +During all this time, Little Gavroche, who alone had not quitted his +post, but had remained on guard, thought he espied some men stealthily +approaching the barricade. All at once he shouted:-- + +"Look out!" + +Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, Joly, Bahorel, +Bossuet, and all the rest ran tumultuously from the wine-shop. It was +almost too late. They saw a glistening density of bayonets undulating +above the barricade. Municipal guards of lofty stature were making +their way in, some striding over the omnibus, others through the cut, +thrusting before them the urchin, who retreated, but did not flee. + +The moment was critical. It was that first, redoubtable moment of +inundation, when the stream rises to the level of the levee and when the +water begins to filter through the fissures of dike. A second more and +the barricade would have been taken. + +Bahorel dashed upon the first municipal guard who was entering, and +killed him on the spot with a blow from his gun; the second killed +Bahorel with a blow from his bayonet. Another had already overthrown +Courfeyrac, who was shouting: "Follow me!" The largest of all, a sort of +colossus, marched on Gavroche with his bayonet fixed. The urchin took in +his arms Javert's immense gun, levelled it resolutely at the giant, and +fired. No discharge followed. Javert's gun was not loaded. The municipal +guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet at the child. + +Before the bayonet had touched Gavroche, the gun slipped from the +soldier's grasp, a bullet had struck the municipal guardsman in the +centre of the forehead, and he fell over on his back. A second bullet +struck the other guard, who had assaulted Courfeyrac in the breast, and +laid him low on the pavement. + +This was the work of Marius, who had just entered the barricade. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE BARREL OF POWDER + +Marius, still concealed in the turn of the Rue Mondetour, had witnessed, +shuddering and irresolute, the first phase of the combat. But he had not +long been able to resist that mysterious and sovereign vertigo which may +be designated as the call of the abyss. In the presence of the imminence +of the peril, in the presence of the death of M. Mabeuf, that melancholy +enigma, in the presence of Bahorel killed, and Courfeyrac shouting: +"Follow me!" of that child threatened, of his friends to succor or to +avenge, all hesitation had vanished, and he had flung himself into the +conflict, his two pistols in hand. With his first shot he had saved +Gavroche, and with the second delivered Courfeyrac. + +Amid the sound of the shots, amid the cries of the assaulted guards, +the assailants had climbed the entrenchment, on whose summit Municipal +Guards, soldiers of the line and National Guards from the suburbs could +now be seen, gun in hand, rearing themselves to more than half the +height of their bodies. + +They already covered more than two-thirds of the barrier, but they did +not leap into the enclosure, as though wavering in the fear of some +trap. They gazed into the dark barricade as one would gaze into a lion's +den. The light of the torch illuminated only their bayonets, their +bear-skin caps, and the upper part of their uneasy and angry faces. + +Marius had no longer any weapons; he had flung away his discharged +pistols after firing them; but he had caught sight of the barrel of +powder in the tap-room, near the door. + +As he turned half round, gazing in that direction, a soldier took aim at +him. At the moment when the soldier was sighting Marius, a hand was laid +on the muzzle of the gun and obstructed it. This was done by some one +who had darted forward,--the young workman in velvet trousers. The shot +sped, traversed the hand and possibly, also, the workman, since he fell, +but the ball did not strike Marius. All this, which was rather to be +apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the +tap-room, hardly noticed. Still, he had, in a confused way, perceived +that gun-barrel aimed at him, and the hand which had blocked it, and he +had heard the discharge. But in moments like this, the things which one +sees vacillate and are precipitated, and one pauses for nothing. One +feels obscurely impelled towards more darkness still, and all is cloud. + +The insurgents, surprised but not terrified, had rallied. Enjolras had +shouted: "Wait! Don't fire at random!" In the first confusion, they +might, in fact, wound each other. The majority of them had ascended +to the window on the first story and to the attic windows, whence they +commanded the assailants. + +The most determined, with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, and +Combeferre, had proudly placed themselves with their backs against the +houses at the rear, unsheltered and facing the ranks of soldiers and +guards who crowned the barricade. + +All this was accomplished without haste, with that strange and +threatening gravity which precedes engagements. They took aim, point +blank, on both sides: they were so close that they could talk together +without raising their voices. + +When they had reached this point where the spark is on the brink of +darting forth, an officer in a gorget extended his sword and said:-- + +"Lay down your arms!" + +"Fire!" replied Enjolras. + +The two discharges took place at the same moment, and all disappeared in +smoke. + +An acrid and stifling smoke in which dying and wounded lay with weak, +dull groans. When the smoke cleared away, the combatants on both sides +could be seen to be thinned out, but still in the same positions, +reloading in silence. All at once, a thundering voice was heard, +shouting:-- + +"Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" + +All turned in the direction whence the voice proceeded. + +Marius had entered the tap-room, and had seized the barrel of powder, +then he had taken advantage of the smoke, and the sort of obscure mist +which filled the entrenched enclosure, to glide along the barricade as +far as that cage of paving-stones where the torch was fixed. To tear +it from the torch, to replace it by the barrel of powder, to thrust the +pile of stones under the barrel, which was instantly staved in, with +a sort of horrible obedience,--all this had cost Marius but the time +necessary to stoop and rise again; and now all, National Guards, +Municipal Guards, officers, soldiers, huddled at the other extremity of +the barricade, gazed stupidly at him, as he stood with his foot on the +stones, his torch in his hand, his haughty face illuminated by a fatal +resolution, drooping the flame of the torch towards that redoubtable +pile where they could make out the broken barrel of powder, and giving +vent to that startling cry:-- + +"Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" + +Marius on that barricade after the octogenarian was the vision of the +young revolution after the apparition of the old. + +"Blow up the barricade!" said a sergeant, "and yourself with it!" + +Marius retorted: "And myself also." + +And he dropped the torch towards the barrel of powder. + +But there was no longer any one on the barrier. The assailants, +abandoning their dead and wounded, flowed back pell-mell and in disorder +towards the extremity of the street, and there were again lost in the +night. It was a headlong flight. + +The barricade was free. + + + + +CHAPTER V--END OF THE VERSES OF JEAN PROUVAIRE + +All flocked around Marius. Courfeyrac flung himself on his neck. + +"Here you are!" + +"What luck!" said Combeferre. + +"You came in opportunely!" ejaculated Bossuet. + +"If it had not been for you, I should have been dead!" began Courfeyrac +again. + +"If it had not been for you, I should have been gobbled up!" added +Gavroche. + +Marius asked:-- + +"Where is the chief?" + +"You are he!" said Enjolras. + +Marius had had a furnace in his brain all day long; now it was a +whirlwind. This whirlwind which was within him, produced on him the +effect of being outside of him and of bearing him away. It seemed to him +that he was already at an immense distance from life. His two luminous +months of joy and love, ending abruptly at that frightful precipice, +Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed +for the Republic, himself the leader of the insurgents,--all these +things appeared to him like a tremendous nightmare. He was obliged to +make a mental effort to recall the fact that all that surrounded him was +real. Marius had already seen too much of life not to know that nothing +is more imminent than the impossible, and that what it is always +necessary to foresee is the unforeseen. He had looked on at his own +drama as a piece which one does not understand. + +In the mists which enveloped his thoughts, he did not recognize Javert, +who, bound to his post, had not so much as moved his head during the +whole of the attack on the barricade, and who had gazed on the revolt +seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of +a judge. Marius had not even seen him. + +In the meanwhile, the assailants did not stir, they could be heard +marching and swarming through at the end of the street but they did not +venture into it, either because they were awaiting orders or because +they were awaiting reinforcements before hurling themselves afresh on +this impregnable redoubt. The insurgents had posted sentinels, and some +of them, who were medical students, set about caring for the wounded. + +They had thrown the tables out of the wine-shop, with the exception of +the two tables reserved for lint and cartridges, and of the one on +which lay Father Mabeuf; they had added them to the barricade, and had +replaced them in the tap-room with mattresses from the bed of the +widow Hucheloup and her servants. On these mattresses they had laid the +wounded. As for the three poor creatures who inhabited Corinthe, no one +knew what had become of them. They were finally found, however, hidden +in the cellar. + +A poignant emotion clouded the joy of the disencumbered barricade. + +The roll was called. One of the insurgents was missing. And who was +it? One of the dearest. One of the most valiant. Jean Prouvaire. He +was sought among the wounded, he was not there. He was sought among the +dead, he was not there. He was evidently a prisoner. Combeferre said to +Enjolras:-- + +"They have our friend; we have their agent. Are you set on the death of +that spy?" + +"Yes," replied Enjolras; "but less so than on the life of Jean +Prouvaire." + +This took place in the tap-room near Javert's post. + +"Well," resumed Combeferre, "I am going to fasten my handkerchief to +my cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for +theirs." + +"Listen," said Enjolras, laying his hand on Combeferre's arm. + +At the end of the street there was a significant clash of arms. + +They heard a manly voice shout:-- + +"Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!" + +They recognized the voice of Prouvaire. + +A flash passed, a report rang out. + +Silence fell again. + +"They have killed him," exclaimed Combeferre. + +Enjolras glanced at Javert, and said to him:-- + +"Your friends have just shot you." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE + +A peculiarity of this species of war is, that the attack of the +barricades is almost always made from the front, and that the assailants +generally abstain from turning the position, either because they +fear ambushes, or because they are afraid of getting entangled in the +tortuous streets. The insurgents' whole attention had been directed, +therefore, to the grand barricade, which was, evidently, the spot always +menaced, and there the struggle would infallibly recommence. But Marius +thought of the little barricade, and went thither. It was deserted and +guarded only by the fire-pot which trembled between the paving-stones. +Moreover, the Mondetour alley, and the branches of the Rue de la Petite +Truanderie and the Rue du Cygne were profoundly calm. + +As Marius was withdrawing, after concluding his inspection, he heard his +name pronounced feebly in the darkness. + +"Monsieur Marius!" + +He started, for he recognized the voice which had called to him two +hours before through the gate in the Rue Plumet. + +Only, the voice now seemed to be nothing more than a breath. + +He looked about him, but saw no one. + +Marius thought he had been mistaken, that it was an illusion added by +his mind to the extraordinary realities which were clashing around +him. He advanced a step, in order to quit the distant recess where the +barricade lay. + +"Monsieur Marius!" repeated the voice. + +This time he could not doubt that he had heard it distinctly; he looked +and saw nothing. + +"At your feet," said the voice. + +He bent down, and saw in the darkness a form which was dragging itself +towards him. + +It was crawling along the pavement. It was this that had spoken to him. + +The fire-pot allowed him to distinguish a blouse, torn trousers of +coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. +Marius indistinctly made out a pale head which was lifted towards him +and which was saying to him:-- + +"You do not recognize me?" + +"No." + +"Eponine." + +Marius bent hastily down. It was, in fact, that unhappy child. She was +dressed in men's clothes. + +"How come you here? What are you doing here?" + +"I am dying," said she. + +There are words and incidents which arouse dejected beings. Marius cried +out with a start:-- + +"You are wounded! Wait, I will carry you into the room! They will attend +to you there. Is it serious? How must I take hold of you in order not +to hurt you? Where do you suffer? Help! My God! But why did you come +hither?" + +And he tried to pass his arm under her, in order to raise her. + +She uttered a feeble cry. + +"Have I hurt you?" asked Marius. + +"A little." + +"But I only touched your hand." + +She raised her hand to Marius, and in the middle of that hand Marius saw +a black hole. + +"What is the matter with your hand?" said he. + +"It is pierced." + +"Pierced?" + +"Yes." + +"What with?" + +"A bullet." + +"How?" + +"Did you see a gun aimed at you?" + +"Yes, and a hand stopping it." + +"It was mine." + +Marius was seized with a shudder. + +"What madness! Poor child! But so much the better, if that is all, it is +nothing, let me carry you to a bed. They will dress your wound; one does +not die of a pierced hand." + +She murmured:-- + +"The bullet traversed my hand, but it came out through my back. It is +useless to remove me from this spot. I will tell you how you can care +for me better than any surgeon. Sit down near me on this stone." + +He obeyed; she laid her head on Marius' knees, and, without looking at +him, she said:-- + +"Oh! How good this is! How comfortable this is! There; I no longer +suffer." + +She remained silent for a moment, then she turned her face with an +effort, and looked at Marius. + +"Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered +that garden; it was stupid, because it was I who showed you that house; +and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--" + +She paused, and overstepping the sombre transitions that undoubtedly +existed in her mind, she resumed with a heartrending smile:-- + +"You thought me ugly, didn't you?" + +She continued:-- + +"You see, you are lost! Now, no one can get out of the barricade. It was +I who led you here, by the way! You are going to die, I count upon that. +And yet, when I saw them taking aim at you, I put my hand on the muzzle +of the gun. How queer it is! But it was because I wanted to die before +you. When I received that bullet, I dragged myself here, no one saw +me, no one picked me up, I was waiting for you, I said: 'So he is not +coming!' Oh, if you only knew. I bit my blouse, I suffered so! Now I am +well. Do you remember the day I entered your chamber and when I +looked at myself in your mirror, and the day when I came to you on the +boulevard near the washerwomen? How the birds sang! That was a long time +ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you: 'I don't want your +money.' I hope you picked up your coin? You are not rich. I did not +think to tell you to pick it up. The sun was shining bright, and it was +not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur Marius? Oh! How happy I am! Every +one is going to die." + +She had a mad, grave, and heart-breaking air. Her torn blouse disclosed +her bare throat. + +As she talked, she pressed her pierced hand to her breast, where there +was another hole, and whence there spurted from moment to moment a +stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bung-hole. + +Marius gazed at this unfortunate creature with profound compassion. + +"Oh!" she resumed, "it is coming again, I am stifling!" + +She caught up her blouse and bit it, and her limbs stiffened on the +pavement. + +At that moment the young cock's crow executed by little Gavroche +resounded through the barricade. + +The child had mounted a table to load his gun, and was singing gayly the +song then so popular:-- + + + "En voyant Lafayette, "On beholding Lafayette, + Le gendarme repete:-- The gendarme repeats:-- + Sauvons nous! sauvons nous! Let us flee! let us flee! + sauvons nous!" let us flee! + + +Eponine raised herself and listened; then she murmured:-- + +"It is he." + +And turning to Marius:-- + +"My brother is here. He must not see me. He would scold me." + +"Your brother?" inquired Marius, who was meditating in the most bitter +and sorrowful depths of his heart on the duties to the Thenardiers which +his father had bequeathed to him; "who is your brother?" + +"That little fellow." + +"The one who is singing?" + +"Yes." + +Marius made a movement. + +"Oh! don't go away," said she, "it will not be long now." + +She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by +hiccoughs. + +At intervals, the death rattle interrupted her. She put her face as near +that of Marius as possible. She added with a strange expression:-- + +"Listen, I do not wish to play you a trick. I have a letter in my pocket +for you. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I did not want to +have it reach you. But perhaps you will be angry with me for it when we +meet again presently? Take your letter." + +She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no +longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius' hand in the pocket +of her blouse. There, in fact, Marius felt a paper. + +"Take it," said she. + +Marius took the letter. + +She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment. + +"Now, for my trouble, promise me--" + +And she stopped. + +"What?" asked Marius. + +"Promise me!" + +"I promise." + +"Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.--I shall feel it." + +She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He +thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All +at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she +slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, +and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from +another world:-- + +"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in +love with you." + +She tried to smile once more and expired. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES + +Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the +icy perspiration stood in beads. + +This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell +to an unhappy soul. + +It was not without a tremor that he had taken the letter which Eponine +had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. +He was impatient to read it. The heart of man is so constituted that the +unhappy child had hardly closed her eyes when Marius began to think of +unfolding this paper. + +He laid her gently on the ground, and went away. Something told him that +he could not peruse that letter in the presence of that body. + +He drew near to a candle in the tap-room. It was a small note, folded +and sealed with a woman's elegant care. The address was in a woman's +hand and ran:-- + +"To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac's, Rue de la +Verrerie, No. 16." + +He broke the seal and read:-- + + "My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. + We shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7. + In a week we shall be in England. COSETTE. June 4th." + +Such was the innocence of their love that Marius was not even acquainted +with Cosette's handwriting. + +What had taken place may be related in a few words. Eponine had been +the cause of everything. After the evening of the 3d of June she had +cherished a double idea, to defeat the projects of her father and the +ruffians on the house of the Rue Plumet, and to separate Marius and +Cosette. She had exchanged rags with the first young scamp she came +across who had thought it amusing to dress like a woman, while Eponine +disguised herself like a man. It was she who had conveyed to Jean +Valjean in the Champ de Mars the expressive warning: "Leave your house." +Jean Valjean had, in fact, returned home, and had said to Cosette: +"We set out this evening and we go to the Rue de l'Homme Arme with +Toussaint. Next week, we shall be in London." Cosette, utterly +overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, had hastily penned a couple of +lines to Marius. But how was she to get the letter to the post? She +never went out alone, and Toussaint, surprised at such a commission, +would certainly show the letter to M. Fauchelevent. In this dilemma, +Cosette had caught sight through the fence of Eponine in man's clothes, +who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to +"this young workman" and had handed him five francs and the letter, +saying: "Carry this letter immediately to its address." Eponine had put +the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the 5th of June, she went +to Courfeyrac's quarters to inquire for Marius, not for the purpose of +delivering the letter, but,--a thing which every jealous and loving soul +will comprehend,--"to see." There she had waited for Marius, or at least +for Courfeyrac, still for the purpose of seeing. When Courfeyrac had +told her: "We are going to the barricades," an idea flashed through her +mind, to fling herself into that death, as she would have done into any +other, and to thrust Marius into it also. She had followed Courfeyrac, +had made sure of the locality where the barricade was in process of +construction; and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, +and since she had intercepted the letter, that he would go at dusk to +his trysting place for every evening, she had betaken herself to the Rue +Plumet, had there awaited Marius, and had sent him, in the name of his +friends, the appeal which would, she thought, lead him to the barricade. +She reckoned on Marius' despair when he should fail to find Cosette; she +was not mistaken. She had returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie herself. +What she did there the reader has just seen. She died with the tragic +joy of jealous hearts who drag the beloved being into their own death, +and who say: "No one shall have him!" + +Marius covered Cosette's letter with kisses. So she loved him! For one +moment the idea occurred to him that he ought not to die now. Then +he said to himself: "She is going away. Her father is taking her to +England, and my grandfather refuses his consent to the marriage. Nothing +is changed in our fates." Dreamers like Marius are subject to supreme +attacks of dejection, and desperate resolves are the result. The fatigue +of living is insupportable; death is sooner over with. Then he reflected +that he had still two duties to fulfil: to inform Cosette of his +death and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending +catastrophe which was in preparation, that poor child, Eponine's brother +and Thenardier's son. + +He had a pocket-book about him; the same one which had contained +the note-book in which he had inscribed so many thoughts of love for +Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil:-- + +"Our marriage was impossible. I asked my grandfather, he refused; I have +no fortune, neither hast thou. I hastened to thee, thou wert no longer +there. Thou knowest the promise that I gave thee, I shall keep it. I +die. I love thee. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee, and +thou wilt smile." + +Having nothing wherewith to seal this letter, he contented himself with +folding the paper in four, and added the address:-- + +"To Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de +l'Homme Arme, No. 7." + +Having folded the letter, he stood in thought for a moment, drew out +his pocket-book again, opened it, and wrote, with the same pencil, these +four lines on the first page:-- + +"My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. +Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais." + +He put his pocketbook back in his pocket, then he called Gavroche. + +The gamin, at the sound of Marius' voice, ran up to him with his merry +and devoted air. + +"Will you do something for me?" + +"Anything," said Gavroche. "Good God! if it had not been for you, I +should have been done for." + +"Do you see this letter?" + +"Yes." + +"Take it. Leave the barricade instantly" (Gavroche began to scratch his +ear uneasily) "and to-morrow morning, you will deliver it at its address +to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. +7." + +The heroic child replied + +"Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall +not be there." + +"The barricade will not be attacked until daybreak, according to all +appearances, and will not be taken before to-morrow noon." + +The fresh respite which the assailants were granting to the barricade +had, in fact, been prolonged. It was one of those intermissions which +frequently occur in nocturnal combats, which are always followed by an +increase of rage. + +"Well," said Gavroche, "what if I were to go and carry your letter +to-morrow?" + +"It will be too late. The barricade will probably be blockaded, all +the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out. Go at +once." + +Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, +scratching his ear sadly. + +All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements +which were common with him. + +"All right," said he. + +And he started off at a run through Mondetour lane. + +An idea had occurred to Gavroche which had brought him to a decision, +but he had not mentioned it for fear that Marius might offer some +objection to it. + +This was the idea:-- + +"It is barely midnight, the Rue de l'Homme Arme is not far off; I will +go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time." + + + + +BOOK FIFTEENTH.--THE RUE DE L'HOMME ARME + + + + +CHAPTER I--A DRINKER IS A BABBLER + +What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections +of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean +at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval. Every sort of +gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, +on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution. A few hours +had sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had +suddenly been covered with gloom. Of him also, as well as of Paris, it +might have been said: "Two principles are face to face. The white angel +and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the +abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the +day?" + +On the evening preceding this same 5th of June, Jean Valjean, +accompanied by Cosette and Toussaint had installed himself in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. A change awaited him there. + +Cosette had not quitted the Rue Plumet without making an effort at +resistance. For the first time since they had lived side by side, +Cosette's will and the will of Jean Valjean had proved to be distinct, +and had been in opposition, at least, if they had not clashed. There had +been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other. The abrupt +advice: "Leave your house," hurled at Jean Valjean by a stranger, had +alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory. He thought that +he had been traced and followed. Cosette had been obliged to give way. + +Both had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme without opening their lips, +and without uttering a word, each being absorbed in his own personal +preoccupation; Jean Valjean so uneasy that he did not notice Cosette's +sadness, Cosette so sad that she did not notice Jean Valjean's +uneasiness. + +Jean Valjean had taken Toussaint with him, a thing which he had never +done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not +returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind +nor confide his secret to her. Besides, he felt that she was devoted and +trustworthy. Treachery between master and servant begins in curiosity. +Now Toussaint, as though she had been destined to be Jean Valjean's +servant, was not curious. She stammered in her peasant dialect of +Barneville: "I am made so; I do my work; the rest is no affair of mine." + +In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which had been almost a flight, +Jean Valjean had carried away nothing but the little embalmed valise, +baptized by Cosette "the inseparable." Full trunks would have required +porters, and porters are witnesses. A fiacre had been summoned to the +door on the Rue de Babylone, and they had taken their departure. + +It was with difficulty that Toussaint had obtained permission to pack up +a little linen and clothes and a few toilet articles. Cosette had taken +only her portfolio and her blotting-book. + +Jean Valjean, with a view to augmenting the solitude and the mystery of +this departure, had arranged to quit the pavilion of the Rue Plumet only +at dusk, which had allowed Cosette time to write her note to Marius. +They had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme after night had fully +fallen. + +They had gone to bed in silence. + +The lodgings in the Rue de l'Homme Arme were situated on a back +court, on the second floor, and were composed of two sleeping-rooms, a +dining-room and a kitchen adjoining the dining-room, with a garret +where there was a folding-bed, and which fell to Toussaint's share. The +dining-room was an antechamber as well, and separated the two bedrooms. +The apartment was provided with all necessary utensils. + +People re-acquire confidence as foolishly as they lose it; human nature +is so constituted. Hardly had Jean Valjean reached the Rue de l'Homme +Arme when his anxiety was lightened and by degrees dissipated. There +are soothing spots which act in some sort mechanically on the mind. +An obscure street, peaceable inhabitants. Jean Valjean experienced an +indescribable contagion of tranquillity in that alley of ancient Paris, +which is so narrow that it is barred against carriages by a transverse +beam placed on two posts, which is deaf and dumb in the midst of the +clamorous city, dimly lighted at mid-day, and is, so to speak, incapable +of emotions between two rows of lofty houses centuries old, which hold +their peace like ancients as they are. There was a touch of stagnant +oblivion in that street. Jean Valjean drew his breath once more there. +How could he be found there? + +His first care was to place the inseparable beside him. + +He slept well. Night brings wisdom; we may add, night soothes. On the +following morning he awoke in a mood that was almost gay. He thought the +dining-room charming, though it was hideous, furnished with an old round +table, a long sideboard surmounted by a slanting mirror, a dilapidated +arm-chair, and several plain chairs which were encumbered with +Toussaint's packages. In one of these packages Jean Valjean's uniform of +a National Guard was visible through a rent. + +As for Cosette, she had had Toussaint take some broth to her room, and +did not make her appearance until evening. + +About five o'clock, Toussaint, who was going and coming and busying +herself with the tiny establishment, set on the table a cold chicken, +which Cosette, out of deference to her father, consented to glance at. + +That done, Cosette, under the pretext of an obstinate sick headache, +had bade Jean Valjean good night and had shut herself up in her chamber. +Jean Valjean had eaten a wing of the chicken with a good appetite, and +with his elbows on the table, having gradually recovered his serenity, +had regained possession of his sense of security. + +While he was discussing this modest dinner, he had, twice or thrice, +noticed in a confused way, Toussaint's stammering words as she said +to him: "Monsieur, there is something going on, they are fighting in +Paris." But absorbed in a throng of inward calculations, he had paid no +heed to it. To tell the truth, he had not heard her. He rose and began +to pace from the door to the window and from the window to the door, +growing ever more serene. + +With this calm, Cosette, his sole anxiety, recurred to his thoughts. Not +that he was troubled by this headache, a little nervous crisis, a young +girl's fit of sulks, the cloud of a moment, there would be nothing left +of it in a day or two; but he meditated on the future, and, as was his +habit, he thought of it with pleasure. After all, he saw no obstacle to +their happy life resuming its course. At certain hours, everything seems +impossible, at others everything appears easy; Jean Valjean was in the +midst of one of these good hours. They generally succeed the bad +ones, as day follows night, by virtue of that law of succession and +of contrast which lies at the very foundation of nature, and which +superficial minds call antithesis. In this peaceful street where he had +taken refuge, Jean Valjean got rid of all that had been troubling him +for some time past. This very fact, that he had seen many shadows, made +him begin to perceive a little azure. To have quitted the Rue +Plumet without complications or incidents was one good step already +accomplished. Perhaps it would be wise to go abroad, if only for a few +months, and to set out for London. Well, they would go. What difference +did it make to him whether he was in France or in England, provided he +had Cosette beside him? Cosette was his nation. Cosette sufficed for +his happiness; the idea that he, perhaps, did not suffice for Cosette's +happiness, that idea which had formerly been the cause of his fever +and sleeplessness, did not even present itself to his mind. He was in a +state of collapse from all his past sufferings, and he was fully entered +on optimism. Cosette was by his side, she seemed to be his; an optical +illusion which every one has experienced. He arranged in his own mind, +with all sorts of felicitous devices, his departure for England with +Cosette, and he beheld his felicity reconstituted wherever he pleased, +in the perspective of his revery. + +As he paced to and fro with long strides, his glance suddenly +encountered something strange. + +In the inclined mirror facing him which surmounted the sideboard, he saw +the four lines which follow:-- + +"My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We +shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7. In a week we +shall be in England. COSETTE. June 4th." + +Jean Valjean halted, perfectly haggard. + +Cosette on her arrival had placed her blotting-book on the sideboard in +front of the mirror, and, utterly absorbed in her agony of grief, had +forgotten it and left it there, without even observing that she had left +it wide open, and open at precisely the page on which she had laid to +dry the four lines which she had penned, and which she had given in +charge of the young workman in the Rue Plumet. The writing had been +printed off on the blotter. + +The mirror reflected the writing. + +The result was, what is called in geometry, the symmetrical image; so +that the writing, reversed on the blotter, was righted in the mirror and +presented its natural appearance; and Jean Valjean had beneath his eyes +the letter written by Cosette to Marius on the preceding evening. + +It was simple and withering. + +Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but +he did not believe them. They produced on him the effect of appearing in +a flash of lightning. It was a hallucination, it was impossible. It was +not so. + +Little by little, his perceptions became more precise; he looked at +Cosette's blotting-book, and the consciousness of the reality returned +to him. He caught up the blotter and said: "It comes from there." +He feverishly examined the four lines imprinted on the blotter, the +reversal of the letters converted into an odd scrawl, and he saw no +sense in it. Then he said to himself: "But this signifies nothing; there +is nothing written here." And he drew a long breath with inexpressible +relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants? +The soul does not surrender to despair until it has exhausted all +illusions. + +He held the blotter in his hand and contemplated it in stupid delight, +almost ready to laugh at the hallucination of which he had been the +dupe. All at once his eyes fell upon the mirror again, and again he +beheld the vision. There were the four lines outlined with inexorable +clearness. This time it was no mirage. The recurrence of a vision is a +reality; it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He +understood. + +Jean Valjean tottered, dropped the blotter, and fell into the old +arm-chair beside the buffet, with drooping head, and glassy eyes, in +utter bewilderment. He told himself that it was plain, that the light of +the world had been eclipsed forever, and that Cosette had written that +to some one. Then he heard his soul, which had become terrible once +more, give vent to a dull roar in the gloom. Try then the effect of +taking from the lion the dog which he has in his cage! + +Strange and sad to say, at that very moment, Marius had not yet received +Cosette's letter; chance had treacherously carried it to Jean Valjean +before delivering it to Marius. Up to that day, Jean Valjean had not +been vanquished by trial. He had been subjected to fearful proofs; no +violence of bad fortune had been spared him; the ferocity of fate, armed +with all vindictiveness and all social scorn, had taken him for her prey +and had raged against him. He had accepted every extremity when it had +been necessary; he had sacrificed his inviolability as a reformed man, +had yielded up his liberty, risked his head, lost everything, suffered +everything, and he had remained disinterested and stoical to such a +point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a +martyr. His conscience inured to every assault of destiny, might have +appeared to be forever impregnable. Well, any one who had beheld his +spiritual self would have been obliged to concede that it weakened at +that moment. It was because, of all the tortures which he had undergone +in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, +this was the most terrible. Never had such pincers seized him hitherto. +He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt +the plucking at the strange chord. Alas! the supreme trial, let us say +rather, the only trial, is the loss of the beloved being. + +Poor old Jean Valjean certainly did not love Cosette otherwise than as +a father; but we have already remarked, above, that into this paternity +the widowhood of his life had introduced all the shades of love; he +loved Cosette as his daughter, and he loved her as his mother, and he +loved her as his sister; and, as he had never had either a woman to +love or a wife, as nature is a creditor who accepts no protest, that +sentiment also, the most impossible to lose, was mingled with the +rest, vague, ignorant, pure with the purity of blindness, unconscious, +celestial, angelic, divine; less like a sentiment than like an instinct, +less like an instinct than like an imperceptible and invisible but real +attraction; and love, properly speaking, was, in his immense tenderness +for Cosette, like the thread of gold in the mountain, concealed and +virgin. + +Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already +indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of +souls; and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the +exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, +Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of +that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other +had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or +dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter +and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more +than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum +total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to +Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the +brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom +there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored +her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his +country, his paradise. + +Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping +from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding +from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this +crushing proof: "another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish +of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her +father, I no longer exist"; when he could no longer doubt, when he +said to himself: "She is going away from me!" the grief which he felt +surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done +for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing! +Then, as we have just said, a quiver of revolt ran through him from +head to foot. He felt, even in the very roots of his hair, the immense +reawakening of egotism, and the _I_ in this man's abyss howled. + +There is such a thing as the sudden giving way of the inward subsoil. A +despairing certainty does not make its way into a man without thrusting +aside and breaking certain profound elements which, in some cases, are +the very man himself. Grief, when it attains this shape, is a headlong +flight of all the forces of the conscience. These are fatal crises. Few +among us emerge from them still like ourselves and firm in duty. When +the limit of endurance is overstepped, the most imperturbable virtue is +disconcerted. Jean Valjean took the blotter again, and convinced himself +afresh; he remained bowed and as though petrified and with staring eyes, +over those four unobjectionable lines; and there arose within him such +a cloud that one might have thought that everything in this soul was +crumbling away. + +He examined this revelation, athwart the exaggerations of revery, with +an apparent and terrifying calmness, for it is a fearful thing when a +man's calmness reaches the coldness of the statue. + +He measured the terrible step which his destiny had taken without his +having a suspicion of the fact; he recalled his fears of the preceding +summer, so foolishly dissipated; he recognized the precipice, it was +still the same; only, Jean Valjean was no longer on the brink, he was at +the bottom of it. + +The unprecedented and heart-rending thing about it was that he had +fallen without perceiving it. All the light of his life had departed, +while he still fancied that he beheld the sun. + +His instinct did not hesitate. He put together certain circumstances, +certain dates, certain blushes and certain pallors on Cosette's part, +and he said to himself: "It is he." + +The divination of despair is a sort of mysterious bow which never misses +its aim. He struck Marius with his first conjecture. He did not know the +name, but he found the man instantly. He distinctly perceived, in the +background of the implacable conjuration of his memories, the unknown +prowler of the Luxembourg, that wretched seeker of love adventures, that +idler of romance, that idiot, that coward, for it is cowardly to come +and make eyes at young girls who have beside them a father who loves +them. + +After he had thoroughly verified the fact that this young man was at +the bottom of this situation, and that everything proceeded from that +quarter, he, Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had so +labored over his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve +all life, all misery, and all unhappiness into love, looked into his own +breast and there beheld a spectre, Hate. + +Great griefs contain something of dejection. They discourage one with +existence. The man into whom they enter feels something within him +withdraw from him. In his youth, their visits are lugubrious; later on +they are sinister. Alas, if despair is a fearful thing when the blood is +hot, when the hair is black, when the head is erect on the body like +the flame on the torch, when the roll of destiny still retains its full +thickness, when the heart, full of desirable love, still possesses beats +which can be returned to it, when one has time for redress, when all +women and all smiles and all the future and all the horizon are before +one, when the force of life is complete, what is it in old age, when +the years hasten on, growing ever paler, to that twilight hour when one +begins to behold the stars of the tomb? + +While he was meditating, Toussaint entered. Jean Valjean rose and asked +her:-- + +"In what quarter is it? Do you know?" + +Toussaint was struck dumb, and could only answer him:-- + +"What is it, sir?" + +Jean Valjean began again: "Did you not tell me that just now that there +is fighting going on?" + +"Ah! yes, sir," replied Toussaint. "It is in the direction of +Saint-Merry." + +There is a mechanical movement which comes to us, unconsciously, from +the most profound depths of our thought. It was, no doubt, under +the impulse of a movement of this sort, and of which he was hardly +conscious, that Jean Valjean, five minutes later, found himself in the +street. + +Bareheaded, he sat upon the stone post at the door of his house. He +seemed to be listening. + +Night had come. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT + +How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow of this tragic +meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he remain bowed? Had he been +bent to breaking? Could he still rise and regain his footing in his +conscience upon something solid? He probably would not have been able to +tell himself. + +The street was deserted. A few uneasy bourgeois, who were rapidly +returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for himself in times of peril. +The lamp-lighter came as usual to light the lantern which was situated +precisely opposite the door of No. 7, and then went away. Jean Valjean +would not have appeared like a living man to any one who had examined +him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of his door, motionless as +a form of ice. There is congealment in despair. The alarm bells and +a vague and stormy uproar were audible. In the midst of all these +convulsions of the bell mingled with the revolt, the clock of Saint-Paul +struck eleven, gravely and without haste; for the tocsin is man; the +hour is God. The passage of the hour produced no effect on Jean Valjean; +Jean Valjean did not stir. Still, at about that moment, a brusque report +burst forth in the direction of the Halles, a second yet more violent +followed; it was probably that attack on the barricade in the Rue de la +Chanvrerie which we have just seen repulsed by Marius. At this double +discharge, whose fury seemed augmented by the stupor of the night, Jean +Valjean started; he rose, turning towards the quarter whence the noise +proceeded; then he fell back upon the post again, folded his arms, and +his head slowly sank on his bosom again. + +He resumed his gloomy dialogue with himself. + +All at once, he raised his eyes; some one was walking in the street, he +heard steps near him. He looked, and by the light of the lanterns, in +the direction of the street which ran into the Rue-aux-Archives, he +perceived a young, livid, and beaming face. + +Gavroche had just arrived in the Rue l'Homme Arme. + +Gavroche was staring into the air, apparently in search of something. He +saw Jean Valjean perfectly well but he took no notice of him. + +Gavroche after staring into the air, stared below; he raised himself on +tiptoe, and felt of the doors and windows of the ground floor; they were +all shut, bolted, and padlocked. After having authenticated the fronts +of five or six barricaded houses in this manner, the urchin shrugged his +shoulders, and took himself to task in these terms:-- + +"Pardi!" + +Then he began to stare into the air again. + +Jean Valjean, who, an instant previously, in his then state of mind, +would not have spoken to or even answered any one, felt irresistibly +impelled to accost that child. + +"What is the matter with you, my little fellow?" he said. + +"The matter with me is that I am hungry," replied Gavroche frankly. And +he added: "Little fellow yourself." + +Jean Valjean fumbled in his fob and pulled out a five-franc piece. + +But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped +vivaciously from one gesture to another, had just picked up a stone. He +had caught sight of the lantern. + +"See here," said he, "you still have your lanterns here. You are +disobeying the regulations, my friend. This is disorderly. Smash that +for me." + +And he flung the stone at the lantern, whose broken glass fell with +such a clatter that the bourgeois in hiding behind their curtains in the +opposite house cried: "There is 'Ninety-three' come again." + +The lantern oscillated violently, and went out. The street had suddenly +become black. + +"That's right, old street," ejaculated Gavroche, "put on your +night-cap." + +And turning to Jean Valjean:-- + +"What do you call that gigantic monument that you have there at the end +of the street? It's the Archives, isn't it? I must crumble up those big +stupids of pillars a bit and make a nice barricade out of them." + +Jean Valjean stepped up to Gavroche. + +"Poor creature," he said in a low tone, and speaking to himself, "he is +hungry." + +And he laid the hundred-sou piece in his hand. + +Gavroche raised his face, astonished at the size of this sou; he stared +at it in the darkness, and the whiteness of the big sou dazzled him. +He knew five-franc pieces by hearsay; their reputation was agreeable to +him; he was delighted to see one close to. He said:-- + +"Let us contemplate the tiger." + +He gazed at it for several minutes in ecstasy; then, turning to Jean +Valjean, he held out the coin to him, and said majestically to him:-- + +"Bourgeois, I prefer to smash lanterns. Take back your ferocious beast. +You can't bribe me. That has got five claws; but it doesn't scratch me." + +"Have you a mother?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche replied:-- + +"More than you have, perhaps." + +"Well," returned Jean Valjean, "keep the money for your mother!" + +Gavroche was touched. Moreover, he had just noticed that the man who was +addressing him had no hat, and this inspired him with confidence. + +"Truly," said he, "so it wasn't to keep me from breaking the lanterns?" + +"Break whatever you please." + +"You're a fine man," said Gavroche. + +And he put the five-franc piece into one of his pockets. + +His confidence having increased, he added:-- + +"Do you belong in this street?" + +"Yes, why?" + +"Can you tell me where No. 7 is?" + +"What do you want with No. 7?" + +Here the child paused, he feared that he had said too much; he thrust +his nails energetically into his hair and contented himself with +replying:-- + +"Ah! Here it is." + +An idea flashed through Jean Valjean's mind. Anguish does have these +gleams. He said to the lad:-- + +"Are you the person who is bringing a letter that I am expecting?" + +"You?" said Gavroche. "You are not a woman." + +"The letter is for Mademoiselle Cosette, is it not?" + +"Cosette," muttered Gavroche. "Yes, I believe that is the queer name." + +"Well," resumed Jean Valjean, "I am the person to whom you are to +deliver the letter. Give it here." + +"In that case, you must know that I was sent from the barricade." + +"Of course," said Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche engulfed his hand in another of his pockets and drew out a +paper folded in four. + +Then he made the military salute. + +"Respect for despatches," said he. "It comes from the Provisional +Government." + +"Give it to me," said Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche held the paper elevated above his head. + +"Don't go and fancy it's a love letter. It is for a woman, but it's for +the people. We men fight and we respect the fair sex. We are not as +they are in fine society, where there are lions who send chickens[55] to +camels." + +"Give it to me." + +"After all," continued Gavroche, "you have the air of an honest man." + +"Give it to me quick." + +"Catch hold of it." + +And he handed the paper to Jean Valjean. + +"And make haste, Monsieur What's-your-name, for Mamselle Cosette is +waiting." + +Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. + +Jean Valjean began again:-- + +"Is it to Saint-Merry that the answer is to be sent?" + +"There you are making some of those bits of pastry vulgarly called +brioches [blunders]. This letter comes from the barricade of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, and I'm going back there. Good evening, citizen." + +That said, Gavroche took himself off, or, to describe it more exactly, +fluttered away in the direction whence he had come with a flight like +that of an escaped bird. He plunged back into the gloom as though he +made a hole in it, with the rigid rapidity of a projectile; the alley of +l'Homme Arme became silent and solitary once more; in a twinkling, that +strange child, who had about him something of the shadow and of the +dream, had buried himself in the mists of the rows of black houses, and +was lost there, like smoke in the dark; and one might have thought that +he had dissipated and vanished, had there not taken place, a few minutes +after his disappearance, a startling shiver of glass, and had not the +magnificent crash of a lantern rattling down on the pavement once more +abruptly awakened the indignant bourgeois. It was Gavroche upon his way +through the Rue du Chaume. + + + + +CHAPTER III--WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT ARE ASLEEP + +Jean Valjean went into the house with Marius' letter. + +He groped his way up the stairs, as pleased with the darkness as an owl +who grips his prey, opened and shut his door softly, listened to see +whether he could hear any noise,--made sure that, to all appearances, +Cosette and Toussaint were asleep, and plunged three or four matches +into the bottle of the Fumade lighter before he could evoke a spark, so +greatly did his hand tremble. What he had just done smacked of theft. At +last the candle was lighted; he leaned his elbows on the table, unfolded +the paper, and read. + +In violent emotions, one does not read, one flings to the earth, so to +speak, the paper which one holds, one clutches it like a victim, one +crushes it, one digs into it the nails of one's wrath, or of one's joy; +one hastens to the end, one leaps to the beginning; attention is at +fever heat; it takes up in the gross, as it were, the essential points; +it seizes on one point, and the rest disappears. In Marius' note to +Cosette, Jean Valjean saw only these words:-- + +"I die. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee." + +In the presence of these two lines, he was horribly dazzled; he remained +for a moment, crushed, as it were, by the change of emotion which +was taking place within him, he stared at Marius' note with a sort of +intoxicated amazement, he had before his eyes that splendor, the death +of a hated individual. + +He uttered a frightful cry of inward joy. So it was all over. The +catastrophe had arrived sooner than he had dared to hope. The being who +obstructed his destiny was disappearing. That man had taken himself off +of his own accord, freely, willingly. This man was going to his death, +and he, Jean Valjean, had had no hand in the matter, and it was through +no fault of his. Perhaps, even, he is already dead. Here his fever +entered into calculations. No, he is not dead yet. The letter had +evidently been intended for Cosette to read on the following morning; +after the two discharges that were heard between eleven o'clock and +midnight, nothing more has taken place; the barricade will not be +attacked seriously until daybreak; but that makes no difference, from +the moment when "that man" is concerned in this war, he is lost; he is +caught in the gearing. Jean Valjean felt himself delivered. So he was +about to find himself alone with Cosette once more. The rivalry would +cease; the future was beginning again. He had but to keep this note in +his pocket. Cosette would never know what had become of that man. All +that there requires to be done is to let things take their own course. +This man cannot escape. If he is not already dead, it is certain that he +is about to die. What good fortune! + +Having said all this to himself, he became gloomy. + +Then he went down stairs and woke up the porter. + +About an hour later, Jean Valjean went out in the complete costume of +a National Guard, and with his arms. The porter had easily found in the +neighborhood the wherewithal to complete his equipment. He had a loaded +gun and a cartridge-box filled with cartridges. + +He strode off in the direction of the markets. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--GAVROCHE'S EXCESS OF ZEAL + +In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure. + +Gavroche, after having conscientiously stoned the lantern in the Rue du +Chaume, entered the Rue des Vielles-Haudriettes, and not seeing "even a +cat" there, he thought the opportunity a good one to strike up all the +song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his +singing, was accelerated by it. He began to sow along the sleeping or +terrified houses these incendiary couplets:-- + + "L'oiseau medit dans les charmilles, + Et pretend qu'hier Atala + Avec un Russe s'en alla. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Mon ami Pierrot, tu babilles, + Parce que l'autre jour Mila + Cogna sa vitre et m'appela, + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Les drolesses sont fort gentilles, + Leur poison qui m'ensorcela + Griserait Monsieur Orfila. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "J'aime l'amour et les bisbilles, + J'aime Agnes, j'aime Pamela, + Lisa en m'allumant se brula. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Jadis, quand je vis les mantilles + De Suzette et de Zeila, + Mon ame aleurs plis se mela, + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Amour, quand dans l'ombre ou tu brilles, + Tu coiffes de roses Lola, + Je me damnerais pour cela. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Jeanne a ton miroir tu t'habilles! + Mon coeur un beau jour s'envola. + Je crois que c'est Jeanne qui l'a. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Le soir, en sortant des quadrilles, + Je montre aux etoiles Stella, + Et je leur dis: 'Regardez-la.' + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la."[56] + +Gavroche, as he sang, was lavish of his pantomime. Gesture is the strong +point of the refrain. His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, +produced grimaces more convulsing and more fantastic than the rents of a +cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was +night, this was neither seen nor even visible. Such wastes of riches do +occur. + +All at once, he stopped short. + +"Let us interrupt the romance," said he. + +His feline eye had just descried, in the recess of a carriage door, +what is called in painting, an ensemble, that is to say, a person and +a thing; the thing was a hand-cart, the person was a man from Auvergene +who was sleeping therein. + +The shafts of the cart rested on the pavement, and the Auvergnat's head +was supported against the front of the cart. His body was coiled up on +this inclined plane and his feet touched the ground. + +Gavroche, with his experience of the things of this world, recognized +a drunken man. He was some corner errand-man who had drunk too much and +was sleeping too much. + +"There now," thought Gavroche, "that's what the summer nights are good +for. We'll take the cart for the Republic, and leave the Auvergnat for +the Monarchy." + +His mind had just been illuminated by this flash of light:-- + +"How bully that cart would look on our barricade!" + +The Auvergnat was snoring. + +Gavroche gently tugged at the cart from behind, and at the Auvergnat +from the front, that is to say, by the feet, and at the expiration of +another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the +pavement. + +The cart was free. + +Gavroche, habituated to facing the unexpected in all quarters, had +everything about him. He fumbled in one of his pockets, and pulled from +it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter. + +He wrote:-- + + "French Republic." + + "Received thy cart." + + And he signed it: "GAVROCHE." + +That done, he put the paper in the pocket of the still snoring +Auvergnat's velvet vest, seized the cart shafts in both hands, and set +off in the direction of the Halles, pushing the cart before him at a +hard gallop with a glorious and triumphant uproar. + +This was perilous. There was a post at the Royal Printing Establishment. +Gavroche did not think of this. This post was occupied by the National +Guards of the suburbs. The squad began to wake up, and heads were raised +from camp beds. Two street lanterns broken in succession, that ditty +sung at the top of the lungs. This was a great deal for those cowardly +streets, which desire to go to sleep at sunset, and which put the +extinguisher on their candles at such an early hour. For the last hour, +that boy had been creating an uproar in that peaceable arrondissement, +the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an +ear. He waited. He was a prudent man. + +The mad rattle of the cart, filled to overflowing the possible measure +of waiting, and decided the sergeant to make a reconnaisance. + +"There's a whole band of them there!" said he, "let us proceed gently." + +It was clear that the hydra of anarchy had emerged from its box and that +it was stalking abroad through the quarter. + +And the sergeant ventured out of the post with cautious tread. + +All at once, Gavroche, pushing his cart in front of him, and at the very +moment when he was about to turn into the Rue des Vielles-Haudriettes, +found himself face to face with a uniform, a shako, a plume, and a gun. + +For the second time, he stopped short. + +"Hullo," said he, "it's him. Good day, public order." + +Gavroche's amazement was always brief and speedily thawed. + +"Where are you going, you rascal?" shouted the sergeant. + +"Citizen," retorted Gavroche, "I haven't called you 'bourgeois' yet. Why +do you insult me?" + +"Where are you going, you rogue?" + +"Monsieur," retorted Gavroche, "perhaps you were a man of wit yesterday, +but you have degenerated this morning." + +"I ask you where are you going, you villain?" + +Gavroche replied:-- + +"You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. +You ought to sell all your hair at a hundred francs apiece. That would +yield you five hundred francs." + +"Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going, bandit?" + +Gavroche retorted again:-- + +"What villainous words! You must wipe your mouth better the first time +that they give you suck." + +The sergeant lowered his bayonet. + +"Will you tell me where you are going, you wretch?" + +"General," said Gavroche "I'm on my way to look for a doctor for my wife +who is in labor." + +"To arms!" shouted the sergeant. + +The master-stroke of strong men consists in saving themselves by the +very means that have ruined them; Gavroche took in the whole situation +at a glance. It was the cart which had told against him, it was the +cart's place to protect him. + +At the moment when the sergeant was on the point of making his descent +on Gavroche, the cart, converted into a projectile and launched with all +the latter's might, rolled down upon him furiously, and the sergeant, +struck full in the stomach, tumbled over backwards into the gutter while +his gun went off in the air. + +The men of the post had rushed out pell-mell at the sergeant's shout; +the shot brought on a general random discharge, after which they +reloaded their weapons and began again. + +This blind-man's-buff musketry lasted for a quarter of an hour and +killed several panes of glass. + +In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, +halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the +stone post which forms the corner of the Enfants-Rouges. + +He listened. + +After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the +fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and +thrust it forward three times, as he slapped the back of his head with +his right hand; an imperious gesture in which Parisian street-urchindom +has condensed French irony, and which is evidently efficacious, since it +has already lasted half a century. + +This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection. + +"Yes," said he, "I'm splitting with laughter, I'm twisting with +delight, I abound in joy, but I'm losing my way, I shall have to take a +roundabout way. If I only reach the barricade in season!" + +Thereupon he set out again on a run. + +And as he ran:-- + +"Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he. + +And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and +this is what died away in the gloom:-- + + "Mais il reste encore des bastilles, + Et je vais mettre le hola + Dans l'orde public que voila. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Quelqu'un veut-il jouer aux quilles? + Tout l'ancien monde s'ecroula + Quand la grosse boule roula. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Vieux bon peuple, a coups de bequilles, + Cassons ce Louvre ou s'etala + La monarchie en falbala. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Nous en avons force les grilles, + Le roi Charles-Dix ce jour la, + Tenait mal et se decolla. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la."[57] + +The post's recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was +conquered, the drunken man was taken prisoner. The first was put in the +pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils +of war as an accomplice. The public ministry of the day proved its +indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance. + +Gavroche's adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters +of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly +bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories: "The +nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment." + + +[THE END OF VOLUME IV. "SAINT DENIS"] + + + + + + +VOLUME V--JEAN VALJEAN + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Five ] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Five ] + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE CHARYBDIS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT ANTOINE AND THE SCYLLA OF +THE FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE + +The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies +can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work +is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different +aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time +of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets +that history has ever beheld. + +It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to +liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, +even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its +anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions, of its fevers, of +its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that +great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the +populace wages battle against, the people. + +Beggars attack the common right; the ochlocracy rises against demos. + +These are melancholy days; for there is always a certain amount of night +even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words +which are intended to be insults--beggars, canaille, ochlocracy, +populace--exhibit, alas! rather the fault of those who reign than the +fault of those who suffer; rather the fault of the privileged than the +fault of the disinherited. + +For our own part, we never pronounce those words without pain and +without respect, for when philosophy fathoms the facts to which they +correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens +was an ochlocracy; the beggars were the making of Holland; the populace +saved Rome more than once; and the rabble followed Jesus Christ. + +There is no thinker who has not at times contemplated the magnificences +of the lower classes. + +It was of this rabble that Saint Jerome was thinking, no doubt, and of +all these poor people and all these vagabonds and all these miserable +people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this +mysterious saying: "Fex urbis, lex orbis,"--the dregs of the city, the +law of the earth. + +The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences +contrary to all sense, directed against the principles which are its +life, its masterful deeds against the right, are its popular coups +d'etat and should be repressed. The man of probity sacrifices himself, +and out of his very love for this crowd, he combats it. But how +excusable he feels it even while holding out against it! How he +venerates it even while resisting it! This is one of those rare moments +when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something +which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding +further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though +satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a +pain at the heart. + +June, 1848, let us hasten to say, was an exceptional fact, and almost +impossible of classification, in the philosophy of history. All the +words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes +a question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy +anxiety of toil claiming its rights. It was necessary to combat it, and +this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, 1848, +at bottom? A revolt of the people against itself. + +Where the subject is not lost sight of, there is no digression; may we, +then, be permitted to arrest the reader's attention for a moment on the +two absolutely unique barricades of which we have just spoken and which +characterized this insurrection. + +One blocked the entrance to the Faubourg Saint Antoine; the other +defended the approach to the Faubourg du Temple; those before whom these +two fearful masterpieces of civil war reared themselves beneath the +brilliant blue sky of June, will never forget them. + +The Saint-Antoine barricade was tremendous; it was three stories high, +and seven hundred feet wide. It barred the vast opening of the faubourg, +that is to say, three streets, from angle to angle; ravined, jagged, +cut up, divided, crenelated, with an immense rent, buttressed with piles +that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, +powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the +faubourg, it reared itself like a cyclopean dike at the end of the +formidable place which had seen the 14th of July. Nineteen barricades +were ranged, one behind the other, in the depths of the streets +behind this principal barricade. At the very sight of it, one felt the +agonizing suffering in the immense faubourg, which had reached that +point of extremity when a distress may become a catastrophe. Of what was +that barricade made? Of the ruins of three six-story houses demolished +expressly, said some. Of the prodigy of all wraths, said others. It wore +the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be +asked: Who built this? It might also be said: Who destroyed this? It was +the improvisation of the ebullition. Hold! take this door! this grating! +this penthouse! this chimney-piece! this broken brazier! this cracked +pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, +ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of +stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, +the unseated chair, the cabbage-stalk, the tatter, the rag, and the +malediction. It was grand and it was petty. It was the abyss parodied +on the public place by hubbub. The mass beside the atom; the strip of +ruined wall and the broken bowl,--threatening fraternization of +every sort of rubbish. Sisyphus had thrown his rock there and Job his +potsherd. Terrible, in short. It was the acropolis of the barefooted. +Overturned carts broke the uniformity of the slope; an immense dray was +spread out there crossways, its axle pointing heavenward, and seemed a +scar on that tumultuous facade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, +to the very summit of the heap, as though the architects of this bit of +savagery had wished to add a touch of the street urchin humor to their +terror, presented its horseless, unharnessed pole to no one knows what +horses of the air. This gigantic heap, the alluvium of the revolt, +figured to the mind an Ossa on Pelion of all revolutions; '93 on '89, +the 9th of Thermidor on the 10th of August, the 18th of Brumaire on the +11th of January, Vendemiaire on Prairial, 1848 on 1830. The situation +deserved the trouble and this barricade was worthy to figure on the very +spot whence the Bastille had disappeared. If the ocean made dikes, it +is thus that it would build. The fury of the flood was stamped upon this +shapeless mass. What flood? The crowd. One thought one beheld hubbub +petrified. One thought one heard humming above this barricade as though +there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. +Was it a thicket? Was it a bacchanalia? Was it a fortress? Vertigo +seemed to have constructed it with blows of its wings. There was +something of the cess-pool in that redoubt and something Olympian in +that confusion. One there beheld in a pell-mell full of despair, the +rafters of roofs, bits of garret windows with their figured paper, +window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting +the cannon, wrecks of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling +topsyturveydom, and those thousand poverty-stricken things, the very +refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same time fury and +nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, +rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of stone, and that the Faubourg Saint +Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the +broom making of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman's +blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brackets having +the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting from the rubbish, +amalgamated with this edifice of anarchy the sombre figure of the old +tortures endured by the people. The barricade Saint Antoine converted +everything into a weapon; everything that civil war could throw at the +head of society proceeded thence; it was not combat, it was a paroxysm; +the carbines which defended this redoubt, among which there were some +blunderbusses, sent bits of earthenware bones, coat-buttons, even the +casters from night-stands, dangerous projectiles on account of +the brass. This barricade was furious; it hurled to the clouds an +inexpressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the army, it +was covered with throngs and tempest; a tumultuous crowd of flaming +heads crowned it; a swarm filled it; it had a thorny crest of guns, of +sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of pikes and of bayonets; a vast red flag +flapped in the wind; shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of +drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving +were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and, like the back of an +electric beast, there proceeded from it little flashes of lightning. The +spirit of revolution covered with its cloud this summit where rumbled +that voice of the people which resembles the voice of God; a strange +majesty was emitted by this titanic basket of rubbish. It was a heap of +filth and it was Sinai. + +As we have said previously, it attacked in the name of the +revolution--what? The revolution. It--that barricade, chance, hazard, +disorder, terror, misunderstanding, the unknown--had facing it the +Constituent Assembly, the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, +the nation, the republic; and it was the Carmagnole bidding defiance to +the Marseillaise. + +Immense but heroic defiance, for the old faubourg is a hero. + +The faubourg and its redoubt lent each other assistance. The faubourg +shouldered the redoubt, the redoubt took its stand under cover of the +faubourg. The vast barricade spread out like a cliff against which +the strategy of the African generals dashed itself. Its caverns, its +excrescences, its warts, its gibbosities, grimaced, so to speak, and +grinned beneath the smoke. The mitraille vanished in shapelessness; the +bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; +what was the use of cannonading chaos? and the regiments, accustomed to +the fiercest visions of war, gazed with uneasy eyes on that species of +redoubt, a wild beast in its boar-like bristling and a mountain by its +enormous size. + +A quarter of a league away, from the corner of the Rue du Temple which +debouches on the boulevard near the Chateaud'Eau, if one thrust one's +head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, +one perceived in the distance, beyond the canal, in the street which +mounts the slopes of Belleville at the culminating point of the rise, a +strange wall reaching to the second story of the house fronts, a sort +of hyphen between the houses on the right and the houses on the left, as +though the street had folded back on itself its loftiest wall in order +to close itself abruptly. This wall was built of paving-stones. It was +straight, correct, cold, perpendicular, levelled with the square, laid +out by rule and line. Cement was lacking, of course, but, as in the case +of certain Roman walls, without interfering with its rigid architecture. +The entablature was mathematically parallel with the base. From distance +to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible +loopholes which resembled black threads. These loopholes were separated +from each other by equal spaces. The street was deserted as far as the +eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed. In the background +rose this barrier, which made a blind thoroughfare of the street, a +motionless and tranquil wall; no one was visible, nothing was audible; +not a cry, not a sound, not a breath. A sepulchre. + +The dazzling sun of June inundated this terrible thing with light. + +It was the barricade of the Faubourg of the Temple. + +As soon as one arrived on the spot, and caught sight of it, it was +impossible, even for the boldest, not to become thoughtful before +this mysterious apparition. It was adjusted, jointed, imbricated, +rectilinear, symmetrical and funereal. Science and gloom met there. One +felt that the chief of this barricade was a geometrician or a spectre. +One looked at it and spoke low. + +From time to time, if some soldier, an officer or representative of the +people, chanced to traverse the deserted highway, a faint, sharp whistle +was heard, and the passer-by fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the +bullet, sometimes a biscaien was seen to ensconce itself in some closed +shutter, in the interstice between two blocks of stone, or in the +plaster of a wall. For the men in the barricade had made themselves two +small cannons out of two cast-iron lengths of gas-pipe, plugged up at +one end with tow and fire-clay. There was no waste of useless powder. +Nearly every shot told. There were corpses here and there, and pools of +blood on the pavement. I remember a white butterfly which went and came +in the street. Summer does not abdicate. + +In the neighborhood, the spaces beneath the portes cocheres were +encumbered with wounded. + +One felt oneself aimed at by some person whom one did not see, and one +understood that guns were levelled at the whole length of the street. + +Massed behind the sort of sloping ridge which the vaulted canal forms +at the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking +column, gravely and thoughtfully, watched this dismal redoubt, this +immobility, this passivity, whence sprang death. Some crawled flat on +their faces as far as the crest of the curve of the bridge, taking care +that their shakos did not project beyond it. + +The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a +shudder.--"How that is built!" he said to a Representative. "Not one +paving-stone projects beyond its neighbor. It is made of porcelain."--At +that moment, a bullet broke the cross on his breast, and he fell. + +"The cowards!" people said. "Let them show themselves. Let us see them! +They dare not! They are hiding!" + +The barricade of the Faubourg du Temple, defended by eighty men, +attacked by ten thousand, held out for three days. On the fourth, they +did as at Zaatcha, as at Constantine, they pierced the houses, they came +over the roofs, the barricade was taken. Not one of the eighty cowards +thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the +leader, Barthelemy, of whom we shall speak presently. + +The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade +of the Temple was silence. The difference between these two redoubts +was the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a +maw; the other a mask. + +Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed +of a wrath and of an enigma, one divined in the first barricade the +dragon, and behind the second the sphinx. + +These two fortresses had been erected by two men named, the one, +Cournet, the other, Barthelemy. Cournet made the Saint-Antoine +barricade; Barthelemy the barricade of the Temple. Each was the image of +the man who had built it. + +Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, +a crushing fist, a bold heart, a loyal soul, a sincere and terrible eye. +Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy; the most cordial of men, the +most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air +he breathed and put him in a good humor. He had been an officer in the +navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang +from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest; he carried the +hurricane on into battle. With the exception of the genius, there was +in Cournet something of Danton, as, with the exception of the divinity, +there was in Danton something of Hercules. + +Barthelemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of tragic street +urchin, who, having had his ears boxed by a policeman, lay in wait for +him, and killed him, and at seventeen was sent to the galleys. He came +out and made this barricade. + +Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all, Barthelemy +slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time afterwards, caught in +the gearing of one of those mysterious adventures in which passion +plays a part, a catastrophe in which French justice sees extenuating +circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthelemy +was hanged. The sombre social construction is so made that, thanks to +material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity, that unhappy being +who possessed an intelligence, certainly firm, possibly great, began +in France with the galleys, and ended in England with the gallows. +Barthelemy, on occasion, flew but one flag, the black flag. + + + + +CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE + +Sixteen years count in the subterranean education of insurrection, and +June, 1848, knew a great deal more about it than June, 1832. So the +barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, and an embryo +compared to the two colossal barricades which we have just sketched; but +it was formidable for that epoch. + +The insurgents under the eye of Enjolras, for Marius no longer looked +after anything, had made good use of the night. The barricade had been +not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars +of iron planted in the pavement resembled lances in rest. All sorts of +rubbish brought and added from all directions complicated the external +confusion. The redoubt had been cleverly made over, into a wall on the +inside and a thicket on the outside. + +The staircase of paving-stones which permitted one to mount it like the +wall of a citadel had been reconstructed. + +The barricade had been put in order, the tap-room disencumbered, the +kitchen appropriated for the ambulance, the dressing of the wounded +completed, the powder scattered on the ground and on the tables had been +gathered up, bullets run, cartridges manufactured, lint scraped, the +fallen weapons re-distributed, the interior of the redoubt cleaned, the +rubbish swept up, corpses removed. + +They laid the dead in a heap in the Mondetour lane, of which they were +still the masters. The pavement was red for a long time at that spot. +Among the dead there were four National Guardsmen of the suburbs. +Enjolras had their uniforms laid aside. + +Enjolras had advised two hours of sleep. Advice from Enjolras was a +command. Still, only three or four took advantage of it. + +Feuilly employed these two hours in engraving this inscription on the +wall which faced the tavern:-- + + LONG LIVE THE PEOPLES! + +These four words, hollowed out in the rough stone with a nail, could be +still read on the wall in 1848. + +The three women had profited by the respite of the night to vanish +definitely; which allowed the insurgents to breathe more freely. + +They had found means of taking refuge in some neighboring house. + +The greater part of the wounded were able, and wished, to fight still. +On a litter of mattresses and trusses of straw in the kitchen, which had +been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, +two of whom were municipal guardsmen. The municipal guardsmen were +attended to first. + +In the tap-room there remained only Mabeuf under his black cloth and +Javert bound to his post. + +"This is the hall of the dead," said Enjolras. + +In the interior of this hall, barely lighted by a candle at one end, the +mortuary table being behind the post like a horizontal bar, a sort of +vast, vague cross resulted from Javert erect and Mabeuf lying prone. + +The pole of the omnibus, although snapped off by the fusillade, was +still sufficiently upright to admit of their fastening the flag to it. + +Enjolras, who possessed that quality of a leader, of always doing what +he said, attached to this staff the bullet-ridden and bloody coat of the +old man's. + +No repast had been possible. There was neither bread nor meat. The fifty +men in the barricade had speedily exhausted the scanty provisions of +the wine-shop during the sixteen hours which they had passed there. At a +given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of la Meduse. +They were obliged to resign themselves to hunger. They had then reached +the first hours of that Spartan day of the 6th of June when, in the +barricade Saint-Merry, Jeanne, surrounded by the insurgents who demanded +bread, replied to all combatants crying: "Something to eat!" with: "Why? +It is three o'clock; at four we shall be dead." + +As they could no longer eat, Enjolras forbade them to drink. He +interdicted wine, and portioned out the brandy. + +They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. +Enjolras and Combeferre examined them. Combeferre when he came up again +said:--"It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as +a grocer."--"It must be real wine," observed Bossuet. "It's lucky that +Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of +difficulty in saving those bottles."--Enjolras, in spite of all murmurs, +placed his veto on the fifteen bottles, and, in order that no one might +touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf +was lying. + +About two o'clock in the morning, they reckoned up their strength. There +were still thirty-seven of them. + +The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its +cavity in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the +barricade, that species of tiny courtyard appropriated from the street, +was bathed in shadows, and resembled, athwart the vague, twilight +horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went +and came, moved about there like black forms. Above that terrible +nesting-place of gloom the stories of the mute houses were lividly +outlined; at the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of +that charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds +flew about in it with cries of joy. The lofty house which formed the +back of the barricade, being turned to the East, had upon its roof a +rosy reflection. The morning breeze ruffled the gray hair on the head of +the dead man at the third-story window. + +"I am delighted that the torch has been extinguished," said Courfeyrac +to Feuilly. "That torch flickering in the wind annoyed me. It had the +appearance of being afraid. The light of torches resembles the wisdom of +cowards; it gives a bad light because it trembles." + +Dawn awakens minds as it does the birds; all began to talk. + +Joly, perceiving a cat prowling on a gutter, extracted philosophy from +it. + +"What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. The good God, +having made the mouse, said: 'Hullo! I have committed a blunder.' And +so he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus +the cat, is the proof of creation revised and corrected." + +Combeferre, surrounded by students and artisans, was speaking of the +dead, of Jean Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, and even of Cabuc, and +of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:-- + +"Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus, Chereas, Stephanus, Cromwell, +Charlotte Corday, Sand, have all had their moment of agony when it was +too late. Our hearts quiver so, and human life is such a mystery that, +even in the case of a civic murder, even in a murder for liberation, if +there be such a thing, the remorse for having struck a man surpasses the +joy of having served the human race." + +And, such are the windings of the exchange of speech, that, a moment +later, by a transition brought about through Jean Prouvaire's verses, +Combeferre was comparing the translators of the Georgics, Raux with +Cournand, Cournand with Delille, pointing out the passages translated +by Malfilatre, particularly the prodigies of Caesar's death; and at that +word, Caesar, the conversation reverted to Brutus. + +"Caesar," said Combeferre, "fell justly. Cicero was severe towards +Caesar, and he was right. That severity is not diatribe. When Zoilus +insults Homer, when Maevius insults Virgil, when Vise insults Moliere, +when Pope insults Shakspeare, when Frederic insults Voltaire, it is an +old law of envy and hatred which is being carried out; genius attracts +insult, great men are always more or less barked at. But Zoilus and +Cicero are two different persons. Cicero is an arbiter in thought, just +as Brutus is an arbiter by the sword. For my own part, I blame that last +justice, the blade; but, antiquity admitted it. Caesar, the violator +of the Rubicon, conferring, as though they came from him, the dignities +which emanated from the people, not rising at the entrance of the +senate, committed the acts of a king and almost of a tyrant, regia ac +pene tyrannica. He was a great man; so much the worse, or so much the +better; the lesson is but the more exalted. His twenty-three wounds +touch me less than the spitting in the face of Jesus Christ. Caesar is +stabbed by the senators; Christ is cuffed by lackeys. One feels the God +through the greater outrage." + +Bossuet, who towered above the interlocutors from the summit of a heap +of paving-stones, exclaimed, rifle in hand:-- + +"Oh Cydathenaeum, Oh Myrrhinus, Oh Probalinthus, Oh graces of the +AEantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a +Greek of Laurium or of Edapteon?" + + + + +CHAPTER III--LIGHT AND SHADOW + +Enjolras had been to make a reconnaissance. He had made his way out +through Mondetour lane, gliding along close to the houses. + +The insurgents, we will remark, were full of hope. The manner in which +they had repulsed the attack of the preceding night had caused them to +almost disdain in advance the attack at dawn. They waited for it with +a smile. They had no more doubt as to their success than as to their +cause. Moreover, succor was, evidently, on the way to them. They +reckoned on it. With that facility of triumphant prophecy which is one +of the sources of strength in the French combatant, they divided the +day which was at hand into three distinct phases. At six o'clock in the +morning a regiment "which had been labored with," would turn; at noon, +the insurrection of all Paris; at sunset, revolution. + +They heard the alarm bell of Saint-Merry, which had not been silent for +an instant since the night before; a proof that the other barricade, the +great one, Jeanne's, still held out. + +All these hopes were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of +gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum of a hive of +bees. + +Enjolras reappeared. He returned from his sombre eagle flight into outer +darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and +one hand on his mouth. Then, fresh and rosy in the growing whiteness of +the dawn, he said: + +"The whole army of Paris is to strike. A third of the army is bearing +down upon the barricades in which you now are. There is the National +Guard in addition. I have picked out the shakos of the fifth of the +line, and the standard-bearers of the sixth legion. In one hour you will +be attacked. As for the populace, it was seething yesterday, to-day +it is not stirring. There is nothing to expect; nothing to hope for. +Neither from a faubourg nor from a regiment. You are abandoned." + +These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and produced on them +the effect caused on a swarm of bees by the first drops of a storm. A +moment of indescribable silence ensued, in which death might have been +heard flitting by. + +This moment was brief. + +A voice from the obscurest depths of the groups shouted to Enjolras: + +"So be it. Let us raise the barricade to a height of twenty feet, and +let us all remain in it. Citizens, let us offer the protests of corpses. +Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans +do not abandon the people." + +These words freed the thought of all from the painful cloud of +individual anxieties. It was hailed with an enthusiastic acclamation. + +No one ever has known the name of the man who spoke thus; he was some +unknown blouse-wearer, a stranger, a man forgotten, a passing hero, that +great anonymous, always mingled in human crises and in social geneses +who, at a given moment, utters in a supreme fashion the decisive word, +and who vanishes into the shadows after having represented for a minute, +in a lightning flash, the people and God. + +This inexorable resolution so thoroughly impregnated the air of the +6th of June, 1832, that, almost at the very same hour, on the barricade +Saint-Merry, the insurgents were raising that clamor which has become a +matter of history and which has been consigned to the documents in the +case:--"What matters it whether they come to our assistance or not? Let +us get ourselves killed here, to the very last man." + +As the reader sees, the two barricades, though materially isolated, were +in communication with each other. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--MINUS FIVE, PLUS ONE + +After the man who decreed the "protest of corpses" had spoken, and had +given this formula of their common soul, there issued from all mouths a +strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense and triumphant +in tone: + +"Long live death! Let us all remain here!" + +"Why all?" said Enjolras. + +"All! All!" + +Enjolras resumed: + +"The position is good; the barricade is fine. Thirty men are enough. Why +sacrifice forty?" + +They replied: + +"Because not one will go away." + +"Citizens," cried Enjolras, and there was an almost irritated vibration +in his voice, "this republic is not rich enough in men to indulge in +useless expenditure of them. Vain-glory is waste. If the duty of some is +to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other." + +Enjolras, the man-principle, had over his co-religionists that sort of +omnipotent power which emanates from the absolute. Still, great as was +this omnipotence, a murmur arose. A leader to the very finger-tips, +Enjolras, seeing that they murmured, insisted. He resumed haughtily: + +"Let those who are afraid of not numbering more than thirty say so." + +The murmurs redoubled. + +"Besides," observed a voice in one group, "it is easy enough to talk +about leaving. The barricade is hemmed in." + +"Not on the side of the Halles," said Enjolras. "The Rue Mondetour is +free, and through the Rue des Precheurs one can reach the Marche des +Innocents." + +"And there," went on another voice, "you would be captured. You would +fall in with some grand guard of the line or the suburbs; they will spy +a man passing in blouse and cap. 'Whence come you?' 'Don't you belong to +the barricade?' And they will look at your hands. You smell of powder. +Shot." + +Enjolras, without making any reply, touched Combeferre's shoulder, and +the two entered the tap-room. + +They emerged thence a moment later. Enjolras held in his outstretched +hands the four uniforms which he had laid aside. Combeferre followed, +carrying the shoulder-belts and the shakos. + +"With this uniform," said Enjolras, "you can mingle with the ranks and +escape; here is enough for four." And he flung on the ground, deprived +of its pavement, the four uniforms. + +No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the +word. + +"Come," said he, "you must have a little pity. Do you know what the +question is here? It is a question of women. See here. Are there +women or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there +mothers, yes or no, who rock cradles with their foot and who have a lot +of little ones around them? Let that man of you who has never beheld a +nurse's breast raise his hand. Ah! you want to get yourselves killed, so +do I--I, who am speaking to you; but I do not want to feel the phantoms +of women wreathing their arms around me. Die, if you will, but +don't make others die. Suicides like that which is on the brink of +accomplishment here are sublime; but suicide is narrow, and does not +admit of extension; and as soon as it touches your neighbors, suicide +is murder. Think of the little blond heads; think of the white locks. +Listen, Enjolras has just told me that he saw at the corner of the Rue +du Cygne a lighted casement, a candle in a poor window, on the fifth +floor, and on the pane the quivering shadow of the head of an old woman, +who had the air of having spent the night in watching. Perhaps she is +the mother of some one of you. Well, let that man go, and make haste, to +say to his mother: 'Here I am, mother!' Let him feel at ease, the task +here will be performed all the same. When one supports one's relatives +by one's toil, one has not the right to sacrifice one's self. That +is deserting one's family. And those who have daughters! what are you +thinking of? You get yourselves killed, you are dead, that is well. And +tomorrow? Young girls without bread--that is a terrible thing. Man begs, +woman sells. Ah! those charming and gracious beings, so gracious and so +sweet, who have bonnets of flowers, who fill the house with purity, who +sing and prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove the existence +of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth, that Jeanne, +that Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures who are your +blessings and your pride, ah! good God, they will suffer hunger! What do +you want me to say to you? There is a market for human flesh; and it +is not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them, that you +will prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think of the +pavement covered with passers-by, think of the shops past which women +go and come with necks all bare, and through the mire. These women, +too, were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who have them. +Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare--that is what those +beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty, gentleness +and loveliness, fresher than lilacs in the month of May, will come to. +Ah! you have got yourselves killed! You are no longer on hand! That +is well; you have wished to release the people from Royalty, and you +deliver over your daughters to the police. Friends, have a care, have +mercy. Women, unhappy women, we are not in the habit of bestowing much +thought on them. We trust to the women not having received a man's +education, we prevent their reading, we prevent their thinking, we +prevent their occupying themselves with politics; will you prevent them +from going to the dead-house this evening, and recognizing your bodies? +Let us see, those who have families must be tractable, and shake hands +with us and take themselves off, and leave us here alone to attend to +this affair. I know well that courage is required to leave, that it is +hard; but the harder it is, the more meritorious. You say: 'I have a +gun, I am at the barricade; so much the worse, I shall remain there.' So +much the worse is easily said. My friends, there is a morrow; you will +not be here to-morrow, but your families will; and what sufferings! See, +here is a pretty, healthy child, with cheeks like an apple, who babbles, +prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet beneath your kiss,--and +do you know what becomes of him when he is abandoned? I have seen one, +a very small creature, no taller than that. His father was dead. Poor +people had taken him in out of charity, but they had bread only for +themselves. The child was always hungry. It was winter. He did not cry. +You could see him approach the stove, in which there was never any fire, +and whose pipe, you know, was of mastic and yellow clay. His breathing +was hoarse, his face livid, his limbs flaccid, his belly prominent. He +said nothing. If you spoke to him, he did not answer. He is dead. He was +taken to the Necker Hospital, where I saw him. I was house-surgeon in +that hospital. Now, if there are any fathers among you, fathers whose +happiness it is to stroll on Sundays holding their child's tiny hand in +their robust hand, let each one of those fathers imagine that this child +is his own. That poor brat, I remember, and I seem to see him now, when +he lay nude on the dissecting table, how his ribs stood out on his skin +like the graves beneath the grass in a cemetery. A sort of mud was found +in his stomach. There were ashes in his teeth. Come, let us examine +ourselves conscientiously and take counsel with our heart. Statistics +show that the mortality among abandoned children is fifty-five per cent. +I repeat, it is a question of women, it concerns mothers, it concerns +young girls, it concerns little children. Who is talking to you of +yourselves? We know well what you are; we know well that you are all +brave, parbleu! we know well that you all have in your souls the joy and +the glory of giving your life for the great cause; we know well that you +feel yourselves elected to die usefully and magnificently, and that each +one of you clings to his share in the triumph. Very well. But you are +not alone in this world. There are other beings of whom you must think. +You must not be egoists." + +All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. + +Strange contradictions of the human heart at its most sublime moments. +Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers +of other men, and forgot his own. He was about to get himself killed. He +was "an egoist." + +Marius, fasting, fevered, having emerged in succession from all hope, +and having been stranded in grief, the most sombre of shipwrecks, and +saturated with violent emotions and conscious that the end was near, +had plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always +precedes the fatal hour voluntarily accepted. + +A physiologist might have studied in him the growing symptoms of that +febrile absorption known to, and classified by, science, and which is +to suffering what voluptuousness is to pleasure. Despair, also, has its +ecstasy. Marius had reached this point. He looked on at everything as +from without; as we have said, things which passed before him seemed far +away; he made out the whole, but did not perceive the details. He beheld +men going and coming as through a flame. He heard voices speaking as at +the bottom of an abyss. + +But this moved him. There was in this scene a point which pierced and +roused even him. He had but one idea now, to die; and he did not wish to +be turned aside from it, but he reflected, in his gloomy somnambulism, +that while destroying himself, he was not prohibited from saving some +one else. + +He raised his voice. + +"Enjolras and Combeferre are right," said he; "no unnecessary sacrifice. +I join them, and you must make haste. Combeferre has said convincing +things to you. There are some among you who have families, mothers, +sisters, wives, children. Let such leave the ranks." + +No one stirred. + +"Married men and the supporters of families, step out of the ranks!" +repeated Marius. + +His authority was great. Enjolras was certainly the head of the +barricade, but Marius was its savior. + +"I order it," cried Enjolras. + +"I entreat you," said Marius. + +Then, touched by Combeferre's words, shaken by Enjolras' order, touched +by Marius' entreaty, these heroic men began to denounce each other.--"It +is true," said one young man to a full grown man, "you are the father +of a family. Go."--"It is your duty rather," retorted the man, "you have +two sisters whom you maintain."--And an unprecedented controversy broke +forth. Each struggled to determine which should not allow himself to be +placed at the door of the tomb. + +"Make haste," said Courfeyrac, "in another quarter of an hour it will be +too late." + +"Citizens," pursued Enjolras, "this is the Republic, and universal +suffrage reigns. Do you yourselves designate those who are to go." + +They obeyed. After the expiration of a few minutes, five were +unanimously selected and stepped out of the ranks. + +"There are five of them!" exclaimed Marius. + +There were only four uniforms. + +"Well," began the five, "one must stay behind." + +And then a struggle arose as to who should remain, and who should find +reasons for the others not remaining. The generous quarrel began afresh. + +"You have a wife who loves you."--"You have your aged mother."--" You +have neither father nor mother, and what is to become of your three +little brothers?"--"You are the father of five children."--"You have a +right to live, you are only seventeen, it is too early for you to die." + +These great revolutionary barricades were assembling points for heroism. +The improbable was simple there. These men did not astonish each other. + +"Be quick," repeated Courfeyrac. + +Men shouted to Marius from the groups: + +"Do you designate who is to remain." + +"Yes," said the five, "choose. We will obey you." + +Marius did not believe that he was capable of another emotion. Still, +at this idea, that of choosing a man for death, his blood rushed back +to his heart. He would have turned pale, had it been possible for him to +become any paler. + +He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his +eyes full of that grand flame which one beholds in the depths of history +hovering over Thermopylae, cried to him: + +"Me! me! me!" + +And Marius stupidly counted them; there were still five of them! Then +his glance dropped to the four uniforms. + +At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, upon the other +four. + +The fifth man was saved. + +Marius raised his eyes and recognized M. Fauchelevent. + +Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. + +He had arrived by way of Mondetour lane, whither by dint of inquiries +made, or by instinct, or chance. Thanks to his dress of a National +Guardsman, he had made his way without difficulty. + +The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondetour had no +occasion to give the alarm for a single National Guardsman, and he had +allowed the latter to entangle himself in the street, saying to himself: +"Probably it is a reinforcement, in any case it is a prisoner." The +moment was too grave to admit of the sentinel abandoning his duty and +his post of observation. + +At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, no one had noticed +him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. +Jean Valjean also had seen and heard, and he had silently removed his +coat and flung it on the pile with the rest. + +The emotion aroused was indescribable. + +"Who is this man?" demanded Bossuet. + +"He is a man who saves others," replied Combeferre. + +Marius added in a grave voice: + +"I know him." + +This guarantee satisfied every one. + +Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean. + +"Welcome, citizen." + +And he added: + +"You know that we are about to die." + +Jean Valjean, without replying, helped the insurgent whom he was saving +to don his uniform. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE HORIZON WHICH ONE BEHOLDS FROM THE SUMMIT OF A BARRICADE + +The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place, had as +result and culminating point Enjolras' supreme melancholy. + +Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was +incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so; he had too much +of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still, +his mind, in the society of the Friends of the A B C, had ended by +undergoing a certain polarization from Combeferre's ideas; for some time +past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogma, and +had allowed himself to incline to the broadening influence of progress, +and he had come to accept, as a definitive and magnificent evolution, +the transformation of the great French Republic, into the immense +human republic. As far as the immediate means were concerned, a violent +situation being given, he wished to be violent; on that point, he never +varied; and he remained of that epic and redoubtable school which is +summed up in the words: "Eighty-three." Enjolras was standing erect on +the staircase of paving-stones, one elbow resting on the stock of +his gun. He was engaged in thought; he quivered, as at the passage of +prophetic breaths; places where death is have these effects of tripods. +A sort of stifled fire darted from his eyes, which were filled with an +inward look. All at once he threw back his head, his blond locks fell +back like those of an angel on the sombre quadriga made of stars, they +were like the mane of a startled lion in the flaming of an halo, and +Enjolras cried: + +"Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of +cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations +sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the +present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full +equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience +become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and the +school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right for +all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To +conquer matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is the second. +Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the +first human races beheld with terror the hydra pass before their eyes, +breathing on the waters, the dragon which vomited flame, the griffin who +was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle +and the talons of a tiger; fearful beasts which were above man. Man, +nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by intelligence, and +finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and +it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing the +griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon. On the day +when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and when man shall have +definitely harnessed to his will the triple Chimaera of antiquity, the +hydra, the dragon and the griffin, he will be the master of water, fire, +and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which +the ancient gods formerly were to him. Courage, and onward! Citizens, +whither are we going? To science made government, to the force of things +become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself its +sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn +of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the union +of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions; +no more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. +Civilization will hold its assizes at the summit of Europe, and, +later on, at the centre of continents, in a grand parliament of the +intelligence. Something similar has already been seen. The amphictyons +had two sittings a year, one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other +at Thermopylae, the place of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons; +the globe will have its amphictyons. France bears this sublime future in +her breast. This is the gestation of the nineteenth century. That which +Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, +you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you +clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father +nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right +for your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here. +Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as +through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. +As conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the +whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have +just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of +view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over +himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where +two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But +in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a +certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. +This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession +which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing +else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This +protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of +intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society. +This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence what +is called the social bond. Some say social contract; which is the same +thing, the word contract being etymologically formed with the idea of a +bond. Let us come to an understanding about equality; for, if liberty +is the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not wholly a +surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks; a +proximity of jealousies which render each other null and void; legally +speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity; +politically, it is all votes possessed of the same weight; religiously, +it is all consciences possessed of the same right. Equality has an +organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, +that is where the beginning must be made. The primary school imposed +on all, the secondary school offered to all, that is the law. From an +identical school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! +light! light! everything comes from light, and to it everything returns. +Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century +will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, +we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, +a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of +civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary +tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because +of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face +to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we +shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising +from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the +sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. +One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall be happy. +The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe +accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul +and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet +around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing +you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases of the future. +A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, +consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry +of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is +the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this +barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of +iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here +misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: 'I +am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace +of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their +agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are +about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies +in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded +with the dawn." + +Enjolras paused rather than became silent; his lips continued to move +silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all +to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more. There was no +applause; but they whispered together for a long time. Speech being a +breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--MARIUS HAGGARD, JAVERT LACONIC + +Let us narrate what was passing in Marius' thoughts. + +Let the reader recall the state of his soul. We have just recalled it, +everything was a vision to him now. His judgment was disturbed. Marius, +let us insist on this point, was under the shadow of the great, dark +wings which are spread over those in the death agony. He felt that he +had entered the tomb, it seemed to him that he was already on the other +side of the wall, and he no longer beheld the faces of the living except +with the eyes of one dead. + +How did M. Fauchelevent come there? Why was he there? What had he come +there to do? Marius did not address all these questions to himself. +Besides, since our despair has this peculiarity, that it envelops others +as well as ourselves, it seemed logical to him that all the world should +come thither to die. + +Only, he thought of Cosette with a pang at his heart. + +However, M. Fauchelevent did not speak to him, did not look at him, and +had not even the air of hearing him, when Marius raised his voice to +say: "I know him." + +As far as Marius was concerned, this attitude of M. Fauchelevent was +comforting, and, if such a word can be used for such impressions, +we should say that it pleased him. He had always felt the absolute +impossibility of addressing that enigmatical man, who was, in his eyes, +both equivocal and imposing. Moreover, it had been a long time since +he had seen him; and this still further augmented the impossibility for +Marius' timid and reserved nature. + +The five chosen men left the barricade by way of Mondetour lane; they +bore a perfect resemblance to members of the National Guard. One of them +wept as he took his leave. Before setting out, they embraced those who +remained. + +When the five men sent back to life had taken their departure, Enjolras +thought of the man who had been condemned to death. + +He entered the tap-room. Javert, still bound to the post, was engaged in +meditation. + +"Do you want anything?" Enjolras asked him. + +Javert replied: "When are you going to kill me?" + +"Wait. We need all our cartridges just at present." + +"Then give me a drink," said Javert. + +Enjolras himself offered him a glass of water, and, as Javert was +pinioned, he helped him to drink. + +"Is that all?" inquired Enjolras. + +"I am uncomfortable against this post," replied Javert. "You are not +tender to have left me to pass the night here. Bind me as you please, +but you surely might lay me out on a table like that other man." + +And with a motion of the head, he indicated the body of M. Mabeuf. + +There was, as the reader will remember, a long, broad table at the +end of the room, on which they had been running bullets and making +cartridges. All the cartridges having been made, and all the powder +used, this table was free. + +At Enjolras' command, four insurgents unbound Javert from the post. +While they were loosing him, a fifth held a bayonet against his breast. + +Leaving his arms tied behind his back, they placed about his feet a +slender but stout whip-cord, as is done to men on the point of mounting +the scaffold, which allowed him to take steps about fifteen inches in +length, and made him walk to the table at the end of the room, where +they laid him down, closely bound about the middle of the body. + +By way of further security, and by means of a rope fastened to his neck, +they added to the system of ligatures which rendered every attempt +at escape impossible, that sort of bond which is called in prisons a +martingale, which, starting at the neck, forks on the stomach, and meets +the hands, after passing between the legs. + +While they were binding Javert, a man standing on the threshold was +surveying him with singular attention. The shadow cast by this man made +Javert turn his head. He raised his eyes, and recognized Jean Valjean. +He did not even start, but dropped his lids proudly and confined himself +to the remark: "It is perfectly simple." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED + +The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door +stood ajar; it was the dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been evacuated by the +troops, as we have stated it seemed to be free, and presented itself to +passers-by with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue Saint-Denis was as +dumb as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the +cross-roads, which gleamed white in the light of the sun. Nothing is so +mournful as this light in deserted streets. Nothing was to be seen, but +there was something to be heard. A mysterious movement was going on at +a certain distance. It was evident that the critical moment was +approaching. As on the previous evening, the sentinels had come in; but +this time all had come. + +The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first attack. +Since the departure of the five, they had increased its height still +further. + +On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the +Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to a serious +decision. He had the small gut of the Mondetour lane, which had been +left open up to that time, barricaded. For this purpose, they tore up +the pavement for the length of several houses more. In this manner, +the barricade, walled on three streets, in front on the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite +Truanderie, to the right on the Rue Mondetour, was really almost +impregnable; it is true that they were fatally hemmed in there. It +had three fronts, but no exit.--"A fortress but a rat hole too," said +Courfeyrac with a laugh. + +Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones "torn up in excess," said +Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop. + +The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must +needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle. + +An allowance of brandy was doled out to each. + +Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault. Each +man selects his place as though at the theatre. They jostle, and elbow +and crowd each other. There are some who make stalls of paving-stones. +Here is a corner of the wall which is in the way, it is removed; here +is a redan which may afford protection, they take shelter behind it. +Left-handed men are precious; they take the places that are inconvenient +to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be +at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, +an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the +top of a terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for +his use; a charge of grape-shot found him out there. + +As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks for action, +all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling from one +another; there are no more coteries; no more asides, there is no more +holding aloof; everything in their spirits converges in, and changes +into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before the arrival of +danger is chaos; in danger, it is discipline itself. Peril produces +order. + +As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle, and had +placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved for himself, +all the rest held their peace. A series of faint, sharp noises resounded +confusedly along the wall of paving-stones. It was the men cocking their +guns. + +Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than ever; the +excess of sacrifice strengthens; they no longer cherished any hope, +but they had despair, despair,--the last weapon, which sometimes gives +victory; Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from extreme +resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a +shipwreck; and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety. + +As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed, we +might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted up and +visible. + +They had not long to wait. A stir began distinctly in the Saint-Leu +quarter, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack. A +clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass +skipping along the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that +some sinister construction of iron was approaching. There arose a tremor +in the bosoms of these peaceful old streets, pierced and built for the +fertile circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made for +the horrible rumble of the wheels of war. + +The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity of the street +became ferocious. + +A cannon made its appearance. + +Artillery-men were pushing the piece; it was in firing trim; the +fore-carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage, four were +at the wheels; others followed with the caisson. They could see the +smoke of the burning lint-stock. + +"Fire!" shouted Enjolras. + +The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche of +smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few seconds, the +cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men re-appeared; the gun-crew had +just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without haste, into position +facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain +of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, +began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a +telescope. + +"Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet. + +And the whole barricade clapped their hands. + +A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, +astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action. A formidable pair +of jaws yawned on the barricade. + +"Come, merrily now!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. "That's the brutal part of +it. After the fillip on the nose, the blow from the fist. The army is +reaching out its big paw to us. The barricade is going to be severely +shaken up. The fusillade tries, the cannon takes." + +"It is a piece of eight, new model, brass," added Combeferre. "Those +pieces are liable to burst as soon as the proportion of ten parts of tin +to one hundred of brass is exceeded. The excess of tin renders them too +tender. Then it comes to pass that they have caves and chambers when +looked at from the vent hole. In order to obviate this danger, and +to render it possible to force the charge, it may become necessary +to return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to +encircle the piece on the outside with a series of unwelded steel bands, +from the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this +defect as best they may; they manage to discover where the holes are +located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a +better method, with Gribeauval's movable star." + +"In the sixteenth century," remarked Bossuet, "they used to rifle +cannon." + +"Yes," replied Combeferre, "that augments the projectile force, but +diminishes the accuracy of the firing. In firing at short range, +the trajectory is not as rigid as could be desired, the parabola is +exaggerated, the line of the projectile is no longer sufficiently +rectilinear to allow of its striking intervening objects, which is, +nevertheless, a necessity of battle, the importance of which increases +with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation of the discharge. +This defect of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the rifled +cannon of the sixteenth century arose from the smallness of the charge; +small charges for that sort of engine are imposed by the ballistic +necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the +gun-carriage. In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do all that +it desires; force is a great weakness. A cannon-ball only travels +six hundred leagues an hour; light travels seventy thousand leagues a +second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon." + +"Reload your guns," said Enjolras. + +How was the casing of the barricade going to behave under the +cannon-balls? Would they effect a breach? That was the question. While +the insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillery-men were loading +the cannon. + +The anxiety in the redoubt was profound. + +The shot sped the report burst forth. + +"Present!" shouted a joyous voice. + +And Gavroche flung himself into the barricade just as the ball dashed +against it. + +He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and he had nimbly +climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the labyrinth of +the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. + +Gavroche produced a greater sensation in the barricade than the +cannon-ball. + +The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish. At the most there was an +omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing +this, the barricade burst into a laugh. + +"Go on!" shouted Bossuet to the artillerists. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE ARTILLERY-MEN COMPEL PEOPLE TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY + +They flocked round Gavroche. But he had no time to tell anything. Marius +drew him aside with a shudder. + +"What are you doing here?" + +"Hullo!" said the child, "what are you doing here yourself?" + +And he stared at Marius intently with his epic effrontery. His eyes grew +larger with the proud light within them. + +It was with an accent of severity that Marius continued: + +"Who told you to come back? Did you deliver my letter at the address?" + +Gavroche was not without some compunctions in the matter of that letter. +In his haste to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather +than delivered it. He was forced to acknowledge to himself that he had +confided it rather lightly to that stranger whose face he had not been +able to make out. It is true that the man was bareheaded, but that was +not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself little +inward remonstrances and he feared Marius' reproaches. In order to +extricate himself from the predicament, he took the simplest course; he +lied abominably. + +"Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep. She +will have the letter when she wakes up." + +Marius had had two objects in sending that letter: to bid farewell to +Cosette and to save Gavroche. He was obliged to content himself with the +half of his desire. + +The despatch of his letter and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the +barricade, was a coincidence which occurred to him. He pointed out M. +Fauchelevent to Gavroche. + +"Do you know that man?" + +"No," said Gavroche. + +Gavroche had, in fact, as we have just mentioned, seen Jean Valjean only +at night. + +The troubled and unhealthy conjectures which had outlined themselves in +Marius' mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent's opinions? +Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican. Hence his very natural +presence in this combat. + +In the meanwhile, Gavroche was shouting, at the other end of the +barricade: "My gun!" + +Courfeyrac had it returned to him. + +Gavroche warned "his comrades" as he called them, that the barricade was +blocked. He had had great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of the +line whose arms were piled in the Rue de la Petite Truanderie was on +the watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side, the +municipal guard occupied the Rue des Precheurs. The bulk of the army was +facing them in front. + +This information given, Gavroche added: + +"I authorize you to hit 'em a tremendous whack." + +Meanwhile, Enjolras was straining his ears and watching at his +embrasure. + +The assailants, dissatisfied, no doubt, with their shot, had not +repeated it. + +A company of infantry of the line had come up and occupied the end of +the street behind the piece of ordnance. The soldiers were tearing up +the pavement and constructing with the stones a small, low wall, a +sort of side-work not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the +barricade. In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was +visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in +the Rue Saint-Denis. + +Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound +which is produced when the shells of grape-shot are drawn from the +caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation +and incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the +cannoneers began to load the piece. The chief seized the lint-stock +himself and lowered it to the vent. + +"Down with your heads, hug the wall!" shouted Enjolras, "and all on your +knees along the barricade!" + +The insurgents who were straggling in front of the wine-shop, and +who had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche's arrival, rushed +pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras' order could be +executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a round +of grape-shot. This is what it was, in fact. + +The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had there +rebounded from the wall; and this terrible rebound had produced two dead +and three wounded. + +If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The +grape-shot made its way in. + +A murmur of consternation arose. + +"Let us prevent the second discharge," said Enjolras. + +And, lowering his rifle, he took aim at the captain of the gun, who, at +that moment, was bearing down on the breach of his gun and rectifying +and definitely fixing its pointing. + +The captain of the piece was a handsome sergeant of artillery, very +young, blond, with a very gentle face, and the intelligent air peculiar +to that predestined and redoubtable weapon which, by dint of perfecting +itself in horror, must end in killing war. + +Combeferre, who was standing beside Enjolras, scrutinized this young +man. + +"What a pity!" said Combeferre. "What hideous things these butcheries +are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. +Enjolras, you are taking aim at that sergeant, you are not looking at +him. Fancy, he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; it is evident +that he is thoughtful; those young artillery-men are very well educated; +he has a father, a mother, a family; he is probably in love; he is not +more than five and twenty at the most; he might be your brother." + +"He is," said Enjolras. + +"Yes," replied Combeferre, "he is mine too. Well, let us not kill him." + +"Let me alone. It must be done." + +And a tear trickled slowly down Enjolras' marble cheek. + +At the same moment, he pressed the trigger of his rifle. The flame +leaped forth. The artillery-man turned round twice, his arms extended in +front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with +his side on the gun, and lay there motionless. They could see his back, +from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream of blood. The +ball had traversed his breast from side to side. He was dead. + +He had to be carried away and replaced by another. Several minutes were +thus gained, in fact. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT +INFALLIBLE MARKSMANSHIP WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796 + +Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was +about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out +a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the +blows. + +Enjolras issued this command: + +"We must place a mattress there." + +"We have none," said Combeferre, "the wounded are lying on them." + +Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the corner of the +tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment, taken +no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear the +combatants saying around him: "Here is a gun that is doing nothing." + +At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose. + +It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in the Rue +de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her +mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on +the roof of a six-story house situated a little beyond the barricade. +The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles +for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that +distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails +planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like +hairs, against the sky. + +"Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?" said Jean Valjean. + +Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him. + +Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired. + +One of the mattress ropes was cut. + +The mattress now hung by one thread only. + +Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes +of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell +into the street. + +The barricade applauded. + +All voices cried: + +"Here is a mattress!" + +"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and fetch it?" + +The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between +besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery +having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had, for several minutes, +been lying flat on their stomachs behind the line of paving-stones which +they had erected, and, in order to supply the forced silence of +the piece, which was quiet while its service was in course of +reorganization, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents +did not reply to this musketry, in order to spare their ammunition The +fusillade broke against the barricade; but the street, which it filled, +was terrible. + +Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the +storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back, +and returned to the barricade. + +He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there +against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-men should not see +it. + +That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. + +It was not long in coming. + +The cannon vomited forth its package of buck-shot with a roar. But there +was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained. +The barricade was saved. + +"Citizen," said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, "the Republic thanks you." + +Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed: + +"It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of +that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never +mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X--DAWN + +At that moment, Cosette awoke. + +Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, +facing the East on the back court-yard of the house. + +Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been +there on the preceding evening, and she had already retired to her +chamber when Toussaint had said: + +"It appears that there is a row." + +Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet +dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very +white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She +awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first, produced on her the +effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on +emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself +thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours +previously, passed through that reaction of the soul which absolutely +will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all her +might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart. It was +three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he +must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that +he was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.--And that +certainly to-day, and perhaps that very morning.--It was broad daylight, +but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was very +early, but that she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive Marius. + +She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, +that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. +All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered +for three days. Marius absent three days, this was horrible on the part +of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had been gone +through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he would bring good news. +Youth is made thus; it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless +and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future in the presence +of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be +happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. + +Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to her on +the subject of this absence which was to last only one day, and what +explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticed with what +nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and +hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are +thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle away in a corner of +our brain; that is the end of them; they are lost; it is impossible to +lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat vexed at the useless little +effort made by her memory. She told herself, that it was very naughty +and very wicked of her, to have forgotten the words uttered by Marius. + +She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of soul and +body, her prayers and her toilet. + +One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader into a nuptial +chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it, +prose must not. + +It is the interior of a flower that is not yet unfolded, it is whiteness +in the dark, it is the private cell of a closed lily, which must not be +gazed upon by man so long as the sun has not gazed upon it. Woman in the +bud is sacred. That innocent bud which opens, that adorable half-nudity +which is afraid of itself, that white foot which takes refuge in a +slipper, that throat which veils itself before a mirror as though +a mirror were an eye, that chemise which makes haste to rise up and +conceal the shoulder for a creaking bit of furniture or a passing +vehicle, those cords tied, those clasps fastened, those laces drawn, +those tremors, those shivers of cold and modesty, that exquisite +affright in every movement, that almost winged uneasiness where there +is no cause for alarm, the successive phases of dressing, as charming as +the clouds of dawn,--it is not fitting that all this should be narrated, +and it is too much to have even called attention to it. + +The eye of man must be more religious in the presence of the rising of a +young girl than in the presence of the rising of a star. The possibility +of hurting should inspire an augmentation of respect. The down on the +peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated crystal of the snow, the wing +of the butterfly powdered with feathers, are coarse compared to that +chastity which does not even know that it is chaste. The young girl is +only the flash of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bed-chamber is +hidden in the sombre part of the ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance +brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation. + +We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flutter of +Cosette's rising. + +An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that +Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and +turned crimson. We are of the number who fall speechless in the presence +of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy of veneration. + +Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her hair, which +was a very simple matter in those days, when women did not swell out +their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline +in their locks. Then she opened the window and cast her eyes around her +in every direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street, an angle of +the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able to watch for +Marius there. But no view of the outside was to be had. The back court +was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on +several gardens. Cosette pronounced these gardens hideous: for the first +time in her life, she found flowers ugly. The smallest scrap of the +gutter of the street would have met her wishes better. She decided to +gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that +quarter. + +All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was fickleness of +soul; but hopes cut in twain by dejection--that was her case. She had a +confused consciousness of something horrible. Thoughts were rife in the +air, in fact. She told herself that she was not sure of anything, that +to withdraw herself from sight was to be lost; and the idea that Marius +could return to her from heaven appeared to her no longer charming but +mournful. + +Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her, and hope +and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. + +Every one in the house was still asleep. A country-like silence reigned. +Not a shutter had been opened. The porter's lodge was closed. Toussaint +had not risen, and Cosette, naturally, thought that her father was +asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must have still been +suffering greatly, for she said to herself, that her father had been +unkind; but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was +decidedly impossible. Now and then, she heard sharp shocks in the +distance, and she said: "It is odd that people should be opening and +shutting their carriage gates so early." They were the reports of the +cannon battering the barricade. + +A few feet below Cosette's window, in the ancient and perfectly black +cornice of the wall, there was a martin's nest; the curve of this nest +formed a little projection beyond the cornice, so that from above it +was possible to look into this little paradise. The mother was there, +spreading her wings like a fan over her brood; the father fluttered +about, flew away, then came back, bearing in his beak food and kisses. +The dawning day gilded this happy thing, the great law, "Multiply," lay +there smiling and august, and that sweet mystery unfolded in the +glory of the morning. Cosette, with her hair in the sunlight, her +soul absorbed in chimeras, illuminated by love within and by the dawn +without, bent over mechanically, and almost without daring to avow to +herself that she was thinking at the same time of Marius, began to gaze +at these birds, at this family, at that male and female, that mother and +her little ones, with the profound trouble which a nest produces on a +virgin. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NO ONE + +The assailants' fire continued. Musketry and grape-shot alternated, but +without committing great ravages, to tell the truth. The top alone of +the Corinthe facade suffered; the window on the first floor, and the +attic window in the roof, riddled with buck-shot and biscaiens, were +slowly losing their shape. The combatants who had been posted there had +been obliged to withdraw. However, this is according to the tactics +of barricades; to fire for a long while, in order to exhaust the +insurgents' ammunition, if they commit the mistake of replying. When it +is perceived, from the slackening of their fire, that they have no more +powder and ball, the assault is made. Enjolras had not fallen into this +trap; the barricade did not reply. + +At every discharge by platoons, Gavroche puffed out his cheek with his +tongue, a sign of supreme disdain. + +"Good for you," said he, "rip up the cloth. We want some lint." + +Courfeyrac called the grape-shot to order for the little effect which it +produced, and said to the cannon: + +"You are growing diffuse, my good fellow." + +One gets puzzled in battle, as at a ball. It is probable that this +silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, +and to make them fear some unexpected incident, and that they felt the +necessity of getting a clear view behind that heap of paving-stones, and +of knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall which received +blows without retorting. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet +glittering in the sun on a neighboring roof. A fireman had placed his +back against a tall chimney, and seemed to be acting as sentinel. His +glance fell directly down into the barricade. + +"There's an embarrassing watcher," said Enjolras. + +Jean Valjean had returned Enjolras' rifle, but he had his own gun. + +Without saying a word, he took aim at the fireman, and, a second later, +the helmet, smashed by a bullet, rattled noisily into the street. The +terrified soldier made haste to disappear. A second observer took his +place. This one was an officer. Jean Valjean, who had re-loaded his +gun, took aim at the newcomer and sent the officer's casque to join the +soldier's. The officer did not persist, and retired speedily. This time +the warning was understood. No one made his appearance thereafter on +that roof; and the idea of spying on the barricade was abandoned. + +"Why did you not kill the man?" Bossuet asked Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean made no reply. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--DISORDER A PARTISAN OF ORDER + +Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear: + +"He did not answer my question." + +"He is a man who does good by gun-shots," said Combeferre. + +Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch +know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant against +insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid in the days of +June, 1832. A certain good dram-shop keeper of Pantin des Vertus or +la Cunette, whose "establishment" had been closed by the riots, became +leonine at the sight of his deserted dance-hall, and got himself killed +to preserve the order represented by a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and +heroic time, in the presence of ideas which had their knights, interests +had their paladins. The prosiness of the originators detracted nothing +from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns +made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically for +the counting-house; and they defended the shop, that immense diminutive +of the fatherland, with Lacedaemonian enthusiasm. + +At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was not +extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife, while +awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium. + +Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism +[the barbarous name of the correct party]. People were for order in +combination with lack of discipline. + +The drum suddenly beat capricious calls, at the command of such or +such a Colonel of the National Guard; such and such a captain went into +action through inspiration; such and such National Guardsmen fought, +"for an idea," and on their own account. At critical moments, on "days" +they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts. There +existed in the army of order, veritable guerilleros, some of the sword, +like Fannicot, others of the pen, like Henri Fonfrede. + +Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather by an +aggregation of interests than by a group of principles, was or thought +itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm; each, constituting himself +a centre, defended it, succored it, and protected it with his own head; +and the first comer took it upon himself to save society. + +Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National +Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of +war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It +was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire. Fierce +Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest, +for it has been applied by the Republic in America, as well as by the +monarchy in Europe. This Lynch law was complicated with mistakes. On one +day of rioting, a young poet, named Paul Aime Garnier, was pursued +in the Place Royale, with a bayonet at his loins, and only escaped by +taking refuge under the porte-cochere of No. 6. They shouted:--"There's +another of those Saint-Simonians!" and they wanted to kill him. Now, he +had under his arm a volume of the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. +A National Guard had read the words Saint-Simon on the book, and had +shouted: "Death!" + +On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from the +suburbs, commanded by the Captain Fannicot, above mentioned, had itself +decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good +pleasure. This fact, singular though it may seem, was proved at the +judicial investigation opened in consequence of the insurrection of +1832. Captain Fannicot, a bold and impatient bourgeois, a sort of +condottiere of the order of those whom we have just characterized, +a fanatical and intractable governmentalist, could not resist the +temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the +barricade alone and unaided, that is to say, with his company. +Exasperated by the successive apparition of the red flag and the old +coat which he took for the black flag, he loudly blamed the generals and +chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the +moment for the decisive assault had arrived, and who were allowing "the +insurrection to fry in its own fat," to use the celebrated expression +of one of them. For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that +which is ripe ought to fall, he made the attempt. + +He commanded men as resolute as himself, "raging fellows," as a witness +said. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet, was +the first of the battalion posted at the angle of the street. At the +moment when they were least expecting it, the captain launched his men +against the barricade. This movement, executed with more good will than +strategy, cost the Fannicot company dear. Before it had traversed two +thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge from the +barricade. Four, the most audacious, who were running on in front, +were mown down point-blank at the very foot of the redoubt, and this +courageous throng of National Guards, very brave men but lacking in +military tenacity, were forced to fall back, after some hesitation, +leaving fifteen corpses on the pavement. This momentary hesitation gave +the insurgents time to re-load their weapons, and a second and very +destructive discharge struck the company before it could regain the +corner of the street, its shelter. A moment more, and it was caught +between two fires, and it received the volley from the battery piece +which, not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing. + +The intrepid and imprudent Fannicot was one of the dead from this +grape-shot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order. + +This attack, which was more furious than serious, irritated +Enjolras.--"The fools!" said he. "They are getting their own men killed +and they are using up our ammunition for nothing." + +Enjolras spoke like the real general of insurrection which he +was. Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons. +Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number +of shots to fire and a certain number of combatants to expend. An empty +cartridge-box, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression has the +army, it does not count its men, and, as it has Vincennes, it does not +count its shots. Repression has as many regiments as the barricade has +men, and as many arsenals as the barricade has cartridge-boxes. Thus +they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in +crushing the barricade; unless the revolution, uprising suddenly, +flings into the balance its flaming archangel's sword. This does happen +sometimes. Then everything rises, the pavements begin to seethe, popular +redoubts abound. Paris quivers supremely, the quid divinum is given +forth, a 10th of August is in the air, a 29th of July is in the air, a +wonderful light appears, the yawning maw of force draws back, and the +army, that lion, sees before it, erect and tranquil, that prophet, +France. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--PASSING GLEAMS + +In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there +is a little of everything; there is bravery, there is youth, honor, +enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, and, above +all, intermittences of hope. + +One of these intermittences, one of these vague quivers of hope suddenly +traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie at the moment when +it was least expected. + +"Listen," suddenly cried Enjolras, who was still on the watch, "it seems +to me that Paris is waking up." + +It is certain that, on the morning of the 6th of June, the insurrection +broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy +of the alarm peal of Saint-Merry reanimated some fancies. Barricades +were begun in the Rue du Poirier and the Rue des Gravilliers. In front +of the Porte Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked +alone a squadron of cavalry. In plain sight, on the open boulevard, he +placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon, fired, killed the +commander of the squadron, and turned away, saying: "There's another who +will do us no more harm." + +He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a woman fired on the +National Guard from behind a lowered blind. The slats of the blind could +be seen to tremble at every shot. A child fourteen years of age +was arrested in the Rue de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of +cartridges. Many posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue +Bertin-Poiree, a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed +a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General +Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue Planche-Mibray, they threw old pieces +of pottery and household utensils down on the soldiers from the roofs; a +bad sign; and when this matter was reported to Marshal Soult, Napoleon's +old lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet's saying at +Saragossa: "We are lost when the old women empty their pots de chambre +on our heads." + +These general symptoms which presented themselves at the moment when +it was thought that the uprising had been rendered local, this fever +of wrath, these sparks which flew hither and thither above those deep +masses of combustibles which are called the faubourgs of Paris,--all +this, taken together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to +stamp out these beginnings of conflagration. + +They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubuee, de la Chanvrerie and +Saint-Merry until these sparks had been extinguished, in order that they +might have to deal with the barricades only and be able to finish +them at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was +fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left, +now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The troops broke in +the doors of houses whence shots had been fired; at the same time, +manoeuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This +repression was not effected without some commotion, and without that +tumultuous uproar peculiar to collisions between the army and the +people. This was what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the +cannonade and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing +the end of the street in litters, and he said to Courfeyrac:--"Those +wounded do not come from us." + +Their hope did not last long; the gleam was quickly eclipsed. In less +than half an hour, what was in the air vanished, it was a flash of +lightning unaccompanied by thunder, and the insurgents felt that sort of +leaden cope, which the indifference of the people casts over obstinate +and deserted men, fall over them once more. + +The general movement, which seemed to have assumed a vague outline, had +miscarried; and the attention of the minister of war and the strategy of +the generals could now be concentrated on the three or four barricades +which still remained standing. + +The sun was mounting above the horizon. + +An insurgent hailed Enjolras. + +"We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like this, without +anything to eat?" + +Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an +affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the end +of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS + +Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to +insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles +which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he +assailed it with a burst of irony. + +"You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me, +you are wasting your row. That's not thunder, it's a cough." + +And the bystanders laughed. + +Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril, +like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine +was lacking, they poured out gayety to all. + +"I admire Enjolras," said Bossuet. "His impassive temerity astounds +me. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras +complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of us +have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. +When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to +fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for the capers +that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself killed for +Angelique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman +is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that sets the man off. +Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be +intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice +and as bold as fire." + +Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him, +that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: "Patria." + +Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed: + +"News!" + +And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added: + +"My name is Eight-Pounder." + +In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second +piece of ordnance. + +The artillery-men rapidly performed their manoeuvres in force and placed +this second piece in line with the first. + +This outlined the catastrophe. + +A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing +point-blank at the redoubt; the platoon firing of the line and of the +soldiers from the suburbs sustained the artillery. + +Another cannonade was audible at some distance. At the same time that +the two guns were furiously attacking the redoubt from the Rue de la +Chanvrerie, two other cannons, trained one from the Rue Saint-Denis, +the other from the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, were riddling the Saint-Merry +barricade. The four cannons echoed each other mournfully. + +The barking of these sombre dogs of war replied to each other. + +One of the two pieces which was now battering the barricade on the Rue +de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls. + +The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, and the aim +was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper +crest of the barricade, and crumbled the stone down upon the insurgents, +mingled with bursts of grape-shot. + +The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from +the summit of the redoubt, and to compel them to gather close in the +interior, that is to say, this announced the assault. + +The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, +and from the windows of the cabaret by grape-shot, the attacking columns +could venture into the street without being picked off, perhaps, even, +without being seen, could briskly and suddenly scale the redoubt, as on +the preceding evening, and, who knows? take it by surprise. + +"It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns +should be diminished," said Enjolras, and he shouted: "Fire on the +artillery-men!" + +All were ready. The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth +a desperate fire; seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of +rage and joy; the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end +of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, two thirds +of the gunners could be distinguished lying beneath the wheels of the +cannons. Those who were left standing continued to serve the pieces with +severe tranquillity, but the fire had slackened. + +"Things are going well now," said Bossuet to Enjolras. "Success." + +Enjolras shook his head and replied: + +"Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any +cartridges left in the barricade." + +It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--GAVROCHE OUTSIDE + +Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the +barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. + +Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop, had made his +way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged in emptying the full +cartridge-boxes of the National Guardsmen who had been killed on the +slope of the redoubt, into his basket. + +"What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac. + +Gavroche raised his face:-- + +"I'm filling my basket, citizen." + +"Don't you see the grape-shot?" + +Gavroche replied: + +"Well, it is raining. What then?" + +Courfeyrac shouted:--"Come in!" + +"Instanter," said Gavroche. + +And with a single bound he plunged into the street. + +It will be remembered that Fannicot's company had left behind it a trail +of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered here and there on the pavement, +through the whole length of the street. Twenty cartouches for Gavroche +meant a provision of cartridges for the barricade. + +The smoke in the street was like a fog. Whoever has beheld a cloud which +has fallen into a mountain gorge between two peaked escarpments can +imagine this smoke rendered denser and thicker by two gloomy rows of +lofty houses. It rose gradually and was incessantly renewed; hence a +twilight which made even the broad daylight turn pale. The combatants +could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the other, +short as it was. + +This obscurity, which had probably been desired and calculated on by the +commanders who were to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful +to Gavroche. + +Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his small size, +he could advance tolerably far into the street without being seen. He +rifled the first seven or eight cartridge-boxes without much danger. + +He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket +in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one dead body to +another, and emptied the cartridge-box or cartouche as a monkey opens a +nut. + +They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which +was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him. + +On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask. + +"For thirst," said he, putting it in his pocket. + +By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade +became transparent. So that the sharpshooters of the line ranged on +the outlook behind their paving-stone dike and the sharpshooters of the +banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each +other something moving through the smoke. + +At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near +a stone door-post, of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body. + +"Fichtre!" ejaculated Gavroche. "They are killing my dead men for me." + +A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside him.--A third +overturned his basket. + +Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the banlieue. + +He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, +his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were +firing, and sang: + + "On est laid a Nanterre, "Men are ugly at Nanterre, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Et bete a Palaiseau, And dull at Palaiseau, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + + +Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen +from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the +fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth +bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang: + + "Je ne suis pas notaire, "I am not a notary, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Je suis un petit oiseau, I'm a little bird, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + +A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet. + + "Joie est mon caractere, "Joy is my character, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Misere est mon trousseau, Misery is my trousseau, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + + +Thus it went on for some time. + +It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was +teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was +the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. To each discharge he retorted +with a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The +National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He +lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made +a bound, disappeared, re-appeared, scampered away, returned, replied to +the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on +pillaging the cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling his +basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him with their +eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He was not a child, he was not +a man; he was a strange gamin-fairy. He might have been called the +invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more +nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death; +every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached, the +urchin administered to it a fillip. + +One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, +finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to +stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a +cry; but there was something of Antaeus in that pygmy; for the gamin +to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; +Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting +posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms +in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began +to sing: + + + "Je suis tombe par terre, "I have fallen to the earth, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Le nez dans le ruisseau, With my nose in the gutter, + C'est la faute a . . . " 'Tis the fault of . . . " + + +He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him +short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no +more. This grand little soul had taken its flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--HOW FROM A BROTHER ONE BECOMES A FATHER + +At that same moment, in the garden of the Luxembourg,--for the gaze of +the drama must be everywhere present,--two children were holding each +other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the other five. +The rain having soaked them, they were walking along the paths on +the sunny side; the elder was leading the younger; they were pale and +ragged; they had the air of wild birds. The smaller of them said: "I am +very hungry." + +The elder, who was already somewhat of a protector, was leading his +brother with his left hand and in his right he carried a small stick. + +They were alone in the garden. The garden was deserted, the gates had +been closed by order of the police, on account of the insurrection. The +troops who had been bivouacking there had departed for the exigencies of +combat. + +How did those children come there? Perhaps they had escaped from some +guard-house which stood ajar; perhaps there was in the vicinity, at +the Barriere d'Enfer; or on the Esplanade de l'Observatoire, or in the +neighboring carrefour, dominated by the pediment on which could be read: +Invenerunt parvulum pannis involutum, some mountebank's booth from which +they had fled; perhaps they had, on the preceding evening, escaped the +eye of the inspectors of the garden at the hour of closing, and had +passed the night in some one of those sentry-boxes where people read the +papers? The fact is, they were stray lambs and they seemed free. To be +astray and to seem free is to be lost. These poor little creatures were, +in fact, lost. + +These two children were the same over whom Gavroche had been put to +some trouble, as the reader will recollect. Children of the Thenardiers, +leased out to Magnon, attributed to M. Gillenormand, and now leaves +fallen from all these rootless branches, and swept over the ground by +the wind. Their clothing, which had been clean in Magnon's day, and +which had served her as a prospectus with M. Gillenormand, had been +converted into rags. + +Henceforth these beings belonged to the statistics as "Abandoned +children," whom the police take note of, collect, mislay and find again +on the pavements of Paris. + +It required the disturbance of a day like that to account for these +miserable little creatures being in that garden. If the superintendents +had caught sight of them, they would have driven such rags forth. Poor +little things do not enter public gardens; still, people should reflect +that, as children, they have a right to flowers. + +These children were there, thanks to the locked gates. They were there +contrary to the regulations. They had slipped into the garden and there +they remained. Closed gates do not dismiss the inspectors, oversight +is supposed to continue, but it grows slack and reposes; and the +inspectors, moved by the public anxiety and more occupied with the +outside than the inside, no longer glanced into the garden, and had not +seen the two delinquents. + +It had rained the night before, and even a little in the morning. But +in June, showers do not count for much. An hour after a storm, it can +hardly be seen that the beautiful blonde day has wept. The earth, in +summer, is as quickly dried as the cheek of a child. At that period of +the solstice, the light of full noonday is, so to speak, poignant. It +takes everything. It applies itself to the earth, and superposes itself +with a sort of suction. One would say that the sun was thirsty. A shower +is but a glass of water; a rainstorm is instantly drunk up. In the +morning everything was dripping, in the afternoon everything is powdered +over. + +Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and +wiped by the rays of sunlight; it is warm freshness. The gardens and +meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become +perfuming-pans of incense, and smoke with all their odors at +once. Everything smiles, sings and offers itself. One feels gently +intoxicated. The springtime is a provisional paradise, the sun helps man +to have patience. + +There are beings who demand nothing further; mortals, who, having +the azure of heaven, say: "It is enough!" dreamers absorbed in the +wonderful, dipping into the idolatry of nature, indifferent to good and +evil, contemplators of cosmos and radiantly forgetful of man, who do not +understand how people can occupy themselves with the hunger of these, +and the thirst of those, with the nudity of the poor in winter, with the +lymphatic curvature of the little spinal column, with the pallet, the +attic, the dungeon, and the rags of shivering young girls, when they +can dream beneath the trees; peaceful and terrible spirits they, and +pitilessly satisfied. Strange to say, the infinite suffices them. That +great need of man, the finite, which admits of embrace, they ignore. +The finite which admits of progress and sublime toil, they do not +think about. The indefinite, which is born from the human and divine +combination of the infinite and the finite, escapes them. Provided that +they are face to face with immensity, they smile. Joy never, ecstasy +forever. Their life lies in surrendering their personality in +contemplation. The history of humanity is for them only a detailed +plan. All is not there; the true All remains without; what is the use +of busying oneself over that detail, man? Man suffers, that is quite +possible; but look at Aldebaran rising! The mother has no more milk, the +new-born babe is dying. I know nothing about that, but just look at this +wonderful rosette which a slice of wood-cells of the pine presents under +the microscope! Compare the most beautiful Mechlin lace to that if you +can! These thinkers forget to love. The zodiac thrives with them to such +a point that it prevents their seeing the weeping child. God eclipses +their souls. This is a family of minds which are, at once, great and +petty. Horace was one of them; so was Goethe. La Fontaine perhaps; +magnificent egoists of the infinite, tranquil spectators of sorrow, who +do not behold Nero if the weather be fair, for whom the sun conceals the +funeral pile, who would look on at an execution by the guillotine in the +search for an effect of light, who hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor +the death rattle, nor the alarm peal, for whom everything is well, since +there is a month of May, who, so long as there are clouds of purple +and gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are +determined to be happy until the radiance of the stars and the songs of +the birds are exhausted. + +These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be +pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They +are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being +at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star +on his brow. + +The indifference of these thinkers, is, according to some, a superior +philosophy. That may be; but in this superiority there is some +infirmity. One may be immortal and yet limp: witness Vulcan. One may +be more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in +nature. Who knows whether the sun is not a blind man? + +But then, what? In whom can we trust? Solem quis dicere falsum audeat? +Who shall dare to say that the sun is false? Thus certain geniuses, +themselves, certain Very-Lofty mortals, man-stars, may be mistaken? That +which is on high at the summit, at the crest, at the zenith, that which +sends down so much light on the earth, sees but little, sees badly, sees +not at all? Is not this a desperate state of things? No. But what is +there, then, above the sun? The god. + +On the 6th of June, 1832, about eleven o'clock in the morning, the +Luxembourg, solitary and depopulated, was charming. The quincunxes and +flower-beds shed forth balm and dazzling beauty into the sunlight. The +branches, wild with the brilliant glow of midday, seemed endeavoring +to embrace. In the sycamores there was an uproar of linnets, sparrows +triumphed, woodpeckers climbed along the chestnut trees, administering +little pecks on the bark. The flower-beds accepted the legitimate +royalty of the lilies; the most august of perfumes is that which +emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was +perceptible. The old crows of Marie de Medici were amorous in the tall +trees. The sun gilded, empurpled, set fire to and lighted up the tulips, +which are nothing but all the varieties of flame made into flowers. All +around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these flame-flowers, +hummed. All was grace and gayety, even the impending rain; this relapse, +by which the lilies of the valley and the honeysuckles were destined to +profit, had nothing disturbing about it; the swallows indulged in the +charming threat of flying low. He who was there aspired to happiness; +life smelled good; all nature exhaled candor, help, assistance, +paternity, caress, dawn. The thoughts which fell from heaven were as +sweet as the tiny hand of a baby when one kisses it. + +The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow pierced +with light; these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight; rays hung +from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth was already +dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient breeze to +raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few yellow leaves, +left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily, and seemed to be +playing tricks on each other. + +This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about it. +Life, sap, heat, odors overflowed; one was conscious, beneath creation, +of the enormous size of the source; in all these breaths permeated with +love, in this interchange of reverberations and reflections, in this +marvellous expenditure of rays, in this infinite outpouring of liquid +gold, one felt the prodigality of the inexhaustible; and, behind this +splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that +millionaire of stars. + +Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud; thanks to the rain, +there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been +bathed; every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs +from the earth in the form of flowers, was irreproachable. This +magnificence was cleanly. The grand silence of happy nature filled the +garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of +music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of +the breeze. All the harmony of the season was complete in one gracious +whole; the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order; the +lilacs ended; the jasmines began; some flowers were tardy, some insects +in advance of their time; the van-guard of the red June butterflies +fraternized with the rear-guard of the white butterflies of May. The +plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze hollowed out +undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chestnut-trees. It +was splendid. A veteran from the neighboring barracks, who was gazing +through the fence, said: "Here is the Spring presenting arms and in full +uniform." + +All nature was breakfasting; creation was at table; this was its hour; +the great blue cloth was spread in the sky, and the great green cloth +on earth; the sun lighted it all up brilliantly. God was serving +the universal repast. Each creature had his pasture or his mess. The +ring-dove found his hemp-seed, the chaffinch found his millet, the +goldfinch found chickweed, the red-breast found worms, the green finch +found flies, the fly found infusoriae, the bee found flowers. They ate +each other somewhat, it is true, which is the misery of evil mixed with +good; but not a beast of them all had an empty stomach. + +The two little abandoned creatures had arrived in the vicinity of the +grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to +hide themselves, the instinct of the poor and the weak in the presence +of even impersonal magnificence; and they kept behind the swans' hutch. + +Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a sort +of tumultuous death rattle, which was the firing, and dull blows, which +were discharges of cannon, struck the ear confusedly. Smoke hung over +the roofs in the direction of the Halles. A bell, which had the air of +an appeal, was ringing in the distance. + +These children did not appear to notice these noises. The little one +repeated from time to time: "I am hungry." + +Almost at the same instant with the children, another couple approached +the great basin. They consisted of a goodman, about fifty years of age, +who was leading by the hand a little fellow of six. No doubt, a father +and his son. The little man of six had a big brioche. + +At that epoch, certain houses abutting on the river, in the Rues Madame +and d'Enfer, had keys to the Luxembourg garden, of which the lodgers +enjoyed the use when the gates were shut, a privilege which was +suppressed later on. This father and son came from one of these houses, +no doubt. + +The two poor little creatures watched "that gentleman" approaching, and +hid themselves a little more thoroughly. + +He was a bourgeois. The same person, perhaps, whom Marius had one day +heard, through his love fever, near the same grand basin, counselling +his son "to avoid excesses." He had an affable and haughty air, and a +mouth which was always smiling, since it did not shut. This mechanical +smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth +rather than the soul. The child, with his brioche, which he had bitten +into but had not finished eating, seemed satiated. The child was dressed +as a National Guardsman, owing to the insurrection, and the father had +remained clad as a bourgeois out of prudence. + +Father and son halted near the fountain where two swans were sporting. +This bourgeois appeared to cherish a special admiration for the swans. +He resembled them in this sense, that he walked like them. + +For the moment, the swans were swimming, which is their principal +talent, and they were superb. + +If the two poor little beings had listened and if they had been of an +age to understand, they might have gathered the words of this grave man. +The father was saying to his son: + +"The sage lives content with little. Look at me, my son. I do not love +pomp. I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones; I +leave that false splendor to badly organized souls." + +Here the deep shouts which proceeded from the direction of the Halles +burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar. + +"What is that?" inquired the child. + +The father replied: + +"It is the Saturnalia." + +All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the +green swan-hutch. + +"There is the beginning," said he. + +And, after a pause, he added: + +"Anarchy is entering this garden." + +In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, +suddenly burst out crying. + +"What are you crying about?" demanded his father. + +"I am not hungry any more," said the child. + +The father's smile became more accentuated. + +"One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake." + +"My cake tires me. It is stale." + +"Don't you want any more of it?" + +"No." + +The father pointed to the swans. + +"Throw it to those palmipeds." + +The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but +that is no reason for giving it away. + +The father went on: + +"Be humane. You must have compassion on animals." + +And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin. + +The cake fell very near the edge. + +The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some +prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche. + +The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and +moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, +which finally attracted the attention of the swans. + +They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as +they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the +stupid majesty which befits white creatures. + +"The swans [cygnes] understand signs [signes]," said the bourgeois, +delighted to make a jest. + +At that moment, the distant tumult of the city underwent another sudden +increase. This time it was sinister. There are some gusts of wind which +speak more distinctly than others. The one which was blowing at that +moment brought clearly defined drum-beats, clamors, platoon firing, and +the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This coincided with a +black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun. + +The swans had not yet reached the brioche. + +"Let us return home," said the father, "they are attacking the +Tuileries." + +He grasped his son's hand again. Then he continued: + +"From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which +separates Royalty from the peerage; that is not far. Shots will soon +rain down." + +He glanced at the cloud. + +"Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down; the sky +is joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home +quickly." + +"I should like to see the swans eat the brioche," said the child. + +The father replied: + +"That would be imprudent." + +And he led his little bourgeois away. + +The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin +until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him. + +In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at +the same time as the swans. It was floating on the water. The smaller of +them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating bourgeois. + +Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand +flight of steps near the clump of trees on the side of the Rue Madame. + +As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily +flung himself flat on his stomach on the rounding curb of the basin, and +clinging to it with his left hand, and leaning over the water, on the +verge of falling in, he stretched out his right hand with his stick +towards the cake. The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so +doing, they produced an effect of their breasts which was of service to +the little fisher; the water flowed back before the swans, and one of +these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards +the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. +The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the +swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet; +but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two +portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one for himself, +gave the large one to his brother, and said to him: + +"Ram that into your muzzle." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT + +Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he +was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of +cartridges; Marius bore the child. + +"Alas!" he thought, "that which the father had done for his father, he +was requiting to the son; only, Thenardier had brought back his father +alive; he was bringing back the child dead." + +When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, +like the child, was inundated with blood. + +At the moment when he had stooped to lift Gavroche, a bullet had grazed +his head; he had not noticed it. + +Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow. + +They laid Gavroche on the same table with Mabeuf, and spread over the +two corpses the black shawl. There was enough of it for both the old man +and the child. + +Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had +brought in. + +This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire. + +Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on his stone post. +When Combeferre offered him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head. + +"Here's a rare eccentric," said Combeferre in a low voice to Enjolras. +"He finds a way of not fighting in this barricade." + +"Which does not prevent him from defending it," responded Enjolras. + +"Heroism has its originals," resumed Combeferre. + +And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added: + +"He is another sort from Father Mabeuf." + +One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which was battering the +barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed +the whirlwind of this sort of war can form no idea of the singular +moments of tranquillity mingled with these convulsions. Men go and +come, they talk, they jest, they lounge. Some one whom we know heard a +combatant say to him in the midst of the grape-shot: "We are here as +at a bachelor breakfast." The redoubt of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, we +repeat, seemed very calm within. All mutations and all phases had been, +or were about to be, exhausted. The position, from critical, had become +menacing, and, from menacing, was probably about to become desperate. In +proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the glow of heroism empurpled +the barricade more and more. Enjolras, who was grave, dominated it, +in the attitude of a young Spartan sacrificing his naked sword to the +sombre genius, Epidotas. + +Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds: Bossuet and +Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked up by +Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly: "We are soon +to take the diligence for another planet"; Courfeyrac was disposing and +arranging on some paving-stones which he had reserved for himself near +Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his sword-cane, his gun, two holster +pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small +dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite +him. An artisan was fastening Mother Hucheloup's big straw hat on his +head with a string, "for fear of sun-stroke," as he said. The young +men from the Cougourde d'Aix were chatting merrily among themselves, +as though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken +Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall, was examining his tongue in it. +Some combatants, having discovered a few crusts of rather mouldy bread, +in a drawer, were eagerly devouring them. Marius was disturbed with +regard to what his father was about to say to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--THE VULTURE BECOME PREY + +We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades. +Nothing which is characteristic of that surprising war of the streets +should be omitted. + +Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have +just mentioned, the barricade, for those who are inside it, remains, +none the less, a vision. + +There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the +unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes, +and any one who has passed through a barricade thinks he has traversed a +dream. + +The feelings to which one is subject in these places we have pointed out +in the case of Marius, and we shall see the consequences; they are both +more and less than life. On emerging from a barricade, one no longer +knows what one has seen there. One has been terrible, but one knows +it not. One has been surrounded with conflicting ideas which had human +faces; one's head has been in the light of the future. There were +corpses lying prone there, and phantoms standing erect. The hours were +colossal and seemed hours of eternity. One has lived in death. Shadows +have passed by. What were they? + +One has beheld hands on which there was blood; there was a deafening +horror; there was also a frightful silence; there were open mouths which +shouted, and other open mouths which held their peace; one was in the +midst of smoke, of night, perhaps. One fancied that one had touched the +sinister ooze of unknown depths; one stares at something red on one's +finger nails. One no longer remembers anything. + +Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. + +All at once, between two discharges, the distant sound of a clock +striking the hour became audible. + +"It is midday," said Combeferre. + +The twelve strokes had not finished striking when Enjolras sprang to his +feet, and from the summit of the barricade hurled this thundering shout: + +"Carry stones up into the houses; line the windowsills and the +roofs with them. Half the men to their guns, the other half to the +paving-stones. There is not a minute to be lost." + +A squad of sappers and miners, axe on shoulder, had just made their +appearance in battle array at the end of the street. + +This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? The +attacking column, evidently; the sappers charged with the demolition of +the barricade must always precede the soldiers who are to scale it. + +They were, evidently, on the brink of that moment which M. +Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called "the tug of war." + +Enjolras' order was executed with the correct haste which is peculiar +to ships and barricades, the only two scenes of combat where escape +is impossible. In less than a minute, two thirds of the stones which +Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinthe had been carried up to +the first floor and the attic, and before a second minute had elapsed, +these stones, artistically set one upon the other, walled up the +sash-window on the first floor and the windows in the roof to half their +height. A few loop-holes carefully planned by Feuilly, the principal +architect, allowed of the passage of the gun-barrels. This armament of +the windows could be effected all the more easily since the firing of +grape-shot had ceased. The two cannons were now discharging ball +against the centre of the barrier in order to make a hole there, and, if +possible, a breach for the assault. + +When the stones destined to the final defence were in place, Enjolras +had the bottles which he had set under the table where Mabeuf lay, +carried to the first floor. + +"Who is to drink that?" Bossuet asked him. + +"They," replied Enjolras. + +Then they barricaded the window below, and held in readiness the iron +cross-bars which served to secure the door of the wine-shop at night. + +The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the wine-shop +was the dungeon. With the stones which remained they stopped up the +outlet. + +As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to be sparing of +their ammunition, and as the assailants know this, the assailants +combine their arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose +themselves to fire prematurely, though in appearance more than in +reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always +made with a certain methodical deliberation; after which, the lightning +strikes. + +This deliberation permitted Enjolras to take a review of everything and +to perfect everything. He felt that, since such men were to die, their +death ought to be a masterpiece. + +He said to Marius: "We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders +inside. Do you remain outside and observe." + +Marius posted himself on the lookout upon the crest of the barricade. + +Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which was the ambulance, as the +reader will remember, nailed up. + +"No splashing of the wounded," he said. + +He issued his final orders in the tap-room in a curt, but profoundly +tranquil tone; Feuilly listened and replied in the name of all. + +"On the first floor, hold your axes in readiness to cut the staircase. +Have you them?" + +"Yes," said Feuilly. + +"How many?" + +"Two axes and a pole-axe." + +"That is good. There are now twenty-six combatants of us on foot. How +many guns are there?" + +"Thirty-four." + +"Eight too many. Keep those eight guns loaded like the rest and at +hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six +ambushed in the attic windows, and at the window on the first floor to +fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in the stones. Let not a +single worker remain inactive here. Presently, when the drum beats the +assault, let the twenty below stairs rush to the barricade. The first to +arrive will have the best places." + +These arrangements made, he turned to Javert and said: + +"I am not forgetting you." + +And, laying a pistol on the table, he added: + +"The last man to leave this room will smash the skull of this spy." + +"Here?" inquired a voice. + +"No, let us not mix their corpses with our own. The little barricade of +the Mondetour lane can be scaled. It is only four feet high. The man is +well pinioned. He shall be taken thither and put to death." + +There was some one who was more impassive at that moment than Enjolras, +it was Javert. Here Jean Valjean made his appearance. + +He had been lost among the group of insurgents. He stepped forth and +said to Enjolras: + +"You are the commander?" + +"Yes." + +"You thanked me a while ago." + +"In the name of the Republic. The barricade has two saviors, Marius +Pontmercy and yourself." + +"Do you think that I deserve a recompense?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, I request one." + +"What is it?" + +"That I may blow that man's brains out." + +Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an almost imperceptible +movement, and said: + +"That is just." + +As for Enjolras, he had begun to re-load his rifle; he cut his eyes +about him: + +"No objections." + +And he turned to Jean Valjean: + +"Take the spy." + +Jean Valjean did, in fact, take possession of Javert, by seating +himself on the end of the table. He seized the pistol, and a faint click +announced that he had cocked it. + +Almost at the same moment, a blast of trumpets became audible. + +"Take care!" shouted Marius from the top of the barricade. + +Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to +him, and gazing intently at the insurgents, he said to them: + +"You are in no better case than I am." + +"All out!" shouted Enjolras. + +The insurgents poured out tumultuously, and, as they went, received in +the back,--may we be permitted the expression,--this sally of Javert's: + +"We shall meet again shortly!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--JEAN VALJEAN TAKES HIS REVENGE + +When Jean Valjean was left alone with Javert, he untied the rope which +fastened the prisoner across the middle of the body, and the knot of +which was under the table. After this he made him a sign to rise. + +Javert obeyed with that indefinable smile in which the supremacy of +enchained authority is condensed. + +Jean Valjean took Javert by the martingale, as one would take a beast of +burden by the breast-band, and, dragging the latter after him, emerged +from the wine-shop slowly, because Javert, with his impeded limbs, could +take only very short steps. + +Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand. + +In this manner they crossed the inner trapezium of the barricade. The +insurgents, all intent on the attack, which was imminent, had their +backs turned to these two. + +Marius alone, stationed on one side, at the extreme left of the +barricade, saw them pass. This group of victim and executioner was +illuminated by the sepulchral light which he bore in his own soul. + +Jean Valjean with some difficulty, but without relaxing his hold for +a single instant, made Javert, pinioned as he was, scale the little +entrenchment in the Mondetour lane. + +When they had crossed this barrier, they found themselves alone in the +lane. No one saw them. Among the heap they could distinguish a livid +face, streaming hair, a pierced hand and the half nude breast of a +woman. It was Eponine. The corner of the houses hid them from the +insurgents. The corpses carried away from the barricade formed a +terrible pile a few paces distant. + +Javert gazed askance at this body, and, profoundly calm, said in a low +tone: + +"It strikes me that I know that girl." + +Then he turned to Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean thrust the pistol under his arm and fixed on Javert a look +which it required no words to interpret: "Javert, it is I." + +Javert replied: + +"Take your revenge." + +Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it. + +"A clasp-knife!" exclaimed Javert, "you are right. That suits you +better." + +Jean Valjean cut the martingale which Javert had about his neck, then he +cut the cords on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord on his +feet; and, straightening himself up, he said to him: + +"You are free." + +Javert was not easily astonished. Still, master of himself though +he was, he could not repress a start. He remained open-mouthed and +motionless. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"I do not think that I shall escape from this place. But if, by chance, +I do, I live, under the name of Fauchelevent, in the Rue de l'Homme +Arme, No. 7." + +Javert snarled like a tiger, which made him half open one corner of his +mouth, and he muttered between his teeth: + +"Have a care." + +"Go," said Jean Valjean. + +Javert began again: + +"Thou saidst Fauchelevent, Rue de l'Homme Arme?" + +"Number 7." + +Javert repeated in a low voice:--"Number 7." + +He buttoned up his coat once more, resumed the military stiffness +between his shoulders, made a half turn, folded his arms and, supporting +his chin on one of his hands, he set out in the direction of the Halles. +Jean Valjean followed him with his eyes: + +A few minutes later, Javert turned round and shouted to Jean Valjean: + +"You annoy me. Kill me, rather." + +Javert himself did not notice that he no longer addressed Jean Valjean +as "thou." + +"Be off with you," said Jean Valjean. + +Javert retreated slowly. A moment later he turned the corner of the Rue +des Precheurs. + +When Javert had disappeared, Jean Valjean fired his pistol in the air. + +Then he returned to the barricade and said: + +"It is done." + +In the meanwhile, this is what had taken place. + +Marius, more intent on the outside than on the interior, had not, up to +that time, taken a good look at the pinioned spy in the dark background +of the tap-room. + +When he beheld him in broad daylight, striding over the barricade in +order to proceed to his death, he recognized him. Something suddenly +recurred to his mind. He recalled the inspector of the Rue de Pontoise, +and the two pistols which the latter had handed to him and which he, +Marius, had used in this very barricade, and not only did he recall his +face, but his name as well. + +This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas. + +It was not an affirmation that he made, but a question which he put to +himself: + +"Is not that the inspector of police who told me that his name was +Javert?" + +Perhaps there was still time to intervene in behalf of that man. But, in +the first place, he must know whether this was Javert. + +Marius called to Enjolras, who had just stationed himself at the other +extremity of the barricade: + +"Enjolras!" + +"What?" + +"What is the name of yonder man?" + +"What man?" + +"The police agent. Do you know his name?" + +"Of course. He told us." + +"What is it?" + +"Javert." + +Marius sprang to his feet. + +At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol. + +Jean Valjean re-appeared and cried: "It is done." + +A gloomy chill traversed Marius' heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX--THE DEAD ARE IN THE RIGHT AND THE LIVING ARE NOT IN THE +WRONG + +The death agony of the barricade was about to begin. + +Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a +thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set +in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent +gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing +by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth +of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, +indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace +everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a +sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with +sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the +houses. + +For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue +de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, +windows closed, shutters closed. + +In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour +was come, when the people wished to put an end to a situation, which had +lasted too long, with a charter granted or with a legal country, when +universal wrath was diffused in the atmosphere, when the city consented +to the tearing up of the pavements, when insurrection made the +bourgeoisie smile by whispering its password in its ear, then the +inhabitant, thoroughly penetrated with the revolt, so to speak, was +the auxiliary of the combatant, and the house fraternized with the +improvised fortress which rested on it. When the situation was not +ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses +disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was +changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges +were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to +take the barricade. + +A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than +it chooses. Woe to whomsoever tries to force its hand! A people does not +let itself go at random. Then it abandons the insurrection to itself. +The insurgents become noxious, infected with the plague. A house is an +escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, +sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. +It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. +They seem dead, they are living. Life which is, as it were, suspended +there, persists there. No one has gone out of them for four and twenty +hours, but no one is missing from them. In the interior of that rock, +people go and come, go to bed and rise again; they are a family party +there; there they eat and drink; they are afraid, a terrible thing! Fear +excuses this fearful lack of hospitality; terror is mixed with it, an +extenuating circumstance. Sometimes, even, and this has been actually +seen, fear turns to passion; fright may change into fury, as prudence +does into rage; hence this wise saying: "The enraged moderates." There +are outbursts of supreme terror, whence springs wrath like a mournful +smoke.--"What do these people want? What have they come there to do? +Let them get out of the scrape. So much the worse for them. It is their +fault. They are only getting what they deserve. It does not concern +us. Here is our poor street all riddled with balls. They are a pack of +rascals. Above all things, don't open the door."--And the house assumes +the air of a tomb. The insurgent is in the death-throes in front of +that house; he sees the grape-shot and naked swords drawing near; if +he cries, he knows that they are listening to him, and that no one will +come; there stand walls which might protect him, there are men who might +save him; and these walls have ears of flesh, and these men have bowels +of stone. + +Whom shall he reproach? + +No one and every one. + +The incomplete times in which we live. + +It is always at its own risk and peril that Utopia is converted into +revolution, and from philosophical protest becomes an armed protest, and +from Minerva turns to Pallas. + +The Utopia which grows impatient and becomes revolt knows what awaits +it; it almost always comes too soon. Then it becomes resigned, and +stoically accepts catastrophe in lieu of triumph. It serves those who +deny it without complaint, even excusing them, and even disculpates +them, and its magnanimity consists in consenting to abandonment. It is +indomitable in the face of obstacles and gentle towards ingratitude. + +Is this ingratitude, however? + +Yes, from the point of view of the human race. + +No, from the point of view of the individual. + +Progress is man's mode of existence. The general life of the human race +is called Progress, the collective stride of the human race is called +Progress. Progress advances; it makes the great human and terrestrial +journey towards the celestial and the divine; it has its halting +places where it rallies the laggard troop, it has its stations where it +meditates, in the presence of some splendid Canaan suddenly unveiled +on its horizon, it has its nights when it sleeps; and it is one of the +poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the +human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken +that slumbering Progress. + +"God is dead, perhaps," said Gerard de Nerval one day to the writer of +these lines, confounding progress with God, and taking the interruption +of movement for the death of Being. + +He who despairs is in the wrong. Progress infallibly awakes, and, in +short, we may say that it marches on, even when it is asleep, for it has +increased in size. When we behold it erect once more, we find it taller. +To be always peaceful does not depend on progress any more than it does +on the stream; erect no barriers, cast in no boulders; obstacles make +water froth and humanity boil. Hence arise troubles; but after these +troubles, we recognize the fact that ground has been gained. Until +order, which is nothing else than universal peace, has been established, +until harmony and unity reign, progress will have revolutions as its +halting-places. + +What, then, is progress? We have just enunciated it; the permanent life +of the peoples. + +Now, it sometimes happens, that the momentary life of individuals offers +resistance to the eternal life of the human race. + +Let us admit without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct +interests, and can, without forfeiture, stipulate for his interest, and +defend it; the present has its pardonable dose of egotism; momentary +life has its rights, and is not bound to sacrifice itself constantly to +the future. The generation which is passing in its turn over the earth, +is not forced to abridge it for the sake of the generations, its equal, +after all, who will have their turn later on.--"I exist," murmurs that +some one whose name is All. "I am young and in love, I am old and I +wish to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am +successful in business, I have houses to lease, I have money in the +government funds, I am happy, I have a wife and children, I have all +this, I desire to live, leave me in peace."--Hence, at certain hours, a +profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race. + +Utopia, moreover, we must admit, quits its radiant sphere when it makes +war. It, the truth of to-morrow, borrows its mode of procedure, battle, +from the lie of yesterday. It, the future, behaves like the past. It, +pure idea, becomes a deed of violence. It complicates its heroism with +a violence for which it is just that it should be held to answer; a +violence of occasion and expedient, contrary to principle, and for which +it is fatally punished. The Utopia, insurrection, fights with the old +military code in its fist; it shoots spies, it executes traitors; it +suppresses living beings and flings them into unknown darkness. It makes +use of death, a serious matter. It seems as though Utopia had no longer +any faith in radiance, its irresistible and incorruptible force. It +strikes with the sword. Now, no sword is simple. Every blade has two +edges; he who wounds with the one is wounded with the other. + +Having made this reservation, and made it with all severity, it is +impossible for us not to admire, whether they succeed or not, those the +glorious combatants of the future, the confessors of Utopia. Even when +they miscarry, they are worthy of veneration; and it is, perhaps, in +failure, that they possess the most majesty. Victory, when it is in +accord with progress, merits the applause of the people; but a heroic +defeat merits their tender compassion. The one is magnificent, the other +sublime. For our own part, we prefer martyrdom to success. John Brown is +greater than Washington, and Pisacane is greater than Garibaldi. + +It certainly is necessary that some one should take the part of the +vanquished. + +We are unjust towards these great men who attempt the future, when they +fail. + +Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems +a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their +ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are +reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning +social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, +of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow +in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout +to them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: +"That is because our barricade is made of good intentions." + +The best thing, assuredly, is the pacific solution. In short, let us +agree that when we behold the pavement, we think of the bear, and it is +a good will which renders society uneasy. But it depends on society +to save itself, it is to its own good will that we make our appeal. +No violent remedy is necessary. To study evil amiably, to prove its +existence, then to cure it. It is to this that we invite it. + +However that may be, even when fallen, above all when fallen, these men, +who at every point of the universe, with their eyes fixed on France, are +striving for the grand work with the inflexible logic of the ideal, +are august; they give their life a free offering to progress; they +accomplish the will of providence; they perform a religious act. At the +appointed hour, with as much disinterestedness as an actor who answers +to his cue, in obedience to the divine stage-manager, they enter the +tomb. And this hopeless combat, this stoical disappearance they accept +in order to bring about the supreme and universal consequences, the +magnificent and irresistibly human movement begun on the 14th of July, +1789; these soldiers are priests. The French revolution is an act of +God. + +Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the +distinctions already pointed out in another chapter,--there are accepted +revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; there are refused +revolutions, which are called riots. + +An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its +examination before the people. If the people lets fall a black ball, the +idea is dried fruit; the insurrection is a mere skirmish. + +Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is +not the thing for the peoples. Nations have not always and at every hour +the temperament of heroes and martyrs. + +They are positive. A priori, insurrection is repugnant to them, in the +first place, because it often results in a catastrophe, in the second +place, because it always has an abstraction as its point of departure. + +Because, and this is a noble thing, it is always for the ideal, and for +the ideal alone, that those who sacrifice themselves do thus sacrifice +themselves. An insurrection is an enthusiasm. Enthusiasm may wax wroth; +hence the appeal to arms. But every insurrection, which aims at a +government or a regime, aims higher. Thus, for instance, and we +insist upon it, what the chiefs of the insurrection of 1832, and, in +particular, the young enthusiasts of the Rue de la Chanvrerie were +combating, was not precisely Louis Philippe. The majority of them, +when talking freely, did justice to this king who stood midway between +monarchy and revolution; no one hated him. But they attacked the younger +branch of the divine right in Louis Philippe as they had attacked its +elder branch in Charles X.; and that which they wished to overturn in +overturning royalty in France, was, as we have explained, the usurpation +of man over man, and of privilege over right in the entire universe. +Paris without a king has as result the world without despots. This is +the manner in which they reasoned. Their aim was distant no doubt, +vague perhaps, and it retreated in the face of their efforts; but it was +great. + +Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are +almost always illusions for the sacrificed, but illusions with which, +after all, the whole of human certainty is mingled. We throw ourselves +into these tragic affairs and become intoxicated with that which we are +about to do. Who knows? We may succeed. We are few in number, we have a +whole army arrayed against us; but we are defending right, the natural +law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication +is possible, justice and truth, and in case of need, we die like the +three hundred Spartans. We do not think of Don Quixote but of Leonidas. +And we march straight before us, and once pledged, we do not draw +back, and we rush onwards with head held low, cherishing as our hope an +unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, +the aggrandizement of the human race, universal deliverance; and in the +event of the worst, Thermopylae. + +These passages of arms for the sake of progress often suffer shipwreck, +and we have just explained why. The crowd is restive in the presence of +the impulses of paladins. Heavy masses, the multitudes which are fragile +because of their very weight, fear adventures; and there is a touch of +adventure in the ideal. + +Moreover, and we must not forget this, interests which are not very +friendly to the ideal and the sentimental are in the way. Sometimes the +stomach paralyzes the heart. + +The grandeur and beauty of France lies in this, that she takes less from +the stomach than other nations: she more easily knots the rope about her +loins. She is the first awake, the last asleep. She marches forwards. +She is a seeker. + +This arises from the fact that she is an artist. + +The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the +beautiful is nothing but the summit of the true. Artistic peoples are +also consistent peoples. To love beauty is to see the light. That is why +the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization, was first borne by +Greece, who passed it on to Italy, who handed it on to France. Divine, +illuminating nations of scouts! Vitaelampada tradunt. + +It is an admirable thing that the poetry of a people is the element of +its progress. The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity +of imagination. Only, a civilizing people should remain a manly people. +Corinth, yes; Sybaris, no. Whoever becomes effeminate makes himself a +bastard. He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso: but he must be +artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine, but he must +sublime. On this condition, one gives to the human race the pattern of +the ideal. + +The modern ideal has its type in art, and its means is science. It is +through science that it will realize that august vision of the poets, +the socially beautiful. Eden will be reconstructed by A+B. At the point +which civilization has now reached, the exact is a necessary element +of the splendid, and the artistic sentiment is not only served, but +completed by the scientific organ; dreams must be calculated. Art, which +is the conqueror, should have for support science, which is the walker; +the solidity of the creature which is ridden is of importance. The +modern spirit is the genius of Greece with the genius of India as its +vehicle; Alexander on the elephant. + +Races which are petrified in dogma or demoralized by lucre are unfit to +guide civilization. Genuflection before the idol or before money wastes +away the muscles which walk and the will which advances. Hieratic or +mercantile absorption lessens a people's power of radiance, lowers its +horizon by lowering its level, and deprives it of that intelligence, +at once both human and divine of the universal goal, which makes +missionaries of nations. Babylon has no ideal; Carthage has no ideal. +Athens and Rome have and keep, throughout all the nocturnal darkness of +the centuries, halos of civilization. + +France is in the same quality of race as Greece and Italy. She is +Athenian in the matter of beauty, and Roman in her greatness. Moreover, +she is good. She gives herself. Oftener than is the case with other +races, is she in the humor for self-devotion and sacrifice. Only, this +humor seizes upon her, and again abandons her. And therein lies the +great peril for those who run when she desires only to walk, or who walk +on when she desires to halt. France has her relapses into materialism, +and, at certain instants, the ideas which obstruct that sublime brain +have no longer anything which recalls French greatness and are of the +dimensions of a Missouri or a South Carolina. What is to be done in +such a case? The giantess plays at being a dwarf; immense France has her +freaks of pettiness. That is all. + +To this there is nothing to say. Peoples, like planets, possess the +right to an eclipse. And all is well, provided that the light +returns and that the eclipse does not degenerate into night. Dawn and +resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is identical +with the persistence of the _I_. + +Let us state these facts calmly. Death on the barricade or the tomb in +exile, is an acceptable occasion for devotion. The real name of +devotion is disinterestedness. Let the abandoned allow themselves to +be abandoned, let the exiled allow themselves to be exiled, and let us +confine ourselves to entreating great nations not to retreat too far, +when they do retreat. One must not push too far in descent under pretext +of a return to reason. + +Matter exists, the minute exists, interest exists, the stomach exists; +but the stomach must not be the sole wisdom. The life of the moment has +its rights, we admit, but permanent life has its rights also. Alas! the +fact that one is mounted does not preclude a fall. This can be seen in +history more frequently than is desirable: A nation is great, it tastes +the ideal, then it bites the mire, and finds it good; and if it be asked +how it happens that it has abandoned Socrates for Falstaff, it replies: +"Because I love statesmen." + +One word more before returning to our subject, the conflict. + +A battle like the one which we are engaged in describing is nothing else +than a convulsion towards the ideal. Progress trammelled is sickly, and +is subject to these tragic epilepsies. With that malady of progress, +civil war, we have been obliged to come in contact in our passage. This +is one of the fatal phases, at once act and entr'acte of that drama +whose pivot is a social condemnation, and whose veritable title is +Progress. + +Progress! + +The cry to which we frequently give utterance is our whole thought; and, +at the point of this drama which we have now reached, the idea which it +contains having still more than one trial to undergo, it is, perhaps, +permitted to us, if not to lift the veil from it, to at least allow its +light to shine through. + +The book which the reader has under his eye at this moment is, from +one end to the other, as a whole and in detail, whatever may be its +intermittences, exceptions and faults, the march from evil to good, from +the unjust to the just, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, +from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. +Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the +beginning, the angel at the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--THE HEROES + +All at once, the drum beat the charge. + +The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, +the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad +daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, +rude force had, moreover, been unmasked, the cannon had begun the +roar, the army hurled itself on the barricade. Fury now became skill. +A powerful detachment of infantry of the line, broken at regular +intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal Guard on foot, +and supported by serried masses which could be heard though not seen, +debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets +braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, +imperturbable under the projectiles, charged straight for the barricade +with the weight of a brazen beam against a wall. + +The wall held firm. + +The insurgents fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane +of lightning flashes. The assault was so furious, that for one moment, +it was inundated with assailants; but it shook off the soldiers as the +lion shakes off the dogs, and it was only covered with besiegers as +the cliff is covered with foam, to re-appear, a moment later, beetling, +black and formidable. + +The column, forced to retreat, remained massed in the street, +unprotected but terrible, and replied to the redoubt with a terrible +discharge of musketry. Any one who has seen fireworks will recall the +sheaf formed of interlacing lightnings which is called a bouquet. Let +the reader picture to himself this bouquet, no longer vertical but +horizontal, bearing a bullet, buck-shot or a biscaien at the tip of each +one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one after another +from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it. + +On both sides, the resolution was equal. The bravery exhibited there +was almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity +which began by the sacrifice of self. + +This was the epoch when a National Guardsman fought like a Zouave. +The troop wished to make an end of it, insurrection was desirous of +fighting. The acceptance of the death agony in the flower of youth and +in the flush of health turns intrepidity into frenzy. In this fray, each +one underwent the broadening growth of the death hour. The street was +strewn with corpses. + +The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and Marius at the +other. Enjolras, who carried the whole barricade in his head, reserved +and sheltered himself; three soldiers fell, one after the other, under +his embrasure, without having even seen him; Marius fought unprotected. +He made himself a target. He stood with more than half his body above +the breastworks. There is no more violent prodigal than the avaricious +man who takes the bit in his teeth; there is no man more terrible in +action than a dreamer. Marius was formidable and pensive. In battle he +was as in a dream. One would have pronounced him a phantom engaged in +firing a gun. + +The insurgents' cartridges were giving out; but not their sarcasms. In +this whirlwind of the sepulchre in which they stood, they laughed. + +Courfeyrac was bare-headed. + +"What have you done with your hat?" Bossuet asked him. + +Courfeyrac replied: + +"They have finally taken it away from me with cannon-balls." + +Or they uttered haughty comments. + +"Can any one understand," exclaimed Feuilly bitterly, "those men,--[and +he cited names, well-known names, even celebrated names, some belonging +to the old army]--who had promised to join us, and taken an oath to aid +us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and +who abandon us!" + +And Combeferre restricted himself to replying with a grave smile. + +"There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the +stars, from a great distance." + +The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that +one would have said that there had been a snowstorm. + +The assailants had numbers in their favor; the insurgents had position. +They were at the top of a wall, and they thundered point-blank upon +the soldiers tripping over the dead and wounded and entangled in +the escarpment. This barricade, constructed as it was and admirably +buttressed, was really one of those situations where a handful of men +hold a legion in check. Nevertheless, the attacking column, constantly +recruited and enlarged under the shower of bullets, drew inexorably +nearer, and now, little by little, step by step, but surely, the army +closed in around the barricade as the vice grasps the wine-press. + +One assault followed another. The horror of the situation kept +increasing. + +Then there burst forth on that heap of paving-stones, in that Rue de la +Chanvrerie, a battle worthy of a wall of Troy. These haggard, ragged, +exhausted men, who had had nothing to eat for four and twenty hours, who +had not slept, who had but a few more rounds to fire, who were fumbling +in their pockets which had been emptied of cartridges, nearly all +of whom were wounded, with head or arm bandaged with black and +blood-stained linen, with holes in their clothes from which the blood +trickled, and who were hardly armed with poor guns and notched swords, +became Titans. The barricade was ten times attacked, approached, +assailed, scaled, and never captured. + +In order to form an idea of this struggle, it is necessary to imagine +fire set to a throng of terrible courages, and then to gaze at the +conflagration. It was not a combat, it was the interior of a furnace; +there mouths breathed the flame; there countenances were extraordinary. +The human form seemed impossible there, the combatants flamed forth +there, and it was formidable to behold the going and coming in that red +glow of those salamanders of the fray. + +The successive and simultaneous scenes of this grand slaughter we +renounce all attempts at depicting. The epic alone has the right to fill +twelve thousand verses with a battle. + +One would have pronounced this that hell of Brahmanism, the most +redoubtable of the seventeen abysses, which the Veda calls the Forest of +Swords. + +They fought hand to hand, foot to foot, with pistol shots, with blows of +the sword, with their fists, at a distance, close at hand, from above, +from below, from everywhere, from the roofs of the houses, from the +windows of the wine-shop, from the cellar windows, whither some had +crawled. They were one against sixty. + +The facade of Corinthe, half demolished, was hideous. The window, +tattooed with grape-shot, had lost glass and frame and was nothing now +but a shapeless hole, tumultuously blocked with paving-stones. + +Bossuet was killed; Feuilly was killed; Courfeyrac was killed; +Combeferre, transfixed by three blows from a bayonet in the breast at +the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to +cast a glance to heaven when he expired. + +Marius, still fighting, was so riddled with wounds, particularly in the +head, that his countenance disappeared beneath the blood, and one would +have said that his face was covered with a red kerchief. + +Enjolras alone was not struck. When he had no longer any weapon, he +reached out his hands to right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm +or other into his fist. All he had left was the stumps of four swords; +one more than Francois I. at Marignan. Homer says: "Diomedes cuts +the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; +Euryalus, son of Mecistaeus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, +Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless +Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; +Polypaetes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. +Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus' pike. Agamemnon, king +of the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which +is laved by the sounding river Satnois." In our old poems of exploits, +Esplandian attacks the giant marquis Swantibore with a cobbler's +shoulder-stick of fire, and the latter defends himself by stoning the +hero with towers which he plucks up by the roots. Our ancient mural +frescoes show us the two Dukes of Bretagne and Bourbon, armed, +emblazoned and crested in war-like guise, on horseback and approaching +each other, their battle-axes in hand, masked with iron, gloved with +iron, booted with iron, the one caparisoned in ermine, the other draped +in azure: Bretagne with his lion between the two horns of his crown, +Bourbon helmeted with a monster fleur de lys on his visor. But, in order +to be superb, it is not necessary to wear, like Yvon, the ducal morion, +to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, +father of Polydamas, to have brought back from Ephyra a good suit of +mail, a present from the king of men, Euphetes; it suffices to give +one's life for a conviction or a loyalty. This ingenuous little +soldier, yesterday a peasant of Bauce or Limousin, who prowls with his +clasp-knife by his side, around the children's nurses in the Luxembourg +garden, this pale young student bent over a piece of anatomy or a book, +a blond youth who shaves his beard with scissors,--take both of them, +breathe upon them with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the +Carrefour Boucherat or in the blind alley Planche-Mibray, and let the +one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let both of +them imagine that they are fighting for their country; the struggle will +be colossal; and the shadow which this raw recruit and this sawbones +in conflict will produce in that grand epic field where humanity +is striving, will equal the shadow cast by Megaryon, King of Lycia, +tiger-filled, crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal to +the gods. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--FOOT TO FOOT + +When there were no longer any of the leaders left alive, except Enjolras +and Marius at the two extremities of the barricade, the centre, which +had so long sustained Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly and Combeferre, +gave way. The cannon, though it had not effected a practicable breach, +had made a rather large hollow in the middle of the redoubt; there, the +summit of the wall had disappeared before the balls, and had crumbled +away; and the rubbish which had fallen, now inside, now outside, had, +as it accumulated, formed two piles in the nature of slopes on the two +sides of the barrier, one on the inside, the other on the outside. The +exterior slope presented an inclined plane to the attack. + +A final assault was there attempted, and this assault succeeded. The +mass bristling with bayonets and hurled forward at a run, came up with +irresistible force, and the serried front of battle of the attacking +column made its appearance through the smoke on the crest of the +battlements. This time, it was decisive. The group of insurgents who +were defending the centre retreated in confusion. + +Then the gloomy love of life awoke once more in some of them. Many, +finding themselves under the muzzles of this forest of guns, did not +wish to die. This is a moment when the instinct of self-preservation +emits howls, when the beast re-appears in men. They were hemmed in by +the lofty, six-story house which formed the background of their redoubt. +This house might prove their salvation. The building was barricaded, and +walled, as it were, from top to bottom. Before the troops of the line +had reached the interior of the redoubt, there was time for a door to +open and shut, the space of a flash of lightning was sufficient for +that, and the door of that house, suddenly opened a crack and closed +again instantly, was life for these despairing men. Behind this house, +there were streets, possible flight, space. They set to knocking at that +door with the butts of their guns, and with kicks, shouting, calling, +entreating, wringing their hands. No one opened. From the little window +on the third floor, the head of the dead man gazed down upon them. + +But Enjolras and Marius, and the seven or eight rallied about them, +sprang forward and protected them. Enjolras had shouted to the soldiers: +"Don't advance!" and as an officer had not obeyed, Enjolras had killed +the officer. He was now in the little inner court of the redoubt, with +his back planted against the Corinthe building, a sword in one hand, +a rifle in the other, holding open the door of the wine-shop which he +barred against assailants. He shouted to the desperate men:--"There is +but one door open; this one."--And shielding them with his body, and +facing an entire battalion alone, he made them pass in behind him. All +precipitated themselves thither. Enjolras, executing with his rifle, +which he now used like a cane, what single-stick players call a "covered +rose" round his head, levelled the bayonets around and in front of him, +and was the last to enter; and then ensued a horrible moment, when the +soldiers tried to make their way in, and the insurgents strove to bar +them out. The door was slammed with such violence, that, as it fell back +into its frame, it showed the five fingers of a soldier who had been +clinging to it, cut off and glued to the post. + +Marius remained outside. A shot had just broken his collar bone, he +felt that he was fainting and falling. At that moment, with eyes already +shut, he felt the shock of a vigorous hand seizing him, and the swoon +in which his senses vanished, hardly allowed him time for the thought, +mingled with a last memory of Cosette:--"I am taken prisoner. I shall be +shot." + +Enjolras, not seeing Marius among those who had taken refuge in the +wine-shop, had the same idea. But they had reached a moment when each +man has not the time to meditate on his own death. Enjolras fixed the +bar across the door, and bolted it, and double-locked it with key and +chain, while those outside were battering furiously at it, the soldiers +with the butts of their muskets, the sappers with their axes. The +assailants were grouped about that door. The siege of the wine-shop was +now beginning. + +The soldiers, we will observe, were full of wrath. + +The death of the artillery-sergeant had enraged them, and then, a still +more melancholy circumstance. During the few hours which had preceded +the attack, it had been reported among them that the insurgents were +mutilating their prisoners, and that there was the headless body of +a soldier in the wine-shop. This sort of fatal rumor is the usual +accompaniment of civil wars, and it was a false report of this kind +which, later on, produced the catastrophe of the Rue Transnonain. + +When the door was barricaded, Enjolras said to the others: + +"Let us sell our lives dearly." + +Then he approached the table on which lay Mabeuf and Gavroche. Beneath +the black cloth two straight and rigid forms were visible, one large, +the other small, and the two faces were vaguely outlined beneath the +cold folds of the shroud. A hand projected from beneath the winding +sheet and hung near the floor. It was that of the old man. + +Enjolras bent down and kissed that venerable hand, just as he had kissed +his brow on the preceding evening. + +These were the only two kisses which he had bestowed in the course of +his life. + +Let us abridge the tale. The barricade had fought like a gate of Thebes; +the wine-shop fought like a house of Saragossa. These resistances are +dogged. No quarter. No flag of truce possible. Men are willing to die, +provided their opponent will kill them. + +When Suchet says:--"Capitulate,"--Palafox replies: "After the war with +cannon, the war with knives." Nothing was lacking in the capture by +assault of the Hucheloup wine-shop; neither paving-stones raining from +the windows and the roof on the besiegers and exasperating the soldiers +by crushing them horribly, nor shots fired from the attic-windows and +the cellar, nor the fury of attack, nor, finally, when the door yielded, +the frenzied madness of extermination. The assailants, rushing into the +wine-shop, their feet entangled in the panels of the door which had been +beaten in and flung on the ground, found not a single combatant there. +The spiral staircase, hewn asunder with the axe, lay in the middle of +the tap-room, a few wounded men were just breathing their last, every +one who was not killed was on the first floor, and from there, through +the hole in the ceiling, which had formed the entrance of the stairs, +a terrific fire burst forth. It was the last of their cartridges. When +they were exhausted, when these formidable men on the point of death had +no longer either powder or ball, each grasped in his hands two of the +bottles which Enjolras had reserved, and of which we have spoken, and +held the scaling party in check with these frightfully fragile clubs. +They were bottles of aquafortis. + +We relate these gloomy incidents of carnage as they occurred. The +besieged man, alas! converts everything into a weapon. Greek fire did +not disgrace Archimedes, boiling pitch did not disgrace Bayard. All war +is a thing of terror, and there is no choice in it. The musketry of the +besiegers, though confined and embarrassed by being directed from below +upwards, was deadly. The rim of the hole in the ceiling was speedily +surrounded by heads of the slain, whence dripped long, red and smoking +streams, the uproar was indescribable; a close and burning smoke almost +produced night over this combat. Words are lacking to express horror +when it has reached this pitch. There were no longer men in this +conflict, which was now infernal. They were no longer giants matched +with colossi. It resembled Milton and Dante rather than Homer. Demons +attacked, spectres resisted. + +It was heroism become monstrous. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--ORESTES FASTING AND PYLADES DRUNK + +At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves +with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to +the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trap-door, the last +one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National +Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority +disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded +by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment +on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, +Enjolras. Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand +now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head +of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his +assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, +and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a +weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an +empty space around him. A cry arose: + +"He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that +he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down +on the spot." + +"Shoot me," said Enjolras. + +And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he +offered his breast. + +The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras +folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in +the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral +solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, +appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, +and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an +invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to +constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at +that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh +and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, +as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, +possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of +war: "There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo." A National +Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: "It +seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower." + +Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and +silently made ready their guns. + +Then a sergeant shouted: + +"Take aim!" + +An officer intervened. + +"Wait." + +And addressing Enjolras: + +"Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?" + +"No." + +"Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?" + +"Yes." + +Grantaire had waked up a few moments before. + +Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the +preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair +and leaning on the table. + +He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of "dead drunk." The +hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a +lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, +he had been left in possession of it. He was still in the same posture, +with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, +surrounded by glasses, beer-jugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming +slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any +effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the +grape-shot which had made its way through the window into the room where +he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to +the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there +for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking. Many corpses +were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to +distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death. + +Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall +of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the +crumbling of all things was his lullaby. The sort of halt which the +tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy +slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which +suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. +Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed +his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood. + +A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn +away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has +concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard +who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last +twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly +informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration +of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is +dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity +of realities. + +Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the +billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not +even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his +order: "Take aim!" when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout +beside them: + +"Long live the Republic! I'm one of them." + +Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he +had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant +glance of the transfigured drunken man. + +He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm +stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. + +"Finish both of us at one blow," said he. + +And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him: + +"Do you permit it?" + +Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile. + +This smile was not ended when the report resounded. + +Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, +as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. + +Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt. + +A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining +insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired +into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very +roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the +windows. Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, +were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was +flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed +his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together +on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each +other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict +went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. +The barricade was captured. + +The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the +fugitives. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--PRISONER + +Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. + +The hand which had seized him from behind and whose grasp he had felt +at the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of Jean +Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had taken no other part in the combat than to expose +himself in it. Had it not been for him, no one, in that supreme phase +of agony, would have thought of the wounded. Thanks to him, everywhere +present in the carnage, like a providence, those who fell were picked +up, transported to the tap-room, and cared for. In the intervals, he +reappeared on the barricade. But nothing which could resemble a blow, +an attack or even personal defence proceeded from his hands. He held his +peace and lent succor. Moreover he had received only a few scratches. +The bullets would have none of him. If suicide formed part of what he +had meditated on coming to this sepulchre, to that spot, he had +not succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an +irreligious act. + +Jean Valjean, in the thick cloud of the combat, did not appear to see +Marius; the truth is, that he never took his eyes from the latter. When +a shot laid Marius low, Jean Valjean leaped forward with the agility of +a tiger, fell upon him as on his prey, and bore him off. + +The whirlwind of the attack was, at that moment, so violently +concentrated upon Enjolras and upon the door of the wine-shop, that +no one saw Jean Valjean sustaining the fainting Marius in his arms, +traverse the unpaved field of the barricade and disappear behind the +angle of the Corinthe building. + +The reader will recall this angle which formed a sort of cape on the +street; it afforded shelter from the bullets, the grape-shot, and all +eyes, and a few square feet of space. There is sometimes a chamber +which does not burn in the midst of a conflagration, and in the midst of +raging seas, beyond a promontory or at the extremity of a blind alley +of shoals, a tranquil nook. It was in this sort of fold in the interior +trapezium of the barricade, that Eponine had breathed her last. + +There Jean Valjean halted, let Marius slide to the ground, placed his +back against the wall, and cast his eyes about him. + +The situation was alarming. + +For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a +shelter, but how was he to escape from this massacre? He recalled the +anguish which he had suffered in the Rue Polonceau eight years before, +and in what manner he had contrived to make his escape; it was difficult +then, to-day it was impossible. He had before him that deaf and +implacable house, six stories in height, which appeared to be inhabited +only by a dead man leaning out of his window; he had on his right the +rather low barricade, which shut off the Rue de la Petite Truanderie; +to pass this obstacle seemed easy, but beyond the crest of the barrier a +line of bayonets was visible. The troops of the line were posted on the +watch behind that barricade. It was evident, that to pass the barricade +was to go in quest of the fire of the platoon, and that any head which +should run the risk of lifting itself above the top of that wall of +stones would serve as a target for sixty shots. On his left he had the +field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that wall. + +What was to be done? + +Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament. + +And it was necessary to decide on the instant, to devise some expedient, +to come to some decision. Fighting was going on a few paces away; +fortunately, all were raging around a single point, the door of the +wine-shop; but if it should occur to one soldier, to one single soldier, +to turn the corner of the house, or to attack him on the flank, all was +over. + +Jean Valjean gazed at the house facing him, he gazed at the barricade at +one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of the +last extremity, bewildered, and as though he would have liked to pierce +a hole there with his eyes. + +By dint of staring, something vaguely striking in such an agony began +to assume form and outline at his feet, as though it had been a power +of glance which made the thing desired unfold. A few paces distant he +perceived, at the base of the small barrier so pitilessly guarded and +watched on the exterior, beneath a disordered mass of paving-stones +which partly concealed it, an iron grating, placed flat and on a level +with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about +two feet square. The frame of paving-stones which supported it had been +torn up, and it was, as it were, unfastened. + +Through the bars a view could be had of a dark aperture, something like +the flue of a chimney, or the pipe of a cistern. Jean Valjean darted +forward. His old art of escape rose to his brain like an illumination. +To thrust aside the stones, to raise the grating, to lift Marius, who +was as inert as a dead body, upon his shoulders, to descend, with this +burden on his loins, and with the aid of his elbows and knees into that +sort of well, fortunately not very deep, to let the heavy trap, upon +which the loosened stones rolled down afresh, fall into its place behind +him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the +surface,--all this was executed like that which one does in dreams, with +the strength of a giant and the rapidity of an eagle; this took only a +few minutes. + +Jean Valjean found himself with Marius, who was still unconscious, in a +sort of long, subterranean corridor. + +There reigned profound peace, absolute silence, night. + +The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the +wall into the convent recurred to him. Only, what he was carrying to-day +was not Cosette; it was Marius. He could barely hear the formidable +tumult in the wine-shop, taken by assault, like a vague murmur overhead. + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LAND IMPOVERISHED BY THE SEA + +Paris casts twenty-five millions yearly into the water. And this without +metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With +no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why? For no +reason. By means of what organ? By means of its intestine. What is its +intestine? The sewer. + +Twenty-five millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the +valuations of special science have set upon it. + +Science, after having long groped about, now knows that the most +fecundating and the most efficacious of fertilizers is human manure. +The Chinese, let us confess it to our shame, knew it before us. Not +a Chinese peasant--it is Eckberg who says this,--goes to town without +bringing back with him, at the two extremities of his bamboo pole, two +full buckets of what we designate as filth. Thanks to human dung, the +earth in China is still as young as in the days of Abraham. Chinese +wheat yields a hundred fold of the seed. There is no guano comparable +in fertility with the detritus of a capital. A great city is the most +mighty of dung-makers. Certain success would attend the experiment +of employing the city to manure the plain. If our gold is manure, our +manure, on the other hand, is gold. + +What is done with this golden manure? It is swept into the abyss. + +Fleets of vessels are despatched, at great expense, to collect the dung +of petrels and penguins at the South Pole, and the incalculable element +of opulence which we have on hand, we send to the sea. All the human and +animal manure which the world wastes, restored to the land instead of +being cast into the water, would suffice to nourish the world. + +Those heaps of filth at the gate-posts, those tumbrils of mud which +jolt through the street by night, those terrible casks of the street +department, those fetid drippings of subterranean mire, which the +pavements hide from you,--do you know what they are? They are the meadow +in flower, the green grass, wild thyme, thyme and sage, they are game, +they are cattle, they are the satisfied bellows of great oxen in the +evening, they are perfumed hay, they are golden wheat, they are the +bread on your table, they are the warm blood in your veins, they are +health, they are joy, they are life. This is the will of that mysterious +creation which is transformation on earth and transfiguration in heaven. + +Restore this to the great crucible; your abundance will flow forth from +it. The nutrition of the plains furnishes the nourishment of men. + +You have it in your power to lose this wealth, and to consider me +ridiculous to boot. This will form the master-piece of your ignorance. + +Statisticians have calculated that France alone makes a deposit of +half a milliard every year, in the Atlantic, through the mouths of her +rivers. Note this: with five hundred millions we could pay one quarter +of the expenses of our budget. The cleverness of man is such that he +prefers to get rid of these five hundred millions in the gutter. It is +the very substance of the people that is carried off, here drop by +drop, there wave after wave, the wretched outpour of our sewers into the +rivers, and the gigantic collection of our rivers into the ocean. Every +hiccough of our sewers costs us a thousand francs. From this spring two +results, the land impoverished, and the water tainted. Hunger arising +from the furrow, and disease from the stream. + +It is notorious, for example, that at the present hour, the Thames is +poisoning London. + +So far as Paris is concerned, it has become indispensable of late, to +transport the mouths of the sewers down stream, below the last bridge. + +A double tubular apparatus, provided with valves and sluices, sucking up +and driving back, a system of elementary drainage, simple as the lungs +of a man, and which is already in full working order in many communities +in England, would suffice to conduct the pure water of the fields into +our cities, and to send back to the fields the rich water of the cities, +and this easy exchange, the simplest in the world, would retain among us +the five hundred millions now thrown away. People are thinking of other +things. + +The process actually in use does evil, with the intention of doing good. +The intention is good, the result is melancholy. Thinking to purge the +city, the population is blanched like plants raised in cellars. A sewer +is a mistake. When drainage, everywhere, with its double function, +restoring what it takes, shall have replaced the sewer, which is a +simple impoverishing washing, then, this being combined with the data +of a now social economy, the product of the earth will be increased +tenfold, and the problem of misery will be singularly lightened. Add the +suppression of parasitism, and it will be solved. + +In the meanwhile, the public wealth flows away to the river, and leakage +takes place. Leakage is the word. Europe is being ruined in this manner +by exhaustion. + +As for France, we have just cited its figures. Now, Paris contains one +twenty-fifth of the total population of France, and Parisian guano being +the richest of all, we understate the truth when we value the loss on +the part of Paris at twenty-five millions in the half milliard which +France annually rejects. These twenty-five millions, employed in +assistance and enjoyment, would double the splendor of Paris. The +city spends them in sewers. So that we may say that Paris's great +prodigality, its wonderful festival, its Beaujon folly, its orgy, its +stream of gold from full hands, its pomp, its luxury, its magnificence, +is its sewer system. + +It is in this manner that, in the blindness of a poor political economy, +we drown and allow to float down stream and to be lost in the gulfs the +well-being of all. There should be nets at Saint-Cloud for the public +fortune. + +Economically considered, the matter can be summed up thus: Paris is +a spendthrift. Paris, that model city, that patron of well-arranged +capitals, of which every nation strives to possess a copy, that +metropolis of the ideal, that august country of the initiative, of +impulse and of effort, that centre and that dwelling of minds, that +nation-city, that hive of the future, that marvellous combination of +Babylon and Corinth, would make a peasant of the Fo-Kian shrug his +shoulders, from the point of view which we have just indicated. + +Imitate Paris and you will ruin yourselves. + +Moreover, and particularly in this immemorial and senseless waste, Paris +is itself an imitator. + +These surprising exhibitions of stupidity are not novel; this is no +young folly. The ancients did like the moderns. "The sewers of Rome," +says Liebig, "have absorbed all the well-being of the Roman peasant." +When the Campagna of Rome was ruined by the Roman sewer, Rome exhausted +Italy, and when she had put Italy in her sewer, she poured in Sicily, +then Sardinia, then Africa. The sewer of Rome has engulfed the world. +This cess-pool offered its engulfment to the city and the universe. Urbi +et orbi. Eternal city, unfathomable sewer. + +Rome sets the example for these things as well as for others. + +Paris follows this example with all the stupidity peculiar to +intelligent towns. + +For the requirements of the operation upon the subject of which we have +just explained our views, Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris +of sewers; which has its streets, its cross-roads, its squares, its +blind-alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and +minus the human form. + +For nothing must be flattered, not even a great people; where there +is everything there is also ignominy by the side of sublimity; and, +if Paris contains Athens, the city of light, Tyre, the city of might, +Sparta, the city of virtue, Nineveh, the city of marvels, it also +contains Lutetia, the city of mud. + +However, the stamp of its power is there also, and the Titanic sink of +Paris realizes, among monuments, that strange ideal realized in humanity +by some men like Macchiavelli, Bacon and Mirabeau, grandiose vileness. + +The sub-soil of Paris, if the eye could penetrate its surface, would +present the aspect of a colossal madrepore. A sponge has no more +partitions and ducts than the mound of earth for a circuit of six +leagues round about, on which rests the great and ancient city. Not to +mention its catacombs, which are a separate cellar, not to mention +the inextricable trellis-work of gas pipes, without reckoning the vast +tubular system for the distribution of fresh water which ends in the +pillar fountains, the sewers alone form a tremendous, shadowy net-work +under the two banks; a labyrinth which has its slope for its guiding +thread. + +There appears, in the humid mist, the rat which seems the product to +which Paris has given birth. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER + +Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean +net-work of sewers, from a bird's eye view, will outline on the banks +a species of large branch grafted on the river. On the right bank, the +belt sewer will form the trunk of this branch, the secondary ducts will +form the branches, and those without exit the twigs. + +This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which +is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, +being very rare in vegetation. + +A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed +by supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, +as intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the +misshapen letters should be welded one to another in apparent confusion, +and as at haphazard, now by their angles, again by their extremities. + +Sinks and sewers played a great part in the Middle Ages, in the Lower +Empire and in the Orient of old. The masses regarded these beds of +decomposition, these monstrous cradles of death, with a fear that was +almost religious. The vermin ditch of Benares is no less conducive to +giddiness than the lions' ditch of Babylon. Teglath-Phalasar, according +to the rabbinical books, swore by the sink of Nineveh. It was from the +sewer of Munster that John of Leyden produced his false moon, and it +was from the cess-pool of Kekscheb that oriental menalchme, Mokanna, the +veiled prophet of Khorassan, caused his false sun to emerge. + +The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers. The +Germoniae[58] narrated Rome. The sewer of Paris has been an ancient and +formidable thing. It has been a sepulchre, it has served as an asylum. +Crime, intelligence, social protest, liberty of conscience, thought, +theft, all that human laws persecute or have persecuted, is hidden in +that hole; the maillotins in the fourteenth century, the tire-laine of +the fifteenth, the Huguenots in the sixteenth, Morin's illuminated in +the seventeenth, the chauffeurs [brigands] in the eighteenth. A +hundred years ago, the nocturnal blow of the dagger emerged thence, the +pickpocket in danger slipped thither; the forest had its cave, Paris had +its sewer. Vagrancy, that Gallic picareria, accepted the sewer as the +adjunct of the Cour des Miracles, and at evening, it returned thither, +fierce and sly, through the Maubuee outlet, as into a bed-chamber. + +It was quite natural, that those who had the blind-alley Vide-Gousset, +[Empty-Pocket] or the Rue Coupe-Gorge [Cut-Throat], for the scene of +their daily labor, should have for their domicile by night the culvert +of the Chemin-Vert, or the catch basin of Hurepoix. Hence a throng of +souvenirs. All sorts of phantoms haunt these long, solitary +corridors; everywhere is putrescence and miasma; here and there are +breathing-holes, where Villon within converses with Rabelais without. + +The sewer in ancient Paris is the rendezvous of all exhaustions and +of all attempts. Political economy therein spies a detritus, social +philosophy there beholds a residuum. + +The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges +and confronts everything else. In that livid spot there are shades, but +there are no longer any secrets. Each thing bears its true form, or at +least, its definitive form. The mass of filth has this in its favor, +that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask +of Basil is to be found there, but one beholds its cardboard and its +strings and the inside as well as the outside, and it is accentuated +by honest mud. Scapin's false nose is its next-door neighbor. All the +uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this +trench of truth, where the immense social sliding ends. They are +there engulfed, but they display themselves there. This mixture is a +confession. There, no more false appearances, no plastering over is +possible, filth removes its shirt, absolute denudation puts to the rout +all illusions and mirages, there is nothing more except what really +exists, presenting the sinister form of that which is coming to an end. +There, the bottom of a bottle indicates drunkenness, a basket-handle +tells a tale of domesticity; there the core of an apple which has +entertained literary opinions becomes an apple-core once more; the +effigy on the big sou becomes frankly covered with verdigris, Caiphas' +spittle meets Falstaff's puking, the louis-d'or which comes from +the gaming-house jostles the nail whence hangs the rope's end of the +suicide. A livid foetus rolls along, enveloped in the spangles which +danced at the Opera last Shrove-Tuesday, a cap which has pronounced +judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly +Margoton's petticoat; it is more than fraternization, it is equivalent +to addressing each other as thou. All which was formerly rouged, is +washed free. The last veil is torn away. A sewer is a cynic. It tells +everything. + +The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has +passed one's time in enduring upon earth the spectacle of the great airs +which reasons of state, the oath, political sagacity, human justice, +professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes +all assume, it solaces one to enter a sewer and to behold the mire which +befits it. + +This is instructive at the same time. We have just said that history +passes through the sewer. The Saint-Barthelemys filter through there, +drop by drop, between the paving-stones. Great public assassinations, +political and religious butcheries, traverse this underground passage +of civilization, and thrust their corpses there. For the eye of the +thinker, all historic murderers are to be found there, in that hideous +penumbra, on their knees, with a scrap of their winding-sheet for +an apron, dismally sponging out their work. Louis XI. is there with +Tristan, Francois I. with Duprat, Charles IX. is there with his mother, +Richelieu is there with Louis XIII., Louvois is there, Letellier is +there, Hebert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying +to make the traces of their actions disappear. Beneath these vaults one +hears the brooms of spectres. One there breathes the enormous fetidness +of social catastrophes. One beholds reddish reflections in the corners. +There flows a terrible stream, in which bloody hands have been washed. + +The social observer should enter these shadows. They form a part of +his laboratory. Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything +desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it. Tergiversation is +useless. What side of oneself does one display in evasions? the shameful +side. Philosophy pursues with its glance, probes the evil, and does +not permit it to escape into nothingness. In the obliteration of things +which disappear, in the watching of things which vanish, it recognizes +all. It reconstructs the purple from the rag, and the woman from the +scrap of her dress. From the cess-pool, it re-constitutes the city; from +mud, it reconstructs manners; from the potsherd it infers the amphora +or the jug. By the imprint of a finger-nail on a piece of parchment, it +recognizes the difference which separates the Jewry of the Judengasse +from the Jewry of the Ghetto. It re-discovers in what remains that +which has been, good, evil, the true, the blood-stain of the palace, +the ink-blot of the cavern, the drop of sweat from the brothel, trials +undergone, temptations welcomed, orgies cast forth, the turn which +characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution +in souls of which their grossness rendered them capable, and on the +vesture of the porters of Rome the mark of Messalina's elbowing. + + + + +CHAPTER III--BRUNESEAU + +The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth +century, Henri II. attempted a bore, which failed. Not a hundred years +ago, the cess-pool, Mercier attests the fact, was abandoned to itself, +and fared as best it might. + +Such was this ancient Paris, delivered over to quarrels, to indecision, +and to gropings. It was tolerably stupid for a long time. Later on, '89 +showed how understanding comes to cities. But in the good, old times, +the capital had not much head. It did not know how to manage its own +affairs either morally or materially, and could not sweep out filth +any better than it could abuses. Everything presented an obstacle, +everything raised a question. The sewer, for example, was refractory to +every itinerary. One could no more find one's bearings in the sewer +than one could understand one's position in the city; above the +unintelligible, below the inextricable; beneath the confusion of tongues +there reigned the confusion of caverns; Daedalus backed up Babel. + +Sometimes the Paris sewer took a notion to overflow, as though this +misunderstood Nile were suddenly seized with a fit of rage. There +occurred, infamous to relate, inundations of the sewer. At times, that +stomach of civilization digested badly, the cess-pool flowed back into +the throat of the city, and Paris got an after-taste of her own filth. +These resemblances of the sewer to remorse had their good points; they +were warnings; very badly accepted, however; the city waxed indignant +at the audacity of its mire, and did not admit that the filth should +return. Drive it out better. + +The inundation of 1802 is one of the actual memories of Parisians of +the age of eighty. The mud spread in cross-form over the Place des +Victoires, where stands the statue of Louis XIV.; it entered the Rue +Saint-Honore by the two mouths to the sewer in the Champs-Elysees, +the Rue Saint-Florentin through the Saint-Florentin sewer, the Rue +Pierre-a-Poisson through the sewer de la Sonnerie, the Rue Popincourt, +through the sewer of the Chemin-Vert, the Rue de la Roquette, through +the sewer of the Rue de Lappe; it covered the drain of the Rue des +Champs-Elysees to the height of thirty-five centimetres; and, to the +South, through the vent of the Seine, performing its functions in +inverse sense, it penetrated the Rue Mazarine, the Rue de l'Echaude, and +the Rue des Marais, where it stopped at a distance of one hundred and +nine metres, a few paces distant from the house in which Racine had +lived, respecting, in the seventeenth century, the poet more than the +King. It attained its maximum depth in the Rue Saint-Pierre, where +it rose to the height of three feet above the flag-stones of the +water-spout, and its maximum length in the Rue Saint-Sabin, where it +spread out over a stretch two hundred and thirty-eight metres in length. + +At the beginning of this century, the sewer of Paris was still a +mysterious place. Mud can never enjoy a good fame; but in this case its +evil renown reached the verge of the terrible. Paris knew, in a confused +way, that she had under her a terrible cavern. People talked of it as +of that monstrous bed of Thebes in which swarmed centipedes fifteen long +feet in length, and which might have served Behemoth for a bathtub. +The great boots of the sewermen never ventured further than certain +well-known points. We were then very near the epoch when the scavenger's +carts, from the summit of which Sainte-Foix fraternized with the Marquis +de Crequi, discharged their loads directly into the sewer. As for +cleaning out,--that function was entrusted to the pouring rains which +encumbered rather than swept away. Rome left some poetry to her sewer, +and called it the Gemoniae; Paris insulted hers, and entitled it the +Polypus-Hole. Science and superstition were in accord, in horror. The +Polypus hole was no less repugnant to hygiene than to legend. The goblin +was developed under the fetid covering of the Mouffetard sewer; the +corpses of the Marmousets had been cast into the sewer de la Barillerie; +Fagon attributed the redoubtable malignant fever of 1685 to the great +hiatus of the sewer of the Marais, which remained yawning until 1833 in +the Rue Saint-Louis, almost opposite the sign of the Gallant Messenger. +The mouth of the sewer of the Rue de la Mortellerie was celebrated for +the pestilences which had their source there; with its grating of iron, +with points simulating a row of teeth, it was like a dragon's maw +in that fatal street, breathing forth hell upon men. The popular +imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some indescribably +hideous intermixture of the infinite. The sewer had no bottom. The sewer +was the lower world. The idea of exploring these leprous regions did not +even occur to the police. To try that unknown thing, to cast the plummet +into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of discovery in that abyss--who +would have dared? It was alarming. Nevertheless, some one did present +himself. The cess-pool had its Christopher Columbus. + +One day, in 1805, during one of the rare apparitions which the Emperor +made in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, some Decres or Cretet or +other, came to the master's intimate levee. In the Carrousel there was +audible the clanking of swords of all those extraordinary soldiers of +the great Republic, and of the great Empire; then Napoleon's door was +blocked with heroes; men from the Rhine, from the Escaut, from the +Adige, and from the Nile; companions of Joubert, of Desaix, of Marceau, +of Hoche, of Kleber; the aerostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of +Mayence, the pontoon-builders of Genoa, hussars whom the Pyramids had +looked down upon, artillerists whom Junot's cannon-ball had spattered +with mud, cuirassiers who had taken by assault the fleet lying at anchor +in the Zuyderzee; some had followed Bonaparte upon the bridge of Lodi, +others had accompanied Murat in the trenches of Mantua, others had +preceded Lannes in the hollow road of Montebello. The whole army of that +day was present there, in the court-yard of the Tuileries, represented +by a squadron or a platoon, and guarding Napoleon in repose; and that +was the splendid epoch when the grand army had Marengo behind it and +Austerlitz before it.--"Sire," said the Minister of the Interior to +Napoleon, "yesterday I saw the most intrepid man in your Empire."--"What +man is that?" said the Emperor brusquely, "and what has he done?"--"He +wants to do something, Sire."--"What is it?"--"To visit the sewers of +Paris." + +This man existed and his name was Bruneseau. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--BRUNESEAU. + +The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle +against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage +of discovery. One of the survivors of this expedition, an intelligent +workingman, who was very young at the time, related curious details with +regard to it, several years ago, which Bruneseau thought himself obliged +to omit in his report to the prefect of police, as unworthy of official +style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely +rudimentary. Hardly had Bruneseau crossed the first articulations of +that subterranean network, when eight laborers out of the twenty refused +to go any further. The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the +necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same +time, to proceed; to note the entrances of water, to count the gratings +and the vents, to lay out in detail the branches, to indicate the +currents at the point where they parted, to define the respective bounds +of the divers basins, to sound the small sewers grafted on the principal +sewer, to measure the height under the key-stone of each drain, and the +width, at the spring of the vaults as well as at the bottom, in order +to determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each +water-entrance, either of the bottom of the arch, or on the soil of the +street. They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul +atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out. +At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the +pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; +they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great +difficulty in getting him out again. On the advice of Fourcroy, they +lighted large cages filled with tow steeped in resin, from time to time, +in spots which had been sufficiently disinfected. In some places, the +wall was covered with misshapen fungi,--one would have said tumors; the +very stone seemed diseased within this unbreathable atmosphere. + +Bruneseau, in his exploration, proceeded down hill. At the point of +separation of the two water-conduits of the Grand-Hurleur, he deciphered +upon a projecting stone the date of 1550; this stone indicated the +limits where Philibert Delorme, charged by Henri II. with visiting the +subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of +the sixteenth century on the sewer; Bruneseau found the handiwork of +the seventeenth century once more in the Ponceau drain of the old Rue +Vielle-du-Temple, vaulted between 1600 and 1650; and the handiwork of +the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled +and vaulted in 1740. These two vaults, especially the less ancient, that +of 1740, were more cracked and decrepit than the masonry of the belt +sewer, which dated from 1412, an epoch when the brook of fresh water of +Menilmontant was elevated to the dignity of the Grand Sewer of Paris, an +advancement analogous to that of a peasant who should become first valet +de chambre to the King; something like Gros-Jean transformed into Lebel. + +Here and there, particularly beneath the Court-House, they thought they +recognized the hollows of ancient dungeons, excavated in the very sewer +itself. Hideous place! An iron neck-collar was hanging in one of these +cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; among +others, the skeleton of an ourang-outan, who had disappeared from the +Jardin des Plantes in 1800, a disappearance probably connected with +the famous and indisputable apparition of the devil in the Rue des +Bernardins, in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil +had ended by drowning himself in the sewer. + +Beneath this long, arched drain which terminated at the Arche-Marion, +a perfectly preserved rag-picker's basket excited the admiration of all +connoisseurs. Everywhere, the mire, which the sewermen came to handle +with intrepidity, abounded in precious objects, jewels of gold and +silver, precious stones, coins. If a giant had filtered this cesspool, +he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. At the point +where the two branches of the Rue du Temple and of the Rue Sainte-Avoye +separate, they picked up a singular Huguenot medal in copper, bearing on +one side the pig hooded with a cardinal's hat, and on the other, a wolf +with a tiara on his head. + +The most surprising encounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer. +This entrance had formerly been closed by a grating of which nothing but +the hinges remained. From one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless +rag which, arrested there in its passage, no doubt, had floated there +in the darkness and finished its process of being torn apart. Bruneseau +held his lantern close to this rag and examined it. It was of very fine +batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they +made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters: +LAVBESP. The crown was the coronet of a Marquis, and the seven letters +signified Laubespine. They recognized the fact, that what they had +before their eyes was a morsel of the shroud of Marat. Marat in his +youth had had amorous intrigues. This was when he was a member of the +household of the Comte d'Artois, in the capacity of physician to the +Stables. From these love affairs, historically proved, with a great +lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, +as this was the only linen of any fineness which he had in his house, +they buried him in it. Some old women had shrouded him for the tomb in +that swaddling-band in which the tragic Friend of the people had enjoyed +voluptuousness. Bruneseau passed on. They left that rag where it hung; +they did not put the finishing touch to it. Did this arise from scorn +or from respect? Marat deserved both. And then, destiny was there +sufficiently stamped to make them hesitate to touch it. Besides, the +things of the sepulchre must be left in the spot which they select. In +short, the relic was a strange one. A Marquise had slept in it; Marat +had rotted in it; it had traversed the Pantheon to end with the rats +of the sewer. This chamber rag, of which Watteau would formerly have +joyfully sketched every fold, had ended in becoming worthy of the fixed +gaze of Dante. + +The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted +seven years, from 1805 to 1812. As he proceeded, Bruneseau drew, +directed, and completed considerable works; in 1808 he lowered the arch +of the Ponceau, and, everywhere creating new lines, he pushed the +sewer, in 1809, under the Rue Saint-Denis as far as the fountain of +the Innocents; in 1810, under the Rue Froidmanteau and under the +Salpetriere; in 1811 under the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Peres, under the Rue +du Mail, under the Rue de l'Echarpe, under the Place Royale; in 1812, +under the Rue de la Paix, and under the Chaussee d'Antin. At the same +time, he had the whole net-work disinfected and rendered healthful. In +the second year of his work, Bruneseau engaged the assistance of his +son-in-law Nargaud. + +It was thus that, at the beginning of the century, ancient society +cleansed its double bottom, and performed the toilet of its sewer. There +was that much clean, at all events. + +Tortuous, cracked, unpaved, full of fissures, intersected by gullies, +jolted by eccentric elbows, mounting and descending illogically, fetid, +wild, fierce, submerged in obscurity, with cicatrices on its pavements +and scars on its walls, terrible,--such was, retrospectively viewed, the +antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, +of trenches, branches, goose-feet, stars, as in military mines, coecum, +blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby +sweats, on the walls, drops dripping from the ceilings, darkness; +nothing could equal the horror of this old, waste crypt, the digestive +apparatus of Babylon, a cavern, ditch, gulf pierced with streets, a +titanic mole-burrow, where the mind seems to behold that enormous blind +mole, the past, prowling through the shadows, in the filth which has +been splendor. + +This, we repeat, was the sewer of the past. + + + + +CHAPTER V--PRESENT PROGRESS + +To-day the sewer is clean, cold, straight, correct. It almost realizes +the ideal of what is understood in England by the word "respectable." It +is proper and grayish; laid out by rule and line; one might almost say +as though it came out of a bandbox. It resembles a tradesman who has +become a councillor of state. One can almost see distinctly there. The +mire there comports itself with decency. At first, one might readily +mistake it for one of those subterranean corridors, which were so common +in former days, and so useful in flights of monarchs and princes, in +those good old times, "when the people loved their kings." The present +sewer is a beautiful sewer; the pure style reigns there; the classical +rectilinear alexandrine which, driven out of poetry, appears to have +taken refuge in architecture, seems mingled with all the stones of +that long, dark and whitish vault; each outlet is an arcade; the Rue de +Rivoli serves as pattern even in the sewer. However, if the geometrical +line is in place anywhere, it is certainly in the drainage trench of +a great city. There, everything should be subordinated to the shortest +road. The sewer has, nowadays, assumed a certain official aspect. The +very police reports, of which it sometimes forms the subject, no longer +are wanting in respect towards it. The words which characterize it in +administrative language are sonorous and dignified. What used to be +called a gut is now called a gallery; what used to be called a hole is +now called a surveying orifice. Villon would no longer meet with his +ancient temporary provisional lodging. This net-work of cellars has its +immemorial population of prowlers, rodents, swarming in greater numbers +than ever; from time to time, an aged and veteran rat risks his head at +the window of the sewer and surveys the Parisians; but even these vermin +grow tame, so satisfied are they with their subterranean palace. The +cesspool no longer retains anything of its primitive ferocity. The rain, +which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do +not trust yourself too much to it. Miasmas still inhabit it. It is +more hypocritical than irreproachable. The prefecture of police and +the commission of health have done their best. But, in spite of all the +processes of disinfection, it exhales, a vague, suspicious odor like +Tartuffe after confession. + +Let us confess, that, taking it all in all, this sweeping is a homage +which the sewer pays to civilization, and as, from this point of view, +Tartuffe's conscience is a progress over the Augean stables, it is +certain that the sewers of Paris have been improved. + +It is more than progress; it is transmutation. Between the ancient +and the present sewer there is a revolution. What has effected this +revolution? + +The man whom all the world forgets, and whom we have mentioned, +Bruneseau. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FUTURE PROGRESS + +The excavation of the sewer of Paris has been no slight task. The last +ten centuries have toiled at it without being able to bring it to a +termination, any more than they have been able to finish Paris. The +sewer, in fact, receives all the counter-shocks of the growth of Paris. +Within the bosom of the earth, it is a sort of mysterious polyp with a +thousand antennae, which expands below as the city expands above. Every +time that the city cuts a street, the sewer stretches out an arm. The +old monarchy had constructed only twenty-three thousand three hundred +metres of sewers; that was where Paris stood in this respect on the +first of January, 1806. Beginning with this epoch, of which we shall +shortly speak, the work was usefully and energetically resumed and +prosecuted; Napoleon built--the figures are curious--four thousand eight +hundred and four metres; Louis XVIII., five thousand seven hundred +and nine; Charles X., ten thousand eight hundred and thirty-six; +Louis-Philippe, eighty-nine thousand and twenty; the Republic of +1848, twenty-three thousand three hundred and eighty-one; the present +government, seventy thousand five hundred; in all, at the present time, +two hundred and twenty-six thousand six hundred and ten metres; +sixty leagues of sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure +ramification ever at work; a construction which is immense and ignored. + +As the reader sees, the subterranean labyrinth of Paris is to-day +more than ten times what it was at the beginning of the century. It is +difficult to form any idea of all the perseverance and the efforts which +have been required to bring this cess-pool to the point of relative +perfection in which it now is. It was with great difficulty that the +ancient monarchical provostship and, during the last ten years of +the eighteenth century, the revolutionary mayoralty, had succeeded in +perforating the five leagues of sewer which existed previous to 1806. +All sorts of obstacles hindered this operation, some peculiar to the +soil, others inherent in the very prejudices of the laborious population +of Paris. Paris is built upon a soil which is singularly rebellious to +the pick, the hoe, the bore, and to human manipulation. There is nothing +more difficult to pierce and to penetrate than the geological formation +upon which is superposed the marvellous historical formation called +Paris; as soon as work in any form whatsoever is begun and adventures +upon this stretch of alluvium, subterranean resistances abound. There +are liquid clays, springs, hard rocks, and those soft and deep quagmires +which special science calls moutardes.[59] The pick advances laboriously +through the calcareous layers alternating with very slender threads of +clay, and schistose beds in plates incrusted with oyster-shells, the +contemporaries of the pre-Adamite oceans. Sometimes a rivulet suddenly +bursts through a vault that has been begun, and inundates the laborers; +or a layer of marl is laid bare, and rolls down with the fury of a +cataract, breaking the stoutest supporting beams like glass. Quite +recently, at Villette, when it became necessary to pass the collecting +sewer under the Saint-Martin canal without interrupting navigation or +emptying the canal, a fissure appeared in the basin of the canal, water +suddenly became abundant in the subterranean tunnel, which was beyond +the power of the pumping engines; it was necessary to send a diver to +explore the fissure which had been made in the narrow entrance of the +grand basin, and it was not without great difficulty that it was stopped +up. Elsewhere near the Seine, and even at a considerable distance +from the river, as for instance, at Belleville, Grand-Rue and Lumiere +Passage, quicksands are encountered in which one sticks fast, and in +which a man sinks visibly. Add suffocation by miasmas, burial by slides, +and sudden crumbling of the earth. Add the typhus, with which the +workmen become slowly impregnated. In our own day, after having +excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the +principal water-conduit of Ourcq, a piece of work which was executed in +a trench ten metres deep; after having, in the midst of land-slides, and +with the aid of excavations often putrid, and of shoring up, vaulted +the Bievre from the Boulevard de l'Hopital, as far as the Seine; after +having, in order to deliver Paris from the floods of Montmartre and in +order to provide an outlet for that river-like pool nine hectares in +extent, which crouched near the Barriere des Martyrs, after having, let +us state, constructed the line of sewers from the Barriere Blanche to +the road of Aubervilliers, in four months, working day and night, at a +depth of eleven metres; after having--a thing heretofore unseen--made a +subterranean sewer in the Rue Barre-du-Bec, without a trench, six +metres below the surface, the superintendent, Monnot, died. After having +vaulted three thousand metres of sewer in all quarters of the city, from +the Rue Traversiere-Saint-Antoine to the Rue de l'Ourcine, after having +freed the Carrefour Censier-Mouffetard from inundations of rain by means +of the branch of the Arbalete, after having built the Saint-Georges +sewer, on rock and concrete in the fluid sands, after having directed +the formidable lowering of the flooring of the vault timber in the +Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth branch, Duleau the engineer died. There are no +bulletins for such acts of bravery as these, which are more useful, +nevertheless, than the brutal slaughter of the field of battle. + +The sewers of Paris in 1832 were far from being what they are to-day. +Bruneseau had given the impulse, but the cholera was required to +bring about the vast reconstruction which took place later on. It is +surprising to say, for example, that in 1821, a part of the belt sewer, +called the Grand Canal, as in Venice, still stood stagnating uncovered +to the sky, in the Rue des Gourdes. It was only in 1821 that the city +of Paris found in its pocket the two hundred and sixty-thousand eighty +francs and six centimes required for covering this mass of filth. The +three absorbing wells, of the Combat, the Cunette, and Saint-Mande, with +their discharging mouths, their apparatus, their cesspools, and their +depuratory branches, only date from 1836. The intestinal sewer of Paris +has been made over anew, and, as we have said, it has been extended more +than tenfold within the last quarter of a century. + +Thirty years ago, at the epoch of the insurrection of the 5th and 6th of +June, it was still, in many localities, nearly the same ancient sewer. +A very great number of streets which are now convex were then sunken +causeways. At the end of a slope, where the tributaries of a street or +cross-roads ended, there were often to be seen large, square gratings +with heavy bars, whose iron, polished by the footsteps of the throng, +gleamed dangerous and slippery for vehicles, and caused horses to fall. +The official language of the Roads and Bridges gave to these gratings +the expressive name of Cassis.[60] + +In 1832, in a number of streets, in the Rue de l'Etoile, the Rue +Saint-Louis, the Rue du Temple, the Rue Vielle-duTemple, the Rue +Notre-Dame de Nazareth, the Rue Folie-Mericourt, the Quai aux Fleurs, +the Rue du Petit-Muse, the Rue du Normandie, the Rue Pont-Aux-Biches, +the Rue des Marais, the Faubourg Saint-Martin, the Rue Notre Dame +des-Victoires, the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Grange-Bateliere, in the +Champs-Elysees, the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Tournon, the ancient gothic +sewer still cynically displayed its maw. It consisted of enormous +voids of stone catch-basins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with +monumental effrontery. + +Paris in 1806 still had nearly the same sewers numerically as stated in +1663; five thousand three hundred fathoms. After Bruneseau, on the 1st +of January, 1832, it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between +1806 and 1831, there had been built, on an average, seven hundred and +fifty metres annually, afterwards eight and even ten thousand metres of +galleries were constructed every year, in masonry, of small stones, with +hydraulic mortar which hardens under water, on a cement foundation. At +two hundred francs the metre, the sixty leagues of Paris' sewers of the +present day represent forty-eight millions. + +In addition to the economic progress which we have indicated at the +beginning, grave problems of public hygiene are connected with that +immense question: the sewers of Paris. + +Paris is the centre of two sheets, a sheet of water and a sheet of air. +The sheet of water, lying at a tolerably great depth underground, but +already sounded by two bores, is furnished by the layer of green clay +situated between the chalk and the Jurassic lime-stone; this layer may +be represented by a disk five and twenty leagues in circumference; a +multitude of rivers and brooks ooze there; one drinks the Seine, the +Marne, the Yonne, the Oise, the Aisne, the Cher, the Vienne and the +Loire in a glass of water from the well of Grenelle. The sheet of water +is healthy, it comes from heaven in the first place and next from the +earth; the sheet of air is unhealthy, it comes from the sewer. All the +miasms of the cess-pool are mingled with the breath of the city; hence +this bad breath. The air taken from above a dung-heap, as has been +scientifically proved, is purer than the air taken from above Paris. In +a given time, with the aid of progress, mechanisms become perfected, and +as light increases, the sheet of water will be employed to purify the +sheet of air; that is to say, to wash the sewer. The reader knows, that +by "washing the sewer" we mean: the restitution of the filth to the +earth; the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. +Through this simple act, the entire social community will experience a +diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. At the present hour, +the radiation of diseases from Paris extends to fifty leagues around the +Louvre, taken as the hub of this pestilential wheel. + +We might say that, for ten centuries, the cess-pool has been the disease +of Paris. The sewer is the blemish which Paris has in her blood. The +popular instinct has never been deceived in it. The occupation of +sewermen was formerly almost as perilous, and almost as repugnant to the +people, as the occupation of knacker, which was so long held in horror +and handed over to the executioner. High wages were necessary to induce +a mason to disappear in that fetid mine; the ladder of the cess-pool +cleaner hesitated to plunge into it; it was said, in proverbial form: +"to descend into the sewer is to enter the grave;" and all sorts of +hideous legends, as we have said, covered this colossal sink with +terror; a dread sink-hole which bears the traces of the revolutions +of the globe as of the revolutions of man, and where are to be found +vestiges of all cataclysms from the shells of the Deluge to the rag of +Marat. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--MUD BUT THE SOUL + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SEWER AND ITS SURPRISES + +It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found himself. + +Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, +the diver may disappear there. + +The transition was an unheard-of one. In the very heart of the city, +Jean Valjean had escaped from the city, and, in the twinkling of an eye, +in the time required to lift the cover and to replace it, he had passed +from broad daylight to complete obscurity, from midday to midnight, from +tumult to silence, from the whirlwind of thunders to the stagnation of +the tomb, and, by a vicissitude far more tremendous even than that of +the Rue Polonceau, from the most extreme peril to the most absolute +obscurity. + +An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the secret trap-door +of Paris; to quit that street where death was on every side, for that +sort of sepulchre where there was life, was a strange instant. He +remained for several seconds as though bewildered; listening, stupefied. +The waste-trap of safety had suddenly yawned beneath him. Celestial +goodness had, in a manner, captured him by treachery. Adorable +ambuscades of providence! + +Only, the wounded man did not stir, and Jean Valjean did not know +whether that which he was carrying in that grave was a living being or a +dead corpse. + +His first sensation was one of blindness. All of a sudden, he could see +nothing. It seemed to him too, that, in one instant, he had become deaf. +He no longer heard anything. The frantic storm of murder which had been +let loose a few feet above his head did not reach him, thanks to the +thickness of the earth which separated him from it, as we have said, +otherwise than faintly and indistinctly, and like a rumbling, in the +depths. He felt that the ground was solid under his feet; that was all; +but that was enough. He extended one arm and then the other, touched +the walls on both sides, and perceived that the passage was narrow; he +slipped, and thus perceived that the pavement was wet. He cautiously put +forward one foot, fearing a hole, a sink, some gulf; he discovered that +the paving continued. A gust of fetidness informed him of the place in +which he stood. + +After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light +fell through the man-hole through which he had descended, and his eyes +became accustomed to this cavern. He began to distinguish something. The +passage in which he had burrowed--no other word can better express the +situation--was walled in behind him. It was one of those blind alleys, +which the special jargon terms branches. In front of him there was +another wall, a wall like night. The light of the air-hole died out ten +or twelve paces from the point where Jean Valjean stood, and barely cast +a wan pallor on a few metres of the damp walls of the sewer. Beyond, +the opaqueness was massive; to penetrate thither seemed horrible, an +entrance into it appeared like an engulfment. A man could, however, +plunge into that wall of fog and it was necessary so to do. Haste was +even requisite. It occurred to Jean Valjean that the grating which he +had caught sight of under the flag-stones might also catch the eye of +the soldiery, and that everything hung upon this chance. They also might +descend into that well and search it. There was not a minute to be lost. +He had deposited Marius on the ground, he picked him up again,--that is +the real word for it,--placed him on his shoulders once more, and set +out. He plunged resolutely into the gloom. + +The truth is, that they were less safe than Jean Valjean fancied. Perils +of another sort and no less serious were awaiting them, perchance. After +the lightning-charged whirlwind of the combat, the cavern of miasmas and +traps; after chaos, the sewer. Jean Valjean had fallen from one circle +of hell into another. + +When he had advanced fifty paces, he was obliged to halt. A problem +presented itself. The passage terminated in another gut which he +encountered across his path. There two ways presented themselves. Which +should he take? Ought he to turn to the left or to the right? How was he +to find his bearings in that black labyrinth? This labyrinth, to which +we have already called the reader's attention, has a clue, which is its +slope. To follow to the slope is to arrive at the river. + +This Jean Valjean instantly comprehended. + +He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles; that +if he were to choose the path to the left and follow the slope, he would +arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine +between the Pont au Change and the Pont-Neuf, that is to say, he would +make his appearance in broad daylight on the most densely peopled spot +in Paris. Perhaps he would come out on some man-hole at the intersection +of streets. Amazement of the passers-by at beholding two bleeding men +emerge from the earth at their feet. Arrival of the police, a call to +arms of the neighboring post of guards. Thus they would be seized before +they had even got out. It would be better to plunge into that labyrinth, +to confide themselves to that black gloom, and to trust to Providence +for the outcome. + +He ascended the incline, and turned to the right. + +When he had turned the angle of the gallery, the distant glimmer of an +air-hole disappeared, the curtain of obscurity fell upon him once more, +and he became blind again. Nevertheless, he advanced as rapidly as +possible. Marius' two arms were passed round his neck, and the former's +feet dragged behind him. He held both these arms with one hand, and +groped along the wall with the other. Marius' cheek touched his, and +clung there, bleeding. He felt a warm stream which came from Marius +trickling down upon him and making its way under his clothes. But a +humid warmth near his ear, which the mouth of the wounded man touched, +indicated respiration, and consequently, life. The passage along which +Jean Valjean was now proceeding was not so narrow as the first. Jean +Valjean walked through it with considerable difficulty. The rain of the +preceding day had not, as yet, entirely run off, and it created a little +torrent in the centre of the bottom, and he was forced to hug the wall +in order not to have his feet in the water. + +Thus he proceeded in the gloom. He resembled the beings of the night +groping in the invisible and lost beneath the earth in veins of shadow. + +Still, little by little, whether it was that the distant air-holes +emitted a little wavering light in this opaque gloom, or whether his +eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, some vague vision returned +to him, and he began once more to gain a confused idea, now of the wall +which he touched, now of the vault beneath which he was passing. The +pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends +by finding God there. + +It was not easy to direct his course. + +The line of the sewer re-echoes, so to speak, the line of the streets +which lie above it. There were then in Paris two thousand two hundred +streets. Let the reader imagine himself beneath that forest of gloomy +branches which is called the sewer. The system of sewers existing at +that epoch, placed end to end, would have given a length of eleven +leagues. We have said above, that the actual net-work, thanks to the +special activity of the last thirty years, was no less than sixty +leagues in extent. + +Jean Valjean began by committing a blunder. He thought that he was +beneath the Rue Saint-Denis, and it was a pity that it was not so. Under +the Rue Saint-Denis there is an old stone sewer which dates from Louis +XIII. and which runs straight to the collecting sewer, called the Grand +Sewer, with but a single elbow, on the right, on the elevation of the +ancient Cour des Miracles, and a single branch, the Saint-Martin sewer, +whose four arms describe a cross. But the gut of the Petite-Truanderie +the entrance to which was in the vicinity of the Corinthe wine-shop has +never communicated with the sewer of the Rue Saint-Denis; it ended +at the Montmartre sewer, and it was in this that Jean Valjean was +entangled. There opportunities of losing oneself abound. The Montmartre +sewer is one of the most labyrinthine of the ancient network. +Fortunately, Jean Valjean had left behind him the sewer of the markets +whose geometrical plan presents the appearance of a multitude of +parrots' roosts piled on top of each other; but he had before him more +than one embarrassing encounter and more than one street corner--for +they are streets--presenting itself in the gloom like an interrogation +point; first, on his left, the vast sewer of the Platriere, a sort of +Chinese puzzle, thrusting out and entangling its chaos of Ts and Zs +under the Post-Office and under the rotunda of the Wheat Market, as far +as the Seine, where it terminates in a Y; secondly, on his right, the +curving corridor of the Rue du Cadran with its three teeth, which +are also blind courts; thirdly, on his left, the branch of the +Mail, complicated, almost at its inception, with a sort of fork, and +proceeding from zig-zag to zig-zag until it ends in the grand crypt of +the outlet of the Louvre, truncated and ramified in every direction; and +lastly, the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeuneurs, without +counting little ducts here and there, before reaching the belt sewer, +which alone could conduct him to some issue sufficiently distant to be +safe. + +Had Jean Valjean had any idea of all that we have here pointed out, he +would speedily have perceived, merely by feeling the wall, that he was +not in the subterranean gallery of the Rue Saint-Denis. Instead of the +ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal +even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and +mortar costing eight hundred livres the fathom, he would have felt under +his hand contemporary cheapness, economical expedients, porous stone +filled with mortar on a concrete foundation, which costs two hundred +francs the metre, and the bourgeoise masonry known as a petits +materiaux--small stuff; but of all this he knew nothing. + +He advanced with anxiety, but with calmness, seeing nothing, knowing +nothing, buried in chance, that is to say, engulfed in providence. + +By degrees, we will admit, a certain horror seized upon him. The gloom +which enveloped him penetrated his spirit. He walked in an enigma. This +aqueduct of the sewer is formidable; it interlaces in a dizzy fashion. +It is a melancholy thing to be caught in this Paris of shadows. Jean +Valjean was obliged to find and even to invent his route without seeing +it. In this unknown, every step that he risked might be his last. How +was he to get out? should he find an issue? should he find it in time? +would that colossal subterranean sponge with its stone cavities, allow +itself to be penetrated and pierced? should he there encounter some +unexpected knot in the darkness? should he arrive at the inextricable +and the impassable? would Marius die there of hemorrhage and he of +hunger? should they end by both getting lost, and by furnishing two +skeletons in a nook of that night? He did not know. He put all these +questions to himself without replying to them. The intestines of Paris +form a precipice. Like the prophet, he was in the belly of the monster. + +All at once, he had a surprise. At the most unforeseen moment, and +without having ceased to walk in a straight line, he perceived that he +was no longer ascending; the water of the rivulet was beating against +his heels, instead of meeting him at his toes. The sewer was now +descending. Why? Was he about to arrive suddenly at the Seine? This +danger was a great one, but the peril of retreating was still greater. +He continued to advance. + +It was not towards the Seine that he was proceeding. The ridge which +the soil of Paris forms on its right bank empties one of its water-sheds +into the Seine and the other into the Grand Sewer. The crest of this +ridge which determines the division of the waters describes a very +capricious line. The culminating point, which is the point of +separation of the currents, is in the Sainte-Avoye sewer, beyond the Rue +Michelle-Comte, in the sewer of the Louvre, near the boulevards, and +in the Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point +that Jean Valjean had reached. He was directing his course towards the +belt sewer; he was on the right path. But he did not know it. + +Every time that he encountered a branch, he felt of its angles, and if +he found that the opening which presented itself was smaller than the +passage in which he was, he did not enter but continued his route, +rightly judging that every narrower way must needs terminate in a blind +alley, and could only lead him further from his goal, that is to say, +the outlet. Thus he avoided the quadruple trap which was set for him in +the darkness by the four labyrinths which we have just enumerated. + +At a certain moment, he perceived that he was emerging from beneath +the Paris which was petrified by the uprising, where the barricades had +suppressed circulation, and that he was entering beneath the living and +normal Paris. Overhead he suddenly heard a noise as of thunder, distant +but continuous. It was the rumbling of vehicles. + +He had been walking for about half an hour, at least according to the +calculation which he made in his own mind, and he had not yet thought of +rest; he had merely changed the hand with which he was holding Marius. +The darkness was more profound than ever, but its very depth reassured +him. + +All at once, he saw his shadow in front of him. It was outlined on +a faint, almost indistinct reddish glow, which vaguely empurpled the +flooring vault underfoot, and the vault overhead, and gilded to his +right and to his left the two viscous walls of the passage. Stupefied, +he turned round. + +Behind him, in the portion of the passage which he had just passed +through, at a distance which appeared to him immense, piercing the dense +obscurity, flamed a sort of horrible star which had the air of surveying +him. + +It was the gloomy star of the police which was rising in the sewer. + +In the rear of that star eight or ten forms were moving about in a +confused way, black, upright, indistinct, horrible. + + + + +CHAPTER II--EXPLANATION + +On the day of the sixth of June, a battue of the sewers had been +ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have taken to them for +refuge, and Prefect Gisquet was to search occult Paris while General +Bugeaud swept public Paris; a double and connected operation which +exacted a double strategy on the part of the public force, represented +above by the army and below by the police. Three squads of agents and +sewermen explored the subterranean drain of Paris, the first on the +right bank, the second on the left bank, the third in the city. The +agents of police were armed with carabines, with bludgeons, swords and +poignards. + +That which was directed at Jean Valjean at that moment, was the lantern +of the patrol of the right bank. + +This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind +alleys which lie beneath the Rue du Cadran. While they were passing +their lantern through the depths of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean had +encountered on his path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived +that it was narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated +thither. He had passed on. The police, on emerging from the gallery +du Cadran, had fancied that they heard the sound of footsteps in the +direction of the belt sewer. They were, in fact, the steps of Jean +Valjean. The sergeant in command of the patrol had raised his lantern, +and the squad had begun to gaze into the mist in the direction whence +the sound proceeded. + +This was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean. + +Happily, if he saw the lantern well, the lantern saw him but ill. It +was light and he was shadow. He was very far off, and mingled with the +darkness of the place. He hugged the wall and halted. Moreover, he did +not understand what it was that was moving behind him. The lack of sleep +and food, and his emotions had caused him also to pass into the state of +a visionary. He beheld a gleam, and around that gleam, forms. What was +it? He did not comprehend. + +Jean Valjean having paused, the sound ceased. + +The men of the patrol listened, and heard nothing, they looked and saw +nothing. They held a consultation. + +There existed at that epoch at this point of the Montmartre sewer a sort +of cross-roads called de service, which was afterwards suppressed, on +account of the little interior lake which formed there, swallowing up +the torrent of rain in heavy storms. The patrol could form a cluster in +this open space. Jean Valjean saw these spectres form a sort of circle. +These bull-dogs' heads approached each other closely and whispered +together. + +The result of this council held by the watch dogs was, that they had +been mistaken, that there had been no noise, that it was useless to get +entangled in the belt sewer, that it would only be a waste of time, +but that they ought to hasten towards Saint-Merry; that if there +was anything to do, and any "bousingot" to track out, it was in that +quarter. + +From time to time, parties re-sole their old insults. In 1832, the word +bousingot formed the interim between the word jacobin, which had become +obsolete, and the word demagogue which has since rendered such excellent +service. + +The sergeant gave orders to turn to the left, towards the watershed of +the Seine. + +If it had occurred to them to separate into two squads, and to go in +both directions, Jean Valjean would have been captured. All hung on +that thread. It is probable that the instructions of the prefecture, +foreseeing a possibility of combat and insurgents in force, had +forbidden the patrol to part company. The patrol resumed its march, +leaving Jean Valjean behind it. Of all this movement, Jean Valjean +perceived nothing, except the eclipse of the lantern which suddenly +wheeled round. + +Before taking his departure, the Sergeant, in order to acquit his +policeman's conscience, discharged his gun in the direction of Jean +Valjean. The detonation rolled from echo to echo in the crypt, like the +rumbling of that titanic entrail. A bit of plaster which fell into the +stream and splashed up the water a few paces away from Jean Valjean, +warned him that the ball had struck the arch over his head. + +Slow and measured steps resounded for some time on the timber work, +gradually dying away as they retreated to a greater distance; the group +of black forms vanished, a glimmer of light oscillated and floated, +communicating to the vault a reddish glow which grew fainter, then +disappeared; the silence became profound once more, the obscurity became +complete, blindness and deafness resumed possession of the shadows; +and Jean Valjean, not daring to stir as yet, remained for a long time +leaning with his back against the wall, with straining ears, and dilated +pupils, watching the disappearance of that phantom patrol. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE "SPUN" MAN + +This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in +the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its duties +connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt was, in its eyes, +no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own mouths, +and for neglecting society for the reason that the government was in +peril. The ordinary service was performed correctly in company with the +extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In the midst +of an incalculable political event already begun, under the pressure of +a possible revolution, a police agent, "spun" a thief without allowing +himself to be distracted by insurrection and barricades. + +It was something precisely parallel which took place on the afternoon +of the 6th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the slope of the right +shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides. + +There is no longer any bank there now. The aspect of the locality has +changed. + +On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be +watching each other while mutually avoiding each other. The one who was +in advance was trying to get away, the one in the rear was trying to +overtake the other. + +It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in silence. +Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly, as though +each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner redouble his +pace. + +One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and +purposely without wearing the air of doing so. The prey was crafty and +on its guard. + +The proper relations between the hunted pole-cat and the hunting dog +were observed. The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant +mien and not an impressive appearance; the one who was seeking to seize +him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter. + +The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second; +but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious; any one who +could have observed him would have discerned in his eyes the sombre +hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains. + +The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even a boatman nor +a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored here and there. + +It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay opposite, and +to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man who was +in advance would have appeared like a bristling, tattered, and equivocal +being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath a ragged blouse, and the +other like a classic and official personage, wearing the frock-coat of +authority buttoned to the chin. + +Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see +them closer at hand. + +What was the object of the second man? + +Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly. + +When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order +to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state. Only, the whole +question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be +dressed in red is disagreeable. + +There is a purple from below. + +It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this sort which +the first man is desirous of shirking. + +If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him as yet, it +was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing him lead up to +some significant meeting-place and to some group worth catching. This +delicate operation is called "spinning." + +What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the buttoned-up +man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackney-coach on the quay +as it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver; the driver +understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal, +turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, +at a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered +personage who was in advance. + +The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-Elysees. The +bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the +parapet. + +One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to their agents +contains this article: "Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in case of +emergency." + +While these two men were manoeuvring, each on his own side, with +irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay +which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving +from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined +plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die +of thirst, but the eye is gratified. + +It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to ascend +this inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the +Champs-Elysees, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much +infested with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise +violence. + +This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought to +Paris from Moret in 1824, by Colonel Brack, and designated as "the house +of Francois I." A guard house is situated close at hand. + +To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did +not mount by the inclined plane for watering. He continued to advance +along the quay on the shore. + +His position was visibly becoming critical. + +What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine? + +Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay; there was +no other inclined plane, no staircase; and they were near the spot, +marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont de Jena, where the +bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and +was lost in the water. There he would inevitably find himself blocked +between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and +in front of him, and the authorities on his heels. + +It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by a +heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced by some demolition +or other. But did this man hope to conceal himself effectually behind +that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The expedient would +have been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of such a thing. The +innocence of thieves does not extend to that point. + +The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water's edge, +which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay. + +The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound and went +round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other. + +The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took advantage of +this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk very rapidly. In a +few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap and passed round it. There +he halted in sheer amazement. The man whom he had been pursuing was no +longer there. + +Total eclipse of the man in the blouse. + +The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces +long, then it plunged into the water which beat against the wall of the +quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without +being seen by the man who was following him. What had become of him? + +The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the extremity of the shore, +and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists clenched, his eyes +searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived, at the +point where the land came to an end and the water began, a large iron +grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three massive +hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the quay, +opened on the river as well as on the shore. A blackish stream passed +under it. This stream discharged into the Seine. + +Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor +could be descried. The man folded his arms and stared at the grating +with an air of reproach. + +As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside; he shook +it, it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened, +although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a +grating; but it is certain that it had been closed again. This indicated +that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a hook but a +key. + +This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to +move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation: + +"That is too much! A government key!" + +Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world +of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables accented almost +ironically: "Come! Come! Come! Come!" + +That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should +see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch +behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer. + +The hackney-coach, which regulated all its movements on his, had, in its +turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet. The coachman, +foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses' muzzles in the bag of +oats which is damp at the bottom, and which is so familiar to Parisians, +to whom, be it said in parenthesis, the Government sometimes applies it. +The rare passers-by on the Pont de Jena turned their heads, before they +pursued their way, to take a momentary glance at these two motionless +items in the landscape, the man on the shore, the carriage on the quay. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--HE ALSO BEARS HIS CROSS + +Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. + +This march became more and more laborious. The level of these vaults +varies; the average height is about five feet, six inches, and has been +calculated for the stature of a man; Jean Valjean was forced to bend +over, in order not to strike Marius against the vault; at every step +he had to bend, then to rise, and to feel incessantly of the wall. The +moisture of the stones, and the viscous nature of the timber framework +furnished but poor supports to which to cling, either for hand or foot. +He stumbled along in the hideous dung-heap of the city. The intermittent +gleams from the air-holes only appeared at very long intervals, and were +so wan that the full sunlight seemed like the light of the moon; all +the rest was mist, miasma, opaqueness, blackness. Jean Valjean was both +hungry and thirsty; especially thirsty; and this, like the sea, was a +place full of water where a man cannot drink. His strength, which was +prodigious, as the reader knows, and which had been but little decreased +by age, thanks to his chaste and sober life, began to give way, +nevertheless. Fatigue began to gain on him; and as his strength +decreased, it made the weight of his burden increase. Marius, who was, +perhaps, dead, weighed him down as inert bodies weigh. Jean Valjean +held him in such a manner that his chest was not oppressed, and so that +respiration could proceed as well as possible. Between his legs he felt +the rapid gliding of the rats. One of them was frightened to such a +degree that he bit him. From time to time, a breath of fresh air reached +him through the vent-holes of the mouths of the sewer, and re-animated +him. + +It might have been three hours past midday when he reached the +belt-sewer. + +He was, at first, astonished at this sudden widening. He found himself, +all at once, in a gallery where his outstretched hands could not reach +the two walls, and beneath a vault which his head did not touch. The +Grand Sewer is, in fact, eight feet wide and seven feet high. + +At the point where the Montmartre sewer joins the Grand Sewer, two other +subterranean galleries, that of the Rue de Provence, and that of the +Abattoir, form a square. Between these four ways, a less sagacious man +would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that +is to say, the belt-sewer. But here the question again came up--should +he descend or ascend? He thought that the situation required haste, and +that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must +descend. He turned to the left. + +It was well that he did so, for it is an error to suppose that the +belt-sewer has two outlets, the one in the direction of Bercy, the other +towards Passy, and that it is, as its name indicates, the subterranean +girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it +must be remembered, nothing else than the old brook of Menilmontant, +terminates, if one ascends it, in a blind sack, that is to say, at its +ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot of the +knoll of Menilmontant. There is no direct communication with the +branch which collects the waters of Paris beginning with the Quartier +Popincourt, and which falls into the Seine through the Amelot sewer +above the ancient Isle Louviers. This branch, which completes the +collecting sewer, is separated from it, under the Rue Menilmontant +itself, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters, between +upstream and downstream. If Jean Valjean had ascended the gallery he +would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, and broken down with +fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would +have been lost. + +In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way, and entering +the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire, on condition that he did not +hesitate at the subterranean crossing of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by +taking the corridor Saint-Louis, then the Saint-Gilles gut on the left, +then turning to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he +might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did +not go astray in the sort of F which lies under the Bastille, he might +have attained the outlet on the Seine near the Arsenal. But in order +to do this, he must have been thoroughly familiar with the enormous +madrepore of the sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings. +Now, we must again insist that he knew nothing of that frightful drain +which he was traversing; and had any one asked him in what he was, he +would have answered: "In the night." + +His instinct served him well. To descend was, in fact, possible safety. + +He left on his right the two narrow passages which branch out in the +form of a claw under the Rue Laffitte and the Rue Saint-Georges and the +long, bifurcated corridor of the Chaussee d'Antin. + +A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, +he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole, probably +the man-hole in the Rue d'Anjou, furnished a light that was almost +vivid. Jean Valjean, with the gentleness of movement which a brother +would exercise towards his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the +banquette of the sewer. Marius' blood-stained face appeared under the +wan light of the air-hole like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb. His +eyes were closed, his hair was plastered down on his temples like a +painter's brushes dried in red wash; his hands hung limp and dead. A +clot of blood had collected in the knot of his cravat; his limbs were +cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth; his shirt had +thrust itself into his wounds, the cloth of his coat was chafing the +yawning gashes in the living flesh. Jean Valjean, pushing aside the +garments with the tips of his fingers, laid his hand upon Marius' +breast; his heart was still beating. Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, +bandaged the young man's wounds as well as he was able and stopped the +flowing blood; then bending over Marius, who still lay unconscious +and almost without breathing, in that half light, he gazed at him with +inexpressible hatred. + +On disarranging Marius' garments, he had found two things in his +pockets, the roll which had been forgotten there on the preceding +evening, and Marius' pocketbook. He ate the roll and opened the +pocketbook. On the first page he found the four lines written by Marius. +The reader will recall them: + +"My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. +Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais." + +Jean Valjean read these four lines by the light of the air-hole, and +remained for a moment as though absorbed in thought, repeating in a low +tone: "Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, number 6, Monsieur Gillenormand." He +replaced the pocketbook in Marius' pocket. He had eaten, his strength +had returned to him; he took Marius up once more upon his back, placed +the latter's head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his +descent of the sewer. + +The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of +Menilmontant, is about two leagues long. It is paved throughout a +notable portion of its extent. + +This torch of the names of the streets of Paris, with which we are +illuminating for the reader Jean Valjean's subterranean march, Jean +Valjean himself did not possess. Nothing told him what zone of the city +he was traversing, nor what way he had made. Only the growing pallor of +the pools of light which he encountered from time to time indicated to +him that the sun was withdrawing from the pavement, and that the day +would soon be over; and the rolling of vehicles overhead, having become +intermittent instead of continuous, then having almost ceased, he +concluded that he was no longer under central Paris, and that he +was approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer +boulevards, or the extreme outer quays. Where there are fewer houses and +streets, the sewer has fewer air-holes. The gloom deepened around Jean +Valjean. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, groping his way in the +dark. + +Suddenly this darkness became terrible. + + + + +CHAPTER V--IN THE CASE OF SAND AS IN THAT OF WOMAN, THERE IS A FINENESS +WHICH IS TREACHEROUS + +He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a +pavement under his feet, but only mud. + +It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a +man, either a traveller or a fisherman, while walking at low tide on the +beach far from shore, suddenly notices that for several minutes past, +he has been walking with some difficulty. The beach under foot is +like pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is +bird-lime. The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, +as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water. The +eye, however, has perceived no change; the immense beach is smooth and +tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the +soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little +cloud of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the +passer-by. + +The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors +to approach the shore. He is not uneasy. Uneasy about what? Only he is +conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every +step that he takes. All at once he sinks in. He sinks in two or three +inches. Decidedly, he is not on the right road; he halts to get his +bearings. Suddenly he glances at his feet; his feet have disappeared. +The sand has covered them. He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries +to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than +before. The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it +and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to mid-leg, he flings +himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees. Then, with +indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a +quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which +neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he +have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late, +the sand is above his knees. + +He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually +gains on him; if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if +the bank of sand is too ill-famed, there is no hero in the neighborhood, +all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that +terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible +to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come +to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which +drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at +every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air +of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces +a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the +horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on +the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly +and sing, the sun and the sky. This engulfment is the sepulchre which +assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards +a living man. Each minute is an inexorable layer-out of the dead. The +wretched man tries to sit down, to lie down, to climb; every movement +that he makes buries him deeper; he straightens himself up, he sinks; he +feels that he is being swallowed up; he shrieks, implores, cries to the +clouds, wrings his hands, grows desperate. Behold him in the sand up +to his belly, the sand reaches to his breast, he is only a bust now. +He uplifts his hands, utters furious groans, clenches his nails on the +beach, tries to cling fast to that ashes, supports himself on his elbows +in order to raise himself from that soft sheath, and sobs frantically; +the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand +reaches to his throat; only his face is visible now. His mouth cries +aloud, the sand fills it; silence. His eyes still gaze forth, the sand +closes them, night. Then his brow decreases, a little hair quivers above +the sand; a hand projects, pierces the surface of the beach, waves and +disappears. Sinister obliteration of a man. + +Sometimes a rider is engulfed with his horse; sometimes the carter is +swallowed up with his cart; all founders in that strand. It is shipwreck +elsewhere than in the water. It is the earth drowning a man. The earth, +permeated with the ocean, becomes a pitfall. It presents itself in the +guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to +these treacheries. + +This melancholy fate, always possible on certain sea beaches, was also +possible, thirty years ago, in the sewers of Paris. + +Before the important works, undertaken in 1833, the subterranean drain +of Paris was subject to these sudden slides. + +The water filtered into certain subjacent strata, which were +particularly friable; the foot-way, which was of flag-stones, as in +the ancient sewers, or of cement on concrete, as in the new galleries, +having no longer an underpinning, gave way. A fold in a flooring of this +sort means a crack, means crumbling. The framework crumbled away for a +certain length. This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a +fontis, in the special tongue. What is a fontis? It is the quicksands of +the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the earth; it is +the beach of Mont Saint-Michel in a sewer. The soaked soil is in a +state of fusion, as it were; all its molecules are in suspension in soft +medium; it is not earth and it is not water. The depth is sometimes very +great. Nothing can be more formidable than such an encounter. If the +water predominates, death is prompt, the man is swallowed up; if earth +predominates, death is slow. + +Can any one picture to himself such a death? If being swallowed by the +earth is terrible on the seashore, what is it in a cess-pool? Instead of +the open air, the broad daylight, the clear horizon, those vast sounds, +those free clouds whence rains life, instead of those barks descried +in the distance, of that hope under all sorts of forms, of probable +passers-by, of succor possible up to the very last moment,--instead +of all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb +already prepared, death in the mire beneath a cover! slow suffocation +by filth, a stone box where asphyxia opens its claw in the mire and +clutches you by the throat; fetidness mingled with the death-rattle; +slime instead of the strand, sulfuretted hydrogen in place of the +hurricane, dung in place of the ocean! And to shout, to gnash one's +teeth, and to writhe, and to struggle, and to agonize, with that +enormous city which knows nothing of it all, over one's head! + +Inexpressible is the horror of dying thus! Death sometimes redeems +his atrocity by a certain terrible dignity. On the funeral pile, in +shipwreck, one can be great; in the flames as in the foam, a superb +attitude is possible; one there becomes transfigured as one perishes. +But not here. Death is filthy. It is humiliating to expire. The supreme +floating visions are abject. Mud is synonymous with shame. It is +petty, ugly, infamous. To die in a butt of Malvoisie, like Clarence, is +permissible; in the ditch of a scavenger, like Escoubleau, is horrible. +To struggle therein is hideous; at the same time that one is going +through the death agony, one is floundering about. There are shadows +enough for hell, and mire enough to render it nothing but a slough, and +the dying man knows not whether he is on the point of becoming a spectre +or a frog. + +Everywhere else the sepulchre is sinister; here it is deformed. + +The depth of the fontis varied, as well as their length and their +density, according to the more or less bad quality of the sub-soil. +Sometimes a fontis was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or ten; +sometimes the bottom was unfathomable. Here the mire was almost solid, +there almost liquid. In the Luniere fontis, it would have taken a man a +day to disappear, while he would have been devoured in five minutes by +the Philippeaux slough. The mire bears up more or less, according to its +density. A child can escape where a man will perish. The first law of +safety is to get rid of every sort of load. Every sewerman who felt the +ground giving way beneath him began by flinging away his sack of tools, +or his back-basket, or his hod. + +The fontis were due to different causes: the friability of the soil; +some landslip at a depth beyond the reach of man; the violent summer +rains; the incessant flooding of winter; long, drizzling showers. +Sometimes the weight of the surrounding houses on a marly or sandy soil +forced out the vaults of the subterranean galleries and caused them to +bend aside, or it chanced that a flooring vault burst and split under +this crushing thrust. In this manner, the heaping up of the Parthenon, +obliterated, a century ago, a portion of the vaults of Saint-Genevieve +hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the +mischief was sometimes betrayed in the street above by a sort of space, +like the teeth of a saw, between the paving-stones; this crevice was +developed in an undulating line throughout the entire length of the +cracked vault, and then, the evil being visible, the remedy could be +promptly applied. It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages +were not revealed by any external scar, and in that case, woe to the +sewermen. When they entered without precaution into the sewer, they were +liable to be lost. Ancient registers make mention of several scavengers +who were buried in fontis in this manner. They give many names; among +others, that of the sewerman who was swallowed up in a quagmire under +the man-hole of the Rue Careme-Prenant, a certain Blaise Poutrain; this +Blaise Poutrain was the brother of Nicholas Poutrain, who was the last +grave-digger of the cemetery called the Charnier des Innocents, in 1785, +the epoch when that cemetery expired. + +There was also that young and charming Vicomte d'Escoubleau, of whom we +have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lerida, where they +delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. +D'Escoubleau, surprised one night at his cousin's, the Duchess de +Sourdis', was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which +he had taken refuge in order to escape from the Duke. Madame de Sourdis, +when informed of his death, demanded her smelling-bottle, and forgot to +weep, through sniffling at her salts. In such cases, there is no love +which holds fast; the sewer extinguishes it. Hero refuses to wash the +body of Leander. Thisbe stops her nose in the presence of Pyramus and +says: "Phew!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE FONTIS + +Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. + +This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of the +Champs-Elysees, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works and a bad +preservative of the subterranean constructions, on account of its +excessive fluidity. This fluidity exceeds even the inconsistency of the +sands of the Quartier Saint-Georges, which could only be conquered by +a stone construction on a concrete foundation, and the clayey strata, +infected with gas, of the Quartier des Martyrs, which are so liquid +that the only way in which a passage was effected under the gallery des +Martyrs was by means of a cast-iron pipe. When, in 1836, the old stone +sewer beneath the Faubourg Saint-Honore, in which we now see Jean +Valjean, was demolished for the purpose of reconstructing it, the +quicksand, which forms the subsoil of the Champs-Elysees as far as the +Seine, presented such an obstacle, that the operation lasted nearly +six months, to the great clamor of the dwellers on the riverside, +particularly those who had hotels and carriages. The work was more than +unhealthy; it was dangerous. It is true that they had four months and a +half of rain, and three floods of the Seine. + +The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the downpour +of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained by the subjacent +sand, had given way and had produced a stoppage of the water. +Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom +had sunk into the ooze. To what extent? Impossible to say. The obscurity +was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of +night. + +Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered +this slime. There was water on the surface, slime at the bottom. He must +pass it. To retrace his steps was impossible. Marius was dying, and Jean +Valjean exhausted. Besides, where was he to go? Jean Valjean advanced. +Moreover, the pit seemed, for the first few steps, not to be very deep. +But in proportion as he advanced, his feet plunged deeper. Soon he had +the slime up to his calves and water above his knees. He walked on, +raising Marius in his arms, as far above the water as he could. The mire +now reached to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer +retreat. This mud, dense enough for one man, could not, obviously, +uphold two. Marius and Jean Valjean would have stood a chance of +extricating themselves singly. Jean Valjean continued to advance, +supporting the dying man, who was, perhaps, a corpse. + +The water came up to his arm-pits; he felt that he was sinking; it was +only with difficulty that he could move in the depth of ooze which +he had now reached. The density, which was his support, was also +an obstacle. He still held Marius on high, and with an unheard-of +expenditure of force, he advanced still; but he was sinking. He had only +his head above the water now and his two arms holding up Marius. In the +old paintings of the deluge there is a mother holding her child thus. + +He sank still deeper, he turned his face to the rear, to escape the +water, and in order that he might be able to breathe; anyone who had +seen him in that gloom would have thought that what he beheld was a +mask floating on the shadows; he caught a faint glimpse above him of the +drooping head and livid face of Marius; he made a desperate effort and +launched his foot forward; his foot struck something solid; a point of +support. It was high time. + +He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of +support with a sort of fury. This produced upon him the effect of the +first step in a staircase leading back to life. + +The point of support, thus encountered in the mire at the supreme +moment, was the beginning of the other water-shed of the pavement, which +had bent but had not given way, and which had curved under the water +like a plank and in a single piece. Well built pavements form a vault +and possess this sort of firmness. This fragment of the vaulting, partly +submerged, but solid, was a veritable inclined plane, and, once on this +plane, he was safe. Jean Valjean mounted this inclined plane and reached +the other side of the quagmire. + +As he emerged from the water, he came in contact with a stone and fell +upon his knees. He reflected that this was but just, and he remained +there for some time, with his soul absorbed in words addressed to God. + +He rose to his feet, shivering, chilled, foul-smelling, bowed beneath +the dying man whom he was dragging after him, all dripping with slime, +and his soul filled with a strange light. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--ONE SOMETIMES RUNS AGROUND WHEN ONE FANCIES THAT ONE IS +DISEMBARKING + +He set out on his way once more. + +However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed +to have left his strength behind him there. That supreme effort had +exhausted him. His lassitude was now such that he was obliged to pause +for breath every three or four steps, and lean against the wall. Once +he was forced to seat himself on the banquette in order to alter Marius' +position, and he thought that he should have to remain there. But if his +vigor was dead, his energy was not. He rose again. + +He walked on desperately, almost fast, proceeded thus for a hundred +paces, almost without drawing breath, and suddenly came in contact with +the wall. He had reached an elbow of the sewer, and, arriving at the +turn with head bent down, he had struck the wall. He raised his eyes, +and at the extremity of the vault, far, very far away in front of him, +he perceived a light. This time it was not that terrible light; it was +good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the outlet. + +A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly +perceive the outlet of Gehenna, would experience what Jean Valjean felt. +It would fly wildly with the stumps of its burned wings towards that +radiant portal. Jean Valjean was no longer conscious of fatigue, he no +longer felt Marius' weight, he found his legs once more of steel, he ran +rather than walked. As he approached, the outlet became more and more +distinctly defined. It was a pointed arch, lower than the vault, which +gradually narrowed, and narrower than the gallery, which closed in as +the vault grew lower. The tunnel ended like the interior of a funnel; +a faulty construction, imitated from the wickets of penitentiaries, +logical in a prison, illogical in a sewer, and which has since been +corrected. + +Jean Valjean reached the outlet. + +There he halted. + +It certainly was the outlet, but he could not get out. + +The arch was closed by a heavy grating, and the grating, which, to all +appearance, rarely swung on its rusty hinges, was clamped to its stone +jamb by a thick lock, which, red with rust, seemed like an enormous +brick. The keyhole could be seen, and the robust latch, deeply sunk in +the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those +prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing. + +Beyond the grating was the open air, the river, the daylight, the shore, +very narrow but sufficient for escape. The distant quays, Paris, that +gulf in which one so easily hides oneself, the broad horizon, liberty. +On the right, down stream, the bridge of Jena was discernible, on the +left, upstream, the bridge of the Invalides; the place would have been a +propitious one in which to await the night and to escape. It was one +of the most solitary points in Paris; the shore which faces the +Grand-Caillou. Flies were entering and emerging through the bars of the +grating. + +It might have been half-past eight o'clock in the evening. The day was +declining. + +Jean Valjean laid Marius down along the wall, on the dry portion of the +vaulting, then he went to the grating and clenched both fists round the +bars; the shock which he gave it was frenzied, but it did not move. The +grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, +in the hope that he might be able to tear away the least solid, and to +make of it a lever wherewith to raise the door or to break the lock. Not +a bar stirred. The teeth of a tiger are not more firmly fixed in their +sockets. No lever; no prying possible. The obstacle was invincible. +There was no means of opening the gate. + +Must he then stop there? What was he to do? What was to become of him? +He had not the strength to retrace his steps, to recommence the journey +which he had already taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that +quagmire whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle? And +after the quagmire, was there not the police patrol, which assuredly +could not be twice avoided? And then, whither was he to go? What +direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct +him to his goal. If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it +obstructed by a plug or a grating. Every outlet was, undoubtedly, closed +in that manner. Chance had unsealed the grating through which he had +entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred. +He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison. + +All was over. Everything that Jean Valjean had done was useless. +Exhaustion had ended in failure. + +They were both caught in the immense and gloomy web of death, and Jean +Valjean felt the terrible spider running along those black strands and +quivering in the shadows. He turned his back to the grating, and fell +upon the pavement, hurled to earth rather than seated, close to Marius, +who still made no movement, and with his head bent between his knees. +This was the last drop of anguish. + +Of what was he thinking during this profound depression? Neither of +himself nor of Marius. He was thinking of Cosette. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE TORN COAT-TAIL + +In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a +low voice said to him: + +"Half shares." + +Some person in that gloom? Nothing so closely resembles a dream as +despair. Jean Valjean thought that he was dreaming. He had heard no +footsteps. Was it possible? He raised his eyes. + +A man stood before him. + +This man was clad in a blouse; his feet were bare; he held his shoes +in his left hand; he had evidently removed them in order to reach Jean +Valjean, without allowing his steps to be heard. + +Jean Valjean did not hesitate for an instant. Unexpected as was this +encounter, this man was known to him. The man was Thenardier. + +Although awakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed +to alarms, and steeled to unforeseen shocks that must be promptly +parried, instantly regained possession of his presence of mind. +Moreover, the situation could not be made worse, a certain degree of +distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thenardier himself +could add nothing to this blackness of this night. + +A momentary pause ensued. + +Thenardier, raising his right hand to a level with his forehead, formed +with it a shade, then he brought his eyelashes together, by screwing up +his eyes, a motion which, in connection with a slight contraction of the +mouth, characterizes the sagacious attention of a man who is endeavoring +to recognize another man. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, as we have +just stated, had his back turned to the light, and he was, moreover, +so disfigured, so bemired, so bleeding that he would have been +unrecognizable in full noonday. On the contrary, illuminated by the +light from the grating, a cellar light, it is true, livid, yet precise +in its lividness, Thenardier, as the energetic popular metaphor +expresses it, immediately "leaped into" Jean Valjean's eyes. This +inequality of conditions sufficed to assure some advantage to Jean +Valjean in that mysterious duel which was on the point of beginning +between the two situations and the two men. The encounter took place +between Jean Valjean veiled and Thenardier unmasked. + +Jean Valjean immediately perceived that Thenardier did not recognize +him. + +They surveyed each other for a moment in that half-gloom, as though +taking each other's measure. Thenardier was the first to break the +silence. + +"How are you going to manage to get out?" + +Jean Valjean made no reply. Thenardier continued: + +"It's impossible to pick the lock of that gate. But still you must get +out of this." + +"That is true," said Jean Valjean. + +"Well, half shares then." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"You have killed that man; that's all right. I have the key." + +Thenardier pointed to Marius. He went on: + +"I don't know you, but I want to help you. You must be a friend." + +Jean Valjean began to comprehend. Thenardier took him for an assassin. + +Thenardier resumed: + +"Listen, comrade. You didn't kill that man without looking to see what +he had in his pockets. Give me my half. I'll open the door for you." + +And half drawing from beneath his tattered blouse a huge key, he added: + +"Do you want to see how a key to liberty is made? Look here." + +Jean Valjean "remained stupid"--the expression belongs to the elder +Corneille--to such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was +real. It was providence appearing in horrible guise, and his good angel +springing from the earth in the form of Thenardier. + +Thenardier thrust his fist into a large pocket concealed under his +blouse, drew out a rope and offered it to Jean Valjean. + +"Hold on," said he, "I'll give you the rope to boot." + +"What is the rope for?" + +"You will need a stone also, but you can find one outside. There's a +heap of rubbish." + +"What am I to do with a stone?" + +"Idiot, you'll want to sling that stiff into the river, you'll need a +stone and a rope, otherwise it would float on the water." + +Jean Valjean took the rope. There is no one who does not occasionally +accept in this mechanical way. + +Thenardier snapped his fingers as though an idea had suddenly occurred +to him. + +"Ah, see here, comrade, how did you contrive to get out of that slough +yonder? I haven't dared to risk myself in it. Phew! you don't smell +good." + +After a pause he added: + +"I'm asking you questions, but you're perfectly right not to answer. +It's an apprenticeship against that cursed quarter of an hour before the +examining magistrate. And then, when you don't talk at all, you run no +risk of talking too loud. That's no matter, as I can't see your face and +as I don't know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don't know +who you are and what you want. I twig. You've broken up that gentleman +a bit; now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great +hider of folly, is what you want. I'll get you out of your scrape. +Helping a good fellow in a pinch is what suits me to a hair." + +While expressing his approval of Jean Valjean's silence, he endeavored +to force him to talk. He jostled his shoulder in an attempt to catch a +sight of his profile, and he exclaimed, without, however, raising his +tone: + +"Apropos of that quagmire, you're a hearty animal. Why didn't you toss +the man in there?" + +Jean Valjean preserved silence. + +Thenardier resumed, pushing the rag which served him as a cravat to the +level of his Adam's apple, a gesture which completes the capable air of +a serious man: + +"After all, you acted wisely. The workmen, when they come to-morrow to +stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, +and it might have been possible, thread by thread, straw by straw, to +pick up the scent and reach you. Some one has passed through the sewer. +Who? Where did he get out? Was he seen to come out? The police are full +of cleverness. The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you. Such a +find is a rarity, it attracts attention, very few people make use of +the sewers for their affairs, while the river belongs to everybody. The +river is the true grave. At the end of a month they fish up your man +in the nets at Saint-Cloud. Well, what does one care for that? It's +carrion! Who killed that man? Paris. And justice makes no inquiries. You +have done well." + +The more loquacious Thenardier became, the more mute was Jean Valjean. + +Again Thenardier shook him by the shoulder. + +"Now let's settle this business. Let's go shares. You have seen my key, +show me your money." + +Thenardier was haggard, fierce, suspicious, rather menacing, yet +amicable. + +There was one singular circumstance; Thenardier's manners were not +simple; he had not the air of being wholly at his ease; while affecting +an air of mystery, he spoke low; from time to time he laid his finger on +his mouth, and muttered, "hush!" It was difficult to divine why. There +was no one there except themselves. Jean Valjean thought that other +ruffians might possibly be concealed in some nook, not very far off, and +that Thenardier did not care to share with them. + +Thenardier resumed: + +"Let's settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags?" + +Jean Valjean searched his pockets. + +It was his habit, as the reader will remember, to always have some +money about him. The mournful life of expedients to which he had been +condemned imposed this as a law upon him. On this occasion, however, +he had been caught unprepared. When donning his uniform of a National +Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed +as he was, to take his pocket-book. He had only some small change in his +fob. He turned out his pocket, all soaked with ooze, and spread out on +the banquette of the vault one louis d'or, two five-franc pieces, and +five or six large sous. + +Thenardier thrust out his lower lip with a significant twist of the +neck. + +"You knocked him over cheap," said he. + +He set to feeling the pockets of Jean Valjean and Marius, with the +greatest familiarity. Jean Valjean, who was chiefly concerned in keeping +his back to the light, let him have his way. + +While handling Marius' coat, Thenardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, +and without being noticed by Jean Valjean, tore off a strip which he +concealed under his blouse, probably thinking that this morsel of +stuff might serve, later on, to identify the assassinated man and the +assassin. However, he found no more than the thirty francs. + +"That's true," said he, "both of you together have no more than that." + +And, forgetting his motto: "half shares," he took all. + +He hesitated a little over the large sous. After due reflection, he took +them also, muttering: + +"Never mind! You cut folks' throats too cheap altogether." + +That done, he once more drew the big key from under his blouse. + +"Now, my friend, you must leave. It's like the fair here, you pay when +you go out. You have paid, now clear out." + +And he began to laugh. + +Had he, in lending to this stranger the aid of his key, and in making +some other man than himself emerge from that portal, the pure and +disinterested intention of rescuing an assassin? We may be permitted to +doubt this. + +Thenardier helped Jean Valjean to replace Marius on his shoulders, then +he betook himself to the grating on tiptoe, and barefooted, making Jean +Valjean a sign to follow him, looked out, laid his finger on his mouth, +and remained for several seconds, as though in suspense; his inspection +finished, he placed the key in the lock. The bolt slipped back and the +gate swung open. It neither grated nor squeaked. It moved very softly. + +It was obvious that this gate and those hinges, carefully oiled, were +in the habit of opening more frequently than was supposed. This +softness was suspicious; it hinted at furtive goings and comings, silent +entrances and exits of nocturnal men, and the wolf-like tread of crime. + +The sewer was evidently an accomplice of some mysterious band. This +taciturn grating was a receiver of stolen goods. + +Thenardier opened the gate a little way, allowing just sufficient space +for Jean Valjean to pass out, closed the grating again, gave the key +a double turn in the lock and plunged back into the darkness, without +making any more noise than a breath. He seemed to walk with the velvet +paws of a tiger. + +A moment later, that hideous providence had retreated into the +invisibility. + +Jean Valjean found himself in the open air. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MARIUS PRODUCES ON SOME ONE WHO IS A JUDGE OF THE MATTER, +THE EFFECT OF BEING DEAD + +He allowed Marius to slide down upon the shore. + +They were in the open air! + +The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, +living, joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him. Everywhere +around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has +set in an unclouded azure sky. Twilight had descended; night was drawing +on, the great deliverer, the friend of all those who need a mantle of +darkness that they may escape from an anguish. The sky presented itself +in all directions like an enormous calm. The river flowed to his feet +with the sound of a kiss. The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each +other good night in the elms of the Champs-Elysees was audible. A few +stars, daintily piercing the pale blue of the zenith, and visible to +revery alone, formed imperceptible little splendors amid the immensity. +Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of +the infinite. + +It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. +Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose +oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to +permit of recognition at close quarters. + +For several seconds, Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by that +august and caressing serenity; such moments of oblivion do come to men; +suffering refrains from harassing the unhappy wretch; everything is +eclipsed in the thoughts; peace broods over the dreamer like night; and, +beneath the twilight which beams and in imitation of the sky which is +illuminated, the soul becomes studded with stars. Jean Valjean could +not refrain from contemplating that vast, clear shadow which rested +over him; thoughtfully he bathed in the sea of ecstasy and prayer in the +majestic silence of the eternal heavens. Then he bent down swiftly +to Marius, as though the sentiment of duty had returned to him, and, +dipping up water in the hollow of his hand, he gently sprinkled a +few drops on the latter's face. Marius' eyelids did not open; but his +half-open mouth still breathed. + +Jean Valjean was on the point of dipping his hand in the river once +more, when, all at once, he experienced an indescribable embarrassment, +such as a person feels when there is some one behind him whom he does +not see. + +We have already alluded to this impression, with which everyone is +familiar. + +He turned round. + +Some one was, in fact, behind him, as there had been a short while +before. + +A man of lofty stature, enveloped in a long coat, with folded arms, +and bearing in his right fist a bludgeon of which the leaden head was +visible, stood a few paces in the rear of the spot where Jean Valjean +was crouching over Marius. + +With the aid of the darkness, it seemed a sort of apparition. An +ordinary man would have been alarmed because of the twilight, a +thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon. Jean Valjean recognized +Javert. + +The reader has divined, no doubt, that Thenardier's pursuer was no other +than Javert. Javert, after his unlooked-for escape from the barricade, +had betaken himself to the prefecture of police, had rendered a +verbal account to the Prefect in person in a brief audience, had then +immediately gone on duty again, which implied--the note, the reader will +recollect, which had been captured on his person--a certain surveillance +of the shore on the right bank of the Seine near the Champs-Elysees, +which had, for some time past, aroused the attention of the police. +There he had caught sight of Thenardier and had followed him. The reader +knows the rest. + +Thus it will be easily understood that that grating, so obligingly +opened to Jean Valjean, was a bit of cleverness on Thenardier's part. +Thenardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there; the man spied +upon has a scent which never deceives him; it was necessary to fling +a bone to that sleuth-hound. An assassin, what a godsend! Such an +opportunity must never be allowed to slip. Thenardier, by putting Jean +Valjean outside in his stead, provided a prey for the police, forced +them to relinquish his scent, made them forget him in a bigger +adventure, repaid Javert for his waiting, which always flatters a spy, +earned thirty francs, and counted with certainty, so far as he himself +was concerned, on escaping with the aid of this diversion. + +Jean Valjean had fallen from one danger upon another. + +These two encounters, this falling one after the other, from Thenardier +upon Javert, was a rude shock. + +Javert did not recognize Jean Valjean, who, as we have stated, no longer +looked like himself. He did not unfold his arms, he made sure of his +bludgeon in his fist, by an imperceptible movement, and said in a curt, +calm voice: + +"Who are you?" + +"I." + +"Who is 'I'?" + +"Jean Valjean." + +Javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined +his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, +which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized +him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert's look was +terrible. + +Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert's grasp, like a lion +submitting to the claws of a lynx. + +"Inspector Javert," said he, "you have me in your power. Moreover, I +have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning. I did not +give you my address with any intention of escaping from you. Take me. +Only grant me one favor." + +Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riveted on Jean +Valjean. His chin being contracted, thrust his lips upwards towards +his nose, a sign of savage revery. At length he released Jean Valjean, +straightened himself stiffly up without bending, grasped his bludgeon +again firmly, and, as though in a dream, he murmured rather than uttered +this question: + +"What are you doing here? And who is this man?" + +He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou. + +Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice appeared to rouse +Javert: + +"It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you. Dispose of me +as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I +ask of you." + +Javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to +think him capable of making a concession. Nevertheless, he did not say +"no." + +Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief which +he moistened in the water and with which he then wiped Marius' +blood-stained brow. + +"This man was at the barricade," said he in a low voice and as though +speaking to himself. "He is the one they called Marius." + +A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to +everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to +die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows +leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes. + +He seized Marius' hand and felt his pulse. + +"He is wounded," said Jean Valjean. + +"He is a dead man," said Javert. + +Jean Valjean replied: + +"No. Not yet." + +"So you have brought him thither from the barricade?" remarked Javert. + +His preoccupation must indeed have been very profound for him not to +insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer, and for him not to +even notice Jean Valjean's silence after his question. + +Jean Valjean, on his side, seemed to have but one thought. He resumed: + +"He lives in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, with his +grandfather. I do not recollect his name." + +Jean Valjean fumbled in Marius' coat, pulled out his pocket-book, opened +it at the page which Marius had pencilled, and held it out to Javert. + +There was still sufficient light to admit of reading. Besides this, +Javert possessed in his eye the feline phosphorescence of night +birds. He deciphered the few lines written by Marius, and muttered: +"Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du Calvaire, No. 6." + +Then he exclaimed: "Coachman!" + +The reader will remember that the hackney-coach was waiting in case of +need. + +Javert kept Marius' pocket-book. + +A moment later, the carriage, which had descended by the inclined plane +of the watering-place, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back +seat, and Javert seated himself on the front seat beside Jean Valjean. + +The door slammed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ascending the +quays in the direction of the Bastille. + +They quitted the quays and entered the streets. The coachman, a black +form on his box, whipped up his thin horses. A glacial silence reigned +in the carriage. Marius, motionless, with his body resting in the +corner, and his head drooping on his breast, his arms hanging, his legs +stiff, seemed to be awaiting only a coffin; Jean Valjean seemed made of +shadow, and Javert of stone, and in that vehicle full of night, whose +interior, every time that it passed in front of a street lantern, +appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of +lightning, chance had united and seemed to be bringing face to face +the three forms of tragic immobility, the corpse, the spectre, and the +statue. + + + + +CHAPTER X--RETURN OF THE SON WHO WAS PRODIGAL OF HIS LIFE + +At every jolt over the pavement, a drop of blood trickled from Marius' +hair. + +Night had fully closed in when the carriage arrived at No. 6, Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire. + +Javert was the first to alight; he made sure with one glance of the +number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten +iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr +confronting each other, he gave a violent peal. The gate opened a little +way and Javert gave it a push. The porter half made his appearance +yawning, vaguely awake, and with a candle in his hand. + +Everyone in the house was asleep. People go to bed betimes in the +Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old +quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as +children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily +under their coverlet. + +In the meantime Jean Valjean and the coachman had taken Marius out of +the carriage, Jean Valjean supporting him under the armpits, and the +coachman under the knees. + +As they thus bore Marius, Jean Valjean slipped his hand under the +latter's clothes, which were broadly rent, felt his breast, and assured +himself that his heart was still beating. It was even beating a little +less feebly, as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a +certain fresh access of life. + +Javert addressed the porter in a tone befitting the government, and the +presence of the porter of a factious person. + +"Some person whose name is Gillenormand?" + +"Here. What do you want with him?" + +"His son is brought back." + +"His son?" said the porter stupidly. + +"He is dead." + +Jean Valjean, who, soiled and tattered, stood behind Javert, and whom +the porter was surveying with some horror, made a sign to him with his +head that this was not so. + +The porter did not appear to understand either Javert's words or Jean +Valjean's sign. + +Javert continued: + +"He went to the barricade, and here he is." + +"To the barricade?" ejaculated the porter. + +"He has got himself killed. Go waken his father." + +The porter did not stir. + +"Go along with you!" repeated Javert. + +And he added: + +"There will be a funeral here to-morrow." + +For Javert, the usual incidents of the public highway were categorically +classed, which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance, and each +contingency had its own compartment; all possible facts were arranged +in drawers, as it were, whence they emerged on occasion, in variable +quantities; in the street, uproar, revolt, carnival, and funeral. + +The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette; +Nicolette roused great-aunt Gillenormand. + +As for the grandfather, they let him sleep on, thinking that he would +hear about the matter early enough in any case. + +Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other +parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa +in M. Gillenormand's antechamber; and while Basque went in search of a +physician, and while Nicolette opened the linen-presses, Jean Valjean +felt Javert touch him on the shoulder. He understood and descended the +stairs, having behind him the step of Javert who was following him. + +The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their +arrival, in terrified somnolence. + +They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box. + +"Inspector Javert," said Jean, "grant me yet another favor." + +"What is it?" demanded Javert roughly. + +"Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like +with me." + +Javert remained silent for a few moments, with his chin drawn back into +the collar of his great-coat, then he lowered the glass and front: + +"Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7." + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CONCUSSION IN THE ABSOLUTE + +They did not open their lips again during the whole space of their ride. + +What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun; to warn +Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some other +useful information, to take, if he could, certain final measures. As +for himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over; he had +been seized by Javert and had not resisted; any other man than himself +in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts connected +with the rope which Thenardier had given him, and of the bars of the +first cell that he should enter; but, let us impress it upon the +reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound +hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against +himself. + +Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may +contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean +Valjean. + +At the entrance to the Rue de l'Homme Arme, the carriage halted, the way +being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and Jean +Valjean alighted. + +The coachman humbly represented to "monsieur l'Inspecteur," that the +Utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the +assassinated man, and with mire from the assassin. That is the way he +understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same time, +drawing his certificate book from his pocket, he begged the inspector to +have the goodness to write him "a bit of an attestation." + +Javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him, and +said: + +"How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive?" + +"It comes to seven hours and a quarter," replied the man, "and my velvet +was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." + +Javert drew four napoleons from his pocket and dismissed the carriage. + +Jean Valjean fancied that it was Javert's intention to conduct him on +foot to the post of the Blancs-Manteaux or to the post of the Archives, +both of which are close at hand. + +They entered the street. It was deserted as usual. Javert followed Jean +Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. + +"It is well," said Javert. "Go up stairs." + +He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an +effort in speaking in this manner: + +"I will wait for you here." + +Jean Valjean looked at Javert. This mode of procedure was but little in +accord with Javert's habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised +that Javert should now have a sort of haughty confidence in him, the +confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of +its claws, seeing that Jean Valjean had made up his mind to surrender +himself and to make an end of it. He pushed open the door, entered the +house, called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord +from his couch: "It is I!" and ascended the stairs. + +On arriving at the first floor, he paused. All sorrowful roads +have their stations. The window on the landing-place, which was a +sash-window, was open. As in many ancient houses, the staircase got its +light from without and had a view on the street. The street-lantern, +situated directly opposite, cast some light on the stairs, and thus +effected some economy in illumination. + +Jean Valjean, either for the sake of getting the air, or mechanically, +thrust his head out of this window. He leaned out over the street. It +is short, and the lantern lighted it from end to end. Jean Valjean was +overwhelmed with amazement; there was no longer any one there. + +Javert had taken his departure. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GRANDFATHER + +Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the drawing-room, as he +still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been +placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened +thither. Aunt Gillenormand had risen. + +Aunt Gillenormand went and came, in affright, wringing her hands and +incapable of doing anything but saying: "Heavens! is it possible?" At +times she added: "Everything will be covered with blood." When her first +horror had passed off, a certain philosophy of the situation penetrated +her mind, and took form in the exclamation: "It was bound to end in this +way!" She did not go so far as: "I told you so!" which is customary on +this sort of occasion. At the physician's orders, a camp bed had been +prepared beside the sofa. The doctor examined Marius, and after having +found that his pulse was still beating, that the wounded man had no very +deep wound on his breast, and that the blood on the corners of his lips +proceeded from his nostrils, he had him placed flat on the bed, without +a pillow, with his head on the same level as his body, and even a +trifle lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration. +Mademoiselle Gillenormand, on perceiving that they were undressing +Marius, withdrew. She set herself to telling her beads in her own +chamber. + +The trunk had not suffered any internal injury; a bullet, deadened by +the pocket-book, had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a +hideous laceration, which was of no great depth, and consequently, not +dangerous. The long, underground journey had completed the dislocation +of the broken collar-bone, and the disorder there was serious. The arms +had been slashed with sabre cuts. Not a single scar disfigured his face; +but his head was fairly covered with cuts; what would be the result of +these wounds on the head? Would they stop short at the hairy cuticle, or +would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be decided. A grave +symptom was that they had caused a swoon, and that people do not always +recover from such swoons. Moreover, the wounded man had been exhausted +by hemorrhage. From the waist down, the barricade had protected the +lower part of the body from injury. + +Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages; Nicolette +sewed them, Basque rolled them. As lint was lacking, the doctor, for +the time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside +the bed, three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical +instruments lay spread out. The doctor bathed Marius' face and hair with +cold water. A full pail was reddened in an instant. The porter, candle +in hand, lighted them. + +The doctor seemed to be pondering sadly. From time to time, he made a +negative sign with his head, as though replying to some question which +he had inwardly addressed to himself. + +A bad sign for the sick man are these mysterious dialogues of the doctor +with himself. + +At the moment when the doctor was wiping Marius' face, and lightly +touching his still closed eyes with his finger, a door opened at the end +of the drawing-room, and a long, pallid figure made its appearance. + +This was the grandfather. + +The revolt had, for the past two days, deeply agitated, enraged and +engrossed the mind of M. Gillenormand. He had not been able to sleep +on the previous night, and he had been in a fever all day long. In the +evening, he had gone to bed very early, recommending that everything in +the house should be well barred, and he had fallen into a doze through +sheer fatigue. + +Old men sleep lightly; M. Gillenormand's chamber adjoined the +drawing-room, and in spite of all the precautions that had been taken, +the noise had awakened him. Surprised at the rift of light which he +saw under his door, he had risen from his bed, and had groped his way +thither. + +He stood astonished on the threshold, one hand on the handle of the +half-open door, with his head bent a little forward and quivering, +his body wrapped in a white dressing-gown, which was straight and as +destitute of folds as a winding-sheet; and he had the air of a phantom +who is gazing into a tomb. + +He saw the bed, and on the mattress that young man, bleeding, white with +a waxen whiteness, with closed eyes and gaping mouth, and pallid lips, +stripped to the waist, slashed all over with crimson wounds, motionless +and brilliantly lighted up. + +The grandfather trembled from head to foot as powerfully as ossified +limbs can tremble, his eyes, whose corneae were yellow on account of +his great age, were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter, his whole +face assumed in an instant the earthy angles of a skull, his arms fell +pendent, as though a spring had broken, and his amazement was betrayed +by the outspreading of the fingers of his two aged hands, which quivered +all over, his knees formed an angle in front, allowing, through +the opening in his dressing-gown, a view of his poor bare legs, all +bristling with white hairs, and he murmured: + +"Marius!" + +"Sir," said Basque, "Monsieur has just been brought back. He went to the +barricade, and . . ." + +"He is dead!" cried the old man in a terrible voice. "Ah! The rascal!" + +Then a sort of sepulchral transformation straightened up this +centenarian as erect as a young man. + +"Sir," said he, "you are the doctor. Begin by telling me one thing. He +is dead, is he not?" + +The doctor, who was at the highest pitch of anxiety, remained silent. + +M. Gillenormand wrung his hands with an outburst of terrible laughter. + +"He is dead! He is dead! He is dead! He has got himself killed on +the barricades! Out of hatred to me! He did that to spite me! Ah! You +blood-drinker! This is the way he returns to me! Misery of my life, he +is dead!" + +He went to the window, threw it wide open as though he were stifling, +and, erect before the darkness, he began to talk into the street, to the +night: + +"Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces! Just look at +that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I +had had his room arranged, and that I had placed at the head of my bed +his portrait taken when he was a little child! He knew well that he had +only to come back, and that I had been recalling him for years, and that +I remained by my fireside, with my hands on my knees, not knowing what +to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew well, that you had but to +return and to say: 'It is I,' and you would have been the master of the +house, and that I should have obeyed you, and that you could have done +whatever you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather! you knew +that well, and you said: + +"No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the barricades, +and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what +I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed +then and sleep tranquilly! he is dead, and this is my awakening." + +The doctor, who was beginning to be uneasy in both quarters, quitted +Marius for a moment, went to M. Gillenormand, and took his arm. +The grandfather turned round, gazed at him with eyes which seemed +exaggerated in size and bloodshot, and said to him calmly: + +"I thank you, sir. I am composed, I am a man, I witnessed the death of +Louis XVI., I know how to bear events. One thing is terrible and that is +to think that it is your newspapers which do all the mischief. You will +have scribblers, chatterers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions, +progress, enlightenment, the rights of man, the liberty of the press, +and this is the way that your children will be brought home to you. Ah! +Marius! It is abominable! Killed! Dead before me! A barricade! Ah, the +scamp! Doctor, you live in this quarter, I believe? Oh! I know you well. +I see your cabriolet pass my window. I am going to tell you. You are +wrong to think that I am angry. One does not fly into a rage against a +dead man. That would be stupid. This is a child whom I have reared. +I was already old while he was very young. He played in the Tuileries +garden with his little shovel and his little chair, and in order that +the inspectors might not grumble, I stopped up the holes that he made in +the earth with his shovel, with my cane. One day he exclaimed: Down with +Louis XVIII.! and off he went. It was no fault of mine. He was all rosy +and blond. His mother is dead. Have you ever noticed that all little +children are blond? Why is it so? He is the son of one of those brigands +of the Loire, but children are innocent of their fathers' crimes. +I remember when he was no higher than that. He could not manage +to pronounce his Ds. He had a way of talking that was so sweet and +indistinct that you would have thought it was a bird chirping. I +remember that once, in front of the Hercules Farnese, people formed a +circle to admire him and marvel at him, he was so handsome, was that +child! He had a head such as you see in pictures. I talked in a deep +voice, and I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well that it +was only to make him laugh. In the morning, when he entered my room, I +grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot +defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you +fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a +cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your +Benjamin Constants, and your Tirecuir de Corcelles who have killed him? +This cannot be allowed to pass in this fashion." + +He approached Marius, who still lay livid and motionless, and to whom +the physician had returned, and began once more to wring his hands. The +old man's pallid lips moved as though mechanically, and permitted the +passage of words that were barely audible, like breaths in the death +agony: + +"Ah! heartless lad! Ah! clubbist! Ah! wretch! Ah! Septembrist!" + +Reproaches in the low voice of an agonizing man, addressed to a corpse. + +Little by little, as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions +should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the +grandfather appeared no longer to have the strength to utter them, his +voice was so weak, and extinct, that it seemed to come from the other +side of an abyss: + +"It is all the same to me, I am going to die too, that I am. And +to think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been +delighted to make this wretch happy! A scamp who, instead of amusing +himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down +like a brute! And for whom? Why? For the Republic! Instead of going to +dance at the Chaumiere, as it is the duty of young folks to do! What's +the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! +Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two +funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged +like this for the sake of General Lamarque's handsome eyes! What had +that General Lamarque done to you? A slasher! A chatter-box! To get +oneself killed for a dead man! If that isn't enough to drive any one +mad! Just think of it! At twenty! And without so much as turning his +head to see whether he was not leaving something behind him! That's the +way poor, good old fellows are forced to die alone, now-adays. Perish +in your corner, owl! Well, after all, so much the better, that is what +I was hoping for, this will kill me on the spot. I am too old, I am +a hundred years old, I am a hundred thousand years old, I ought, by +rights, to have been dead long ago. This blow puts an end to it. So all +is over, what happiness! What is the good of making him inhale ammonia +and all that parcel of drugs? You are wasting your trouble, you fool of +a doctor! Come, he's dead, completely dead. I know all about it, I +am dead myself too. He hasn't done things by half. Yes, this age is +infamous, infamous and that's what I think of you, of your ideas, of +your systems, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your +scape-graces of writers, of your rascally philosophers, and of all the +revolutions which, for the last sixty years, have been frightening +the flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting +yourself killed like this, I shall not even grieve over your death, do +you understand, you assassin?" + +At that moment, Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his glance, still +dimmed by lethargic wonder, rested on M. Gillenormand. + +"Marius!" cried the old man. "Marius! My little Marius! my child! my +well-beloved son! You open your eyes, you gaze upon me, you are alive, +thanks!" + +And he fell fainting. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--JAVERT DERAILED + + + + +CHAPTER I--JAVERT + +Javert passed slowly down the Rue de l'Homme Arme. + +He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and +likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his +back. + +Up to that day, Javert had borrowed from Napoleon's attitudes, only that +which is expressive of resolution, with arms folded across the chest; +that which is expressive of uncertainty--with the hands behind the +back--had been unknown to him. Now, a change had taken place; his whole +person, slow and sombre, was stamped with anxiety. + +He plunged into the silent streets. + +Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. + +He took the shortest cut to the Seine, reached the Quai des Ormes, +skirted the quay, passed the Greve, and halted at some distance from +the post of the Place du Chatelet, at the angle of the Pont Notre-Dame. +There, between the Notre-Dame and the Pont au Change on the one hand, +and the Quai de la Megisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, the +Seine forms a sort of square lake, traversed by a rapid. + +This point of the Seine is dreaded by mariners. Nothing is more +dangerous than this rapid, hemmed in, at that epoch, and irritated by +the piles of the mill on the bridge, now demolished. The two bridges, +situated thus close together, augment the peril; the water hurries in +formidable wise through the arches. It rolls in vast and terrible waves; +it accumulates and piles up there; the flood attacks the piles of the +bridges as though in an effort to pluck them up with great liquid ropes. +Men who fall in there never re-appear; the best of swimmers are drowned +there. + +Javert leaned both elbows on the parapet, his chin resting in both +hands, and, while his nails were mechanically twined in the abundance of +his whiskers, he meditated. + +A novelty, a revolution, a catastrophe had just taken place in the +depths of his being; and he had something upon which to examine himself. + +Javert was undergoing horrible suffering. + +For several hours, Javert had ceased to be simple. He was troubled; +that brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; that +crystal was clouded. Javert felt duty divided within his conscience, and +he could not conceal the fact from himself. When he had so unexpectedly +encountered Jean Valjean on the banks of the Seine, there had been in +him something of the wolf which regains his grip on his prey, and of the +dog who finds his master again. + +He beheld before him two paths, both equally straight, but he beheld +two; and that terrified him; him, who had never in all his life known +more than one straight line. And, the poignant anguish lay in this, that +the two paths were contrary to each other. One of these straight lines +excluded the other. Which of the two was the true one? + +His situation was indescribable. + +To owe his life to a malefactor, to accept that debt and to repay it; to +be, in spite of himself, on a level with a fugitive from justice, and to +repay his service with another service; to allow it to be said to him, +"Go," and to say to the latter in his turn: "Be free"; to sacrifice to +personal motives duty, that general obligation, and to be conscious, +in those personal motives, of something that was also general, and, +perchance, superior, to betray society in order to remain true to his +conscience; that all these absurdities should be realized and should +accumulate upon him,--this was what overwhelmed him. + +One thing had amazed him,--this was that Jean Valjean should have done +him a favor, and one thing petrified him,--that he, Javert, should have +done Jean Valjean a favor. + +Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no +longer find his bearings. + +What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad; to leave Jean +Valjean at liberty was bad. In the first case, the man of authority fell +lower than the man of the galleys, in the second, a convict rose above +the law, and set his foot upon it. In both cases, dishonor for him, +Javert. There was disgrace in any resolution at which he might arrive. +Destiny has some extremities which rise perpendicularly from the +impossible, and beyond which life is no longer anything but a precipice. +Javert had reached one of those extremities. + +One of his anxieties consisted in being constrained to think. The very +violence of all these conflicting emotions forced him to it. Thought was +something to which he was unused, and which was peculiarly painful. + +In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion; +and it irritated him to have that within him. + +Thought on any subject whatever, outside of the restricted circle of his +functions, would have been for him in any case useless and a fatigue; +thought on the day which had just passed was a torture. Nevertheless, it +was indispensable that he should take a look into his conscience, after +such shocks, and render to himself an account of himself. + +What he had just done made him shudder. He, Javert, had seen fit to +decide, contrary to all the regulations of the police, contrary to the +whole social and judicial organization, contrary to the entire code, +upon a release; this had suited him; he had substituted his own affairs +for the affairs of the public; was not this unjustifiable? Every time +that he brought himself face to face with this deed without a name which +he had committed, he trembled from head to foot. Upon what should he +decide? One sole resource remained to him; to return in all haste to +the Rue de l'Homme Arme, and commit Jean Valjean to prison. It was clear +that that was what he ought to do. He could not. + +Something barred his way in that direction. + +Something? What? Is there in the world, anything outside of the +tribunals, executory sentences, the police and the authorities? Javert +was overwhelmed. + +A galley-slave sacred! A convict who could not be touched by the law! +And that the deed of Javert! + +Was it not a fearful thing that Javert and Jean Valjean, the man made to +proceed with vigor, the man made to submit,--that these two men who were +both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both +of them had set themselves above the law? What then! such enormities +were to happen and no one was to be punished! Jean Valjean, stronger +than the whole social order, was to remain at liberty, and he, Javert, +was to go on eating the government's bread! + +His revery gradually became terrible. + +He might, athwart this revery, have also reproached himself on +the subject of that insurgent who had been taken to the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire; but he never even thought of that. The lesser fault +was lost in the greater. Besides, that insurgent was, obviously, a dead +man, and, legally, death puts an end to pursuit. + +Jean Valjean was the load which weighed upon his spirit. + +Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as +points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence +of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him. +Other facts which he now recalled, and which he had formerly treated +as lies and folly, now recurred to him as realities. M. Madeleine +re-appeared behind Jean Valjean, and the two figures were superposed in +such fashion that they now formed but one, which was venerable. Javert +felt that something terrible was penetrating his soul--admiration for +a convict. Respect for a galley-slave--is that a possible thing? He +shuddered at it, yet could not escape from it. In vain did he struggle, +he was reduced to confess, in his inmost heart, the sublimity of that +wretch. This was odious. + +A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, +returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity +to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, +saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more +nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit +to himself that this monster existed. + +Things could not go on in this manner. + +Certainly, and we insist upon this point, he had not yielded without +resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous +hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. Twenty times, as he +sat in that carriage face to face with Jean Valjean, the legal tiger had +roared within him. A score of times he had been tempted to fling himself +upon Jean Valjean, to seize him and devour him, that is to say, to +arrest him. What more simple, in fact? To cry out at the first post that +they passed:--"Here is a fugitive from justice, who has broken his ban!" +to summon the gendarmes and say to them: "This man is yours!" then to +go off, leaving that condemned man there, to ignore the rest and not to +meddle further in the matter. This man is forever a prisoner of the law; +the law may do with him what it will. What could be more just? Javert +had said all this to himself; he had wished to pass beyond, to act, to +apprehend the man, and then, as at present, he had not been able to do +it; and every time that his arm had been raised convulsively towards +Jean Valjean's collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an +enormous weight, and in the depths of his thought he had heard a voice, +a strange voice crying to him:--"It is well. Deliver up your savior. +Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws." + +Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean +glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. + +A convict was his benefactor! + +But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had +the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that +right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his +succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force. + +His supreme anguish was the loss of certainty. He felt that he had been +uprooted. The code was no longer anything more than a stump in his hand. +He had to deal with scruples of an unknown species. There had taken +place within him a sentimental revelation entirely distinct from legal +affirmation, his only standard of measurement hitherto. To remain in his +former uprightness did not suffice. A whole order of unexpected facts +had cropped up and subjugated him. A whole new world was dawning on +his soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, +violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more +definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear +in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, +running in inverse sense to justice according to men. He perceived amid +the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified +and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle. + +He said to himself that it was true that there were exceptional cases, +that authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might +be inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not +be framed within the text of the code, that the unforeseen compelled +obedience, that the virtue of a convict might set a snare for the virtue +of the functionary, that destiny did indulge in such ambushes, and +he reflected with despair that he himself had not even been fortified +against a surprise. + +He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had +been good. And he himself, unprecedented circumstance, had just been +good also. So he was becoming depraved. + +He found that he was a coward. He conceived a horror of himself. + +Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was +to be irreproachable. + +Now, he had just failed in this. + +How had he come to such a pass? How had all this happened? He could not +have told himself. He clasped his head in both hands, but in spite of +all that he could do, he could not contrive to explain it to himself. + +He had certainly always entertained the intention of restoring Jean +Valjean to the law of which Jean Valjean was the captive, and of which +he, Javert, was the slave. Not for a single instant while he held him +in his grasp had he confessed to himself that he entertained the idea of +releasing him. It was, in some sort, without his consciousness, that his +hand had relaxed and had let him go free. + +All sorts of interrogation points flashed before his eyes. He put +questions to himself, and made replies to himself, and his replies +frightened him. He asked himself: "What has that convict done, that +desperate fellow, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has +had me under his foot, and who could have avenged himself, and who +owed it both to his rancor and to his safety, in leaving me my life, in +showing mercy upon me? His duty? No. Something more. And I in showing +mercy upon him in my turn--what have I done? My duty? No. Something +more. So there is something beyond duty?" Here he took fright; his +balance became disjointed; one of the scales fell into the abyss, the +other rose heavenward, and Javert was no less terrified by the one which +was on high than by the one which was below. Without being in the least +in the world what is called Voltairian or a philosopher, or incredulous, +being, on the contrary, respectful by instinct, towards the established +church, he knew it only as an august fragment of the social whole; order +was his dogma, and sufficed for him; ever since he had attained to man's +estate and the rank of a functionary, he had centred nearly all his +religion in the police. Being,--and here we employ words without the +least irony and in their most serious acceptation, being, as we have +said, a spy as other men are priests. He had a superior, M. Gisquet; up +to that day he had never dreamed of that other superior, God. + +This new chief, God, he became unexpectedly conscious of, and he felt +embarrassed by him. This unforeseen presence threw him off his bearings; +he did not know what to do with this superior, he, who was not ignorant +of the fact that the subordinate is bound always to bow, that he must +not disobey, nor find fault, nor discuss, and that, in the presence of a +superior who amazes him too greatly, the inferior has no other resource +than that of handing in his resignation. + +But how was he to set about handing in his resignation to God? + +However things might stand,--and it was to this point that he reverted +constantly,--one fact dominated everything else for him, and that was, +that he had just committed a terrible infraction of the law. He had just +shut his eyes on an escaped convict who had broken his ban. He had just +set a galley-slave at large. He had just robbed the laws of a man who +belonged to them. That was what he had done. He no longer understood +himself. The very reasons for his action escaped him; only their vertigo +was left with him. Up to that moment he had lived with that blind faith +which gloomy probity engenders. This faith had quitted him, this probity +had deserted him. All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which +he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, +he must be a different man. He was suffering from the strange pains of +a conscience abruptly operated on for the cataract. He saw that which +it was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put +out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was +dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing. + +A terrible situation! to be touched. + +To be granite and to doubt! to be the statue of Chastisement cast in one +piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to become aware of the fact +that one cherishes beneath one's breast of bronze something absurd +and disobedient which almost resembles a heart! To come to the pass of +returning good for good, although one has said to oneself up to that day +that that good is evil! to be the watch-dog, and to lick the intruder's +hand! to be ice and melt! to be the pincers and to turn into a hand! +to suddenly feel one's fingers opening! to relax one's grip,--what a +terrible thing! + +The man-projectile no longer acquainted with his route and retreating! + +To be obliged to confess this to oneself: infallibility is not +infallible, there may exist error in the dogma, all has not been said +when a code speaks, society is not perfect, authority is complicated +with vacillation, a crack is possible in the immutable, judges are but +men, the law may err, tribunals may make a mistake! to behold a rift in +the immense blue pane of the firmament! + +That which was passing in Javert was the Fampoux of a rectilinear +conscience, the derailment of a soul, the crushing of a probity which +had been irresistibly launched in a straight line and was breaking +against God. It certainly was singular that the stoker of order, that +the engineer of authority, mounted on the blind iron horse with its +rigid road, could be unseated by a flash of light! that the immovable, +the direct, the correct, the geometrical, the passive, the perfect, +could bend! that there should exist for the locomotive a road to +Damascus! + +God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the +false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to +remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable +absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity +which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid +phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert +understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it +to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that +incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting. + +He was less the man transfigured than the victim of this prodigy. In all +this he perceived only the tremendous difficulty of existence. It seemed +to him that, henceforth, his respiration was repressed forever. He was +not accustomed to having something unknown hanging over his head. + +Up to this point, everything above him had been, to his gaze, merely a +smooth, limpid and simple surface; there was nothing incomprehensible, +nothing obscure; nothing that was not defined, regularly disposed, +linked, precise, circumscribed, exact, limited, closed, fully provided +for; authority was a plane surface; there was no fall in it, no +dizziness in its presence. Javert had never beheld the unknown except +from below. The irregular, the unforeseen, the disordered opening of +chaos, the possible slip over a precipice--this was the work of the +lower regions, of rebels, of the wicked, of wretches. Now Javert threw +himself back, and he was suddenly terrified by this unprecedented +apparition: a gulf on high. + +What! one was dismantled from top to bottom! one was disconcerted, +absolutely! In what could one trust! That which had been agreed upon was +giving way! What! the defect in society's armor could be discovered by +a magnanimous wretch! What! an honest servitor of the law could suddenly +find himself caught between two crimes--the crime of allowing a man to +escape and the crime of arresting him! everything was not settled in +the orders given by the State to the functionary! There might be +blind alleys in duty! What,--all this was real! was it true that an +ex-ruffian, weighed down with convictions, could rise erect and end by +being in the right? Was this credible? were there cases in which the law +should retire before transfigured crime, and stammer its excuses?--Yes, +that was the state of the case! and Javert saw it! and Javert had +touched it! and not only could he not deny it, but he had taken part +in it. These were realities. It was abominable that actual facts could +reach such deformity. If facts did their duty, they would confine +themselves to being proofs of the law; facts--it is God who sends them. +Was anarchy, then, on the point of now descending from on high? + +Thus,--and in the exaggeration of anguish, and the optical illusion +of consternation, all that might have corrected and restrained this +impression was effaced, and society, and the human race, and the +universe were, henceforth, summed up in his eyes, in one simple and +terrible feature,--thus the penal laws, the thing judged, the force due +to legislation, the decrees of the sovereign courts, the magistracy, +the government, prevention, repression, official cruelty, wisdom, legal +infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas on which rest +political and civil security, sovereignty, justice, public truth, all +this was rubbish, a shapeless mass, chaos; he himself, Javert, the spy +of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog +providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at +the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a +halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had +come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul. + +Was this to be endured? No. + +A violent state, if ever such existed. There were only two ways of +escaping from it. One was to go resolutely to Jean Valjean, and restore +to his cell the convict from the galleys. The other . . . + +Javert quitted the parapet, and, with head erect this time, betook +himself, with a firm tread, towards the station-house indicated by a +lantern at one of the corners of the Place du Chatelet. + +On arriving there, he saw through the window a sergeant of police, and +he entered. Policemen recognize each other by the very way in which they +open the door of a station-house. Javert mentioned his name, showed his +card to the sergeant, and seated himself at the table of the post on +which a candle was burning. On a table lay a pen, a leaden inkstand and +paper, provided in the event of possible reports and the orders of the +night patrols. This table, still completed by its straw-seated chair, +is an institution; it exists in all police stations; it is invariably +ornamented with a box-wood saucer filled with sawdust and a wafer box +of cardboard filled with red wafers, and it forms the lowest stage of +official style. It is there that the literature of the State has its +beginning. + +Javert took a pen and a sheet of paper, and began to write. This is what +he wrote: + + A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE. + + + "In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Prefet to cast his eyes + on this. + + "Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off + their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are + being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. + This entails hospital expenses. + + "Thirdly: the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police + agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions, + it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight + of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, + grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take + his place. + + "Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison + of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair, + even by paying for it. + + "Fifthly: in the Madelonettes there are only two bars to the canteen, + so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand. + + "Sixthly: the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other + prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous + to call his name distinctly. This is a theft. + + "Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the + weaving shop; this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth + is none the worse for it. + + "Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be + obliged to traverse the boys' court in order to reach the parlor + of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne. + + "Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard + relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put + by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be + sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination + room is a grave disorder. + + "Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat; + but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap + of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a + great civilization." + + Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography, + not omitting a single comma, and making the paper screech under his pen. + Below the last line he signed: + + "JAVERT, + "Inspector of the 1st class. + "The Post of the Place du Chatelet. + "June 7th, 1832, about one o'clock in the morning." + + +Javert dried the fresh ink on the paper, folded it like a letter, sealed +it, wrote on the back: Note for the administration, left it on the +table, and quitted the post. The glazed and grated door fell to behind +him. + +Again he traversed the Place du Chatelet diagonally, regained the quay, +and returned with automatic precision to the very point which he had +abandoned a quarter of an hour previously, leaned on his elbows and +found himself again in the same attitude on the same paving-stone of the +parapet. He did not appear to have stirred. + +The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows +midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light +burned in the houses of the city; no one was passing; all of the streets +and quays which could be seen were deserted; Notre-Dame and the towers +of the Court-House seemed features of the night. A street lantern +reddened the margin of the quay. The outlines of the bridges lay +shapeless in the mist one behind the other. Recent rains had swollen the +river. + +The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated +precisely over the rapids of the Seine, perpendicularly above that +formidable spiral of whirlpools which loose and knot themselves again +like an endless screw. + +Javert bent his head and gazed. All was black. Nothing was to be +distinguished. A sound of foam was audible; but the river could not be +seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and +undulated vaguely, water possessing the power of taking light, no one +knows whence, and converting it into a snake. The light vanished, and +all became indistinct once more. Immensity seemed thrown open there. +What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay, +abrupt, confused, mingled with the vapors, instantly concealed from +sight, produced the effect of an escarpment of the infinite. Nothing was +to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of +the wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The +flood in the river, divined rather than perceived, the tragic whispering +of the waves, the melancholy vastness of the arches of the bridge, the +imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of +horror. + +Javert remained motionless for several minutes, gazing at this opening +of shadow; he considered the invisible with a fixity that resembled +attention. The water roared. All at once he took off his hat and placed +it on the edge of the quay. A moment later, a tall black figure, which +a belated passer-by in the distance might have taken for a phantom, +appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the +Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the +shadows; a dull splash followed; and the shadow alone was in the secret +of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath +the water. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER + + + + +CHAPTER I--IN WHICH THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PLASTER APPEARS AGAIN + +Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur +Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. + +Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader +has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book. + +Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was a man who +was occupied with divers and troublesome matters. He broke stones and +damaged travellers on the highway. + +Road-mender and thief as he was, he cherished one dream; he believed in +the treasures buried in the forest of Montfermeil. He hoped some day to +find the money in the earth at the foot of a tree; in the meanwhile, he +lived to search the pockets of passers-by. + +Nevertheless, for an instant, he was prudent. He had just escaped +neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette's +garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice: his +drunkenness had been his salvation. The authorities had never been able +to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a +man who had been robbed. An order of nolle prosequi, founded on his well +authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush, had +set him at liberty. He had taken to his heels. He had returned to his +road from Gagny to Lagny, to make, under administrative supervision, +broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mien, in a very +pensive mood, his ardor for theft somewhat cooled; but he was addicted +none the less tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him. + +As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after +his return to his road-mender's turf-thatched cot, here it is: + +One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his +work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught +sight, through the branches of the trees, of a man, whose back alone +he saw, but the shape of whose shoulders, as it seemed to him at that +distance and in the early dusk, was not entirely unfamiliar to him. +Boulatruelle, although intoxicated, had a correct and lucid memory, a +defensive arm that is indispensable to any one who is at all in conflict +with legal order. + +"Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder?" he said +to himself. But he could make himself no answer, except that the man +resembled some one of whom his memory preserved a confused trace. + +However, apart from the identity which he could not manage to catch, +Boulatruelle put things together and made calculations. This man did +not belong in the country-side. He had just arrived there. On foot, +evidently. No public conveyance passes through Montfermeil at that hour. +He had walked all night. Whence came he? Not from a very great distance; +for he had neither haversack, nor bundle. From Paris, no doubt. Why was +he in these woods? why was he there at such an hour? what had he come +there for? + +Boulatruelle thought of the treasure. By dint of ransacking his memory, +he recalled in a vague way that he had already, many years before, had +a similar alarm in connection with a man who produced on him the effect +that he might well be this very individual. + +"By the deuce," said Boulatruelle, "I'll find him again. I'll discover +the parish of that parishioner. This prowler of Patron-Minette has a +reason, and I'll know it. People can't have secrets in my forest if I +don't have a finger in the pie." + +He took his pick-axe which was very sharply pointed. + +"There now," he grumbled, "is something that will search the earth and a +man." + +And, as one knots one thread to another thread, he took up the line of +march at his best pace in the direction which the man must follow, and +set out across the thickets. + +When he had compassed a hundred strides, the day, which was already +beginning to break, came to his assistance. Footprints stamped in the +sand, weeds trodden down here and there, heather crushed, young branches +in the brushwood bent and in the act of straightening themselves up +again with the graceful deliberation of the arms of a pretty woman who +stretches herself when she wakes, pointed out to him a sort of track. He +followed it, then lost it. Time was flying. He plunged deeper into the +woods and came to a sort of eminence. An early huntsman who was passing +in the distance along a path, whistling the air of Guillery, suggested +to him the idea of climbing a tree. Old as he was, he was agile. There +stood close at hand a beech-tree of great size, worthy of Tityrus and of +Boulatruelle. Boulatruelle ascended the beech as high as he was able. + +The idea was a good one. On scrutinizing the solitary waste on the side +where the forest is thoroughly entangled and wild, Boulatruelle suddenly +caught sight of his man. + +Hardly had he got his eye upon him when he lost sight of him. + +The man entered, or rather, glided into, an open glade, at a +considerable distance, masked by large trees, but with which +Boulatruelle was perfectly familiar, on account of having noticed, near +a large pile of porous stones, an ailing chestnut-tree bandaged with +a sheet of zinc nailed directly upon the bark. This glade was the one +which was formerly called the Blaru-bottom. The heap of stones, destined +for no one knows what employment, which was visible there thirty years +ago, is doubtless still there. Nothing equals a heap of stones in +longevity, unless it is a board fence. They are temporary expedients. +What a reason for lasting! + +Boulatruelle, with the rapidity of joy, dropped rather than descended +from the tree. The lair was unearthed, the question now was to seize the +beast. That famous treasure of his dreams was probably there. + +It was no small matter to reach that glade. By the beaten paths, which +indulge in a thousand teasing zigzags, it required a good quarter of an +hour. In a bee-line, through the underbrush, which is peculiarly dense, +very thorny, and very aggressive in that locality, a full half hour was +necessary. Boulatruelle committed the error of not comprehending this. +He believed in the straight line; a respectable optical illusion which +ruins many a man. The thicket, bristling as it was, struck him as the +best road. + +"Let's take to the wolves' Rue de Rivoli," said he. + +Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion +guilty of the fault of going straight. + +He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of undergrowth. + +He had to deal with holly bushes, nettles, hawthorns, eglantines, +thistles, and very irascible brambles. He was much lacerated. + +At the bottom of the ravine he found water which he was obliged to +traverse. + +At last he reached the Blaru-bottom, after the lapse of forty minutes, +sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and ferocious. + +There was no one in the glade. Boulatruelle rushed to the heap of +stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried off. + +As for the man, he had vanished in the forest. He had made his escape. +Where? in what direction? into what thicket? Impossible to guess. + +And, heartrending to say, there, behind the pile of stones, in front of +the tree with the sheet of zinc, was freshly turned earth, a pick-axe, +abandoned or forgotten, and a hole. + +The hole was empty. + +"Thief!" shrieked Boulatruelle, shaking his fist at the horizon. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS, EMERGING FROM CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY FOR DOMESTIC +WAR + +For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks he +lay in a fever accompanied by delirium, and by tolerably grave cerebral +symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by +the wounds themselves. + +He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy loquacity +of fever, and with the sombre obstinacy of agony. The extent of some of +the lesions presented a serious danger, the suppuration of large wounds +being always liable to become re-absorbed, and consequently, to kill +the sick man, under certain atmospheric conditions; at every change of +weather, at the slightest storm, the physician was uneasy. + +"Above all things," he repeated, "let the wounded man be subjected to no +emotion." The dressing of the wounds was complicated and difficult, +the fixation of apparatus and bandages by cerecloths not having been +invented as yet, at that epoch. Nicolette used up a sheet "as big as the +ceiling," as she put it, for lint. It was not without difficulty +that the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver overcame the +gangrene. As long as there was any danger, M. Gillenormand, seated in +despair at his grandson's pillow, was, like Marius, neither alive nor +dead. + +Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well dressed gentleman with +white hair,--such was the description given by the porter,--came to +inquire about the wounded man, and left a large package of lint for the +dressings. + +Finally, on the 7th of September, four months to a day, after the +sorrowful night when he had been brought back to his grandfather in a +dying condition, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. +Convalescence began. But Marius was forced to remain for two months more +stretched out on a long chair, on account of the results called up by +the fracture of his collar-bone. There always is a last wound like that +which will not close, and which prolongs the dressings indefinitely, to +the great annoyance of the sick person. + +However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him +from all pursuit. In France, there is no wrath, not even of a public +character, which six months will not extinguish. Revolts, in the present +state of society, are so much the fault of every one, that they are +followed by a certain necessity of shutting the eyes. + +Let us add, that the inexcusable Gisquet order, which enjoined doctors +to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public +opinion, and not opinion alone, but the King first of all, the wounded +were covered and protected by this indignation; and, with the exception +of those who had been made prisoners in the very act of combat, the +councils of war did not dare to trouble any one. So Marius was left in +peace. + +M. Gillenormand first passed through all manner of anguish, and then +through every form of ecstasy. It was found difficult to prevent his +passing every night beside the wounded man; he had his big arm-chair +carried to Marius' bedside; he required his daughter to take the +finest linen in the house for compresses and bandages. Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, like a sage and elderly person, contrived to spare the +fine linen, while allowing the grandfather to think that he was obeyed. +M. Gillenormand would not permit any one to explain to him, that for the +preparation of lint batiste is not nearly so good as coarse linen, +nor new linen as old linen. He was present at all the dressings of the +wounds from which Mademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself. +When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said: "Aie! aie!" +Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, +offer the wounded man a cup of his cooling-draught. He overwhelmed the +doctor with questions. He did not observe that he asked the same ones +over and over again. + +On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of +danger, the good man was in a delirium. He made his porter a present of +three louis. That evening, on his return to his own chamber, he danced +a gavotte, using his thumb and forefinger as castanets, and he sang the +following song: + + "Jeanne est nee a Fougere "Amour, tu vis en elle; + Vrai nid d'une bergere; Car c'est dans sa prunelle + J'adore son jupon, Que tu mets ton carquois. + Fripon. Narquois! + + "Moi, je la chante, et j'aime, + Plus que Diane meme, + Jeanne et ses durs tetons + Bretons."[61] + + +"Love, thou dwellest in her; For 'tis in her eyes that thou placest thy +quiver, sly scamp! + +"As for me, I sing her, and I love, more than Diana herself, Jeanne and +her firm Breton breasts." + + +Then he knelt upon a chair, and Basque, who was watching him through the +half-open door, made sure that he was praying. + +Up to that time, he had not believed in God. + +At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more +pronounced, the grandfather raved. He executed a multitude of mechanical +actions full of joy; he ascended and descended the stairs, without +knowing why. A pretty female neighbor was amazed one morning at +receiving a big bouquet; it was M. Gillenormand who had sent it to +her. The husband made a jealous scene. M. Gillenormand tried to draw +Nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius, "M. le Baron." He shouted: +"Long live the Republic!" + +Every moment, he kept asking the doctor: "Is he no longer in danger?" +He gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother. He brooded over him +while he ate. He no longer knew himself, he no longer rendered himself +an account of himself. Marius was the master of the house, there was +abdication in his joy, he was the grandson of his grandson. + +In the state of joy in which he then was, he was the most venerable of +children. In his fear lest he might fatigue or annoy the convalescent, +he stepped behind him to smile. He was content, joyous, delighted, +charming, young. His white locks added a gentle majesty to the gay +radiance of his visage. When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is +adorable. There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age. + +As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, +he had but one fixed idea: Cosette. + +After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce +her name, and it might have been supposed that he no longer thought of +her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. + +He did not know what had become of Cosette; the whole affair of the +Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows that were +almost indistinct, floated through his mind, Eponine, Gavroche, Mabeuf, +the Thenardiers, all his friends gloomily intermingled with the smoke +of the barricade; the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through that +adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest; he +understood nothing connected with his own life, he did not know how nor +by whom he had been saved, and no one of those around him knew this; all +that they had been able to tell him was, that he had been brought home +at night in a hackney-coach, to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; past, +present, future were nothing more to him than the mist of a vague idea; +but in that fog there was one immovable point, one clear and precise +outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will; to find +Cosette once more. For him, the idea of life was not distinct from the +idea of Cosette. He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept +the one without the other, and he was immovably resolved to exact of +any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,--from his +grandfather, from fate, from hell,--the restitution of his vanished +Eden. + +He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed. + +Let us here emphasize one detail, he was not won over and was but little +softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather. In +the first place, he was not in the secret; then, in his reveries of +an invalid, which were still feverish, possibly, he distrusted this +tenderness as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his +conquest. He remained cold. The grandfather absolutely wasted his poor +old smile. Marius said to himself that it was all right so long as he, +Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course; but that when +it became a question of Cosette, he would find another face, and that +his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would +be an unpleasant scene; a recrudescence of family questions, a +confrontation of positions, every sort of sarcasm and all manner of +objections at one and the same time, Fauchelevent, Coupelevent, fortune, +poverty, a stone about his neck, the future. Violent resistance; +conclusion: a refusal. Marius stiffened himself in advance. + +And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his +memory opened once more, he reflected again on the past, Colonel +Pontmercy placed himself once more between M. Gillenormand and him, +Marius, he told himself that he had no true kindness to expect from +a person who had been so unjust and so hard to his father. And +with health, there returned to him a sort of harshness towards his +grandfather. The old man was gently pained by this. M. Gillenormand, +without however allowing it to appear, observed that Marius, ever since +the latter had been brought back to him and had regained consciousness, +had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say +"monsieur" to him; but he contrived not to say either the one or the +other, by means of a certain way of turning his phrases. Obviously, a +crisis was approaching. + +As almost always happens in such cases, Marius skirmished before giving +battle, by way of proving himself. This is called "feeling the ground." +One morning it came to pass that M. Gillenormand spoke slightingly of +the Convention, apropos of a newspaper which had fallen into his +hands, and gave vent to a Royalist harangue on Danton, Saint-Juste and +Robespierre.--"The men of '93 were giants," said Marius with severity. +The old man held his peace, and uttered not a sound during the remainder +of that day. + +Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of +his early years, interpreted this silence as a profound concentration +of wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations +for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind. + +He decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his bandages, +dislocate his collar-bone, that he would lay bare all the wounds which +he had left, and would reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of +war. He would have Cosette or die. + +He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. + +That moment arrived. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS ATTACKED + +One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the +phials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said +to him in his tenderest accents: "Look here, my little Marius, if I were +in your place, I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried sole +is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is needed +to put a sick man on his feet." + +Marius, who had almost entirely recovered his strength, collected +the whole of it, drew himself up into a sitting posture, laid his two +clenched fists on the sheets of his bed, looked his grandfather in the +face, assumed a terrible air, and said: + +"This leads me to say something to you." + +"What is it?" + +"That I wish to marry." + +"Agreed," said his grandfather.--And he burst out laughing. + +"How agreed?" + +"Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl." + +Marius, stunned and overwhelmed with the dazzling shock, trembled in +every limb. + +M. Gillenormand went on: + +"Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes +every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever +since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making +lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. +7. Ah! There we have it! Ah! so you want her! Well, you shall have +her. You're caught. You had arranged your little plot, you had said to +yourself:--'I'm going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to +that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau, +to that Dorante turned Geronte; he has indulged in his frivolities also, +that he has, and he has had his love affairs, and his grisettes and his +Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of +the bread of spring; he certainly must remember it.' Ah! you take the +cockchafer by the horns. That's good. I offer you a cutlet and you +answer me: 'By the way, I want to marry.' There's a transition for +you! Ah! you reckoned on a bickering! You do not know that I am an old +coward. What do you say to that? You are vexed? You did not expect to +find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself, you are wasting +the discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer, and that's +vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I'll do whatever +you wish, and that cuts you short, imbecile! Listen. I have made my +inquiries, I'm cunning too; she is charming, she is discreet, it is not +true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she's a jewel, she +adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her +coffin would have accompanied mine. I have had an idea, ever since you +have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is only +in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of handsome +young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What would your +aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good +fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment, if there was +any possibility of having a woman here. And then, what would the doctor +have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it's +all right, let us say no more about it, all's said, all's done, it's all +settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceived that you +did not love me. I said to myself: 'Here now, I have my little Cosette +right under my hand, I'm going to give her to him, he will be obliged +to love me a little then, or he must tell the reason why.' Ah! so you +thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on a big voice, +to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not a bit of it. +Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Pray take the +trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my well-beloved child." + +That said, the old man burst forth into sobs. + +And he seized Marius' head, and pressed it with both arms against his +breast, and both fell to weeping. This is one of the forms of supreme +happiness. + +"Father!" cried Marius. + +"Ah, so you love me!" said the old man. + +An ineffable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak. + +At length the old man stammered: + +"Come! his mouth is unstopped at last. He has said: 'Father' to me." + +Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather's arms, and said gently: + +"But, father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see +her." + +"Agreed again, you shall see her to-morrow." + +"Father!" + +"What?" + +"Why not to-day?" + +"Well, to-day then. Let it be to-day. You have called me 'father' three +times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought +hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put into verse. This is +the ending of the elegy of the 'Jeune Malade' by Andre Chenier, by Andre +Chenier whose throat was cut by the ras . . . by the giants of '93." + +M. Gillenormand fancied that he detected a faint frown on the part of +Marius, who, in truth, as we must admit, was no longer listening to him, +and who was thinking far more of Cosette than of 1793. + +The grandfather, trembling at having so inopportunely introduced Andre +Chenier, resumed precipitately: + +"Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great +revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable, +who were heroes, pardi! found that Andre Chenier embarrassed them +somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great +men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought Andre Chenier, in the interests of +public safety, to be so good as to go . . ." + +M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not +proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his +daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so +many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as +his age permitted, from the bed-chamber, shut the door behind him, and, +purple, choking and foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from his +head, he found himself nose to nose with honest Basque, who was blacking +boots in the anteroom. He seized Basque by the collar, and shouted full +in his face in fury:--"By the hundred thousand Javottes of the devil, +those ruffians did assassinate him!" + +"Who, sir?" + +"Andre Chenier!" + +"Yes, sir," said Basque in alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND ENDS BY NO LONGER THINKING IT A +BAD THING THAT M. FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD HAVE ENTERED WITH SOMETHING UNDER +HIS ARM + +Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more. + +What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which +one must not attempt to depict; the sun is one of them. + +The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in +Marius' chamber at the moment when Cosette entered it. + +Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing +his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and +gazing over it at Cosette. + +She appeared on the threshold; it seemed to him that she was surrounded +by a glory. + +"Adorable!" he exclaimed. + +Then he blew his nose noisily. + +Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as +thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all +pale, yet flushed, she wanted to fling herself into Marius' arms, and +dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people. People +are pitiless towards happy lovers; they remain when the latter most +desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever. + +With Cosette, and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair +who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. +It was "Monsieur Fauchelevent"; it was Jean Valjean. + +He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in +perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat. + +The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing in this correct +bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the +corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the 7th of June, +tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, +supporting in his arms the fainting Marius; still, his porter's scent +was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had +not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside: "I +don't know why it is, but I can't help fancying that I've seen that face +before." + +M. Fauchelevent in Marius' chamber, remained apart near the door. He +had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an +octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish +hue, and appeared to be mouldy. + +"Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm?" +Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, demanded in a low +tone of Nicolette. + +"Well," retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same +tone, "he's a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur +Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under +his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart +like that." + +And, with a bow, he said aloud: + +"Monsieur Tranchelevent . . ." + +Father Gillenormand did not do it intentionally, but inattention to +proper names was an aristocratic habit of his. + +"Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honor of asking you, on behalf of my +grandson, Baron Marius Pontmercy, for the hand of Mademoiselle." + +Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed. + +"That's settled," said the grandfather. + +And, turning to Marius and Cosette, with both arms extended in blessing, +he cried: + +"Permission to adore each other!" + +They did not require him to repeat it twice. So much the worse! the +chirping began. They talked low. Marius, resting on his elbow on his +reclining chair, Cosette standing beside him. "Oh, heavens!" murmured +Cosette, "I see you once again! it is thou! it is you! The idea of going +and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for +four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had +I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little +while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought +that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not +taken the time to dress myself, I must frighten people with my looks! +What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! +You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l'Homme Arme. +It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could +put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with +the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. +It is queer that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a +very kindly air. Don't disturb yourself, don't rise on your elbow, you +will injure yourself. Oh! how happy I am! So our unhappiness is over! +I am quite foolish. I had things to say to you, and I no longer know in +the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. There is no garden. I made lint all the time; stay, sir, +look, it is your fault, I have a callous on my fingers." + +"Angel!" said Marius. + +Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No +other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it. + +Then as there were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, +contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands. + +M. Gillenormand turned towards those who were in the room and cried: + +"Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. +Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at +their ease." + +And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them in a very low +voice: + +"Call each other thou. Don't stand on ceremony." + +Aunt Gillenormand looked on in amazement at this irruption of light +in her elderly household. There was nothing aggressive about this +amazement; it was not the least in the world like the scandalized and +envious glance of an owl at two turtle-doves, it was the stupid eye of a +poor innocent seven and fifty years of age; it was a life which had been +a failure gazing at that triumph, love. + +"Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior," said her father to her, "I told you +that this is what would happen to you." + +He remained silent for a moment, and then added: + +"Look at the happiness of others." + +Then he turned to Cosette. + +"How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She's a Greuze. So you are going +to have that all to yourself, you scamp! Ah! my rogue, you are getting +off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, +we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her. Come now! +I am in love with you, mademoiselle. It's perfectly simple. It is your +right. You are in the right. Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding +this will make! Our parish is Saint-Denis du Saint Sacrament, but I will +get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul. The church +is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is +opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit +architecture is at Namur. It is called Saint-Loup. You must go there +after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite +of your mind, I think girls ought to marry; that is what they are made +for. There is a certain Sainte-Catherine whom I should always like to +see uncoiffed.[62] It's a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is +chilly. The Bible says: Multiply. In order to save the people, Jeanne +d'Arc is needed; but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother +Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining +a spinster! I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, +and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin; but, sapristi, a +handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a +big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his +thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy +paws, laughing the while like the dawn,--that's better than holding a +candle at vespers, and chanting Turris eburnea!" + +The grandfather executed a pirouette on his eighty-year-old heels, and +began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more: + + "Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes revasseries, + Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries."[63] + + +"By the way!" + +"What is it, father?" + +"Have not you an intimate friend?" + +"Yes, Courfeyrac." + +"What has become of him?" + +"He is dead." + +"That is good." + +He seated himself near them, made Cosette sit down, and took their four +hands in his aged and wrinkled hands: + +"She is exquisite, this darling. She's a masterpiece, this Cosette! +She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a +Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise. What +eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that +you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is +the folly of men and the wit of God. Adore each other. Only," he added, +suddenly becoming gloomy, "what a misfortune! It has just occurred to +me! More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity; so +long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years +hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou! Your beautiful +white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling +him by the tail."[64] + +At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say: + +"Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand +francs." + +It was the voice of Jean Valjean. + +So far he had not uttered a single word, no one seemed to be aware that +he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless, behind +all these happy people. + +"What has Mademoiselle Euphrasie to do with the question?" inquired the +startled grandfather. + +"I am she," replied Cosette. + +"Six hundred thousand francs?" resumed M. Gillenormand. + +"Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly," said Jean +Valjean. + +And he laid on the table the package which Mademoiselle Gillenormand had +mistaken for a book. + +Jean Valjean himself opened the package; it was a bundle of bank-notes. +They were turned over and counted. There were five hundred notes for a +thousand francs each, and one hundred and sixty-eight of five hundred. +In all, five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. + +"This is a fine book," said M. Gillenormand. + +"Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" murmured the aunt. + +"This arranges things well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand +senior?" said the grandfather. "That devil of a Marius has ferreted out +the nest of a millionaire grisette in his tree of dreams! Just trust +to the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find +studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Cherubino works better +than Rothschild." + +"Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" repeated Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, in a low tone. "Five hundred and eighty-four! one might as +well say six hundred thousand!" + +As for Marius and Cosette, they were gazing at each other while this was +going on; they hardly heeded this detail. + + + + +CHAPTER V--DEPOSIT YOUR MONEY IN A FOREST RATHER THAN WITH A NOTARY + +The reader has, no doubt, understood, without necessitating a lengthy +explanation, that Jean Valjean, after the Champmathieu affair, had been +able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to +Paris and to withdraw in season, from the hands of Laffitte, the +sum earned by him, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, at +Montreuil-sur-Mer; and that fearing that he might be recaptured,--which +eventually happened--he had buried and hidden that sum in the forest +of Montfermeil, in the locality known as the Blaru-bottom. The sum, +six hundred and thirty thousand francs, all in bank-bills, was not very +bulky, and was contained in a box; only, in order to preserve the +box from dampness, he had placed it in a coffer filled with chestnut +shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the +Bishop's candlesticks. It will be remembered that he had carried off +the candlesticks when he made his escape from Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man +seen one evening for the first time by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean. +Later on, every time that Jean Valjean needed money, he went to get it +in the Blaru-bottom. Hence the absences which we have mentioned. He had +a pickaxe somewhere in the heather, in a hiding-place known to himself +alone. When he beheld Marius convalescent, feeling that the hour was at +hand, when that money might prove of service, he had gone to get it; +it was he again, whom Boulatruelle had seen in the woods, but on +this occasion, in the morning instead of in the evening. Boulatreulle +inherited his pickaxe. + +The actual sum was five hundred and eighty-four thousand, five hundred +francs. Jean Valjean withdrew the five hundred francs for himself.--"We +shall see hereafter," he thought. + +The difference between that sum and the six hundred and thirty thousand +francs withdrawn from Laffitte represented his expenditure in ten years, +from 1823 to 1833. The five years of his stay in the convent had cost +only five thousand francs. + +Jean Valjean set the two candlesticks on the chimney-piece, where they +glittered to the great admiration of Toussaint. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean knew that he was delivered from Javert. The +story had been told in his presence, and he had verified the fact in +the Moniteur, how a police inspector named Javert had been found drowned +under a boat belonging to some laundresses, between the Pont au Change +and the Pont-Neuf, and that a writing left by this man, otherwise +irreproachable and highly esteemed by his superiors, pointed to a fit +of mental aberration and a suicide.--"In fact," thought Jean Valjean, +"since he left me at liberty, once having got me in his power, he must +have been already mad." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE TWO OLD MEN DO EVERYTHING, EACH ONE AFTER HIS OWN +FASHION, TO RENDER COSETTE HAPPY + +Everything was made ready for the wedding. The doctor, on being +consulted, declared that it might take place in February. It was then +December. A few ravishing weeks of perfect happiness passed. + +The grandfather was not the least happy of them all. He remained for a +quarter of an hour at a time gazing at Cosette. + +"The wonderful, beautiful girl!" he exclaimed. "And she has so sweet and +good an air! she is, without exception, the most charming girl that I +have ever seen in my life. Later on, she'll have virtues with an odor of +violets. How graceful! one cannot live otherwise than nobly with such +a creature. Marius, my boy, you are a Baron, you are rich, don't go to +pettifogging, I beg of you." + +Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the sepulchre to paradise. +The transition had not been softened, and they would have been stunned, +had they not been dazzled by it. + +"Do you understand anything about it?" said Marius to Cosette. + +"No," replied Cosette, "but it seems to me that the good God is caring +for us." + +Jean Valjean did everything, smoothed away every difficulty, arranged +everything, made everything easy. He hastened towards Cosette's +happiness with as much ardor, and, apparently with as much joy, as +Cosette herself. + +As he had been a mayor, he understood how to solve that delicate +problem, with the secret of which he alone was acquainted, Cosette's +civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly, it might +prevent the marriage, who knows? He extricated Cosette from all +difficulties. He concocted for her a family of dead people, a sure means +of not encountering any objections. Cosette was the only scion of an +extinct family; Cosette was not his own daughter, but the daughter of +the other Fauchelevent. Two brothers Fauchelevent had been gardeners to +the convent of the Petit-Picpus. Inquiry was made at that convent; the +very best information and the most respectable references abounded; the +good nuns, not very apt and but little inclined to fathom questions of +paternity, and not attaching any importance to the matter, had never +understood exactly of which of the two Fauchelevents Cosette was the +daughter. They said what was wanted and they said it with zeal. An +acte de notoriete was drawn up. Cosette became in the eyes of the law, +Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent. She was declared an orphan, both +father and mother being dead. Jean Valjean so arranged it that he was +appointed, under the name of Fauchelevent, as Cosette's guardian, with +M. Gillenormand as supervising guardian over him. + +As for the five hundred and eighty thousand francs, they constituted +a legacy bequeathed to Cosette by a dead person, who desired to +remain unknown. The original legacy had consisted of five hundred and +ninety-four thousand francs; but ten thousand francs had been expended +on the education of Mademoiselle Euphrasie, five thousand francs of that +amount having been paid to the convent. This legacy, deposited in +the hands of a third party, was to be turned over to Cosette at her +majority, or at the date of her marriage. This, taken as a whole, was +very acceptable, as the reader will perceive, especially when the sum +due was half a million. There were some peculiarities here and there, +it is true, but they were not noticed; one of the interested parties +had his eyes blindfolded by love, the others by the six hundred thousand +francs. + +Cosette learned that she was not the daughter of that old man whom she +had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman; another Fauchelevent +was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. +But at the ineffable moment which she was then passing through, it cast +but a slight shadow, a faint cloud, and she was so full of joy that the +cloud did not last long. She had Marius. The young man arrived, the old +man was effaced; such is life. + +And then, Cosette had, for long years, been habituated to seeing enigmas +around her; every being who has had a mysterious childhood is always +prepared for certain renunciations. + +Nevertheless, she continued to call Jean Valjean: Father. + +Cosette, happy as the angels, was enthusiastic over Father Gillenormand. +It is true that he overwhelmed her with gallant compliments and +presents. While Jean Valjean was building up for Cosette a normal +situation in society and an unassailable status, M. Gillenormand was +superintending the basket of wedding gifts. Nothing so amused him as +being magnificent. He had given to Cosette a robe of Binche guipure +which had descended to him from his own grandmother. + +"These fashions come up again," said he, "ancient things are the +rage, and the young women of my old age dress like the old women of my +childhood." + +He rifled his respectable chests of drawers in Coromandel lacquer, with +swelling fronts, which had not been opened for years.--"Let us hear the +confession of these dowagers," he said, "let us see what they have in +their paunches." He noisily violated the pot-bellied drawers of all +his wives, of all his mistresses and of all his grandmothers. Pekins, +damasks, lampas, painted moires, robes of shot gros de Tours, India +kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed, dauphines without a +right or wrong side, in the piece, Genoa and Alencon point lace, +parures in antique goldsmith's work, ivory bon-bon boxes ornamented +with microscopic battles, gewgaws and ribbons--he lavished everything on +Cosette. Cosette, amazed, desperately in love with Marius, and wild with +gratitude towards M. Gillenormand, dreamed of a happiness without limit +clothed in satin and velvet. Her wedding basket seemed to her to be +upheld by seraphim. Her soul flew out into the azure depths, with wings +of Mechlin lace. + +The intoxication of the lovers was only equalled, as we have already +said, by the ecstasy of the grandfather. A sort of flourish of trumpets +went on in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. + +Every morning, a fresh offering of bric-a-brac from the grandfather to +Cosette. All possible knickknacks glittered around her. + +One day Marius, who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his +bliss, said, apropos of I know not what incident: + +"The men of the revolution are so great, that they have the prestige of +the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me +an antique memory." + +"Moire antique!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Thanks, Marius. That is +precisely the idea of which I was in search." + +And on the following day, a magnificent dress of tea-rose colored moire +antique was added to Cosette's wedding presents. + +From these fripperies, the grandfather extracted a bit of wisdom. + +"Love is all very well; but there must be something else to go with +it. The useless must be mingled with happiness. Happiness is only the +necessary. Season that enormously with the superfluous for me. A +palace and her heart. Her heart and the Louvre. Her heart and the grand +waterworks of Versailles. Give me my shepherdess and try to make her a +duchess. Fetch me Phyllis crowned with corn-flowers, and add a hundred +thousand francs income. Open for me a bucolic perspective as far as you +can see, beneath a marble colonnade. I consent to the bucolic and also +to the fairy spectacle of marble and gold. Dry happiness resembles dry +bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the +useless, the extravagant, excess, that which serves no purpose. I +remember to have seen, in the Cathedral of Strasburg, a clock, as tall +as a three-story house which marked the hours, which had the kindness to +indicate the hour, but which had not the air of being made for that; and +which, after having struck midday, or midnight,--midday, the hour of the +sun, or midnight, the hour of love,--or any other hour that you like, +gave you the moon and the stars, the earth and the sea, birds and +fishes, Phoebus and Phoebe, and a host of things which emerged from a +niche, and the twelve apostles, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and +Eponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played +on the trumpet to boot. Without reckoning delicious chimes which it +sprinkled through the air, on every occasion, without any one's knowing +why. Is a petty bald clock-face which merely tells the hour equal to +that? For my part, I am of the opinion of the big clock of Strasburg, +and I prefer it to the cuckoo clock from the Black Forest." + +M. Gillenormand talked nonsense in connection with the wedding, and all +the fripperies of the eighteenth century passed pell-mell through his +dithyrambs. + +"You are ignorant of the art of festivals. You do not know how to +organize a day of enjoyment in this age," he exclaimed. "Your nineteenth +century is weak. It lacks excess. It ignores the rich, it ignores the +noble. In everything it is clean-shaven. Your third estate is insipid, +colorless, odorless, and shapeless. The dreams of your bourgeois who +set up, as they express it: a pretty boudoir freshly decorated, violet, +ebony and calico. Make way! Make way! the Sieur Curmudgeon is marrying +Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has +been stuck to a candle. There's the epoch for you. My demand is that I +may flee from it beyond the Sarmatians. Ah! in 1787, I predict that all +was lost, from the day when I beheld the Duc de Rohan, Prince de Leon, +Duc de Chabot, Duc de Montbazon, Marquis de Sonbise, Vicomte de Thouars, +peer of France, go to Longchamps in a tapecu! That has borne its fruits. +In this century, men attend to business, they gamble on 'Change, they +win money, they are stingy. People take care of their surfaces and +varnish them; every one is dressed as though just out of a band-box, +washed, soaped, scraped, shaved, combed, waked, smoothed, rubbed, +brushed, cleaned on the outside, irreproachable, polished as a pebble, +discreet, neat, and at the same time, death of my life, in the depths of +their consciences they have dung-heaps and cesspools that are enough to +make a cow-herd who blows his nose in his fingers, recoil. I grant to +this age the device: 'Dirty Cleanliness.' Don't be vexed, Marius, give +me permission to speak; I say no evil of the people as you see, I am +always harping on your people, but do look favorably on my dealing a bit +of a slap to the bourgeoisie. I belong to it. He who loves well lashes +well. Thereupon, I say plainly, that now-a-days people marry, but that +they no longer know how to marry. Ah! it is true, I regret the grace +of the ancient manners. I regret everything about them, their elegance, +their chivalry, those courteous and delicate ways, that joyous luxury +which every one possessed, music forming part of the wedding, a symphony +above stairs, a beating of drums below stairs, the dances, the joyous +faces round the table, the fine-spun gallant compliments, the songs, the +fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil's own row, the huge knots of +ribbon. I regret the bride's garter. The bride's garter is cousin to the +girdle of Venus. On what does the war of Troy turn? On Helen's garter, +parbleu! Why did they fight, why did Diomed the divine break over +the head of Meriones that great brazen helmet of ten points? why did +Achilles and Hector hew each other up with vast blows of their lances? +Because Helen allowed Paris to take her garter. With Cosette's garter, +Homer would construct the Iliad. He would put in his poem, a loquacious +old fellow, like me, and he would call him Nestor. My friends, in bygone +days, in those amiable days of yore, people married wisely; they had a +good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As soon as Cujas had +taken his departure, Gamacho entered. But, in sooth! the stomach is +an agreeable beast which demands its due, and which wants to have its +wedding also. People supped well, and had at table a beautiful neighbor +without a guimpe so that her throat was only moderately concealed. Oh! +the large laughing mouths, and how gay we were in those days! youth was +a bouquet; every young man terminated in a branch of lilacs or a tuft +of roses; whether he was a shepherd or a warrior; and if, by chance, +one was a captain of dragoons, one found means to call oneself Florian. +People thought much of looking well. They embroidered and tinted +themselves. A bourgeois had the air of a flower, a Marquis had the air +of a precious stone. People had no straps to their boots, they had no +boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering, dainty, +coquettish, which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their +sides. The humming-bird has beak and claws. That was the day of the +Galland Indies. One of the sides of that century was delicate, the other +was magnificent; and by the green cabbages! people amused themselves. +To-day, people are serious. The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise +is a prude; your century is unfortunate. People would drive away the +Graces as being too low in the neck. Alas! beauty is concealed as +though it were ugliness. Since the revolution, everything, including the +ballet-dancers, has had its trousers; a mountebank dancer must be grave; +your rigadoons are doctrinarian. It is necessary to be majestic. People +would be greatly annoyed if they did not carry their chins in their +cravats. The ideal of an urchin of twenty when he marries, is to +resemble M. Royer-Collard. And do you know what one arrives at with +that majesty? at being petty. Learn this: joy is not only joyous; it is +great. But be in love gayly then, what the deuce! marry, when you marry, +with fever and giddiness, and tumult, and the uproar of happiness! Be +grave in church, well and good. But, as soon as the mass is finished, +sarpejou! you must make a dream whirl around the bride. A marriage +should be royal and chimerical; it should promenade its ceremony from +the cathedral of Rheims to the pagoda of Chanteloup. I have a horror +of a paltry wedding. Ventregoulette! be in Olympus for that one day, +at least. Be one of the gods. Ah! people might be sylphs. Games and +Laughter, argiraspides; they are stupids. My friends, every recently +made bridegroom ought to be Prince Aldobrandini. Profit by that unique +minute in life to soar away to the empyrean with the swans and the +eagles, even if you do have to fall back on the morrow into the +bourgeoisie of the frogs. Don't economize on the nuptials, do not prune +them of their splendors; don't scrimp on the day when you beam. The +wedding is not the housekeeping. Oh! if I were to carry out my fancy, +it would be gallant, violins would be heard under the trees. Here is +my programme: sky-blue and silver. I would mingle with the festival +the rural divinities, I would convoke the Dryads and the Nereids. The +nuptials of Amphitrite, a rosy cloud, nymphs with well dressed locks +and entirely naked, an Academician offering quatrains to the goddess, a +chariot drawn by marine monsters. + + "Triton trottait devant, et tirait de sa conque + Des sons si ravissants qu'il ravissait quiconque!"[65] + +--there's a festive programme, there's a good one, or else I know +nothing of such matters, deuce take it!" + +While the grandfather, in full lyrical effusion, was listening to +himself, Cosette and Marius grew intoxicated as they gazed freely at +each other. + +Aunt Gillenormand surveyed all this with her imperturbable placidity. +Within the last five or six months she had experienced a certain amount +of emotions. Marius returned, Marius brought back bleeding, Marius +brought back from a barricade, Marius dead, then living, Marius +reconciled, Marius betrothed, Marius wedding a poor girl, Marius wedding +a millionairess. The six hundred thousand francs had been her last +surprise. Then, her indifference of a girl taking her first communion +returned to her. She went regularly to service, told her beads, read her +euchology, mumbled Aves in one corner of the house, while I love you +was being whispered in the other, and she beheld Marius and Cosette in a +vague way, like two shadows. The shadow was herself. + +There is a certain state of inert asceticism in which the soul, +neutralized by torpor, a stranger to that which may be designated as the +business of living, receives no impressions, either human, or pleasant +or painful, with the exception of earthquakes and catastrophes. This +devotion, as Father Gillenormand said to his daughter, corresponds to +a cold in the head. You smell nothing of life. Neither any bad, nor any +good odor. + +Moreover, the six hundred thousand francs had settled the elderly +spinster's indecision. Her father had acquired the habit of taking her +so little into account, that he had not consulted her in the matter of +consent to Marius' marriage. He had acted impetuously, according to his +wont, having, a despot-turned slave, but a single thought,--to satisfy +Marius. As for the aunt,--it had not even occurred to him that the aunt +existed, and that she could have an opinion of her own, and, sheep as +she was, this had vexed her. Somewhat resentful in her inmost soul, but +impassive externally, she had said to herself: "My father has settled +the question of the marriage without reference to me; I shall settle the +question of the inheritance without consulting him." She was rich, in +fact, and her father was not. She had reserved her decision on this +point. It is probable that, had the match been a poor one, she would +have left him poor. "So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a +beggar, let him be a beggar himself!" But Cosette's half-million pleased +the aunt, and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers +were concerned. One owes some consideration to six hundred thousand +francs, and it was evident that she could not do otherwise than leave +her fortune to these young people, since they did not need it. + +It was arranged that the couple should live with the grandfather--M. +Gillenormand insisted on resigning to them his chamber, the finest in +the house. "That will make me young again," he said. "It's an old plan +of mine. I have always entertained the idea of having a wedding in my +chamber." + +He furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles. He had +the ceiling and walls hung with an extraordinary stuff, which he had by +him in the piece, and which he believed to have emanated from Utrecht +with a buttercup-colored satin ground, covered with velvet auricula +blossoms.--"It was with that stuff," said he, "that the bed of the +Duchesse d'Anville at la Roche-Guyon was draped."--On the chimney-piece, +he set a little figure in Saxe porcelain, carrying a muff against her +nude stomach. + +M. Gillenormand's library became the lawyer's study, which Marius +needed; a study, it will be remembered, being required by the council of +the order. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE EFFECTS OF DREAMS MINGLED WITH HAPPINESS + +The lovers saw each other every day. Cosette came with M. +Fauchelevent.--"This is reversing things," said Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, "to have the bride come to the house to do the courting +like this." But Marius' convalescence had caused the habit to become +established, and the arm-chairs of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, +better adapted to interviews than the straw chairs of the Rue de l'Homme +Arme, had rooted it. Marius and M. Fauchelevent saw each other, but did +not address each other. It seemed as though this had been agreed upon. +Every girl needs a chaperon. Cosette could not have come without +M. Fauchelevent. In Marius' eyes, M. Fauchelevent was the condition +attached to Cosette. He accepted it. By dint of discussing political +matters, vaguely and without precision, from the point of view of the +general amelioration of the fate of all men, they came to say a little +more than "yes" and "no." Once, on the subject of education, which +Marius wished to have free and obligatory, multiplied under all forms +lavished on every one, like the air and the sun in a word, respirable +for the entire population, they were in unison, and they almost +conversed. M. Fauchelevent talked well, and even with a certain +loftiness of language--still he lacked something indescribable. M. +Fauchelevent possessed something less and also something more, than a +man of the world. + +Marius, inwardly, and in the depths of his thought, surrounded with +all sorts of mute questions this M. Fauchelevent, who was to him simply +benevolent and cold. There were moments when doubts as to his own +recollections occurred to him. There was a void in his memory, a black +spot, an abyss excavated by four months of agony.--Many things had been +lost therein. He had come to the point of asking himself whether it were +really a fact that he had seen M. Fauchelevent, so serious and so calm a +man, in the barricade. + +This was not, however, the only stupor which the apparitions and the +disappearances of the past had left in his mind. It must not be supposed +that he was delivered from all those obsessions of the memory which +force us, even when happy, even when satisfied, to glance sadly behind +us. The head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have +vanished contains neither thought nor love. At times, Marius clasped his +face between his hands, and the vague and tumultuous past traversed the +twilight which reigned in his brain. Again he beheld Mabeuf fall, he +heard Gavroche singing amid the grape-shot, he felt beneath his lips the +cold brow of Eponine; Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, +Bossuet, Grantaire, all his friends rose erect before him, then +dispersed into thin air. Were all those dear, sorrowful, valiant, +charming or tragic beings merely dreams? had they actually existed? The +revolt had enveloped everything in its smoke. These great fevers create +great dreams. He questioned himself; he felt himself; all these vanished +realities made him dizzy. Where were they all then? was it really true +that all were dead? A fall into the shadows had carried off all except +himself. It all seemed to him to have disappeared as though behind the +curtain of a theatre. There are curtains like this which drop in life. +God passes on to the following act. + +And he himself--was he actually the same man? He, the poor man, was +rich; he, the abandoned, had a family; he, the despairing, was to marry +Cosette. It seemed to him that he had traversed a tomb, and that he had +entered into it black and had emerged from it white, and in that tomb +the others had remained. At certain moments, all these beings of the +past, returned and present, formed a circle around him, and overshadowed +him; then he thought of Cosette, and recovered his serenity; but nothing +less than this felicity could have sufficed to efface that catastrophe. + +M. Fauchelevent almost occupied a place among these vanished beings. +Marius hesitated to believe that the Fauchelevent of the barricade was +the same as this Fauchelevent in flesh and blood, sitting so gravely +beside Cosette. The first was, probably, one of those nightmares +occasioned and brought back by his hours of delirium. However, +the natures of both men were rigid, no question from Marius to M. +Fauchelevent was possible. Such an idea had not even occurred to him. We +have already indicated this characteristic detail. + +Two men who have a secret in common, and who, by a sort of tacit +agreement, exchange not a word on the subject, are less rare than is +commonly supposed. + +Once only, did Marius make the attempt. He introduced into the +conversation the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and, turning to M. Fauchelevent, +he said to him: + +"Of course, you are acquainted with that street?" + +"What street?" + +"The Rue de la Chanvrerie." + +"I have no idea of the name of that street," replied M. Fauchelevent, in +the most natural manner in the world. + +The response which bore upon the name of the street and not upon the +street itself, appeared to Marius to be more conclusive than it really +was. + +"Decidedly," thought he, "I have been dreaming. I have been subject to +a hallucination. It was some one who resembled him. M. Fauchelevent was +not there."' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--TWO MEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND + +Marius' enchantment, great as it was, could not efface from his mind +other pre-occupations. + +While the wedding was in preparation, and while awaiting the date fixed +upon, he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be +made. + +He owed gratitude in various quarters; he owed it on his father's +account, he owed it on his own. + +There was Thenardier; there was the unknown man who had brought him, +Marius, back to M. Gillenormand. + +Marius endeavored to find these two men, not intending to marry, to +be happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of +gratitude not discharged, they would leave a shadow on his life, which +promised so brightly for the future. + +It was impossible for him to leave all these arrears of suffering behind +him, and he wished, before entering joyously into the future, to obtain +a quittance from the past. + +That Thenardier was a villain detracted nothing from the fact that he +had saved Colonel Pontmercy. Thenardier was a ruffian in the eyes of all +the world except Marius. + +And Marius, ignorant of the real scene in the battle field of Waterloo, +was not aware of the peculiar detail, that his father, so far as +Thenardier was concerned was in the strange position of being indebted +to the latter for his life, without being indebted to him for any +gratitude. + +None of the various agents whom Marius employed succeeded in discovering +any trace of Thenardier. Obliteration appeared to be complete in +that quarter. Madame Thenardier had died in prison pending the trial. +Thenardier and his daughter Azelma, the only two remaining of that +lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the +social unknown had silently closed above those beings. On the surface +there was not visible so much as that quiver, that trembling, those +obscure concentric circles which announce that something has fallen in, +and that the plummet may be dropped. + +Madame Thenardier being dead, Boulatruelle being eliminated from the +case, Claquesous having disappeared, the principal persons accused +having escaped from prison, the trial connected with the ambush in the +Gorbeau house had come to nothing. + +That affair had remained rather obscure. The bench of Assizes had been +obliged to content themselves with two subordinates. Panchaud, alias +Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, and Demi-Liard, alias Deux-Milliards, who +had been inconsistently condemned, after a hearing of both sides of +the case, to ten years in the galleys. Hard labor for life had been the +sentence pronounced against the escaped and contumacious accomplices. + +Thenardier, the head and leader, had been, through contumacy, likewise +condemned to death. + +This sentence was the only information remaining about Thenardier, +casting upon that buried name its sinister light like a candle beside a +bier. + +Moreover, by thrusting Thenardier back into the very remotest depths, +through a fear of being re-captured, this sentence added to the density +of the shadows which enveloped this man. + +As for the other person, as for the unknown man who had saved Marius, +the researches were at first to some extent successful, then came to +an abrupt conclusion. They succeeded in finding the carriage which had +brought Marius to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire on the evening of the +6th of June. + +The coachman declared that, on the 6th of June, in obedience to the +commands of a police-agent, he had stood from three o'clock in the +afternoon until nightfall on the Quai des Champs-Elysees, above the +outlet of the Grand Sewer; that, towards nine o'clock in the evening, +the grating of the sewer, which abuts on the bank of the river, had +opened; that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders +another man, who seemed to be dead; that the agent, who was on the watch +at that point, had arrested the living man and had seized the dead man; +that, at the order of the police-agent, he, the coachman, had taken "all +those folks" into his carriage; that they had first driven to the Rue +des Filles-du-Calvaire; that they had there deposited the dead man; that +the dead man was Monsieur Marius, and that he, the coachman, recognized +him perfectly, although he was alive "this time"; that afterwards, they +had entered the vehicle again, that he had whipped up his horses; a few +paces from the gate of the Archives, they had called to him to halt; +that there, in the street, they had paid him and left him, and that the +police-agent had led the other man away; that he knew nothing more; that +the night had been very dark. + +Marius, as we have said, recalled nothing. He only remembered that he +had been seized from behind by an energetic hand at the moment when he +was falling backwards into the barricade; then, everything vanished so +far as he was concerned. + +He had only regained consciousness at M. Gillenormand's. + +He was lost in conjectures. + +He could not doubt his own identity. Still, how had it come to pass +that, having fallen in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he had been picked +up by the police-agent on the banks of the Seine, near the Pont des +Invalides? + +Some one had carried him from the Quartier des Halles to the +Champs-Elysees. And how? Through the sewer. Unheard-of devotion! + +Some one? Who? + +This was the man for whom Marius was searching. + +Of this man, who was his savior, nothing; not a trace; not the faintest +indication. + +Marius, although forced to preserve great reserve, in that direction, +pushed his inquiries as far as the prefecture of police. There, no more +than elsewhere, did the information obtained lead to any enlightenment. + +The prefecture knew less about the matter than did the hackney-coachman. +They had no knowledge of any arrest having been made on the 6th of June +at the mouth of the Grand Sewer. + +No report of any agent had been received there upon this matter, which +was regarded at the prefecture as a fable. The invention of this fable +was attributed to the coachman. + +A coachman who wants a gratuity is capable of anything, even of +imagination. The fact was assured, nevertheless, and Marius could not +doubt it, unless he doubted his own identity, as we have just said. + +Everything about this singular enigma was inexplicable. + +What had become of that man, that mysterious man, whom the coachman had +seen emerge from the grating of the Grand Sewer bearing upon his back +the unconscious Marius, and whom the police-agent on the watch had +arrested in the very act of rescuing an insurgent? What had become of +the agent himself? + +Why had this agent preserved silence? Had the man succeeded in making +his escape? Had he bribed the agent? Why did this man give no sign of +life to Marius, who owed everything to him? His disinterestedness was no +less tremendous than his devotion. Why had not that man appeared again? +Perhaps he was above compensation, but no one is above gratitude. Was he +dead? Who was the man? What sort of a face had he? No one could tell him +this. + +The coachman answered: "The night was very dark." Basque and Nicolette, +all in a flutter, had looked only at their young master all covered with +blood. + +The porter, whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival of Marius, had +been the only one to take note of the man in question, and this is the +description that he gave: + +"That man was terrible." + +Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been +brought back to his grandfather preserved, in the hope that it would +prove of service in his researches. + +On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had been torn in a +singular way. A piece was missing. + +One evening, Marius was speaking in the presence of Cosette and Jean +Valjean of the whole of that singular adventure, of the innumerable +inquiries which he had made, and of the fruitlessness of his efforts. +The cold countenance of "Monsieur Fauchelevent" angered him. + +He exclaimed, with a vivacity which had something of wrath in it: + +"Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime. Do you know what +he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself +into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the +sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He +must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful +subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the +cess-pool,--more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his +back! And with what object? With the sole object of saving the corpse. +And that corpse I was. He said to himself: 'There may still be a +glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that +miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! +And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from +the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all +this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent. +What was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette's six hundred thousand +francs were mine . . ." + +"They are yours," interrupted Jean Valjean. + +"Well," resumed Marius, "I would give them all to find that man once +more." + +Jean Valjean remained silent. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833 + +The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed +night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of +Marius and Cosette. + +The day had been adorable. + +It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather, a fairy +spectacle, with a confusion of cherubim and Cupids over the heads of the +bridal pair, a marriage worthy to form the subject of a painting to be +placed over a door; but it had been sweet and smiling. + +The manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it is to-day. France +had not yet borrowed from England that supreme delicacy of carrying off +one's wife, of fleeing, on coming out of church, of hiding oneself with +shame from one's happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with +the delights of the Song of Songs. People had not yet grasped to the +full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency of jolting their paradise +in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of +taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, +in a commonplace chamber, at such a night, the most sacred of +the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the +conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of the inn. + +In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now +living, the mayor and his scarf, the priest and his chasuble, the law +and God no longer suffice; they must be eked out by the Postilion de +Lonjumeau; a blue waistcoat turned up with red, and with bell buttons, +a plaque like a vantbrace, knee-breeches of green leather, oaths to the +Norman horses with their tails knotted up, false galloons, varnished +hat, long powdered locks, an enormous whip and tall boots. France does +not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility, +and raining down on the post-chaise of the bridal pair a hail storm +of slippers trodden down at heel and of worn-out shoes, in memory of +Churchill, afterwards Marlborough, or Malbrouck, who was assailed on +his wedding-day by the wrath of an aunt which brought him good luck. +Old shoes and slippers do not, as yet, form a part of our nuptial +celebrations; but patience, as good taste continues to spread, we shall +come to that. + +In 1833, a hundred years ago, marriage was not conducted at a full trot. + +Strange to say, at that epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was +a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not +spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be +honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a +good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies whence +a family is destined to spring, should begin at home, and that the +household should thenceforth have its nuptial chamber as its witness. + +And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes. + +The marriage took place, therefore, in accordance with this now +superannuated fashion, at M. Gillenormand's house. + +Natural and commonplace as this matter of marrying is, the banns to +publish, the papers to be drawn up, the mayoralty, and the church +produce some complication. They could not get ready before the 16th of +February. + +Now, we note this detail, for the pure satisfaction of being exact, it +chanced that the 16th fell on Shrove Tuesday. Hesitations, scruples, +particularly on the part of Aunt Gillenormand. + +"Shrove Tuesday!" exclaimed the grandfather, "so much the better. There +is a proverb: + + "'Mariage un Mardi gras + N'aura point enfants ingrats.'[66] + + +Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th! Do you want to delay, Marius?" + +"No, certainly not!" replied the lover. + +"Let us marry, then," cried the grandfather. + +Accordingly, the marriage took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the +public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky +a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even +when the rest of creation is under an umbrella. + +On the preceding evening, Jean Valjean handed to Marius, in the presence +of M. Gillenormand, the five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. + +As the marriage was taking place under the regime of community of +property, the papers had been simple. + +Henceforth, Toussaint was of no use to Jean Valjean; Cosette inherited +her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. + +As for Jean Valjean, a beautiful chamber in the Gillenormand house had +been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had said to him in such +an irresistible manner: "Father, I entreat you," that she had almost +persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. + +A few days before that fixed on for the marriage, an accident happened +to Jean Valjean; he crushed the thumb of his right hand. This was not a +serious matter; and he had not allowed any one to trouble himself +about it, nor to dress it, nor even to see his hurt, not even Cosette. +Nevertheless, this had forced him to swathe his hand in a linen bandage, +and to carry his arm in a sling, and had prevented his signing. M. +Gillenormand, in his capacity of Cosette's supervising-guardian, had +supplied his place. + +We will not conduct the reader either to the mayor's office or to the +church. One does not follow a pair of lovers to that extent, and one is +accustomed to turn one's back on the drama as soon as it puts a wedding +nosegay in its buttonhole. We will confine ourselves to noting an +incident which, though unnoticed by the wedding party, marked the +transit from the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire to the church of Saint-Paul. + +At that epoch, the northern extremity of the Rue Saint-Louis was in +process of repaving. It was barred off, beginning with the Rue du +Pare-Royal. It was impossible for the wedding carriages to go directly +to Saint-Paul. They were obliged to alter their course, and the simplest +way was to turn through the boulevard. One of the invited guests +observed that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that there would be a jam +of vehicles.--"Why?" asked M. Gillenormand--"Because of the +maskers."--"Capital," said the grandfather, "let us go that way. These +young folks are on the way to be married; they are about to enter the +serious part of life. This will prepare them for seeing a bit of the +masquerade." + +They went by way of the boulevard. The first wedding coach held Cosette +and Aunt Gillenormand, M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean. Marius, still +separated from his betrothed according to usage, did not come until +the second. The nuptial train, on emerging from the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire, became entangled in a long procession of vehicles +which formed an endless chain from the Madeleine to the Bastille, and +from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Maskers abounded on the boulevard. +In spite of the fact that it was raining at intervals, Merry-Andrew, +Pantaloon and Clown persisted. In the good humor of that winter of 1833, +Paris had disguised itself as Venice. Such Shrove Tuesdays are no +longer to be seen now-a-days. Everything which exists being a scattered +Carnival, there is no longer any Carnival. + +The sidewalks were overflowing with pedestrians and the windows with +curious spectators. The terraces which crown the peristyles of the +theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared +at that procession--peculiar to Shrove Tuesday as to Longchamps,--of +vehicles of every description, citadines, tapissieres, carioles, +cabriolets marching in order, rigorously riveted to each other by the +police regulations, and locked into rails, as it were. Any one in +these vehicles is at once a spectator and a spectacle. Police-sergeants +maintained, on the sides of the boulevard, these two interminable +parallel files, moving in contrary directions, and saw to it that +nothing interfered with that double current, those two brooks of +carriages, flowing, the one down stream, the other up stream, the +one towards the Chaussee d'Antin, the other towards the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine. The carriages of the peers of France and of the +Ambassadors, emblazoned with coats of arms, held the middle of the way, +going and coming freely. Certain joyous and magnificent trains, notably +that of the Boeuf Gras, had the same privilege. In this gayety of Paris, +England cracked her whip; Lord Seymour's post-chaise, harassed by a +nickname from the populace, passed with great noise. + +In the double file, along which the municipal guards galloped like +sheep-dogs, honest family coaches, loaded down with great-aunts and +grandmothers, displayed at their doors fresh groups of children in +disguise, Clowns of seven years of age, Columbines of six, ravishing +little creatures, who felt that they formed an official part of the +public mirth, who were imbued with the dignity of their harlequinade, +and who possessed the gravity of functionaries. + +From time to time, a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of +vehicles; one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot +was disentangled; one carriage delayed sufficed to paralyze the whole +line. Then they set out again on the march. + +The wedding carriages were in the file proceeding towards the Bastille, +and skirting the right side of the Boulevard. At the top of the +Pont-aux-Choux, there was a stoppage. Nearly at the same moment, the +other file, which was proceeding towards the Madeleine, halted also. At +that point of the file there was a carriage-load of maskers. + +These carriages, or to speak more correctly, these wagon-loads of +maskers are very familiar to Parisians. If they were missing on a Shrove +Tuesday, or at the Mid-Lent, it would be taken in bad part, and people +would say: "There's something behind that. Probably the ministry +is about to undergo a change." A pile of Cassandras, Harlequins and +Columbines, jolted along high above the passers-by, all possible +grotesquenesses, from the Turk to the savage, Hercules supporting +Marquises, fishwives who would have made Rabelais stop up his ears just +as the Maenads made Aristophanes drop his eyes, tow wigs, pink tights, +dandified hats, spectacles of a grimacer, three-cornered hats of Janot +tormented with a butterfly, shouts directed at pedestrians, fists on +hips, bold attitudes, bare shoulders, immodesty unchained; a chaos of +shamelessness driven by a coachman crowned with flowers; this is what +that institution was like. + +Greece stood in need of the chariot of Thespis, France stands in need of +the hackney-coach of Vade. + +Everything can be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia, that grimace of +antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration after exaggeration, in Shrove +Tuesday; and the Bacchanal, formerly crowned with sprays of vine leaves +and grapes, inundated with sunshine, displaying her marble breast in a +divine semi-nudity, having at the present day lost her shape under +the soaked rags of the North, has finally come to be called the +Jack-pudding. + +The tradition of carriage-loads of maskers runs back to the most ancient +days of the monarchy. The accounts of Louis XI. allot to the bailiff of +the palace "twenty sous, Tournois, for three coaches of mascarades +in the cross-roads." In our day, these noisy heaps of creatures are +accustomed to have themselves driven in some ancient cuckoo carriage, +whose imperial they load down, or they overwhelm a hired landau, with +its top thrown back, with their tumultuous groups. Twenty of them ride +in a carriage intended for six. They cling to the seats, to the rumble, +on the cheeks of the hood, on the shafts. They even bestride the +carriage lamps. They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a +knot, and their legs hanging. The women sit on the men's laps. Far +away, above the throng of heads, their wild pyramid is visible. These +carriage-loads form mountains of mirth in the midst of the rout. Colle, +Panard and Piron flow from it, enriched with slang. This carriage which +has become colossal through its freight, has an air of conquest. Uproar +reigns in front, tumult behind. People vociferate, shout, howl, there +they break forth and writhe with enjoyment; gayety roars; sarcasm flames +forth, joviality is flaunted like a red flag; two jades there drag farce +blossomed forth into an apotheosis; it is the triumphal car of laughter. + +A laughter that is too cynical to be frank. In truth, this laughter is +suspicious. This laughter has a mission. It is charged with proving the +Carnival to the Parisians. + +These fishwife vehicles, in which one feels one knows not what shadows, +set the philosopher to thinking. There is government therein. There one +lays one's finger on a mysterious affinity between public men and public +women. + +It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total +of gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobrium the people should +be enticed, that the system of spying, and serving as caryatids to +prostitution should amuse the rabble when it confronts them, that the +crowd loves to behold that monstrous living pile of tinsel rags, half +dung, half light, roll by on four wheels howling and laughing, that they +should clap their hands at this glory composed of all shames, that there +would be no festival for the populace, did not the police promenade in +their midst these sorts of twenty-headed hydras of joy. But what can be +done about it? These be-ribboned and be-flowered tumbrils of mire are +insulted and pardoned by the laughter of the public. The laughter of all +is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals +disaggregate the people and convert them into the populace. And +populaces, like tyrants, require buffoons. The King has Roquelaure, +the populace has the Merry-Andrew. Paris is a great, mad city on every +occasion that it is a great sublime city. There the Carnival forms +part of politics. Paris,--let us confess it--willingly allows infamy to +furnish it with comedy. She only demands of her masters--when she has +masters--one thing: "Paint me the mud." Rome was of the same mind. She +loved Nero. Nero was a titanic lighterman. + +Chance ordained, as we have just said, that one of these shapeless +clusters of masked men and women, dragged about on a vast calash, should +halt on the left of the boulevard, while the wedding train halted on the +right. The carriage-load of masks caught sight of the wedding carriage +containing the bridal party opposite them on the other side of the +boulevard. + +"Hullo!" said a masker, "here's a wedding." + +"A sham wedding," retorted another. "We are the genuine article." + +And, being too far off to accost the wedding party, and fearing also, +the rebuke of the police, the two maskers turned their eyes elsewhere. + +At the end of another minute, the carriage-load of maskers had their +hands full, the multitude set to yelling, which is the crowd's caress +to masquerades; and the two maskers who had just spoken had to face the +throng with their comrades, and did not find the entire repertory of +projectiles of the fishmarkets too extensive to retort to the enormous +verbal attacks of the populace. A frightful exchange of metaphors took +place between the maskers and the crowd. + +In the meanwhile, two other maskers in the same carriage, a Spaniard +with an enormous nose, an elderly air, and huge black moustache, and a +gaunt fishwife, who was quite a young girl, masked with a loup,[67] had +also noticed the wedding, and while their companions and the passers-by +were exchanging insults, they had held a dialogue in a low voice. + +Their aside was covered by the tumult and was lost in it. The gusts of +rain had drenched the front of the vehicle, which was wide open; the +breezes of February are not warm; as the fishwife, clad in a low-necked +gown, replied to the Spaniard, she shivered, laughed and coughed. + +Here is their dialogue: + +"Say, now." + +"What, daddy?" + +"Do you see that old cove?" + +"What old cove?" + +"Yonder, in the first wedding-cart, on our side." + +"The one with his arm hung up in a black cravat?" + +"Yes." + +"Well?" + +"I'm sure that I know him." + +"Ah!" + +"I'm willing that they should cut my throat, and I'm ready to swear that +I never said either you, thou, or I, in my life, if I don't know that +Parisian." [pantinois.] + +"Paris in Pantin to-day." + +"Can you see the bride if you stoop down?" + +"No." + +"And the bridegroom?" + +"There's no bridegroom in that trap." + +"Bah!" + +"Unless it's the old fellow." + +"Try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low." + +"I can't." + +"Never mind, that old cove who has something the matter with his paw I +know, and that I'm positive." + +"And what good does it do to know him?" + +"No one can tell. Sometimes it does!" + +"I don't care a hang for old fellows, that I don't!" + +"I know him." + +"Know him, if you want to." + +"How the devil does he come to be one of the wedding party?" + +"We are in it, too." + +"Where does that wedding come from?" + +"How should I know?" + +"Listen." + +"Well, what?" + +"There's one thing you ought to do." + +"What's that?" + +"Get off of our trap and spin that wedding." + +"What for?" + +"To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, +trot, my girl, your legs are young." + +"I can't quit the vehicle." + +"Why not?" + +"I'm hired." + +"Ah, the devil!" + +"I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture." + +"That's true." + +"If I leave the cart, the first inspector who gets his eye on me will +arrest me. You know that well enough." + +"Yes, I do." + +"I'm bought by the government for to-day." + +"All the same, that old fellow bothers me." + +"Do the old fellows bother you? But you're not a young girl." + +"He's in the first carriage." + +"Well?" + +"In the bride's trap." + +"What then?" + +"So he is the father." + +"What concern is that of mine?" + +"I tell you that he's the father." + +"As if he were the only father." + +"Listen." + +"What?" + +"I can't go out otherwise than masked. Here I'm concealed, no one knows +that I'm here. But to-morrow, there will be no more maskers. It's Ash +Wednesday. I run the risk of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my +hole. But you are free." + +"Not particularly." + +"More than I am, at any rate." + +"Well, what of that?" + +"You must try to find out where that wedding-party went to." + +"Where it went?" + +"Yes." + +"I know." + +"Where is it going then?" + +"To the Cadran-Bleu." + +"In the first place, it's not in that direction." + +"Well! to la Rapee." + +"Or elsewhere." + +"It's free. Wedding-parties are at liberty." + +"That's not the point at all. I tell you that you must try to learn for +me what that wedding is, who that old cove belongs to, and where that +wedding pair lives." + +"I like that! that would be queer. It's so easy to find out a +wedding-party that passed through the street on a Shrove Tuesday, a week +afterwards. A pin in a hay-mow! It ain't possible!" + +"That don't matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma." + +The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in +opposite directions, and the carriage of the maskers lost sight of the +"trap" of the bride. + + + + +CHAPTER II--JEAN VALJEAN STILL WEARS HIS ARM IN A SLING + +To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be +elections for this in heaven; we are all candidates, unknown to +ourselves; the angels vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. + +Cosette, both at the mayor's office and at church, was dazzling and +touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had dressed her. + +Cosette wore over a petticoat of white taffeta, her robe of Binche +guipure, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, a wreath +of orange flowers; all this was white, and, from the midst of that +whiteness she beamed forth. It was an exquisite candor expanding and +becoming transfigured in the light. One would have pronounced her a +virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. + +Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed; here and there, beneath +the thick curls, pale lines--the scars of the barricade--were visible. + +The grandfather, haughty, with head held high, amalgamating more than +ever in his toilet and his manners all the elegances of the epoch of +Barras, escorted Cosette. He took the place of Jean Valjean, who, on +account of his arm being still in a sling, could not give his hand to +the bride. + +Jean Valjean, dressed in black, followed them with a smile. + +"Monsieur Fauchelevent," said the grandfather to him, "this is a fine +day. I vote for the end of afflictions and sorrows. Henceforth, there +must be no sadness anywhere. Pardieu, I decree joy! Evil has no right to +exist. That there should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace +to the azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man, who is good at +bottom. All human miseries have for their capital and central government +hell, otherwise, known as the Devil's Tuileries. Good, here I am +uttering demagogical words! As far as I am concerned, I have no longer +any political opinions; let all me be rich, that is to say, mirthful, +and I confine myself to that." + +When, at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after having pronounced +before the mayor and before the priest all possible "yesses," after +having signed the registers at the municipality and at the sacristy, +after having exchanged their rings, after having knelt side by side +under the pall of white moire in the smoke of the censer, they arrived, +hand in hand, admired and envied by all, Marius in black, she in white, +preceded by the suisse, with the epaulets of a colonel, tapping the +pavement with his halberd, between two rows of astonished spectators, at +the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown wide open, +ready to enter their carriage again, and all being finished, Cosette +still could not believe that it was real. She looked at Marius, she +looked at the crowd, she looked at the sky: it seemed as though she +feared that she should wake up from her dream. Her amazed and uneasy air +added something indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the +same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette; M. Gillenormand +and Jean Valjean sat opposite them; Aunt Gillenormand had withdrawn one +degree, and was in the second vehicle. + +"My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron +and Madame la Baronne, with an income of thirty thousand livres." + +And Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear with an angelic +whisper: "So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou." + +These two creatures were resplendent. They had reached that irrevocable +and irrecoverable moment, at the dazzling intersection of all youth and +all joy. They realized the verses of Jean Prouvaire; they were forty +years old taken together. It was marriage sublimated; these two children +were two lilies. They did not see each other, they did not contemplate +each other. Cosette perceived Marius in the midst of a glory; Marius +perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that altar, and in that glory, the +two apotheoses mingling, in the background, one knows not how, behind a +cloud for Cosette, in a flash for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the +real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow. +All the torments through which they had passed came back to them in +intoxication. It seemed to them that their sorrows, their sleepless +nights, their tears, their anguish, their terrors, their despair, +converted into caresses and rays of light, rendered still more charming +the charming hour which was approaching; and that their griefs were but +so many handmaidens who were preparing the toilet of joy. How good it is +to have suffered! Their unhappiness formed a halo round their happiness. +The long agony of their love was terminating in an ascension. + +It was the same enchantment in two souls, tinged with voluptuousness +in Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in low +tones: "We will go back to take a look at our little garden in the Rue +Plumet." The folds of Cosette's gown lay across Marius. + +Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One +possesses and one supposes. One still has time before one to divine. The +emotion on that day, of being at mid-day and of dreaming of midnight +is indescribable. The delights of these two hearts overflowed upon the +crowd, and inspired the passers-by with cheerfulness. + +People halted in the Rue Saint-Antoine, in front of Saint-Paul, to gaze +through the windows of the carriage at the orange-flowers quivering on +Cosette's head. + +Then they returned home to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Marius, +triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette the staircase +up which he had been borne in a dying condition. The poor, who had +trooped to the door, and who shared their purses, blessed them. There +were flowers everywhere. The house was no less fragrant than the church; +after the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices carolling in +the infinite; they had God in their hearts; destiny appeared to them +like a ceiling of stars; above their heads they beheld the light of a +rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's +charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible +through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius' +glance, blushed to her very hair. + +Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenormand family had +been invited; they pressed about Cosette. Each one vied with the rest in +saluting her as Madame la Baronne. + +The officer, Theodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had come from +Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to be present at the +wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette did not recognize him. + +He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him +handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than of any other +woman. + +"How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer!" said +Father Gillenormand, to himself. + +Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean. She was in unison +with Father Gillenormand; while he erected joy into aphorisms and +maxims, she exhaled goodness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all +the world should be happy. + +She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean, inflections of +voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him +with her smile. + +A banquet had been spread in the dining-room. + +Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of +a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted by the happy. They do +not consent to be black. The night, yes; the shadows, no. If there is no +sun, one must be made. + +The dining-room was full of gay things. In the centre, above the white +and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre with flat plates, with all +sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the +candles; around the chandelier, girandoles, on the walls, sconces with +triple and quintuple branches; mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate, +porcelain, faience, pottery, gold and silversmith's work, all was +sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled +in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there was a +flower. + +In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartettes +by Haydn. + +Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room, behind +the door, the leaf of which folded back upon him in such a manner as to +nearly conceal him. A few moments before they sat down to table, Cosette +came, as though inspired by a sudden whim, and made him a deep courtesy, +spreading out her bridal toilet with both hands, and with a tenderly +roguish glance, she asked him: + +"Father, are you satisfied?" + +"Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am content!" + +"Well, then, laugh." + +Jean Valjean began to laugh. + +A few moments later, Basque announced that dinner was served. + +The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand with Cosette on his arm, entered +the dining-room, and arranged themselves in the proper order around the +table. + +Two large arm-chairs figured on the right and left of the bride, the +first for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean. M. Gillenormand +took his seat. The other arm-chair remained empty. + +They looked about for M. Fauchelevent. + +He was no longer there. + +M. Gillenormand questioned Basque. + +"Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?" + +"Sir," replied Basque, "I do, precisely. M. Fauchelevent told me to say +to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was paining him +somewhat, and that he could not dine with Monsieur le Baron and Madame +la Baronne. That he begged to be excused, that he would come to-morrow. +He has just taken his departure." + +That empty arm-chair chilled the effusion of the wedding feast for a +moment. But, if M. Fauchelevent was absent, M. Gillenormand was present, +and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had +done well to retire early, if he were suffering, but that it was only a +slight ailment. This declaration sufficed. Moreover, what is an obscure +corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were passing +through one of those egotistical and blessed moments when no other +faculty is left to a person than that of receiving happiness. And then, +an idea occurred to M. Gillenormand.--"Pardieu, this armchair is empty. +Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a +right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. +Fortunatus beside Fortunata."--Applause from the whole table. Marius +took Jean Valjean's place beside Cosette, and things fell out so that +Cosette, who had, at first, been saddened by Jean Valjean's absence, +ended by being satisfied with it. From the moment when Marius took his +place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God +himself. She set her sweet little foot, shod in white satin, on Marius' +foot. + +The arm-chair being occupied, M. Fauchelevent was obliterated; and +nothing was lacking. + +And, five minutes afterward, the whole table from one end to the other, +was laughing with all the animation of forgetfulness. + +At dessert, M. Gillenormand, rising to his feet, with a glass of +champagne in his hand--only half full so that the palsy of his eighty +years might not cause an overflow,--proposed the health of the married +pair. + +"You shall not escape two sermons," he exclaimed. "This morning you +had one from the cure, this evening you shall have one from your +grandfather. Listen to me; I will give you a bit of advice: Adore each +other. I do not make a pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, +be happy. In all creation, only the turtle-doves are wise. Philosophers +say: 'Moderate your joys.' I say: 'Give rein to your joys.' Be as +much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The +philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their +philosophy down their gullets again. Can there be too many perfumes, +too many open rose-buds, too many nightingales singing, too many green +leaves, too much aurora in life? can people love each other too much? +can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too +pretty! Have a care, Nemorin, thou art too handsome! Fine stupidity, +in sooth! Can people enchant each other too much, cajole each other too +much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? +Moderate your joys. Ah, indeed! Down with the philosophers! Wisdom +consists in jubilation. Make merry, let us make merry. Are we happy +because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy +diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harley de Sancy, or +because it weighs six hundred carats? I know nothing about it, life is +full of such problems; the important point is to possess the Sancy and +happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling and quirking. Let us obey +the sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love, says +woman. Ah! ah! behold omnipotence--women. Ask that demagogue of a Marius +if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a Cosette. And of his +own free will, too, the coward! Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps +his place but woman reigns. I am no longer Royalist except towards that +royalty. What is Adam? The kingdom of Eve. No '89 for Eve. There has +been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lys, there has been the +imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there has been the sceptre of +Charlemagne, which was of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the +Great, which was of gold,--the revolution twisted them between its thumb +and forefinger, ha'penny straws; it is done with, it is broken, it lies +on the earth, there is no longer any sceptre, but make me a revolution +against that little embroidered handkerchief, which smells of patchouli! +I should like to see you do it. Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a +gewgaw. Ah! you are the nineteenth century? Well, what then? And we +have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you have effected +much change in the universe, because your trip-gallant is called the +cholera-morbus, and because your pourree is called the cachuca. In fact, +the women must always be loved. I defy you to escape from that. These +friends are our angels. Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from +which I defy you to escape; and, for my own part, I should be only +too happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the +coquette of the abyss, the Celimene of the ocean, rise in the infinite, +calming all here below? The ocean is a rough Alcestis. Well, grumble +as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast +submits. We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to +the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene, a planet rises; flat on +your face! Marius was fighting six months ago; to-day he is married. +That is well. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist +boldly for each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the +same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of +felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a nest for life. +Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle when one is young! +Don't imagine that you have invented that. I, too, have had my dream, I, +too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight +soul. Love is a child six thousand years old. Love has the right to a +long white beard. Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid. For sixty +centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The +devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; man, who is still more +cunning, took to loving woman. In this way he does more good than +the devil does him harm. This craft was discovered in the days of +the terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is +perfectly new. Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to +become Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with each +other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun +for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette. Cosette, let +your fine weather be the smile of your husband; Marius, let your rain +be your wife's tears. And let it never rain in your household. You have +filched the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great +prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not squander it, +adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest. Believe what I +say to you. It is good sense. And good sense cannot lie. Be a religion +to each other. Each man has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte! +the best way to adore God is to love one's wife. I love thee! that's +my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places +sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventre-saint-gris! +I don't belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. +This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! +I am old, they say; it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to +be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. +Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,--that intoxicates +me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is +impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this: +to idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dove-like, to be dainty, +to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one's image in +one's little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself; that +is the aim of life. There, let not that displease you which we used to +think in our day, when we were young folks. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what +charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces +and what lovely lasses! I committed my ravages among them. Then love +each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what +use there would be in having any springtime; and for my own part, I +should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he +shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers, +the birds, and the pretty maidens. My children, receive an old man's +blessing." + +The evening was gay, lively and agreeable. The grandfather's sovereign +good humor gave the key-note to the whole feast, and each person +regulated his conduct on that almost centenarian cordiality. They danced +a little, they laughed a great deal; it was an amiable wedding. Goodman +Days of Yore might have been invited to it. However, he was present in +the person of Father Gillenormand. + +There was a tumult, then silence. + +The married pair disappeared. + +A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a temple. + +Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel +with his finger on his lips. + +The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the +celebration of love takes place. + +There should be flashes of light athwart such houses. The joy which +they contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in +brilliancy, and vaguely illuminate the gloom. It is impossible that this +sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to +the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man +and the woman takes place; the being one, the being triple, the being +final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two souls into +one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest; +the ravished virgin is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. +Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal +enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it +were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming +visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the +forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, +bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around the luminous house, +satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin +wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of +human bliss upon their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the +wedded pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone, +were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of +wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels. +That dark little chamber has all heaven for its ceiling. When two +mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible +that there should not be, above that ineffable kiss, a quivering +throughout the immense mystery of stars. + +These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these +joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. + +To love, or to have loved,--this suffices. Demand nothing more. There +is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a +fulfilment. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE INSEPARABLE + +What had become of Jean Valjean? + +Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette's graceful command, when +no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained +the antechamber unperceived. This was the very room which, eight months +before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing +back the grandson to the grandfather. The old wainscoting was garlanded +with foliage and flowers; the musicians were seated on the sofa on which +they had laid Marius down. Basque, in a black coat, knee-breeches, white +stockings and white gloves, was arranging roses round all of the dishes +that were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling, +charged Basque to explain his absence, and went away. + +The long windows of the dining-room opened on the street. Jean Valjean +stood for several minutes, erect and motionless in the darkness, beneath +those radiant windows. He listened. The confused sounds of the banquet +reached his ear. He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, +the violins, the clatter of the plates, the bursts of laughter, and +through all that merry uproar, he distinguished Cosette's sweet and +joyous voice. + +He quitted the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and returned to the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. + +In order to return thither, he took the Rue Saint-Louis, the Rue +Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs-Manteaux; it was a little +longer, but it was the road through which, for the last three months, +he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the Rue de +l'Homme Arme to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, in order to avoid the +obstructions and the mud in the Rue Vielle-du-Temple. + +This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him all +possibility of any other itinerary. + +Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and mounted +the stairs. The apartment was empty. Even Toussaint was no longer there. +Jean Valjean's step made more noise than usual in the chambers. All the +cupboards stood open. He penetrated to Cosette's bedroom. There were no +sheets on the bed. The pillow, covered with ticking, and without a case +or lace, was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress, +whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again. +All the little feminine objects which Cosette was attached to had been +carried away; nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four +walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in like manner. One bed only was +made up, and seemed to be waiting some one, and this was Jean Valjean's +bed. + +Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors, and +went and came from one room to another. + +Then he sought his own chamber once more, and set his candle on a table. + +He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right hand as +though it did not hurt him. + +He approached his bed, and his eyes rested, was it by chance? was it +intentionally? on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, on +the little portmanteau which never left him. On his arrival in the Rue +de l'Homme Arme, on the 4th of June, he had deposited it on a round +table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of +vivacity, took a key from his pocket, and opened the valise. + +From it he slowly drew forth the garments in which, ten years before, +Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the black +fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost +have worn still, so tiny were her feet, then the fustian bodice, which +was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with pockets, +then the woollen stockings. These stockings, which still preserved the +graceful form of a tiny leg, were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. +All this was black of hue. It was he who had brought those garments to +Montfermeil for her. As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on +the bed. He fell to thinking. He called up memories. It was in winter, +in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in +rags, her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes. He, Jean +Valjean, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself in these +mourning habiliments. The mother must have felt pleased in her grave, to +see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and, above all, to see that +she was properly clothed, and that she was warm. He thought of that +forest of Montfermeil; they had traversed it together, Cosette and he; +he thought of what the weather had been, of the leafless trees, of the +wood destitute of birds, of the sunless sky; it mattered not, it was +charming. He arranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fichu next to +the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, +one after the other. She was no taller than that, she had her big doll +in her arms, she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of that apron, she +had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but +him. + +Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed, that stoical old +heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cosette's garments, +and if any one had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have +heard frightful sobs. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE IMMORTAL LIVER [68] + +The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so +many phases, began once more. + +Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have +we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, +and struggling desperately against it! + +Unheard-of conflict! At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments +the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, +mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him! How many times had the +truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled +to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had +that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, +dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind! How many times +had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning +against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his +conscience, again overthrown by it! How many times, after an equivoque, +after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard +his irritated conscience cry in his ear: "A trip! you wretch!" How many +times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, +under the evidence of duty! Resistance to God. Funereal sweats. What +secret wounds which he alone felt bleed! What excoriations in his +lamentable existence! How many times he had risen bleeding, bruised, +broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! +and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And, after having +dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with red-hot pincers, it had +said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil: +"Now, go in peace!" + +But on emerging from so melancholy a conflict, what a lugubrious peace, +alas! + +Nevertheless, that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through +his final combat. + +A heart-rending question presented itself. + +Predestinations are not all direct; they do not open out in a straight +avenue before the predestined man; they have blind courts, impassable +alleys, obscure turns, disturbing crossroads offering the choice of many +ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of +these crossroads. + +He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that +gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had +happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out +before him, the one tempting, the other alarming. + +Which was he to take? + +He was counselled to the one which alarmed him by that mysterious index +finger which we all perceive whenever we fix our eyes on the darkness. + +Once more, Jean Valjean had the choice between the terrible port and the +smiling ambush. + +Is it then true? the soul may recover; but not fate. Frightful thing! an +incurable destiny! + +This is the problem which presented itself to him: + +In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness +of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was +he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, +and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the +sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing +his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his +own breast. + +Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even +riches. And this was his doing. + +But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that +it existed, now that it was there? Should he force himself on this +happiness? Should he treat it as belonging to him? No doubt, Cosette did +belong to another; but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all +that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, half seen but +respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he, without saying a +word, bring his past to that future? Should he present himself there, +as though he had a right, and should he seat himself, veiled, at that +luminous fireside? Should he take those innocent hands into his tragic +hands, with a smile? Should he place upon the peaceful fender of the +Gillenormand drawing-room those feet of his, which dragged behind them +the disgraceful shadow of the law? Should he enter into participation in +the fair fortunes of Cosette and Marius? Should he render the obscurity +on his brow and the cloud upon theirs still more dense? Should he +place his catastrophe as a third associate in their felicity? Should he +continue to hold his peace? In a word, should he be the sinister mute of +destiny beside these two happy beings? + +We must have become habituated to fatality and to encounters with it, in +order to have the daring to raise our eyes when certain questions appear +to us in all their horrible nakedness. Good or evil stands behind +this severe interrogation point. What are you going to do? demands the +sphinx. + +This habit of trial Jean Valjean possessed. He gazed intently at the +sphinx. + +He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. + +Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwreck. What +was he to do? To cling fast to it, or to let go his hold? + +If he clung to it, he should emerge from disaster, he should ascend +again into the sunlight, he should let the bitter water drip from his +garments and his hair, he was saved, he should live. + +And if he let go his hold? + +Then the abyss. + +Thus he took sad council with his thoughts. Or, to speak more correctly, +he fought; he kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now +against his conviction. + +Happily for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep. That relieved +him, possibly. But the beginning was savage. A tempest, more furious +than the one which had formerly driven him to Arras, broke loose within +him. The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared +them and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man +writhed. + +He felt that he had been stopped short. + +Alas! in this fight to the death between our egotism and our duty, when +we thus retreat step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, +furious, exasperated at having to yield, disputing the ground, hoping +for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister +resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear! + +To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle! + +The invisible inexorable, what an obsession! + +Then, one is never done with conscience. Make your choice, Brutus; make +your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into +that well the labor of one's whole life, one flings in one's fortune, +one flings in one's riches, one flings in one's success, one flings in +one's liberty or fatherland, one flings in one's well-being, one flings +in one's repose, one flings in one's joy! More! more! more! Empty the +vase! tip the urn! One must finish by flinging in one's heart. + +Somewhere in the fog of the ancient hells, there is a tun like that. + +Is not one pardonable, if one at last refuses! Can the inexhaustible +have any right? Are not chains which are endless above human strength? +Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying: "It is enough!" + +The obedience of matter is limited by friction; is there no limit to the +obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion is impossible, can perpetual +self-sacrifice be exacted? + +The first step is nothing, it is the last which is difficult. What was +the Champmathieu affair in comparison with Cosette's marriage and of +that which it entailed? What is a re-entrance into the galleys, compared +to entrance into the void? + +Oh, first step that must be descended, how sombre art thou! Oh, second +step, how black art thou! + +How could he refrain from turning aside his head this time? + +Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which +consecrates. One can consent to it for the first hour; one seats oneself +on the throne of glowing iron, one places on one's head the crown of hot +iron, one accepts the globe of red hot iron, one takes the sceptre of +red hot iron, but the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and +comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and when one +abdicates from suffering? + +At length, Jean Valjean entered into the peace of exhaustion. + +He weighed, he reflected, he considered the alternatives, the mysterious +balance of light and darkness. + +Should he impose his galleys on those two dazzling children, or should +he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay +the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other that of himself. + +At what solution should he arrive? What decision did he come to? + +What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response +to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to +open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? +Among all the unfathomable precipices which surrounded him, which was +his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulfs did he +nod his head? + +His dizzy revery lasted all night long. + +He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over +that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, +alas! with clenched fists, with arms outspread at right angles, like a +man crucified who has been un-nailed, and flung face down on the earth. +There he remained for twelve hours, the twelve long hours of a long +winter's night, ice-cold, without once raising his head, and without +uttering a word. He was as motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts +wallowed on the earth and soared, now like the hydra, now like the +eagle. Any one to behold him thus motionless would have pronounced him +dead; all at once he shuddered convulsively, and his mouth, glued to +Cosette's garments, kissed them; then it could be seen that he was +alive. + +Who could see? Since Jean Valjean was alone, and there was no one there. + +The One who is in the shadows. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP + +[Illustration: Last Drop from the Cup 5b7-1-last-drop] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN + +The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the +meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some +degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. +On the morning of the 17th of February, it was a little past midday when +Basque, with napkin and feather-duster under his arm, busy in setting +his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There had been +no ring, which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the door, and +beheld M. Fauchelevent. He introduced him into the drawing-room, still +encumbered and topsy-turvy, and which bore the air of a field of battle +after the joys of the preceding evening. + +"Dame, sir," remarked Basque, "we all woke up late." + +"Is your master up?" asked Jean Valjean. + +"How is Monsieur's arm?" replied Basque. + +"Better. Is your master up?" + +"Which one? the old one or the new one?" + +"Monsieur Pontmercy." + +"Monsieur le Baron," said Basque, drawing himself up. + +A man is a Baron most of all to his servants. He counts for something +with them; they are what a philosopher would call, bespattered with the +title, and that flatters them. Marius, be it said in passing, a militant +republican as he had proved, was now a Baron in spite of himself. A +small revolution had taken place in the family in connection with +this title. It was now M. Gillenormand who clung to it, and Marius who +detached himself from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written: "My son +will bear my title." Marius obeyed. And then, Cosette, in whom the woman +was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a Baroness. + +"Monsieur le Baron?" repeated Basque. "I will go and see. I will tell +him that M. Fauchelevent is here." + +"No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to +speak to him in private, and mention no name." + +"Ah!" ejaculated Basque. + +"I wish to surprise him." + +"Ah!" ejaculated Basque once more, emitting his second "ah!" as an +explanation of the first. + +And he left the room. + +Jean Valjean remained alone. + +The drawing-room, as we have just said, was in great disorder. It seemed +as though, by lending an air, one might still hear the vague noise of +the wedding. On the polished floor lay all sorts of flowers which +had fallen from garlands and head-dresses. The wax candles, burned +to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the +chandeliers. Not a single piece of furniture was in its place. In the +corners, three or four arm-chairs, drawn close together in a circle, +had the appearance of continuing a conversation. The whole effect was +cheerful. A certain grace still lingers round a dead feast. It has been +a happy thing. On the chairs in disarray, among those fading flowers, +beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun +had succeeded to the chandelier, and made its way gayly into the +drawing-room. + +Several minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean stood motionless on the spot where +Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so +sunken in his head by sleeplessness that they nearly disappeared in +their orbits. His black coat bore the weary folds of a garment that +has been up all night. The elbows were whitened with the down which the +friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it. + +Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his +feet by the sun. + +There came a sound at the door, and he raised his eyes. + +Marius entered, his head well up, his mouth smiling, an indescribable +light on his countenance, his brow expanded, his eyes triumphant. He had +not slept either. + +"It is you, father!" he exclaimed, on catching sight of Jean Valjean; +"that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air! But you have come too +early. It is only half past twelve. Cosette is asleep." + +That word: "Father," said to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified: +supreme felicity. There had always existed, as the reader knows, a lofty +wall, a coldness and a constraint between them; ice which must be broken +or melted. Marius had reached that point of intoxication when the wall +was lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. Fauchelevent was to +him, as to Cosette, a father. + +He continued: his words poured forth, as is the peculiarity of divine +paroxysms of joy. + +"How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! +Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?" + +And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself, he +pursued: + +"We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You +must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to +do with the Rue de l'Homme Arme. We will have no more of it at all. How +could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is +disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where one +is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install +yourself here. And this very day. Or you will have to deal with Cosette. +She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have your own +chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the trouble +with the clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all ready, +you have only to take possession of it. Near your bed Cosette has placed +a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht velvet and she has said to +it: 'Stretch out your arms to him.' A nightingale comes to the clump of +acacias opposite your windows, every spring. In two months more you will +have it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on your right. By +night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle. Your chamber faces +due South. Cosette will arrange your books for you, your Voyages of +Captain Cook and the other,--Vancouver's and all your affairs. I believe +that there is a little valise to which you are attached, I have fixed +upon a corner of honor for that. You have conquered my grandfather, you +suit him. We will live together. Do you play whist? you will overwhelm +my grandfather with delight if you play whist. It is you who shall take +Cosette to walk on the days when I am at the courts, you shall give her +your arm, you know, as you used to, in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely +resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, +do you hear, father? Come, will you breakfast with us to-day?" + +"Sir," said Jean Valjean, "I have something to say to you. I am an +ex-convict." + +The limit of shrill sounds perceptible can be overleaped, as well in +the case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words: "I am an +ex-convict," proceeding from the mouth of M. Fauchelevent and entering +the ear of Marius overshot the possible. It seemed to him that something +had just been said to him; but he did not know what. He stood with his +mouth wide open. + +Then he perceived that the man who was addressing him was frightful. +Wholly absorbed in his own dazzled state, he had not, up to that moment, +observed the other man's terrible pallor. + +Jean Valjean untied the black cravat which supported his right arm, +unrolled the linen from around his hand, bared his thumb and showed it +to Marius. + +"There is nothing the matter with my hand," said he. + +Marius looked at the thumb. + +"There has not been anything the matter with it," went on Jean Valjean. + +There was, in fact, no trace of any injury. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented +myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order +that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw +into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing." + +Marius stammered. + +"What is the meaning of this?" + +"The meaning of it is," replied Jean Valjean, "that I have been in the +galleys." + +"You are driving me mad!" exclaimed Marius in terror. + +"Monsieur Pontmercy," said Jean Valjean, "I was nineteen years in the +galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a +second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban." + +In vain did Marius recoil before the reality, refuse the fact, resist +the evidence, he was forced to give way. He began to understand, and, as +always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder +of hideous enlightenment flashed through him; an idea which made him +quiver traversed his mind. He caught a glimpse of a wretched destiny for +himself in the future. + +"Say all, say all!" he cried. "You are Cosette's father!" + +And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable +horror. + +Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he +seemed to grow even to the ceiling. + +"It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir; although our oath +to others may not be received in law . . ." + +Here he paused, then, with a sort of sovereign and sepulchral authority, +he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the syllables: + +". . . You will believe me. I the father of Cosette! before God, no. +Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my +living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. +I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself." + +Marius stammered: + +"Who will prove that to me?" + +"I. Since I tell you so." + +Marius looked at the man. He was melancholy yet tranquil. No lie could +proceed from such a calm. That which is icy is sincere. The truth could +be felt in that chill of the tomb. + +"I believe you," said Marius. + +Jean Valjean bent his head, as though taking note of this, and +continued: + +"What am I to Cosette? A passer-by. Ten years ago, I did not know that +she was in existence. I love her, it is true. One loves a child whom one +has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old, one feels +oneself a grandfather towards all little children. You may, it seems to +me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an +orphan. Without either father or mother. She needed me. That is why I +began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man +like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this duty towards +Cosette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be called a good +action; but if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. +Register this attenuating circumstance. To-day, Cosette passes out of my +life; our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for her. She is +Madame Pontmercy. Her providence has changed. And Cosette gains by the +change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not +mention them to me, but I forestall your thought, they are a deposit. +How did that deposit come into my hands? What does that matter? I +restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me. I complete +the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a +reason for desiring that you should know who I am." + +And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face. + +All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent. Certain gusts +of destiny produce these billows in our souls. + +We have all undergone moments of trouble in which everything within us +is dispersed; we say the first things that occur to us, which are +not always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden +revelations which one cannot bear, and which intoxicate like baleful +wine. Marius was stupefied by the novel situation which presented itself +to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person who was +angry with him for this avowal. + +"But why," he exclaimed, "do you tell me all this? Who forces you to +do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither +denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly +making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what +connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?" + +"My motive?" replied Jean Valjean in a voice so low and dull that one +would have said that he was talking to himself rather than to Marius. +"From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said 'I am a convict'? +Well, yes! the motive is strange. It is out of honesty. Stay, the +unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me +fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly +solid. All life falls in ruin around one; one resists. Had I been able +to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to +go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are +diligences in the Rue Bouloy; you are happy; I am going. I have tried +to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore my +heart with it. Then I said: 'I cannot live anywhere else than here.' I +must stay. Well, yes, you are right, I am a fool, why not simply +remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is +sincerely attached to me, she said to the arm-chair: 'Stretch out your +arms to him,' your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me, I +suit him, we shall live together, and take our meals in common, I shall +give Cosette my arm . . . Madame Pontmercy, excuse me, it is a habit, we +shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney-corner +in winter, the same promenade in summer, that is joy, that is happiness, +that is everything. We shall live as one family. One family!" + +At that word, Jean Valjean became wild. He folded his arms, glared at +the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss +therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones: + +"As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. +I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among +themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing +of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I +have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that +child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that +she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old +man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it +was well, I said to myself: 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is +true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long +as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I +must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all +would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing; +my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the +night in trying to persuade myself to it; you questioned me, and what I +have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do +it; well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, +and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there +are two things in which I have not succeeded; in breaking the thread +that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in +silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why +I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or +nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only +myself; I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have +taken my mystery and have brought it to you. And I have disembowelled my +secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to take. +I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself +that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was +doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to +me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to +him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in +that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one's way, +that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have +Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. +Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to +be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the +exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the +bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must +be content. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus +I should have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your +expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full +noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ''ware,' I +should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should +have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who +I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to +be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said: 'How +horrible!' I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a +right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There +would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable +white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when +all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, +when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a +stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with +you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the +cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself +upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself +forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in +the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed +of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have +committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night +upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to +you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, +my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one's +peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. +There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my +indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have +drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it +again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at +midday, and my 'good morning' would have lied, and my 'good night' would +have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with +my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should +have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned +soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do +it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be +happy? I stand outside of life, Sir." + +Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of +anguishes cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice once +more, but it was no longer a dull voice--it was a sinister voice. + +"You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, +you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. +It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push +myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds +oneself, one is firmly held." + +And, seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and +extending it towards Marius: + +"Do you see that fist?" he continued. "Don't you think that it holds +that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience +is another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never +understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is +implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it; +but no, it rewards you; for it places you in a hell, where you feel God +beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at +peace with himself." + +And, with a poignant accent, he added: + +"Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It is +by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This +has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then; it was +a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be so if, through my +fault, you had continued to esteem me; now that you despise me, I am so. +I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever have +anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, +and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is +necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again. I am +a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is most +improbable. But what would you have me do about it? it is the fact. +I have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them. There are +encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties. +You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me in the +course of my life." + +Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as +though his words had a bitter after-taste, and then he went on: + +"When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to +make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to +make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it, +one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no +right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is +hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark +with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his +name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not +take it. A name is an _I_. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I +have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I +express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an +education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it +is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a +watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false +key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never +more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous +within the _I_, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to +weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights +writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have +just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say." + +He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word: + +"In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in +order to live, I will not steal a name." + +"To live!" interrupted Marius. "You do not need that name in order to +live?" + +"Ah! I understand the matter," said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering +his head several times in succession. + +A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of +thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his +mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was +pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless. +Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as +he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see: + +"While, at present, I am relieved." + +He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the +drawing-room. At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that +Marius was watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible +intonation: + +"I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!" + +Then he turned fully round towards Marius: + +"And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained +Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of +you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers, +in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany Madame +Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are together, +you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am there, we +are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a voice shouting +this name: 'Jean Valjean!' and behold, that terrible hand, the police, +darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my mask!" + +Again he paused; Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder. Jean +Valjean resumed: + +"What do you say to that?" + +Marius' silence answered for him. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be +in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content +therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor +damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; +you have before you, sir, a wretched man." + +Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean +Valjean, he offered the latter his hand. + +But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not +offered, Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius +that he pressed a hand of marble. + +"My grandfather has friends," said Marius; "I will procure your pardon." + +"It is useless," replied Jean Valjean. "I am believed to be dead, and +that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are +supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon." + +And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of +inexorable dignity: + +"Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; +and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience." + +At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened +gently half way, and in the opening Cosette's head appeared. They saw +only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids were +still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts +its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean +Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to behold a +smile at the heart of a rose: + +"I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead +of being with me!" + +Jean Valjean shuddered. + +"Cosette! . . ." stammered Marius. + +And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. + +Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was +something in her eyes like gleams of paradise. + +"I have caught you in the very act," said Cosette. "Just now, I heard my +father Fauchelevent through the door saying: 'Conscience . . . doing my +duty . . .' That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People +should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right." + +"You are mistaken. Cosette," said Marius, "we are talking business. We +are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand +francs . . ." + +"That is not it at all," interrupted Cosette. "I am coming. Does any +body want me here?" + +And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing-room. +She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand +folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet. +In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are these +charming sacks fit to clothe the angels. + +She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then +exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy: + +"There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am!" + +That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean. + +"There," said she, "I am going to install myself near you in an +easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you +like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good." + +Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her: + +"We are talking business." + +"By the way," said Cosette, "I have opened my window, a flock of +pierrots has arrived in the garden,--Birds, not maskers. To-day is +Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds." + +"I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave +us alone for a moment. We are talking figures. That will bore you." + +"You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very +dandified, monseigneur. No, it will not bore me." + +"I assure you that it will bore you." + +"No. Since it is you. I shall not understand you, but I shall listen +to you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not +need to understand the words that they utter. That we should be here +together--that is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, bah!" + +"You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible." + +"Impossible!" + +"Yes." + +"Very good," said Cosette. "I was going to tell you some news. I could +have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is +at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent's room smokes, that +Nicolette has sent for the chimney-sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette +have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint's +stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall +see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say: It is impossible. Then who +will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius, let me stay here with +you two." + +"I swear to you, that it is indispensable that we should be alone." + +"Well, am I anybody?" + +Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. Cosette turned to him: + +"In the first place, father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do +you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? who gave me +such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very +unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly." + +Jean Valjean approached. + +Cosette turned toward Marius. + +"As for you, I shall make a face at you." + +Then she presented her brow to Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean advanced a step toward her. + +Cosette recoiled. + +"Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?" + +"It is well," said Jean Valjean. + +"Did you sleep badly?" + +"No." + +"Are you sad?" + +"No." + +"Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I +will not scold you." + +And again she offered him her brow. + +Jean Valjean dropped a kiss upon that brow whereon rested a celestial +gleam. + +"Smile." + +Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre. + +"Now, defend me against my husband." + +"Cosette! . . ." ejaculated Marius. + +"Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before +me. So you think me very silly. What you say is astonishing! business, +placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of +nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius." + +And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders, and an indescribably +exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius. + +"I love you!" said Marius. + +"I adore you!" said Cosette. + +And they fell irresistibly into each other's arms. + +"Now," said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressing-gown, with a +triumphant little grimace, "I shall stay." + +"No, not that," said Marius, in a supplicating tone. "We have to finish +something." + +"Still no?" + +Marius assumed a grave tone: + +"I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible." + +"Ah! you put on your man's voice, sir. That is well, I go. You, father, +have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are +tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to +return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall +wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be +bored without me. I am going, it is well." + +And she left the room. + +Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head +was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them: + +"I am very angry indeed." + +The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. + +It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the +night, without itself being conscious of it. + +Marius made sure that the door was securely closed. + +"Poor Cosette!" he murmured, "when she finds out . . ." + +At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a +bewildered eye. + +"Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. +That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for +one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, +give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her. Is +it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself +without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the +whole world,--it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what +it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to +explain matters to her, to say to her: 'He is a man who has been in the +galleys.' She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!" . . . He +dropped into an arm-chair and hid his face in his hands. + +His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it +was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears. + +There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort +of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though +to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his +face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his +voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths: + +"Oh! would that I could die!" + +"Be at your ease," said Marius, "I will keep your secret for myself +alone." And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but +forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something +as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict +superposed before his very eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, +little by little, by that lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural +inclination of the situation, to recognize the space which had just been +placed between that man and himself, Marius added: + +"It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to +the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is +an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on +you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not fear +to set it very high." + +"I thank you, sir," replied Jean Valjean, gently. + +He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of his +fore-finger across his thumb-nail, then he lifted up his voice: + +"All is nearly over. But one last thing remains for me . . ." + +"What is it?" + +Jean Valjean struggled with what seemed a last hesitation, and, without +voice, without breath, he stammered rather than said: + +"Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I +ought not to see Cosette any more?" + +"I think that would be better," replied Marius coldly. + +"I shall never see her more," murmured Jean Valjean. And he directed his +steps towards the door. + +He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean +Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for +a second, then closed the door again and turned to Marius. + +He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears +in his eyes, but only a sort of tragic flame. His voice had regained a +strange composure. + +"Stay, sir," he said. "If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I +assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, +I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should +have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette +is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You +follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood. You +see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first +in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the +Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember +her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where +there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little +back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We +never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I +was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether +you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see her +again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything, would +be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from +time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall +give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the +ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that +might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me +to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I should like to see a little +more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, +I have nothing left but that. And then, we must be cautious. If I +no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be +considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the +afternoon, when night is beginning to fall." + +"You shall come every evening," said Marius, "and Cosette will be +waiting for you." + +"You are kind, sir," said Jean Valjean. + +Marius saluted Jean Valjean, happiness escorted despair to the door, and +these two men parted. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN + +Marius was quite upset. + +The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man beside +whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something +enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned him. + +This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M. +Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean. + +To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles +the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. + +Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned to such a +neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that +man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be +done? + +Had Marius wedded the convict as well? + +In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste the +grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force even the +archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to shudder. + +As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked +himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he +been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he +involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon +this love affair, which had ended in his marriage to Cosette, without +taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He +admitted,--it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves +in regard to ourselves, that life amends us, little by little,--he +admitted the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of +internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms +of passion and sorrow, dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, +and invades the entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing +more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once +indicated this characteristic element of Marius' individuality. + +He recalled that, in the intoxication of his love, in the Rue Plumet, +during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoke to +Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim had taken +up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing +flight. How had it happened that he had not mentioned this to Cosette? +Yet it was so near and so terrible! How had it come to pass that he had +not even named the Thenardiers, and, particularly, on the day when he +had encountered Eponine? He now found it almost difficult to explain his +silence of that time. Nevertheless, he could account for it. He recalled +his benumbed state, his intoxication with Cosette, love absorbing +everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps +also, like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with this +violent and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull instinct impelling +him to conceal and abolish in his memory that redoubtable adventure, +contact with which he dreaded, in which he did not wish to play any +part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and in which he could be +neither narrator nor witness without being an accuser. + +Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning; there had been +no time for anything except love. + +In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his mind, +examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had +told Cosette about the Gorbeau ambush, even if he had discovered that +Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius? Would +that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have +adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. +Then there was nothing to regret, nothing with which he need reproach +himself. All was well. There is a deity for those drunken men who are +called lovers. Marius blind, had followed the path which he would have +chosen had he been in full possession of his sight. Love had bandaged +his eyes, in order to lead him whither? To paradise. + +But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal +accompaniment. + +Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent +who had turned into Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror. + +In this horror, let us state, there was some pity, and even a certain +surprise. + +This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that +deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs. + +He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept it all, +he had restored it all. + +Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him to +this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this +avowal there was something more than acceptance of humiliation, there +was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask is not a mask, it +is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected that false +name. He, the galley-slave, might have hidden himself forever in an +honest family; he had withstood this temptation. And with what motive? +Through a conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the +irresistible accents of truth. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean +might be, he was, undoubtedly, a conscience which was awakening. There +existed some mysterious re-habilitation which had begun; and, to all +appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. +Such fits of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar +natures. An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul. + +Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable, +irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered +inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that that man had +said. + +Here, for Marius, there was a strange reversal of situations. What +breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? +confidence. + +In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius +struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive +principle, and he tried to reach a balance. + +But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a +clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in +the depths of his thought, lost him and found him again in a fatal mist. + +The deposit honestly restored, the probity of the confession--these were +good. This produced a lightening of the cloud, then the cloud became +black once more. + +Troubled as were Marius' memories, a shadow of them returned to him. + +After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic? Why had that +man taken to flight on the arrival of the police, instead of entering a +complaint? + +Here Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive from +justice, who had broken his ban. + +Another question: Why had that man come to the barricade? + +For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection which had +re-appeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink at the application of +heat. This man had been in the barricade. He had not fought there. What +had he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre sprang +up and replied: "Javert." + +Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean Valjean +dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade, and he still heard +behind the corner of the little Rue Mondetour that frightful pistol +shot. Obviously, there was hatred between that police spy and the +galley-slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to +the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived late. +He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsican vendetta +has penetrated to certain lower strata and has become the law there; it +is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but half turned +towards good; and those hearts are so constituted that a criminal, who +is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft +and unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed +Javert. At least, that seemed to be evident. + +This was the final question, to be sure; but to this there was no reply. +This question Marius felt like pincers. How had it come to pass that +Jean Valjean's existence had elbowed that of Cosette for so long a +period? + +What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed that child +in contact with that man? Are there then chains for two which are forged +on high? and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with the +demon? So a crime and an innocence can be room-mates in the mysterious +galleys of wretchedness? In that defiling of condemned persons which +is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side, the one +ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine +whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of an +eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing +off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community +of life been established between this celestial little creature and that +old criminal? + +Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still more +incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved +the lamb, for the fierce creature adored the feeble one, for, during +the space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of +support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, +her virginal growth towards life and light, had been sheltered by +that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into +innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and +Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. +What was this man-precipice? + +The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now +exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will +always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the one +which is according to good is Abel; the other which is according to evil +is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian religiously +absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her, +guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure as he was +himself, with purity? + +What was that cess-pool which had venerated that innocence to such a +point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean +educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows which had for its +only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow +and from every cloud? + +That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret. + +In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one, in some +sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this affair +as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of the tool +which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets +about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette. He had, to some +extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The +workman was horrible; but the work was admirable. God produces his +miracles as seems good to him. He had constructed that charming Cosette, +and he had employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this +strange collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him? +Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided the spring to create +the rose? + +Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they +were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points +which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he +did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette +was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did +he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had +everything; what more could he desire? All,--is not that enough? Jean +Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. + +And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, +convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch: "I +am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in +existence." + +Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had +passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished. + +Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to +Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her +lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took her flight, +winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her hideous and +empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean. + +In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a +certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we +have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man. But do what +he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly forced to +fall back upon this: the man was a convict; that is to say, a being who +has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower than the +very lowest rung. After the very last of men comes the convict. The +convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the living. The +law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of which it can +deprive a man. + +Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system, though +he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the +subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all +progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that +which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law +and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to +dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by +the word vindicte. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of the +written law should be followed by eternal suffering, and he accepted, +as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still stood at this +point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since his nature was +good, and, at bottom, wholly formed of latent progress. + +In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and +repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict. That word was +for him like the sound of the trump on the Day of Judgment; and, after +having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture +had been to turn away his head. Vade retro. + +Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact, while +interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said: +"You are confessing me," had not, nevertheless, put to him two or three +decisive questions. + +It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that +he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic? The barricade? Javert? +Who knows where these revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did +not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, +after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him +back? + +Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to +stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have +asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way +to these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister +situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side of +our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light might +have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean, and who +knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as far +as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not have +lingered behind it on the brow of that angel? The spattering of a +lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture +where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the +reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve +the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius +had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses +rather than to gain further light. + +In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes to Jean +Valjean. + +That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he +dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate +the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened +forever by it. + +In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth, come +into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending perplexity to +Marius. + +He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable +questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable +and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too good, +too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had led him +to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be touched. He +had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely rejected +Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that is what he +should have done, and have freed his house from that man. + +He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind of emotions +which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased +with himself. + +What was he to do now? Jean Valjean's visits were profoundly repugnant +to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the +man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down, he did +not wish to penetrate deeply; he did not wish to sound himself. He +had promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise; Jean +Valjean held his promise; one must keep one's word even to a convict, +above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette. In short, +he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him. + +Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing +from one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound +trouble. + +It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love is a +talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it. + +However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as +candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing; he talked of her +childhood and her youth, and he became more and more convinced that that +convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a man +can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had +surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected that +lily. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT + +[Illustration: The Twilight Decline 5b8-1-decline] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LOWER CHAMBER + +On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage +gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque +was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he had received +his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant: "You will +watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives." + +Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to approach +him: + +"Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to +go upstairs or to remain below?" + +"I will remain below," replied Jean Valjean. + +Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the +waiting-room and said: + +"I will go and inform Madame." + +The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the +ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the +street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated +window. + +This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the +feather-duster, the pope's head brush, and the broom. The dust rested +tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A +fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented +with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room, +which was small and low-ceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty +bottles piled up in one corner. + +The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off in +large flakes. At one end there was a chimney-piece painted in black +with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there; which indicated that Jean +Valjean's reply: "I will remain below," had been foreseen. + +Two arm-chairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between +the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread +than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet. + +The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight +falling through the window. + +Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He +threw himself into one of the arm-chairs. + +Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimney-piece and retired. +Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast, +perceived neither Basque nor the candle. + +All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing +beside him. + +He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there. + +He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he +was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her +soul. + +"Well," exclaimed Cosette, "father, I knew that you were peculiar, but +I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you +wish me to receive you here." + +"Yes, it is my wish." + +"I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene +for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father." + +And she offered him her cheek. + +Jean Valjean remained motionless. + +"You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, +I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is." + +And she presented her other cheek. + +Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to +the pavement. + +"This is becoming serious," said Cosette. "What have I done to you? I +declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with +us." + +"I have dined." + +"That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you. Grandfathers +are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me to the +drawing-room. Immediately." + +"Impossible." + +Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to +questioning. + +"But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to +see me. It's horrible here." + +"Thou knowest . . ." + +Jean Valjean caught himself up. + +"You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks." + +Cosette struck her tiny hands together. + +"Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of +this?" + +Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he +occasionally had recourse: + +"You wished to be Madame. You are so." + +"Not for you, father." + +"Do not call me father." + +"What?" + +"Call me 'Monsieur Jean.' 'Jean,' if you like." + +"You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? 'Monsieur Jean'? +What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren't they? what has +taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won't live with us! +And you won't have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything +happened?" + +"Nothing." + +"Well then?" + +"Everything is as usual." + +"Why do you change your name?" + +"You have changed yours, surely." + +He smiled again with the same smile as before and added: + +"Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean." + +"I don't understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask +permission of my husband for you to be 'Monsieur Jean.' I hope that he +will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does +have freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is +wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good." + +He made no reply. + +She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with +an irresistible movement, she pressed them against her neck beneath her +chin, which is a gesture of profound tenderness. + +"Oh!" she said to him, "be good!" + +And she went on: + +"This is what I call being good: being nice and coming and living +here,--there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,--living with +us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l'Homme Arme, not giving us riddles +to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us, +breakfasting with us, being my father." + +He loosed her hands. + +"You no longer need a father, you have a husband." + +Cosette became angry. + +"I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to +things like that, which are not common sense!" + +"If Toussaint were here," resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is +driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, "she would +be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my +own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black corner." + +"But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that +it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say 'you' to me. + +"Just now, as I was coming hither," replied Jean Valjean, "I saw a piece +of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker's. If I +were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A +very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I +think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is +pretty." + +"Hou! the villainous bear!" replied Cosette. + +And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips, she +blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat. + +"I am furious," she resumed. "Ever since yesterday, you have made me +rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don't understand. You do not +defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am +all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good +God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My +lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of +Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my +father Fauchelevent wants me to call him 'Monsieur Jean,' and to receive +him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and +where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of +spiders' webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people +who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being +singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in +your abominable Rue de l'Homme Arme. I was very desperate indeed there, +that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of +grief. Fi!" + +And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and +added: + +"Are you angry with me because I am happy?" + +Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question, +which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette had +meant to scratch, and she lacerated. + +Jean Valjean turned pale. + +He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible +intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured: + +"Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. +Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over." + +"Ah, you have said thou to me!" exclaimed Cosette. + +And she sprang to his neck. + +Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It +almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back. + +"Thanks, father!" said Cosette. + +This enthusiastic impulse was on the point of becoming poignant for Jean +Valjean. He gently removed Cosette's arms, and took his hat. + +"Well?" said Cosette. + +"I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you." + +And, from the threshold, he added: + +"I have said thou to you. Tell your husband that this shall not happen +again. Pardon me." + +Jean Valjean quitted the room, leaving Cosette stupefied at this +enigmatical farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS + +On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came. + +Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer +exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she +avoided saying either "father" or "Monsieur Jean." She allowed herself +to be addressed as you. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, +her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would have been sad, if +sadness had been possible to her. + +It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations +in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and +satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not extend +very far beyond their own love. + +The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the +bottles, and Nicolette the spiders. + +All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He +came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius' words +otherwise than literally. Marius arranged matters so as to be absent at +the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house grew accustomed to the novel +ways of M. Fauchelevent. Toussaint helped in this direction: "Monsieur +has always been like that," she repeated. The grandfather issued this +decree:--"He's an original." And all was said. Moreover, at the age of +ninety-six, no bond is any longer possible, all is merely juxtaposition; +a newcomer is in the way. There is no longer any room; all habits are +acquired. M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father Gillenormand +asked nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman." He +added:--"Nothing is more common than those originals. They do all sorts +of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de Canaples was still +worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the garret. These are +fantastic appearances that people affect." + +No one caught a glimpse of the sinister foundation. And moreover, who +could have guessed such a thing? There are marshes of this description +in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though +there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm. One gazes at the +surface of these causeless ebullitions; one does not perceive the hydra +which crawls on the bottom. + +Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon which gnaws +them, a despair which inhabits their night. Such a man resembles +other men, he goes and comes. No one knows that he bears within him a +frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the +unhappy man, and of which he is dying. No one knows that this man is a +gulf. He is stagnant but deep. From time to time, a trouble of which +the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface. A mysterious +wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then re-appears; an air-bubble rises +and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown beast. + +Certain strange habits: arriving at the hour when other people are +taking their leave, keeping in the background when other people +are displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be +designated as the wall-colored mantle, seeking the solitary walk, +preferring the deserted street, avoiding any share in conversation, +avoiding crowds and festivals, seeming at one's ease and living poorly, +having one's key in one's pocket, and one's candle at the porter's +lodge, however rich one may be, entering by the side door, ascending +the private staircase,--all these insignificant singularities, fugitive +folds on the surface, often proceed from a formidable foundation. + +Many weeks passed in this manner. A new life gradually took possession +of Cosette: the relations which marriage creates, visits, the care +of the house, pleasures, great matters. Cosette's pleasures were not +costly, they consisted in one thing: being with Marius. The great +occupation of her life was to go out with him, to remain with him. It +was for them a joy that was always fresh, to go out arm in arm, in the +face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding themselves, before +the whole world, both of them completely alone. + +Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, the +soldering of two elderly maids being impossible, and she went away. +The grandfather was well; Marius argued a case here and there; Aunt +Gillenormand peacefully led that life aside which sufficed for her, +beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. + +The address as thou disappeared, the you, the "Madame," the "Monsieur +Jean," rendered him another person to Cosette. The care which he had +himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became more and +more gay and less and less tender. Yet she still loved him sincerely, +and he felt it. + +One day she said to him suddenly: "You used to be my father, you are +no longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you +were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don't +like all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of +you." + +He still lived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, because he could not make up +his mind to remove to a distance from the quarter where Cosette dwelt. + +At first, he only remained a few minutes with Cosette, and then went +away. + +Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief. +One would have said that he was taking advantage of the authorization of +the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later. + +One day Cosette chanced to say "father" to him. A flash of joy +illuminated Jean Valjean's melancholy old countenance. He caught her +up: "Say Jean."--"Ah! truly," she replied with a burst of laughter, +"Monsieur Jean."--"That is right," said he. And he turned aside so that +she might not see him wipe his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THEY RECALL THE GARDEN OF THE RUE PLUMET + +This was the last time. After that last flash of light, complete +extinction ensued. No more familiarity, no more good-morning with a +kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: "My father!" He was at +his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his +happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after +having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose +her again in detail. + +The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar. In +short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day. +His whole life was concentrated in that one hour. + +He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked +to her of years gone by, of her childhood, of the convent, of her little +friends of those bygone days. + +One afternoon,--it was on one of those early days in April, already +warm and fresh, the moment of the sun's great gayety, the gardens which +surrounded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of waking, +the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture of +gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through +the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming +beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the +year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the +eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, +auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,--Marius said +to Cosette:--"We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden +in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful."--And +away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring. This garden of +the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn. They already +had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of their +love. The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still belonged +to Cosette. They went to that garden and that house. There they +found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That +evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire.--"Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet +returned," Basque said to him. He seated himself in silence, and waited +an hour. Cosette did not return. He departed with drooping head. + +Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to "their garden," and so +joyous at having "lived a whole day in her past," that she talked of +nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen +Jean Valjean. + +"In what way did you go thither?" Jean Valjean asked her." + +"On foot." + +"And how did you return?" + +"In a hackney carriage." + +For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the +young people. He was troubled by it. Marius' economy was severe, and +that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a +query: + +"Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coupe would only +cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich." + +"I don't know," replied Cosette. + +"It is like Toussaint," resumed Jean Valjean. "She is gone. You have not +replaced her. Why?" + +"Nicolette suffices." + +"But you ought to have a maid." + +"Have I not Marius?" + +"You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage, a +box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit by +your riches? Wealth adds to happiness." + +Cosette made no reply. + +Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the +heart which is slipping, one does not halt on the downward slope. + +When Jean Valjean wished to prolong his visit and to induce +forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius; he pronounced +him handsome, noble, courageous, witty, eloquent, good. Cosette outdid +him. Jean Valjean began again. They were never weary. Marius--that word +was inexhaustible; those six letters contained volumes. In this manner, +Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time. + +It was so sweet to see Cosette, to forget by her side! It alleviated his +wounds. It frequently happened that Basque came twice to announce: +"M. Gillenormand sends me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is +served." + +On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home. + +Was there, then, any truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which +had presented itself to the mind of Marius? Was Jean Valjean really a +chrysalis who would persist, and who would come to visit his butterfly? + +One day he remained still longer than usual. On the following day he +observed that there was no fire on the hearth.--"Hello!" he thought. "No +fire."--And he furnished the explanation for himself.--"It is perfectly +simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased." + +"Heavens! how cold it is here!" exclaimed Cosette when she entered. + +"Why, no," said Jean Valjean. + +"Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then?" + +"Yes, since we are now in the month of May." + +"But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this +cellar." + +"I thought that a fire was unnecessary." + +"That is exactly like one of your ideas!" retorted Cosette. + +On the following day there was a fire. But the two arm-chairs were +arranged at the other end of the room near the door. "--What is the +meaning of this?" thought Jean Valjean. + +He went for the arm-chairs and restored them to their ordinary place +near the hearth. + +This fire lighted once more encouraged him, however. He prolonged the +conversation even beyond its customary limits. As he rose to take his +leave, Cosette said to him: + +"My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday." + +"What was it?" + +"He said to me: 'Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres. +Twenty-seven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me.' I +replied: 'That makes thirty.' He went on: 'Would you have the courage to +live on the three thousand?' I answered: 'Yes, on nothing. Provided +that it was with you.' And then I asked: 'Why do you say that to me?' He +replied: 'I wanted to know.'" + +Jean Valjean found not a word to answer. Cosette probably expected some +explanation from him; he listened in gloomy silence. He went back to the +Rue de l'Homme Arme; he was so deeply absorbed that he mistook the +door and instead of entering his own house, he entered the adjoining +dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he +perceived his error and went down again. + +His mind was swarming with conjectures. It was evident that Marius had +his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that +he feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even, +perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he +hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take +it as his own,--preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor, +rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown +the door. + +On the following day, he underwent something like a shock on entering +the ground-floor room. The arm-chairs had disappeared. There was not a +single chair of any sort. + +"Ah, what's this!" exclaimed Cosette as she entered, "no chairs! Where +are the arm-chairs?" + +"They are no longer here," replied Jean Valjean. + +"This is too much!" + +Jean Valjean stammered: + +"It was I who told Basque to remove them." + +"And your reason?" + +"I have only a few minutes to stay to-day." + +"A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing." + +"I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room." + +"Why?" + +"You have company this evening, no doubt." + +"We expect no one." + +Jean Valjean had not another word to say. + +Cosette shrugged her shoulders. + +"To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put out. +How odd you are!" + +"Adieu!" murmured Jean Valjean. + +He did not say: "Adieu, Cosette." But he had not the strength to say: +"Adieu, Madame." + +He went away utterly overwhelmed. + +This time he had understood. + +On the following day he did not come. Cosette only observed the fact in +the evening. + +"Why," said she, "Monsieur Jean has not been here today." + +And she felt a slight twinge at her heart, but she hardly perceived it, +being immediately diverted by a kiss from Marius. + +On the following day he did not come. + +Cosette paid no heed to this, passed her evening and slept well that +night, as usual, and thought of it only when she woke. She was so happy! +She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean's house to inquire whether +he were ill, and why he had not come on the previous evening. Nicolette +brought back the reply of M. Jean that he was not ill. He was busy. He +would come soon. As soon as he was able. Moreover, he was on the point +of taking a little journey. Madame must remember that it was his custom +to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry about him. They +were not to think of him. + +Nicolette on entering M. Jean's had repeated to him her mistress' very +words. That Madame had sent her to inquire why M. Jean bad not come on +the preceding evening."--It is two days since I have been there," said +Jean Valjean gently. + +But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to +Cosette. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION + +During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, +the rare passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on +thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every +day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l'Homme Arme, +on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, passed in front +of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, +on arriving at the Rue de l'Echarpe, turned to the left, and entered the +Rue Saint-Louis. + +There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing +nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which +seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no +other than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he +approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort +of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated +and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though +he were talking to some one whom he did not see, he smiled vaguely and +advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that, while desirous +of reaching his destination, he feared the moment when he should be +close at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that +street which appeared to attract him his pace slackened, to such a +degree that, at times, one might have thought that he was no longer +advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his +eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole. +Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last; he +reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he halted, he trembled, he +thrust his head with a sort of melancholy timidity round the corner of +the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic +look something which resembled the dazzling light of the impossible, +and the reflection from a paradise that was closed to him. Then a tear, +which had slowly gathered in the corner of his lids, and had become +large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at +his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter flavor. Thus he remained for +several minutes as though made of stone, then he returned by the same +road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his +glance died out. + +Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the +Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis; +sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer. + +One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine and +looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he +shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself +something, and retraced his steps. + +Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as +the Rue Pavee, shook his head and turned back; then he went no +further than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the +Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was +no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before +ceasing altogether. + +Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the +same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without +himself being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole +countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?--His eye was +dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer +collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry. The +old man's head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times; the +folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the +weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened +it. + +The good women of the quarter said: "He is an innocent." The children +followed him and laughed. + + + + +BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN + + + + +CHAPTER I--PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY + +It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How +all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false +object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty! + +Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame +Marius. + +Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage, had put no questions +to M. Fauchelevent, and, since that time, he had feared to put any to +Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed +himself to be drawn. He had often said to himself that he had done +wrong in making that concession to despair. He had confined himself to +gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him, +as much as possible, from Cosette's mind. He had, in a manner, always +placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this +way, she would not perceive nor think of the latter. It was more than +effacement, it was an eclipse. + +Marius did what he considered necessary and just. He thought that he had +serious reasons which the reader has already seen, and others which will +be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without harshness, but +without weakness. + +Chance having ordained that he should encounter, in a case which he had +argued, a former employee of the Laffitte establishment, he had acquired +mysterious information, without seeking it, which he had not been +able, it is true, to probe, out of respect for the secret which he had +promised to guard, and out of consideration for Jean Valjean's perilous +position. He believed at that moment that he had a grave duty to +perform: the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some +one whom he sought with all possible discretion. In the meanwhile, he +abstained from touching that money. + +As for Cosette, she had not been initiated into any of these secrets; +but it would be harsh to condemn her also. + +There existed between Marius and her an all-powerful magnetism, which +caused her to do, instinctively and almost mechanically, what Marius +wished. She was conscious of Marius' will in the direction of "Monsieur +Jean," she conformed to it. Her husband had not been obliged to say +anything to her; she yielded to the vague but clear pressure of his +tacit intentions, and obeyed blindly. Her obedience in this instance +consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to +make any effort to accomplish this. Without her knowing why herself, and +without his having any cause to accuse her of it, her soul had become +so wholly her husband's that that which was shrouded in gloom in Marius' +mind became overcast in hers. + +Let us not go too far, however; in what concerns Jean Valjean, this +forgetfulness and obliteration were merely superficial. She was rather +heedless than forgetful. At bottom, she was sincerely attached to the +man whom she had so long called her father; but she loved her husband +still more dearly. This was what had somewhat disturbed the balance of +her heart, which leaned to one side only. + +It sometimes happened that Cosette spoke of Jean Valjean and expressed +her surprise. Then Marius calmed her: "He is absent, I think. Did not +he say that he was setting out on a journey?"--"That is true," thought +Cosette. "He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so +long." Two or three times she despatched Nicolette to inquire in the +Rue de l'Homme Arme whether M. Jean had returned from his journey. Jean +Valjean caused the answer "no" to be given. + +Cosette asked nothing more, since she had but one need on earth, Marius. + +Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also +been absent. They had been to Vernon. Marius had taken Cosette to his +father's grave. + +Marius gradually won Cosette away from Jean Valjean. Cosette allowed it. + +Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the +ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach +as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have +elsewhere said, "looks before her." Nature divides living beings into +those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are +departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards +the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and +involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, +increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without +becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of +theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. +Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but +there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling +off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor +children. + + + + +CHAPTER II--LAST FLICKERINGS OF A LAMP WITHOUT OIL + +One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the +street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche +had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the 6th of +June; he remained there a few moments, then went up stairs again. This +was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he did +not leave his apartment. On the day after that, he did not leave his +bed. + +His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or +potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and +exclaimed: + +"But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!" + +"Certainly I did," replied Jean Valjean. + +"The plate is quite full." + +"Look at the water jug. It is empty." + +"That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have +eaten." + +"Well," said Jean Valjean, "what if I felt hungry only for water?" + +"That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it +is called fever." + +"I will eat to-morrow." + +"Or at Trinity day. Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say: 'I will eat +to-morrow'? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it! My +ladyfinger potatoes were so good!" + +Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand: + +"I promise you that I will eat them," he said, in his benevolent voice. + +"I am not pleased with you," replied the portress. + +Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman. There are +streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which +no one ever comes. He was in one of those streets and one of those +houses. + +While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few +sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite +his bed. That gibbet is always good to look at. + +A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He +still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband:--"The good man +upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last +long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won't get it out of my +head that his daughter has made a bad marriage." + +The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty: + +"If he's rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go +without. If he has no doctor he will die." + +"And if he has one?" + +"He will die," said the porter. + +The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her +pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she +grumbled: + +"It's a shame. Such a neat old man! He's as white as a chicken." + +She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of +the street; she took it upon herself to request him to come up stairs. + +"It's on the second floor," said she. "You have only to enter. As the +good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked." + +The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him. + +When he came down again the portress interrogated him: + +"Well, doctor?" + +"Your sick man is very ill indeed." + +"What is the matter with him?" + +"Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost +some person who is dear to him. People die of that." + +"What did he say to you?" + +"He told me that he was in good health." + +"Shall you come again, doctor?" + +"Yes," replied the doctor. "But some one else besides must come." + + + + +CHAPTER III--A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT'S +CART + +One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his +elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath +was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker +than he had ever been before. Then, no doubt under the pressure of some +supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into a sitting +posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman's clothes. As +he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them. He +was obliged to pause many times while dressing himself; merely putting +his arms through his waistcoat made the perspiration trickle from his +forehead. + +Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in +order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible. + +He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette's outfit. + +He spread it out on his bed. + +The Bishop's candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece. He +took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks. +Then, although it was still broad daylight,--it was summer,--he lighted +them. In the same way candles are to be seen lighted in broad daylight +in chambers where there is a corpse. + +Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another +exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary +fatigue which expends the strength only to renew it; it was the remnant +of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away +drop by drop in overwhelming efforts and which will never be renewed. + +The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of +that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which +he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting book. He caught +sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself. He was +eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been +taken for fifty; that year had counted for thirty. What he bore on his +brow was no longer the wrinkles of age, it was the mysterious mark of +death. The hollowing of that pitiless nail could be felt there. His +cheeks were pendulous; the skin of his face had the color which would +lead one to think that it already had earth upon it; the corners of his +mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He +gazed into space with an air of reproach; one would have said that he +was one of those grand tragic beings who have cause to complain of some +one. + +He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow +no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on +the soul like a clot of despair. + +Night had come. He laboriously dragged a table and the old arm-chair to +the fireside, and placed upon the table a pen, some ink and some paper. + +That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he +was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully +towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught. + +As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the point +of the pen had curled up, the ink had dried away, he was forced to rise +and put a few drops of water in the ink, which he did not accomplish +without pausing and sitting down two or three times, and he was +compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his brow from time +to time. + +Then he turned towards the bed, and, still seated, for he could not +stand, he gazed at the little black gown and all those beloved objects. + +These contemplations lasted for hours which seemed minutes. + +All at once he shivered, he felt that a child was taking possession of +him; he rested his elbows on the table, which was illuminated by the +Bishop's candles and took up the pen. His hand trembled. He wrote slowly +the few following lines: + +"Cosette, I bless thee. I am going to explain to thee. Thy husband was +right in giving me to understand that I ought to go away; but there is +a little error in what he believed, though he was in the right. He is +excellent. Love him well even after I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, love +my darling child well. Cosette, this paper will be found; this is what +I wish to say to thee, thou wilt see the figures, if I have the strength +to recall them, listen well, this money is really thine. Here is the +whole matter: White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, +black glass jewellery comes from Germany. Jet is the lightest, the most +precious, the most costly. Imitations can be made in France as well as +in Germany. What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a +lamp burning spirits of wine to soften the wax. The wax was formerly +made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I +invented a way of making it with gum shellac and turpentine. It does not +cost more than thirty sous, and is much better. Buckles are made with +a violet glass which is stuck fast, by means of this wax, to a little +framework of black iron. The glass must be violet for iron jewellery, +and black for gold jewellery. Spain buys a great deal of it. It is the +country of jet . . ." + +Here he paused, the pen fell from his fingers, he was seized by one of +those sobs which at times welled up from the very depths of his being; +the poor man clasped his head in both hands, and meditated. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed within himself [lamentable cries, heard by God +alone], "all is over. I shall never see her more. She is a smile which +passed over me. I am about to plunge into the night without even seeing +her again. Oh! one minute, one instant, to hear her voice, to touch her +dress, to gaze upon her, upon her, the angel! and then to die! It is +nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her. She +would smile on me, she would say a word to me, would that do any harm to +any one? No, all is over, and forever. Here I am all alone. My God! My +God! I shall never see her again!" At that moment there came a knock at +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING + +That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius +left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having +a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying: "The person who +wrote the letter is in the antechamber." + +Cosette had taken the grandfather's arm and was strolling in the garden. + +A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior. Coarse +paper, coarsely folded--the very sight of certain missives is +displeasing. + +The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort. + +Marius took it. It smelled of tobacco. Nothing evokes a memory like an +odor. Marius recognized that tobacco. He looked at the superscription: +"To Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron Pommerci. At his hotel." The recognition +of the tobacco caused him to recognize the writing as well. It may be +said that amazement has its lightning flashes. + +Marius was, as it were, illuminated by one of these flashes. + +The sense of smell, that mysterious aid to memory, had just revived a +whole world within him. This was certainly the paper, the fashion +of folding, the dull tint of ink; it was certainly the well-known +handwriting, especially was it the same tobacco. + +The Jondrette garret rose before his mind. + +Thus, strange freak of chance! one of the two scents which he had so +diligently sought, the one in connection with which he had lately again +exerted so many efforts and which he supposed to be forever lost, had +come and presented itself to him of its own accord. + +He eagerly broke the seal, and read: + + + "Monsieur le Baron:--If the Supreme Being had given me the talents, + I might have been baron Thenard, member of the Institute [academy + of ciences], but I am not. I only bear the same as him, happy if + this memory recommends me to the eccellence of your kindnesses. + The benefit with which you will honor me will be reciprocle. + I am in possession of a secret concerning an individual. + This individual concerns you. I hold the secret at your disposal + desiring to have the honor to be huseful to you. I will furnish + you with the simple means of driving from your honorabel family + that individual who has no right there, madame la baronne being + of lofty birth. The sanctuary of virtue cannot cohabit longer + with crime without abdicating. + + "I awate in the entichamber the orders of monsieur le baron. + + "With respect." + + +The letter was signed "Thenard." + +This signature was not false. It was merely a trifle abridged. + +Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. +The certificate of origin was complete. + +Marius' emotion was profound. After a start of surprise, he underwent a +feeling of happiness. If he could now but find that other man of whom he +was in search, the man who had saved him, Marius, there would be nothing +left for him to desire. + +He opened the drawer of his secretary, took out several bank-notes, +put them in his pocket, closed the secretary again, and rang the bell. +Basque half opened the door. + +"Show the man in," said Marius. + +Basque announced: + +"Monsieur Thenard." + +A man entered. + +A fresh surprise for Marius. The man who entered was an utter stranger +to him. + +This man, who was old, moreover, had a thick nose, his chin swathed in a +cravat, green spectacles with a double screen of green taffeta over his +eyes, and his hair was plastered and flattened down on his brow on +a level with his eyebrows like the wigs of English coachmen in "high +life." His hair was gray. He was dressed in black from head to foot, in +garments that were very threadbare but clean; a bunch of seals depending +from his fob suggested the idea of a watch. He held in his hand an old +hat! He walked in a bent attitude, and the curve in his spine augmented +the profundity of his bow. + +The first thing that struck the observer was, that this personage's +coat, which was too ample although carefully buttoned, had not been made +for him. + +Here a short digression becomes necessary. + +There was in Paris at that epoch, in a low-lived old lodging in the Rue +Beautreillis, near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew whose profession was +to change villains into honest men. Not for too long, which might have +proved embarrassing for the villain. The change was on sight, for a day +or two, at the rate of thirty sous a day, by means of a costume which +resembled the honesty of the world in general as nearly as possible. +This costumer was called "the Changer"; the pickpockets of Paris +had given him this name and knew him by no other. He had a tolerably +complete wardrobe. The rags with which he tricked out people were almost +probable. He had specialties and categories; on each nail of his +shop hung a social status, threadbare and worn; here the suit of a +magistrate, there the outfit of a Cure, beyond the outfit of a banker, +in one corner the costume of a retired military man, elsewhere +the habiliments of a man of letters, and further on the dress of a +statesman. + +This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which knavery plays +in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into +which roguery retreated. A tattered knave arrived at this dressing-room, +deposited his thirty sous and selected, according to the part which +he wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the +stairs once more, the knave was a somebody. On the following day, the +clothes were faithfully returned, and the Changer, who trusted the +thieves with everything, was never robbed. There was one inconvenience +about these clothes, they "did not fit"; not having been made for those +who wore them, they were too tight for one, too loose for another and +did not adjust themselves to any one. Every pickpocket who exceeded or +fell short of the human average was ill at his ease in the Changer's +costumes. It was necessary that one should not be either too fat or +too lean. The changer had foreseen only ordinary men. He had taken the +measure of the species from the first rascal who came to hand, who is +neither stout nor thin, neither tall nor short. Hence adaptations which +were sometimes difficult and from which the Changer's clients extricated +themselves as best they might. So much the worse for the exceptions! +The suit of the statesman, for instance, black from head to foot, and +consequently proper, would have been too large for Pitt and too small +for Castelcicala. The costume of a statesman was designated as follows +in the Changer's catalogue; we copy: + +"A coat of black cloth, trowsers of black wool, a silk waistcoat, boots +and linen." On the margin there stood: ex-ambassador, and a note +which we also copy: "In a separate box, a neatly frizzed peruke, green +glasses, seals, and two small quills an inch long, wrapped in cotton." +All this belonged to the statesman, the ex-ambassador. This whole +costume was, if we may so express ourselves, debilitated; the seams were +white, a vague button-hole yawned at one of the elbows; moreover, one of +the coat buttons was missing on the breast; but this was only detail; as +the hand of the statesman should always be thrust into his coat and laid +upon his heart, its function was to conceal the absent button. + +If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he +would instantly have recognized upon the back of the visitor whom +Basque had just shown in, the statesman's suit borrowed from the +pick-me-down-that shop of the Changer. + +Marius' disappointment on beholding another man than the one whom he +expected to see turned to the newcomer's disadvantage. + +He surveyed him from head to foot, while that personage made exaggerated +bows, and demanded in a curt tone: + +"What do you want?" + +The man replied with an amiable grin of which the caressing smile of a +crocodile will furnish some idea: + +"It seems to me impossible that I should not have already had the honor +of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I think I actually did meet +monsieur personally, several years ago, at the house of Madame la +Princesse Bagration and in the drawing-rooms of his Lordship the Vicomte +Dambray, peer of France." + +It is always a good bit of tactics in knavery to pretend to recognize +some one whom one does not know. + +Marius paid attention to the manner of this man's speech. He spied +on his accent and gesture, but his disappointment increased; the +pronunciation was nasal and absolutely unlike the dry, shrill tone which +he had expected. + +He was utterly routed. + +"I know neither Madame Bagration nor M. Dambray," said he. "I have never +set foot in the house of either of them in my life." + +The reply was ungracious. The personage, determined to be gracious at +any cost, insisted. + +"Then it must have been at Chateaubriand's that I have seen Monsieur! I +know Chateaubriand very well. He is very affable. He sometimes says to +me: 'Thenard, my friend . . . won't you drink a glass of wine with me?'" + +Marius' brow grew more and more severe: + +"I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand. +Let us cut it short. What do you want?" + +The man bowed lower at that harsh voice. + +"Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a +district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is composed +of a single house, a large, square house of three stories, built of +bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in +length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in +such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit +of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and +munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders +to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the +second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the +inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the +chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders +are withdrawn carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes; +no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred +inhabitants,--that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the +country is dangerous; it is full of cannibals. Then why do people go +there? because the country is marvellous; gold is found there." + +"What are you driving at?" interrupted Marius, who had passed from +disappointment to impatience. + +"At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient +civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages." + +"Well?" + +"Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian +peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence +passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not +turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog +of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. +Self-interest--that's the object of men. Gold, that's the loadstone." + +"What then? Finish." + +"I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three +of us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The +journey is long and costly. I need a little money." + +"What concern is that of mine?" demanded Marius. + +The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture +characteristic of the vulture, and replied with an augmented smile. + +"Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter?" + +There was some truth in this. The fact is, that the contents of the +epistle had slipped Marius' mind. He had seen the writing rather than +read the letter. He could hardly recall it. But a moment ago a fresh +start had been given him. He had noted that detail: "my spouse and my +young lady." + +He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger. An examining judge could +not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him. + +He confined himself to replying: + +"State the case precisely." + +The stranger inserted his two hands in both his fobs, drew himself up +without straightening his dorsal column, but scrutinizing Marius in his +turn, with the green gaze of his spectacles. + +"So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to sell +to you." + +"A secret?" + +"A secret." + +"Which concerns me?" + +"Somewhat." + +"What is the secret?" + +Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him. + +"I commence gratis," said the stranger. "You will see that I am +interesting." + +"Speak." + +"Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin." + +Marius shuddered. + +"In my house? no," said he. + +The imperturbable stranger brushed his hat with his elbow and went on: + +"An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here +speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can +be effaced by limitation before the law and by repentance before God. +I speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice +at this hour. I continue. This man has insinuated himself into your +confidence, and almost into your family under a false name. I am about +to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing." + +"I am listening." + +"His name is Jean Valjean." + +"I know it." + +"I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is." + +"Say on." + +"He is an ex-convict." + +"I know it." + +"You know it since I have had the honor of telling you." + +"No. I knew it before." + +Marius' cold tone, that double reply of "I know it," his laconicism, +which was not favorable to dialogue, stirred up some smouldering wrath +in the stranger. He launched a furious glance on the sly at Marius, +which was instantly extinguished. Rapid as it was, this glance was of +the kind which a man recognizes when he has once beheld it; it did not +escape Marius. Certain flashes can only proceed from certain souls; +the eye, that vent-hole of the thought, glows with it; spectacles hide +nothing; try putting a pane of glass over hell! + +The stranger resumed with a smile: + +"I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case, +you ought to perceive that I am well informed. Now what I have to tell +you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la +Baronne. It is an extraordinary secret. It is for sale--I make you the +first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs." + +"I know that secret as well as the others," said Marius. + +The personage felt the necessity of lowering his price a trifle. + +"Monsieur le Baron, say ten thousand francs and I will speak." + +"I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know +what you wish to say to me." + +A fresh flash gleamed in the man's eye. He exclaimed: + +"But I must dine to-day, nevertheless. It is an extraordinary secret, +I tell you. Monsieur le Baron, I will speak. I speak. Give me twenty +francs." + +Marius gazed intently at him: + +"I know your extraordinary secret, just as I knew Jean Valjean's name, +just as I know your name." + +"My name?" + +"Yes." + +"That is not difficult, Monsieur le Baron. I had the honor to write to +you and to tell it to you. Thenard." + +"--Dier." + +"Hey?" + +"Thenardier." + +"Who's that?" + +In danger the porcupine bristles up, the beetle feigns death, the old +guard forms in a square; this man burst into laughter. + +Then he flicked a grain of dust from the sleeve of his coat with a +fillip. + +Marius continued: + +"You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the +poet, Don Alvares the Spaniard, and Mistress Balizard." + +"Mistress what?" + +"And you kept a pot-house at Montfermeil." + +"A pot-house! Never." + +"And I tell you that your name is Thenardier." + +"I deny it." + +"And that you are a rascal. Here." + +And Marius drew a bank-note from his pocket and flung it in his face. + +"Thanks! Pardon me! five hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron!" + +And the man, overcome, bowed, seized the note and examined it. + +"Five hundred francs!" he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in +a low voice: "An honest rustler."[69] + +Then brusquely: + +"Well, so be it!" he exclaimed. "Let us put ourselves at our ease." + +And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off +his spectacles, and withdrawing from his nose by sleight of hand the two +quills of which mention was recently made, and which the reader has also +met with on another page of this book, he took off his face as the man +takes off his hat. + +His eye lighted up; his uneven brow, with hollows in some places and +bumps in others, hideously wrinkled at the top, was laid bare, his nose +had become as sharp as a beak; the fierce and sagacious profile of the +man of prey reappeared. + +"Monsieur le Baron is infallible," he said in a clear voice whence all +nasal twang had disappeared, "I am Thenardier." + +And he straightened up his crooked back. + +Thenardier, for it was really he, was strangely surprised; he would have +been troubled, had he been capable of such a thing. He had come to bring +astonishment, and it was he who had received it. This humiliation had +been worth five hundred francs to him, and, taking it all in all, he +accepted it; but he was none the less bewildered. + +He beheld this Baron Pontmercy for the first time, and, in spite of +his disguise, this Baron Pontmercy recognized him, and recognized +him thoroughly. And not only was this Baron perfectly informed as to +Thenardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this +almost beardless young man, who was so glacial and so generous, who knew +people's names, who knew all their names, and who opened his purse to +them, who bullied rascals like a judge, and who paid them like a dupe? + +Thenardier, the reader will remember, although he had been Marius' +neighbor, had never seen him, which is not unusual in Paris; he had +formerly, in a vague way, heard his daughters talk of a very poor young +man named Marius who lived in the house. He had written to him, without +knowing him, the letter with which the reader is acquainted. + +No connection between that Marius and M. le Baron Pontmercy was possible +in his mind. + +As for the name Pontmercy, it will be recalled that, on the battlefield +of Waterloo, he had only heard the last two syllables, for which he +always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is merely +an expression of thanks. + +However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of +the married pair on the 16th of February, and through his own personal +researches, he had succeeded in learning many things, and, from the +depths of his own gloom, he had contrived to grasp more than one +mysterious clew. He had discovered, by dint of industry, or, at least, +by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had +encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had +easily reached the name. He knew that Madame la Baronne Pontmercy was +Cosette. But he meant to be discreet in that quarter. + +Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch +an inkling of illegitimacy, the history of Fantine had always seemed to +him equivocal; but what was the use of talking about that? in order to +cause himself to be paid for his silence? He had, or thought he had, +better wares than that for sale. And, according to all appearances, if +he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation--and +without proof: "Your wife is a bastard," the only result would be to +attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer. + +From Thenardier's point of view, the conversation with Marius had not +yet begun. He ought to have drawn back, to have modified his strategy, +to have abandoned his position, to have changed his front; but nothing +essential had been compromised as yet, and he had five hundred francs +in his pocket. Moreover, he had something decisive to say, and, even +against this very well-informed and well-armed Baron Pontmercy, he felt +himself strong. For men of Thenardier's nature, every dialogue is +a combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his +situation? He did not know to whom he was speaking, but he did know of +what he was speaking, he made this rapid review of his inner forces, and +after having said: "I am Thenardier," he waited. + +Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thenardier at last. +That man whom he had so greatly desired to find was before him. He could +honor Colonel Pontmercy's recommendation. + +He felt humiliated that that hero should have owned anything to this +villain, and that the letter of change drawn from the depths of the tomb +by his father upon him, Marius, had been protested up to that day. It +also seemed to him, in the complex state of his mind towards Thenardier, +that there was occasion to avenge the Colonel for the misfortune of +having been saved by such a rascal. In any case, he was content. He +was about to deliver the Colonel's shade from this unworthy creditor +at last, and it seemed to him that he was on the point of rescuing his +father's memory from the debtors' prison. By the side of this duty there +was another--to elucidate, if possible, the source of Cosette's fortune. +The opportunity appeared to present itself. Perhaps Thenardier knew +something. It might prove useful to see the bottom of this man. + +He commenced with this. + +Thenardier had caused the "honest rustler" to disappear in his fob, and +was gazing at Marius with a gentleness that was almost tender. + +Marius broke the silence. + +"Thenardier, I have told you your name. Now, would you like to have me +tell you your secret--the one that you came here to reveal to me? I have +information of my own, also. You shall see that I know more about it +than you do. Jean Valjean, as you have said, is an assassin and a thief. +A thief, because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer, whose ruin he brought +about. An assassin, because he assassinated police-agent Javert." + +"I don't understand, sir," ejaculated Thenardier. + +"I will make myself intelligible. In a certain arrondissement of the Pas +de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, +and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had regained his status and +rehabilitated himself. This man had become a just man in the full force +of the term. In a trade, the manufacture of black glass goods, he +made the fortune of an entire city. As far as his personal fortune was +concerned he made that also, but as a secondary matter, and in some +sort, by accident. He was the foster-father of the poor. He founded +hospitals, opened schools, visited the sick, dowered young girls, +supported widows, and adopted orphans; he was like the guardian angel of +the country. He refused the cross, he was appointed Mayor. A liberated +convict knew the secret of a penalty incurred by this man in former +days; he denounced him, and had him arrested, and profited by the arrest +to come to Paris and cause the banker Laffitte,--I have the fact from +the cashier himself,--by means of a false signature, to hand over to +him the sum of over half a million which belonged to M. Madeleine. This +convict who robbed M. Madeleine was Jean Valjean. As for the other fact, +you have nothing to tell me about it either. Jean Valjean killed the +agent Javert; he shot him with a pistol. I, the person who is speaking +to you, was present." + +Thenardier cast upon Marius the sovereign glance of a conquered man who +lays his hand once more upon the victory, and who has just regained, in +one instant, all the ground which he has lost. But the smile returned +instantly. The inferior's triumph in the presence of his superior must +be wheedling. + +Thenardier contented himself with saying to Marius: + +"Monsieur le Baron, we are on the wrong track." + +And he emphasized this phrase by making his bunch of seals execute an +expressive whirl. + +"What!" broke forth Marius, "do you dispute that? These are facts." + +"They are chimeras. The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors +me renders it my duty to tell him so. Truth and justice before all +things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, +Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill +Javert." + +"This is too much! How is this?" + +"For two reasons." + +"What are they? Speak." + +"This is the first: he did not rob M. Madeleine, because it is Jean +Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine." + +"What tale are you telling me?" + +"And this is the second: he did not assassinate Javert, because the +person who killed Javert was Javert." + +"What do you mean to say?" + +"That Javert committed suicide." + +"Prove it! prove it!" cried Marius beside himself. + +Thenardier resumed, scanning his phrase after the manner of the ancient +Alexandrine measure: + + +"Police-agent-Ja-vert-was-found-drowned-un-der-a-boat-of-the-Pont-au-Change." + +"But prove it!" + +Thenardier drew from his pocket a large envelope of gray paper, which +seemed to contain sheets folded in different sizes. + +"I have my papers," he said calmly. + +And he added: + +"Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean +thoroughly. I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the +same man, and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert. If +I speak, it is because I have proofs. Not manuscript proofs--writing is +suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,--but printed proofs." + +As he spoke, Thenardier extracted from the envelope two copies of +newspapers, yellow, faded, and strongly saturated with tobacco. One of +these two newspapers, broken at every fold and falling into rags, seemed +much older than the other. + +"Two facts, two proofs," remarked Thenardier. And he offered the two +newspapers, unfolded, to Marius. + +The reader is acquainted with these two papers. One, the most ancient, a +number of the Drapeau Blanc of the 25th of July, 1823, the text of +which can be seen in the first volume, established the identity of M. +Madeleine and Jean Valjean. + +The other, a Moniteur of the 15th of June, 1832, announced the suicide +of Javert, adding that it appeared from a verbal report of Javert to the +prefect that, having been taken prisoner in the barricade of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, he had owed his life to the magnanimity of an insurgent +who, holding him under his pistol, had fired into the air, instead of +blowing out his brains. + +Marius read. He had evidence, a certain date, irrefragable proof, these +two newspapers had not been printed expressly for the purpose of backing +up Thenardier's statements; the note printed in the Moniteur had been an +administrative communication from the Prefecture of Police. Marius could +not doubt. + +The information of the cashier-clerk had been false, and he himself had +been deceived. + +Jean Valjean, who had suddenly grown grand, emerged from his cloud. +Marius could not repress a cry of joy. + +"Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that +fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a +whole countryside! he is Jean Valjean, Javert's savior! he is a hero! he +is a saint!" + +"He's not a saint, and he's not a hero!" said Thenardier. "He's an +assassin and a robber." + +And he added, in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he possesses +some authority: + +"Let us be calm." + +Robber, assassin--those words which Marius thought had disappeared and +which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath. + +"Again!" said he. + +"Always," ejaculated Thenardier. "Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, +but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer." + +"Will you speak," retorted Marius, "of that miserable theft, committed +forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole +life of repentance, of self-abnegation and of virtue?" + +"I say assassination and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I repeat that I +am speaking of actual facts. What I have to reveal to you is absolutely +unknown. It belongs to unpublished matter. And perhaps you will find in +it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne +by Jean Valjean. I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it +would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose +comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one's +crime, and to enjoy one's theft, to bury one's name and to create for +oneself a family." + +"I might interrupt you at this point," said Marius, "but go on." + +"Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the recompense to your +generosity. This secret is worth massive gold. You will say to me: 'Why +do not you apply to Jean Valjean?' For a very simple reason; I know +that he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I +consider the combination ingenious; but he has no longer a son, he would +show me his empty hands, and, since I am in need of some money for +my trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has +nothing. I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair." + +Marius seated himself and motioned to him to do the same. + +Thenardier installed himself on a tufted chair, picked up his two +newspapers, thrust them back into their envelope, and murmured as he +pecked at the Drapeau Blanc with his nail: "It cost me a good deal of +trouble to get this one." + +That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of +the chair, an attitude characteristic of people who are sure of what +they are saying, then he entered upon his subject gravely, emphasizing +his words: + +"Monsieur le Baron, on the 6th of June, 1832, about a year ago, on the +day of the insurrection, a man was in the Grand Sewer of Paris, at the +point where the sewer enters the Seine, between the Pont des Invalides +and the Pont de Jena." + +Marius abruptly drew his chair closer to that of Thenardier. Thenardier +noticed this movement and continued with the deliberation of an orator +who holds his interlocutor and who feels his adversary palpitating under +his words: + +"This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which +are foreign to politics, had adopted the sewer as his domicile and had +a key to it. It was, I repeat, on the 6th of June; it might have been +eight o'clock in the evening. The man hears a noise in the sewer. +Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound +of footsteps, some one was walking in the dark, and coming in his +direction. Strange to say, there was another man in the sewer besides +himself. The grating of the outlet from the sewer was not far off. +A little light which fell through it permitted him to recognize the +newcomer, and to see that the man was carrying something on his back. +He was walking in a bent attitude. The man who was walking in a bent +attitude was an ex-convict, and what he was dragging on his shoulders +was a corpse. Assassination caught in the very act, if ever there was +such a thing. As for the theft, that is understood; one does not kill +a man gratis. This convict was on his way to fling the body into the +river. One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit +grating, this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, +necessarily, have encountered a frightful quagmire where it seems as +though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found +the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, +and that did not suit the assassin's plans. He had preferred to +traverse that quagmire with his burden, and his exertions must have been +terrible, for it is impossible to risk one's life more completely; I +don't understand how he could have come out of that alive." + +Marius' chair approached still nearer. Thenardier took advantage of this +to draw a long breath. He went on: + +"Monsieur le Baron, a sewer is not the Champ de Mars. One lacks +everything there, even room. When two men are there, they must meet. +That is what happened. The man domiciled there and the passer-by were +forced to bid each other good-day, greatly to the regret of both. The +passer-by said to the inhabitant:--"You see what I have on my back, I +must get out, you have the key, give it to me." That convict was a man +of terrible strength. There was no way of refusing. Nevertheless, the +man who had the key parleyed, simply to gain time. He examined the dead +man, but he could see nothing, except that the latter was young, well +dressed, with the air of being rich, and all disfigured with blood. +While talking, the man contrived to tear and pull off behind, without +the assassin perceiving it, a bit of the assassinated man's coat. A +document for conviction, you understand; a means of recovering the trace +of things and of bringing home the crime to the criminal. He put +this document for conviction in his pocket. After which he opened the +grating, made the man go out with his embarrassment on his back, closed +the grating again, and ran off, not caring to be mixed up with the +remainder of the adventure and above all, not wishing to be present +when the assassin threw the assassinated man into the river. Now you +comprehend. The man who was carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean; the +one who had the key is speaking to you at this moment; and the piece of +the coat . . ." + +Thenardier completed his phrase by drawing from his pocket, and holding, +on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and his two +forefingers, a strip of torn black cloth, all covered with dark spots. + +Marius had sprung to his feet, pale, hardly able to draw his breath, +with his eyes riveted on the fragment of black cloth, and, without +uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he +retreated to the wall and fumbled with his right hand along the wall for +a key which was in the lock of a cupboard near the chimney. + +He found the key, opened the cupboard, plunged his arm into it without +looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which +Thenardier still held outspread. + +But Thenardier continued: + +"Monsieur le Baron, I have the strongest of reasons for believing that +the assassinated young man was an opulent stranger lured into a trap by +Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money." + +"The young man was myself, and here is the coat!" cried Marius, and he +flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood. + +Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thenardier, he crouched +down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt. +The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat. + +Thenardier was petrified. + +This is what he thought: "I'm struck all of a heap." + +Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant. + +He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thenardier, presenting +to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled with bank-notes +for five hundred and a thousand francs. + +"You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain. +You came to accuse that man, you have only justified him; you wanted to +ruin him, you have only succeeded in glorifying him. And it is you who +are the thief! And it is you who are the assassin! I saw you, Thenardier +Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l'Hopital. I know enough about +you to send you to the galleys and even further if I choose. Here are a +thousand francs, bully that you are!" + +And he flung a thousand franc note at Thenardier. + +"Ah! Jondrette Thenardier, vile rascal! Let this serve you as a lesson, +you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of +the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of here! +Waterloo protects you." + +"Waterloo!" growled Thenardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along +with the thousand. + +"Yes, assassin! You there saved the life of a Colonel. . ." + +"Of a General," said Thenardier, elevating his head. + +"Of a Colonel!" repeated Marius in a rage. "I wouldn't give a ha'penny +for a general. And you come here to commit infamies! I tell you that +you have committed all crimes. Go! disappear! Only be happy, that is all +that I desire. Ah! monster! here are three thousand francs more. Take +them. You will depart to-morrow, for America, with your daughter; +for your wife is dead, you abominable liar. I shall watch over your +departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you +twenty thousand francs. Go get yourself hung elsewhere!" + +"Monsieur le Baron!" replied Thenardier, bowing to the very earth, +"eternal gratitude." And Thenardier left the room, understanding +nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks +of gold, and with that thunder which had burst forth over his head in +bank-bills. + +Struck by lightning he was, but he was also content; and he would +have been greatly angered had he had a lightning rod to ward off such +lightning as that. + +Let us finish with this man at once. + +Two days after the events which we are at this moment narrating, he set +out, thanks to Marius' care, for America under a false name, with his +daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand +francs. + +The moral wretchedness of Thenardier, the bourgeois who had missed +his vocation, was irremediable. He was in America what he had been in +Europe. Contact with an evil man sometimes suffices to corrupt a good +action and to cause evil things to spring from it. With Marius' money, +Thenardier set up as a slave-dealer. + +As soon as Thenardier had left the house, Marius rushed to the garden, +where Cosette was still walking. + +"Cosette! Cosette!" he cried. "Come! come quick! Let us go. Basque, a +carriage! Cosette, come. Ah! My God! It was he who saved my life! Let us +not lose a minute! Put on your shawl." + +Cosette thought him mad and obeyed. + +He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its +throbbing. He paced back and forth with huge strides, he embraced +Cosette: + +"Ah! Cosette! I am an unhappy wretch!" said he. + +Marius was bewildered. He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of +some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheard-of virtue, +supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The convict +was transfigured into Christ. + +Marius was dazzled by this prodigy. He did not know precisely what he +beheld, but it was grand. + +In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door. + +Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself. + +"Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Arme, Number 7." + +The carriage drove off. + +"Ah! what happiness!" ejaculated Cosette. "Rue de l'Homme Arme, I did +not dare to speak to you of that. We are going to see M. Jean." + +"Thy father! Cosette, thy father more than ever. Cosette, I guess it. +You told me that you had never received the letter that I sent you by +Gavroche. It must have fallen into his hands. Cosette, he went to the +barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he +saved others also; he saved Javert. He rescued me from that gulf to give +me to you. He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer. Ah! I +am a monster of ingratitude. Cosette, after having been your providence, +he became mine. Just imagine, there was a terrible quagmire enough to +drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire. Cosette! he made +me traverse it. I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I +could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going to bring him back, +to take him with us, whether he is willing or not, he shall never leave +us again. If only he is at home! Provided only that we can find him, +I will pass the rest of my life in venerating him. Yes, that is how it +should be, do you see, Cosette? Gavroche must have delivered my letter +to him. All is explained. You understand." + +Cosette did not understand a word. + +"You are right," she said to him. + +Meanwhile the carriage rolled on. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY + +Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door. + +"Come in," he said feebly. + +The door opened. + +Cosette and Marius made their appearance. + +Cosette rushed into the room. + +Marius remained on the threshold, leaning against the jamb of the door. + +"Cosette!" said Jean Valjean. + +And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling, +haggard, livid, gloomy, an immense joy in his eyes. + +Cosette, stifling with emotion, fell upon Jean Valjean's breast. + +"Father!" said she. + +Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered: + +"Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God!" + +And, pressed close in Cosette's arms, he exclaimed: + +"It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then!" + +Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears from flowing, +took a step forward and murmured between lips convulsively contracted to +repress his sobs: + +"My father!" + +"And you also, you pardon me!" Jean Valjean said to him. + +Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added: + +"Thanks." + +Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed. + +"It embarrasses me," said she. + +And, seating herself on the old man's knees, she put aside his white +locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow. + +Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way. + +Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her +caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt. + +Jean Valjean stammered: + +"How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. +Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very moment when you entered, I +was saying to myself: 'All is over. Here is her little gown, I am a +miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that +at the very moment when you were mounting the stairs. Was not I an +idiot? Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good +God. The good God says: + +"'You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid! No. No, things +will not go so. Come, there is a good man yonder who is in need of an +angel.' And the angel comes, and one sees one's Cosette again! and one +sees one's little Cosette once more! Ah! I was very unhappy." + +For a moment he could not speak, then he went on: + +"I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then. A heart needs +a bone to gnaw. But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the way. I +gave myself reasons: 'They do not want you, keep in your own course, +one has not the right to cling eternally.' Ah! God be praised, I see her +once more! Dost thou know, Cosette, thy husband is very handsome? Ah! +what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily. I am fond of +that pattern. It was thy husband who chose it, was it not? And then, +thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls. Let me call her thou, Monsieur +Pontmercy. It will not be for long." + +And Cosette began again: + +"How wicked of you to have left us like that! Where did you go? Why have +you stayed away so long? Formerly your journeys only lasted three or +four days. I sent Nicolette, the answer always was: 'He is absent.' How +long have you been back? Why did you not let us know? Do you know that +you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, +and we have not known it! Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand is!" + +"So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!" repeated Jean +Valjean. + +At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was +swelling Marius' heart found vent. + +He burst forth: + +"Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And +do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He +has done more--he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and +after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He +has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, +to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks! +Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too +little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all +that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through +all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. +Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! +Cosette, that man is an angel!" + +"Hush! hush!" said Jean Valjean in a low voice. "Why tell all that?" + +"But you!" cried Marius with a wrath in which there was veneration, "why +did you not tell it to me? It is your own fault, too. You save people's +lives, and you conceal it from them! You do more, under the pretext of +unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself. It is frightful." + +"I told the truth," replied Jean Valjean. + +"No," retorted Marius, "the truth is the whole truth; and that you did +not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine, why not have said so? You saved +Javert, why not have said so? I owed my life to you, why not have said +so?" + +"Because I thought as you do. I thought that you were in the right. It +was necessary that I should go away. If you had known about that affair, +of the sewer, you would have made me remain near you. I was therefore +forced to hold my peace. If I had spoken, it would have caused +embarrassment in every way." + +"It would have embarrassed what? embarrassed whom?" retorted Marius. "Do +you think that you are going to stay here? We shall carry you off. Ah! +good heavens! when I reflect that it was by an accident that I have +learned all this. You form a part of ourselves. You are her father, +and mine. You shall not pass another day in this dreadful house. Do not +imagine that you will be here to-morrow." + +"To-morrow," said Jean Valjean, "I shall not be here, but I shall not be +with you." + +"What do you mean?" replied Marius. "Ah! come now, we are not going to +permit any more journeys. You shall never leave us again. You belong to +us. We shall not loose our hold of you." + +"This time it is for good," added Cosette. "We have a carriage at the +door. I shall run away with you. If necessary, I shall employ force." + +And she laughingly made a movement to lift the old man in her arms. + +"Your chamber still stands ready in our house," she went on. "If you +only knew how pretty the garden is now! The azaleas are doing very +well there. The walks are sanded with river sand; there are tiny violet +shells. You shall eat my strawberries. I water them myself. And no +more 'madame,' no more 'Monsieur Jean,' we are living under a Republic, +everybody says thou, don't they, Marius? The programme is changed. If +you only knew, father, I have had a sorrow, there was a robin redbreast +which had made her nest in a hole in the wall, and a horrible cat ate +her. My poor, pretty, little robin red-breast which used to put her head +out of her window and look at me! I cried over it. I should have liked +to kill the cat. But now nobody cries any more. Everybody laughs, +everybody is happy. You are going to come with us. How delighted +grandfather will be! You shall have your plot in the garden, you shall +cultivate it, and we shall see whether your strawberries are as fine as +mine. And, then, I shall do everything that you wish, and then, you will +obey me prettily." + +Jean Valjean listened to her without hearing her. He heard the music of +her voice rather than the sense of her words; one of those large tears +which are the sombre pearls of the soul welled up slowly in his eyes. + +He murmured: + +"The proof that God is good is that she is here." + +"Father!" said Cosette. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"It is quite true that it would be charming for us to live together. +Their trees are full of birds. I would walk with Cosette. It is sweet to +be among living people who bid each other 'good-day,' who call to each +other in the garden. People see each other from early morning. We +should each cultivate our own little corner. She would make me eat her +strawberries. I would make her gather my roses. That would be charming. +Only . . ." + +He paused and said gently: + +"It is a pity." + +The tear did not fall, it retreated, and Jean Valjean replaced it with a +smile. + +Cosette took both the old man's hands in hers. + +"My God!" said she, "your hands are still colder than before. Are you +ill? Do you suffer?" + +"I? No," replied Jean Valjean. "I am very well. Only . . ." + +He paused. + +"Only what?" + +"I am going to die presently." + +Cosette and Marius shuddered. + +"To die!" exclaimed Marius. + +"Yes, but that is nothing," said Jean Valjean. + +He took breath, smiled and resumed: + +"Cosette, thou wert talking to me, go on, so thy little robin red-breast +is dead? Speak, so that I may hear thy voice." + +Marius gazed at the old man in amazement. + +Cosette uttered a heartrending cry. + +"Father! my father! you will live. You are going to live. I insist upon +your living, do you hear?" + +Jean Valjean raised his head towards her with adoration. + +"Oh! yes, forbid me to die. Who knows? Perhaps I shall obey. I was on +the verge of dying when you came. That stopped me, it seemed to me that +I was born again." + +"You are full of strength and life," cried Marius. "Do you imagine that +a person can die like this? You have had sorrow, you shall have no more. +It is I who ask your forgiveness, and on my knees! You are going to +live, and to live with us, and to live a long time. We take possession +of you once more. There are two of us here who will henceforth have no +other thought than your happiness." + +"You see," resumed Cosette, all bathed in tears, "that Marius says that +you shall not die." + +Jean Valjean continued to smile. + +"Even if you were to take possession of me, Monsieur Pontmercy, would +that make me other than I am? No, God has thought like you and myself, +and he does not change his mind; it is useful for me to go. Death is +a good arrangement. God knows better than we what we need. May you be +happy, may Monsieur Pontmercy have Cosette, may youth wed the morning, +may there be around you, my children, lilacs and nightingales; may your +life be a beautiful, sunny lawn, may all the enchantments of heaven fill +your souls, and now let me, who am good for nothing, die; it is certain +that all this is right. Come, be reasonable, nothing is possible now, I +am fully conscious that all is over. And then, last night, I drank that +whole jug of water. How good thy husband is, Cosette! Thou art much +better off with him than with me." + +A noise became audible at the door. + +It was the doctor entering. + +"Good-day, and farewell, doctor," said Jean Valjean. "Here are my poor +children." + +Marius stepped up to the doctor. He addressed to him only this single +word: "Monsieur? . . ." But his manner of pronouncing it contained a +complete question. + +The doctor replied to the question by an expressive glance. + +"Because things are not agreeable," said Jean Valjean, "that is no +reason for being unjust towards God." + +A silence ensued. + +All breasts were oppressed. + +Jean Valjean turned to Cosette. He began to gaze at her as though he +wished to retain her features for eternity. + +In the depths of the shadow into which he had already descended, ecstasy +was still possible to him when gazing at Cosette. The reflection of that +sweet face lighted up his pale visage. + +The doctor felt of his pulse. + +"Ah! it was you that he wanted!" he murmured, looking at Cosette and +Marius. + +And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice: + +"Too late." + +Jean Valjean surveyed the doctor and Marius serenely, almost without +ceasing to gaze at Cosette. + +These barely articulate words were heard to issue from his mouth: + +"It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live." + +All at once he rose to his feet. These accesses of strength are +sometimes the sign of the death agony. He walked with a firm step to +the wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, +detached from the wall a little copper crucifix which was suspended +there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of +perfect health, and said in a loud voice, as he laid the crucifix on the +table: + +"Behold the great martyr." + +Then his chest sank in, his head wavered, as though the intoxication of +the tomb were seizing hold upon him. + +His hands, which rested on his knees, began to press their nails into +the stuff of his trousers. + +Cosette supported his shoulders, and sobbed, and tried to speak to him, +but could not. + +Among the words mingled with that mournful saliva which accompanies +tears, they distinguished words like the following: + +"Father, do not leave us. Is it possible that we have found you only to +lose you again?" + +It might be said that agony writhes. It goes, comes, advances towards +the sepulchre, and returns towards life. There is groping in the action +of dying. + +Jean Valjean rallied after this semi-swoon, shook his brow as though +to make the shadows fall away from it and became almost perfectly lucid +once more. + +He took a fold of Cosette's sleeve and kissed it. + +"He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back," cried Marius. + +"You are good, both of you," said Jean Valjean. "I am going to tell you +what has caused me pain. What has pained me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that +you have not been willing to touch that money. That money really belongs +to your wife. I will explain to you, my children, and for that reason, +also, I am glad to see you. Black jet comes from England, white jet +comes from Norway. All this is in this paper, which you will read. For +bracelets, I invented a way of substituting for slides of soldered sheet +iron, slides of iron laid together. It is prettier, better and less +costly. You will understand how much money can be made in that way. So +Cosette's fortune is really hers. I give you these details, in order +that your mind may be set at rest." + +The portress had come upstairs and was gazing in at the half-open door. +The doctor dismissed her. + +But he could not prevent this zealous woman from exclaiming to the dying +man before she disappeared: "Would you like a priest?" + +"I have had one," replied Jean Valjean. + +And with his finger he seemed to indicate a point above his head where +one would have said that he saw some one. + +It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death +agony. + +Cosette gently slipped a pillow under his loins. + +Jean Valjean resumed: + +"Have no fear, Monsieur Pontmercy, I adjure you. The six hundred +thousand francs really belong to Cosette. My life will have been wasted +if you do not enjoy them! We managed to do very well with those glass +goods. We rivalled what is called Berlin jewellery. However, we could +not equal the black glass of England. A gross, which contains twelve +hundred very well cut grains, only costs three francs." + +When a being who is dear to us is on the point of death, we gaze upon +him with a look which clings convulsively to him and which would fain +hold him back. + +Cosette gave her hand to Marius, and both, mute with anguish, not +knowing what to say to the dying man, stood trembling and despairing +before him. + +Jean Valjean sank moment by moment. He was failing; he was drawing near +to the gloomy horizon. + +His breath had become intermittent; a little rattling interrupted it. +He found some difficulty in moving his forearm, his feet had lost all +movement, and in proportion as the wretchedness of limb and feebleness +of body increased, all the majesty of his soul was displayed and spread +over his brow. The light of the unknown world was already visible in his +eyes. + +His face paled and smiled. Life was no longer there, it was something +else. + +His breath sank, his glance grew grander. He was a corpse on which the +wings could be felt. + +He made a sign to Cosette to draw near, then to Marius; the last minute +of the last hour had, evidently, arrived. + +He began to speak to them in a voice so feeble that it seemed to come +from a distance, and one would have said that a wall now rose between +them and him. + +"Draw near, draw near, both of you. I love you dearly. Oh! how good it +is to die like this! And thou lovest me also, my Cosette. I knew well +that thou still felt friendly towards thy poor old man. How kind it was +of thee to place that pillow under my loins! Thou wilt weep for me a +little, wilt thou not? Not too much. I do not wish thee to have any real +griefs. You must enjoy yourselves a great deal, my children. I forgot +to tell you that the profit was greater still on the buckles without +tongues than on all the rest. A gross of a dozen dozens cost ten francs +and sold for sixty. It really was a good business. So there is no +occasion for surprise at the six hundred thousand francs, Monsieur +Pontmercy. It is honest money. You may be rich with a tranquil mind. +Thou must have a carriage, a box at the theatres now and then, and +handsome ball dresses, my Cosette, and then, thou must give good dinners +to thy friends, and be very happy. I was writing to Cosette a while ago. +She will find my letter. I bequeath to her the two candlesticks which +stand on the chimney-piece. They are of silver, but to me they are gold, +they are diamonds; they change candles which are placed in them into +wax-tapers. I do not know whether the person who gave them to me is +pleased with me yonder on high. I have done what I could. My children, +you will not forget that I am a poor man, you will have me buried in the +first plot of earth that you find, under a stone to mark the spot. This +is my wish. No name on the stone. If Cosette cares to come for a little +while now and then, it will give me pleasure. And you too, Monsieur +Pontmercy. I must admit that I have not always loved you. I ask your +pardon for that. Now she and you form but one for me. I feel very +grateful to you. I am sure that you make Cosette happy. If you only +knew, Monsieur Pontmercy, her pretty rosy cheeks were my delight; when I +saw her in the least pale, I was sad. In the chest of drawers, there is +a bank-bill for five hundred francs. I have not touched it. It is for +the poor. Cosette, dost thou see thy little gown yonder on the bed? dost +thou recognize it? That was ten years ago, however. How time flies! We +have been very happy. All is over. Do not weep, my children, I am not +going very far, I shall see you from there, you will only have to +look at night, and you will see me smile. Cosette, dost thou remember +Montfermeil? Thou wert in the forest, thou wert greatly terrified; dost +thou remember how I took hold of the handle of the water-bucket? That +was the first time that I touched thy poor, little hand. It was so cold! +Ah! your hands were red then, mademoiselle, they are very white now. And +the big doll! dost thou remember? Thou didst call her Catherine. Thou +regrettedest not having taken her to the convent! How thou didst make +me laugh sometimes, my sweet angel! When it had been raining, thou didst +float bits of straw on the gutters, and watch them pass away. One day +I gave thee a willow battledore and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and +green feathers. Thou hast forgotten it. Thou wert roguish so young! Thou +didst play. Thou didst put cherries in thy ears. Those are things of +the past. The forests through which one has passed with one's child, the +trees under which one has strolled, the convents where one has concealed +oneself, the games, the hearty laughs of childhood, are shadows. I +imagined that all that belonged to me. In that lay my stupidity. Those +Thenardiers were wicked. Thou must forgive them. Cosette, the moment +has come to tell thee the name of thy mother. She was called Fantine. +Remember that name--Fantine. Kneel whenever thou utterest it. She +suffered much. She loved thee dearly. She had as much unhappiness as +thou hast had happiness. That is the way God apportions things. He is +there on high, he sees us all, and he knows what he does in the midst of +his great stars. I am on the verge of departure, my children. Love each +other well and always. There is nothing else but that in the world: love +for each other. You will think sometimes of the poor old man who died +here. Oh my Cosette, it is not my fault, indeed, that I have not seen +thee all this time, it cut me to the heart; I went as far as the corner +of the street, I must have produced a queer effect on the people who +saw me pass, I was like a madman, I once went out without my hat. I no +longer see clearly, my children, I had still other things to say, but +never mind. Think a little of me. Come still nearer. I die happy. Give +me your dear and well-beloved heads, so that I may lay my hands upon +them." + +Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, in despair, suffocating with +tears, each beneath one of Jean Valjean's hands. Those august hands no +longer moved. + +He had fallen backwards, the light of the candles illuminated him. + +His white face looked up to heaven, he allowed Cosette and Marius to +cover his hands with kisses. + +He was dead. + +The night was starless and extremely dark. No doubt, in the gloom, some +immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting that soul. + +[Illustration: Darkness 5b9-1-Darkness] + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE GRASS COVERS AND THE RAIN EFFACES + +In the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, +far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all +the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the +hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, +beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid +dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt +than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and +from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air +blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of +walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet +are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards +come thither. All around there is a quivering of weeds. In the spring, +linnets warble in the trees. + +This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the +requirements of the tomb, and no other care was taken than to make the +stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. + +No name is to be read there. + +Only, many years ago, a hand wrote upon it in pencil these four lines, +which have become gradually illegible beneath the rain and the dust, and +which are, to-day, probably effaced: + + Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien etrange, + Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange. + La chose simplement d'elle-meme arriva, + Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.[70] + + + + + +LETTER TO M. DAELLI + +Publisher of the Italian translation of Les Miserables in Milan. + + HAUTEVILLE-HOUSE, October 18, 1862. + + +You are right, sir, when you tell me that Les Miserables is written for +all nations. I do not know whether it will be read by all, but I wrote +it for all. It is addressed to England as well as to Spain, to Italy as +well as to France, to Germany as well as to Ireland, to Republics which +have slaves as well as to Empires which have serfs. Social problems +overstep frontiers. The sores of the human race, those great sores which +cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the +map. In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place +where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of +the book which should instruct him and of the hearth which should warm +him, the book of Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: "Open to +me, I come for you." + +At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which +is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all +climes, and he is groaning in all languages. + +Your Italy is no more exempt from the evil than is our France. Your +admirable Italy has all miseries on the face of it. Does not banditism, +that raging form of pauperism, inhabit your mountains? Few nations are +more deeply eaten by that ulcer of convents which I have endeavored to +fathom. In spite of your possessing Rome, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, +Florence, Sienna, Pisa, Mantua, Bologna, Ferrara, Genoa, Venice, a +heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, +you are, like ourselves, poor. You are covered with marvels and vermin. +Assuredly, the sun of Italy is splendid, but, alas, azure in the sky +does not prevent rags on man. + +Like us, you have prejudices, superstitions, tyrannies, fanaticisms, +blind laws lending assistance to ignorant customs. You taste nothing of +the present nor of the future without a flavor of the past being mingled +with it. You have a barbarian, the monk, and a savage, the lazzarone. +The social question is the same for you as for us. There are a few less +deaths from hunger with you, and a few more from fever; your social +hygiene is not much better than ours; shadows, which are Protestant in +England, are Catholic in Italy; but, under different names, the vescovo +is identical with the bishop, and it always means night, and of pretty +nearly the same quality. To explain the Bible badly amounts to the same +thing as to understand the Gospel badly. + +Is it necessary to emphasize this? Must this melancholy parallelism +be yet more completely verified? Have you not indigent persons? Glance +below. Have you not parasites? Glance up. Does not that hideous balance, +whose two scales, pauperism and parasitism, so mournfully preserve their +mutual equilibrium, oscillate before you as it does before us? Where +is your army of schoolmasters, the only army which civilization +acknowledges? + +Where are your free and compulsory schools? Does every one know how to +read in the land of Dante and of Michael Angelo? Have you made public +schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent +war-budget and a paltry budget of education? Have not you also that +passive obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? +military establishment which pushes the regulations to the extreme of +firing upon Garibaldi; that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? +Let us subject your social order to examination, let us take it where it +stands and as it stands, let us view its flagrant offences, show me the +woman and the child. It is by the amount of protection with which these +two feeble creatures are surrounded that the degree of civilization +is to be measured. Is prostitution less heartrending in Naples than in +Paris? What is the amount of truth that springs from your laws, and what +amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so +fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy words: public +prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaffold, the executioner, the +death penalty? Italians, with you as with us, Beccaria is dead and +Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. +Have you a government which comprehends the identity of morality and +politics? You have reached the point where you grant amnesty to heroes! +Something very similar has been done in France. Stay, let us pass +miseries in review, let each one contribute his pile, you are as rich +as we. Have you not, like ourselves, two condemnations, religious +condemnation pronounced by the priest, and social condemnation decreed +by the judge? Oh, great nation of Italy, thou resemblest the great +nation of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, +Miserables. + +From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more +distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the +priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us. + +I resume. This book, Les Miserables, is no less your mirror than ours. +Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book,--I +understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that +does not prevent them from being of use. + +As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own +country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other +nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I +become more and more patriotic for humanity. + +This is, moreover, the tendency of our age, and the law of radiance +of the French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, +Italian, German, Spanish, or English, and become European, I say more, +human, if they are to correspond to the enlargement of civilization. + +Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition +which modify everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste +and language, which must grow broader like all the rest. + +In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, +with having transgressed the bounds of what they call "French taste"; I +should be glad if this eulogium were merited. + +In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal +suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a +man, and I cry to all: "Help me!" + +This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say; I say it for you and +for your country. If I have insisted so strongly, it is because of one +phrase in your letter. You write:-- + +"There are Italians, and they are numerous, who say: 'This book, Les +Miserables, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French +read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'"--Alas! I repeat, +whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since +history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery +has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived +for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the +Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe +of the dawn. + +If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and +in dissipating some prejudices, you are at liberty to publish it, +sir. Accept, I pray you, a renewed assurance of my very distinguished +sentiments. + + VICTOR HUGO. + + +***** + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally +marauder.] + +[Footnote 2: Liege: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on peau, skin.] + +[Footnote 3: She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages +share the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for +the space of a morning (or jade).] + +[Footnote 4: An ex-convict.] + +[Footnote 5: This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.] + +[Footnote 6: A bullet as large as an egg.] + +[Footnote 7: Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet, +Thiers.] + +[Footnote 8: This is the inscription:-- + + D. O. M. + CY A ETE ECRASE + PAR MALHEUR + SOUS UN CHARIOT, + MONSIEUR BERNARD + DE BRYE MARCHAND + A BRUXELLE LE [Illegible] + FEVRIER 1637.] + +[Footnote 9: A heavy rifled gun.] + +[Footnote 10: "A battle terminated, a day finished, false measures +repaired, greater successes assured for the morrow,--all was lost by a +moment of panic, terror."--Napoleon, Dictees de Sainte Helene.] + +[Footnote 11: Five winning numbers in a lottery] + +[Footnote 12: Literally "made cuirs"; i. e., pronounced a t or an s at +the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or used either +one of them where neither exists.] + +[Footnote 13: Lawyer Corbeau, perched on a docket, held in his beak a +writ of execution; Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed him +nearly as follows, etc.] + +[Footnote 14: This is the factory of Goblet Junior: + Come choose your jugs and crocks, + Flower-pots, pipes, bricks. + The Heart sells Diamonds to every comer.] + +[Footnote 15: On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits: Dismas +and Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights, +Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserve +us and our effects. If you repeat this verse, you will not lose your +things by theft.] + +[Footnote 16: Instead of porte cochere and porte batarde.] + +[Footnote 17: Jesus-my-God-bandy-leg--down with the moon!] + +[Footnote 18: Chicken: slang allusion to the noise made in calling +poultry.] + +[Footnote 19: Louis XVIII. is represented in comic pictures of that day +as having a pear-shaped head.] + +[Footnote 20: Tuck into your trousers the shirt-tail that is hanging +out. Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.] + +[Footnote 21: In order to re-establish the shaken throne firmly on +its base, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be +changed.] + +[Footnote 22: Suspendu, suspended; pendu, hung.] + +[Footnote 23: L'Aile, wing.] + +[Footnote 24: The slang term for a painter's assistant.] + +[Footnote 25: If Cesar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged +to quit my mother's love, I would say to great Caesar, "Take back thy +sceptre and thy chariot; I prefer the love of my mother."] + +[Footnote 26: Whether the sun shines brightly or dim, the bear returns +to his cave.] + +[Footnote 27: The peep-hole is a Judas in French. Hence the half-punning +allusion.] + +[Footnote 28: Our love has lasted a whole week, but how short are the +instants of happiness! To adore each other for eight days was hardly +worth the while! The time of love should last forever.] + +[Footnote 29: You leave me to go to glory; my sad heart will follow you +everywhere.] + +[Footnote 30: A democrat.] + +[Footnote 31: King Bootkick went a-hunting after crows, mounted on two +stilts. When one passed beneath them, one paid him two sous.] + +[Footnote 32: In olden times, fouriers were the officials who preceded +the Court and allotted the lodgings.] + +[Footnote 33: A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is +smaller than the other, so that it does not roll straight, but describes +a curve on the ground.] + +[Footnote 34: From April 19 to May 20.] + +[Footnote 35: Merlan: a sobriquet given to hairdressers because they are +white with powder.] + +[Footnote 36: The scaffold.] + +[Footnote 37: Argot of the Temple.] + +[Footnote 38: Argot of the barriers.] + +[Footnote 39: The Last Day of a Condemned Man.] + +[Footnote 40: "Vous trouverez dans ces potains-la, une foultitude de +raisons pour que je me libertise."] + +[Footnote 41: It must be observed, however, that mac in Celtic means +son.] + +[Footnote 42: Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep.] + +[Footnote 43: Je n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des +orgues, peut atiger ses momes et ses momignards et les locher criblant +sans etre agite lui-meme.] + +[Footnote 44: At night one sees nothing, by day one sees very well; +the bourgeois gets flurried over an apocryphal scrawl, practice virtue, +tutu, pointed hat!] + +[Footnote 45: Chien, dog, trigger.] + +[Footnote 46: Here is the morn appearing. When shall we go to the +forest, Charlot asked Charlotte. Tou, tou, tou, for Chatou, I have but +one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot. And these two poor +little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thyme +very early in the morning. And these two poor little things were as +drunk as thrushes in a vineyard; a tiger laughed at them in his cave. +The one cursed, the other swore. When shall we go to the forest? Charlot +asked Charlotte.] + +[Footnote 47: There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover who +hung himself.] + +[Footnote 48: She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart +inhabits her hazardous nose; you tremble every instant lest she should +blow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into her +mouth.] + +[Footnote 49: Matelote: a culinary preparation of various fishes. +Gibelotte: stewed rabbits.] + +[Footnote 50: Treat if you can, and eat if you dare.] + +[Footnote 51: Bipede sans plume: biped without feathers--pen.] + +[Footnote 52: Municipal officer of Toulouse.] + +[Footnote 53: Do you remember our sweet life, when we were both so +young, and when we had no other desire in our hearts than to be well +dressed and in love? When, by adding your age to my age, we could +not count forty years between us, and when, in our humble and tiny +household, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days! +Manuel was proud and wise, Paris sat at sacred banquets, Foy launched +thunderbolts, and your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself. +Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer, when I took you to the +Prado to dine, you were so beautiful that the roses seemed to me to turn +round, and I heard them say: Is she not beautiful! How good she smells! +What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming +bonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple +arm. The passers-by thought that love bewitched had wedded, in our happy +couple, the gentle month of April to the fair month of May. We lived +concealed, content, with closed doors, devouring love, that sweet +forbidden fruit. My mouth had not uttered a thing when thy heart had +already responded. The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot where I adored thee +from eve till morn. 'Tis thus that an amorous soul applies the chart of +the Tender to the Latin country. O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine! +When in the fresh spring-like hut thou didst draw thy stocking on thy +delicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read +a great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me; better than +Malebranche and then Lamennais thou didst demonstrate to me celestial +goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou +didst submit to me; oh gilded garret! to lace thee! to behold thee going +and coming from dawn in thy chemise, gazing at thy young brow in thine +ancient mirror! And who, then, would forego the memory of those days of +aurora and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when love +stammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips; +thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat; I took the earthenware +bowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes which +made us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that dear portrait +of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup! I +was a beggar and thou wert charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms +in haste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily a +centime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I +snatched a kiss from thy fiery lip, when thou wentest forth, dishevelled +and blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thou +recall our innumerable joys, and all those fichus changed to rags? Oh! +what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly +depths!] + +[Footnote 54: My nose is in tears, my friend Bugeaud, lend me thy +gendarmes that I may say a word to them. With a blue capote and a +chicken in his shako, here's the banlieue, co-cocorico.] + +[Footnote 55: Love letters.] + +[Footnote 56: + + "The bird slanders in the elms, + And pretends that yesterday, Atala + Went off with a Russian, + Where fair maids go. + Lon la. + +My friend Pierrot, thou pratest, because Mila knocked at her pane the +other day and called me. The jades are very charming, their poison which +bewitched me would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila. I'm fond of love and its +bickerings, I love Agnes, I love Pamela, Lise burned herself in setting +me aflame. In former days when I saw the mantillas of Suzette and of +Zeila, my soul mingled with their folds. Love, when thou gleamest in +the dark thou crownest Lola with roses, I would lose my soul for that. +Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself! One fine day, my heart flew +forth. I think that it is Jeanne who has it. At night, when I come from +the quadrilles, I show Stella to the stars, and I say to them: "Behold +her." Where fair maids go, lon la.] + + +[Footnote 57: But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put +a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at +skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball +rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where +the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On +that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.] + +[Footnote 58: Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which +the bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown into +the Tiber.] + +[Footnote 59: Mustards.] + +[Footnote 60: From casser, to break: break-necks.] + +[Footnote 61: "Jeanne was born at Fougere, a true shepherd's nest; I +adore her petticoat, the rogue."] + +[Footnote 62: In allusion to the expression, coiffer Sainte-Catherine, +"to remain unmarried."] + +[Footnote 63: "Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings, Alcippus, it +is true that thou wilt wed ere long."] + +[Footnote 64: Tirer le diable par la queue, "to live from hand to +mouth."] + +[Footnote 65: "Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell +sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!"] + +[Footnote 66: "A Shrove-Tuesday marriage will have no ungrateful +children."] + +[Footnote 67: A short mask.] + +[Footnote 68: In allusion to the story of Prometheus.] + +[Footnote 69: Un fafiot serieux. Fafiot is the slang term for a +bank-bill, derived from its rustling noise.] + +[Footnote 70: He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. +He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, +of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISERABLES *** + +***** This file should be named 135.txt or 135.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/135/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/inputs/pg2701.txt b/inputs/pg2701.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edc6850 --- /dev/null +++ b/inputs/pg2701.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22108 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Moby Dick; or The Whale + +Author: Herman Melville + +Last Updated: January 3, 2009 +Posting Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #2701] +Release Date: June, 2001 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus and Jonesey + + + + + +MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE + +By Herman Melville + + + + +Original Transcriber's Notes: + +This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS +project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg's archives. The +proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of Adelaide +Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting etext +was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text. + +In chapters 24, 89, and 90, we substituted a capital L for the symbol +for the British pound, a unit of currency. + + + + +ETYMOLOGY. + +(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School) + +The pale Usher--threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him +now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer +handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all +the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it +somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. + +"While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what +name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through +ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of +the word, you deliver that which is not true." --HACKLUYT + +"WHALE.... Sw. and Dan. HVAL. This animal is named from roundness or +rolling; for in Dan. HVALT is arched or vaulted." --WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY + +"WHALE.... It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. WALLEN; A.S. +WALW-IAN, to roll, to wallow." --RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY + + KETOS, GREEK. + CETUS, LATIN. + WHOEL, ANGLO-SAXON. + HVALT, DANISH. + WAL, DUTCH. + HWAL, SWEDISH. + WHALE, ICELANDIC. + WHALE, ENGLISH. + BALEINE, FRENCH. + BALLENA, SPANISH. + PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, FEGEE. + PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, ERROMANGOAN. + + + + +EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian). + +It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a +poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans +and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to +whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or +profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the +higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these +extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the +ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these +extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing +bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, +and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our +own. + +So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou +belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world +will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; +but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; +and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes +and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness--Give it up, +Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, +by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could +clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your +tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends +who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and +making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against +your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together--there, ye +shall strike unsplinterable glasses! + + +EXTRACTS. + +"And God created great whales." --GENESIS. + +"Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to +be hoary." --JOB. + +"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." --JONAH. + +"There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play +therein." --PSALMS. + +"In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, +shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked +serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." --ISAIAH + +"And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's +mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that +foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his +paunch." --HOLLAND'S PLUTARCH'S MORALS. + +"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among +which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in +length as four acres or arpens of land." --HOLLAND'S PLINY. + +"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a +great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the +former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us, +open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before +him into a foam." --TOOKE'S LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY." + +"He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, +which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought +some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own country, of +which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was +one of six who had killed sixty in two days." --OTHER OR OTHER'S VERBAL +NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN FROM HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D. 890. + +"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that +enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are +immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in +great security, and there sleeps." --MONTAIGNE. --APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND +SEBOND. + +"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described +by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job." --RABELAIS. + +"This whale's liver was two cartloads." --STOWE'S ANNALS. + +"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan." +--LORD BACON'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS. + +"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received +nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible +quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale." --IBID. "HISTORY OF +LIFE AND DEATH." + +"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise." +--KING HENRY. + +"Very like a whale." --HAMLET. + + "Which to secure, no skill of leach's art + Mote him availle, but to returne againe + To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart, + Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, + Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine." + --THE FAERIE QUEEN. + +"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful +calm trouble the ocean til it boil." --SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO +GONDIBERT. + +"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned +Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit." +--SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. +E. + + "Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail + He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. + ... + Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears, + And on his back a grove of pikes appears." + --WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS. + +"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or +State--(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man." --OPENING +SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN. + +"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat +in the mouth of a whale." --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. + + "That sea beast + Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hugest that swim the ocean stream." --PARADISE LOST. + + ---"There Leviathan, + Hugest of living creatures, in the deep + Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, + And seems a moving land; and at his gills + Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea." --IBID. + +"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil +swimming in them." --FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE. + + "So close behind some promontory lie + The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, + And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, + Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way." + --DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS. + +"While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his +head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it +will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water." --THOMAS EDGE'S TEN +VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN, IN PURCHAS. + +"In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in +wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which +nature has placed on their shoulders." --SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO +ASIA AND AFRICA. HARRIS COLL. + +"Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to +proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship +upon them." --SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION. + +"We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The +Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that +is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they +can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... +I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of +herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught +once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over." --A VOYAGE TO +GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS COLL. + +"Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one +eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was +informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of +baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren." +--SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS. + +"Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this +Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was +killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness." --RICHARD +STRAFFORD'S LETTER FROM THE BERMUDAS. PHIL. TRANS. A.D. 1668. + +"Whales in the sea God's voice obey." --N. E. PRIMER. + +"We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those +southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the +northward of us." --CAPTAIN COWLEY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, A.D. 1729. + +"... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an +insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain." --ULLOA'S +SOUTH AMERICA. + + "To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, + We trust the important charge, the petticoat. + Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, + Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale." + --RAPE OF THE LOCK. + +"If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those +that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear +contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest +animal in creation." --GOLDSMITH, NAT. HIST. + +"If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them +speak like great wales." --GOLDSMITH TO JOHNSON. + +"In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was +found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then +towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the +whale, in order to avoid being seen by us." --COOK'S VOYAGES. + +"The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so +great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to +mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, +and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to +terrify and prevent their too near approach." --UNO VON TROIL'S LETTERS +ON BANKS'S AND SOLANDER'S VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772. + +"The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce +animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen." +--THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH MINISTER IN 1778. + +"And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?" --EDMUND BURKE'S +REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO THE NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY. + +"Spain--a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe." --EDMUND BURKE. +(SOMEWHERE.) + +"A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on +the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates +and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. +And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the +property of the king." --BLACKSTONE. + + "Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: + Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends + The barbed steel, and every turn attends." + --FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK. + + "Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, + And rockets blew self driven, + To hang their momentary fire + Around the vault of heaven. + + "So fire with water to compare, + The ocean serves on high, + Up-spouted by a whale in air, + To express unwieldy joy." --COWPER, ON THE QUEEN'S + VISIT TO LONDON. + +"Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at +a stroke, with immense velocity." --JOHN HUNTER'S ACCOUNT OF THE +DISSECTION OF A WHALE. (A SMALL SIZED ONE.) + +"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the +water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage +through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood +gushing from the whale's heart." --PALEY'S THEOLOGY. + +"The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet." --BARON CUVIER. + +"In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take +any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them." +--COLNETT'S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXTENDING THE SPERMACETI WHALE +FISHERY. + + "In the free element beneath me swam, + Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, + Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; + Which language cannot paint, and mariner + Had never seen; from dread Leviathan + To insect millions peopling every wave: + Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands, + Led by mysterious instincts through that waste + And trackless region, though on every side + Assaulted by voracious enemies, + Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw, + With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs." + --MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD. + + "Io! Paean! Io! sing. + To the finny people's king. + Not a mightier whale than this + In the vast Atlantic is; + Not a fatter fish than he, + Flounders round the Polar Sea." + --CHARLES LAMB'S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. + +"In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the +whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: +there--pointing to the sea--is a green pasture where our children's +grand-children will go for bread." --OBED MACY'S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET. + +"I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form +of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones." --HAWTHORNE'S +TWICE TOLD TALES. + +"She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed +by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago." --IBID. + +"No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom; "I saw his sprout; he threw +up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. +He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!" --COOPER'S PILOT. + +"The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette +that whales had been introduced on the stage there." --ECKERMANN'S +CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE. + +"My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?" I answered, "we have been stove +by a whale." --"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE SHIP ESSEX OF +NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY A LARGE SPERM +WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN." BY OWEN CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF +SAID VESSEL. NEW YORK, 1821. + + "A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, + The wind was piping free; + Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, + And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, + As it floundered in the sea." + --ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. + +"The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture +of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six +English miles.... + +"Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, +cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles." +--SCORESBY. + +"Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the +infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, +and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes +at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast +swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great +astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, +and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm +Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited +so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent +observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant +and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes." +--THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, 1839. + +"The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only better armed than the True +Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon +at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a +disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so +artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the +most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe." +--FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, 1840. + + October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the mast-head. + "Where away?" demanded the captain. + "Three points off the lee bow, sir." + "Raise up your wheel. Steady!" "Steady, sir." + "Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?" + "Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she + breaches!" + "Sing out! sing out every time!" + "Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there--there--THAR she + blows--bowes--bo-o-os!" + "How far off?" + "Two miles and a half." + "Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands." + --J. ROSS BROWNE'S ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUIZE. 1846. + +"The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid +transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of +Nantucket." --"NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND HUSSEY SURVIVORS. +A.D. 1828. + +Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the +assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length +rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping +into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable." --MISSIONARY +JOURNAL OF TYERMAN AND BENNETT. + +"Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a very striking and peculiar +portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine +thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year +to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry." +--REPORT OF DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN THE U. S. SENATE, ON THE +APPLICATION FOR THE ERECTION OF A BREAKWATER AT NANTUCKET. 1828. + +"The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment." +--"THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, OR THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES AND THE +WHALE'S BIOGRAPHY, GATHERED ON THE HOMEWARD CRUISE OF THE COMMODORE +PREBLE." BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER. + +"If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, "I will send +you to hell." --LIFE OF SAMUEL COMSTOCK (THE MUTINEER), BY HIS BROTHER, +WILLIAM COMSTOCK. ANOTHER VERSION OF THE WHALE-SHIP GLOBE NARRATIVE. + +"The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, +if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they +failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale." +--MCCULLOCH'S COMMERCIAL DICTIONARY. + +"These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward +again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem +to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West +Passage." --FROM "SOMETHING" UNPUBLISHED. + +"It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck +by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at +the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a +totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage." --CURRENTS +AND WHALING. U.S. EX. EX. + +"Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect +having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form +arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps +have been told that these were the ribs of whales." --TALES OF A WHALE +VOYAGER TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN. + +"It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, +that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages +enrolled among the crew." --NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT OF THE TAKING AND RETAKING +OF THE WHALE-SHIP HOBOMACK. + +"It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels +(American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they +departed." --CRUISE IN A WHALE BOAT. + +"Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up +perpendicularly into the air. It was the while." --MIRIAM COFFIN OR THE +WHALE FISHERMAN. + +"The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would +manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied +to the root of his tail." --A CHAPTER ON WHALING IN RIBS AND TRUCKS. + +"On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and +female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone's +throw of the shore" (Terra Del Fuego), "over which the beech tree +extended its branches." --DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST. + +"'Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the +distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, +threatening it with instant destruction;--'Stern all, for your lives!'" +--WHARTON THE WHALE KILLER. + +"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold +harpooneer is striking the whale!" --NANTUCKET SONG. + + "Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale + In his ocean home will be + A giant in might, where might is right, + And King of the boundless sea." + --WHALE SONG. + + + + +CHAPTER 1. Loomings. + + +Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having +little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on +shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of +the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating +the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; +whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find +myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up +the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get +such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to +prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically +knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea +as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a +philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly +take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew +it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very +nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. + +There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by +wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with +her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme +downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and +cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. +Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. + +Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears +Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What +do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand +thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some +leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some +looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the +rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these +are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to +counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are +the green fields gone? What do they here? + +But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and +seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the +extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder +warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water +as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of +them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets +and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. +Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all +those ships attract them thither? + +Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take +almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a +dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic +in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest +reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will +infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. +Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this +experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical +professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for +ever. + +But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, +quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of +the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, +each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and +here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder +cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a +mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their +hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though +this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's +head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the +magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores +on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the +one charm wanting?--Water--there is not a drop of water there! Were +Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to +see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two +handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly +needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why +is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at +some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a +passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first +told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the +old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate +deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. +And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because +he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, +plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see +in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of +life; and this is the key to it all. + +Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin +to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, +I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. +For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is +but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get +sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy +themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; +nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a +Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction +of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all +honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind +whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, +without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. +And as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory +in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, +I never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously +buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who +will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled +fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old +Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the +mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids. + +No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, +plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. +True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to +spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort +of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, +particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the +Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, +if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been +lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand +in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a +schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and +the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in +time. + +What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom +and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, +I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel +Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and +respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't +a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may +order me about--however they may thump and punch me about, I have the +satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is +one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical +or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is +passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and +be content. + +Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of +paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single +penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must +pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying +and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable +infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING +PAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man +receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly +believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account +can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves +to perdition! + +Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome +exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, +head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, +if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the +Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from +the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not +so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many +other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. +But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a +merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling +voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the +constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me +in some unaccountable way--he can better answer than any one else. And, +doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand +programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as +a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. +I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this: + + +"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. + +"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. + +"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN." + + +Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the +Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others +were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and +easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though +I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the +circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives +which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced +me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the +delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill +and discriminating judgment. + +Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great +whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my +curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island +bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all +the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped +to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not +have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting +itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on +barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a +horror, and could still be social with it--would they let me--since it +is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place +one lodges in. + +By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the +great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild +conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into +my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them +all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. + + + +CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. + + +I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, +and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of +old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in +December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet +for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place +would offer, till the following Monday. + +As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at +this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well +be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was +made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a +fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous +old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has +of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though +in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket +was her great original--the Tyre of this Carthage;--the place where the +first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket +did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to +give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that +first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported +cobblestones--so goes the story--to throw at the whales, in order to +discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit? + +Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me +in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a +matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a +very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold +and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had +sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,--So, +wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of +a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the +north with the darkness towards the south--wherever in your wisdom you +may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire +the price, and don't be too particular. + +With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of "The +Crossed Harpoons"--but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further +on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish Inn," there came such +fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from +before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches +thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,--rather weary for me, when I struck +my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless +service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too +expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the +broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses +within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away +from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I +went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for +there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns. + +Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, +and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At +this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of +the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light +proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly +open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the +public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an +ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost +choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But "The +Crossed Harpoons," and "The Sword-Fish?"--this, then must needs be the +sign of "The Trap." However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice +within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door. + +It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black +faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel +of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the +preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and +wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, +Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!' + +Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, +and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging +sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing +a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath--"The +Spouter Inn:--Peter Coffin." + +Coffin?--Spouter?--Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought +I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this +Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and +the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little +wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from +the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a +poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very +spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. + +It was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended old house, one side palsied +as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, +where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever +it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a +mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob +quietly toasting for bed. "In judging of that tempestuous wind called +Euroclydon," says an old writer--of whose works I possess the only copy +extant--"it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at +it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether +thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both +sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, +thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou +reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is +the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies +though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late +to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone +is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus +there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and +shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears +with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not +keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his +red silken wrapper--(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What +a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them +talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give +me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. + +But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up +to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra +than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the +line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in +order to keep out this frost? + +Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the +door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be +moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a +Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a +temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. + +But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is +plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, +and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be. + + + +CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. + + +Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, +low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of +the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large +oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the +unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent +study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of +the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its +purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first +you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New +England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint +of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and +especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the +entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however +wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. + +But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, +black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three +blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, +soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. +Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable +sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily +took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting +meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you +through.--It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.--It's the unnatural +combat of the four primal elements.--It's a blasted heath.--It's a +Hyperborean winter scene.--It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream +of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous +something in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest +were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic +fish? even the great leviathan himself? + +In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my own, +partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom +I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a +great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three +dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to +spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself +upon the three mast-heads. + +The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish +array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with +glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of +human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round +like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You +shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage +could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying +implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons +all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long +lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen +whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon--so like a +corkscrew now--was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, +years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered +nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a +man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the +hump. + +Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way--cut +through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with +fireplaces all round--you enter the public room. A still duskier place +is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled +planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's +cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored +old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like +table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities +gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the +further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den--the bar--a rude +attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the +vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive +beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, +bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another +cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little +withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors +deliriums and death. + +Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though +true cylinders without--within, the villanous green goggling glasses +deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians +rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to +THIS mark, and your charge is but a penny; to THIS a penny more; and so +on to the full glass--the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for +a shilling. + +Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about +a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of SKRIMSHANDER. I +sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a +room, received for answer that his house was full--not a bed unoccupied. +"But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections +to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' +a-whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing." + +I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should +ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and +that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the +harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander +further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with +the half of any decent man's blanket. + +"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?--you want supper? +Supper'll be ready directly." + +I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the +Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with +his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space +between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but +he didn't make much headway, I thought. + +At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an +adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland--no fire at all--the landlord +said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each +in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and +hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But +the fare was of the most substantial kind--not only meat and potatoes, +but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in +a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful +manner. + +"My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to a dead +sartainty." + +"Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?" + +"Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the harpooneer +is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't--he eats +nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare." + +"The devil he does," says I. "Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?" + +"He'll be here afore long," was the answer. + +I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this "dark +complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so +turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into +bed before I did. + +Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not +what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening +as a looker on. + +Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord +cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing +this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now +we'll have the latest news from the Feegees." + +A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, +and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy +watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all +bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an +eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, +and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they +made a straight wake for the whale's mouth--the bar--when the wrinkled +little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all +round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah +mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a +sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how +long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the +weather side of an ice-island. + +The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even +with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering +about most obstreperously. + +I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though +he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own +sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise +as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods +had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a +sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will +here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet +in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have +seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, +making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep +shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give +him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, +and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall +mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry +of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away +unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the +sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and +being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised +a cry of "Bulkington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted out of +the house in pursuit of him. + +It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost +supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself +upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance +of the seamen. + +No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal +rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but +people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to +sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange +town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely +multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should +sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep +two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they +all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and +cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. + +The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the +thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a +harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of +the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. +Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be +home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at +midnight--how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? + +"Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.--I shan't sleep +with him. I'll try the bench here." + +"Just as you please; I'm sorry I cant spare ye a tablecloth for a +mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"--feeling of the knots and +notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a carpenter's plane +there in the bar--wait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough." So saying +he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting +the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning +like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the +plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was +near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit--the +bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing +in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the +shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in +the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a +brown study. + +I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too +short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too +narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher +than the planed one--so there was no yoking them. I then placed the +first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, +leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I +soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under +the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially +as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, +and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate +vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night. + +The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal +a march on him--bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be +wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon +second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next +morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be +standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down! + +Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending +a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think +that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against +this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be dropping +in before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may +become jolly good bedfellows after all--there's no telling. + +But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, +and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. + +"Landlord!" said I, "what sort of a chap is he--does he always keep such +late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock. + +The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to +be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he +answered, "generally he's an early bird--airley to bed and airley to +rise--yes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out +a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late, +unless, may be, he can't sell his head." + +"Can't sell his head?--What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you +are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say, +landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday +night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?" + +"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he couldn't +sell it here, the market's overstocked." + +"With what?" shouted I. + +"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?" + +"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'd better +stop spinning that yarn to me--I'm not green." + +"May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but I +rayther guess you'll be done BROWN if that ere harpooneer hears you a +slanderin' his head." + +"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again at this +unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. + +"It's broke a'ready," said he. + +"Broke," said I--"BROKE, do you mean?" + +"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess." + +"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a +snow-storm--"landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one +another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a +bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half +belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I +have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and +exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling +towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow--a sort of connexion, +landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest +degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this +harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the +night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay +that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good +evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping +with a madman; and you, sir, YOU I mean, landlord, YOU, sir, by trying +to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to +a criminal prosecution." + +"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a purty long +sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, +this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from +the south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads +(great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one +he's trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not +do to be sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to +churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was +goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the +airth like a string of inions." + +This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed +that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--but at +the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a +Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal +business as selling the heads of dead idolators? + +"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man." + +"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's getting dreadful +late, you had better be turning flukes--it's a nice bed; Sal and me +slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's plenty of room +for two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed that. Why, +afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the +foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and +somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. +Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a +glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards +me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a +clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday--you won't see that +harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere--come along then; DO +come; WON'T ye come?" + +I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was +ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, +with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers +to sleep abreast. + +"There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest +that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; "there, make +yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye." I turned round from +eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. + +Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the +most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced +round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see +no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four +walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of +things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed +up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman's bag, +containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. +Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf +over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed. + +But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the +light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive +at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to +nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little +tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an +Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, +as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible +that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the +streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try +it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and +thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer +had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass +stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore +myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck. + +I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this +head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on +the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in +the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought +a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, +half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about +the harpooneer's not coming home at all that night, it being so very +late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and +then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the +care of heaven. + +Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, +there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep +for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty +nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy +footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room +from under the door. + +Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal +head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word +till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New +Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without +looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the +floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords +of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all +eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while +employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished, however, he +turned round--when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of +a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large +blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible +bedfellow; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, +just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face +so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be +sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were +stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; +but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of +a white man--a whaleman too--who, falling among the cannibals, had been +tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his +distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, +thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any +sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that +part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the +squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of +tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man +into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas; +and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the +skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, +this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty +having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled +out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing +these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New +Zealand head--a ghastly thing enough--and crammed it down into the bag. +He now took off his hat--a new beaver hat--when I came nigh singing out +with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head--none to speak of at +least--nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His +bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. +Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted +out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. + +Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but +it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of +this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. +Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and +confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him +as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at +the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not +game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer +concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. + +Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed +his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered +with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all over the same +dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just +escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very +legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up +the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some +abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South +Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. +A peddler of heads too--perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might +take a fancy to mine--heavens! look at that tomahawk! + +But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about +something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that +he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or +dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the +pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with +a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days' old Congo +baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that +this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. But +seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal +like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden +idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the +empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up this +little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The +chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I +thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel +for his Congo idol. + +I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but +ill at ease meantime--to see what was next to follow. First he takes +about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places +them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on +top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into +a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, +and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be +scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; +then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of +it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such +dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange +antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the +devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some +pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the +most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol +up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as +carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. + +All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and +seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business +operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, +now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which +I had so long been bound. + +But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. +Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an +instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, +he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light +was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, +sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving +a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me. + +Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him +against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might +be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his +guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my +meaning. + +"Who-e debel you?"--he at last said--"you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e." +And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the +dark. + +"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord! Watch! +Coffin! Angels! save me!" + +"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" again growled the +cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the +hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. +But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light +in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him. + +"Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg here wouldn't +harm a hair of your head." + +"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell me that that +infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?" + +"I thought ye know'd it;--didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin' heads +around town?--but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look +here--you sabbee me, I sabbee--you this man sleepe you--you sabbee?" + +"Me sabbee plenty"--grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and +sitting up in bed. + +"You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and +throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil +but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. +For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking +cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to +myself--the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason +to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober +cannibal than a drunken Christian. + +"Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or +whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will +turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. +It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured." + +This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely +motioned me to get into bed--rolling over to one side as much as to +say--"I won't touch a leg of ye." + +"Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go." + +I turned in, and never slept better in my life. + + + +CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane. + + +Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown +over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost +thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of +odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his +tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, +no two parts of which were of one precise shade--owing I suppose to +his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt +sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times--this same arm of his, I +say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. +Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could +hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and +it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that +Queequeg was hugging me. + +My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a +child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me; +whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. +The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other--I +think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little +sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, +was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,--my +mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to +bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, +the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But +there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the +third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, +and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets. + +I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse +before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the +small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the +sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the +streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse +and worse--at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my +stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself +at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good +slippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to lie +abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most +conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For +several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I +have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At +last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly +waking from it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my eyes, and the before +sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock +running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was +to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung +over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form +or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my +bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with +the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking +that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be +broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; +but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for +days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding +attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle +myself with it. + +Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the +supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to +those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan +arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly +recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to +the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm--unlock his +bridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, +as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse +him--"Queequeg!"--but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, +my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a +slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk +sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A +pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the +broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! "Queequeg!--in the name of +goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At length, by dint of much wriggling, and +loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his +hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in +extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself +all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, +stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he +did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim +consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over +him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings +now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at +last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow, +and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon +the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, +if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress +afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, +under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the +truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what +you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this +particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much +civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; +staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for +the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, +a man like Queequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well +worth unusual regarding. + +He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, +by the by, and then--still minus his trowsers--he hunted up his boots. +What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next +movement was to crush himself--boots in hand, and hat on--under the bed; +when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was +hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever +heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his +boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition +stage--neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized +to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His +education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not +been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled +himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, +he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At +last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his +eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not +being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide +ones--probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormented +him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. + +Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the +street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view +into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that +Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; +I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, +and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He +complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the +morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to +my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his +chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a +piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water +and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept +his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, +slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little +on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, +begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks +I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. +Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of +what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp +the long straight edges are always kept. + +The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of +the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his +harpoon like a marshal's baton. + + + +CHAPTER 5. Breakfast. + + +I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the +grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, +though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my +bedfellow. + +However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a +good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own +proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be +backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in +that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, +be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. + +The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the +night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were +nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and +sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, +and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an +unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns. + +You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This +young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and +would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days +landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades +lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the +complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached +withal; HE doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show +a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the +Andes' western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, +zone by zone. + +"Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went +to breakfast. + +They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease +in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: Ledyard, +the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all +men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the +mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or +the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart +of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's performances--this kind of +travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social +polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had +anywhere. + +These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that +after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some +good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every +man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked +embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the +slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas--entire +strangers to them--and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here +they sat at a social breakfast table--all of the same calling, all of +kindred tastes--looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they +had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. +A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! + +But as for Queequeg--why, Queequeg sat there among them--at the head of +the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot +say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially +justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it +there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent +jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But +THAT was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in +most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. + +We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed +coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, +done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the +rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting +there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I +sallied out for a stroll. + + + +CHAPTER 6. The Street. + + +If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish +an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a +civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first +daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. + +In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will +frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign +parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners +will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not +unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live +Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water +Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; +but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; +savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It +makes a stranger stare. + +But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, +and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft +which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still +more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town +scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain +and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; +fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch +the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they +came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look +there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and +swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here +comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. + +No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean a +downright bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his +two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a +country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished +reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the +comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his +sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his +canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those straps +in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and +all, down the throat of the tempest. + +But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and +bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer +place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this +day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. +As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they +look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live +in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like +Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with +milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in +spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like +houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came +they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? + +Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty +mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses +and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. +One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom +of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that? + +In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their +daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. +You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, +they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly +burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. + +In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples--long +avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and +bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their +tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; +which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces +of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final +day. + +And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But +roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks +is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that +bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young +girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off +shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of +the Puritanic sands. + + + +CHAPTER 7. The Chapel. + + +In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are +the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who +fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. + +Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this +special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving +sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called +bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I +found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and +widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks +of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from +the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The +chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and +women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, +masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran +something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:-- + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was +lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November +1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, +WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' +crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the +Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is +here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows +of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, AUGUST +3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. + +Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself +near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near +me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze +of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only +person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only +one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid +inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen +whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not; +but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly +did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings +of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were +assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak +tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. + +Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among +flowers can say--here, HERE lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation +that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those +black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those +immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in +the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to +the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might +those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here. + +In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; +why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no +tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is +that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix +so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if +he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the +Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what +eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies +antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we +still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are +dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all +the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a +whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. + +But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these +dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. + +It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a +Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky +light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen +who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But +somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine +chance for promotion, it seems--aye, a stove boat will make me an +immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling--a +speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what +then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. +Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true +substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too +much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that +thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my +better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not +me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and +stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. + + + +CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. + + +I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable +robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon +admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, +sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it +was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he +was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his +youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. +At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a +healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second +flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone +certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom--the spring verdure +peeping forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously +heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without +the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical +peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life +he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and +certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down +with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to +drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. +However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up +in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, +he quietly approached the pulpit. + +Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a +regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, +seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, +it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the +pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like +those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling +captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted +man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and +stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what +manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for +an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the +ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, +and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand +over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel. + +The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with +swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, +so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the +pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, +these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not +prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn +round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder +step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him +impregnable in his little Quebec. + +I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. +Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, +that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks +of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this +thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, +then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual +withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions? +Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful +man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold--a lofty +Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. + +But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, +borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between the marble +cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back +was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating +against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy +breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there +floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's +face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the +ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into +the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angel +seemed to say, "beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy +helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling +off--serenest azure is at hand." + +Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that +had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in +the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a +projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed +beak. + +What could be more full of meaning?--for the pulpit is ever this earth's +foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the +world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first +descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is +the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. +Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; +and the pulpit is its prow. + + + +CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. + + +Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered +the scattered people to condense. "Starboard gangway, there! side away +to larboard--larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!" + +There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a +still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and +every eye on the preacher. + +He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large +brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered +a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the +bottom of the sea. + +This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of +a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog--in such tones he +commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards +the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy-- + + "The ribs and terrors in the whale, + Arched over me a dismal gloom, + While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, + And lift me deepening down to doom. + + "I saw the opening maw of hell, + With endless pains and sorrows there; + Which none but they that feel can tell-- + Oh, I was plunging to despair. + + "In black distress, I called my God, + When I could scarce believe him mine, + He bowed his ear to my complaints-- + No more the whale did me confine. + + "With speed he flew to my relief, + As on a radiant dolphin borne; + Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone + The face of my Deliverer God. + + "My song for ever shall record + That terrible, that joyful hour; + I give the glory to my God, + His all the mercy and the power." + + +Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the +howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned +over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon +the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the +first chapter of Jonah--'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up +Jonah.'" + +"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters--four yarns--is one +of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what +depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant +lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the +fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods +surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; +sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But WHAT is this +lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded +lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot +of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it +is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the +swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and +joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of +Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God--never +mind now what that command was, or how conveyed--which he found a hard +command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to +do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to +persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in +this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. + +"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at +God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will +carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains +of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship +that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded +meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city +than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is +Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, +as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the +Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, +shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the +Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the +westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye +not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? +Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with +slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the +shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, +self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those +days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested +ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a +hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,--no friends accompany him to the wharf +with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the +Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on +board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment +desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. +Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; +in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure +the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious +way, one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, +do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the +adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing +murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's stuck +against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering +five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and +containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah +to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, +prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and +summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a +coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong +suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him +not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends +into the cabin. + +"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making +out his papers for the Customs--'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless +question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. +But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon +sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, +though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that +hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail with the +next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing +him. 'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any honest man that goes a +passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls away +the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'--he says,--'the +passage money how much is that?--I'll pay now.' For it is particularly +written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this +history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And +taken with the context, this is full of meaning. + +"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime +in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this +world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without +a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. +So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he +judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented +to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same +time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when +Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the +Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any +way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out my +state-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.' +'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah +enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing +him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and +mutters something about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed +to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws +himself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost +resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in +that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah +feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale +shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards. + +"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly +oscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf +with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, +though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with +reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it +but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp +alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes +roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no +refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more +and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. +'Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it +burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!' + +"Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still +reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the +Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as +one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, +praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid +the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the +man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught +to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy +of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. + +"And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and +from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, +glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded +smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not +bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to +break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; +when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind +is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with +trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah +sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not +the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the +mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after +him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship--a +berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the +frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What +meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his lethargy by that +direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, +grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is +sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after +wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring +fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. +And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep +gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing +bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the +tormented deep. + +"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing +attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark +him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, +fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, +they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was +upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they +mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest +thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior +of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where +from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, +but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the +unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is +upon him. + +"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries--and then--'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven +who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well +mightest thou fear the Lord God THEN! Straightway, he now goes on to +make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more +appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating +God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his +deserts,--when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him +forth into the sea, for he knew that for HIS sake this great tempest +was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to +save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; +then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not +unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. + +"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; +when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea +is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth +water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless +commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into +the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory +teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto +the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a +weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for +direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He +leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that +spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy +temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not +clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to +God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of +him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before +you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model +for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like +Jonah." + +While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, +slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, +when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. +His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the +warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his +swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple +hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. + +There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves +of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed +eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself. + +But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, +with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these +words: + +"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press +upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that +Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, +for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down +from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and +listen as you listen, while some one of you reads ME that other and more +awful lesson which Jonah teaches to ME, as a pilot of the living God. +How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and +bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a +wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled +from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking +ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we +have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to +living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the +midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand +fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the +watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of +any plummet--'out of the belly of hell'--when the whale grounded upon +the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting +prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the +shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching +up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and +earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the +Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears, like +two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean--Jonah +did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the +Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it! + +"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of +the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from +Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God +has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than +to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe +to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would +not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him +who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is +himself a castaway!" + +He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his +face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with +a heavenly enthusiasm,--"But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of +every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, +than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than +the kelson is low? Delight is to him--a far, far upward, and inward +delight--who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever +stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong +arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has +gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the +truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out +from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,--top-gallant +delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his +God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the +waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake +from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness +will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final +breath--O Father!--chiefly known to me by Thy rod--mortal or immortal, +here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or +mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man +that he should live out the lifetime of his God?" + +He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with +his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, +and he was left alone in the place. + + + +CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend. + + +Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there +quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. +He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove +hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little +negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife +gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his +heathenish way. + +But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going +to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap +began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth +page--as I fancied--stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and +giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He +would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number +one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was +only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his +astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited. + +With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and +hideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--his countenance +yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot +hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw +the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, +fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a +thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing +about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. +He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. +Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn +out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it +otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was +his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, +but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular +busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope +from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two +long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington +cannibalistically developed. + +Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be +looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, +never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared +wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. +Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night +previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found +thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference +of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not +know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm +self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed +also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the +other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have +no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck +me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something +almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from +home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is--which was the only way he could +get there--thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in +the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving +the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to +himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he +had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be +true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or +so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself +out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he +must have "broken his digester." + +As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that +mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then +only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering +round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; +the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of +strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart +and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing +savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a +nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. +Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself +mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have +repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll +try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but +hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs +and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little +noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last +night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be +bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps +a little complimented. + +We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to +him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures +that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went +to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen +in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing +his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat +exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly +passing between us. + +If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's +breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left +us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as +I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against +mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were +married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; +he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this +sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing +to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would +not apply. + +After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room +together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his +enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out +some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and +mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them +towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he +silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. +He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed +the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed +anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I +deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or +otherwise. + +I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible +Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in +worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do +you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and +earth--pagans and all included--can possibly be jealous of an +insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?--to do +the will of God--THAT is worship. And what is the will of God?--to do to +my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me--THAT is the +will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that +this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular +Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him +in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped +prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with +Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that +done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences +and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat. + +How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential +disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very +bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie +and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' +honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg--a cosy, loving pair. + + + +CHAPTER 11. Nightgown. + + +We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and +Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs +over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free +and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what +little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like +getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future. + +Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position +began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves +sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the +head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two +noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt +very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; +indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the +room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some +small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world +that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If +you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so +a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, +like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown +of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general +consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this +reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which +is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this +sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and +your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the +one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. + +We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at +once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether +by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always +keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness +of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright +except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element +of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon +opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created +darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated +twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did +I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to +strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt +a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said, +that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the +bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when +love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to +have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full +of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for +the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed +confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real +friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed +the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a +blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit +lamp. + +Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far +distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and, +eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly +complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his +words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with +his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as +it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. + + + +CHAPTER 12. Biographical. + + +Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and +South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. + +When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in +a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green +sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire +to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His +father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the +maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable +warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins--royal stuff; though +sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his +untutored youth. + +A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a +passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of +seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence +could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled +off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when +she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low +tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the +water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its +prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the +ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with +one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up +the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled +a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces. + +In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a +cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and +Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild +desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told +him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage--this sea +Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They put him down among +the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to +toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming +ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his +untutored countrymen. For at bottom--so he told me--he was actuated by a +profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to +make his people still happier than they were; and more than that, +still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon +convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; +infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in +old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on +to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, +poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world in +all meridians; I'll die a pagan. + +And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, +wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer +ways about him, though now some time from home. + +By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having +a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he +being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet; +and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had +unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan +Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,--as soon as +he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to +sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a +harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. + +I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future +movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon +this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my +intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for +an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany +me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, +the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; +with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. +To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt +for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not +fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant +of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as +known to merchant seamen. + +His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced +me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we +rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were +sleeping. + + +CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow. + + +Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, +for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my +comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed +amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between +me and Queequeg--especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories +about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person +whom I now companied with. + +We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own +poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went +down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the +wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg +so much--for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their +streets,--but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we +heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg +now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked +him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and +whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in +substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet +he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of +assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate +with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers +and mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with their own +scythes--though in no wise obliged to furnish them--even so, Queequeg, +for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. + +Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about +the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners +of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his +heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the +thing--though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in +which to manage the barrow--Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it +fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. "Why," +said I, "Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would +think. Didn't the people laugh?" + +Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of +Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water +of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and +this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided +mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once +touched at Rokovoko, and its commander--from all accounts, a very +stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain--this +commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a +pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding +guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain +marches in, and being assigned the post of honour, placed himself over +against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the +King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,--for those people have their +grace as well as we--though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such +times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the +ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts--Grace, I say, +being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony +of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers +into the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself +placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking +himself--being Captain of a ship--as having plain precedence over a +mere island King, especially in the King's own house--the Captain coolly +proceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowl;--taking it I suppose for a +huge finger-glass. "Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now?--Didn't our +people laugh?" + +At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. +Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New +Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all +glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on +casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering +whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others +came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and +forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the +start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a +second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever +and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all +earthly effort. + +Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little +Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. +How I snuffed that Tartar air!--how I spurned that turnpike earth!--that +common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and +hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will +permit no records. + +At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. +His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth. +On, on we flew; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the +blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways +leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the +two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of +this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that +for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a +lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so +companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a +whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, +by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of +all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him +behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping +his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost +miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; +then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with +bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, +lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff. + +"Capting! Capting!" yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer; +"Capting, Capting, here's the devil." + +"Hallo, _you_ sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking +up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you +might have killed that chap?" + +"What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. + +"He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there," pointing +to the still shivering greenhorn. + +"Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly +expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e +so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!" + +"Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e YOU, you cannibal, if you +try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye." + +But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to +mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted +the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to +side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor +fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all +hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, +seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost +in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of +snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of +being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the +boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the +midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and +crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one +end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it +round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar +was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the +wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, +stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of +a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, +throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing +his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand +and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone +down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now +took an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters +were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, +one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form. +The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands +voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that +hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took +his last long dive. + +Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at +all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only +asked for water--fresh water--something to wipe the brine off; that +done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the +bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying +to himself--"It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We +cannibals must help these Christians." + + + +CHAPTER 14. Nantucket. + + +Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a +fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. + +Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of +the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely +than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it--a mere hillock, and elbow of +sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than +you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some +gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they +don't grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have +to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that +pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true +cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, +to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an +oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand +shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, +belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island +of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will +sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these +extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois. + +Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was +settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle +swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant +Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne +out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same +direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they +discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,--the +poor little Indian's skeleton. + +What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take +to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in +the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more +experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, +launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; +put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in +at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared +everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the +flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea +Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that +his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and +malicious assaults! + +And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from +their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like +so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and +Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add +Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm +all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds +of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he +owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of +way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but +floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea +as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of +the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the +bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on +the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and +fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. THERE is his home; THERE +lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it +overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie +cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as +chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so +that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more +strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, +that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; +so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, +and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of +walruses and whales. + + + +CHAPTER 15. Chowder. + + +It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly +to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no +business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of +the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the +Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept +hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin +Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he +plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at +the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow +warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the +larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a +corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first +man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very +much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg +insisted that the yellow warehouse--our first point of departure--must +be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to +say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little +in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant +to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no +mistaking. + +Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears, +swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an +old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other +side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. +Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I +could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of +crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, TWO +of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A +Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones +staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair +of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints +touching Tophet? + +I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman +with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, +under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured +eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen +shirt. + +"Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing ye!" + +"Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs. Hussey." + +And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving +Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon +making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing +further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and +seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded +repast, turned round to us and said--"Clam or Cod?" + +"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness. + +"Clam or Cod?" she repeated. + +"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is THAT what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?" +says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter +time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?" + +But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple +Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing +but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to +the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two," disappeared. + +"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make out a supper for us +both on one clam?" + +However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the +apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder +came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! +hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than +hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into +little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned +with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty +voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food +before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched +it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking +me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try +a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word +"cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the +savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good +time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us. + +We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I +to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? +What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? "But look, +Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?" + +Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved +its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for +breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you +began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area +before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished +necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books +bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, +too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening +to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw +Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the +sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, +I assure ye. + +Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey +concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede +me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his +harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. "Why not?" said I; +"every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon--but why not?" "Because +it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since young Stiggs coming from that +unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with +only three barrels of _ile_, was found dead in my first floor back, with +his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take +sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for +she had learned his name), "I will just take this here iron, and keep +it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for +breakfast, men?" + +"Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of +variety." + + + +CHAPTER 16. The Ship. + + +In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and +no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been +diligently consulting Yojo--the name of his black little god--and Yojo +had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it +everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in +harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo +earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly +with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to +do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, +Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it +had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship +myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg. + +I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great +confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising forecast +of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good +sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all +cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. + +Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the selection +of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied +upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry +us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances produced +no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly +prepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort +of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that trifling little +affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our +little bedroom--for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, +or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that +day; HOW it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself +to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX +Articles--leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo +warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among +the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, +I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years' voyages--The +Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. DEVIL-DAM, I do not know the +origin of; TIT-BIT is obvious; PEQUOD, you will no doubt remember, was +the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct +as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, +hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, +looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very +ship for us. + +You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I +know;--square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box +galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a +rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old +school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look +about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms +of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French +grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable +bows looked bearded. Her masts--cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, +where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale--her masts stood +stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her +ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped +flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these +her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining +to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed. +Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded +another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the +principal owners of the Pequod,--this old Peleg, during the term of his +chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid +it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched +by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She +was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with +pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of +a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All +round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous +jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for +pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not +through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of +sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported +there a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved +from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who +steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds +back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a +most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. + +Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, +in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw +nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or +rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only +a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten +feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken +from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. +Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced +together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in +a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the +top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening +faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a +complete view forward. + +And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who +by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and +the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of +command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all +over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a +stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was +constructed. + +There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of +the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, +and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; +only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest +wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from +his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to +windward;--for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed +together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. + +"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to the door of +the tent. + +"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him?" +he demanded. + +"I was thinking of shipping." + +"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer--ever been in a +stove boat?" + +"No, Sir, I never have." + +"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say--eh? + +"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been several +voyages in the merchant service, and I think that--" + +"Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that +leg?--I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of +the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now +ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. +But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?--it looks +a little suspicious, don't it, eh?--Hast not been a pirate, hast +thou?--Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?--Dost not think of +murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?" + +I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask +of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated +Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather +distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the +Vineyard. + +"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of +shipping ye." + +"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world." + +"Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?" + +"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?" + +"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship." + +"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself." + +"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg--that's who ye are speaking to, +young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted +out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We +are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest +to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of +finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap +eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one +leg." + +"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?" + +"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, +chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a +boat!--ah, ah!" + +I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at +the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I +could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know +there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed +I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident." + +"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou +dost not talk shark a bit. SURE, ye've been to sea before now; sure of +that?" + +"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the +merchant--" + +"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant +service--don't aggravate me--I won't have it. But let us understand each +other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel +inclined for it?" + +"I do, sir." + +"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's +throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!" + +"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be +got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact." + +"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find +out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to +see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just +step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back +to me and tell me what ye see there." + +For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not +knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But +concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started +me on the errand. + +Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the +ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely +pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but +exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I +could see. + +"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye +see?" + +"Not much," I replied--"nothing but water; considerable horizon though, +and there's a squall coming up, I think." + +"Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go +round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where +you stand?" + +I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the +Pequod was as good a ship as any--I thought the best--and all this I now +repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness +to ship me. + +"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added--"come +along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin. + +Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and +surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with +Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other +shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd +of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each +owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail +or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling +vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks +bringing in good interest. + +Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a +Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to +this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the +peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified +by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same +Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They +are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance. + +So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture +names--a singularly common fashion on the island--and in childhood +naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker +idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure +of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown +peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a +Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things +unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain +and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion +of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath +constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think +untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or +savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding +breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental +advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language--that man makes +one in a whole nation's census--a mighty pageant creature, formed for +noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically +regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems +a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all +men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure +of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, +as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and +still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another +phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. + +Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. +But unlike Captain Peleg--who cared not a rush for what are called +serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the +veriest of all trifles--Captain Bildad had not only been originally +educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all +his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island +creatures, round the Horn--all that had not moved this native born +Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his +vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of +common consistency about worthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from +conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself +had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe +to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns +upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his +days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do +not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably +he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's +religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This +world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in short clothes +of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; +from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a +ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous +career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of +sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his +well-earned income. + +Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an +incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard +task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a +curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, +upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore +exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was +certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, +though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate +quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a +chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made +you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something--a hammer +or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, +never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own +person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his +long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, +his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his +broad-brimmed hat. + +Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I +followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks +was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, +and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was +placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was +buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in +reading from a ponderous volume. + +"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been +studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain +knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?" + +As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, +Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and +seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. + +"He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants to ship." + +"Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. + +"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. + +"What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg. + +"He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at +his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. + +I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, +his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said +nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, +and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him, +and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time +to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the +voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no +wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of +the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the +degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's +company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own +lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, +could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that +from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay--that +is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever +that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they +call a rather LONG LAY, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a +lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out +on it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I would +not have to pay one stiver. + +It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely +fortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those +that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the +world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim +sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay +would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I +been offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make. + +But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about +receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard +something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad; +how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore +the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the +whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know +but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about +shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, +quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his +own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his +jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was +such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded +us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, "LAY not up for +yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth--" + +"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what lay +shall we give this young man?" + +"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?--'where moth and rust do +corrupt, but LAY--'" + +LAY, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, +shall not LAY up many LAYS here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. +It was an exceedingly LONG LAY that, indeed; and though from the +magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet +the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and +seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make +a TEENTH of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven +hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time. + +"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not want to +swindle this young man! he must have more than that." + +"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without lifting +his eyes; and then went on mumbling--"for where your treasure is, there +will your heart be also." + +"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said Peleg, "do ye +hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say." + +Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said, +"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the +duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship--widows and orphans, +many of them--and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this +young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those +orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg." + +"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the +cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these +matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be +heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape +Horn." + +"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be drawing +ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou art still +an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be +but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the +fiery pit, Captain Peleg." + +"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye +insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that +he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and +start my soul-bolts, but I'll--I'll--yes, I'll swallow a live goat with +all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured +son of a wooden gun--a straight wake with ye!" + +As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous +oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him. + +Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and +responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up +all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily +commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, +I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened +wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the +transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of +withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As +for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more +left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a +little as if still nervously agitated. "Whew!" he whistled at last--"the +squall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at +sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs +the grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, +Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, +for the three hundredth lay." + +"Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to ship +too--shall I bring him down to-morrow?" + +"To be sure," said Peleg. "Fetch him along, and we'll look at him." + +"What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in +which he had again been burying himself. + +"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg. "Has he ever +whaled it any?" turning to me. + +"Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg." + +"Well, bring him along then." + +And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I +had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical +ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. + +But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain +with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in +many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all +her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving +to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the +shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have +a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble +himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till +all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at +him before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back +I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found. + +"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough; thou +art shipped." + +"Yes, but I should like to see him." + +"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly +what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort +of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick; but no, he +isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't always see me, so I +don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man, Captain Ahab--so some +think--but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well enough; no fear, no +fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak +much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be +forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as +'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed +his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! +aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't +Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; HE'S AHAB, boy; and Ahab +of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!" + +"And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did +they not lick his blood?" + +"Come hither to me--hither, hither," said Peleg, with a significance in +his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on board +the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. +'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died +when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at +Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, +other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a +lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago; +I know what he is--a good man--not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but +a swearing good man--something like me--only there's a good deal more of +him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on +the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it +was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that +about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost +his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of +moody--desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass +off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's +better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So +good-bye to thee--and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to +have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife--not three voyages +wedded--a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that +old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless +harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his +humanities!" + +As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been +incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain +wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, +I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't know what, +unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange +awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was +not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did +not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed +like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, +my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the +present dark Ahab slipped my mind. + + + +CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan. + + +As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all +day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I +cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, +never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue +even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other +creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism +quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of +a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate +possessions yet owned and rented in his name. + +I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these +things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, +pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these +subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most +absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;--but what of that? Queequeg +thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; +and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let +him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all--Presbyterians and Pagans +alike--for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and +sadly need mending. + +Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and +rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door; but +no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. "Queequeg," +said I softly through the key-hole:--all silent. "I say, Queequeg! why +don't you speak? It's I--Ishmael." But all remained still as before. I +began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time; I thought +he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but +the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect +was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the +foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I +was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of +Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken +from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange, thought I; +but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom or +never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no +possible mistake. + +"Queequeg!--Queequeg!"--all still. Something must have happened. +Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted. +Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person +I met--the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "I thought something must +be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was +locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silent ever +since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your +baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma'am!--Mistress! murder! Mrs. +Hussey! apoplexy!"--and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I +following. + +Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a +vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation +of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. + +"Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch +something to pry open the door--the axe!--the axe! he's had a stroke; +depend upon it!"--and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs +again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and +vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. + +"What's the matter with you, young man?" + +"Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry +it open!" + +"Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, +so as to have one hand free; "look here; are you talking about prying +open any of my doors?"--and with that she seized my arm. "What's the +matter with you? What's the matter with you, shipmate?" + +In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the +whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her +nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed--"No! I haven't seen +it since I put it there." Running to a little closet under the landing +of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's +harpoon was missing. "He's killed himself," she cried. "It's unfort'nate +Stiggs done over again there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor +mother!--it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? +Where's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell +him to paint me a sign, with--"no suicides permitted here, and no +smoking in the parlor;"--might as well kill both birds at once. Kill? +The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there? You, young +man, avast there!" + +And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force +open the door. + +"I don't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the +locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!" putting her +hand in her side-pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess; let's +see." And with that, she turned it in the lock; but, alas! Queequeg's +supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. + +"Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry a +little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing +I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a +sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. + +With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming +against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good +heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected; right +in the middle of the room; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on +top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat +like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life. + +"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's the matter with +you?" + +"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the landlady. + +But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt +like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost +intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained; +especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of +eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. + +"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's ALIVE at all events; so leave us, if you +please, and I will see to this strange affair myself." + +Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon +Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could +do--for all my polite arts and blandishments--he would not move a peg, +nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in +the slightest way. + +I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do +they fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so; +yes, it's part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he'll +get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last for ever, thank God, +and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don't believe it's very +punctual then. + +I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long +stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as +they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, +confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after +listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went +up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must +certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he +was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began to +grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be +sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, +holding a piece of wood on his head. + +"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have +some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself, Queequeg." But not a +word did he reply. + +Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep; +and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to +turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as +it promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his ordinary +round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into +the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere thought +of Queequeg--not four feet off--sitting there in that uneasy position, +stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really wretched. Think of +it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his +hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan! + +But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of +day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he +had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of +sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, +but with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his +forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over. + +Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, +be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any +other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when +a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment +to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to +lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and +argue the point with him. + +And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "get into bed +now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginning with the rise +and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various +religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show +Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in +cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless +for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and +common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an +extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained +me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan +of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the +spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be +half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish +such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, +said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested +apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary +dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. + +I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with +dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it +in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great +feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle +wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the +afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening. + +"No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for I knew the +inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who had +visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when +a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the +yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were placed +in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with +breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths, were +sent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as +though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys. + +After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much +impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed +dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his +own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more than one +third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he +no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than +I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and +compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible +young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety. + +At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty +breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not +make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the +Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones. + + + +CHAPTER 18. His Mark. + + +As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg +carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us +from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, +and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, +unless they previously produced their papers. + +"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping on the +bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. + +"I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers." + +"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from +behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that he's converted. +Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art thou at present in +communion with any Christian church?" + +"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church." Here +be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at +last come to be converted into the churches. + +"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worships in +Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying, taking +out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana +handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the +wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at +Queequeg. + +"How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me; "not very +long, I rather guess, young man." + +"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it would +have washed some of that devil's blue off his face." + +"Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular member of +Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it +every Lord's day." + +"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting," said +I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First +Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is." + +"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me--explain +thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me." + +Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. "I mean, sir, the same +ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, +and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of +us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole +worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some +queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in THAT we all join +hands." + +"Splice, thou mean'st SPLICE hands," cried Peleg, drawing nearer. "Young +man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; +I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy--why Father Mapple +himself couldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come +aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there--what's +that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what +a harpoon he's got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it +about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand +in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?" + +Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon +the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats +hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his +harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:-- + +"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, +spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it, he +darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across the +ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight. + +"Now," said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, "spos-ee him whale-e +eye; why, dad whale dead." + +"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close +vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. +"Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have +Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, +we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was given a +harpooneer yet out of Nantucket." + +So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon +enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged. + +When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for +signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there don't know how +to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or +make thy mark?" + +But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken +part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the +offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact +counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so +that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touching his appellative, +it stood something like this:-- + +Quohog. his X mark. + +Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, +and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his +broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting +one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose," placed it in +Queequeg's hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, +looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, "Son of darkness, I must do my +duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the +souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I +sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn +the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind +thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!" + +Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language, +heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. + +"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer," +cried Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers--it takes the shark +out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. +There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all +Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to +good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and +sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove +and went to Davy Jones." + +"Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, "thou thyself, +as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what +it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou prate in this +ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this +same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, +that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st thou not +think of Death and the Judgment then?" + +"Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and +thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,--"hear him, all of ye. +Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! +Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an +everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over us, +fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think +about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; +and how to save all hands--how to rig jury-masts--how to get into the +nearest port; that was what I was thinking of." + +Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, +where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some +sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then +he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which +otherwise might have been wasted. + + + +CHAPTER 19. The Prophet. + + +"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?" + +Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from +the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when +the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, +levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but +shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a +black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all +directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed +bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. + +"Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated. + +"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain a little +more time for an uninterrupted look at him. + +"Aye, the Pequod--that ship there," he said, drawing back his whole +arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed +bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. + +"Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles." + +"Anything down there about your souls?" + +"About what?" + +"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter though, +I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,--good luck to 'em; and they are +all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon." + +"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I. + +"HE'S got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort +in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis +upon the word HE. + +"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from +somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know." + +"Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true--ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder +yet, have ye?" + +"Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness +of his manner. + +"Captain Ahab." + +"What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?" + +"Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye +hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?" + +"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will be +all right again before long." + +"All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly +derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then +this left arm of mine will be all right; not before." + +"What do you know about him?" + +"What did they TELL you about him? Say that!" + +"They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that he's +a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew." + +"That's true, that's true--yes, both true enough. But you must jump when +he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go--that's the word with +Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape +Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; +nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in +Santa?--heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash +he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, +according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about them matters and +something more, eh? No, I don't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows +it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell +about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare +say. Oh yes, THAT every one knows a'most--I mean they know he's only one +leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off." + +"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I +don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a +little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of +that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about +the loss of his leg." + +"ALL about it, eh--sure you do?--all?" + +"Pretty sure." + +With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like +stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a +little, turned and said:--"Ye've shipped, have ye? Names down on the +papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be, will be; +and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Anyhow, it's all fixed +and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I +suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, +shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped +ye." + +"Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important to tell +us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are +mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say." + +"And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; +you are just the man for him--the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, +morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded not to make one +of 'em." + +"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way--you can't fool us. It +is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great +secret in him." + +"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning." + +"Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this crazy +man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?" + +"Elijah." + +Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each +other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was +nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone +perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and +looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, +though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I +said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my +comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner +that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging +us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This +circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, +shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments +and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain +Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver +calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship +the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage +we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things. + +I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really +dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, +and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without +seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it +seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug. + + + +CHAPTER 20. All Astir. + + +A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. +Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on +board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything +betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain +Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp +look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing +at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were +working till long after night-fall. + +On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given at +all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their chests +must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon +the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, +resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they +always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail +for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and +there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod +was fully equipped. + +Every one knows what a multitude of things--beds, sauce-pans, knives +and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are +indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, +which necessitates a three-years' housekeeping upon the wide ocean, +far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And +though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means +to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the +whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the +fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors +usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling +vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially +to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of +the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare +lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain +and duplicate ship. + +At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the +Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water, +fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time +there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and +ends of things, both large and small. + +Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain +Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable +spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE +could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once +fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar +of pickles for the steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills +for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a +roll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did +any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as +everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable +Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand +and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and +consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother +Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of +well-saved dollars. + +But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on +board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and +a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor +Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him +a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down +went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a +while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men +down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then +concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. + +During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the +craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when +he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would +answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard +every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend +to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been +downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart +that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, +without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute +dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. +But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be +already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his +suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said +nothing, and tried to think nothing. + +At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would +certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start. + + + +CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard. + + +It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we +drew nigh the wharf. + +"There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right," said I to +Queequeg, "it can't be shadows; she's off by sunrise, I guess; come on!" + +"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind +us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself +between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight, +strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah. + +"Going aboard?" + +"Hands off, will you," said I. + +"Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!" + +"Ain't going aboard, then?" + +"Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours? Do you know, +Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?" + +"No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and +wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable +glances. + +"Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We +are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be +detained." + +"Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?" + +"He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on." + +"Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few +paces. + +"Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on." + +But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my +shoulder, said--"Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that +ship a while ago?" + +Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, "Yes, +I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure." + +"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye." + +Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and +touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find 'em now, will ye? + +"Find who?" + +"Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off. "Oh! I +was going to warn ye against--but never mind, never mind--it's all one, +all in the family too;--sharp frost this morning, ain't it? Good-bye to +ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it's before the Grand +Jury." And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for +the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. + +At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound +quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the +hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward +to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a +light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a +tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his +face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber +slept upon him. + +"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?" said I, +looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf, +Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I would +have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter, +were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the +thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg +that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish +himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though +feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly +down there. + +"Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there," said I. + +"Oh! perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way; won't hurt him +face." + +"Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenance then; +but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you +are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, +he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't wake." + +Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and +lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing +over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him +in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his +land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, +chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some +of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in +that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay +them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on +an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible +into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and +desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps +in some damp marshy place. + +While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk +from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper's head. + +"What's that for, Queequeg?" + +"Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!" + +He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe, +which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed +his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The +strong vapour now completely filling the contracted hole, it began +to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed +troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and +rubbed his eyes. + +"Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smokers?" + +"Shipped men," answered I, "when does she sail?" + +"Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain +came aboard last night." + +"What Captain?--Ahab?" + +"Who but him indeed?" + +I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we +heard a noise on deck. + +"Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a lively chief mate, +that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to." And so +saying he went on deck, and we followed. + +It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and +threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively +engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various +last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly +enshrined within his cabin. + + + +CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas. + + +At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers, +and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the +ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last +gift--a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a +spare Bible for the steward--after all this, the two Captains, Peleg +and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg +said: + +"Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is +all ready--just spoke to him--nothing more to be got from shore, eh? +Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here--blast 'em!" + +"No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg," said Bildad, +"but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding." + +How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain +Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the +quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as +well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of +him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, +the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the +ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was +not at all his proper business, but the pilot's; and as he was not +yet completely recovered--so they said--therefore, Captain Ahab stayed +below. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the merchant +service many captains never show themselves on deck for a considerable +time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table, +having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, before they +quit the ship for good with the pilot. + +But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain +Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and +commanding, and not Bildad. + +"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors lingered at +the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive'em aft." + +"Strike the tent there!"--was the next order. As I hinted before, this +whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the +Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to +be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. + +"Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!--jump!"--was the next command, and +the crew sprang for the handspikes. + +Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot +is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it +known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed pilots +of the port--he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in +order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned +in, for he never piloted any other craft--Bildad, I say, might now +be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching +anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, +to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of +a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will. +Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no +profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in +getting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice +copy of Watts in each seaman's berth. + +Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped +and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would +sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I paused +on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the +perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a +pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious +Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and +seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and +turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the +act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first +kick. + +"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared. +"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye +spring, I say, all of ye--spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red +whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I +say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And so saying, he moved +along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while +imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, +Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day. + +At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It +was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into +night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose +freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of +teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white +ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from +the bows. + +Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the +old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost +all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady +notes were heard,-- + +"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green. +So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between." + + +Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They +were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the +boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was +yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads +and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, +untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. + +At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed +no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging +alongside. + +It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at +this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; +very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a +voyage--beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of +his hard earned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate +sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to +encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to +a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,--poor old Bildad +lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the +cabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and +looked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only +bounded by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards +the land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere +and nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, +convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, +for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, +"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can." + +As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all +his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern +came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck--now +a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate. + +But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look +about him,--"Captain Bildad--come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the +main-yard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! +Careful, careful!--come, Bildad, boy--say your last. Luck to ye, +Starbuck--luck to ye, Mr. Stubb--luck to ye, Mr. Flask--good-bye and +good luck to ye all--and this day three years I'll have a hot supper +smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!" + +"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmured old +Bildad, almost incoherently. "I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so +that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye--a pleasant sun is all +he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. +Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, +ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent. +within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind +that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in +the green locker! Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't +miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an +eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. +If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye, +good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. +Starbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the butter--twenty cents the +pound it was, and mind ye, if--" + +"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,--away!" and with that, +Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat. + +Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a +screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave +three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone +Atlantic. + + + +CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore. + + +Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded +mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. + +When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive +bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her +helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon +the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous +voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another +tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest +things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this +six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say +that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably +drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port +is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm +blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, +the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all +hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make +her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail +off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would +blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; +for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her +bitterest foe! + +Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally +intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid +effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while +the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the +treacherous, slavish shore? + +But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, +indefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, +than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! +For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of +the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, +O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy +ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! + + + +CHAPTER 24. The Advocate. + + +As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; +and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among +landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I +am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done +to us hunters of whales. + +In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish +the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not +accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a +stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, +it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were +he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation +of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm +Whale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed +pre-eminently presuming and ridiculous. + +Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring us +whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a +butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we +are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is +true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been +all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honour. And +as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall +soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, +and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship +at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even +granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery +decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those +battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies' +plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit +of the soldier's profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran +who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the +apparition of the sperm whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air +over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared +with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! + +But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it +unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding +adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round +the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! + +But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of +scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. + +Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling +fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit +out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some +score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did +Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties +upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of +America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; +sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen +thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, +at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our +harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if +there be not something puissant in whaling? + +But this is not the half; look again. + +I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, +point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty +years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in +one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way +and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so +continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may +well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves +pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to +catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past +the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and +least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes +which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If +American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage +harbors, let them fire salutes to the honour and glory of the +whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted +between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes +of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I say that +scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were +as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For in their +succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, +and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin +wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines and muskets would +not willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old +South Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of +our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates +three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the +ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world! + +Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, +scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and +the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. +It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the +Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it +might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the +liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and +the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts. + +That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given +to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born +discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned those shores +as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The +whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, +in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were +several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the +whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted +isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage +to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the +merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their +first destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become +hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; +for already she is on the threshold. + +But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no +aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to +shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet +every time. + +The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you +will say. + +THE WHALE NO FAMOUS AUTHOR, AND WHALING NO FAMOUS CHRONICLER? Who wrote +the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who composed +the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than +Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from +Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our +glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke! + +True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no +good blood in their veins. + +NO GOOD BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS? They have something better than royal +blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; +afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers +of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and +harpooneers--all kith and kin to noble Benjamin--this day darting the +barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. + +Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not +respectable. + +WHALING NOT RESPECTABLE? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory +law, the whale is declared "a royal fish."* + +Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any +grand imposing way. + +THE WHALE NEVER FIGURED IN ANY GRAND IMPOSING WAY? In one of the mighty +triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital, +the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were +the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.* + + +*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. + + +Grant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no real +dignity in whaling. + +NO DIGNITY IN WHALING? The dignity of our calling the very heavens +attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your +hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I +know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty +whales. I account that man more honourable than that great captain of +antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns. + +And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered +prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small +but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if +hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather +have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or +more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here +I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a +whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. + + + +CHAPTER 25. Postscript. + + +In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but +substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who +should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might +tell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate, would he not be +blameworthy? + +It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern +ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is +gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there +may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely--who knows? +Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his +coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they +anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint +machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential +dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but +meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably +smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, +unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him +somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality. + +But the only thing to be considered here, is this--what kind of oil is +used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, +nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What +then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted +state, the sweetest of all oils? + +Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and +queens with coronation stuff! + + + +CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires. + + +The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a +Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy +coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard +as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would +not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of +general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which +his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those +summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his +thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and +cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely +the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the +contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped +up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified +Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, +and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like +a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well +in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet +lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted +through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a +telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for +all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities +in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to +overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and +endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his +life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that +sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to +spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents +and inward presentiments were his. And if at times these things bent the +welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories +of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the +original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those +latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush +of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous +vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said +Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, +not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises +from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly +fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. + +"Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Starbuck, there, is as careful +a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery." But we shall ere long +see what that word "careful" precisely means when used by a man like +Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. + +Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a +sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all +mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this +business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of +the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. +Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor +for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting +him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill +whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that +hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was +his own father's? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn +limbs of his brother? + +With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain +superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which +could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But +it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such +terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature +that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in +him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its +confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it +was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, +while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or +whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet +cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, +which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and +mighty man. + +But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete +abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to +write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose +the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint +stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; +men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble +and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any +ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their +costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, +so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character +seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of +a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, +completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this +august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but +that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it +shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic +dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The +great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His +omnipresence, our divine equality! + +If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall +hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic +graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them +all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch +that workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow +over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear +me out in it, thou Just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal +mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great +democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the +pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves +of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who +didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a +war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all +Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from +the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God! + + + +CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. + + +Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, +according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; +neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an +indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the +chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged +for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his +whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his +crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable +arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the +snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of +the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as +a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes +while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, +for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he +thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of +it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his +mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, +he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir +themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed +the order, and not sooner. + +What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, +unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a +world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; +what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that +thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black +little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would +almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his +nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready +loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he +turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from +the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in +readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his +legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth. + +I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his +peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether +ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of +the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the +cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their +mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco +smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent. + +The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A +short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, +who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally +and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of +honour with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost +was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic +bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of +any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, +the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least +water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small +application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This +ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in +the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a +three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted +that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought +nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask +was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They +called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could +be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic +whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted +into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those +battering seas. + +Now these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous +men. They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the +Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which +Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, +these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with +their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; +even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. + +And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic +Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, +who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when +the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and +moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy +and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set +down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of +them belonged. + +First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected +for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. + +Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly +promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last +remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring +island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the +fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's +long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding +eyes--for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their +glittering expression--all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor +of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest +of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal +forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild +beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great +whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the +infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe +snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of +the earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son +of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second +mate's squire. + +Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black +negro-savage, with a lion-like tread--an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended +from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called +them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to +them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, +lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been +anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors +most frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold +life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what +manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, +and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six +feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at +him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to +beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus +Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man +beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that +at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the +mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though +pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the +American whale fishery as with the American army and military and +merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction +of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all +these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest +of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of +these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound +Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy +peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers +sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to +receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, +they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but +Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders +in the Pequod, ISOLATOES too, I call such, not acknowledging the common +continent of men, but each ISOLATO living on a separate continent of his +own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! +An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all +the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the +world's grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever +come back. Black Little Pip--he never did--oh, no! he went before. Poor +Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, +beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, +to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and +beat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there! + + + +CHAPTER 28. Ahab. + + +For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen +of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, +and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the +only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin +with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they +but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was +there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate +into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. + +Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly +gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague +disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the +sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened +at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly +recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived +of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was +almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish +prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or +uneasiness--to call it so--which I felt, yet whenever I came to look +about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such +emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, +were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the +tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me +acquainted with, still I ascribed this--and rightly ascribed it--to the +fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation +in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect +of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most +forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and induce +confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three +better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, +could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a +Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the +ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, +though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every +degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that +merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one +of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the +transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water +with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I +mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I +levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. +Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. + +There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the +recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when +the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, +or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His +whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an +unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out +from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his +tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, +you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that +perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of +a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and +without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top +to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly +alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it +was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. +By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was +made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old +Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till +he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and +then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in +an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially +negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, +who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this +laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the +immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with +preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously +contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should +be tranquilly laid out--which might hardly come to pass, so he +muttered--then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would +find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole. + +So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid +brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted +that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric +white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that +this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of +the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old +Gay-Head Indian once; "but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another +mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em." + +I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of +the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there +was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. +His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a +shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the +ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, +a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, +forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his +officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures +and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, +consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, +but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his +face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. + +Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. +But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either +standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or +heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to +grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as +if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry +bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it +came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, +for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, +he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was +only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling +preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so +that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite +Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that +layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the +loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. + +Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the +pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from +his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, +trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, +most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green +sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the +end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More +than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any +other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. + + + +CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. + + +Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now +went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost +perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. +The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, +were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up--flaked up, with +rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in +jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their +absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, +'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights. +But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new +spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the +soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory +shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. +And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's +texture. + +Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less +man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, +the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the +night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he +seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits +were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. "It feels +like going down into one's tomb,"--he would mutter to himself--"for an +old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my +grave-dug berth." + +So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were +set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below; +and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors +flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt +it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when +this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the +silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man +would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. +Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, +he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his +wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such +would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that +their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, +the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, +lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, +Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain +unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was +pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might +be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and +hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the +ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then. + +"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad me that +fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; +where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at +last.--Down, dog, and kennel!" + +Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly +scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, "I +am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like +it, sir." + +"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, +as if to avoid some passionate temptation. + +"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely be called +a dog, sir." + +"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, +or I'll clear the world of thee!" + +As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in +his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. + +"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it," +muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. "It's +very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go +back and strike him, or--what's that?--down here on my knees and pray +for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the +first time I ever DID pray. It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; +aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever +sailed with. How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he +mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be +something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more +than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't +that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds +the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets +down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the +pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on +it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call +a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--worse nor a +toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me +from catching it. He's full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the +after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's +that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in +the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old +game--Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be +born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think +of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of +queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But +that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and +sleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again. But how's that? +didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and +piled a lot of jackasses on top of THAT! He might as well have kicked +me, and done with it. Maybe he DID kick me, and I didn't observe it, +I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a +bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right +on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong +side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though--How? how? +how?--but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; +and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by +daylight." + + + +CHAPTER 30. The Pipe. + + +When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the +bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor +of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. +Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the +weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. + +In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were +fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one +look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking +him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of +the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab. + +Some moments passed, during which the thick vapour came from his mouth +in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How +now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no +longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be +gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring--aye, and +ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with +such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the +strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? +This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapours +among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll +smoke no more--" + +He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the +waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe +made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks. + + + +CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab. + + +Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. + +"Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man's +ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick +back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, +presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking +at it. But what was still more curious, Flask--you know how curious all +dreams are--through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be +thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that +kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg, +only a false leg.' And there's a mighty difference between a living +thump and a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, +fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living +member--that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to +myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against +that cursed pyramid--so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all +the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but +a cane--a whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful +cudgelling--in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me--not a base +kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the end of it--the foot +part--what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer +kicked me, THERE'S a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled +down to a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the +dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of +badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the +shoulders, and slews me round. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, +but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over +the fright. 'What am I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is +that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do YOU want a kick?' +By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his +stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a +clout--what do you think, I saw?--why thunder alive, man, his stern +was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second +thoughts, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said he, +'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of +his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying +over his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to +kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for it, +when he roared out, 'Stop that kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's +the matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue +the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says +I--'right HERE it was.' 'Very good,' says he--'he used his ivory leg, +didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, +what have you to complain of? Didn't he kick with right good will? it +wasn't a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were +kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an +honour; I consider it an honour. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England the +greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and made +garter-knights of; but, be YOUR boast, Stubb, that ye were kicked by +old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; BE kicked by him; +account his kicks honours; and on no account kick back; for you can't +help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?' With that, he +all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into +the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what +do you think of that dream, Flask?" + +"I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'" + +"May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see Ahab +standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing +you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him, +whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark!" + +"Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts! + +"If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! + +"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop of +something queer about that, eh? A white whale--did ye mark that, man? +Look ye--there's something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. +Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way." + + + +CHAPTER 32. Cetology. + + +Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost +in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the +Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the +leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost +indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more +special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to +follow. + +It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, +that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The +classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here +essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down. + +"No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled +Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. + +"It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the +inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and +families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal" +(sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. + +"Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters." +"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A field +strewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve to +torture us naturalists." + +Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson, +those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real +knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in +some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are +the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at +large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:--The Authors +of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner; +Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; +Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; +John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the +Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what +ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above cited +extracts will show. + +Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen +ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional +harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate +subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing +authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great +sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy +mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper +upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest +of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the +profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the +then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to +this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats +and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference +to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, +will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to +them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new +proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,--the +Greenland whale is deposed,--the great sperm whale now reigneth! + +There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the living +sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest degree +succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and Bennett's; both in +their time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both exact and +reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found +in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of +excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As +yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete +in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an +unwritten life. + +Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular +comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the +present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent +laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I +hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; +because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very +reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical +description of the various species, or--in this place at least--to much +of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a +systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. + +But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office +is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them; +to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very +pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should +essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job +might well appal me. Will he the (leviathan) make a covenant with thee? +Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and +sailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible +hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to +settle. + +First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology +is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it +still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of +Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I hereby separate the whales from +the fish." But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, +sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus's express edict, +were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the +Leviathan. + +The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from +the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their warm bilocular +heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem +intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and finally, "ex lege naturae jure +meritoque." I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley +Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and +they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether +insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. + +Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned +ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. +This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal +respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given +you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; +whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded. + +Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as +conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a +whale is A SPOUTING FISH WITH A HORIZONTAL TAIL. There you have +him. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded +meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a +fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is +still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have +noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a +vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, +though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal +position. + +By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude +from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified +with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other +hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien.* +Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be +included in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the grand +divisions of the entire whale host. + + +*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and +Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included +by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy, +contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on +wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials +as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the +Kingdom of Cetology. + + +First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary +BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all, +both small and large. + +I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE. + +As the type of the FOLIO I present the SPERM WHALE; of the OCTAVO, the +GRAMPUS; of the DUODECIMO, the PORPOISE. + +FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:--I. The SPERM +WHALE; II. the RIGHT WHALE; III. the FIN-BACK WHALE; IV. the HUMP-BACKED +WHALE; V. the RAZOR-BACK WHALE; VI. the SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER I. (SPERM WHALE).--This whale, among the +English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter +whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the +French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the +Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; +the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in +aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being +the only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is +obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged +upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically +considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was +almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil +was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days +spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a +creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland +or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that +quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of +the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was +exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment +and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays +buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the +true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still +retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so +strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at +last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti +was really derived. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER II. (RIGHT WHALE).--In one respect this is the +most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted +by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and +the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior article in commerce. +Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the +following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale; +the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of +obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus multitudinously +baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in the second species +of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the +Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the Baliene Ordinaire of the +French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale +which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and +English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen +have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' +West Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them +Right Whale Cruising Grounds. + +Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the +English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree +in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single +determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by +endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that +some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The +right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference +to elucidating the sperm whale. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER III. (FIN-BACK).--Under this head I reckon +a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and +Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale +whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the +Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and +in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less +portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips +present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds +of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which +he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some +three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the +back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if +not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated +fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When +the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, +and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled +surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it +somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on +it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not +gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very +shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the +remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet +rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with +such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present +pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable +Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From +having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included with +the right whale, among a theoretic species denominated WHALEBONE WHALES, +that is, whales with baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there +would seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little +known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched +whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen's +names for a few sorts. + +In connection with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of +great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be +convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is +in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon +either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those +marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford +the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached +bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How +then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose +peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, +without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in other +and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked +whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. Then, this same +humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen; +but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with the +other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such +irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached, +such an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general +methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the +whale-naturalists has split. + +But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the +whale, in his anatomy--there, at least, we shall be able to hit the +right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the +Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have +seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the +Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various +leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as +available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. +What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in +their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is +the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can +possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO) CHAPTER IV. (HUMP-BACK).--This whale is often seen on +the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and +towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you +might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular +name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm +whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very +valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of +all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any +other of them. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER V. (RAZOR-BACK).--Of this whale little is known +but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring +nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he +has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long +sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody +else. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER VI. (SULPHUR-BOTTOM).--Another retiring +gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the +Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; +at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, +and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is +never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are +told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true +of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. + +Thus ends BOOK I. (FOLIO), and now begins BOOK II. (OCTAVO). + +OCTAVOES.*--These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which +present may be numbered:--I., the GRAMPUS; II., the BLACK FISH; III., +the NARWHALE; IV., the THRASHER; V., the KILLER. + + +*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. +Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of +the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them +in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form +does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume +does. + + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER I. (GRAMPUS).--Though this fish, whose +loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb +to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not +popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive +features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. +He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet +in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in +herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in +quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is +regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER II. (BLACK FISH).--I give the popular +fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. +Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, +and suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called, +because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the +Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the +circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he +carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale +averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost +all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin +in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more +profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena +whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment--as +some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by +themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their +blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of +thirty gallons of oil. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER III. (NARWHALE), that is, NOSTRIL +WHALE.--Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose +from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The +creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five +feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly +speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw +in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only +found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner +something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What +precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to +say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and +bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for +a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin +said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the +surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his +horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these +surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided +horn may really be used by the Narwhale--however that may be--it would +certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. +The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and +the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism +to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain +cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn +was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, +and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also +distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the +horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it +was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells +me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when +Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window +of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; "when Sir +Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on bended knees +he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, +which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor." An Irish +author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise +present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the +unicorn nature. + +The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a +milk-white ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. +His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and +he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER IV. (KILLER).--Of this whale little is +precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed +naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say +that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage--a sort of +Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and +hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The +Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception +might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground +of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; +Bonapartes and Sharks included. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER V. (THRASHER).--This gentleman is famous for +his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts +the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by +flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar +process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both +are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. + +Thus ends BOOK II. (OCTAVO), and begins BOOK III. (DUODECIMO). + +DUODECIMOES.--These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. +II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise. + +To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may +possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five +feet should be marshalled among WHALES--a word, which, in the popular +sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set +down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my +definition of what a whale is--i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal +tail. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER 1. (HUZZA PORPOISE).--This is the +common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own +bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something +must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always +swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing +themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their +appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine +spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They +are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a +lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding +these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly +gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will +yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid +extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among +jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise +meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that +a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very +readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and +you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER II. (ALGERINE PORPOISE).--A pirate. Very +savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat larger +than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. Provoke him, +and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but +never yet saw him captured. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER III. (MEALY-MOUTHED PORPOISE).--The +largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it is +known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been designated, +is that of the fishers--Right-Whale Porpoise, from the circumstance that +he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs +in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly +girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-like figure. He has +no fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, +and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils +all. Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, +yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called +the "bright waist," that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two +separate colours, black above and white below. The white comprises part +of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he +had just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and +mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common porpoise. + + +Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as +the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the +Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, +half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by +reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their +fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to +future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If +any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then +he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, +Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:--The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; +the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon +Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the +Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic, +Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of +uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit +them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for +mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. + +Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be +here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have +kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus +unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the +crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small +erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true +ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever +completing anything. This whole book is but a draught--nay, but the +draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! + + + +CHAPTER 33. The Specksynder. + + +Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place +as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising +from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown +of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet. + +The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced +by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries +and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in +the person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an +officer called the Specksynder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; +usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In +those days, the captain's authority was restricted to the navigation +and general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting +department and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief Harpooneer +reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted +title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but +his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply +as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more +inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the +harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since +in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, +but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the +command of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the grand political +maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from +the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their +professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as +their social equal. + +Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is +this--the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and +merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and +so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in +the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the +captain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it. + +Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest +of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and +the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high +or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their +common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and +hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less +rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind +how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some +primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious +externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, +and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in +which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated +grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost +as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the +shabbiest of pilot-cloth. + +And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least +given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage +he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he +required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon +the quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar +circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he +addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or IN +TERROREM, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means +unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea. + +Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those +forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; incidentally +making use of them for other and more private ends than they were +legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain, +which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; through +those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible +dictatorship. For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will, +it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, +without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, +in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever +keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and +leaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who +become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice +hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted +superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks +in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, +that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted +potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown +of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian +herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the +tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest +sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in +his art, as the one now alluded to. + +But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket +grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and +Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old +whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings +and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it +must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and +featured in the unbodied air! + + + +CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table. + + +It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread +face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and +master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an +observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the +smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on +the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the +tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But +presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to +the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. +Starbuck," disappears into the cabin. + +When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck, the +first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck +rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after +a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, +"Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges +about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to +see whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise +takes up the old burden, and with a rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows +after his predecessors. + +But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, +seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all +sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his +shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right +over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching +his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so +far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other +processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into +the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, +then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, +in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave. + +It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense +artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck +some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and +defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those +very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that +same commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say +deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of +the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this +difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of +Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, +therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he +who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own +private dinner-table of invited guests, that man's unchallenged power +and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man's royalty of +state transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who +has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It +is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now, +if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a +ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that +peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. + +Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned +sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still +deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be +served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, +there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, +their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved +the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they +would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even +upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his +knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby +motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as +though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started +if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it +noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like +the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly +dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were +somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab +forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was +to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And +poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary +family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have +been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this +must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had +he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have +been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless, +strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself, +the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did +Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners +of the ship denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, +sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such +marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for +him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man! + +Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask +is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badly +jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him; +and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb +even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small +appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask +must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day; +for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. +Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he +had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never +known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what +he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. +Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from +my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of +old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the +mast. There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory: +there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere +sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official +capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, +was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin +sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab. + +Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table +in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted +order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was +restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three +harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees. +They made a sort of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty +cabin. + +In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless +invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire care-free +license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows +the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the +sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food +with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords; +they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. +Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out +the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was +fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of +the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with +a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of +accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once +Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy's memory by +snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty +wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the +circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous, +shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the progeny +of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the standing +spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous +visitations of these three savages, Dough-Boy's whole life was one +continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished +with all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches into +his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the +blinds of its door, till all was over. + +It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing +his filed teeth to the Indian's: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on the +floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low +carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin +framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a +ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, +not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively +small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, +baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed +strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his +dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by +beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a +mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating--an ugly sound enough--so +much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether +any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear +Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be +picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging +round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the +whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their +lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they +would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at +all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget that in his +Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some +murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the +white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on +his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, +the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous, +fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every +step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards. + +But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived +there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were +scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time, +when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters. + +In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale +captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights +the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that +anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth, +the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to +have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it +was something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for +a moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing, +residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin +was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally +included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He +lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled +Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of +the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter +there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, +Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the +sullen paws of its gloom! + + + +CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head. + + +It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the +other seamen my first mast-head came round. + +In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost +simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she may +have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper +cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years' voyage +she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her--say, an empty vial +even--then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her +skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether +relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more. + +Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very +ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. +I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old +Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. +For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by +their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, +or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great +stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread +gale of God's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders +priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of +mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among +archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical +purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like +formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious +long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount +to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a +modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In +Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him +a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of +his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a +tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless +stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs +or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to +the last, literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads +we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who, +though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely +incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange +sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column of Vendome, +stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air; +careless, now, who rules the decks below; whether Louis Philippe, Louis +Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on +his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars, +his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals +will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his +mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that +London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for +where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor +Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however +madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks +upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits +penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals +and what rocks must be shunned. + +It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head +standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is +not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole +historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, +that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly +launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty +spars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by means +of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few +years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, +who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh +the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the +one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads +are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their +regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two +hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant +the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There +you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the +deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and +between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even +as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old +Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with +nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the +drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the +most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests +you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts +of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear +of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are +never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner--for +all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and +your bill of fare is immutable. + +In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years' +voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the +mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be +deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion +of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute +of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a +comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, +a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small +and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your +most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you +stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called +the t' gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner +feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, +in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of +a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more +of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its +fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out +of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim +crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of +a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You +cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you +make a convenient closet of your watch-coat. + +Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a +southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents +or pulpits, called CROW'S-NESTS, in which the look-outs of a Greenland +whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In +the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the +Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the +re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;" in +this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with +a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented +CROW'S-NEST of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good +craft. He called it the SLEET'S CROW'S-NEST, in honour of himself; he +being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous +false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our +own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so +likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we +may beget. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large +tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with +a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. +Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a +little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the +stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for +umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which +to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical +conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this +crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him +(also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for +the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns +infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from +the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon +them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love +for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed +conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many +of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his +experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for +the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called +the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to +the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the +Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down +blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very +discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned "binnacle +deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and "approximate errors," +he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed +in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted +occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely +tucked in on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. +Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the +honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he +should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend +and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded +head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest +within three or four perches of the pole. + +But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as +Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is +greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those +seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used +to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a +chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; +then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the +top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at +last mount to my ultimate destination. + +Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but +sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how +could I--being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering +altitude--how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all +whale-ships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out +every time." + +And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of +Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with +lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who +offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware +of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be +killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes +round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor +are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery +furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded +young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking +sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches +himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and +in moody phrase ejaculates:-- + +"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand +blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain." + +Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded +young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient +"interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost +to all honourable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would +rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young +Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are +short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have +left their opera-glasses at home. + +"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been +cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale +yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." +Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in +the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of +vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending +cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; +takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, +blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every +strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every +dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him +the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by +continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs +away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like +Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every +shore the round globe over. + +There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a +gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from +the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, +move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity +comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, +at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you +drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise +for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists! + + + +CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck. + + +(ENTER AHAB: THEN, ALL) + + +It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one +morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the +cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that +hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the +garden. + +Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old +rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over +dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did +you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, +you would see still stranger foot-prints--the foot-prints of his one +unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. + +But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as +his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his +thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the +main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought +turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely +possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every +outer movement. + +"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in him pecks +the shell. 'Twill soon be out." + +The hours wore on;--Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the +deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect. + +It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the +bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with +one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft. + +"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on +ship-board except in some extraordinary case. + +"Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!" + +When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious and not +wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike +the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly +glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, +started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him +resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched +hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among +the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have +summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But +this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:-- + +"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?" + +"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed +voices. + +"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the +hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically +thrown them. + +"And what do ye next, men?" + +"Lower away, and after him!" + +"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?" + +"A dead whale or a stove boat!" + +More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the +countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began +to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they +themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. + +But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his +pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost +convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-- + +"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white +whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"--holding up a +broad bright coin to the sun--"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye +see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul." + +While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was +slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if +to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile +lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and +inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his +vitality in him. + +Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast +with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the +other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye +raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; +whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes +punctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me +that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!" + +"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they +hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. + +"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: +"a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; +if ye see but a bubble, sing out." + +All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even +more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention +of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was +separately touched by some specific recollection. + +"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same that +some call Moby Dick." + +"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?" + +"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?" said the +Gay-Header deliberately. + +"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy, even for a +parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?" + +"And he have one, two, three--oh! good many iron in him hide, too, +Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk, like +him--him--" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and +round as though uncorking a bottle--"like him--him--" + +"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted +and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole +shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the +great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a +split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have +seen--Moby Dick--Moby Dick!" + +"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far +been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed +struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. "Captain +Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dick that took off +thy leg?" + +"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye, my +hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that +brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with +a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; +"Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor +pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with +measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him +round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and +round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have +shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and +over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. +What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look +brave." + +"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the +excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for +Moby Dick!" + +"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God bless ye, +men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this long +face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not +game for Moby Dick?" + +"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain +Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I +came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels +will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it +will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market." + +"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest +a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the +accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by +girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let +me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium HERE!" + +"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it +rings most vast, but hollow." + +"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee +from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, +Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." + +"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, +are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the +undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth +the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man +will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside +except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that +wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But +'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, +with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is +chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale +principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, +man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, +then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play +herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, +is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off +thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish +stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to +anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing +unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I +meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of +spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan +leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, +and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the +crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? +See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. +Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, +Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no +wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, +then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, +when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings +seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye! +thy silence, then, THAT voices thee. (ASIDE) Something shot from my +dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; +cannot oppose me now, without rebellion." + +"God keep me!--keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly. + +But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab +did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the +hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; +nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment +their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with +the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds +blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, +ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But +rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much +predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things +within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost +necessities in our being, these still drive us on. + +"The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab. + +Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he +ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near +the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates +stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship's company +formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly +eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the +bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere +he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to +fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. + +"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the +nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short +draughts--long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so; it +goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the +serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this +way it comes. Hand it me--here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so +brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill! + +"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and +ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there +with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some +sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you +will yet see that--Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand +it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, were't not thou St. +Vitus' imp--away, thou ague! + +"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let +me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the +three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, +suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from +Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some +nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the +same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic +life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic +aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of +Starbuck fell downright. + +"In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but +once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, THAT had +perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye +dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do +appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there--yon three +most honourable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain +the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using +his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, THAT +shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings +and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!" + +Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the +detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs +up, before him. + +"Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye +not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, +advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!" Forthwith, +slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon +sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. + +"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow +them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! +Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon +it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful +whaleboat's bow--Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt +Moby Dick to his death!" The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; +and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were +simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and +shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds +among the frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all +dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin. + + + +CHAPTER 37. Sunset. + + +THE CABIN; BY THE STERN WINDOWS; AHAB SITTING ALONE, AND GAZING OUT. + + +I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I +sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; +but first I pass. + +Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. +The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun--slow dived from noon--goes +down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, +the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is +it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but +darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron--that +I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel; the jagged edge galls +me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, +mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! + +Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred +me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; +all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with +the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly +and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night--good +night! (WAVING HIS HAND, HE MOVES FROM THE WINDOW.) + +'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; +but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they +revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all +stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the +match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and +what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm +demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm +to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; +and--Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my +dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's +more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye +cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! +I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own +size; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but +YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have +no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see +if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve +yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is +laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded +gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, +unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron +way! + + + +CHAPTER 38. Dusk. + + +BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT. + + +My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman! +Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But +he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see +his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, +the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no +knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he cries;--aye, he would +be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I +plainly see my miserable office,--to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, +to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would +shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. +The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small +gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may +wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole +clock's run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to +lift again. + + +[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.] + + +Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human +mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale +is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! +mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost +through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering +bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his +sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further +on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! +Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like +this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,--as wild, untutored +things are forced to feed--Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent +horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the +soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, +phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! + + + +CHAPTER 39. First Night Watch. + +Fore-Top. + +(STUBB SOLUS, AND MENDING A BRACE.) + + +Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!--I've been thinking over it +ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a +laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and come what +will, one comfort's always left--that unfailing comfort is, it's all +predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor +eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure +the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the +gift, might readily have prophesied it--for when I clapped my eye upon +his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, WISE Stubb--that's my title--well, +Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be +coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish +leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, +skirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes +out?--Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as +a frigate's pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh-- + +We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting +As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while +meeting. + + +A brave stave that--who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir--(ASIDE) he's +my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.--Aye, aye, sir, just +through with this job--coming. + + + +CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle. + +HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS. + +(FORESAIL RISES AND DISCOVERS THE WATCH STANDING, LOUNGING, LEANING, AND +LYING IN VARIOUS ATTITUDES, ALL SINGING IN CHORUS.) + + Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! + Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! + Our captain's commanded.-- + +1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the +digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! (SINGS, AND ALL FOLLOW) + + Our captain stood upon the deck, + A spy-glass in his hand, + A viewing of those gallant whales + That blew at every strand. + Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, + And by your braces stand, + And we'll have one of those fine whales, + Hand, boys, over hand! + So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! + While the bold harpooner is striking the whale! + +MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward! + +2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, +bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me +call the watch. I've the sort of mouth for that--the hogshead mouth. +So, so, (THRUSTS HIS HEAD DOWN THE SCUTTLE,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! +Eight bells there below! Tumble up! + +DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I +mark this in our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as +filliping to others. We sing; they sleep--aye, lie down there, like +ground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail +'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell 'em +it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment. +That's the way--THAT'S it; thy throat ain't spoiled with eating +Amsterdam butter. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to +anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand +by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! + +PIP. (SULKY AND SLEEPY) Don't know where it is. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, +I say; merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now, +Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs! +legs! + +ICELAND SAILOR. I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my +taste. I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the +subject; but excuse me. + +MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take +his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I +must have partners! + +SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!--then I'll hop with ye; yea, +turn grasshopper! + +LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. +Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here +comes the music; now for it! + +AZORE SAILOR. (ASCENDING, AND PITCHING THE TAMBOURINE UP THE SCUTTLE.) +Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bitts; up you mount! Now, +boys! (THE HALF OF THEM DANCE TO THE TAMBOURINE; SOME GO BELOW; SOME +SLEEP OR LIE AMONG THE COILS OF RIGGING. OATHS A-PLENTY.) + +AZORE SAILOR. (DANCING) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, +stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers! + +PIP. Jinglers, you say?--there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so. + +CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of +thyself. + + +FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! +Split jibs! tear yourselves! + +TASHTEGO. (QUIETLY SMOKING) That's a white man; he calls that fun: +humph! I save my sweat. + +OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what +they are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will--that's +the bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round +corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled +crews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have +it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you're +young; I was once. + +3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!--whew! this is worse than pulling after +whales in a calm--give us a whiff, Tash. + +(THEY CEASE DANCING, AND GATHER IN CLUSTERS. MEANTIME THE SKY +DARKENS--THE WIND RISES.) + +LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, +high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva! + +MALTESE SAILOR. (RECLINING AND SHAKING HIS CAP.) It's the waves--the +snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake their tassels soon. Now +would all the waves were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them +evermore! There's naught so sweet on earth--heaven may not match +it!--as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the +over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes. + +SICILIAN SAILOR. (RECLINING.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad--fleet +interlacings of the limbs--lithe swayings--coyings--flutterings! lip! +heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, +else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (NUDGING.) + +TAHITAN SAILOR. (RECLINING ON A MAT.) Hail, holy nakedness of our +dancing girls!--the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I +still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven +in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn +and wilted quite. Ah me!--not thou nor I can bear the change! How +then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from +Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the +villages?--The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (LEAPS TO HIS +FEET.) + +PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand +by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell +they'll go lunging presently. + +DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou +holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more +afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic +with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes! + +4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old +Ahab tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a +waterspout with a pistol--fire your ship right into it! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the +lads to hunt him up his whale! + +ALL. Aye! aye! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort +of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none +but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort +of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea. +Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another in the +sky--lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black. + +DAGGOO. What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried +out of it! + +SPANISH SAILOR. (ASIDE.) He wants to bully, ah!--the old grudge makes +me touchy (ADVANCING.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark +side of mankind--devilish dark at that. No offence. + +DAGGOO (GRIMLY). None. + +ST. JAGO'S SAILOR. That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or +else in his one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in +working. + +5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What's that I saw--lightning? Yes. + +SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth. + +DAGGOO (SPRINGING). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver! + +SPANISH SAILOR (MEETING HIM). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small +spirit! + +ALL. A row! a row! a row! + +TASHTEGO (WITH A WHIFF). A row a'low, and a row aloft--Gods and +men--both brawlers! Humph! + +BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge +in with ye! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring +Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou +the ring? + +MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in +top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails! + +ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (THEY SCATTER.) + + +PIP (SHRINKING UNDER THE WINDLASS). Jollies? Lord help such jollies! +Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, +Pip, here comes the royal yard! It's worse than being in the whirled +woods, the last day of the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? +But there they go, all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; +they're on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! +But those chaps there are worse yet--they are your white squalls, they. +White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their +chat just now, and the white whale--shirr! shirr!--but spoken of +once! and only this evening--it makes me jingle all over like my +tambourine--that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him! Oh, +thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on +this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no +bowels to feel fear! + + + +CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick. + + +I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; +my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more +did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A +wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud +seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous +monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of +violence and revenge. + +For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied, +secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly +frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of his +existence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him; +while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to +him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers; +the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery +circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along +solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or +more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; +the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity of the +times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct +and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide +whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby +Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have +encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, +a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after +doing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them; to +some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in +question must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the +Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent +instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster +attacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave +battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were +content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to +the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual +cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and +the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded. + +And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance +caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one of +them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other +whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these +assaults--not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or +devouring amputations--but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those +repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors +upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many +brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come. + +Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more +horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do +fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising +terrible events,--as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in +maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, +wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. And as the +sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses +every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness +of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen +as a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary +to all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most +directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing +in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, +hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that +though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you +would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath +that part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too +such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all +tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. + +No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over +the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did +in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, +and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which +eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything +that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally +strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White +Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his +jaw. + +But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. +Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm +Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the +leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are +those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous +enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would +perhaps--either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or +timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are +plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing +under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm +Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to +the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their +hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest +and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the +pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more +feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. + +And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former +legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book +naturalists--Olassen and Povelson--declaring the Sperm Whale not only to +be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so +incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor +even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar +impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself +affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are +"struck with the most lively terrors," and "often in the precipitancy of +their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to +cause instantaneous death." And however the general experiences in the +fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, +even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in +them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of +the hunters. + +So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of +the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days +of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long +practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring +warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be +hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition +as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would +be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are +some remarkable documents that may be consulted. + +Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things +were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who, +chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the +specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious +accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if +offered. + +One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked +with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, +was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had +actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same +instant of time. + +Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether +without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets +of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to +the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale +when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his +pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and +contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the +mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports +himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points. + +It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and +as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, +that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose +bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland +seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has +been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could +not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been +believed by some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem +to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real +living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of +the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said +to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); +and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near +Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land +by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully +equalled by the realities of the whalemen. + +Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing +that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped +alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should +go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only +ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that +though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still +swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick +blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in +unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would +once more be seen. + +But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in +the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike +the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his +uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, +but, as was elsewhere thrown out--a peculiar snow-white wrinkled +forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent +features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he +revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him. + +The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with +the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive +appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by +his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue +sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden +gleamings. + +Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his +deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, +as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific +accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than +all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught +else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every +apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn +round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to +splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship. + +Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar +disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual +in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's +infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death +that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an +unintelligent agent. + +Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of +his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed +boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the +white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene, exasperating +sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal. + +His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the +eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had +dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking +with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. +That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his +sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's +leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no +hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice. +Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal +encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, +all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came +to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his +intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before +him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which +some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with +half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been +from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe +one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced +in their statue devil;--Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; +but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he +pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and +torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice +in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle +demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly +personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon +the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt +by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a +mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. + +It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at +the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the +monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, +corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he +probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. +Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long +months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one +hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; +then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; +and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward +voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems +all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, +he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital +strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified +by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even +there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung +to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable +latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the +tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed +left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his +dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that +firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once +again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even +then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a +cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but +become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy +subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, +when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the +Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of +Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not +one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living +agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may +stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, +and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far +from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a +thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon +any one reasonable object. + +This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. +But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding +far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where +we here stand--however grand and wonderful, now quit it;--and take your +way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; +where far beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root +of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique +buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken +throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he +patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of +ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, +sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled +royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come. + +Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means +are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or +change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long +dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling +was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. +Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when +with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him +otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the +terrible casualty which had overtaken him. + +The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly +ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which +always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the +present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, +that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on +account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent +isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he +was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full +of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and +scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable +idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart +his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes. +Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, +yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on +his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, +that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in +him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only +and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his +old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him +then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the +ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the +profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an +audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. + +Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a +Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made +up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled +also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in +Starbuck, the invunerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in +Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, +seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him +to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded +to the old man's ire--by what evil magic their souls were possessed, +that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much +their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be--what the White +Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in +some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon +of the seas of life,--all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than +Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one +tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his +pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow +of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the +abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to +encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest +ill. + + + +CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of The Whale. + + +What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he +was to me, as yet remains unsaid. + +Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which +could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there +was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, +which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and +yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of +putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale +that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself +here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all +these chapters might be naught. + +Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as +if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, +and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a +certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old +kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all +their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings +of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; +and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; +and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, +having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this +pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white +man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all +this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among +the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal +sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many +touching, noble things--the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; +though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt +of wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes, +whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, +and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by +milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most +august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness +and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being +held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove +himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the +noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was +by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful +creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit +with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from +the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of +one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the +cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is +specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though +in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and +the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white +throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all +these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honourable, +and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea +of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness +which affrights in blood. + +This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when +divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object +terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. +Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; +what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent +horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an +abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb +gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his +heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or +shark.* + + +*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him +who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not +the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable +hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, +it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the +irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the +fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together +two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us +with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; +yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified +terror. + +As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that +creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the +same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly +hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish +mass for the dead begins with "Requiem eternam" (eternal rest), whence +REQUIEM denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, +in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and +the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him REQUIN. + + +Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual +wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all +imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, +unflattering laureate, Nature.* + + +*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged +gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch +below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the +main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and +with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth +its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous +flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered +cries, as some king's ghost in supernatural distress. Through its +inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took +hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white +thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled +waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of +towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only +hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and +turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! +never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious +thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I +learned that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no +possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those +mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our +deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be +an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little +brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet. + +I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird +chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, +that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; +and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I +beheld the Antarctic fowl. + +But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will +tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea. +At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern +tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and then letting +it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was +taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding, +the invoking, and adoring cherubim! + + +Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of +the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, +large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a +thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the +elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those +days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At +their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which +every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his +mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more +resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A +most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western +world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the +glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, +bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid +his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly +streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his +circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White +Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through his +cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to the +bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. Nor +can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this noble +horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him +with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it which, though +commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror. + +But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that +accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and +Albatross. + +What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks +the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It +is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name +he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men--has no substantive +deformity--and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him +more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so? + +Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but +not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces +this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the +gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White +Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice +omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of +that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their +faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the +market-place! + +Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all +mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It +cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of +the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering +there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of +consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And +from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the shroud +in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to +throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a +milk-white fog--Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even +the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his +pallid horse. + +Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious +thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest +idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul. + +But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to +account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, +by the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of +whiteness--though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped +of all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful, +but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however +modified;--can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us +to the hidden cause we seek? + +Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, +and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And +though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about +to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were +entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to +recall them now. + +Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely +acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare mention +of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, speechless +processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded with +new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of the +Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White Friar or +a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul? + +Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and +kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White +Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of +an untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its +neighbors--the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer +towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, +comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of +that name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft, +dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and +longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness +over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal +thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, followed by +the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly +unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in reading +the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does "the tall pale man" of the +Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the +green of the groves--why is this phantom more terrible than all the +whooping imps of the Blocksburg? + +Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling +earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the +tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide +field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop +(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of +house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;--it +is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, +saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and +there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, +this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful +greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid +pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions. + +I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness +is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of +objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught +of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost +solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under +any form at all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean +by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the +following examples. + +First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by +night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just +enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under precisely +similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his +ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness--as if from +encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round +him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom +of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the +lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go +down; he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is +the mariner who will tell thee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of +striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so +stirred me?" + +Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the +snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the +mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast +altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be +to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the +backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an +unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig +to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the +scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal trick +of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half +shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, +views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean +ice monuments and splintered crosses. + +But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is but +a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo, +Ishmael. + +Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of +Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey--why is it that upon the +sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that +he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness--why +will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies +of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild +creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he +smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of +former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black +bisons of distant Oregon? + +No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the +knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from +Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison +herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which +this instant they may be trampling into dust. + +Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings +of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the +windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking +of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt! + +Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic +sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere +those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible +world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. + +But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and +learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange +and far more portentous--why, as we have seen, it is at once the +most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the +Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in +things the most appalling to mankind. + +Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids +and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the +thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky +way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as +the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all +colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, +full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows--a colourless, all-colour +of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory +of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues--every stately +or lovely emblazoning--the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, +and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of +young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent +in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature +absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but +the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that +the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great +principle of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself, and +if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even +tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge--pondering all this, the +palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in +Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their +eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental +white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these +things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery +hunt? + + + +CHAPTER 43. Hark! + + +"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" + +It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a +cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the +scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets +to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed +precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle +their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, +only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the +unceasingly advancing keel. + +It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose +post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the +words above. + +"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" + +"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?" + +"There it is again--under the hatches--don't you hear it--a cough--it +sounded like a cough." + +"Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket." + +"There again--there it is!--it sounds like two or three sleepers turning +over, now!" + +"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits +ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye--nothing else. Look to the +bucket!" + +"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears." + +"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old +Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're +the chap." + +"Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody +down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I suspect +our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one +morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind." + +"Tish! the bucket!" + + + +CHAPTER 44. The Chart. + + +Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that +took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose +with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, +and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread +them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before +it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and +shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace +additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he +would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down +the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various +ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen. + +While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his +head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever threw +shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it +almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses +on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and +courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead. + +But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his +cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were +brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and +others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before +him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to +the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul. + +Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans, +it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary +creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it +seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby +calculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food; and, also, calling +to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular +latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to +certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground +in search of his prey. + +So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the +sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe that, +could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world; were the +logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully collated, +then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to correspond in +invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows. +On this hint, attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory +charts of the sperm whale.* + + *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne + out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of + the National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By + that circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in + course of completion; and portions of it are presented in + the circular. "This chart divides the ocean into districts + of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude; + perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve + columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each + of which districts are three lines; one to show the number + of days that have been spent in each month in every + district, and the two others to show the number of days in + which whales, sperm or right, have been seen." + +Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the +sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct--say, rather, secret +intelligence from the Deity--mostly swim in VEINS, as they are called; +continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating +exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with +one tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the +direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel, +and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own +unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary VEIN in which at these +times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width +(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but +never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads, +when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at +particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating +whales may with great confidence be looked for. + +And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate +feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing +the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his +art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly +without prospect of a meeting. + +There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his +delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality, +perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons +for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the +herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year, +say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were found +there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and unquestionable +instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the +same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solitaries +and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby +Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the +Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese +Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of +those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly +encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding grounds, where +he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his casual +stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged +abode. And where Ahab's chances of accomplishing his object have +hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever +way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular +set time or place were attained, when all possibilities would become +probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next +thing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined +in the one technical phrase--the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, +for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried, +lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, +loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There +it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with the white whale had +taken place; there the waves were storied with his deeds; there also was +that tragic spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive +to his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering +vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering +hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one +crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those +hopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his +unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. + +Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the +Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her commander +to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running +down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time +to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season. +Yet the premature hour of the Pequod's sailing had, perhaps, been +correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of +things. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixty-five days +and nights was before him; an interval which, instead of impatiently +enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt; if by chance +the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote from his +periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow off the +Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other +waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'-Westers, +Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might +blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's +circumnavigating wake. + +But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not +but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary +whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual +recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the +thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar +snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but +be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter +to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he +would throw himself back in reveries--tallied him, and shall he escape? +His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And +here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness +and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the +deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances +of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved +revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own +bloody nails in his palms. + +Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid +dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through +the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them +round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing +of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes +the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its +base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and +lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among +them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be +heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his +state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, +perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent +weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens +of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, +unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had +gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from +it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or +soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the +characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer +vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching +contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no +longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with +the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up +all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, +by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and +devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay, +could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was +conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth. +Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when +what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated +thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be +sure, but without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in +itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature +in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a +vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature +he creates. + + + +CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit. + + +So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as +indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars +in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier +part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the +leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly +enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to +take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire +subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main +points of this affair. + +I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall +be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of +items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these +citations, I take it--the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of +itself. + +First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after +receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an +interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by +the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same +private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where +three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I +think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted +them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to +Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far +into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, +often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, +with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of +unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have +been on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, +brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. +This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the +other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that +is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second attack, +saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards +taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell out +that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time +distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's +eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, +but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, +then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many +other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no +good ground to impeach. + +Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant +the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable +historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at +distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became +thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily +peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar +in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his +peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly +valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences +of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about +such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that +most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their +tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, +without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some +poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they +make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they +pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for +their presumption. + +But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual +celebrity--Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he +famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, +but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of +a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, +O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long +did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft +seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! +thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of +the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty +jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross +against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked +like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain +prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean +History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. + +But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various +times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were +finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed +by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with +that express object as much in view, as in setting out through the +Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture +that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the +Indian King Philip. + +I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make +mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in +printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the +whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For +this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full +as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of +the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without +some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the +fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still +worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. + +First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general +perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid +conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. +One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and +deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, +however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose +that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the +whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the +bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan--do you suppose that that +poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read +to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular +between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be +called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you +that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many +others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a +death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each +lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and +candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was +spilled for it. + +Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is +an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when +narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness, +they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I +declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, +when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt. + +But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon +testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm +Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously +malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and +sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale HAS done it. + +First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, +was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her +boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of +the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping +from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the +ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in +less than "ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving +plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of +the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, +Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another +ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and +breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith +forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain +Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was +chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his +plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all +this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.* + + +*The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact seemed +to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which +directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at +a short interval between them, both of which, according to their +direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made +ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; +to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His +aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He +came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in +which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge +for their sufferings." Again: "At all events, the whole circumstances +taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the +time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the +part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), +induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion." + +Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during +a black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any +hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the +fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed +upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful +contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the +dismal looking wreck, and THE HORRID ASPECT AND REVENGE OF THE WHALE, +wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance." + +In another place--p. 45,--he speaks of "THE MYSTERIOUS AND MORTAL ATTACK +OF THE ANIMAL." + + +Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 +totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic +particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, +though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions +to it. + +Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J---, then +commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be +dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in +the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, +the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength +ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily +denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war +as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there +is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this +impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a +portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business +with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such +a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest +port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider +the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul +of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the +sperm whale will stand no nonsense. + +I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance +in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you +must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's +famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. +Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter: + +"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day +we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very +clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on +our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not +till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An +uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, +lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any +one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, +was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking +against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this +gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at +least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, +while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding +that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster +sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf +applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel +had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily +it had escaped entirely uninjured." + +Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in +question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual +adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of +Dorchester near Boston. I have the honour of being a nephew of his. I +have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. +He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large +one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my +uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home. + +In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, +of honest wonders--the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's +old chums--I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted +from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a +corroborative example, if such be needed. + +Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he calls +the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says, "about four +o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues +from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our +men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were +or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, +the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the +ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little +over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground..... The +suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and +several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who +lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then +goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate +the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about +that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But +I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the +morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically +bumping the hull from beneath. + +I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to +me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more +than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing +boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long +withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship +Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, +let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a +running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and +secured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a +horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if +the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, +not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of +destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent +indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently +open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several +consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a +concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which +you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in +this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these +marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for +the millionth time we say amen with Solomon--Verily there is nothing new +under the sun. + +In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate +of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius +general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work +every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been +considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in +some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently +to be mentioned. + +Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term +of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured +in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed +vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty +years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be +gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species +this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as +well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly +inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long +time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the +Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am +certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the +present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious +resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in +modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the +sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that +on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found +the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes +through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, +pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis. + +In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance +called BRIT is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have +every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale--squid or +cuttle-fish--lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, +but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its +surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and +reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all +human reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove +the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm +whale. + + + +CHAPTER 46. Surmises. + + +Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his +thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick; +though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one +passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long +habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether to +abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if +this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more +influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even +considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the +White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all +sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he +multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would +prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed +exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though +not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet +were by no means incapable of swaying him. + +To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in +the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, +for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was +over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual +man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual +mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a +sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will +were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain; still +he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his +captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from +it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse +ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck +would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his +captain's leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial +influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle +insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly +manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing +that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that +strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that +the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure +background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted meditation +unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, +his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby +Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the +announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less +capricious and unreliable--they live in the varying outer weather, and +they inhale its fickleness--and when retained for any object remote and +blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the +end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and +employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the +final dash. + +Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion +mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. +The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought +Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the +hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even +breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the +love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food +for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and +chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two +thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without +committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious +perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final +and romantic object--that final and romantic object, too many would have +turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all +hopes of cash--aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months +go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same +quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon +cashier Ahab. + +Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related +to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps +somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the +Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, +he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of +usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew +if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further +obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From +even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible +consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must +of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection +could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, +backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute +atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected +to. + +For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be +verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good +degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's +voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force +himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general +pursuit of his profession. + +Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three +mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit +reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward. + + + +CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker. + + +It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging +about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters. +Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, +for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet +somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie +lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own +invisible self. + +I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I +kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between +the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as +Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword +between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and +unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did +there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by +the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were +the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving +and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp +subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and +that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending +of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, +thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own +destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, +indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, +or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference +in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final +aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I, +which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this +easy, indifferent sword must be chance--aye, chance, free will, and +necessity--nowise incompatible--all interweavingly working together. +The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate +course--its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; +free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and +chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of +necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though +thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the +last featuring blow at events. + + +Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so +strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball +of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds +whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was +that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward, +his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he +continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment +perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's +look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could +that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from +Tashtego the Indian's. + +As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and +eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some +prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries +announcing their coming. + +"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!" + +"Where-away?" + +"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!" + +Instantly all was commotion. + +The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and +reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from +other tribes of his genus. + +"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales +disappeared. + +"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!" + +Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact +minute to Ahab. + +The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling +before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to +leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of +our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale +when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while +concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the +opposite quarter--this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; +for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had +been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of +the men selected for shipkeepers--that is, those not appointed to the +boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The +sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed +in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, +and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over +high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand +clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. +So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on +board an enemy's ship. + +But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took +every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was +surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. + + + +CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering. + + +The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side +of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the +tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always +been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the +captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The +figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white +tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese +jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers +of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a +glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled +round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of +this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to +some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;--a race notorious for +a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners +supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the +water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be +elsewhere. + +While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers, +Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, "All ready +there, Fedallah?" + +"Ready," was the half-hissed reply. + +"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower away +there, I say." + +Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men +sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with a +wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous, +off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, +goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats +below. + +Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth +keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and +showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern, +loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves widely, +so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again +riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other +boats obeyed not the command. + +"Captain Ahab?--" said Starbuck. + +"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask, +pull out more to leeward!" + +"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round +his great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. +"There!--there!--there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay +back!" + +"Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy." + +"Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now. +Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it? What +say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask." + +"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little +ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom +still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you break your backbones, +my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They +are only five more hands come to help us--never mind from where--the +more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone--devils +are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke +for a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah +for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men--all hearts +alive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--don't be in a hurry. Why don't +you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, +then:--softly, softly! That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way +there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are +all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, +can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes +don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! +Here!" whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's son +of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's +it--that's it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. +Start her--start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!" + +Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had +rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in +inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this +specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions +with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief +peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a +tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so +calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such +queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for +the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and +indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly +gaped--open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning +commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew. +Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity +is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their +guard in the matter of obeying them. + +In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely +across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were +pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. + +"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye +please!" + +"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he +spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set +like a flint from Stubb's. + +"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir! + +"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, +boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: "A sad +business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, +Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what +will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. +Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the +play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand." + +"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the boats +diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and that's +what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long +suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's at the bottom +of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men! +It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!" + +Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant +as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably +awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship's +company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time previous got +abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some +small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge +of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb's confident way +of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from +superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room for +all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's precise agency in the +matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious +shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket +dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. + +Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the +furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a +circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger +yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five +trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which +periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst +boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen +pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and +displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the +gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery +horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a +fencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any +tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in +a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at once +the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed, +while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and +crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the +rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily +down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the +movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it. + +"Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou, Queequeg, +stand up!" + +Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage +stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the +spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme +stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with +the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing +himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently +eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. + +Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its +commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout +sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the +level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the +whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man's hand, +and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the +mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little +King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post was +full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead stand-point +of his did by no means satisfy King-Post. + +"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to +that." + +Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his +way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty +shoulders for a pedestal. + +"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?" + +"That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you +fifty feet taller." + +Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the +boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to +Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed head +and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous +fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was +Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a +breastband to lean against and steady himself by. + +At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous +habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect +posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously +perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily +perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the +sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious; +for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, +barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously +rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed +a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly +vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then +stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to +the negro's lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the +living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her +seasons for that. + +Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing +solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings, +not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case, +Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the +languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, +where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed +home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his match +across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, +whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly +dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a +quick phrensy of hurry, "Down, down all, and give way!--there they are!" + +To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been +visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white +water, and thin scattered puffs of vapour hovering over it, and +suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white +rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it +were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this +atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of +water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other +indications, the puffs of vapour they spouted, seemed their forerunning +couriers and detached flying outriders. + +All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled +water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, +as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the +hills. + +"Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but +intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance +from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two +visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much +to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the +silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his +peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty. + +How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out and say something, +my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their +black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I'll sign over to you my +Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, boys. +Lay me on--lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! +See! see that white water!" And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his +head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it far +off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's +stern like a crazed colt from the prairie. + +"Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his +unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a +short distance, followed after--"He's got fits, that Flask has. Fits? +yes, give him fits--that's the very word--pitch fits into 'em. Merrily, +merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;--merry's the word. +Pull, babes--pull, sucklings--pull, all. But what the devil are you +hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and +keep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your +knives in two--that's all. Take it easy--why don't ye take it easy, I +say, and burst all your livers and lungs!" + +But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of +his--these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed +light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious +seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of +red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey. + +Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of +Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitious monster which +he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat's bow with its +tail--these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that +they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look +over the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen +must put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage +pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but +arms, in these critical moments. + +It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the +omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along +the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; +the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on +the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening +to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and +hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite +hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these, +with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps +of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing +down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her +screaming brood;--all this was thrilling. + +Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever +heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering the +first unknown phantom in the other world;--neither of these can feel +stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first +time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the +hunted sperm whale. + +The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more +visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows +flung upon the sea. The jets of vapour no longer blended, but tilted +everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. +The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales +running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still +rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through +the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to +escape being torn from the row-locks. + +Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship +nor boat to be seen. + +"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet +of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. +There's white water again!--close to! Spring!" + +Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted +that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when +with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: "Stand up!" and +Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. + +Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril +so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance +of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent +instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of +fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still +booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like +the erected crests of enraged serpents. + +"That's his hump. THERE, THERE, give it to him!" whispered Starbuck. + +A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of +Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from +astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail +collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapour shot up near by; +something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole +crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the +white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all +blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. + +Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round +it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, +tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the +water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes +the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom +of the ocean. + +The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together; +the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white +fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning; immortal +in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar +to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those +boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew +darker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen. +The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were +useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. +So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures +Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching +it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this +forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in +the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign +and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the +midst of despair. + +Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat, +we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over +the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat. +Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. +We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by +the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were dimly +parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as +the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us within a +distance of not much more than its length. + +Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it +tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of a +cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no +more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were dashed +against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely landed on +board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from +their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given us +up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some token of +our perishing,--an oar or a lance pole. + + + +CHAPTER 49. The Hyena. + + +There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair +we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical +joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than +suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, +nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts +down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard +things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of +potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small +difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of +life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, +good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen +and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking +of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes +in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might +have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the +general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this +free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now +regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its +object. + +"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, +and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; +"Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?" +Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to +understand that such things did often happen. + +"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his +oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb, I +think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief +mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose +then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy +squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?" + +"Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape +Horn." + +"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close +by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell +me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an +oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death's +jaws?" + +"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the law. +I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale face +foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind +that!" + +Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement +of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings +in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters +of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the +superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my +life into the hands of him who steered the boat--oftentimes a fellow who +at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling +the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the +particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed +to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, +and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his +great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this +uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a +devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all +things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a +rough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my +lawyer, executor, and legatee." + +It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their +last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more +fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life +that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon +the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away +from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good +as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary +clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived +myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked +round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean +conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. + +Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, +here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the +devil fetch the hindmost. + + + +CHAPTER 50. Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah. + + +"Who would have thought it, Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had but one leg +you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole +with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!" + +"I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account," said Flask. +"If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. +That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other +left, you know." + +"I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel." + + +Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering +the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is +right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils +of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their +eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the +thickest of the fight. + +But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering +that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger; +considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and +extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then +comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any +maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the +joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not. + +Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of +his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of +the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving +his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually +apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt--above all for +Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat's +crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads +of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat's +crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. +Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all +that matter. Until Cabaco's published discovery, the sailors had little +foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out +of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the +whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then +found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his +own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even +solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is +running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was +observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra +coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better +withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety +he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is +sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the +knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed +how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the +semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel +gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these +things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But +almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness +in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; +for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster +in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest +suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that boat. + +Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned +away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such +unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown +nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of +whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway +creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, +oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that +Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin +to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable +excitement in the forecastle. + +But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate +phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were +somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained +a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like +this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be +linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort +of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even +authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain +an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as +civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their +dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide +among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles +to the east of the continent--those insulated, immemorial, unalterable +countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the +ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of +the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, +unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of +the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, +according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of +men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane +amours. + + + +CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout. + + +Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly +swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the +Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the +Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, +southerly from St. Helena. + +It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and +moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; +and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery +silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen +far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it +looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from +the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight +nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a +look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, +though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred +would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, +then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual +hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after +spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights +without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his +unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every +reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had +lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" +Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet +still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most +unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously +exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a +lowering. + +Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the +t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The +best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head +manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, +upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows +of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air +beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic +influences were struggling in her--one to mount direct to heaven, the +other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched +Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two +different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes +along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. +On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly +sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, +yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he +saw it once, but not a second time. + +This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days +after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it +was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it +disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after +night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously +jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; +disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow +seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and +further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. + +Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance +with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested +the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that +whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however +far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast +by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there +reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, +as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the +monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest +and most savage seas. + +These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous +potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath +all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as +for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely +mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed +vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow. + +But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling +around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are +there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and +gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, +the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity +of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before. + +Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither +before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And +every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and +spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, +as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing +appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their +homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the +black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane +soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had +bred. + +Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called +of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had +attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, +where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed +condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat +that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; +still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us +on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried. + +During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the +time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, +manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed +his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and +aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await +the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists. +So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one +hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand +gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow +would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew +driven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that +burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in +the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man +had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which +he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the +silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore +on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. +By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the +ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still +wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed +demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never +could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down +into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with +closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain +and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before +emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the +table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents +which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly +clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so +that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale +that swung from a beam in the ceiling.* + + +*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the +compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the +course of the ship. + + +Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this +gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose. + + + +CHAPTER 52. The Albatross. + + +South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising +ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) +by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the +fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro +in the far ocean fisheries--a whaler at sea, and long absent from home. + +As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the +skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral +appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her +spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over +with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to +see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed +clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had +survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to +the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when +the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air +came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the +mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking +fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own +look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below. + +"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?" + +But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the +act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand +into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make +himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the +distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod +were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first +mere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a +moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat +to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking +advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and +knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and +shortly bound home, he loudly hailed--"Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, +bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the +Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them +to address them to--" + +At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, +in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, +that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted +away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and +aft with the stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual +voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to +any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. + +"Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. +There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep +helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But +turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the +wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice,--"Up +helm! Keep her off round the world!" + +Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; +but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through +numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that +we left behind secure, were all the time before us. + +Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for +ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange +than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise +in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in +tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims +before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they +either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. + + + +CHAPTER 53. The Gam. + + +The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had +spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had +this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded +her--judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions--if so it +had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative +answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he +cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, +except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly +sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not +something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when +meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common +cruising-ground. + +If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the +equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering +each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of +them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment +to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while +and resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the +illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling +vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth--off lone +Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how much more natural, +I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only +interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and +sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of +course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, +officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other; +and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about. + +For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on +board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a +date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumb-worn +files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound ship would +receive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to +which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And +in degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing +each other's track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they +are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a +transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel; and +some of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. +Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable +chat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, +but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common +pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils. + +Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference; +that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case +with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of +English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they +do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your +Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that +sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers +sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American +whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript +provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority +in the English whalemen does really consist, it would be hard to say, +seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than +all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless +little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does +not take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few +foibles himself. + +So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the +whalers have most reason to be sociable--and they are so. Whereas, some +merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the mid-Atlantic, will +oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, +mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in +Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon +each other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, +they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such +a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down +hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching +Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run +away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they +chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is--"How many +skulls?"--the same way that whalers hail--"How many barrels?" And that +question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are +infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each +other's villanous likenesses. + +But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, +free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another +whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "GAM," a thing so +utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name +even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and +repeat gamesome stuff about "spouters" and "blubber-boilers," and such +like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also +all Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such +a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be +hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to +know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about +it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the +gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has +no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, +that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that +assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on. + +But what is a GAM? You might wear out your index-finger running up and +down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr. Johnson +never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark does not hold it. +Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in +constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, +it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With +that view, let me learnedly define it. + +GAM. NOUN--A SOCIAL MEETING OF TWO (OR MORE) WHALESHIPS, GENERALLY ON A +CRUISING-GROUND; WHEN, AFTER EXCHANGING HAILS, THEY EXCHANGE VISITS BY +BOATS' CREWS; THE TWO CAPTAINS REMAINING, FOR THE TIME, ON BOARD OF ONE +SHIP, AND THE TWO CHIEF MATES ON THE OTHER. + +There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten +here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so +has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when +the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern +sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often +steers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with +gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of +that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling +captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen +in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of +any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew +must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of +the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and +the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit +all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being +conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from +the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the +importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is +this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting +steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the +after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus +completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself +sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent +pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of +foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a +spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, +it would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would +never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying +himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with +his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he +generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being +generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. +Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, +where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or +two, in a sudden squall say--to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's +hair, and hold on there like grim death. + + + +CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story. + + +(AS TOLD AT THE GOLDEN INN) + + +The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is +much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet +more travellers than in any other part. + +It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another +homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned +almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave +us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White +Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's +story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain +wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God +which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, +with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the +secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears +of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was +unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private +property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it +seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, +but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed +so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well +withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing +have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of +it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in +this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never +transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper +place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the +ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting +record. + + +*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, +still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin. + + +For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated +it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, +smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those +fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer +terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally +put, and which are duly answered at the time. + +"Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about +rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, +was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward +from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the +northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according to +daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than +common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the +captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck +awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit +them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, +indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down +as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her +cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; +but no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was the leak yet +undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking +some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest +harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired. + +"Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance +favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, +because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at +them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free; +never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the +whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the +Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port +without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the +brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly +provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo. + +"'Lakeman!--Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?' +said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. + +"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but--I crave your +courtesy--may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, +gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as +large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far +Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet +been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly +connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, +those grand fresh-water seas of ours,--Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and +Superior, and Michigan,--possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many +of the ocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of +races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, +even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great +contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime +approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted +all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, +and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the +fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their +beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out +their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient +and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines +of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric +beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes +to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and +Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the +full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, +and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as +direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, +for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many +a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though +an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; +as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his +infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse +at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our +austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as +vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh +from the latitudes of buck-horn handled bowie-knives. Yet was this +Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a +mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible +firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition +which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had +long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved +so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt--but, +gentlemen, you shall hear. + +"It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing +her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leak seemed again +increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps +every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our +Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole +way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of +the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability +would be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on +account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the +solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it +altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in +full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length; that is, if it lie +along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat +is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of +the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her +captain begins to feel a little anxious. + +"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found +gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by +several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded +the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way +expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a +coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness +touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or +on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when +he betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the +seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in +her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on +this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood +with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water; +clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen--that bubbling from the pumps +ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee +scupper-holes. + +"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional +world of ours--watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command +over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his +superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he +conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a +chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and +make a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, +gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a +head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings +of your last viceroy's snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and +a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he +been born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly +as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love +Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. + +"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the +rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with +his gay banterings. + +"'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one +of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell +ye what, men, old Rad's investment must go for it! he had best cut away +his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish +only began the job; he's come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters, +saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole posse of 'em +are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; making +improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump +overboard and scatter 'em. They're playing the devil with his estate, I +can tell him. But he's a simple old soul,--Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, +they say the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I +wonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.' + +"'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney, +pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!' + +"'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively, boys, +lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines; +the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping +of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life's +utmost energies. + +"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went +forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face +fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his +brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney +to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know +not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate +commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a +shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig +to run at large. + +"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household +work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every +evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually +foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of +sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom +would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all +vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, +if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho +that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being +the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly +assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have +been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical +duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these +particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood +between the two men. + +"But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as +plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat +in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will +understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully +comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for +a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and +perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match +silently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all +this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper +passionateness in any already ireful being--a repugnance most felt, when +felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved--this nameless +phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt. + +"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily +exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping +the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without +at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the customary +sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or +nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a most +domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his +command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an +uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by. + +"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for +all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt +could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still +smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained +doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the +hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do +his bidding. + +"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily +followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his +intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not +the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his +twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to +no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass; +when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had +now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on +the hatches and thus spoke to the officer: + +"'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to +yourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where +the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of +his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions. +Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye +with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching +his right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his +persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would +murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter +by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant +the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch +spouting blood like a whale. + +"Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays +leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their +mastheads. They were both Canallers. + +"'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whale-ships in our +harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are +they?' + +"'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You +must have heard of it.' + +"'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary +land, we know but little of your vigorous North.' + +"'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine; and +ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such +information may throw side-light upon my story.' + +"For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire +breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and +most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and +affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room +and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman +arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or +broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk +counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires +stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly +corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee, gentlemen; +there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; +under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches. +For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan +freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so +sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities. + +"'Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the +crowded plazza, with humorous concern. + +"'Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisition wanes in +Lima,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed, Senor.' + +"'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company. 'In the name of all +us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by +no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima +for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look +surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast--"Corrupt as +Lima." It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than +billiard-tables, and for ever open--and "Corrupt as Lima." So, too, +Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. +Mark!--St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you +pour out again.' + +"Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make +a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like +Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, +he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, +ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this +effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly +sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. +A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he +floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. +Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of +these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; +but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of +violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger +in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the +wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that +our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, +and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much +distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the +curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and +young men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal +furnishes the sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian +corn-field, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric +seas. + +"'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha +upon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel! The world's one Lima. I +had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold +and holy as the hills.--But the story.' + +"I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly +had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and the +four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the +ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and +sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the +sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; +while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down +with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious +scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran +close up to the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into +the heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his +resentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them +all; they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily +slewing about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass, +these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade. + +"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing them +with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. 'Come +out of that, ye cut-throats!' + +"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there, +defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to +understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the signal +for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart +lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but +still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty. + +"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their +ringleader. + +"'Turn to! turn to!--I make no promise;--to your duty! Do you want to +sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!' and he +once more raised a pistol. + +"'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us +turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What say +ye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their response. + +"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye +on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:--'It's not our +fault; we didn't want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was +boy's business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to +prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his +cursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, +men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to +yourself; say the word; don't be a fool; forget it all; we are ready +to turn to; treat us decently, and we're your men; but we won't be +flogged.' + +"'Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!' + +"'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, +'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped +for the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our +discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don't want a row; it's +not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we +won't be flogged.' + +"'Turn to!' roared the Captain. + +"Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:--'I tell you what +it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby +rascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till +you say the word about not flogging us, we don't do a hand's turn.' + +"'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye there till +ye're sick of it. Down ye go.' + +"'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against +it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down +into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave. + +"As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain +and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide +of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called +for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the +companionway. + +"Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something +down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them--ten in +number--leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained +neutral. + +"All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and +aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at which +last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after breaking +through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed in peace; +the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, +whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary night +dismally resounded through the ship. + +"At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, summoned +the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was then +lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were tossed +after it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, the +Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three days +this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and +then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered; and +suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready +to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united +perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to +surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his +demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to +stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth +morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air from the +desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three were left. + +"'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer. + +"'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt. + +"'Oh certainly,' said the Captain, and the key clicked. + +"It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of seven +of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had last +hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as black as +the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two +Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst out of +their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with their +keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle +at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any +devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he +would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the +last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no +opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were ready for +that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. +And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck, +when the time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as +fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly as +his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter; +and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one +man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants +must come out. + +"Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own +separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece +of treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be +the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and +thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. +But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to +the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed +their before secret treacheries together; and when their leader +fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three +sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; +and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. + +"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and +all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a +few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still +struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious +allies, who at once claimed the honour of securing a man who had been +fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along +the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the +mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till +morning. 'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, +'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!' + +"At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had rebelled +from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former that +he had a good mind to flog them all round--thought, upon the whole, +he would do so--he ought to--justice demanded it; but for the present, +considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a +reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular. + +"'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men in the +rigging--'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;' and, +seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the +two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads +sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn. + +"'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last; 'but there is still +rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give up. Take +that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.' + +"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his +cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a sort +of hiss, 'What I say is this--and mind it well--if you flog me, I murder +you!' + +"'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'--and the Captain drew off with +the rope to strike. + +"'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman. + +"'But I must,'--and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke. + +"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain; +who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck rapidly +two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, said, 'I +won't do it--let him go--cut him down: d'ye hear?' + +"But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man, +with a bandaged head, arrested them--Radney the chief mate. Ever since +the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the tumult +on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the whole +scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak; +but mumbling something about his being willing and able to do what the +captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced to his +pinioned foe. + +"'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman. + +"'So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of striking, +when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing +no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt's threat, whatever that +might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned +to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as +before. + +"Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor +was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up, +besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew. +Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own +instance they were put down in the ship's run for salvation. Still, no +sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, +that mainly at Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain +the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the +ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the +speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing--namely, +not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For, +spite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still +maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to +lower for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the +cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his +berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the +vital jaw of the whale. + +"But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of +passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till all +was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the man who +had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief +mate's watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than +half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, +against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head +of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, +Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge. + +"During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the +bulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of +the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship's side. +In this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a +considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between +this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next +trick at the helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the +third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure, +he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his +watches below. + +"'What are you making there?' said a shipmate. + +"'What do you think? what does it look like?' + +"'Like a lanyard for your bag; but it's an odd one, seems to me.' + +"'Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's length +before him; 'but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven't enough +twine,--have you any?' + +"But there was none in the forecastle. + +"'Then I must get some from old Rad;' and he rose to go aft. + +"'You don't mean to go a begging to HIM!' said a sailor. + +"'Why not? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's to help himself +in the end, shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked at him +quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given +him--neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night +an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the +Lakeman's monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for +a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm--nigh +to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to +the seaman's hand--that fatal hour was then to come; and in the +fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and +stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in. + +"But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody +deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the +avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in +to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have +done. + +"It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second +day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe man, +drawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, 'There she +rolls! there she rolls!' Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick. + +"'Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian; 'St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do +whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?' + +"'A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don;--but +that would be too long a story.' + +"'How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding. + +"'Nay, Dons, Dons--nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more +into the air, Sirs.' + +"'The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro; 'our vigorous friend looks +faint;--fill up his empty glass!' + +"No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.--Now, gentlemen, +so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the +ship--forgetful of the compact among the crew--in the excitement of the +moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted +his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been +plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy. +'The White Whale--the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, +and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious +to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed +askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, +that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like +a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality +pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out +before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the +mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while +Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken +the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were +lowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely with +delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff +pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to +the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his +bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing +loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that +blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as +against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. +That instant, as he fell on the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, +and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the +sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, +and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to +remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round +in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing +high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down. + +"Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman had +slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly +looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, +downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He +cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose +again, with some tatters of Radney's red woollen shirt, caught in the +teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the +whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared. + +"In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port--a savage, solitary +place--where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the +Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted +among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double +war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor. + +"The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called +upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving +down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over +their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both +by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, +that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a +weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so +heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the +ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon +from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the +Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with +him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight +before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a +reinforcement to his crew. + +"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed +to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but +the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt +hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain +presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, +the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so +much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam. + +"'What do you want of me?' cried the captain. + +"'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?' demanded Steelkilt; +'no lies.' + +"'I am bound to Tahiti for more men.' + +"'Very good. Let me board you a moment--I come in peace.' With that he +leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, stood +face to face with the captain. + +"'Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. +As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder +island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightning strike +me!' + +"'A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor!' and leaping +into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. + +"Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the +roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time +arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended +him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially +in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They +embarked; and so for ever got the start of their former captain, had he +been at all minded to work them legal retribution. + +"Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived, +and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized +Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small +native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all +right there, again resumed his cruisings. + +"Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of +Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses +to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that +destroyed him. + +"'Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly. + +"'I am, Don.' + +"'Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, +this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! +Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to +press.' + +"'Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don +Sebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest. + +"'Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?' + +"'Nay,' said Don Sebastian; 'but I know a worthy priest near by, who +will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? +this may grow too serious.' + +"'Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?' + +"'Though there are no Auto-da-Fe's in Lima now,' said one of the company +to another; 'I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. +Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.' + +"'Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg +that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists +you can.' + +"'This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don Sebastian, +gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. + +"'Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, +and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. + +"'So help me Heaven, and on my honour the story I have told ye, +gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be +true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have +seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.'" + + + +CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. + + +I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, +something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the +eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored +alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. +It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those +curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day +confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the +world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all +wrong. + +It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will +be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For +ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble +panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, +medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of +chain-armor like Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St. George's; ever +since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not +only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific +presentations of him. + +Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to +be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta, +in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of +that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable +avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came +into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of +whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale +referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the +incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the +Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so +as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is +all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the +broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes. + +But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's +portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian +Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the +sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange +creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his +own "Perseus Descending," make out one whit better. The huge corpulence +of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing +one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its +distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be +taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the +Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and +Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of +old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder's whale +winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--as +stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of many books both +old and new--that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, +imitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases. +Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this +book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended +when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old +Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival +of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively +late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the +Leviathan. + +In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will +at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner +of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, +come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the +original edition of the "Advancement of Learning" you will find some +curious whales. + +But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those +pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, +by those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some +plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, +entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the +Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master." In one of those plates the +whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, +with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the +prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular +flukes. + +Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett, +a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage round Cape Horn +into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale +Fisheries." In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of +a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the +coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not the +captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. +To mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which +applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm +whale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet +long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out +of that eye! + +Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for +the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of +mistake. Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's Animated Nature." In the +abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" +and a "narwhale." I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly +whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one +glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century +such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent +public of schoolboys. + +Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a great +naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are +several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these +are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland +whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long +experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its +counterpart in nature. + +But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was +reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous +Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he +gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that +picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary +retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not +a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of +a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that +picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor +in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that +is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil +those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. + +As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging over the +shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally +Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting +on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: +their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint. + +But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very +surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have +been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a +drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent +the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. +Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan +has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, +in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in +unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, +like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a +thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the +air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not +to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young +sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the +case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such +is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that +his precise expression the devil himself could not catch. + +But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded +whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. +For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that +his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy +Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of +his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian +old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics; +yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's +articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton +of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded +animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes +it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some +part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously +displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to +the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four +regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But +all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human +fingers in an artificial covering. "However recklessly the whale may +sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never be truly +said to handle us without mittens." + +For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs +conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world +which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit +the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very +considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding +out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in +which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is +by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of +being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had +best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan. + + + +CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True +Pictures of Whaling Scenes. + + +In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly +tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of +them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, +especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass +that matter by. + +I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; +Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previous +chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins's is far +better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's +drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the +picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second +chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no +doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is +admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm +Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they +are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though. + +Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they +are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has +but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because +it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive +anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living +hunters. + +But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details +not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to +be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, +and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent +attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble +Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath +the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air +upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of +the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon +the monster's spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single +incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the +incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if +from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and +true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden +poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the +swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions +of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down +upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details +of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not +draw so good a one. + +In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside +the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black +weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian +cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so +abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave +supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the +small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the +Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while +the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of +tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock +in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean +steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in +admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the +drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of +a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily +hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole. + +Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he +was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously +tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for +painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and +where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion +on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder +fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of +France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the +successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned +centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea +battle-pieces of Garnery. + +The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of +things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings +they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's +experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the +Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only +finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of +the whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale +draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline +of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as +picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching +the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right +whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, +and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats +us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, +and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck +submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of +magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent +voyager (I honour him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it +was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a +sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace. + +In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other +French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself +"H. Durand." One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present +purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet +noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored, +inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails +of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both +drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when +considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under +one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is +quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the +very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the +vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a +quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is +about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances +lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its +hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands +half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the +smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke +over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up +with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the +excited seamen. + + + +CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in +Stone; in Mountains; in Stars. + + +On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a +crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board +before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. +There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed +to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being +crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, +they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that +stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has +now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in +Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you +will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on +that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with +downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation. + +Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and +Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and +whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, +or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other +like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little +ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, +in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes +of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the +skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their +jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, +they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's +fancy. + +Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man +to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. +Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a +savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready +at any moment to rebel against him. + +Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic +hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian +war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of +carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. +For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that +miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has +cost steady years of steady application. + +As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the +same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of +his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not +quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, +as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit +and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert +Durer. + +Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of +the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles +of American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy. + +At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung +by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is +sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking +whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some +old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for +weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all +intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot examine +them closely enough to decide upon their merit. + +In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken +cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the +plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the +Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against +them in a surf of green surges. + +Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually +girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky +point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of +whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough +whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish +to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact +intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else +so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, +previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the +Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed +Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them. + +Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out +great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as +when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies +locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased +Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright +points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic +skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the +starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying +Fish. + +With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for +spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to +see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie +encamped beyond my mortal sight! + + + +CHAPTER 58. Brit. + + +Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows +of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale +largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we +seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat. + +On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from +the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly +swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that +wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated +from the water that escaped at the lip. + +As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance +their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these +monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving +behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.* + + +*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks" does +not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there +being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable +meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually +floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased. + + +But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all +reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they +paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked +more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the +great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will +sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them +to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even +so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the +leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense +magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses +of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort +of life that lives in a dog or a horse. + +Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the +deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though +some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are +of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of +the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for +example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to +the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any +generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him. + +But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the +seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and +repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, +so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his +one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific +of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen +tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; +though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man +may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering +future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, +to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize +the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the +continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense +of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. + +The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese +vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. +That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships +of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; +two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. + +Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a +miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, +when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened +and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in +precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews. + +But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it +is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who +murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath +spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her +own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, +and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No +mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad +battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the +globe. + +Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide +under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden +beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish +brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the +dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, +the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each +other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. + +Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile +earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a +strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean +surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular +Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the +half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst +never return! + + +CHAPTER 59. Squid. + + +Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her +way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling +her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering +masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a +plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, +alluring jet would be seen. + +But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural +spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when +the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid +across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered +together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible +sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head. + +In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and +higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before +our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening +for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, +and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? +thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once +more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the +negro yelled out--"There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! +The White Whale, the White Whale!" + +Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the +bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on +the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave +his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction +indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. + +Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had +gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the +ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular +whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed +him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly +perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave +orders for lowering. + +The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and all +swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with +oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same +spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for +the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous +phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. +A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing +cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating +from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as +if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible +face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or +instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, +chance-like apparition of life. + +As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still +gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice +exclaimed--"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to +have seen thee, thou white ghost!" + +"What was it, Sir?" said Flask. + +"The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and +returned to their ports to tell of it." + +But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; +the rest as silently following. + +Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with +the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being +so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with +portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them +declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few +of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and +form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale +his only food. For though other species of whales find their food above +water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti +whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and +only by inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that +food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what +are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus +exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that +the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to +the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is +supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it. + +There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop +Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in +which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with +some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. +But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he +assigns it. + +By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious +creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish, +to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, +but only as the Anak of the tribe. + + + +CHAPTER 60. The Line. + + +With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as +for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, +I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line. + +The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly +vapoured with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary +ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to +the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the +sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity +too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must +be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general +by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it +may give it compactness and gloss. + +Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost +entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not +so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and +I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more +handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark +fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian +to behold. + +The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first +sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment +its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and +twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal +to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures something +over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally +coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so +as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded "sheaves," or +layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the "heart," +or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least +tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take +somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used +in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an +entire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then +reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act +of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists. + +In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line +being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this; +because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into the +boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, nearly +three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky +freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in thickness; for +the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up +a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated +one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American line-tub, +the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great +wedding-cake to present to the whales. + +Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an +eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the +tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. +This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: +In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a +neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as +to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the +harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug +of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the +first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This +arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the +lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the +whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking +minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed +boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of +the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again. + +Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is +taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again +carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon +the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist +in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at +the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme +pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a +common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs +in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat +again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled +upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a +little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp--the rope +which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that +connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious +to detail. + +Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, +twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the +oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid +eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest +snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal +woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, +and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any +unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible +contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus +circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones +to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit--strange thing! what +cannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, +and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you +will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus +hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before +King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, +with a halter around every neck, as you may say. + +Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for +those repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are casually +chronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the +line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in +the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings +of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and +wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the +heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and +you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; +and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of +volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run +away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out. + +Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and +prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; +for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and +contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal +powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the +line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought +into actual play--this is a thing which carries more of true terror than +any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men +live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their +necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, +that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. +And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would +not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before +your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. + + + +CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. + + +If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to +Queequeg it was quite a different object. + +"When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow +of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale." + +The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special +to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep +induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through +which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; +that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, +and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the +Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru. + +It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders +leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in +what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that +dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my +body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long +after the power which first moved it is withdrawn. + +Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen +at the main and mizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last +all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing +that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. +The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the wide trance +of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all. + +Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my +hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; +with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty +fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the +capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, +glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in +the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury +jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm +afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some +enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once +started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts +of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted +forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted +the sparkling brine into the air. + +"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he +dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes. + +The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and ere +the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward, +but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he +swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave +orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in +whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, +we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the +noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the +monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and +then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up. + +"There go flukes!" was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by +Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was +granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale +rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much +nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honour +of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become +aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no +longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And +still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault. + +Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, +he was going "head out"; that part obliquely projecting from the mad +yeast which he brewed.* + + +*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance +the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though +apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about +him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does +so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the +upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water +formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he +thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish +galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat. + + +"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take plenty of +time--but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's all," cried +Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. "Start her, now; give 'em +the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy--start +her, all; but keep cool, keep cool--cucumbers is the word--easy, +easy--only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the +buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys--that's all. Start +her!" + +"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some +old war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat +involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke +which the eager Indian gave. + +But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. "Kee-hee! +Kee-hee!" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, +like a pacing tiger in his cage. + +"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a +mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels +cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still +encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from +his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the +welcome cry was heard--"Stand up, Tashtego!--give it to him!" The +harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen backed water; the same +moment something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. +It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two +additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its +increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled +with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and +round the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it +blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb's hands, from +which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at +these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's +sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving +to wrest it out of your clutch. + +"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated +by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* More +turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now +flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego +here changed places--stem for stern--a staggering business truly in that +rocking commotion. + + +*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be +stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the +running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or +bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most +convenient. + + +From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of +the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would +have thought the craft had two keels--one cleaving the water, the other +the air--as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once. +A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in +her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little +finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale +into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging +to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of +Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring +down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed +as they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened +his flight. + +"Haul in--haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round +towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet +the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly +planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the +flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning +out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging up for +another fling. + +The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a +hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled +and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing +upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every +face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. And all +the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the +spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of +the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked +lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and +again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again +sent it into the whale. + +"Pull up--pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale +relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up!--close to!" and the boat ranged along +the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned +his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully +churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold +watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of +breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the +innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from +his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster +horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, +mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping +astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied +twilight into the clear air of the day. + +And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; +surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his +spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush +after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red +wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping +down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! + +"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo. + +"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his mouth, +Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood +thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. + + + +CHAPTER 62. The Dart. + + +A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. + +According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes +off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary +steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost +oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous +arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called +a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of +twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, +the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; +indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the +rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid +exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's +compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half started--what +that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl +very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this +straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once +the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry--"Stand up, and give it +to him!" He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his +centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little +strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No +wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty +fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many +hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some +of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that +some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder +that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the +harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his +body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted! + +Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant, +that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer +likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of +themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and +the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper +station in the bows of the boat. + +Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish +and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from first to +last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no rowing +whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances obvious +to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss +of speed in the chase; but long experience in various whalemen of more +than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures +in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the +whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has +caused them. + +To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this +world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of +toil. + + + +CHAPTER 63. The Crotch. + + +Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in +productive subjects, grow the chapters. + +The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. +It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which +is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, +for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the +harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow. +Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it +up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from +the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, +respectively called the first and second irons. + +But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with +the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one +instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming +drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a +doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the +instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving +the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however +lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. +Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line, +and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be +anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the +most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, +it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned +in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently +practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the +saddest and most fatal casualties. + +Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown +overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, +skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, +or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. +Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is +fairly captured and a corpse. + +Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging +one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these +qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of +such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be +simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied +with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one +be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are +faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several +most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be +painted. + + + +CHAPTER 64. Stubb's Supper. + + +Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was +a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow +business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men +with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, +slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the +sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; +good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we +moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call +it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky +freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we +towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk. + +Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod's +main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab +dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing +the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing +it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way +into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning. + +Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had +evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature +was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed +working in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that +Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were +brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, +monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on +the Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in +the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust +rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast +corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the +stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black +hull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night, +which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two--ship and whale, +seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while +the other remains standing.* + + +*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most +reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, +is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part +is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its +flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so +that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to +put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a +small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and +a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By +adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side +of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily +made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked +fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with +its broad flukes or lobes. + + +If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known +on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an +unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was +he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned +to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping +cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. +Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale +as a flavorish thing to his palate. + +"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut +me one from his small!" + +Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general +thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray +the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds +of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers +who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale +designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body. + +About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two +lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper +at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb +the only banqueter on whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings +with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming +round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few +sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping +of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers' +hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you +heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on +their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the +bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all +but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they +contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the +universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, +may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking +for a screw. + +Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks +will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs +round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down +every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant +butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's +live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, +also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away +under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole +affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that +is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and +though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships +crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in +case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently +buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, +touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most +socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no +conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless +numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm +whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never +seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of +devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. + +But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was +going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his +own epicurean lips. + +"Cook, cook!--where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length, widening +his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; +and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing +with his lance; "cook, you cook!--sail this way, cook!" + +The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously +roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling +along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something +the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like +his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and +limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy +fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered +along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on +the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded +before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back +still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as +to bring his best ear into play. + +"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his +mouth, "don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've been +beating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don't I always say +that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks +now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a +shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are +welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must +keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and +deliver my message. Here, take this lantern," snatching one from his +sideboard; "now then, go and preach to 'em!" + +Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck +to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the +sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand +he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a +mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling +behind, overheard all that was said. + +"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam +noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa Stubb say +dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you +must stop dat dam racket!" + +"Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap +on the shoulder,--"Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way +when you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, cook!" + +"Who dat? Den preach to him yourself," sullenly turning to go. + +"No, cook; go on, go on." + +"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"-- + +"Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax 'em to it; try that," and +Fleece continued. + +"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, +fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness--'top dat dam slappin' ob de +tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and +bitin' dare?" + +"Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won't have that swearing. Talk to +'em gentlemanly." + +Once more the sermon proceeded. + +"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat +is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de +pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den +you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. +Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping +yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your +neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat +whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale +belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger +dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat +de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber +for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help +demselves." + +"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go on." + +"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scougin' and slappin' each +oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching to +such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare +bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you +den; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and +can't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber." + +"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, +Fleece, and I'll away to my supper." + +Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his +shrill voice, and cried-- + +"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill +your dam bellies 'till dey bust--and den die." + +"Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; "stand +just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular +attention." + +"All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the +desired position. + +"Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; "I shall now go +back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, +cook?" + +"What dat do wid de 'teak," said the old black, testily. + +"Silence! How old are you, cook?" + +"'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered. + +"And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, +and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?" rapidly bolting another +mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the +question. "Where were you born, cook?" + +"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke." + +"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to know what +country you were born in, cook!" + +"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he cried sharply. + +"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook. +You must go home and be born over again; you don't know how to cook a +whale-steak yet." + +"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he growled, angrily, turning round +to depart. + +"Come back here, cook;--here, hand me those tongs;--now take that bit of +steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? +Take it, I say"--holding the tongs towards him--"take it, and taste it." + +Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro +muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy." + +"Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more; "do you belong to the +church?" + +"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly. + +"And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where +you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his +beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and +tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?" said Stubb. "Where +do you expect to go to, cook?" + +"Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke. + +"Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now +what's your answer?" + +"When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly, changing his whole +air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel +will come and fetch him." + +"Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch +him where?" + +"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and +keeping it there very solemnly. + +"So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you +are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? +Main-top, eh?" + +"Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks. + +"You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see where +your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by +crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don't +get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a +ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of +us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye +hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, +when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?--that's +your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!--that's it--now you have it. Hold it there +now, and pay attention." + +"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, +vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at +one and the same time. + +"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, +that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't +you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my +private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to +spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal +to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, +cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get +the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the +flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go." + +But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled. + +"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. +D'ye hear? away you sail, then.--Halloa! stop! make a bow before you +go.--Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast--don't forget." + +"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if +he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself," muttered the old man, +limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock. + + + +CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish. + + +That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, +like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so +outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and +philosophy of it. + +It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right +Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large +prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of the +court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be +eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of +whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The +meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well +seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. +The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great +porpoise grant from the crown. + +The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all +hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but +when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet +long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men +like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not +so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare +old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous +doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly +juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who +long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel--that +these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of +whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among +the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called "fritters"; which, indeed, +they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something +like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They +have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly +keep his hands off. + +But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his +exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be +delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as +the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid +pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that +is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the +third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for +butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into +some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try +watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their +ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many +a good supper have I thus made. + +In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. +The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, +whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), +they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, +in flavor somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among +some epicures; and every one knows that some young bucks among the +epicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to +have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a +calf's head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon +discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an +intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the +saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at +him, with an "Et tu Brute!" expression. + +It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively +unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; +that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before +mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, +and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever +murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if +he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and +he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market +of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the +long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of +the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will +be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in +his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that +provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized +and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest +on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras. + +But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is +adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my +civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is +that handle made of?--what but the bones of the brother of the very ox +you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring +that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did +the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders +formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two +that that society passed a resolution to patronise nothing but steel +pens. + + + +CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre. + + +When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and +weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general +thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting +him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very +soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the +common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a'lee; and then send +every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, +until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for +an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see +that all goes well. + +But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will +not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather +round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a +stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. +In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so +largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably +diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, +a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to +tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the +present case with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man +unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, +would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and +those sharks the maggots in it. + +Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was +concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman +came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for +immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering +three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid +sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an +incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep +into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy +confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not +always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the +incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each +other's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit +their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by +the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was +this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these +creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in +their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual +life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, +one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried +to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw. + + +*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; +is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, +corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its +sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than +the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when +being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a +stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle. + + +"Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the savage, agonizingly +lifting his hand up and down; "wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de +god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin." + + + +CHAPTER 67. Cutting In. + + +It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio +professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was +turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would +have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods. + +In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous +things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and which +no single man can possibly lift--this vast bunch of grapes was swayed up +to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the strongest +point anywhere above a ship's deck. The end of the hawser-like rope +winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, +and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to +this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was +attached. And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, +the mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the +body for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two +side-fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, +the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking up a wild +chorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When +instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in +her starts like the nail-heads of an old house in frosty weather; she +trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More +and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the +windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till at last, +a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls +upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises +into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the +first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely +as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body +precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the +strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale +rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip +uniformly peels off along the line called the "scarf," simultaneously +cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as +it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the +time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the +main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment +or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let +down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge +it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong +overboard. + +One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon +called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices +out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this +hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked +so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what +follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to +stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few +sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in twain; +so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, +called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. +The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one tackle is +peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly +slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway +right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubber-room. Into +this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long +blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. +And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering +simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, +the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship +straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the +general friction. + + + +CHAPTER 68. The Blanket. + + +I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of +the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen +afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains +unchanged; but it is only an opinion. + +The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you +know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence +of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and +ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. + +Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's +skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point +of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you +cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but +that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if +reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred +dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely +thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds +of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that is, +previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but +becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried bits, which +I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before; +and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself +with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is +pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may +say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, +isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the +whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as +the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, +that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender +than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this. + +Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, +as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one +hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or +rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, +and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had +of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere +integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels +to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters +of the stuff of the whale's skin. + +In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among +the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely +crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, +something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these +marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above +mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved +upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, +observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but +afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; +that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids +hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present +connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm +Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old +Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on +the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the +mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian +rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which +the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the +back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the +regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, +altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New +England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks +of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, +that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this +particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are +probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most +remarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species. + +A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of +the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long +pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very +happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber +as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho +slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this +cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself +comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would +become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the +North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are +found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it +observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies +are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of +an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; +whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, +and he dies. How wonderful is it then--except after explanation--that +this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it +is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed +to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall +overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly +frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued +in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by +experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a +Borneo negro in summer. + +It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong +individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare +virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after +the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in +this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood +fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the +great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. + +But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, +how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the +whale! + + + +CHAPTER 69. The Funeral. + + +Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern! + +The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the +beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, +it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. +Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and +splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious +flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting +poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further +and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem +square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous +din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous +sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair +face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass +of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives. + +There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in +pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. +In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if +peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they +most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not +the mightiest whale is free. + +Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost +survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or +blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the +swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in +the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the +whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the +log--SHOALS, ROCKS, AND BREAKERS HEREABOUTS: BEWARE! And for years +afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly +sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there +when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your +utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of +old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in +the air! There's orthodoxy! + +Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror +to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a +world. + +Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than +the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in +them. + + + +CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx. + + +It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping +the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the +Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced +whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason. + +Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; +on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that +very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the +surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening +between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a +discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear +in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many +feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so +much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus +made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, +and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion +into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he +demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale? + +When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable +till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale +it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full +grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces +nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a +burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as +vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales. + +The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was +hoisted against the ship's side--about half way out of the sea, so that +it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there +with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the +enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm +on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that +blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant +Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. + +When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went +below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but +now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow +lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon +the sea. + +A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone +from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to +gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he +took Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's +Decapitation--and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended +mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood +leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. + +It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so +intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thou vast +and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a +beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, +and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast +dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has +moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies +rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this +frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, +in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast +been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, +where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou +saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart +to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when +heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed +by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper +midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on +unharmed--while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that +would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O +head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of +Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!" + +"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head. + +"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting +himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. +"That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better +man.--Where away?" + +"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to +us! + +"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, +and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! +how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest +atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind." + + + +CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam's Story. + + +Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than +the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock. + +By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned mast-heads +proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting +by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could +not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would +be made. + +Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of +the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals +being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels +attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale +commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at +considerable distances and with no small facility. + +The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's setting +her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring +her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and +lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being +rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the +stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token +of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that +the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her +captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though +himself and boat's crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half +a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing +between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the +land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the +Pequod. + +But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an +interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's +boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the +Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew +very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by +the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some +way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings +again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a +conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not +without still another interruption of a very different sort. + +Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular +appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities +make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled +all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A +long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped +him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A +deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes. + +So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had +exclaimed--"That's he! that's he!--the long-togged scaramouch the +Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to a strange story +told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time +previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account +and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in +question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the +Jeroboam. His story was this: + +He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna +Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret +meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a +trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he +carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, +was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim +having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with +that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense +exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the +Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon +the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a +freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded +the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby +he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and +vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he +declared these things;--the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited +imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united +to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant +crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of +him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, +especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous +captain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that +individual's intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the +archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials--devoting the ship +and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was +carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, +that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel +was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore +forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any +way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that +Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all +this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and +mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand +than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole +command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. +The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before +him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal +homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however +wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking +in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as +his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But +it is time to return to the Pequod. + +"I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain +Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; "come on board." + +But now Gabriel started to his feet. + +"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible +plague!" + +"Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew; "thou must either--" But +that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings +drowned all speech. + +"Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted +back. + +"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible +tail!" + +"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that--" But again the boat tore ahead as if +dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession +of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices +of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm +whale's head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing +it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to +warrant. + +When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story +concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from +Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed +leagued with him. + +It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking +a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby +Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, +Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White +Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, +pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God +incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two +afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the +chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him; and the captain himself +being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all +the archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in +persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after +much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last +succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to +the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and +hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants +of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his +boat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting +his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance +for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its +quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies +of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious +life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his +descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a +chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head; but the +mate for ever sank. + +It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the +Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. +Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; +oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the +headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But +strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, +when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is +discernible; the man being stark dead. + +The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried +from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek--"The vial! the vial!" Gabriel +called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the +whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence; +because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically +fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any +one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the +wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship. + +Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to +him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he +intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which +Ahab answered--"Aye." Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started +to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with +downward pointed finger--"Think, think of the blasphemer--dead, and down +there!--beware of the blasphemer's end!" + +Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, "Captain, I have +just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy +officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag." + +Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, +whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends +upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, +most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after +attaining an age of two or three years or more. + +Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, +damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence +of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death +himself might well have been the post-boy. + +"Can'st not read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but +a dim scrawl;--what's this?" As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a +long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to +insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without +its coming any closer to the ship. + +Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, "Mr. Har--yes, Mr. +Harry--(a woman's pinny hand,--the man's wife, I'll wager)--Aye--Mr. +Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;--why it's Macey, and he's dead!" + +"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife," sighed Mayhew; "but let +me have it." + +"Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab; "thou art soon going that +way." + +"Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "Captain Mayhew, stand by now to +receive it"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he +caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. +But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat +drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as if by magic, the +letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it +in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, +sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then +Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in +that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod. + +As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket +of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild +affair. + + + +CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope. + + +In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there +is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are +wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying +in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done +everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description +of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned +that upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook +was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the +mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook +get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend +Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the +monster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many +cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the +whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The +whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the +immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the +level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the +whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill +beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the +Highland costume--a shirt and socks--in which to my eyes, at least, +he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to +observe him, as will presently be seen. + +Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar +in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to +attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead +whale's back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by +a long cord. Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg +down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery +a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his +waist. + +It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we +proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at +both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow +leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were +wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage +and honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag +me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. +Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get +rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. + +So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that +while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive +that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of +two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another's +mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster +and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in +Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an +injustice. And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now +and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam +him--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine +was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most +cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality +of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by +mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say +that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the +multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's +monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came +very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I +would, I only had the management of one end of it.* + + +*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod +that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement +upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, +in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible +guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder. + + +I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the +whale and the ship--where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant +rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy +he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the +night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent +blood which began to flow from the carcass--the rabid creatures swarmed +round it like bees in a beehive. + +And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them +aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were +it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise +miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. + +Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a +ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. +Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked +the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed +a peculiarly ferocious shark--he was provided with still another +protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego +and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen +whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could +reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and +benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I admit; but +in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both +he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water, +those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg +than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there +with that great iron hook--poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his +Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods. + +Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in +and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea--what matters +it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men +in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those +sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks +and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad. + +But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as +with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs +up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over +the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory +glance hands him--what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands +him a cup of tepid ginger and water! + +"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. +"Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then +standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the +astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and will you have +the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger? +Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire +in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!--what the devil is ginger? +Sea-coal? firewood?--lucifer matches?--tinder?--gunpowder?--what the +devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg +here." + +"There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this +business," he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just +come from forward. "Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it, +if you please." Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, "The +steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap +to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an +apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by +which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?" + +"I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuff enough." + +"Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teach you to drug a +harpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to poison +us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder +us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?" + +"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that brought the +ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but +only this ginger-jub--so she called it." + +"Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye +to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. +Starbuck. It is the captain's orders--grog for the harpooneer on a +whale." + +"Enough," replied Starbuck, "only don't hit him again, but--" + +"Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of +that sort; and this fellow's a weazel. What were you about saying, sir?" + +"Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself." + +When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort +of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was +handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity's gift, and that was +freely given to the waves. + + + +CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk +Over Him. + + +It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale's +prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must let it +continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. +For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the +head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. + +Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually +drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, +gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the +Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking +anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of +those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to +cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near +the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale +had been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the +announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if +opportunity offered. + +Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two +boats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further +and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at +the mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of +tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or +both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in +plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the +towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at +first it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a +maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from +view, as if diving under the keel. "Cut, cut!" was the cry from the +ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being +brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty +of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they +paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their +might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle was +intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened line +in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the contending +strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet advance +they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it; when +instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the +keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose +to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its +drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, +while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were +free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering +his course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after +him, so that they performed a complete circuit. + +Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close +flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for +lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the +multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale's body, +rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every +new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that +poured from the smitten rock. + +At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he +turned upon his back a corpse. + +While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, +and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some +conversation ensued between them. + +"I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard," said +Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so +ignoble a leviathan. + +"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow, +"did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's +head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's +on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never +afterwards capsize?" + +"Why not? + +"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, +and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think +he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap, +Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into +a snake's head, Stubb?" + +"Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a +dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look +down there, Flask"--pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of +both hands--"Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in +disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been +stowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you +don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries +it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of +it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots." + +"He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've +seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging." + +"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye +see, in the eye of the rigging." + +"What's the old man have so much to do with him for?" + +"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose." + +"Bargain?--about what?" + +"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and +the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away +his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he'll +surrender Moby Dick." + +"Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?" + +"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked +one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the +old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and +gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he +was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching +his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.' 'What for?' says the old +governor. 'What business is that of yours,' says the devil, getting +mad,--'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says the governor--and by the +Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before +he got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look +sharp--ain't you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get +the whale alongside." + +"I think I remember some such story as you were telling," said Flask, +when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden +towards the ship, "but I can't remember where." + +"Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soladoes? Did +ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?" + +"No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, +Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was +the same you say is now on board the Pequod?" + +"Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live +for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see +any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a +latch-key to get into the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can +crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?" + +"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?" + +"Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing to the ship; "well, that's +the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string +along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that +wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation +couldn't show hoops enough to make oughts enough." + +"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you +meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if +he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going +to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard--tell me +that? + +"Give him a good ducking, anyhow." + +"But he'd crawl back." + +"Duck him again; and keep ducking him." + +"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though--yes, and +drown you--what then?" + +"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes +that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again for +a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and +hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, +Flask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the devil? Who's afraid of +him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in +double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping +people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil +kidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a governor!" + +"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?" + +"Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now +to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious +going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say--Look +here, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord +I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, +and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short +off at the stump--do you see; and then, I rather guess when he finds +himself docked in that queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the poor +satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs." + +"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?" + +"Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;--what else?" + +"Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?" + +"Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship." + +The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where +fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing +him. + +"Didn't I tell you so?" said Flask; "yes, you'll soon see this right +whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's." + +In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply +leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of +both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may +well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go +over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come +back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep +trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, +and then you will float light and right. + +In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the +ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the +case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off +whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and +hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is +called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case, +had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and +the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of +overburdening panniers. + +Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever +and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own +hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow; +while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed only to +blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish +speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing +things. + + + +CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head--Contrasted View. + + +Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us +join them, and lay together our own. + +Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right +Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly +hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all +the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between +them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this +moment hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one +to the other, by merely stepping across the deck:--where, I should like +to know, will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology +than here? + +In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these +heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a certain +mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly +lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold +it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point +of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is +heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the summit, +giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what +the fishermen technically call a "grey-headed whale." + +Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the two +most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of +the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you +narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would +fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it to the +magnitude of the head. + +Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is +plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more +than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale's +eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for +yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects +through your ears. You would find that you could only command some +thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; +and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking +straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not +be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from +behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the +same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes the +front of a man--what, indeed, but his eyes? + +Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes +are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to +produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of +the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of +solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating +two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the +impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, +must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct +picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and +nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the world +from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with the +whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct +windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale's +eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be +remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes. + +A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this +visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a +hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing +is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing +whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience +will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of +things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, +and completely, to examine any two things--however large or however +small--at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side +by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two +objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in +order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to +bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary +consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, +in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more +comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same +moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one +side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he +can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able +simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems +in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this +comparison. + +It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the +extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when +beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer +frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly +proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their +divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them. + +But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an +entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads +for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf +whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so +wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With +respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed +between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has +an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered +over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. + +Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the +world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which +is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of +Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of +cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of +hearing? Not at all.--Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind? +Subtilize it. + +Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant +over the sperm whale's head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending +by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not +that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we +might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But +let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What +a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, +lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as +bridal satins. + +But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems +like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one +end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, +and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, +alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these +spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, +when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there +suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging +straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a +ship's jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of +sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his +jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a +reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon +him. + +In most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised +artist--is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting +the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone +with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles, +including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips. + +With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an +anchor; and when the proper time comes--some few days after the other +work--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, +are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances +the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being +rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag +stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally forty-two +teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled +after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and +piled away like joists for building houses. + + + +CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View. + + +Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right Whale's +head. + +As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a +Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); +so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant +resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an +old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last. And +in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with +the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her +progeny. + +But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different +aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and +look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head +for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its +sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, +crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass--this green, +barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown," and the +Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes +solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, +with a bird's nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live +crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost +sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the +technical term "crown" also bestowed upon it; in which case you will +take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a +diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for +him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very +sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! +what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's +measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout +that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more. + +A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. +The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an +important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes +caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, +we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should +take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the +road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a +pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while +these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half +vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a +side, which depending from the upper part of the head or crown +bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily +mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, +through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose +intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through +the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they +stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, +hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature's age, +as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this +criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical +probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater +age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. + +In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies +concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous +"whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;* another, "hogs' bristles"; a +third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: +"There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his +upper CHOP, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth." + + +*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or +rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the +upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these +tufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn +countenance. + + +As every one knows, these same "hogs' bristles," "fins," "whiskers," +"blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and +other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has +long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was +in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those +ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as +you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we +nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a +tent spread over the same bone. + +But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing +in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these +colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think +you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its +thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest +Turkey--the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the +mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting +it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I +should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that +amount of oil. + +Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started +with--that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely +different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale's there is no great +well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a +lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any +of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a +tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm +Whale only one. + +Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie +together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will +not be very long in following. + +Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same +he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem +now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like +placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the +other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident +against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not +this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in +facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm +Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years. + + + +CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram. + + +Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have +you, as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly remark its front +aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate +it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated, +intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged +there. Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle +this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of +the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be +found in all recorded history. + +You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, +the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the +water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably +backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which +receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely +under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth +were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has +no external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole--is on the +top of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides +of his head, nearly one third of his entire length from the front. +Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm +Whale's head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender +prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider +that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of +the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you +get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial +development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad. +Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise +the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of +the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. +In some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the +body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head; +but with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so +thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not +handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by +the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though +the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I do not +think that any sensation lurks in it. + +Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen +chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the +sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming +contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold +there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest +and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which +would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By +itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But +supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that +as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, +capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, +as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, +the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head +altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out +of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope; +considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically +occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there +may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with +the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and +contraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to +which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes. + +Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable +wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a +mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood +is--by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest +insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the +specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this +expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable +braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant +incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale +stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic +with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For +unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist +in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to +encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell +the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais? + + + +CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun. + + +Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must +know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated +upon. + +Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on an +inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower +is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an +unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the +expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the +forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two +almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal +wall of a thick tendinous substance. + + +*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical +mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a +solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the +steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both +sides. + + +The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb +of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand +infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole +extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great +Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is +mystically carved in front, so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms +innumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his +wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished +with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun +of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages; +namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, +and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed +in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly +fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to +concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the +first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale's +case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from +unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and +dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business +of securing what you can. + +I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun +was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not +possibly have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like the +lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale's +case. + +It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale +embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since--as +has been elsewhere set forth--the head embraces one third of the whole +length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet for +a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth +of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship's +side. + +As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close +to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti +magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, +untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its +invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which +is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by +the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, +make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter. + +Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and--in +this particular instance--almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm +Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. + + + +CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets. + + +Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect +posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the +part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried +with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, +travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that +it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it +is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down +the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he +lands on the summit of the head. There--still high elevated above the +rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries--he seems some Turkish +Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A +short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches +for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business +he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, +sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time +this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like +a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other +end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three +alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, +to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this +pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, +till it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the +whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail +of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted +vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large +tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until +the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to +ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, +until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down. + +Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; +several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a +queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, +was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed +hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the +place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil +One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular +reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, +as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up--my God! poor +Tashtego--like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, +dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with +a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight! + +"Man overboard!" cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first +came to his senses. "Swing the bucket this way!" and putting one foot +into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip +itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost +before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, +there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before +lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, +as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only +the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous +depth to which he had sunk. + +At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing +the whip--which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles--a +sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, +one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with +a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship +reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, +upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be +on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent +motions of the head. + +"Come down, come down!" yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand +holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he +would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line, +rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the +buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out. + +"In heaven's name, man," cried Stubb, "are you ramming home a cartridge +there?--Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on +top of his head? Avast, will ye!" + +"Stand clear of the tackle!" cried a voice like the bursting of a +rocket. + +Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass +dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the +suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering +copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging--now over the +sailors' heads, and now over the water--Daggoo, through a thick mist of +spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, +buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea! +But hardly had the blinding vapour cleared away, when a naked figure +with a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen +hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my +brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the +side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and +no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now +jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship. + +"Ha! ha!" cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch +overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust +upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust +forth from the grass over a grave. + +"Both! both!--it is both!"--cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and +soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and +with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the +waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was +long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk. + +Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after +the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made +side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then +dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, +and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first +thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that +was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;--he had +thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a +somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in +the good old way--head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was +doing as well as could be expected. + +And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, +the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully +accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently +hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. +Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, +riding and rowing. + +I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to +seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have either +seen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern ashore; an accident +which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than the +Indian's, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the +Sperm Whale's well. + +But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought +the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and +most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of +a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at +all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been +nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense +tendinous wall of the well--a double welded, hammered substance, as I +have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which +sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this +substance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the +other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank +very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance +for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it +was a running delivery, so it was. + +Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious +perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant +spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber +and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be +recalled--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey +in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that +leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. +How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and +sweetly perished there? + + + +CHAPTER 79. The Prairie. + + +To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this +Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as +yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for +Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, +or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the +Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats +of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces +of horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the +modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and +his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the +phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, +though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these +two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things; +I achieve what I can. + +Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. +He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most +conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and +finally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that its +entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect +the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, +cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable +to the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in +keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the nose +from Phidias's marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless, +Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so +stately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were +hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A +nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical +voyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly-boat, your noble +conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a +nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will insist upon +obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne. + +In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to +be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This +aspect is sublime. + +In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the +morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has a +touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the +elephant's brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as +that great golden seal affixed by the German Emperors to their decrees. +It signifies--"God: done this day by my hand." But in most creatures, +nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of alpine +land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which like +Shakespeare's or Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the +eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and all +above them in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered +thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the +snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and +mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, +that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the +dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living +nature. For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is +revealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; +nothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with +riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. +Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way +viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you +plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the +forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of genius. + +But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written +a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his +doing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his +pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale +been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by +their child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile, +because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no +tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of +protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure +back to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly +enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted +hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale +shall lord it. + +Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is +no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's +face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing +fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could +not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle +meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of +the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you +can. + + + +CHAPTER 80. The Nut. + + +If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his +brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square. + +In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet +in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as +the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level +base. But in life--as we have elsewhere seen--this inclined plane is +angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent +mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to +bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater--in +another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in +depth--reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at +least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden +away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the +amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it +secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny +that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance +of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange +folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more +in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part +of him as the seat of his intelligence. + +It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in +the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his +true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The +whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common +world. + +If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view +of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its +resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from +the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down +to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would +involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on +one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say--This +man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, +considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and +power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most +exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. + +But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, you +deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea +for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine, +you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung +necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the +skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely +undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it +the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once +pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with +the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the +beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have +omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the +cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's +character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel +your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine +never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the +firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world. + +Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial +cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra +the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being +eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As +it passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but +for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, +this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance--the +spinal cord--as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. +And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's +cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost +equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be +unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically? +For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his +brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative +magnitude of his spinal cord. + +But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I +would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the +Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one +of the larger vertebrae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer +convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this +high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. +And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to +know. + + + +CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. + + +The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick +De Deer, master, of Bremen. + +At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and +Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide +intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with +their flag in the Pacific. + +For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects. +While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a +boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the +bows instead of the stern. + +"What has he in his hand there?" cried Starbuck, pointing to something +wavingly held by the German. "Impossible!--a lamp-feeder!" + +"Not that," said Stubb, "no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's +coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don't you see that big +tin can there alongside of him?--that's his boiling water. Oh! he's all +right, is the Yarman." + +"Go along with you," cried Flask, "it's a lamp-feeder and an oil-can. +He's out of oil, and has come a-begging." + +However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the +whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old +proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing +really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did +indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare. + +As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all +heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German +soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately +turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some +remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in +profound darkness--his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a +single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding +by hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically +called a CLEAN one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name of +Jungfrau or the Virgin. + +His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his +ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the +mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that +without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed +round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders. + +Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German +boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod's +keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their danger, +they were going all abreast with great speed straight before the wind, +rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness. +They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great +wide parchment upon the sea. + +Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge, +humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as +by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed afflicted +with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this whale belonged +to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for +such venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck +to their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, +because the white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, +like the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was +short, slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, +and spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean +commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried +extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble. + +"Who's got some paregoric?" said Stubb, "he has the stomach-ache, I'm +afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse +winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind +I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before? +it must be, he's lost his tiller." + +As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck +load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her +way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly +turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious +wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost +that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. + +"Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that wounded +arm," cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him. + +"Mind he don't sling thee with it," cried Starbuck. "Give way, or the +German will have him." + +With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this +one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most +valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were +going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit +for the time. At this juncture the Pequod's keels had shot by the three +German boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had, Derick's +boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign +rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being already so +nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they +could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite +confident that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding +gesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats. + +"The ungracious and ungrateful dog!" cried Starbuck; "he mocks and dares +me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes ago!"--then +in his old intense whisper--"Give way, greyhounds! Dog to it!" + +"I tell ye what it is, men"--cried Stubb to his crew--"it's against +my religion to get mad; but I'd like to eat that villainous +Yarman--Pull--won't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do +ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, +why don't some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who's that been dropping an +anchor overboard--we don't budge an inch--we're becalmed. Halloo, here's +grass growing in the boat's bottom--and by the Lord, the mast there's +budding. This won't do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long of +it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?" + +"Oh! see the suds he makes!" cried Flask, dancing up and down--"What +a hump--Oh, DO pile on the beef--lays like a log! Oh! my lads, DO +spring--slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads--baked +clams and muffins--oh, DO, DO, spring,--he's a hundred barreller--don't +lose him now--don't oh, DON'T!--see that Yarman--Oh, won't ye pull for +your duff, my lads--such a sog! such a sogger! Don't ye love sperm? +There goes three thousand dollars, men!--a bank!--a whole bank! The bank +of England!--Oh, DO, DO, DO!--What's that Yarman about now?" + +At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the +advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view +of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time economically +accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss. + +"The unmannerly Dutch dogger!" cried Stubb. "Pull now, men, like fifty +thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d'ye say, +Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces +for the honour of old Gayhead? What d'ye say?" + +"I say, pull like god-dam,"--cried the Indian. + +Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod's +three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, +momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of +the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up +proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry +of, "There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down with +the Yarman! Sail over him!" + +But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all +their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not +a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade +of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to free +his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to +capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;--that was +a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took a +mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter. +An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's +immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the +foaming swell that he made. + +It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was +now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual +tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of +fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, +and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the +sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I +seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the +air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a +voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear +of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; +he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, +and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his +amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to +appal the stoutest man who so pitied. + +Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod's +boats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick +chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long dart, +ere the last chance would for ever escape. + +But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three +tigers--Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo--instinctively sprang to their feet, +and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs; and +darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket +irons entered the whale. Blinding vapours of foam and white-fire! The +three boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped +the German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled +harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels. + +"Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes," cried Stubb, casting a passing +glance upon them as he shot by; "ye'll be picked up presently--all +right--I saw some sharks astern--St. Bernard's dogs, you know--relieve +distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel a +sunbeam! Hurrah!--Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad +cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on +a plain--makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that +way; and there's danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a +hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy +Jones--all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale +carries the everlasting mail!" + +But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he +tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round +the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; +while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would +soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they +caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at +last--owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of +the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue--the +gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three +sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, +for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more +line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have +been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this "holding on," as it +is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from +the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising +again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril +of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the +best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken +whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the +enormous surface of him--in a full grown sperm whale something less than +2000 square feet--the pressure of the water is immense. We all know +what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even +here, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, +bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at +least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated +it at the weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, +and stores, and men on board. + +As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down +into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any +sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; +what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and +placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in +agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. +Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan +was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and +to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was +once so triumphantly said--"Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? +or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot +hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as +straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; +he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!" This the creature? this he? Oh! +that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength +of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the +mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fish-spears! + +In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats +sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad +enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the +wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head! + +"Stand by, men; he stirs," cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly +vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by +magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every +oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part +from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce +upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are +scared from it into the sea. + +"Haul in! Haul in!" cried Starbuck again; "he's rising." + +The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's breadth +could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all +dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two +ship's lengths of the hunters. + +His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land animals +there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, whereby +when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in +certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities +it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so +that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly +drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is +heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance +below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant +streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant +and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and +bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will +flow, whose source is in the well-springs of far-off and undiscernible +hills. Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously +drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, +they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept +continually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only +at intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the +air. From this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him +had thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was +untouched. + +As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of +his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly +revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were +beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the +noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes +had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. +But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his +blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the +gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the +solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. +Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely +discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the +flank. + +"A nice spot," cried Flask; "just let me prick him there once." + +"Avast!" cried Starbuck, "there's no need of that!" + +But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an +ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than +sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury +blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews +all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the +bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by +loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had +made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, +then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up +the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most +piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water +is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled +melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the +ground--so the last long dying spout of the whale. + +Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body +showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. Immediately, +by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so +that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a +few inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when +the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was +strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain +that unless artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the +bottom. + +It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade, +the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, +on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of +harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, +with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any +kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been +some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for +the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a +lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, +the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And +when? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before +America was discovered. + +What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous +cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further +discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways +to the sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink. +However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the +last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship +would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the +body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such was +the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and +cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime +everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the +deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship +groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and +cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural dislocation. +In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable +fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so low +had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all +approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to +the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going over. + +"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to the body, "don't be in such +a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something or go +for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run +one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains." + +"Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's heavy +hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing +at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were +given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific +snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank. + +Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm +Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately +accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great +buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the +surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and +broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their +bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that +this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so +sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it +is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with +noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of +life, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny, buoyant +heroes do sometimes sink. + +Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this +accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty +Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in +no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; +his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this +incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances +where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale +again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this +is obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious +magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship could +hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among +the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they +fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone +down, they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again. + +It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from +the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering +her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a Fin-Back, +belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its +incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's spout is so +similar to the Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is often +mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in +valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail, +made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to +leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase. + +Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend. + + + +CHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling. + + +There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true +method. + +The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up +to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its +great honourableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many +great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other +have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection +that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a +fraternity. + +The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and +to the eternal honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale +attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those +were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to +succor the distressed, and not to fill men's lamp-feeders. Every one +knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda, +the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as +Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince +of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and delivered +and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely +achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this +Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this +Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, +in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton +of a whale, which the city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to +be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans +took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What +seems most singular and suggestively important in this story, is this: +it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail. + +Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda--indeed, by some supposed +to be indirectly derived from it--is that famous story of St. George and +the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many +old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and +often stand for each other. "Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a +dragon of the sea," saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; +in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it +would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but +encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle +with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a +Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly +up to a whale. + +Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though +the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely +represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted +on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance +of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; +and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have +crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal +ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; +bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible +with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to +hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In +fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will +fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by +name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and +both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or +fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even +a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we +harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order +of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honourable +company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a +whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with +disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are +much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they. + +Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long +remained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that +antique Crockett and Kit Carson--that brawny doer of rejoicing good +deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether +that strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere +appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, +from the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary +whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I +claim him for one of our clan. + +But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of +Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more +ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versa; certainly +they are very similar. If I claim the demigod then, why not the prophet? + +Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole +roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal +kings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in nothing +short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now +to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one +of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine +Vishnoo himself for our Lord;--Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten +earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. +When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate +the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to +Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books, +whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before +beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained +something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these +Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became +incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, +rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even +as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman? + +Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's a member-roll +for you! What club but the whaleman's can head off like that? + + + +CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded. + + +Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the +preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical +story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks +and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, +equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the +dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those +traditions one whit the less facts, for all that. + +One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew +story was this:--He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, +embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented +Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head--a peculiarity only true +with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the +varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this +saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so very small. +But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not +necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the +whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And +this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the +Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and +comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have +ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right +Whale is toothless. + +Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his +want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in +reference to his incarcerated body and the whale's gastric juices. But +this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist +supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a +DEAD whale--even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned +their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has +been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was +thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape +to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; +and, I would add, possibly called "The Whale," as some craft are +nowadays christened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle." Nor have there +been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned +in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver--an inflated bag +of wind--which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a +watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But +he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I +remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean +Sea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere within three days' +journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three +days' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. +How is that? + +But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that +short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the +way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through +the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the +Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete +circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris +waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to +swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope +at so early a day would wrest the honour of the discovery of that great +headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make +modern history a liar. + +But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his +foolish pride of reason--a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing +that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the +sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and +abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a +Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh +via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of +the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly +enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And +some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, +speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honour of Jonah, in which Mosque was +a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil. + + + +CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling. + + +To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are +anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an +analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it +to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly +be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are +hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to +make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing +his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau +disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling +under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the +unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from +the craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some +particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event. + +Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to +them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight, +as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. + +Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great +exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the +stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal +flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the +planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became +imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But +to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and +furious. What then remained? + +Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and +countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, +none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small +sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It +is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand +fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is +accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme +headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve +feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, +and also of a lighter material--pine. It is furnished with a small rope +called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to +the hand after darting. + +But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though +the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it +is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, +on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as +compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a +general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any +pitchpoling comes into play. + +Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and +equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel +in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the +flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. +Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its +length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up +the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his +grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before +his waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering +him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby +elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his +palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, +balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless +impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming +distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of +sparkling water, he now spouts red blood. + +"That drove the spigot out of him!" cried Stubb. "'Tis July's immortal +Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old +Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, +Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink +round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch in the +spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the +living stuff." + +Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, +the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful +leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is +slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and +mutely watches the monster die. + + + +CHAPTER 85. The Fountain. + + +That for six thousand years--and no one knows how many millions of ages +before--the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, +and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so +many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, +thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the +whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings--that all this should +be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter +minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. +1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings +are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapour--this is surely a +noteworthy thing. + +Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items +contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their +gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is +combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod +might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. +But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular +lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the +disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for +his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree +breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm +Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and +what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he +breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head. + +If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function +indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a +certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the +blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I +shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. +Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be +aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not +fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then +live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the +case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full +hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or +so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has +no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine +he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of +vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are +completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, +a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in +him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus +supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. +The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the +supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more +cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of +that leviathan in HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase +it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the +Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform +with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and +jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he +rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to +a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that +he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular +allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he +finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that +in different individuals these rates are different; but in any one +they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his +spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere +descending for good? How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the +whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For +not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing +a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O +hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee! + +In man, breathing is incessantly going on--one breath only serving +for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to +attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the +Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time. + +It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; if +it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then +I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell +seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all +answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged +with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of +smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout--whether it be water or +whether it be vapour--no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on +this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper +olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no +Cologne-water in the sea. + +Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting +canal, and as that long canal--like the grand Erie Canal--is furnished +with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of +air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; +unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, +he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? +Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to +this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a +living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! + +Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it +is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, +horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little +to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down +in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this +gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the +Sperm Whale is the mere vapour of the exhaled breath, or whether that +exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and +discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly +communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this +is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because +the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he +accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath +the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if +you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find +that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods +of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration. + +But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! +You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not +tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to +settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the +knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in +it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely. + +The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping +it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, +when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view +of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading +all around him. And if at such times you should think that you really +perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are +not merely condensed from its vapour; or how do you know that they +are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole +fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For +even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with +his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert; even then, +the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under +a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with +rain. + +Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the +precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering +into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to +this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into +slight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds of the jet, which will +often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of +the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer +contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, +or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. +Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to +evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt +it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. +The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let +this deadly spout alone. + +Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My +hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides +other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations +touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; +I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed +fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other +whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am +convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as +Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes +up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep +thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the +curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, +a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my +head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, +after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; +this seems an additional argument for the above supposition. + +And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to +behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild +head overhung by a canopy of vapour, engendered by his incommunicable +contemplations, and that vapour--as you will sometimes see it--glorified +by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. +For, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate +vapour. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my +mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a +heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; +but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts +of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this +combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who +regards them both with equal eye. + + + +CHAPTER 86. The Tail. + + +Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, +and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, I +celebrate a tail. + +Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of +the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises +upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The +compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms +or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. +At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways +recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In +no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in +the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the +full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across. + +The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut +into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:--upper, +middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are +long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running +crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as +anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman +walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin +course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful +relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the +great strength of the masonry. + +But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, +the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of +muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins +and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and +largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent +measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. +Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it. + +Nor does this--its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful +flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through +a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most +appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, +but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, +strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that +all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its +charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the +naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the +man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God +the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever +they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, +hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most +successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all +brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine +one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form +the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings. + +Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether +wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it +be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no +fairy's arm can transcend it. + +Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for +progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping; +Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes. + +First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in +a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never +wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the +whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled +forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this +which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when +furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by. + +Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only +fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his +conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In +striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the +blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed +air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply +irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only +salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the +opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale +boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed +plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most +serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the +fishery, that they are accounted mere child's play. Some one strips off +a frock, and the hole is stopped. + +Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale +the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect +there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the +elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of +sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft +slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface +of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, +whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! +Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of +Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with +low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their +zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not +possess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet +another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk +and extracted the dart. + +Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the +middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence +of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a +hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of +his tail are flirted high into the air; then smiting the surface, the +thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a great +gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapour +from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was +the smoke from the touch-hole. + +Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes +lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely +out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into +the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are +tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they +downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime BREACH--somewhere +else to be described--this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the +grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless +profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the +highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth +his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in +gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in +the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the +archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that +crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, +all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with +peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment +of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of +the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African +elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout +of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of +antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the +profoundest silence. + +The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the +elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk +of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two +opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they +respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier +to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the +stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as +the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash +of the sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have +one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews +into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.* + + +*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale +and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the +elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to +the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious +similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the elephant +will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, +jet it forth in a stream. + + +The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability +to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they +would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an +extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, +that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason +signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods +intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other +motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and +unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, +then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I know +not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, +how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back +parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I +cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about +his face, I say again he has no face. + + + +CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada. + + +The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from +the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia. +In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of +Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a +vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, +and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded +oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports +for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the +straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels +bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas. + +Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing +midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green +promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond +to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and +considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, +and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental +sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such +treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the +appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping +western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied +with those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the +Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these +Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from +the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries +past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra +and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while +they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce +their claim to more solid tribute. + +Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among +the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the +vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the +point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they +have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these +corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present +day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in +those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged. + +With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these +straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and +thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and +there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and +gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there. +By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the +known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending +upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled +in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the +sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he might most +reasonably be presumed to be haunting it. + +But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew +drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, +the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs +no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the +whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be +transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries +no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a +whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with +utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She +carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, +when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to +drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from +the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may +have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score +of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted +one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like +themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had +come; they would only answer--"Well, boys, here's the ark!" + +Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of +Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of +the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an +excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more +and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and +admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the +land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils +the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was +descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game +hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the +customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of +singular magnificence saluted us. + +But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which +of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, +instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in +former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes +embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if +numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual +assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into +such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the +best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months +together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly +saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands. + +Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and +forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, +a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the +noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right +Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft +drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the +Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually +rising and falling away to leeward. + +Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of +the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the +air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed +like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried +of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. + +As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, +accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in +their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; +even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through +the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and +swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre. + +Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers +handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their +yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that +chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy +into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their +number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby +Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped +white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with +stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans +before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly +directing attention to something in our wake. + +Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear. +It seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling something +like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come and +go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling +his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, +crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the +sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!" + +As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should +fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot +pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the swift +Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very +kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to +her own chosen pursuit,--mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they +were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his +forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the +bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed +his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in +which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that +gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that +same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end; +and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and +inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their +curses;--when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's +brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some +stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm +thing from its place. + +But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and +when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the +Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra +side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the +harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining +upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained +upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake of the whales, at +length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship neared them; +and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats. But +no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm +Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,--though +as yet a mile in their rear,--than they rallied again, and forming +in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like +flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity. + +Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and +after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, +when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating +token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange +perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive +it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns +in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now +broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus' elephants in the +Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. +In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly +swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they +plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more +strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed +as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the +sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over +the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced +such excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is characteristic +of almost all herding creatures. Though banding together in tens of +thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a +solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded +together in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the +slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, +trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, +therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales +before us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not +infinitely outdone by the madness of men. + +Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, +yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor +retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in +those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one +lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes' time, +Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray +in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight +for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the +whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and +indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present +one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift +monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid +adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb. + +As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of +speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we +thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by +the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was +like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer +through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what +moment it may be locked in and crushed. + +But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off +from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away +from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the +time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our +way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time +to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted +duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the +shouting part of the business. "Out of the way, Commodore!" cried one, +to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, +and for an instant threatened to swamp us. "Hard down with your tail, +there!" cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed +calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity. + +All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented +by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood +of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each +other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then +attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line +being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly +among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales +are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm +whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you must +kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing +them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it +is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into requisition. Our boat +was furnished with three of them. The first and second were successfully +darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the +enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like +malefactors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in the +act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one +of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and carried it +away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from +under him. On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we +stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for +the time. + +It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were +it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way greatly +diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from the +circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that +when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways +vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we +glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if +from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here +the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard +but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth +satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture +thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now +in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every +commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of +the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight +or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of +horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic +circus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have +gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing +whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no +possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for +a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only +admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, +we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves; the women +and children of this routed host. + +Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving +outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in +any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by +the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square +miles. At any rate--though indeed such a test at such a time might be +deceptive--spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that +seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this +circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely +locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the +herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its +stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way +innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller +whales--now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the +lake--evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still +becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like household +dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and +touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly +domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched +their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the +time refrained from darting it. + +But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still +stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended +in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the +whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to +become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth +exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly +and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different +lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still +spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;--even so did the +young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if +we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floating on their +sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little +infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might +have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in +girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet +recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the +maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final +spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The delicate +side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the +plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign +parts. + +"Line! line!" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; "him fast! him +fast!--Who line him! Who struck?--Two whale; one big, one little!" + +"What ails ye, man?" cried Starbuck. + +"Look-e here," said Queequeg, pointing down. + +As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of +fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows +the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the +air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame +Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not +seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with +the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that +the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas +seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan +amours in the deep.* + + +*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike +most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation +which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a +time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and +Jacob:--a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously +situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves +extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a +nursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk +and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet +and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. +When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute MORE HOMINUM. + + +And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations +and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and +fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled +in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of +my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and +while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and +deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. + +Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic +spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, +still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or +possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of +room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight +of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro +across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is +sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful +and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or +maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled +cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. +A whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not +effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along +with him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of +the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone +mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay +wherever he went. + +But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle +enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to +inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the +intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived that +by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale had +become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run +away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope +attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the +harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose +from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning +through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and +tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own +comrades. + +This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their +stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake +began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted +by half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to +heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; +in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central +circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was +departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the +tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in +Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre, +as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck +and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern. + +"Oars! Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm--"gripe your +oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off, +you Queequeg--the whale there!--prick him!--hit him! Stand up--stand +up, and stay so! Spring, men--pull, men; never mind their backs--scrape +them!--scrape away!" + +The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a +narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate endeavor +we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way rapidly, +and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. After many +similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had +just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales, +all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply +purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows +to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by +the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close +by. + +Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon +resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having +clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their +onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but +the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales +might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had +killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which +are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand, +are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to +mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should +the boats of any other ship draw near. + +The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious +saying in the Fishery,--the more whales the less fish. Of all the +drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for +the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other +craft than the Pequod. + + + +CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. + + +The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm +Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those +vast aggregations. + +Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must +have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are +occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. +Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those +composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young +vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. + +In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a +male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces +his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his +ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about +over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces +and endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and +his concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest +leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not +more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are +comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen +yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the +whole they are hereditarily entitled to EMBONPOINT. + +It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent +ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely +search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower +of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from +spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all +unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and +down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental +waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other +excessive temperature of the year. + +When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange +suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his +interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming +that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, +with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! +High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be +permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the +Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; +for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the +most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, +who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with +their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving +for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not +a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,--furrowed +heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and +dislocated mouths. + +But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at +the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch +that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and +revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, +like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. +Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give +chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish +of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the +sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must +take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For +like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord +Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so, +being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the +world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardour +of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends +her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated +Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our +Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, +forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old +soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his +prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors. + +Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so +is the lord and master of that school technically known as the +schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably +satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad +inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, +schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed +upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first +thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of +Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that +famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of +those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils. + +The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale +betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm +Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale--as a solitary Leviathan is +called--proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, +he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to +wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though +she keeps so many moody secrets. + +The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously +mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while +those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or +forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious +of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; +excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, +and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. + +The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like +a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, +tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no +prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous +lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, +and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in +quest of settlements, that is, harems. + +Another point of difference between the male and female schools is +still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a +Forty-barrel-bull--poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike +a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with +every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as +themselves to fall a prey. + + + +CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. + + +The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one, +necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale +fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge. + +It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, +a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed +and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised +many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For +example,--after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, +the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and +drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a +calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus +the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between +the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, +undisputed law applicable to all cases. + +Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative +enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in +A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling +law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and +lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse +comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of +the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's +Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, +or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. + +I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. + +II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. + +But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable +brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to +expound it. + +First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, +when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all +controllable by the occupant or occupants,--a mast, an oar, a nine-inch +cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. +Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other +recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly +evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their +intention so to do. + +These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen +themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks--the +Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and +honourable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, +where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim +possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But +others are by no means so scrupulous. + +Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated +in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of +a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had +succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of +their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat +itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up +with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it +before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were +remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' +teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, +he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained +attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the +plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, +harpoons, and boat. + +Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was +the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on +to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. +case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's +viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in +the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to +recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he +then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally +harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the +great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet +abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore +when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that +subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have +been found sticking in her. + +Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale +and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other. + +These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very +learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--That as for the boat, he +awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it +to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, +harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because +it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons +and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) +acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards +took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took +the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs. + +A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might +possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the +matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws +previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in +the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, +I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human +jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, +the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two +props to stand on. + +Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: +that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often +possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of +Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is +the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last +mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion +with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the +ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, +the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; +what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of +Savesoul's income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese +of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven +without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular L100,000 but a +Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets +but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor +Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother +Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not +Possession the whole of the law? + +But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, +the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is +internationally and universally applicable. + +What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the +Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? +What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India +to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All +Loose-Fish. + +What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but +Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is +the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to +the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but +Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what +are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too? + + + +CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails. + + +"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." +BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3. + + +Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the +context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of +that land, the King, as Honourary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, +and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, +in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no intermediate +remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this day in +force in England; and as it offers in various respects a strange anomaly +touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is here treated of +in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts +the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially +reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in +curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in +force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that happened within +the last two years. + +It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one +of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and +beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from +the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the +jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. +Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal +emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment +his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. +Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his +perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of +them. + +Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their +trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat +fish high and dry, promising themselves a good L150 from the precious +oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and good +ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares; up +steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with +a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head, +he says--"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it +as the Lord Warden's." Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful +consternation--so truly English--knowing not what to say, fall to +vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing +from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, +or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy +of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for +his ideas, made bold to speak, + +"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?" + +"The Duke." + +"But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?" + +"It is his." + +"We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is +all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing at all for our +pains but our blisters?" + +"It is his." + +"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of +getting a livelihood?" + +"It is his." + +"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of +this whale." + +"It is his." + +"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?" + +"It is his." + +In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of +Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular +lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be +deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman +of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to +take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To +which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) +that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be +obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend +gentleman) would decline meddling with other people's business. Is +this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three +kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars? + +It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the +Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs +inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested with +that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon gives +us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to +the King and Queen, "because of its superior excellence." And by the +soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such +matters. + +But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason +for that, ye lawyers! + +In his treatise on "Queen-Gold," or Queen-pinmoney, an old King's Bench +author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: "Ye tail is ye Queen's, +that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone." Now this +was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or +Right whale was largely used in ladies' bodices. But this same bone +is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for +a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be +presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here. + +There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers--the whale +and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and +nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's ordinary revenue. +I know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by +inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same +way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head +peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be +humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there +seems a reason in all things, even in law. + + + +CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. + + +"In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, +insufferable fetor denying not inquiry." SIR T. BROWNE, V.E. + + +It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we +were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, that the many +noses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the +three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was +smelt in the sea. + +"I will bet something now," said Stubb, "that somewhere hereabouts are +some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they +would keel up before long." + +Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside; and there in the distance +lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be +alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours from +his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and +hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside +must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that +has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. +It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must +exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are +incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded +by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. +Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that +the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and +by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose. + +Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman +had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more +of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of +those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort +of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies +almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the +proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn +up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted +whales in general. + +The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed +he recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were +knotted round the tail of one of these whales. + +"There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed, standing in the +ship's bows, "there's a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes +of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering +their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, +and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of +tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they +will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into; aye, we all +know these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our +leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with +scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor +devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a present +of a little oil for dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from +that drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no, not +in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get +more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than +he'll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it +may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. +I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, +I'm for it;" and so saying he started for the quarter-deck. + +By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether +or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of +escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb +now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing +across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French +taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a +huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper +spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a +symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in +large gilt letters, he read "Bouton de Rose,"--Rose-button, or Rose-bud; +and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship. + +Though Stubb did not understand the BOUTON part of the inscription, yet +the word ROSE, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently +explained the whole to him. + +"A wooden rose-bud, eh?" he cried with his hand to his nose, "that will +do very well; but how like all creation it smells!" + +Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he +had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to +the blasted whale; and so talk over it. + +Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he +bawled--"Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that +speak English?" + +"Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be +the chief-mate. + +"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?" + +"WHAT whale?" + +"The WHITE Whale--a Sperm Whale--Moby Dick, have ye seen him? + +"Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale--no." + +"Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a minute." + +Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning +over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands +into a trumpet and shouted--"No, Sir! No!" Upon which Ahab retired, and +Stubb returned to the Frenchman. + +He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the +chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of +bag. + +"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb. "Broke it?" + +"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!" answered +the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very +much. "But what are you holding YOURS for?" + +"Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain't it? +Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, +Bouton-de-Rose?" + +"What in the devil's name do you want here?" roared the Guernseyman, +flying into a sudden passion. + +"Oh! keep cool--cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack those +whales in ice while you're working at 'em? But joking aside, though; do +you know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil out of +such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his +whole carcase." + +"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe +it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But +come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me; and so I'll +get out of this dirty scrape." + +"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow," rejoined Stubb, +and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented +itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the +heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow +and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their +noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-booms. +Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the +mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the +plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their +nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short +off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it +constantly filled their olfactories. + +Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from +the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a +fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within. +This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating +against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain's +round-house (CABINET he called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could +not help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times. + +Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the +Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate +expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, +who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. +Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man +had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore +held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and +confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan +for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all +dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan +of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter's office, was +to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as +for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in +him during the interview. + +By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a +small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with +large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest +with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely +introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the +aspect of interpreting between them. + +"What shall I say to him first?" said he. + +"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, "you +may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, +though I don't pretend to be a judge." + +"He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his +captain, "that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain +and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a +blasted whale they had brought alongside." + +Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more. + +"What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb. + +"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him +carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit to command a +whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he's a +baboon." + +"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is +far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, +as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish." + +Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his +crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose +the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. + +"What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to +them. + +"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that--that--in +fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody +else." + +"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any service to +us." + +Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties +(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his +cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. + +"He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the interpreter. + +"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to drink +with the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him I must go." + +"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking; but +that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had +best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for +it's so calm they won't drift." + +By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed +the Guernsey-man to this effect,--that having a long tow-line in his +boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter +whale of the two from the ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats, +then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed +away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most +unusually long tow-line. + +Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; +hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the +Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly +pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of +his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous +cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the +body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was +digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck +against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and +pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high +excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as +gold-hunters. + +And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and +screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning +to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when +suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint +stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without +being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with +another, without at all blending with it for a time. + +"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in +the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!" + +Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls +of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old +cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with +your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good +friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. +Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the +sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for +impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, +else the ship would bid them good bye. + + + +CHAPTER 92. Ambergris. + + +Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as +an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain +Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that +subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, +the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem +to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for +grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though +at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland +soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, +amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for +mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, +waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in +perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. +The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same +purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some wine +merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it. + +Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale +themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick +whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and +by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such +a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four +boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as +laborers do in blasting rocks. + +I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain +hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors' +trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing +more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner. + +Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be +found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that +saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; +how that we are sown in dishonour, but raised in glory. And likewise +call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh +the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of +ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the +worst. + +I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, +owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, +and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be +considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of +the Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous +aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout +a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They +hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma +originate? + +I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the +Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because +those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as +the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in +small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry +it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, +and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding +any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, +and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a +savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an +old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a Lying-in-Hospital. + +I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be +likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former +times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which +latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great +work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, +fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a +place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without +being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of +furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full +operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is +quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four +years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, +perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the +state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that +living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by +no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the +people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by +the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, +when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance +of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the +open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water +dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a +warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, +considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with +jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian +town to do honour to Alexander the Great? + + + +CHAPTER 93. The Castaway. + + +It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most +significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew; an +event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes +madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying +prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own. + +Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some +few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work +the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, +these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' +crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous +wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It +was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by +abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember +his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly. + +In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a +white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven in +one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and +torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom +very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to +his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with +finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar +should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and +New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was +brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous +ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's +peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he +had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his +brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily +subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by +strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the +natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, +he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at +melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon +into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, +suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop +will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you +the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy +ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural +gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then +the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, +looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to +the story. + +It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman +chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; +and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. + +The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; +but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and +therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing +him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness +to the utmost, for he might often find it needful. + +Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as +the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which +happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The +involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in +hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale +line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as +to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That +instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly +straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks +of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken +several turns around his chest and neck. + +Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He +hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, +he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, +exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face +plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than +half a minute, this entire thing happened. + +"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was +saved. + +So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed +by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these +irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, +but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, +unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never +jump from a boat, Pip, except--but all the rest was indefinite, as the +soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, STICK TO THE BOAT, is your +true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when LEAP FROM +THE BOAT, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he +should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving +him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped +all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, "Stick to the boat, +Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We +can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for +thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and +don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that +though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which +propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. + +But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was +under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time +he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to +run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. +Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, +blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, +all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the +extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed +like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly +astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was +winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between +Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his +crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though +the loftiest and the brightest. + +Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the +practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful +lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the +middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how +when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea--mark how closely they +hug their ship and only coast along her sides. + +But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he +did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, +and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very +quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards +oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested +by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not +unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so +called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to +military navies and armies. + +But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly +spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and +Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent +upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him +miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but +from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at +least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body +up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. +Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of +the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; +and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the +joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, +God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters +heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the +loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's +insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man +comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and +frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his +God. + +For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that +fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what +like abandonment befell myself. + + + +CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. + + +That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to +the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations +previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of +the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. + +While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed +in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and +when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated +ere going to the try-works, of which anon. + +It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several +others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found +it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the +liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. +A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this sperm was +such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a +softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it for +only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to +serpentine and spiralise. + +As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter +exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under +indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among +those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within +the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their +opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that +uncontaminated aroma,--literally and truly, like the smell of spring +violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky +meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible +sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit +the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying +the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from +all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever. + +Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm +till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a +strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly +squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the +gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving +feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually +squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as +much as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish +any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; +let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into +each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and +sperm of kindness. + +Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by +many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases +man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable +felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in +the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fireside, the +country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case +eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of +angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. + +Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things +akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the +try-works. + +First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering +part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It +is tough with congealed tendons--a wad of muscle--but still contains +some oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first +cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like +blocks of Berkshire marble. + +Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the +whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and +often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is +a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name +imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked +snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and +purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, +it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole +behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive +a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, +supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison +season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an +unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. + +There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in +the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling +adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation +original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance. +It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the +tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. +I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, +coalescing. + +Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but +sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the +dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland +or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior +souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan. + +Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's vocabulary. +But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipper is +a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of +Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is +about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the +oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless +blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities. + +But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once +to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates. +This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for the +blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the proper +time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of +terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull +lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They generally +go in pairs,--a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is +similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is +something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a +sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship +pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet +itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This +spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless; +the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from +him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his +assistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among +veteran blubber-room men. + + + +CHAPTER 95. The Cassock. + + +Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this +post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the +windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small +curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen +there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous +cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower +jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so +surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,--longer than +a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black +as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or, +rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in +the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, +King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it +for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th +chapter of the First Book of Kings. + +Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted +by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, +and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier +carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle +deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an +African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside +out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to +double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, +to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, +towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes +at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer +now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. +Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately +protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office. + +That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the +pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted +endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into +which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's +desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent +on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a +Pope were this mincer!* + + +*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates +to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as +thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of +boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably +increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality. + + + +CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works. + + +Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished +by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid +masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. +It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her +planks. + +The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most +roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, +fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and +mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The +foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly +secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all +sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased +with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened +hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in +number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in use, they are +kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone +and sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the +night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil +themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them--one +man in each pot, side by side--many confidential communications +are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound +mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, +with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first +indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies +gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from +any point in precisely the same time. + +Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare +masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of +the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted +with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented +from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir +extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel +inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as +fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct +from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment. + +It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were +first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee +the business. + +"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the +works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his +shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that +in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a +time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick +ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the +crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains +considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. +Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once +ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. +Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to +inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in +it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such +as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left +wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit. + +By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the +carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean +darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce +flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and +illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek +fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to +some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the +bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad +sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and +folded them in conflagrations. + +The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth +in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the +pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged +poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or +stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out +of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen +heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, +which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth +of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the +windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not +otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their +eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all +begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting +barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in +the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other +their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; +as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the +flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers +wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the +wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and +yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness +of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in +her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing +Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning +a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the +material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul. + +So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently +guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, +in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the +ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before +me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred +visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable +drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm. + +But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) +thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was +horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote +my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, +just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I +was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically +stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see +no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I +had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. +Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by +flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, +rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as +rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of +death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with +the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, +inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief +sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with +my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just +in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very +probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this +unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being +brought by the lee! + +Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy +hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first +hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its +redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, +the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking +flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the +glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp--all others but liars! + +Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's +accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of +deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, +which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this +earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow +in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped. With +books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the +truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered +steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold +of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and +jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of +operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all +of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as +passing wise, and therefore jolly;--not that man is fitted to sit +down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably +wondrous Solomon. + +But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the way +of understanding shall remain" (I.E., even while living) "in the +congregation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it +invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom +that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill +eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, +and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. +And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the +mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still +higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. + + + +CHAPTER 97. The Lamp. + + +Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's +forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single +moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some +illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay +in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a +score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. + +In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of +queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in +darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he +seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an +Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night +the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. + +See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of +lamps--often but old bottles and vials, though--to the copper cooler at +the try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He +burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, +unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral +contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He +goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and +genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own +supper of game. + + + +CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. + + +Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off +descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and +slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside +and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of +old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded +surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he +is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his +spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire;--but now it +remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by +rehearsing--singing, if I may--the romantic proceeding of decanting off +his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where +once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along +beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow. + +While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the +six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling +this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed +round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot +across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last +man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, +rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, EX OFFICIO, +every sailor is a cooper. + +At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great +hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down +go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are +replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up. + +In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable +incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with +freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of +the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as +in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the +bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire +ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is +deafening. + +But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this +self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, +you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a +most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses +a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never +look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, +from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is +readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale +remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands +go diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags +restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower +rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise +faithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed +upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask is out of +sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by the combined +and simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's company, the +whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew +themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to +toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as +bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland. + +Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and +humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; +propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not +to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to +such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short +of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and +bring us napkins! + +But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent +on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again +soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot +somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest +uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through +for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their +wrists with all day rowing on the Line,--they only step to the deck to +carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, +and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined +fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the +heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the +ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor +fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by +the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, +and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this +is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long +toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable +sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its +defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; +hardly is this done, when--THERE SHE BLOWS!--the ghost is spouted up, +and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's +old routine again. + +Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two +thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with +thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage--and, foolish as I am, taught +thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope! + + + +CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon. + + +Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, +taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but +in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been +added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, +he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely +eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the +binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, +that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his +purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, +then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin +there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed +with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. + +But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly +attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as +though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in +some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some +certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little +worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by +the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in +the Milky Way. + +Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the +heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the +head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all +the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, +untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito +glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed +by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick +darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every +sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was +set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton +in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white +whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by +night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever +live to spend it. + +Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun +and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's disks +and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in +luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to +derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through +those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic. + +It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example +of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL +ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the +middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; +and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that +knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three +Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a +crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned +zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the +keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. + +Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now +pausing. + +"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and +all other grand and lofty things; look here,--three peaks as proud as +Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the +courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all +are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, +which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but +mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those +who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now +this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign +of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a +former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in +throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be +it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then." + +"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must +have left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck +to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read +Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. +He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, +heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint +earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over +all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a +hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; +but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer. +Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain +snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin +speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, +lest Truth shake me falsely." + +"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, "he's +been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with +faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long. +And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on +Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere +spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as +queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons +of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your +doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold +moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What +then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing +wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs and +wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the +zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I'll get the almanac and +as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try +my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with +the Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and +wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here they +are--here they go--all alive:--Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull +and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he +wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold +between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there; +the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the +bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That's my +small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's +navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if +there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's +a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, +Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; +and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To +begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, +Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the +Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes +Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, +a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly +dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our +first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes +Libra, or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we +are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the +Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang +come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing +himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the +battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, +and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours +out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the +Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the +sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and +hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and +so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, +Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the +try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. There; he's +before it; he'll out with something presently. So, so; he's beginning." + +"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises +a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's all this +staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true; and at +two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smoke +dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and +sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out." + +"Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a +foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort +of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman--the old +hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. He +luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side +of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's +back again; what does that mean? Hark! he's muttering--voice like an old +worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!" + +"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when +the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and know +their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch +in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe +sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what's the +horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign--the roaring and +devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee." + +"There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men +in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--all +tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the +Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; +thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I +suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country. +And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--I +guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't know what to make +of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers. +But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out +of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he +say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows +himself; there is a sun on the coin--fire worshipper, depend upon it. +Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip--poor boy! would he had died, +or I; he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these +interpreters--myself included--and look now, he comes to read, with that +unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!" + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his mind, +poor fellow! But what's that he says now--hist!" + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again." + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Well, that's funny." + +"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow, +especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! +caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scare-crow? There he +stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked +into the sleeves of an old jacket." + +"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary!--poor lad!--I could go hang +myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can stand +the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty for my +sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering." + +"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire +to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then +again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to +the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! +the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old +Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown +over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And +so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old +mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the +shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the green +miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds +blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, +hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!" + + + +CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm. + +The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London. + + +"Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?" + +So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, bearing +down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his +hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger +captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow. He was +a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or +thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in +festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket streamed +behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar's surcoat. + +"Hast seen the White Whale!" + +"See you this?" and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it, +he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head +like a mallet. + +"Man my boat!" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near +him--"Stand by to lower!" + +In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his +crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger. +But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the +moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never +once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was +always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to +the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other +vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter +for anybody--except those who are almost hourly used to it, like +whalemen--to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for +the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and +then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived +of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied +with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a +clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height +he could hardly hope to attain. + +It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward +circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his +luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And +in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the +two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the +perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a +pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem +to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to +use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, +because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, +cried out, "I see, I see!--avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing +over the cutting-tackle." + +As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two +previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved +blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. This +was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his +solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the +fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the +word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his +own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of +the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and +gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust +forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his +ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) +cried out in his walrus way, "Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones +together!--an arm and a leg!--an arm that never can shrink, d'ye +see; and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the White +Whale?--how long ago?" + +"The White Whale," said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards +the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a +telescope; "there I saw him, on the Line, last season." + +"And he took that arm off, did he?" asked Ahab, now sliding down from +the capstan, and resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he did so. + +"Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?" + +"Spin me the yarn," said Ahab; "how was it?" + +"It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line," +began the Englishman. "I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time. +Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat +fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went +milling and milling round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish, +by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches +from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white +head and hump, all crows' feet and wrinkles." + +"It was he, it was he!" cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended +breath. + +"And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin." + +"Aye, aye--they were mine--MY irons," cried Ahab, exultingly--"but on!" + +"Give me a chance, then," said the Englishman, good-humoredly. "Well, +this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam +into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line! + +"Aye, I see!--wanted to part it; free the fast-fish--an old trick--I +know him." + +"How it was exactly," continued the one-armed commander, "I do not know; +but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow; +but we didn't know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled on the +line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other whale's; +that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and +what a noble great whale it was--the noblest and biggest I ever saw, +sir, in my life--I resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage +he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would get loose, or +the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat's +crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say, I jumped +into my first mate's boat--Mr. Mounttop's here (by the way, +Captain--Mounttop; Mounttop--the captain);--as I was saying, I jumped +into Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale +with mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old +great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir--hearts and souls +alive, man--the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat--both +eyes out--all befogged and bedeadened with black foam--the whale's tail +looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble +steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, with +a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after the +second iron, to toss it overboard--down comes the tail like a Lima +tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and, +flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was +all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized +hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that +like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same +instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a +flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me +caught me here" (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); "yes, +caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I was +thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript +its way along the flesh--clear along the whole length of my arm--came +out nigh my wrist, and up I floated;--and that gentleman there will tell +you the rest (by the way, captain--Dr. Bunger, ship's surgeon: Bunger, +my lad,--the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn." + +The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all the +time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote his +gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober +one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched +trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a +marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, +occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two +crippled captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab, +he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding. + +"It was a shocking bad wound," began the whale-surgeon; "and, taking my +advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy--" + +"Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship," interrupted the one-armed +captain, addressing Ahab; "go on, boy." + +"Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot +weather there on the Line. But it was no use--I did all I could; sat up +with him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet--" + +"Oh, very severe!" chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly altering +his voice, "Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he +couldn't see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half seas +over, about three o'clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up with +me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, and very +dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why +don't ye? You know you're a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, +boy, I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man." + +"My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir"--said the +imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab--"is apt to +be facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But +I may as well say--en passant, as the French remark--that I myself--that +is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy--am a strict total +abstinence man; I never drink--" + +"Water!" cried the captain; "he never drinks it; it's a sort of fits to +him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on--go on with +the arm story." + +"Yes, I may as well," said the surgeon, coolly. "I was about observing, +sir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption, that spite of my +best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; the +truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; more +than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead line. +In short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it came. +But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is +against all rule"--pointing at it with the marlingspike--"that is the +captain's work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had +that club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one's brains +out with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical +passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir"--removing his hat, and +brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull, +but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever +having been a wound--"Well, the captain there will tell you how that +came here; he knows." + +"No, I don't," said the captain, "but his mother did; he was born with +it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you--you Bunger! was there ever such another +Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in +pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal." + +"What became of the White Whale?" now cried Ahab, who thus far had been +impatiently listening to this by-play between the two Englishmen. + +"Oh!" cried the one-armed captain, "oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, +we didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I +didn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till +some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby +Dick--as some call him--and then I knew it was he." + +"Did'st thou cross his wake again?" + +"Twice." + +"But could not fasten?" + +"Didn't want to try to: ain't one limb enough? What should I do without +this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he +swallows." + +"Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give him your left arm for bait to +get the right. Do you know, gentlemen"--very gravely and mathematically +bowing to each Captain in succession--"Do you know, gentlemen, that the +digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine +Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest +even a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the +White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means +to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But +sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine +in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let +one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth +or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, +d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully +incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if +you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the +sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that +case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you +shortly, that's all." + +"No, thank ye, Bunger," said the English Captain, "he's welcome to the +arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then; but not to +another one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered for him once, and +that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know +that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, +he's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain?"--glancing at the +ivory leg. + +"He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let +alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a +magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading?" + +"Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's," cried Bunger, stoopingly +walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; "this man's +blood--bring the thermometer!--it's at the boiling point!--his pulse +makes these planks beat!--sir!"--taking a lancet from his pocket, and +drawing near to Ahab's arm. + +"Avast!" roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks--"Man the boat! +Which way heading?" + +"Good God!" cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. +"What's the matter? He was heading east, I think.--Is your Captain +crazy?" whispering Fedallah. + +But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to +take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle +towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower. + +In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men +were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him. +With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, +Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod. + + + +CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. + + +Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that +she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, +merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of +Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion, comes not +far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point +of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our +Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous +fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted +out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; +though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant +Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets +pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not +elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were +the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm +Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the +whole globe who so harpooned him. + +In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, +and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape +Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any +sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; +and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the +Amelia's example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, +and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. +But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again +bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons--how many, their mother only +knows--and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their +expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war +Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded +by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and +did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In +1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to +go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship--well +called the "Syren"--made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus +that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. +The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a +Nantucketer. + +All honour to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to +the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have +slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world. + +The ship named after him was worthy of the honour, being a very fast +sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight +somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the +forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps--every +soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine +gam I had--long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his +ivory heel--it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that +ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever +lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it +at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it's +squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands--visitors and all--were +called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each +other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our +jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the +howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts +did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we +had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down +the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to my +taste. + +The beef was fine--tough, but with body in it. They said it was +bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for +certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial, +symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you +could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. +If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out +of you like billiard-balls. The bread--but that couldn't be helped; +besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the +only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it +was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all +in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the +cook's boilers, including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, +I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; +fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to +hat-band. + +But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other +English whalers I know of--not all though--were such famous, hospitable +ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the +joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? +I will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers +is matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of +historical whale research, when it has seemed needed. + +The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, +Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant +in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, +touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English +merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in +the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, +but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special +origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated. + +During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an +ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I +knew must be about whalers. The title was, "Dan Coopman," wherefore I +concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam +cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was +reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one +"Fitz Swackhammer." But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, +professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and +St. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box +of sperm candles for his trouble--this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he +spied the book, assured me that "Dan Coopman" did not mean "The Cooper," +but "The Merchant." In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book +treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects, contained +a very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it +was, headed, "Smeer," or "Fat," that I found a long detailed list of the +outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from +which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following: + +400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock +fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins +of butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese +(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of +beer. + +Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in +the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, +barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer. + +At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all +this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were +incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic +application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my +own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by +every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen +whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and +Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their +naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the +nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game +in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country +where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil. + +The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those +polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that +climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, +including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much +exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet +of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, +we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' +allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. +Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might +fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in +a boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem +somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But +this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with +the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would +be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his +boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. + +But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers +of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English +whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when +cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the +world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the +decanter. + + + +CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides. + + +Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly +dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail +upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough +sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still +further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, +and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost +bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his +unconditional skeleton. + +But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the +fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the +whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures +on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a +specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land +a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a +roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, +Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; +the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, +ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of +leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and +cheeseries in his bowels. + +I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far +beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed +with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged +to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his +poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the +heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my +boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the +contents of that young cub? + +And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their +gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted +to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. +For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey +of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with +the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side +glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his +capital. + +Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted +with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought +together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his +people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, +chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; +and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the +wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores. + +Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an +unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his +head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings +seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of +its fathom-deep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, +then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a +grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it. + +The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with +Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests +kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head +again sent forth its vapoury spout; while, suspended from a bough, the +terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung +sword that so affrighted Damocles. + +It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy +Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the +industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet +on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and +the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden +branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying +air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the +leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied +verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!--whither +flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless +toilings? Speak, weaver!--stay thy hand!--but one single word with +thee! Nay--the shuttle flies--the figures float from forth the loom; the +freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; +and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and +by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only +when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through +it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that +are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly +heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby +have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in +all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be +overheard afar. + +Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the +great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging--a gigantic idler! Yet, +as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around +him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven +over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but +himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim +god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories. + +Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the +skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real +jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as +an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests +should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced +before this skeleton--brushed the vines aside--broke through the +ribs--and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid +its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was +out; and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. +I saw no living thing within; naught was there but bones. + +Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. +From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the +altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted; "Dar'st thou measure +this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests--well, how long do ye make +him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning +feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their +yard-sticks--the great skull echoed--and seizing that lucky chance, I +quickly concluded my own admeasurements. + +These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be +it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied +measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can +refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell +me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where +they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I +have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have +what the proprietors call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or +River Whale in the United States." Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, +England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has +in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, +by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's. + +In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons +belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar +grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir +Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir +Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a +great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony +cavities--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan--and swing all day +upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and +shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of +keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at +the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo +in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view +from his forehead. + +The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied +verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild +wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving +such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished +the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was +then composing--at least, what untattooed parts might remain--I did not +trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all +enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale. + + + +CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton. + + +In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain +statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we +are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here. + +According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base +upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest +sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful +calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between +eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty +feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least +ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would +considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one +thousand one hundred inhabitants. + +Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this +leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's imagination? + +Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole, +jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now +simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his +unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large +a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the +most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in +this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your +arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the +general structure we are about to view. + +In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two +Feet; so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have +been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one +fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, +his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of +plain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a +third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once +enclosed his vitals. + +To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, +extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled +the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty +of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the +time, but a long, disconnected timber. + +The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, +was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each +successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one +of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From +that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only +spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore +a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most +arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay +footpath bridges over small streams. + +In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the +circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of +the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of +the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish +which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the +invested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen +feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more than eight +feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the +living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw +but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of +added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the +ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of the +weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank! + +How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try +to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead +attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the +heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry +flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale +be truly and livingly found out. + +But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a +crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now +it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar. + +There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are +not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on +a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, +a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth +more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the +tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white +billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they +had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, +who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the +spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple +child's play. + + + +CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale. + + +From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon +to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not +compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial +folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, +and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic +involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great +cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a +line-of-battle-ship. + +Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me +to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not +overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him +out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him +in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it +now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and +antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the +Leviathan--to an ant or a flea--such portly terms might justly be deemed +unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is +altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest +words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been +convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have +invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased +for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal +bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author +like me. + +One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, +though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing +of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard +capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an +inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my +thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their +outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole +circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and +mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas +of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its +suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal +theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose +a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the +flea, though many there be who have tried it. + +Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials +as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been +a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, +wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of +preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier +geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost +completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are called +the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted +links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote +posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales +hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last +preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them +precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet +sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking +rank as Cetacean fossils. + +Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones +and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been +found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in +Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. +Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the +year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street +opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones +disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's +time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly +unknown Leviathanic species. + +But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost +complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on +the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous +slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen +angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed +upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being +taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out +that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A +significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this +book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the +shape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster +Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, +pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures +which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence. + +When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, +jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to +the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on +the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical +Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back +to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; +for time began with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I +obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged +bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in +all the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference, not an inhabitable +hand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the +whale's; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines +of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? +Ahab's harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems +a school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck +at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of +the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after +all humane ages are over. + +But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the +stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his +ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim +for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable +print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, +some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a +sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and +dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the +moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was there +swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled. + +Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity +of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by +the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller. + +"Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams +of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are +oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that +by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the temple, no Whale can pass it +without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either +side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, +and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib +of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with +its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be +reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said +to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians +affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple, +and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth +by the Whale at the Base of the Temple." + +In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a +Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there. + + + +CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?--Will He Perish? + + +Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from +the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, +in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the +original bulk of his sires. + +But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the +present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are +found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period +prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those +belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier +ones. + +Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the +Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than +seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, +that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large +sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that +Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of +capture. + +But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an +advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may +it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated? + +Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such +gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny +tells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus +of others which measured eight hundred feet in length--Rope Walks and +Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and Solander, +Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences +setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) +at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. +And Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, +in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at +one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work +was published so late as A.D. 1825. + +But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is +as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny +is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. +Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies +that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not +measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; +and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian +and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are +drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle +of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest +of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of +all animals the whale alone should have degenerated. + +But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more +recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs +at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through +Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers +of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all +continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure +so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last +be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, +smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff. + +Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, +which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies +of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with +their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals, +where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such +a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that +the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction. + +But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a +period ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois +exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day +not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the +cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far +different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an +end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for +forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God, +if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days +of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when +the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and +a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of +months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain +not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need +were, could be statistically stated. + +Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the +gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former years +(the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in +small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in +consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more +remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, +influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense +caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and +pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but widely +separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems +the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer +haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that +species also is declining. For they are only being driven from +promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with +their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very +recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. + +Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two +firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain +impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss +have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and +glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to +their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and +walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed circle +of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man. + +But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one +cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this +positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. +But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than +13,000, have been annually slain on the nor'-west coast by the Americans +alone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance +of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter. + +Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness +of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to +Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the +King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are +numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems no +reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for +thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the +successive monarchs of the East--if they still survive there in great +numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he +has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all +Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles +of the sea combined. + +Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity +of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more, +therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations +must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea +of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of +creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children +who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to +the present human population of the globe. + +Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his +species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas +before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the +Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he +despised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like +the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still +survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, +spout his frothed defiance to the skies. + + + +CHAPTER 106. Ahab's Leg. + + +The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel +Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to +his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his +boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And +when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so +vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it +was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); then, +the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and wrench, +that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet +Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy. + +And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his +pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the +condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not +been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he +had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; +by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his +ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise +smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme +difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured. + +Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all +the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a +former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous +reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest +songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable +events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought +Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the +ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is +an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural +enjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world, +but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of +all hell's despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still +fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs +beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an +inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while +even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying +pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic +significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their +diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the +genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the +sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the +glad, hay-making suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must +needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. +The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of +sorrow in the signers. + +Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more +properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other +particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, +why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the sailing +of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like +exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as +it were, among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited +reason for this thing appeared by no means adequate; though, indeed, +as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation partook more of +significant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all +came out; this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at +the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that +ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed +the privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the +above hinted casualty--remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by +Ahab--invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land +of spirits and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had +all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of +this thing from others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable +interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks. + +But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, +or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not +with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain +practical procedures;--he called the carpenter. + +And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay +set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied +with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus +far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful selection +of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, the +carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night; and to +provide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to +the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be +hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate +the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the +forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed. + + + +CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter. + + +Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high +abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But +from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they +seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. +But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of +the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate; +hence, he now comes in person on this stage. + +Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging +to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent, +alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own; +the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all +those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an +auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic +remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in +those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring +in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized +and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary +duties:--repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of +clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails +in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more directly +pertaining to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatingly +expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and +capricious. + +The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold, +was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several +vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times +except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed +athwartships against the rear of the Try-works. + +A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: +the carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and straightway +files it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plumage strays on board, +and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and +cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking +cage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist: the carpenter concocts a +soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon +the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, +the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes +a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. +Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping +one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow +unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the +handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in +that, if he would have him draw the tooth. + +Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent +and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he +deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But +while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such +liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some +uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was +this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as +it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding +infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity +discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active +in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, +though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible +stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying +heartlessness;--yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, +crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now +and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served +to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle +of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long +wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; +but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings +might have originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract; an +unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without +premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost +say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of +unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so +much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to +it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven; but merely by +a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure +manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early +oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of +those unreasoning but still highly useful, MULTUM IN PARVO, Sheffield +contrivances, assuming the exterior--though a little swelled--of a +common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, +but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, +nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the +carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part +of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the +legs, and there they were. + +Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, +was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a +common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously +did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few +drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it +had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same +unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept +him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning +wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a +sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the +time to keep himself awake. + + + +CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter. + +The Deck--First Night Watch. + + +(CARPENTER STANDING BEFORE HIS VICE-BENCH, AND BY THE LIGHT OF TWO +LANTERNS BUSILY FILING THE IVORY JOIST FOR THE LEG, WHICH JOIST IS +FIRMLY FIXED IN THE VICE. SLABS OF IVORY, LEATHER STRAPS, PADS, SCREWS, +AND VARIOUS TOOLS OF ALL SORTS LYING ABOUT THE BENCH. FORWARD, THE RED +FLAME OF THE FORGE IS SEEN, WHERE THE BLACKSMITH IS AT WORK.) + + +Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, +and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and +shinbones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (SNEEZES). +Halloa, this bone dust is (SNEEZES)--why it's (SNEEZES)--yes it's +(SNEEZES)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old +fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and +you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it +(SNEEZES). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have +that ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky +now (SNEEZES) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; +but a mere shinbone--why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should +like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I +could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (SNEEZES) scraped to a lady +in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop +windows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of +course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (SNEEZES) with washes and +lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, now, I must +call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; +too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck; +here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain. + +AHAB (ADVANCING) + +(DURING THE ENSUING SCENE, THE CARPENTER CONTINUES SNEEZING AT TIMES) + + +Well, manmaker! + +Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. +Let me measure, sir. + +Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it! +There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, +carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some. + +Oh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware! + +No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this +slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?--the +blacksmith, I mean--what's he about? + +He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now. + +Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a +fierce red flame there! + +Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work. + +Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that +old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a +blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in fire must +properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the soot flies! +This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, +when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel +shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack. + +Sir? + +Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a +desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest +modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay +in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, +brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let +me see--shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on +top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away. + +Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like +to know? Shall I keep standing here? (ASIDE). + +'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No, +no, no; I must have a lantern. + +Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn. + +What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? +Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. + +I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter. + + +Carpenter? why that's--but no;--a very tidy, and, I may say, +an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, +carpenter;--or would'st thou rather work in clay? + +Sir?--Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir. + +The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about? + +Bone is rather dusty, sir. + +Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under +living people's noses. + +Sir?--oh! ah!--I guess so;--yes--dear! + +Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good +workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well +for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall +nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that +is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst +thou not drive that old Adam away? + +Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard +something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never +entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still +pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? + +It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once +was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the +soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a +hair, do I. Is't a riddle? + +I should humbly call it a poser, sir. + +Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing +may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where +thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most +solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't +speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now +so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery +pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah! + +Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; +I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. + +Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long before the +leg is done? + +Perhaps an hour, sir. + +Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here +I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for +a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will +not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the +whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with +the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was +the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By +heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to +one small, compendious vertebra. So. + +CARPENTER (RESUMING HIS WORK). + + +Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says +he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's +queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into +Mr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer. And +here's his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow! has +a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll stand +on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and +all three places standing in one hell--how was that? Oh! I don't wonder +he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, +they say; but that's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body +like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, +heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, +and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg! +long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts +a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a +tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; +oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the +other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, +you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it +before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for +all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round collecting old beer +barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real +live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this +to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the +little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, +so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now! + + + +CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. + + +According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no +inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have +sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into +the cabin to report this unfavourable affair.* + + +*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it +is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench +the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, is +removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to be kept +damply tight; while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the +mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo. + + +Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and +the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from +the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with +a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; +and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the +Japanese islands--Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new +ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long +pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with his +back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his old +courses again. + +"Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round +to it. "On deck! Begone!" + +"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We +must up Burtons and break out." + +"Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here +for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?" + +"Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good +in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, +sir." + +"So it is, so it is; if we get it." + +"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir." + +"And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak! +I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, +but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a far worse plight +than the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for who can +find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if +found, in this life's howling gale? Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons +hoisted." + +"What will the owners say, sir?" + +"Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What +cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, +about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But +look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, +my conscience is in this ship's keel.--On deck!" + +"Captain Ahab," said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, +with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed +not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation +of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself; +"A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would quickly +enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab." + +"Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?--On +deck!" + +"Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir--to be forbearing! +Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?" + +Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most +South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, +exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one +Captain that is lord over the Pequod.--On deck!" + +For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, +you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of +the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, +and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: "Thou hast +outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of +Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of +thyself, old man." + +"He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!" +murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. "What's that he said--Ahab +beware of Ahab--there's something there!" Then unconsciously using the +musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little +cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and +returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck. + +"Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," he said lowly to the mate; +then raising his voice to the crew: "Furl the t'gallant-sails, and +close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton, +and break out in the main-hold." + +It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting +Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him; +or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously +forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, +in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders +were executed; and the Burtons were hoisted. + + + +CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin. + + +Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold +were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it +being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the +slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight +sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they +go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost +puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask +containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards, +vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. Tierce after +tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and +iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks +were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if +you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea +like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless +student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons +did not visit them then. + +Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast +bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh +to his endless end. + +Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown; +dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the +higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as +harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but--as +we have elsewhere seen--mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and +finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating +all day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the +clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, +the harpooneers are the holders, so called. + +Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should +have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where, +stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about +amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom +of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor +pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he +caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after +some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill +of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few +long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his +frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones +grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller; +they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply +looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to that +immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And like +circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his eyes +seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe that +cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this +waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who +were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly wondrous and +fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing +near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last +revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. +So that--let us say it again--no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and +holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping +over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying +hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final +rest, and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher +towards his destined heaven. + +Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, +what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he +asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was +just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he +had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich +war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all +whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, +and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not +unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, +stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to +the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars +are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, +uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the +white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at +the thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual +sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks. +No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial +to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes +were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and +much lee-way adown the dim ages. + +Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter +was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might +include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard, +which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal +groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin +was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of +the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent +promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took +Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg's +person as he shifted the rule. + +"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the Long Island +sailor. + +Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general +reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin +was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches +at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, +and to work. + +When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, +he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring +whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. + +Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the +people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one's +consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to +him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some +dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will +shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be +indulged. + +Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with +an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock +drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along +with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also, +biscuits were then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water +was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in +the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a +pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he +might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving +a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his little +god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he +called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. +The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg +in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view. "Rarmai" +(it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced +in his hammock. + +But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all this +while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took him +by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine. + +"Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where +go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where +the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little +errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think +he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he +must be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--I found +it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying +march." + +"I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, "that in +violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; +and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their +wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken +in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, +in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all +our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?--Hark! he speaks +again: but more wildly now." + +"Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his harpoon? +Lay it across here.--Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock +now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!--mind ye that; +Queequeg dies game!--take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game! I +say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all +a'shiver;--out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles +he's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from +a whale-boat! I'd never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail +him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all +cowards--shame upon them! Let 'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a +whale-boat. Shame! shame!" + +During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip +was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock. + +But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now +that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon +there seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some +expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the +cause of his sudden convalescence was this;--at a critical moment, he +had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; +and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, +he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of +his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, +it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere +sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some +violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort. + +Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized; +that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing, +generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. +So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after +sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a +vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms +and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then +springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, +pronounced himself fit for a fight. + +With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and +emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there. +Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of +grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was +striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on +his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and +seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on +his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical +treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own +proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but +whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart +beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in +the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were +inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must +have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when +one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg--"Oh, devilish +tantalization of the gods!" + + + +CHAPTER 111. The Pacific. + + +When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South +Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear Pacific +with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was +answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues +of blue. + +There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently +awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those +fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. +John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery +prairies and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should +rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed +shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that +we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like +slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their +restlessness. + +To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must +ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of +the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same +waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday +planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still +gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between +float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown +Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine +Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay +to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal +swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. + +But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing like an +iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one +nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles +(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other +consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in +which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at +length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese +cruising-ground, the old man's purpose intensified itself. His firm lips +met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead's veins swelled +like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through +the vaulted hull, "Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!" + + + +CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith. + + +Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in +these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active +pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old +blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after +concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained +it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost +incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do +some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their +various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an +eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, +harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, +as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded +by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from +him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically +broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the +heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it +was.--Most miserable! + +A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing +yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the +curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted +questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every +one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate. + +Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road +running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt +the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, +dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both +feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four +acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth +act of the grief of his life's drama. + +He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly +encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been +an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house +and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three +blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, +planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further +concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into +his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to +tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into +his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that +fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for +prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in +the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so +that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no +unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of +her young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by +passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, +in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's +infants were rocked to slumber. + +Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst +thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon +him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a +truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and +all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some +virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the +responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless +old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to +harvest. + +Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more +and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; +the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly +gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell; the +forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived +down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her +thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond +in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen +curls! + +Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death +is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but +the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the +Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of +such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against +suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly +spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and +wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite +Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them--"Come hither, +broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate +death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come +hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and +abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put +up THY gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we +marry thee!" + +Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall +of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went +a-whaling. + + + +CHAPTER 113. The Forge. + + +With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about +mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter +placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the +coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came +along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While +yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, +Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the +anvil--the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, +some of which flew close to Ahab. + +"Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying +in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;--look here, they +burn; but thou--thou liv'st among them without a scorch." + +"Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab," answered Perth, resting +for a moment on his hammer; "I am past scorching; not easily can'st thou +scorch a scar." + +"Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful +to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others +that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou +not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet +hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?--What wert thou making there?" + +"Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it." + +"And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard +usage as it had?" + +"I think so, sir." + +"And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never +mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?" + +"Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one." + +"Look ye here, then," cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning +with both hands on Perth's shoulders; "look ye here--HERE--can ye +smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand across his +ribbed brow; "if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay +my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. +Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?" + +"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?" + +"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for +though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the +bone of my skull--THAT is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no +more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag, +as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want a harpoon made; one that +a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will +stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging +the pouch upon the anvil. "Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered +nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses." + +"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the +best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work." + +"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the +melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me +first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these +twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll +blow the fire." + +When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by +spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. "A +flaw!" rejecting the last one. "Work that over again, Perth." + +This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when +Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, +with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to +him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge +shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and +bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or +some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside. + +"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?" muttered Stubb, +looking on from the forecastle. "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; +and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan." + +At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as +Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near +by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face. + +"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the pain; +"have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?" + +"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this +harpoon for the White Whale?" + +"For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them +thyself, man. Here are my razors--the best of steel; here, and make the +barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea." + +For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain +not use them. + +"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, +nor pray till--but here--to work!" + +Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the +shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith +was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he +cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near. + +"No, no--no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, +there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me +as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up. A cluster of +dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, +and the White Whale's barbs were then tempered. + +"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" +deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the +baptismal blood. + +Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory, +with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of +the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of +it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing +his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly +bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good! and +now for the seizings." + +At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns +were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole +was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope +was traced half-way along the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with +intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope--like the Three +Fates--remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the +weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, +both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, +light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh, +Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange +mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the +melancholy ship, and mocked it! + + + +CHAPTER 114. The Gilder. + + +Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising +ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, +pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the +stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, +or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy +minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success +for their pains. + +At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow +heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so +sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone +cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy +quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the +ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and +would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a +remorseless fang. + +These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a +certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he +regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing +only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high +rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when +the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their +hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. + +The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these +there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied +children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when +the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most +mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, +and form one seamless whole. + +Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as +temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem +to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon +them prove but tarnishing. + +Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in +ye,--though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,--in ye, +men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some +few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. +Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling +threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a +storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this +life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one +pause:--through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless +faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then +disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once +gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, +and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no +more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will +never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like +those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of +our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. + +And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that +same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:-- + +"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's +eye!--Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping +cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep +down and do believe." + +And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same +golden light:-- + +"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that +he has always been jolly!" + + + +CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. + + +And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down +before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded. + +It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her +last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad +holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing +round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to +pointing her prow for home. + +The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting +at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; +and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the +last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colours +were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of +her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her +top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious +fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp. + +As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising +success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same +seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a +single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to +make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental +casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were +stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms. +Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the +cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the +floor for a centrepiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually +caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously +added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and +filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled +it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and +filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the +captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands +into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction. + +As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the +barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing +still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge +try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like POKE or stomach skin of +the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched +hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were +dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the +Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured +aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with +glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious +jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at +the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been +removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed +Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and +mortar were being hurled into the sea. + +Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the +ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was +full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual +diversion. + +And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, +with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's +wakes--one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings +as to things to come--their two captains in themselves impersonated the +whole striking contrast of the scene. + +"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting +a glass and a bottle in the air. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply. + +"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other +good-humoredly. "Come aboard!" + +"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?" + +"Not enough to speak of--two islanders, that's all;--but come aboard, +old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come +along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound." + +"How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art +a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty +ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! +Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!" + +And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other +stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew +of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding +Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively +revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the +homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and +then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two +remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket +soundings. + + + +CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale. + + +Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites +sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the +rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed +it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, +whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab. + +It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson +fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun +and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such +plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that +it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of +the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had +gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns. + +Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned +off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now +tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales +dying--the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring--that strange +spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a +wondrousness unknown before. + +"He turns and turns him to it,--how slowly, but how steadfastly, his +homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too +worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!--Oh +that these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights. +Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; +in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks +furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still +rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the +Niger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith; but +see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads +some other way. + +"Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded +thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; +thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the +wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor +has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round +again, without a lesson to me. + +"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed +jet!--that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh +whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that +only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker +half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable +imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living +things, exhaled as air, but water now. + +"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild +fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though +hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!" + + + +CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch. + + +The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to +windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These +last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one +could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay +by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's. + +The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and +the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare +upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which +gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach. + +Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching +in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the +whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound +like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of +Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. + +Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and +hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a +flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he. + +"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor +coffin can be thine?" + +"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?" + +"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two +hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by +mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in +America." + +"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:--a hearse and its plumes +floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a +sight we shall not soon see." + +"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man." + +"And what was that saying about thyself?" + +"Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot." + +"And when thou art so gone before--if that ever befall--then ere I can +follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?--Was it not +so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two +pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it." + +"Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up +like fire-flies in the gloom--"Hemp only can kill thee." + +"The gallows, ye mean.--I am immortal then, on land and on sea," cried +Ahab, with a laugh of derision;--"Immortal on land and on sea!" + +Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the +slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead +whale was brought to the ship. + + + +CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant. + + +The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab, +coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would +ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to +the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed +on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship's +prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high +noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was +about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his +latitude. + +Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of +effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing +focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks +lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness +of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne. +Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with coloured glasses, through +which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form +to the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument +placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to +catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. +Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling +beneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, +was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded +their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. +At length the desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon +his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that +precise instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up +towards the sun and murmured to himself: "Thou sea-mark! thou high and +mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I AM--but canst thou cast the +least hint where I SHALL be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing +besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou +must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is +even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally +beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!" + +Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its +numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: +"Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and +Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what +after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou +thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds +thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water +or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence +thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed +be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live +vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched +with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the +glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God +had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" +dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; +the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by +line; THESE shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," +lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry +thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!" + +As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live +and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a +fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself--these passed over +the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away; +while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered +together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, +shouted out--"To the braces! Up helm!--square in!" + +In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon +her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon +her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one +sufficient steed. + +Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's +tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck. + +"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of +its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, +to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, +what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!" + +"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes--mind ye that, Mr. +Starbuck--sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab +mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine; +swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but +thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!" + + + +CHAPTER 119. The Candles. + + +Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal +crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent +but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes +that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these +resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all +storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless +sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. + +Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and +bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly +ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the +thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts +fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the +tempest had left for its after sport. + +Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at every +flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster +might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb and Flask +were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the +boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very +top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape. +A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's high +teetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and left it +again, all dripping through like a sieve. + +"Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck," said Stubb, regarding the wreck, +"but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight it. You see, +Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all +round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all +the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never +mind; it's all in fun: so the old song says;"--(SINGS.) + + Oh! jolly is the gale, + And a joker is the whale, + A' flourishin' his tail,-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + The scud all a flyin', + That's his flip only foamin'; + When he stirs in the spicin',-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + Thunder splits the ships, + But he only smacks his lips, + A tastin' of this flip,-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + +"Avast Stubb," cried Starbuck, "let the Typhoon sing, and strike his +harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy +peace." + +"But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward; +and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. +Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my +throat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a +wind-up." + +"Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own." + +"What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never +mind how foolish?" + +"Here!" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his +hand towards the weather bow, "markest thou not that the gale comes from +the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the very +course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where is +that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand--his +stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou +must! + +"I don't half understand ye: what's in the wind?" + +"Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to +Nantucket," soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's +question. "The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it +into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward, +all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward--I see it lightens up +there; but not with the lightning." + +At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following +the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same +instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. + +"Who's there?" + +"Old Thunder!" said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his +pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed +lances of fire. + +Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off +the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some +ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But +as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may +avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly +towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering +not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the +vessel's way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a +ship's lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made +in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the +chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require. + +"The rods! the rods!" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to +vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux, +to light Ahab to his post. "Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and +aft. Quick!" + +"Avast!" cried Ahab; "let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker +side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that +all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let them be, sir." + +"Look aloft!" cried Starbuck. "The corpusants! the corpusants!" + +All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each +tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of +the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like +three gigantic wax tapers before an altar. + +"Blast the boat! let it go!" cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing +sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently +jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. "Blast it!"--but +slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and +immediately shifting his tone he cried--"The corpusants have mercy on us +all!" + +To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of +the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses +from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething +sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when +God's burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His "Mene, Mene, +Tekel Upharsin" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage. + +While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the +enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, +all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away +constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic +jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed +the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of +Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as +if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the +preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue +flames on his body. + +The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more +the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment +or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It +was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the +same in the song." + +"No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I +hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?--have +they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck--but it's too dark +to look. Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign +of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be +chock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm will +work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will +yet be as three spermaceti candles--that's the good promise we saw." + +At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly beginning +to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: "See! see!" and once +more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled +supernaturalness in their pallor. + +"The corpusants have mercy on us all," cried Stubb, again. + +At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, +the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his head bowed away +from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where +they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen, +arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a +knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted +attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in +Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all their eyes +upcast. + +"Aye, aye, men!" cried Ahab. "Look up at it; mark it well; the white +flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast +links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it; +blood against fire! So." + +Then turning--the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot +upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, he +stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames. + +"Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian +once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to +this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now +know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence +wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all +are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, +placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will +dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the +personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at +best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, +the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war +is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will +kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; +and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that +in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy +fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to +thee." + +[SUDDEN, REPEATED FLASHES OF LIGHTNING; THE NINE FLAMES LEAP LENGTHWISE +TO THRICE THEIR PREVIOUS HEIGHT; AHAB, WITH THE REST, CLOSES HIS EYES, +HIS RIGHT HAND PRESSED HARD UPON THEM.] + +"I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung +from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then +grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of +these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning +flashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and ache; my whole beaten +brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground. Oh, oh! +Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou +leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping +out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the +flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou +art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what +hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. +Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; +certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I +know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. +There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom +all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through +thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou +foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable +riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read +my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with +thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!" + +"The boat! the boat!" cried Starbuck, "look at thy boat, old man!" + +Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed +in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's +bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather +sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a +levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there +like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm--"God, God +is against thee, old man; forbear! 'tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill +continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a +fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this." + +Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the +braces--though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast +mate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But +dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the +burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to +transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. +Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart +that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:-- + +"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and +heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye +may know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out +the last fear!" And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the +flame. + +As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of +some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so +much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts; +so at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him +in a terror of dismay. + + + +CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. + +AHAB STANDING BY THE HELM. STARBUCK APPROACHING HIM. + + +"We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working loose +and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?" + +"Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway them up +now." + +"Sir!--in God's name!--sir?" + +"Well." + +"The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?" + +"Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises, +but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.--By +masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some +coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest +trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now +sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards +send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft +there! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic +is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!" + + + +CHAPTER 121. Midnight.--The Forecastle Bulwarks. + + +STUBB AND FLASK MOUNTED ON THEM, AND PASSING ADDITIONAL LASHINGS OVER +THE ANCHORS THERE HANGING. + + +"No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you +will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long +ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you once say that +whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its +insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft +and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn't you say so?" + +"Well, suppose I did? What then? I've part changed my flesh since that +time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we ARE loaded with powder +barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get +afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have +pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now. Shake yourself; you're +Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat +collar. Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine +Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But +hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg off +from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope; +now listen. What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's +lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't +got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head, +that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first +struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred +carries rods, and Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more +danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand +ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would +have every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running +up the corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather, +and trailing behind like his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's +easy to be sensible; why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be +sensible." + +"I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard." + +"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible, that's +a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the +turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors +now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two +anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands behind him. And what +big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists, +hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is +anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, +though. There, hammer that knot down, and we've done. So; next to +touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, just +wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs +so, Flask; but seems to me, a Long tailed coat ought always to be worn +in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry +off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end +eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me; I +must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. Halloa! whew! +there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that the winds that come +from heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad." + + + +CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.--Thunder and Lightning. + + +THE MAIN-TOP-SAIL YARD.--TASHTEGO PASSING NEW LASHINGS AROUND IT. + + +"Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What's +the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; we want rum; give +us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!" + + + +CHAPTER 123. The Musket. + + +During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's +jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by +its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached +to it--for they were slack--because some play to the tiller was +indispensable. + +In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock +to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the +compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the +Pequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice +the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is +a sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted +emotion. + +Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the +strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb--one engaged forward and the +other aft--the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails +were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like +the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when +that storm-tossed bird is on the wing. + +The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a +storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through +the water with some precision again; and the course--for the present, +East-south-east--which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more +given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only +steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the +ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo! +a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze +became fair! + +Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of "HO! THE +FAIR WIND! OH-YE-HO, CHEERLY MEN!" the crew singing for joy, that so +promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents +preceding it. + +In compliance with the standing order of his commander--to report +immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change +in the affairs of the deck,--Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to +the breeze--however reluctantly and gloomily,--than he mechanically went +below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. + +Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it +a moment. The cabin lamp--taking long swings this way and that--was +burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted +door,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. +The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming +silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of +the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as +they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest, +upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw +the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with +its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew +it for itself. + +"He would have shot me once," he murmured, "yes, there's the very musket +that he pointed at me;--that one with the studded stock; let me touch +it--lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly lances, +strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye; and +powder in the pan;--that's not good. Best spill it?--wait. I'll cure +myself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly while I think.--I come +to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and +doom,--THAT'S fair for Moby Dick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for +that accursed fish.--The very tube he pointed at me!--the very one; +THIS one--I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing I +handle now.--Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say +he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly +quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere +dead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did +he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed +old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom +with him?--Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and +more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my +soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he were this +instant--put aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he muttering in +his sleep? Yes, just there,--in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping? aye, +but still alive, and soon awake again. I can't withstand thee, then, old +man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; +all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is +all thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow; say'st +all of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!--But is there no other way? no +lawful way?--Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest +this old man's living power from his own living hands? Only a fool +would try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes +and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would +be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the +sight; could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, +inestimable reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, +then, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan +the nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and +a whole continent between me and law.--Aye, aye, 'tis so.--Is heaven +a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, +tindering sheets and skin together?--And would I be a murderer, then, +if"--and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the +loaded musket's end against the door. + +"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way. A +touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.--Oh +Mary! Mary!--boy! boy! boy!--But if I wake thee not to death, old man, +who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week +may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall +I?--The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails +are reefed and set; she heads her course." + +"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!" + +Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's +tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream +to speak. + +The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel; +Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he +placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place. + +"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell +him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to say." + + + +CHAPTER 124. The Needle. + + +Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of +mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on +like giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded +so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world +boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible +sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his +bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian +kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of +molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. + +Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time +the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye +the bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by +the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how +the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake. + +"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of +the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! +Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!" + +But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the +helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. + +"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman. + +"Thou liest!" smiting him with his clenched fist. "Heading East at this +hour in the morning, and the sun astern?" + +Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then +observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very +blinding palpableness must have been the cause. + +Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse +of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost +seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two +compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West. + +But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, +the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happened +before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses--that's +all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it." + +"Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the pale mate, +gloomily. + +Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than +one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as +developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially one with +the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled +at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has +actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and +rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal; +all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic +steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in +either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original +virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, +the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were +the lowermost one inserted into the kelson. + +Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed +compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took +the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were +exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be +changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod +thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair +one had only been juggling her. + +Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, +but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask--who +in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise +unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly +rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as +ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; +or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their +congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's. + +For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But +chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper +sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck. + +"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked +thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But +Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck--a lance without +a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. +Quick!" + +Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about +to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to +revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a +matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old +man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily +practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, +without some shudderings and evil portents. + +"Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed +him the things he had demanded, "my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's +needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that +will point as true as any." + +Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this +was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might +follow. But Starbuck looked away. + +With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the +lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade +him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, +after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the +blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered +that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then +going through some small strange motions with it--whether indispensable +to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe +of the crew, is uncertain--he called for linen thread; and moving to the +binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally +suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards. +At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at +either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had +been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the +binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,--"Look +ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun +is East, and that compass swears it!" + +One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could +persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk +away. + +In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his +fatal pride. + + + +CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line. + + +While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log +and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance +upon other means of determining the vessel's place, some merchantmen, +and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the +log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form's sake than +anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the +course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of +progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden +reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the +railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and +wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that +hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he +happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, +and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic +oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly; +astern the billows rolled in riots. + +"Forward, there! Heave the log!" + +Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. "Take +the reel, one of ye, I'll heave." + +They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side, where the +deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into +the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea. + +The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting +handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so +stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to him. + +Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty +turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old +Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to +speak. + +"Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have +spoiled it." + +"'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee? +Thou seem'st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it." + +"I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these +grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with a +superior, who'll ne'er confess." + +"What's that? There now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's +granite-founded College; but methinks he's too subservient. Where wert +thou born?" + +"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir." + +"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that." + +"I know not, sir, but I was born there." + +"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's a man +from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man; +which is sucked in--by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall +butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So." + +The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long +dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In +turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing +resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely. + +"Hold hard!" + +Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the tugging +log was gone. + +"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad +sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; +reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and +mend thou the line. See to it." + +"There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer +seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, +Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and +dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?" + +"Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. Pip's missing. +Let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman. It drags +hard; I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul +in no cowards here. Ho! there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! +a hatchet! cut it off--we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, +sir! here's Pip, trying to get on board again." + +"Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. +"Away from the quarter-deck!" + +"The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," muttered Ahab, advancing. +"Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy? + +"Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!" + +"And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of +thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve +through! Who art thou, boy?" + +"Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! +One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high--looks +cowardly--quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip the +coward?" + +"There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens! look +down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned him, +ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home +henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou +art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down." + +"What's this? here's velvet shark-skin," intently gazing at Ahab's hand, +and feeling it. "Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this, +perhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a man-rope; +something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come +and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I +will not let this go." + +"Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse +horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in +gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods +oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not +what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! +I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an +Emperor's!" + +"There go two daft ones now," muttered the old Manxman. "One daft with +strength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the end of the rotten +line--all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new +line altogether. I'll see Mr. Stubb about it." + + + +CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy. + + +Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress +solely determined by Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod held on +her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such +unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled +by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed +the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene. + +At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the +Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the +dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch--then headed +by Flask--was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like +half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered +Innocents--that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for +the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly +listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained +within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was +mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. +Yet the grey Manxman--the oldest mariner of all--declared that the wild +thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men +in the sea. + +Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when +he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not +unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus +explained the wonder. + +Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers +of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams +that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company +with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this +only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a +very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their +peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their +round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from +the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have +more than once been mistaken for men. + +But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible +confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At +sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; +and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for +sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus +with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he +had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard--a cry and a +rushing--and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and +looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the +sea. + +The life-buoy--a long slender cask--was dropped from the stern, where it +always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, +and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it +slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and +the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to +yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one. + +And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out +for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar ground; that man +was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the +time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at +least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil +in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They +declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had +heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. + +The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see +to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as +in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of +the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly +connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; +therefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided with a +buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint +concerning his coffin. + +"A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting. + +"Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb. + +"It will make a good enough one," said Flask, "the carpenter here can +arrange it easily." + +"Bring it up; there's nothing else for it," said Starbuck, after a +melancholy pause. "Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so--the coffin, +I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it." + +"And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving his hand as with a hammer. + +"Aye." + +"And shall I caulk the seams, sir?" moving his hand as with a +caulking-iron. + +"Aye." + +"And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?" moving his hand as +with a pitch-pot. + +"Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and +no more.--Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me." + +"He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he baulks. +Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it +like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he won't put +his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin? +And now I'm ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It's like turning an old +coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like this +cobbling sort of business--I don't like it at all; it's undignified; +it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings; we are their +betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square +mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and +is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not +a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at +the end. It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! +what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of +sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that's +the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when +I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their +lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at +sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay +over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the +snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before +with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied +up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty +Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing +about with a grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make +bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We +work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask +the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, +and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly. +I'll have me--let's see--how many in the ship's company, all told? But +I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-headed +life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, +if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for +one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, +caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let's to it." + + + +CHAPTER 127. The Deck. + + +THE COFFIN LAID UPON TWO LINE-TUBS, BETWEEN THE VICE-BENCH AND THE OPEN +HATCHWAY; THE CARPENTER CAULKING ITS SEAMS; THE STRING OF TWISTED OAKUM +SLOWLY UNWINDING FROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED IN THE BOSOM OF +HIS FROCK.--AHAB COMES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND HEARS PIP +FOLLOWING HIM. + + +"Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand +complies with my humor more genially than that boy.--Middle aisle of a +church! What's here?" + +"Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the +hatchway!" + +"Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault." + +"Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does." + +"Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy +shop?" + +"I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?" + +"Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?" + +"Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but +they've set me now to turning it into something else." + +"Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, +monopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the +next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those +same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a +jack-of-all-trades." + +"But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do." + +"The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a +coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the +craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in +hand. Dost thou never?" + +"Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for that; but +the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there +was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark +to it." + +"Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board; and what in +all things makes the sounding-board is this--there's naught beneath. And +yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. +Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against +the churchyard gate, going in? + +"Faith, sir, I've--" + +"Faith? What's that?" + +"Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like--that's all, +sir." + +"Um, um; go on." + +"I was about to say, sir, that--" + +"Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? +Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight." + +"He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot +latitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipagos, +is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of +Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He's always under +the Line--fiery hot, I tell ye! He's looking this way--come, oakum; +quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'm the +professor of musical glasses--tap, tap!" + +(AHAB TO HIMSELF.) + +"There's a sight! There's a sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping +the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that +thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, +that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all +materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here +now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made +the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. +A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some +spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! +I'll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, +that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain +twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed +sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return +again. Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous +philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds +must empty into thee!" + + + +CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel. + + +Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down +upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the +time the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the +broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all +fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from +the smitten hull. + +"Bad news; she brings bad news," muttered the old Manxman. But ere her +commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he +could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was heard. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" + +"Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?" + +Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; +and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain +himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen descending her +side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequod's +main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by +Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged. + +"Where was he?--not killed!--not killed!" cried Ahab, closely advancing. +"How was it?" + +It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while +three of the stranger's boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which +had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were +yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had +suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, +the fourth rigged boat--a reserved one--had been instantly lowered in +chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat--the swiftest +keeled of all--seemed to have succeeded in fastening--at least, as +well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the +distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam +of bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was +concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with +his pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no +positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging; +darkness came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward +boats--ere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite +direction--the ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to +its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance +from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded +all sail--stunsail on stunsail--after the missing boat; kindling a fire +in her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out. +But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the +presumed place of the absent ones when last seen; though she then +paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her; and not finding +anything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and +though she had thus continued doing till daylight; yet not the least +glimpse of the missing keel had been seen. + +The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his +object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his +own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles +apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were. + +"I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask, "that some one +in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap, his +watch--he's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two +pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of +the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks--pale in the +very buttons of his eyes--look--it wasn't the coat--it must have been +the--" + +"My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake--I beg, I +conjure"--here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far +had but icily received his petition. "For eight-and-forty hours let me +charter your ship--I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it--if +there be no other way--for eight-and-forty hours only--only that--you +must, oh, you must, and you SHALL do this thing." + +"His son!" cried Stubb, "oh, it's his son he's lost! I take back the +coat and watch--what says Ahab? We must save that boy." + +"He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night," said the old Manx +sailor standing behind them; "I heard; all of ye heard their spirits." + +Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's +the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the +Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew; but among +the number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other +hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, +there had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched +father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which +was only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the +ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies, that is, when +placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the +majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, +had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by +Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, +but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving +hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to +initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially +the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that +Nantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away from them, +for a protracted three or four years' voyage in some other ship than +their own; so that their first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall +be unenervated by any chance display of a father's natural but untimely +partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern. + +Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; +and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without +the least quivering of his own. + +"I will not go," said the stranger, "till you say aye to me. Do to me +as you would have me do to you in the like case. For YOU too have a boy, +Captain Ahab--though but a child, and nestling safely at home now--a +child of your old age too--Yes, yes, you relent; I see it--run, run, +men, now, and stand by to square in the yards." + +"Avast," cried Ahab--"touch not a rope-yarn"; then in a voice that +prolongingly moulded every word--"Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. +Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I +forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, +and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers: +then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before." + +Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, +leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter +rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, +Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his +boat, and returned to his ship. + +Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel +was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, +however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round; +starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a +head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her +masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry +trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs. + +But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw +that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. +She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not. + + + +CHAPTER 129. The Cabin. + + +(AHAB MOVING TO GO ON DECK; PIP CATCHES HIM BY THE HAND TO FOLLOW.) + +"Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is coming +when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee by him. +There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. +Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired +health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if +thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own screwed +chair; another screw to it, thou must be." + +"No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for +your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a +part of ye." + +"Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless +fidelity of man!--and a black! and crazy!--but methinks like-cures-like +applies to him too; he grows so sane again." + +"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose +drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin. +But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with +ye." + +"If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up in him. +I tell thee no; it cannot be." + +"Oh good master, master, master! + +"Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad. +Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still +know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!--Met! True art +thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless +thee; and if it come to that,--God for ever save thee, let what will +befall." + +(AHAB GOES; PIP STEPS ONE STEP FORWARD.) + + +"Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,--but I'm alone. Now +were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he's missing. Pip! Pip! +Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must be up here; let's try the +door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there's no opening +it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me this +screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I'll seat me, against the transom, +in the ship's full middle, all her keel and her three masts before me. +Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours great +admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of captains and +lieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets! epaulets! the epaulets all come +crowding! Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs! +What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men with gold +lace upon their coats!--Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip?--a little +negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a +whale-boat once;--seen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and +let's drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! +Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards.--Hist! above there, +I hear ivory--Oh, master! master! I am indeed down-hearted when you walk +over me. But here I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks; and they +bulge through; and oysters come to join me." + + + +CHAPTER 130. The Hat. + + +And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a +preliminary cruise, Ahab,--all other whaling waters swept--seemed to +have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely +there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and +longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a +vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually +encountered Moby Dick;--and now that all his successive meetings with +various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference +with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned +against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's eyes, +which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting +polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night +sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now +fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It +domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, +fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a +single spear or leaf. + +In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural, +vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove +to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to +finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of +Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever +conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them. + +But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours; when +he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that +even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance +awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. +Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah +now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious +at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal +substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen +being's body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by +night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go +below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan +but wondrous eyes did plainly say--We two watchmen never rest. + +Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the +deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or +exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,--the main-mast +and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle,--his +living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched +heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the +days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock; +yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly +whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether +he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in +the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp +gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The +clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him; +and so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath +the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for. + +He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,--breakfast and +dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew +all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow +idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though +his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's +mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never +seemed to speak--one man to the other--unless at long intervals some +passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell +seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew, +they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word; +by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal +interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they +stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by +the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the +Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned +substance. + +And yet, somehow, did Ahab--in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, +and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,--Ahab +seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both +seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean shade +siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel +was solid Ahab. + +At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard +from aft,--"Man the mast-heads!"--and all through the day, till after +sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of +the helmsman's bell, was heard--"What d'ye see?--sharp! sharp!" + +But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the +children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac +old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; at least, of nearly +all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether +Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if +these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally +expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them. + +"I will have the first sight of the whale myself,"--he said. "Aye! +Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nest +of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved +block, to secure to the main-mast head, he received the two ends of the +downward-reeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for +the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that +end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon +his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long upon +Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his +firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,--"Take the rope, sir--I give +it into thy hands, Starbuck." Then arranging his person in the basket, +he gave the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being +the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And +thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad +upon the sea for miles and miles,--ahead, astern, this side, and +that,--within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height. + +When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in +the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is +hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these +circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge +to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a +wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft +cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the +deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes +cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, +unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some +carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the +sea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only +strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one +only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the +slightest degree approaching to decision--one of those too, whose +faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat;--it was +strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman; +freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's +hands. + +Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten +minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly +incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these +latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head +in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet +straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying +again round his head. + +But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed +not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked +it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least +heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every +sight. + +"Your hat, your hat, sir!" suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who +being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though +somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing +them. + +But already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes; the long +hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with +his prize. + +An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace +it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would +be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen +accounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and +on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while +from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly +discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea. + + + +CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight. + + +The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the +life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably +misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were +fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, +cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine feet; serving to +carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats. + +Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and +some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you +now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, +half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" + +"Look!" replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with +his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. + +"Hast killed him?" + +"The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that," answered the +other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered +sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together. + +"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab +held it out, exclaiming--"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold +his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; +and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, +where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!" + +"Then God keep thee, old man--see'st thou that"--pointing to the +hammock--"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only +yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were +buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his +crew--"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and +lift the body; so, then--Oh! God"--advancing towards the hammock with +uplifted hands--"may the resurrection and the life--" + +"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men. + +But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound +of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so +quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled +her hull with their ghostly baptism. + +As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy +hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief. + +"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her wake. +"In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your +taffrail to show us your coffin!" + + + +CHAPTER 132. The Symphony. + + +It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were +hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was +transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and +man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's +chest in his sleep. + +Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, +unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; +but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed +mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, +troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea. + +But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and +shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, +that distinguished them. + +Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle +air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the +girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion--most seen +here at the Equator--denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving +alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away. + +Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm +and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the +ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the +morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's +forehead of heaven. + +Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged +creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how +oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But so have I seen +little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around +their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on +the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain. + +Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and +watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more +and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely +aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, +the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome +sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long +cruel--forbidding--now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, +and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however +wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to +bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; +nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. + +Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; +and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that +stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch +him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there. + +Ahab turned. + +"Starbuck!" + +"Sir." + +"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such +a day--very much such a sweetness as this--I struck my first whale--a +boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty--forty--forty years ago!--ago! Forty +years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and +storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab +forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors +of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not +spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation +of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's +exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the +green country without--oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of +solitary command!--when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so +keenly known to me before--and how for forty years I have fed upon dry +salted fare--fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soil!--when the +poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the +world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts--away, whole oceans away, from +that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn +the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow--wife? +wife?--rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor +girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, +the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand +lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey--more a +demon than a man!--aye, aye! what a forty years' fool--fool--old fool, +has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy +the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or +better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this +weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under +me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. +Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look +very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and +humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled +centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!--crack my heart!--stave my +brain!--mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have +I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? +Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is +better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By +the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, +man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on +board!--lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. +That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see +in that eye!" + +"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why +should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us +fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are +Starbuck's--wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow +youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, +longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!--this instant let me alter +the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl +on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such +mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket." + +"They have, they have. I have seen them--some summer days in the +morning. About this time--yes, it is his noon nap now--the boy +vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of +cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back +to dance him again." + +"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, +should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's +sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my +Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face +from the window! the boy's hand on the hill!" + +But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and +cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. + +"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what +cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor +commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep +pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly +making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not +so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this +arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy +in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; +how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think +thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that +living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in +this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all +the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon +Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where +do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged +to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and +the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been +making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the +mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how +we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid +greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut +swaths--Starbuck!" + +But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away. + +Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at +two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly +leaning over the same rail. + + + +CHAPTER 133. The Chase--First Day. + + +That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man--as his wont at +intervals--stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went +to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing +up the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in drawing nigh to +some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that +peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the +living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner +surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and +then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, +Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the +sail to be shortened. + +The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated +at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and +lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery +wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift +tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream. + +"Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!" + +Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle +deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they +seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear +with their clothes in their hands. + +"What d'ye see?" cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky. + +"Nothing, nothing sir!" was the sound hailing down in reply. + +"T'gallant sails!--stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!" + +All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for +swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were +hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, +and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the +main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the +air. "There she blows!--there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is +Moby Dick!" + +Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three +look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous +whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final +perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just +beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's +head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale +was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing +his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the +air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had +so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans. + +"And did none of ye see it before?" cried Ahab, hailing the perched men +all around him. + +"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I +cried out," said Tashtego. + +"Not the same instant; not the same--no, the doubloon is mine, Fate +reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the +White Whale first. There she blows!--there she blows!--there she blows! +There again!--there again!" he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic +tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible jets. +"He's going to sound! In stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand by +three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship. +Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So; steady, man, steady! There go +flukes! No, no; only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by, +stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower,--quick, quicker!" and he +slid through the air to the deck. + +"He is heading straight to leeward, sir," cried Stubb, "right away from +us; cannot have seen the ship yet." + +"Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!--brace up! +Shiver her!--shiver her!--So; well that! Boats, boats!" + +Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped; all the boat-sails +set--all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to +leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up +Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth. + +Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; +but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew +still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a +noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came +so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump +was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, +and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish +foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head +beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went +the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical +rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters +interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; +and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But +these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly +feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to +some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but +shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; +and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and +to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and +rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons. + +A gentle joyousness--a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested +the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with +ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering +eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, +rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that +great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so +divinely swam. + +On each soft side--coincident with the parted swell, that but once +leaving him, then flowed so wide away--on each bright side, the whale +shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who +namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured +to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of +tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all +who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way +thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before. + +And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among +waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby +Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his +submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw. +But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant +his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural +Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the +grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly +halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered +over the agitated pool that he left. + +With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the +three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's reappearance. + +"An hour," said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern; and he gazed +beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing +vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed +whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now +freshened; the sea began to swell. + +"The birds!--the birds!" cried Tashtego. + +In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were +now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began +fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, +expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man's; Ahab could discover +no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its +depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white +weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, +till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long crooked +rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable +bottom. It was Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast, +shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. The +glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble +tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled +the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon +Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and +seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and +stand by to stern. + +Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its +bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head while yet +under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that +malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, +as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath +the boat. + +Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for +an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of +a biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his +mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into +the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish +pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's +head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale +now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With +unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the +tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other's heads to gain the +uttermost stern. + +And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the +whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his +body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from +the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and +while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis +impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with +this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and +helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized +the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from +its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the +frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an +enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, +and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two +floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew +at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast +to the oars to lash them across. + +At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first +to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a +movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand +had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only +slipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it +slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him out of +it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea. + +Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little +distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the +billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; +so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose--some twenty or more feet +out of the water--the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, +dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray +still higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel +billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to +overleap its summit with their scud. + + +*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation +(pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down +poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously +described. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively +view whatever objects may be encircling him. + + +But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round +and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful +wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. +The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of +grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book +of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's +insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,--though he could still +keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless +Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock +might burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and +mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not +succor him; more than enough was it for them to look to themselves. +For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and so +planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed +horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed, +still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the eddy to +strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of +the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that case could they +themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, they remained on +the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old +man's head. + +Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's +mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; +and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!--"Sail on +the"--but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and +whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing +to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,--"Sail on the whale!--Drive him +off!" + +The Pequod's prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle, she +effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly swam +off, the boats flew to the rescue. + +Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white brine +caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily strength did +crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom: for a time, lying +all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one trodden under foot +of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as +desolate sounds from out ravines. + +But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more +abbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts sometimes condense +to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused +through feebler men's whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary +in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their +life-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous +intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures +contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls. + +"The harpoon," said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one +bended arm--"is it safe?" + +"Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it," said Stubb, showing it. + +"Lay it before me;--any missing men?" + +"One, two, three, four, five;--there were five oars, sir, and here are +five men." + +"That's good.--Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there! +there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!--Hands off from me! +The eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the sail; out oars; +the helm!" + +It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked +up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus +continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. But +the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, +for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a +velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances, +pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a +hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long a period, such an +unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing barely tolerable +only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it +sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of +overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were +soon swayed up to their cranes--the two parts of the wrecked boat having +been previously secured by her--and then hoisting everything to her +side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it +with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an albatross; the +Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At the well known, +methodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout was regularly announced +from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be reported as just gone +down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnacle-watch +in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour expired, his +voice was heard.--"Whose is the doubloon now? D'ye see him?" and if the +reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded them to lift him to his +perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless; +anon, unrestingly pacing the planks. + +As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft, +or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still +greater breadth--thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at +every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon +the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered stern. +At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh +troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face +there now stole some such added gloom as this. + +Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to +evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in +his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed--"The +thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!" + +"What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did +I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear +thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck." + +"Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis a solemn sight; an omen, +and an ill one." + +"Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to +man, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and +give an old wives' darkling hint.--Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles +of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and +ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of +the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold--I +shiver!--How now? Aloft there! D'ye see him? Sing out for every spout, +though he spout ten times a second!" + +The day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling. +Soon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset. + +"Can't see the spout now, sir;--too dark"--cried a voice from the air. + +"How heading when last seen?" + +"As before, sir,--straight to leeward." + +"Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals and top-gallant +stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before morning; he's +making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm there! keep her +full before the wind!--Aloft! come down!--Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand +to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning."--Then advancing +towards the doubloon in the main-mast--"Men, this gold is mine, for I +earned it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; +and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be +killed, this gold is that man's; and if on that day I shall again raise +him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away +now!--the deck is thine, sir!" + +And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and +slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals +rousing himself to see how the night wore on. + + + +CHAPTER 134. The Chase--Second Day. + + +At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh. + +"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light +to spread. + +"See nothing, sir." + +"Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought +for;--the top-gallant sails!--aye, they should have been kept on her all +night. But no matter--'tis but resting for the rush." + +Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale, +continued through day into night, and through night into day, is a thing +by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is the +wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence +acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders; +that from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they +will, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both +the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of +sight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period. +And, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of +a coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires +shortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this +pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the +cape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright +the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the +fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased, and +diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night +obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness +is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the +pilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill, the +proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all +desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as the +mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in +its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as +doctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or +the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour; +even so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that +other Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his +speed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have +gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of +latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in +the end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman's allies; for of what +present avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that +assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his +port? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile +matters touching the chase of whales. + +The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a +cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level +field. + +"By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swift motion of the deck +creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two +brave fellows!--Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise, +on the sea,--for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait +that leaves no dust behind!" + +"There she blows--she blows!--she blows!--right ahead!" was now the +mast-head cry. + +"Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it--ye can't escape--blow on and +split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your +trump--blister your lungs!--Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller +shuts his watergate upon the stream!" + +And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies +of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine +worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might +have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the +growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, +as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand +of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of +the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed, +unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging +towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled +along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the +vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of +that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. + +They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; +though it was put together of all contrasting things--oak, and maple, +and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp--yet all these ran into each +other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and +directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of +the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all +varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal +goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. + +The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were +outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one +hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, +shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking +yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for +their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to +seek out the thing that might destroy them! + +"Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?" cried Ahab, when, after +the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard. +"Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet +that way, and then disappears." + +It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some +other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for +hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its +pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the +air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant +halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as--much nearer to the ship +than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead--Moby Dick +bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not +by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White +Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon +of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, +the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of +air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the +distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged +waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his +act of defiance. + +"There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the cry, as in his +immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to +Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved +against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for +the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and +stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling +intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale. + +"Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy hour and +thy harpoon are at hand!--Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore. +The boats!--stand by!" + +Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like +shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and +halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from +his perch. + +"Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat--a spare one, +rigged the afternoon previous. "Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine--keep +away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!" + +As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first +assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the +three crews. Ahab's boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them +he would take the whale head-and-head,--that is, pull straight up to his +forehead,--a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such +a course excludes the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision. +But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were +plain as the ship's three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning +himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing +among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling +battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every +boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which +those boats were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling +like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; +though, at times, but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's +unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. + +But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed +and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three +lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, +warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now +for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more +tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more +line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again--hoping +that way to disencumber it of some snarls--when lo!--a sight more savage +than the embattled teeth of sharks! + +Caught and twisted--corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons +and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing +and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat. Only one +thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached +within--through--and then, without--the rays of steel; dragged in +the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice +sundering the rope near the chocks--dropped the intercepted fagot of +steel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White +Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; +by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and +Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on +a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in +a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of +the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly +stirred bowl of punch. + +While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after +the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while +aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his +legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily +singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old man's +line--now parting--admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to +rescue whom he could;--in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand +concreted perils,--Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards +Heaven by invisible wires,--as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly +from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its +bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till it fell +again--gunwale downwards--and Ahab and his men struggled out from under +it, like seals from a sea-side cave. + +The first uprising momentum of the whale--modifying its direction as +he struck the surface--involuntarily launched him along it, to a little +distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his +back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from +side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip +or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and +came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work +for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the +ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his +leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace. + +As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again +came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the +floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and +safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and +ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances; inextricable +intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these were there; +but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As +with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to +his boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor +did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap. + +But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as +instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of +Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory +leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter. + +"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he +will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has." + +"The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now coming up; "I +put good work into that leg." + +"But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true concern. + +"Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!--d'ye see it.--But even with +a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of +mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost. Nor white whale, +nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and +inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape +yonder roof?--Aloft there! which way?" + +"Dead to leeward, sir." + +"Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of +the spare boats and rig them--Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat's +crews." + +"Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir." + +"Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the +unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!" + +"Sir?" + +"My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane--there, that +shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet. +By heaven it cannot be!--missing?--quick! call them all." + +The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the +Parsee was not there. + +"The Parsee!" cried Stubb--"he must have been caught in--" + +"The black vomit wrench thee!--run all of ye above, alow, cabin, +forecastle--find him--not gone--not gone!" + +But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was +nowhere to be found. + +"Aye, sir," said Stubb--"caught among the tangles of your line--I +thought I saw him dragging under." + +"MY line! MY line? Gone?--gone? What means that little word?--What +death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. +The harpoon, too!--toss over the litter there,--d'ye see it?--the forged +iron, men, the white whale's--no, no, no,--blistered fool! this hand did +dart it!--'tis in the fish!--Aloft there! Keep him nailed--Quick!--all +hands to the rigging of the boats--collect the oars--harpooneers! +the irons, the irons!--hoist the royals higher--a pull on all the +sheets!--helm there! steady, steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle +the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay +him yet! + +"Great God! but for one single instant show thyself," cried Starbuck; +"never, never wilt thou capture him, old man--In Jesus' name no more of +this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased; twice stove +to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil +shadow gone--all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:-- + +"What more wouldst thou have?--Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish +till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom +of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, +oh,--Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!" + +"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that +hour we both saw--thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this +matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this +hand--a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This +whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion +years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act +under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.--Stand round +me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered +lance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab--his body's part; but +Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel +strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; +and I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack; and till ye hear +THAT, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in +the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they +drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, +to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick--two days he's floated--tomorrow +will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,--but only to spout +his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?" + +"As fearless fire," cried Stubb. + +"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he +muttered on: "The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same +to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek +to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!--The +Parsee--the Parsee!--gone, gone? and he was to go before:--but still was +to be seen again ere I could perish--How's that?--There's a riddle now +might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line +of judges:--like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'LL, I'LL solve it, +though!" + +When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward. + +So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as +on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the +grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns +in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening +their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of +Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as +on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his +hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due +eastward for the earliest sun. + + + +CHAPTER 135. The Chase.--Third Day. + + +The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the +solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the +daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar. + +"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight. + +"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all. Helm +there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day +again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the +angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a +fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought, had +Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; +THAT'S tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has +that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a +calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much +for that. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm--frozen +calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents +turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this +moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort +of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of +Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip +it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they +cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison +corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and +now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!--it's +tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable +world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a +noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight +it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run +through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not +stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing--a nobler +thing than THAT. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things +that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are +bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a most +special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I +say again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and +gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the +clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous +mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of +the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift +and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal +Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these +Trades, or something like them--something so unchangeable, and full as +strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun! +Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, +he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad; I might have known it, too. +Fool! the lines--the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by +last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look +outs! Man the braces!" + +Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's +quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced +ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own +white wake. + +"Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," murmured Starbuck to +himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. "God keep +us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my +flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!" + +"Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. +"We should meet him soon." + +"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once +more Ahab swung on high. + +A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held +long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the +weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three +mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced +it. + +"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck +there!--brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too +far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that +helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But +let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there's +time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and +not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of +Nantucket! The same!--the same!--the same to Noah as to me. There's +a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead +somewhere--to something else than common land, more palmy than the +palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, +then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old +mast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. +No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now +between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old +together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus +a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live +flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known some ships made +of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of +vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my +pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the +bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all +night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, +like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; +but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head--keep a good +eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, +to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail." + +He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered +through the cloven blue air to the deck. + +In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's +stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the +mate,--who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck--and bade him pause. + +"Starbuck!" + +"Sir?" + +"For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck." + +"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so." + +"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, +Starbuck!" + +"Truth, sir: saddest truth." + +"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of +the flood;--and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, +Starbuck. I am old;--shake hands with me, man." + +Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue. + +"Oh, my captain, my captain!--noble heart--go not--go not!--see, it's a +brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!" + +"Lower away!"--cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by +the crew!" + +In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. + +"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; +"O master, my master, come back!" + +But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the +boat leaped on. + +Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when +numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath +the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they +dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their +bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in +those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in +the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching +regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been +observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; +and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow +barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the +sharks--a matter sometimes well known to affect them,--however it was, +they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others. + +"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and +following with his eyes the receding boat--"canst thou yet ring boldly +to that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by +them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?--For +when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure +the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening +and the end of that thing--be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what +is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet +expectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, +as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. +Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to +see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem +clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey's end coming? My legs +feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,--beats +it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!--stave it off--move, move! +speak aloud!--Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the +hill?--Crazed;--aloft there!--keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:-- + +"Mark well the whale!--Ho! again!--drive off that hawk! see! he pecks--he +tears the vane"--pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck--"Ha! +he soars away with it!--Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight, +oh Ahab!--shudder, shudder!" + +The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads--a +downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but +intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little +sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest +silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered against the +opposing bow. + +"Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads +drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no +hearse can be mine:--and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!" + +Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then +quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of +ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a +subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with +trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, +but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it +hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back +into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for +an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of +flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the +marble trunk of the whale. + +"Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to +the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in +him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell +from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad +white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; +as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more +flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two +mates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, +but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar. + +While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the +whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he +shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round +and round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, +during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines +around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment +frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab. + +The harpoon dropped from his hand. + +"Befooled, befooled!"--drawing in a long lean breath--"Aye, Parsee! I +see thee again.--Aye, and thou goest before; and this, THIS then is the +hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of +thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those +boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to +me; if not, Ahab is enough to die--Down, men! the first thing that but +offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are +not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.--Where's the +whale? gone down again?" + +But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the +corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had +been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily +swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,--which thus far had +been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present +her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost +velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the +sea. + +"Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it, even now, the third +day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that +madly seekest him!" + +Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to +leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding +by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as he +leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow +him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he +saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three +mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats +which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in +repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, +he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves +on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he +heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving +a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or +flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had +just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer +and nails, and so nail it to the mast. + +Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance +to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some +latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White +Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly +nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not been +so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the +unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the +boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became +jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost +every dip. + +"Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! +'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water." + +"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!" + +"They will last long enough! pull on!--But who can tell"--he +muttered--"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on +Ahab?--But pull on! Aye, all alive, now--we near him. The helm! take the +helm! let me pass,"--and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward +to the bows of the still flying boat. + +At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along +with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its +advance--as the whale sometimes will--and Ahab was fairly within the +smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout, curled +round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, +with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the +poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the +hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked +into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh +flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly +canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the +gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed +into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen--who foreknew not the +precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its +effects--these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of +them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing +wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly +dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. + +Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, +instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering +sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with +the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their +seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line +felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! + +"What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!--'tis whole again; oars! oars! +Burst in upon him!" + +Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled +round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, +catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing +in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it--it may be--a +larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing +prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. + +Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind; hands! +stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't night?" + +"The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen. + +"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for +ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: +the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?" + +But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the +sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks +burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat +lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying +hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. + +Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer +remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as +with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own +forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the +bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon +as he. + +"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, +now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's +fainting fit. Up helm, I say--ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the +end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, +Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! +He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, +whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!" + +"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help +Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! +Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking +eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too +soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou +grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of +as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet +ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou +grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye +not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in +his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;--cherries! +cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!" + +"Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope +my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will +now come to her, for the voyage is up." + +From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, +bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their +hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their +enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely +vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading +semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, +eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal +man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's +starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their +faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook +on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters +pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. + +"The ship! The hearse!--the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; +"its wood could only be American!" + +Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its +keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far +off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a +time, he lay quiescent. + +"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. +Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only +god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed +prow,--death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I +cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, +lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in +my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, +ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber +of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering +whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at +thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins +and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let +me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, +thou damned whale! THUS, I give up the spear!" + +The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting +velocity the line ran through the grooves;--ran foul. Ahab stooped to +clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the +neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was +shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the +heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty +tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its +depths. + +For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. "The +ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering +mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; +only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or +fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers +still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, concentric +circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating +oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all +round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod +out of sight. + +But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the +sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the +erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, +which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying +billows they almost touched;--at that instant, a red arm and a hammer +hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing +the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that +tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home +among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; +this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the +hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, +the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen +there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his +imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the +flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink +to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and +helmeted herself with it. + +Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white +surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great +shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. + + + + +Epilogue + +"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE" Job. + +The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?--Because one +did survive the wreck. + +It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the +Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman +assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three +men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, +floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, +when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, +but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had +subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting +towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling +circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital +centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of +its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great +force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and +floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day +and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, +they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks +sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, +and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in +her retracing search after her missing children, only found another +orphan. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + +***** This file should be named 2701.txt or 2701.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/0/2701/ + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus and Jonesey + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/inputs/pg4300.txt b/inputs/pg4300.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ef7df1 --- /dev/null +++ b/inputs/pg4300.txt @@ -0,0 +1,33055 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulysses, by James Joyce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ulysses + +Author: James Joyce + +Posting Date: August 1, 2008 [EBook #4300] +Release Date: July, 2003 +[Last updated: November 17, 2011] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULYSSES *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat + + + + + +ULYSSES + +by James Joyce + + + + +-- I -- + +Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of +lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, +ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He +held the bowl aloft and intoned: + +--_Introibo ad altare Dei_. + +Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: + +--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit! + +Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about +and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the +awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent +towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat +and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned +his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking +gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light +untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. + +Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the +bowl smartly. + +--Back to barracks! he said sternly. + +He added in a preacher's tone: + +--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul +and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One +moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. + +He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused +awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there +with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered +through the calm. + +--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off +the current, will you? + +He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering +about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and +sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. +A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. + +--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek! + +He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, +laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily +halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as +he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and +lathered cheeks and neck. + +Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on. + +--My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a +Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. +We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out +twenty quid? + +He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried: + +--Will he come? The jejune jesuit! + +Ceasing, he began to shave with care. + +--Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. + +--Yes, my love? + +--How long is Haines going to stay in this tower? + +Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder. + +--God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks +you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money +and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you +have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you +is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade. + +He shaved warily over his chin. + +--He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is +his guncase? + +--A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk? + +--I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark +with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a +black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If +he stays on here I am off. + +Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down +from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily. + +--Scutter! he cried thickly. + +He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper +pocket, said: + +--Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. + +Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a +dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. +Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said: + +--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. +You can almost taste it, can't you? + +He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair +oakpale hair stirring slightly. + +--God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey +sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. _Epi oinopa +ponton_. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them +in the original. _Thalatta! Thalatta_! She is our great sweet mother. +Come and look. + +Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked +down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of +Kingstown. + +--Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said. + +He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's +face. + +--The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't +let me have anything to do with you. + +--Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily. + +--You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother +asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to +think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and +pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you... + +He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant +smile curled his lips. + +--But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest +mummer of them all! + +He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously. + +Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against +his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. +Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in +a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its +loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her +breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of +wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a +great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay +and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had +stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had +torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. + +Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade. + +--Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt +and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks? + +--They fit well enough, Stephen answered. + +Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. + +--The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God +knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair +stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You +look damn well when you're dressed. + +--Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey. + +--He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. +Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey +trousers. + +He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the +smooth skin. + +Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its +smokeblue mobile eyes. + +--That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, +says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General +paralysis of the insane! + +He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad +in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and +the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong +wellknit trunk. + +--Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard! + +Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by +a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this +face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too. + +--I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her +all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead +him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula. + +Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes. + +--The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If +Wilde were only alive to see you! + +Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness: + +--It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant. + +Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him +round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he +had thrust them. + +--It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. +God knows you have more spirit than any of them. + +Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The +cold steelpen. + +--Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap +downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and +thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling +jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I +could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise +it. + +Cranly's arm. His arm. + +--And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one +that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you +up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll +bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave +Clive Kempthorpe. + +Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces: +they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall +expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit +ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the +table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the +tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't +want to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me! + +Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf +gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower +on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. + +To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos. + +--Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at +night. + +--Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm +quite frank with you. What have you against me now? + +They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the +water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly. + +--Do you wish me to tell you? he asked. + +--Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything. + +He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow, +fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of +anxiety in his eyes. + +Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said: + +--Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's +death? + +Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said: + +--What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and +sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God? + +--You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to +get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the +drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room. + +--Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget. + +--You said, Stephen answered, _O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is +beastly dead._ + +A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck +Mulligan's cheek. + +--Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that? + +He shook his constraint from him nervously. + +--And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You +saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and +Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly +thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel +down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? +Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the +wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes +are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks +buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her +last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like +some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I +didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother. + +He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping +wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly: + +--I am not thinking of the offence to my mother. + +--Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked. + +--Of the offence to me, Stephen answered. + +Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel. + +--O, an impossible person! he exclaimed. + +He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, +gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew +dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt +the fever of his cheeks. + +A voice within the tower called loudly: + +--Are you up there, Mulligan? + +--I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered. + +He turned towards Stephen and said: + +--Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, +Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. + +His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level +with the roof: + +--Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the +moody brooding. + +His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of +the stairhead: + + _And no more turn aside and brood + Upon love's bitter mystery + For Fergus rules the brazen cars._ + + +Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the +stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of +water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of +the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the +harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words +shimmering on the dim tide. + +A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in +deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song: +I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her +door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity +I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those +words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery. + +Where now? + +Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, +a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny +window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the +pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang: + + _I am the boy + That can enjoy + Invisibility._ + + +Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed. + +_And no more turn aside and brood._ + + +Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his +brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had +approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, +roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely +fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's +shirts. + +In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its +loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, +bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes. + +Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me +alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured +face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on +their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. _Liliata rutilantium te +confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat._ + +Ghoul! Chewer of corpses! + +No, mother! Let me be and let me live. + +--Kinch ahoy! + +Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the +staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, +heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words. + +--Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is +apologising for waking us last night. It's all right. + +--I'm coming, Stephen said, turning. + +--Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our +sakes. + +His head disappeared and reappeared. + +--I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch +him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean. + +--I get paid this morning, Stephen said. + +--The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one. + +--If you want it, Stephen said. + +--Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll +have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent +sovereigns. + +He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of +tune with a Cockney accent: + + _O, won't we have a merry time, + Drinking whisky, beer and wine! + On coronation, + Coronation day! + O, won't we have a merry time + On coronation day!_ + + +Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone, +forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there +all day, forgotten friendship? + +He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, +smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. +So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and +yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant. + +In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form +moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its +yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor +from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of +coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning. + +--We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you? + +Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the +hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open +the inner doors. + +--Have you the key? a voice asked. + +--Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked! + +He howled, without looking up from the fire: + +--Kinch! + +--It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward. + +The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been +set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the +doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and +sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside +him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set +them down heavily and sighed with relief. + +--I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a +word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, +come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. +Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk. + +Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from +the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet. + +--What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight. + +--We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the +locker. + +--O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove +milk. + +Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly: + +--That woman is coming up with the milk. + +--The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his +chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, +I can't go fumbling at the damned eggs. + +He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three +plates, saying: + +--_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti._ + +Haines sat down to pour out the tea. + +--I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do +make strong tea, don't you? + +Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's +wheedling voice: + +--When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I +makes water I makes water. + +--By Jove, it is tea, Haines said. + +Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling: + +--_So I do, Mrs Cahill,_ says she. _Begob, ma'am,_ says Mrs Cahill, _God +send you don't make them in the one pot._ + +He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled +on his knife. + +--That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five +lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of +Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind. + +He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his +brows: + +--Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken +of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads? + +--I doubt it, said Stephen gravely. + +--Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray? + +--I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the +Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann. + +Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight. + +--Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth +and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming! + +Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened +rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf: + + _--For old Mary Ann + She doesn't care a damn. + But, hising up her petticoats..._ + + +He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned. + +The doorway was darkened by an entering form. + +--The milk, sir! + +--Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug. + +An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow. + +--That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God. + +--To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure! + +Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker. + +--The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of +the collector of prepuces. + +--How much, sir? asked the old woman. + +--A quart, Stephen said. + +He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white +milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and +a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe +a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. +Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her +toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed +about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old +woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of +an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common +cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, +whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour. + +--It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups. + +--Taste it, sir, she said. + +He drank at her bidding. + +--If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat +loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten +guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with +dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits. + +--Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked. + +--I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered. + +--Look at that now, she said. + +Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice +that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she +slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there +is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in +God's likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids +her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes. + +--Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her. + +--Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines. + +Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently. + +--Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you? + +--I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the +west, sir? + +--I am an Englishman, Haines answered. + +--He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak +Irish in Ireland. + +--Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak +the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows. + +--Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill +us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am? + +--No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the +milkcan on her forearm and about to go. + +Haines said to her: + +--Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we? + +Stephen filled again the three cups. + +--Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at +twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three +mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a +shilling and one and two is two and two, sir. + +Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly +buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his +trouser pockets. + +--Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling. + +Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the +thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in +his fingers and cried: + +--A miracle! + +He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying: + +--Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give. + +Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand. + +--We'll owe twopence, he said. + +--Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good +morning, sir. + +She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant: + + _--Heart of my heart, were it more, + More would be laid at your feet._ + + +He turned to Stephen and said: + +--Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring +us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland +expects that every man this day will do his duty. + +--That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your +national library today. + +--Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said. + +He turned to Stephen and asked blandly: + +--Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch? + +Then he said to Haines: + +--The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month. + +--All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey +trickle over a slice of the loaf. + +Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the +loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke: + +--I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me. + +Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. +Conscience. Yet here's a spot. + +--That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol +of Irish art is deuced good. + +Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth +of tone: + +--Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines. + +--Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just +thinking of it when that poor old creature came in. + +--Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked. + +Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of +the hammock, said: + +--I don't know, I'm sure. + +He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and +said with coarse vigour: + +--You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for? + +--Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the +milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think. + +--I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along +with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes. + +--I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him. + +Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm. + +--From me, Kinch, he said. + +In a suddenly changed tone he added: + +--To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they +are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. +Let us get out of the kip. + +He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying +resignedly: + +--Mulligan is stripped of his garments. + +He emptied his pockets on to the table. + +--There's your snotrag, he said. + +And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, +chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and +rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God, +we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and +green boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I +contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of +his talking hands. + +--And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said. + +Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the +doorway: + +--Are you coming, you fellows? + +--I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out, +Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out +with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow: + +--And going forth he met Butterly. + +Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out +and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and +locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket. + +At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked: + +--Did you bring the key? + +--I have it, Stephen said, preceding them. + +He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy +bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses. + +--Down, sir! How dare you, sir! + +Haines asked: + +--Do you pay rent for this tower? + +--Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said. + +--To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder. + +They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last: + +--Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it? + +--Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on +the sea. But ours is the _omphalos_. + +--What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen. + +--No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aquinas +and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I +have a few pints in me first. + +He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his +primrose waistcoat: + +--You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you? + +--It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer. + +--You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox? + +--Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. +It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is +Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own +father. + +--What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself? + +Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in +loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear: + +--O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father! + +--We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is +rather long to tell. + +Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands. + +--The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said. + +--I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this +tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. _That beetles +o'er his base into the sea,_ isn't it? + +Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did +not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in +cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires. + +--It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again. + +Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. +The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the +smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail +tacking by the Muglins. + +--I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. +The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the +Father. + +Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked +at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had +suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved +a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and +began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice: + + _--I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard. + My mother's a jew, my father's a bird. + With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree. + So here's to disciples and Calvary._ + + +He held up a forefinger of warning. + + _--If anyone thinks that I amn't divine + He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine + But have to drink water and wish it were plain + That i make when the wine becomes water again._ + + +He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward +to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or +wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted: + + _--Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said + And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead. + What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly + And Olivet's breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye!_ + + +He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his +winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh +wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries. + +Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and +said: + +--We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a +believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of +it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner? + +--The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered. + +--O, Haines said, you have heard it before? + +--Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily. + +--You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in +the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a +personal God. + +--There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said. + +Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a +green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it. + +--Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette. + +Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his +sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang +it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk +towards Stephen in the shell of his hands. + +--Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe +or you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a +personal God. You don't stand for that, I suppose? + +--You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible +example of free thought. + +He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his +side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. +My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line +along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. +He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt +bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his +eyes. + +--After all, Haines began... + +Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not +all unkind. + +--After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your +own master, it seems to me. + +--I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an +Italian. + +--Italian? Haines said. + +A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me. + +--And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs. + +--Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean? + +--The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and +the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church. + +Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he +spoke. + +--I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think +like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather +unfairly. It seems history is to blame. + +The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph +of their brazen bells: _et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam +ecclesiam:_ the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own +rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the +mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in +affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church +militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies +fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of +whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the +consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning +Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who +held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken +a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void +awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a +worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, +who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their +shields. + +Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. _Zut! Nom de Dieu!_ + +--Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and I feel as one. I +don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. +That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now. + +Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman, boatman. + +--She's making for Bullock harbour. + +The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain. + +--There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way +when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today. + +The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting +for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, +saltwhite. Here I am. + +They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on +a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. +A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise +his green legs in the deep jelly of the water. + +--Is the brother with you, Malachi? + +--Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons. + +--Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young +thing down there. Photo girl he calls her. + +--Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure. + +Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near +the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, +water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water +rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black +sagging loincloth. + +Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines +and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips +and breastbone. + +--Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of +rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army. + +--Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said. + +--Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily? + +--Yes. + +--Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with +money. + +--Is she up the pole? + +--Better ask Seymour that. + +--Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said. + +He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying +tritely: + +--Redheaded women buck like goats. + +He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt. + +--My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the _Uebermensch._ Toothless +Kinch and I, the supermen. + +He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his +clothes lay. + +--Are you going in here, Malachi? + +--Yes. Make room in the bed. + +The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached +the middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a +stone, smoking. + +--Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked. + +--Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. + +Stephen turned away. + +--I'm going, Mulligan, he said. + +--Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat. + +Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped +clothes. + +--And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there. + +Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck +Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly: + +--He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake +Zarathustra. + +His plump body plunged. + +--We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the +path and smiling at wild Irish. + +Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon. + +--The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve. + +--Good, Stephen said. + +He walked along the upwardcurving path. + + _Liliata rutilantium. + Turma circumdet. + Iubilantium te virginum._ + + +The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will +not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. + +A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning +the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a +seal's, far out on the water, round. + +Usurper. + + + +--You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? + +--Tarentum, sir. + +--Very good. Well? + +--There was a battle, sir. + +--Very good. Where? + +The boy's blank face asked the blank window. + +Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as +memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings +of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling +masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then? + +--I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C. + +--Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the +gorescarred book. + +--Yes, sir. And he said: _Another victory like that and we are done +for._ + +That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From +a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, +leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. + +--You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? + +--End of Pyrrhus, sir? + +--I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. + +--Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? + +A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them +between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to +the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud +that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico road, Dalkey. + +--Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. + +All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round +at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh +more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay. + +--Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, +what is a pier. + +--A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a +bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. + +Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench +whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. +All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their +likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets +tittering in the struggle. + +--Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. + +The words troubled their gaze. + +--How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river. + +For Haines's chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild +drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A +jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a +clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly +for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other +too often heard, their land a pawnshop. + +Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not +been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has +branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite +possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing +that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass? +Weave, weaver of the wind. + +--Tell us a story, sir. + +--O, do, sir. A ghoststory. + +--Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book. + +-_-Weep no more,_ Comyn said. + +--Go on then, Talbot. + +--And the story, sir? + +--After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot. + +A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork +of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text: + + _--Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more + For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor..._ + + +It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. +Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated +out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he +had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow +a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains +about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and +in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of +brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of +thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the +soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of +forms. + +Talbot repeated: + + _--Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, + Through the dear might..._ + + +--Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything. + +--What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward. + +His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again, having +just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these +craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and +on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the +tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long +look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the +church's looms. Ay. + + _Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro. + My father gave me seeds to sow._ + + +Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel. + +--Have I heard all? Stephen asked. + +--Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir. + +--Half day, sir. Thursday. + +--Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked. + +They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling. +Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling +gaily: + +--A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir. + +--O, ask me, sir. + +--A hard one, sir. + +--This is the riddle, Stephen said: + + _The cock crew, + The sky was blue: + The bells in heaven + Were striking eleven. + 'Tis time for this poor soul + To go to heaven._ + + +What is that? + +--What, sir? + +--Again, sir. We didn't hear. + +Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence +Cochrane said: + +--What is it, sir? We give it up. + +Stephen, his throat itching, answered: + +--The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush. + +He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries +echoed dismay. + +A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called: + +--Hockey! + +They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly +they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and +clamour of their boots and tongues. + +Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open +copybook. His thick hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness +and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his +cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent +and damp as a snail's bed. + +He held out his copybook. The word _Sums_ was written on the headline. +Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with +blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal. + +--Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them +to you, sir. + +Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility. + +--Do you understand how to do them now? he asked. + +--Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to +copy them off the board, sir. + +--Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked. + +--No, sir. + +Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail's +bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. +But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, +a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained +from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His +mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. +She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, +an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being +trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul +gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek +of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, +listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped. + +Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by algebra +that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. Sargent peered askance +through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom: the +hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field. + +Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of +their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, +traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from +the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, +flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a +darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend. + +--Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself? + +--Yes, sir. + +In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a word +of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of +shame flickering behind his dull skin. _Amor matris:_ subjective and +objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed +him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands. + +Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My +childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or +lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony +sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their +tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned. + +The sum was done. + +--It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up. + +--Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered. + +He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his +copybook back to his bench. + +--You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said +as he followed towards the door the boy's graceless form. + +--Yes, sir. + +In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield. + +--Sargent! + +--Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you. + +He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy +field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and +Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet. When +he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to him. He +turned his angry white moustache. + +--What is it now? he cried continually without listening. + +--Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said. + +--Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore +order here. + +And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man's voice +cried sternly: + +--What is the matter? What is it now? + +Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms closed +round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his illdyed head. + +Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded leather +of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it was +in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, +base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their spooncase +of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to all the +gentiles: world without end. + +A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his +rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table. + +--First, our little financial settlement, he said. + +He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It +slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and +laid them carefully on the table. + +--Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away. + +And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen's embarrassed hand moved +over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money +cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir's turban, and +this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim's hoard, dead treasure, +hollow shells. + +A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth. + +--Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand. +These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is for +shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See. + +He shot from it two crowns and two shillings. + +--Three twelve, he said. I think you'll find that's right. + +--Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy +haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers. + +--No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it. + +Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too +of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket: symbols soiled by greed and +misery. + +--Don't carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You'll pull it out somewhere +and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You'll find them very +handy. + +Answer something. + +--Mine would be often empty, Stephen said. + +The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times +now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this instant +if I will. + +--Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don't +know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as I +have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? +_Put but money in thy purse._ + +--Iago, Stephen murmured. + +He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man's stare. + +--He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but +an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you +know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman's +mouth? + +The seas' ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it seems +history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating. + +--That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets. + +--Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That's not English. A French Celt said that. He +tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail. + +--I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. _I paid +my way._ + +Good man, good man. + +_--I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life._ Can you feel +that? _I owe nothing._ Can you? + +Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties. +Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings. +Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob +Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five +weeks' board. The lump I have is useless. + +--For the moment, no, Stephen answered. + +Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox. + +--I knew you couldn't, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it. +We are a generous people but we must also be just. + +--I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy. + +Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the +shapely bulk of a man in tartan filibegs: Albert Edward, prince of +Wales. + +--You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. +I saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine in +'46. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the +union twenty years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your +communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. + +Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the +splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the +planters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie +down. + +Stephen sketched a brief gesture. + +--I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But +I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are +all Irish, all kings' sons. + +--Alas, Stephen said. + +--_Per vias rectas_, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for +it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do +so. + + _Lal the ral the ra + The rocky road to Dublin._ + + +A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John! +Soft day, your honour!... Day!... Day!... Two topboots jog dangling +on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy. + +--That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, +with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press. +Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end. + +He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read +off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter. + +--Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, _the dictates of +common sense._ Just a moment. + +He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow +and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, +sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error. + +Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed +around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek +heads poised in air: lord Hastings' Repulse, the duke of Westminster's +Shotover, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, _prix de Paris_, 1866. Elfin +riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing king's +colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds. + +--Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this +allimportant question... + +Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the +mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek +of the canteen, over the motley slush. Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even +money the favourite: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers +we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets and past +the meatfaced woman, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of +orange. + +Shouts rang shrill from the boys' playfield and a whirring whistle. + +Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, +the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who seems +to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. +Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, +a shout of spearspikes baited with men's bloodied guts. + +--Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising. + +He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up. + +--I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It's about +the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two +opinions on the matter. + +May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of _laissez faire_ +which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old +industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. +European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of +the channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of +agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who +was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue. + +--I don't mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on. + +Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum and virus. +Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's horses at Murzsteg, +lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous +offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In +every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the +hospitality of your columns. + +--I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the +next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can +be cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is +regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They +offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with +the department. Now I'm going to try publicity. I am surrounded by +difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairs influence by... + +He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke. + +--Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the +jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are +the signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the +nation's vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure +as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of +destruction. Old England is dying. + +He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a +broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again. + +--Dying, he said again, if not dead by now. + + _The harlot's cry from street to street + Shall weave old England's windingsheet._ + + +His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which +he halted. + +--A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or +gentile, is he not? + +--They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see +the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the +earth to this day. + +On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting +prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud, +uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk +hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full +slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but +knew the rancours massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain +patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard +heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew their +years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh. + +--Who has not? Stephen said. + +--What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked. + +He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell +sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me. + +--History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. + +From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal. +What if that nightmare gave you a back kick? + +--The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human +history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God. + +Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: + +--That is God. + +Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! + +--What? Mr Deasy asked. + +--A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders. + +Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose tweaked +between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free. + +--I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and +many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no +better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten +years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the +strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough's wife and her leman, O'Rourke, +prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many +failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my +days. But I will fight for the right till the end. + + _For Ulster will fight + And Ulster will be right._ + + +Stephen raised the sheets in his hand. + +--Well, sir, he began... + +--I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long +at this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am +wrong. + +--A learner rather, Stephen said. + +And here what will you learn more? + +Mr Deasy shook his head. + +--Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great +teacher. + +Stephen rustled the sheets again. + +--As regards these, he began. + +--Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them +published at once. + +_ Telegraph. Irish Homestead._ + +--I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two +editors slightly. + +--That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field, +M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the +City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You +see if you can get it into your two papers. What are they? + +_--The Evening Telegraph..._ + +--That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to +answer that letter from my cousin. + +--Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket. +Thank you. + +--Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I +like to break a lance with you, old as I am. + +--Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back. + +He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees, +hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. +The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate: +toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub +me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard. + +--Mr Dedalus! + +Running after me. No more letters, I hope. + +--Just one moment. + +--Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate. + +Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath. + +--I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of +being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know +that? No. And do you know why? + +He frowned sternly on the bright air. + +--Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile. + +--Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly. + +A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a +rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, +his lifted arms waving to the air. + +--She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he +stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why. + +On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung +spangles, dancing coins. + + +Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought +through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn +and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, +rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. +Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By +knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a +millionaire, _maestro di color che sanno_. Limit of the diaphane in. Why +in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it +is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see. + + +Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and +shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. +A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: +the _nacheinander_. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the +audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles +o'er his base, fell through the _nebeneinander_ ineluctably! I am +getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with +it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs, +_nebeneinander_. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of _Los Demiurgos_. +Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, +crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a'. Won't you come to +Sandymount, Madeline the mare? + + +Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. Acatalectic tetrameter of iambs +marching. No, agallop: _deline the mare_. + +Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I +open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. _Basta_! I will see if I +can see. + +See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world +without end. + +They came down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, _Frauenzimmer_: +and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in +the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. +Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in +the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, +relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One +of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. +What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed +in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of +all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your +omphalos. Hello! Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: +nought, nought, one. + +Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. +Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, +no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to +everlasting. Womb of sin. + +Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man +with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. +They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the ages +He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A _lex eterna_ stays +about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are +consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring +his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred +heresiarch' In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. +With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of +a widowed see, with upstiffed omophorion, with clotted hinderparts. + +Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves. +The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of +Mananaan. + +I mustn't forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half +twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile. + +Yes, I must. + +His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara's or not? My +consubstantial father's voice. Did you see anything of your artist +brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with +his aunt Sally? Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And and and +and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the things I +married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little costdrawer +and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable gondoliers! And +skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. +Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ! + +I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take +me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. + +--It's Stephen, sir. + +--Let him in. Let Stephen in. + +A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me. + +--We thought you were someone else. + +In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the +hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the +upper moiety. + +--Morrow, nephew. + +He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for +the eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and +common searches and a writ of _Duces Tecum_. A bogoak frame over his +bald head: Wilde's _Requiescat_. The drone of his misleading whistle +brings Walter back. + +--Yes, sir? + +--Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she? + +--Bathing Crissie, sir. + +Papa's little bedpal. Lump of love. + +--No, uncle Richie... + +--Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky! + +--Uncle Richie, really... + +--Sit down or by the law Harry I'll knock you down. + +Walter squints vainly for a chair. + +--He has nothing to sit down on, sir. + +--He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair. +Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs +here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the +better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills. + +_All'erta_! + +He drones bars of Ferrando's _aria di sortita_. The grandest number, +Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen. + +His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the air, +his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees. + +This wind is sweeter. + +Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you +had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of +them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's +library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? +The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind +ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon, +his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine +faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas +father,--furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! +_Descende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris_. A garland of grey hair +on his comminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace +(_descende_!), clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! +A choir gives back menace and echo, assisting about the altar's horns, +the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured +and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat. + +And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating +it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx. +Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own +cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that, +invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled +his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his +second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and, +rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang +in diphthong. + +Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were +awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you +might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue +that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the +wet street. _O si, certo_! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned +round a squaw. More tell me, more still!! On the top of the Howth tram +alone crying to the rain: Naked women! _naked women_! What about that, +eh? + +What about what? What else were they invented for? + +Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. +You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause +earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one +saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. +Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O +yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply +deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the +world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few +thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very +like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one +feels that one is at one with one who once... + +The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again +a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the +unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. +Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing +upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a +midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle +stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: +isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze +of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the +higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams +of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. + +He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? +Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand +towards the Pigeonhouse. + +_--Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?_ + +_--c'est le pigeon, Joseph._ + +Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. +Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he +lapped the sweet _lait chaud_ with pink young tongue, plump bunny's +face. Lap, _lapin._ He hopes to win in the _gros lots_. About the nature +of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me _La Vie de Jesus_ by +M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. + +_--C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas +en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re._ + +_--Il croit?_ + +_--Mon pere, oui._ + +_Schluss_. He laps. + +My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want +puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other +devil's name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: _physiques, chimiques et +naturelles_. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of _mou en civet_, fleshpots +of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural +tone: when I was in Paris; _boul' Mich'_, I used to. Yes, used to +carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder +somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the +prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. +Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. _Lui, c'est moi_. You seem to have enjoyed +yourself. + +Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a +dispossessed. With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging +door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger +toothache. _Encore deux minutes_. Look clock. Must get. _Ferme_. Hired +dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered +walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not +hurt? O, that's all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's +all right. Shake a shake. O, that's all only all right. + +You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery +Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from +their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: _Euge! Euge_! Pretending to speak +broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across +the slimy pier at Newhaven. _Comment?_ Rich booty you brought back; _Le +Tutu_, five tattered numbers of _Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge_; a +blue French telegram, curiosity to show: + +--Mother dying come home father. + +The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't. + + _Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt + And I'll tell you the reason why. + She always kept things decent in + The Hannigan famileye._ + + +His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by +the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone +mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is +there, the slender trees, the lemon houses. + +Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of +farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court +the air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the +kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In +Rodot's Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering +with gold teeth _chaussons_ of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the +_pus_ of _flan breton_. Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased +pleasers, curled conquistadores. + +Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers +smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his +white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. _Un demi +setier!_ A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me +at his beck. _Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, +nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui!_ She thought you wanted a cheese +_hollandais_. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. +There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call +it his postprandial. Well: _slainte_! Around the slabbed tables the +tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our +saucestained plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. +Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith +now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, +our crimes our common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. +His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at +his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called +queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. _Vieille ogresse_ +with the _dents jaunes_. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, _La Patrie_, M. +Millevoye, Felix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, +_bonne a tout faire_, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. +_Moi faire_, she said, _Tous les messieurs_. Not this _Monsieur_, I +said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn't let +my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, +I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people. + +The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose +tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw +facebones under his peep of day boy's hat. How the head centre got away, +authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, +drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the +betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not here. + +Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell you. +I'll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he +prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls +of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward +in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, +Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day's stations, +the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps +short night in, rue de la Goutte-d'Or, damascened with flyblown faces of +the gone. Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy +without her outcast man, madame in rue Git-le-Coeur, canary and two +buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young thing's. +Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to +get poor Pat a job one time. _Mon fils_, soldier of France. I taught him +to sing _The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades_. Know that old +lay? I taught Patrice that. Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow's +castle on the Nore. Goes like this. O, O. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by +the hand. + + _O, O THE BOYS OF + KILKENNY..._ + + +Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them. +Remembering thee, O Sion. + +He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots. +The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of +seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, +am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the +quaking soil. Turn back. + +Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly +in new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the +barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my +feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, +nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, +their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned +platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when +this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their--blind +bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his +feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take +all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon's +midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing +Elsinore's tempting flood. + +The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back +then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge +and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a +grike. + +A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the +gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. _Un coche ensablé_ Louis Veuillot +called Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind +have silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren +of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and +stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one +bang on the ear. I'm the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well +boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz +an Iridzman. + +A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. +Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not +be master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From +farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, +two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. +Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who? + +Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their +bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, +torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the +collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, +spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city +a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, +scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and +slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among +them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering +resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me. + +The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I +just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. _Terribilia meditans_. A +primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you +pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The +Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, +York's false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of +a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion +crowned. All kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved +men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers +who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of... +We don't want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he +did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. _Natürlich_, put there for you. +Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off +Maiden's rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I +would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. +When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's +behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in +on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If +I had land under my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be +mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his +death. I... With him together down... I could not save her. Waters: +bitter death: lost. + +A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet. + +Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on +all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made +off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a +lowskimming gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He +turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a +field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of +the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His +snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented +towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, +plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves. + +Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping, +soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped +running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again +reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as +they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from +his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a +calf's gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked +round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like +a dog all over the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes +on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies +poor dogsbody's body. + +--Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel! + +The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless +kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He +slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he +lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed +against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed +quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His +hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved. +Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand, +dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand +again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in +spousebreach, vulturing the dead. + +After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway. +Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That +man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my +face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red +carpet spread. You will see who. + +Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet +out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler +strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the +ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and +shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed. +Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides +her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway +where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in +O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O, +my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. +Fumbally's lane that night: the tanyard smells. + + _White thy fambles, red thy gan + And thy quarrons dainty is. + Couch a hogshead with me then. + In the darkmans clip and kiss._ + + +Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, _frate porcospino_. +Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: _thy quarrons +dainty is_. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber +on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. + +Passing now. + +A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I +am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming +sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps, +trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in +her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, _oinopa +ponton_, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep +the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of +death, ghostcandled. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. He comes, pale vampire, +through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth to her +mouth's kiss. + +Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss. + +No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss. + +His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb. +Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: +ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring +wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's +letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off. +Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and +scribbled words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library +counter. + +His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till +the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness +shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there +with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid +sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. +I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. +Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who +ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field. +Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne +took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with +coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: +yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat +I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in +stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is +in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our +sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the +more. + +She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue +hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of +the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges +Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you +were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the +braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief +and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a +pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and +yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings, +_piuttosto_. Where are your wits? + +Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me +soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. +Sad too. Touch, touch me. + +He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled +note and pencil into a pock his hat. His hat down on his eyes. That is +Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. _Et +vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona_. Alo! _Bonjour_. Welcome as the flowers +in May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the +southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal +noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the +tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far. + + _And no more turn aside and brood._ + +His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs, +_nebeneinander_. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein +another's foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in +tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's +shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. _Tiens, quel petit pied!_ +Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde's love that dare not speak its +name. His arm: Cranly's arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I +am. As I am. All or not at all. + +In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering +greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float +away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the +low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a +fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of +waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: +flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It +flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling. + +Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and +sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water +swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: +lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to, +they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, +awaiting the fullness of their times, _diebus ac noctibus iniurias +patiens ingemiscit_. To no end gathered; vainly then released, +forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of +lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a +toil of waters. + +Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he +said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose +drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising +saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. +There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery +floor. We have him. Easy now. + +Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a +spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. +God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed +mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a +urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes +upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to +the sun. + +A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths +known to man. Old Father Ocean. _Prix de paris_: beware of imitations. +Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. + +Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there? +Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, +_Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum_. No. My cockle hat and staff and +hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself. + +He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying +still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make +their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest +day. Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn +Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Già_. For the old hag with the yellow teeth. +And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Già_. My teeth are very +bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a +dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the +superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps? + +My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up? + +His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one. + +He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock, +carefully. For the rest let look who will. + +Behind. Perhaps there is someone. + +He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the +air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, +homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship. + + + + + +-- II -- + +Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. +He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, +liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all +he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of +faintly scented urine. + +Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting +her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the +kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel +a bit peckish. + +The coals were reddening. + +Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like +her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off +the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, +its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked +stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. + +--Mkgnao! + +--O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire. + +The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the +table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my +head. Prr. + +Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: +the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her +tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his +knees. + +--Milk for the pussens, he said. + +--Mrkgnao! the cat cried. + +They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we +understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. +Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder +what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me. + +--Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the +chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens. + +Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. + +--Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly. + +She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively +and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits +narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to +the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, +poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. + +--Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. + +He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped +three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they +can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or +kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps. + +He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this +drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a +mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better +a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped +slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? +To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round +him. No. + +On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by +the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter +she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way. + +He said softly in the bare hall: + +--I'm going round the corner. Be back in a minute. + +And when he had heard his voice say it he added: + +--You don't want anything for breakfast? + +A sleepy soft grunt answered: + +--Mn. + +No. She didn't want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, +as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. +Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. +Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for +it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. +Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At +Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. +Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was +farseeing. + +His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat +and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback +pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. +The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's +high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip +of paper. Quite safe. + +On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. +In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. +No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled +the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped +gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I +come back anyhow. + +He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number +seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a +warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black +conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in +that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as +he walked in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our +daily but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. +Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at +dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep +it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, +strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old +Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander +through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet +shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled +pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel, +sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, +meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among the +pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, +the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from +her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark language. High +wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's +new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those instruments +what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass. + +Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track +of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What +Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_ leader: a +homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank +of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule +sun rising up in the north-west. + +He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the +flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out +whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the +end of the city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as +position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from +the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot. + +Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an +ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my +bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching +the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him +off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going to +tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, +they'd only be an eight o'clock breakfast for the Japanese. + +Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor +Dignam, Mr O'Rourke. + +Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the +doorway: + +--Good day, Mr O'Rourke. + +--Good day to you. + +--Lovely weather, sir. + +--'Tis all that. + +Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county +Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, +they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then thin of the +competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without +passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down +three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs and +drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the +town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll split the job, +see? + +How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels +of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint +Joseph's National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air +helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee +doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At +their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom. + +He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, +polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened +in his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links, +packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the +lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs' blood. + +A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He +stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling +the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a pound and +a half of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. +Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. +No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the +clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt +swings at each whack. + +The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with +blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer. + +He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at +Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter +sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round +it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: +read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page +rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the +beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the +breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm +on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in +their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and +his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging, +whack by whack by whack. + +The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime +sausages and made a red grimace. + +--Now, my miss, he said. + +She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out. + +--Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you, +please? + +Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went +slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the +morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood +outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He +sighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted +toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. +The sting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For +another: a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles lane. They like +them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the +wood. + +--Threepence, please. + +His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket. +Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them +on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, +disc by disc, into the till. + +--Thank you, sir. Another time. + +A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze +after an instant. No: better not: another time. + +--Good morning, he said, moving away. + +--Good morning, sir. + +No sign. Gone. What matter? + +He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: +planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish +government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel +and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. +You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, +oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial +irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered +for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the +balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15. + +Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it. + +He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered +olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in +jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows +the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons +too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky +with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's +basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it +to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild +perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high prices too, +Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times. +Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, +Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, +chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them barefoot in +soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn't +see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like that +Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today. Watering cart. To +provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven. + +A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far. + +No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead +sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those +waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it +raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead +names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the +oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a +naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over +all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born +everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old +woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. + +Desolation. + +Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned +into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, +chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here +now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of +the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. +Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? +Valuation is only twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: +parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell +the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her +ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. + +Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim +sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a +girl with gold hair on the wind. + +Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered +them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. +Mrs Marion. + +--Poldy! + +Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm +yellow twilight towards her tousled head. + +--Who are the letters for? + +He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly. + +--A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And +a letter for you. + +He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her +knees. + +--Do you want the blind up? + +Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her +glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow. + +--That do? he asked, turning. + +She was reading the card, propped on her elbow. + +--She got the things, she said. + +He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back +slowly with a snug sigh. + +--Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched. + +--The kettle is boiling, he said. + +But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled +linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed. + +As he went down the kitchen stairs she called: + +--Poldy! + +--What? + +--Scald the teapot. + +On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and +rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the +kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took off +the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump +of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed +hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they +won't eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to +her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He +sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup. + +Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks: +new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's +seaside girls. + +The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown + +Derby, smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, +wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces +of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring. + + _O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling. + You are my lookingglass from night to morning. + I'd rather have you without a farthing + Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden._ + + +Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous +old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And +the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into +the parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we +laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was. + +He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the +teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on +it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it +upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle. + +Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on +the chair by the bedhead. + +--What a time you were! she said. + +She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on +the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft +bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth +of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the +tea she poured. + +A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the +act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread. + +--Who was the letter from? he asked. + +Bold hand. Marion. + +--O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme. + +--What are you singing? + +--_La ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love's Old Sweet Song_. + +Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves +next day. Like foul flowerwater. + +--Would you like the window open a little? + +She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking: + +--What time is the funeral? + +--Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper. + +Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled +drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a +stocking: rumpled, shiny sole. + +--No: that book. + +Other stocking. Her petticoat. + +--It must have fell down, she said. + +He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she pronounces +that right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped +and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of +the orangekeyed chamberpot. + +--Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to +ask you. + +She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, +having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the +text with the hairpin till she reached the word. + +--Met him what? he asked. + +--Here, she said. What does that mean? + +He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail. + +--Metempsychosis? + +--Yes. Who's he when he's at home? + +--Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That +means the transmigration of souls. + +--O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words. + +He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes. +The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over +the smudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. Hello. Illustration. +Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor +naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flung his +victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. +Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your +neck and we'll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so +they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man's +soul after he dies. Dignam's soul... + +--Did you finish it? he asked. + +--Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the +first fellow all the time? + +--Never read it. Do you want another? + +--Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has. + +She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways. + +Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to +Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that's the word. + +--Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body +after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That +we all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other +planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past +lives. + +The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Bette remind +her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example? + +The _Bath of the Nymph_ over the bed. Given away with the Easter number +of _Photo Bits_: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you +put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six +I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked +nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then. + +He turned the pages back. + +--Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They +used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for +instance. What they called nymphs, for example. + +Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, +inhaling through her arched nostrils. + +--There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire? + +--The kidney! he cried suddenly. + +He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes +against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping +hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot +up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the +fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its back. +Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the +scanty brown gravy trickle over it. + +Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. +He shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a +forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant +meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, +sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about +some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, +reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in the +gravy and raising it to his mouth. + +Dearest Papli + +Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me +splendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I got +mummy's Iovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am +getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me +and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day +and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on +Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to +mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano +downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. +There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his +cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan's (I was on the +pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those seaside girls. Tell him +silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest love + +Your fond daughter, MILLY. + +P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby. M. + +Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first +birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she +was born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old +woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from +the first poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She +knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived. + +His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing. +Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the +XL Cafe about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. +Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after +piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do +worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea +to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice. + +O, well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has +happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild +piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. +Ripening now. + +Vain: very. + +He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught +her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. +Was given milk too long. On the ERIN'S KING that day round the Kish. +Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf +loose in the wind with her hair. _All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your +head it simply swirls._ + + +Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers' pockets, +jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. +Pier with lamps, summer evening, band, + + _Those girls, those girls, + Those lovely seaside girls._ + + +Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion. +Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, +braiding. + +A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, +yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen +too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. +Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman's lips. + +Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass +the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two +and six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Or +through M'Coy. + +The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper, +nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. +Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. +Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear +with her back to the fire too. + +He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood up, +undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him. + +--Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I'm ready. + +Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the +landing. + +A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as +I'm. + +In the tabledrawer he found an old number of _Titbits_. He folded it +under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in +soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed. + +Listening, he heard her voice: + +--Come, come, pussy. Come. + +He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen +towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. +The maid was in the garden. Fine morning. + +He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. +Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to +manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. +All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this +that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top +dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are +fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid +gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in +that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still gardens +have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday. + +He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the +peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand +too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. +Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown +brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder +have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox +there got away James Stephens, they say. O'Brien. + +Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss. +Enthusiast. + +He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get +these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head +under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy +limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he +peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his +countinghouse. Nobody. + +Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over +on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a +bit. Our prize titbit: _Matcham's Masterstroke_. Written by Mr Philip +Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea +a column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds +three. Three pounds, thirteen and six. + +Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but +resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he +allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still +patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's +not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive. One +tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch +him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly +season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat +certainly. _Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the +laughing witch who now_. Begins and ends morally. _Hand in hand_. Smart. +He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water +flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and +received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six. + +Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for +some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she +said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting +her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.l5. +Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What +possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A +speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot. + +Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning +after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the +hours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then +night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head +dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. +Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use +humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The +mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen +vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. +It wouldn't pan out somehow. + +Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with daggers +and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then black. +Still, true to life also. Day: then the night. + +He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. +Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled +back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom +into the air. + +In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully his +black trousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time +is the funeral? Better find out in the paper. + +A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's +church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron. + + _Heigho! Heigho! + Heigho! Heigho! + Heigho! Heigho!_ + + +Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third. + +Poor Dignam! + + +By lorries along sir John Rogerson's quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, past +Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph office. +Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned +from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. +By Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal +linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema +on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell +him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of +roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. +Slack hour: won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed +the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past +Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny +Kelleher bagged the job for O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. +Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. +Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. +O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a whatyoumaycall. With my +tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom. + + +In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental +Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend, +finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom +Kernan. Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read +blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his +right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. +Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather +headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down +into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a card behind the +headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket. + +So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and +hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice +blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it +must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, +cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like +that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in _dolce far niente_, +not doing a hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot +to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The +air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. +Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on +roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap +I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on his +back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so +thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of +the body in the water is equal to the weight of the what? Or is it the +volume is equal to the weight? It's a law something like that. Vance in +High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. +Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? +Thirtytwo feet per second per second. Law of falling bodies: per second +per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It's the force of +gravity of the earth is the weight. + +He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her +sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded _Freeman_ +from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and +tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: +just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per second for every second +it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of +the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one. In. + +He handed the card through the brass grill. + +--Are there any letters for me? he asked. + +While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting +poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his +baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer +probably. Went too far last time. + +The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a +letter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope. + +Henry Flower Esq, c/o P. O. Westland Row, City. + +Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket, +reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment? +Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a +grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. +Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to +enlist and drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell +street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on +the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or +halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. +Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed +up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes. + +He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if +that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger +felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. +Women will pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the +letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something +pinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No. + +M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when +you. + +--Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to? + +--Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular. + +--How's the body? + +--Fine. How are you? + +--Just keeping alive, M'Coy said. + +His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect: + +--Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're... + +--O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today. + +--To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time? + +A photo it isn't. A badge maybe. + +--E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered. + +--I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard +it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy? + +--I know. + +Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door +of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She +stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, +searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll +collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless +stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty +creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. +Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The honourable +Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take the starch +out of her. + +--I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what do +you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were. + +Doran Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came +Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath +his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the +braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight +perhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will +she get up? + +--And he said: _Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy?_ I +said. _Poor little Paddy Dignam_, he said. + +Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces +dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for? +Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two +strings to her bow. + +--_Why?_ I said. _What's wrong with him?_ I said. + +Proud: rich: silk stockings. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a +minute. + +--_What's wrong with him_? He said. _He's dead_, he said. And, faith, +he filled up. _Is it Paddy Dignam_? I said. I couldn't believe it when I +heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in +the Arch. _Yes,_ he said. _He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow_. +Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch! + +A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. + +Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and +the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace +street hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering +the display of _esprit de corps_. Well, what are you gaping at? + +--Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone. + +--One of the best, M'Coy said. + +The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich +gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her +hat in the sun: flicker, flick. + +--Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said. + +--O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks. + +He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly: + +_What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete With it an +abode of bliss._ + +--My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet. + +Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks. + +Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness. + +--My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the +Ulster Hall, Belfast, on the twenty-fifth. + +--That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up? + +Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and. +No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady +and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope. + + _Love's + Old + Sweet + Song + Comes lo-ove's old..._ + +--It's a kind of a tour, don't you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully. +_Sweeeet song_. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part +profits. + +M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble. + +--O, well, he said. That's good news. + +He moved to go. + +--Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +--Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral, +will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a +drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself +would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if +I'm not there, will you? + +--I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all right. + +--Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly +could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do. + +--That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly. + +Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd +like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped +corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him +his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of +it from that good day to this. + +Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has just +got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its +way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know: +in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't +he hear the difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against +my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that +smallpox up there doesn't get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be +vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife. + +Wonder is he pimping after me? + +Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured +hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's Summer +Sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. _Leah_ tonight. Mrs Bandmann +Palmer. Like to see her again in that. _Hamlet_ she played last night. +Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed +suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman in that. Outside +the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before +I was born that was: sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the +right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was +always talking about where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice +and puts his fingers on his face. + +Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left his +father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his +father and left the God of his father. + +Every word is so deep, Leopold. + +Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his +face. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best for +him. + +Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the +hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met +that M'Coy fellow. + +He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing +teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet +oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they +know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. +Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. +Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their +haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they +look. Still their neigh can be very irritating. + +He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he +carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer. + +He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. +All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. _Voglio +e non_. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying +syllables as they pass. He hummed: + + _La ci darem la mano + La la lala la la._ + +He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the +lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins +and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with +its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted +child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise +tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb +them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. +And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She +liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. And Mr? He opened the letter within the +newspaper. + +A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not +annoyed then? What does she say? + +Dear Henry + +I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry +you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am +awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called +you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me +what is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your home +you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. +Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful +name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often +you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as +you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell me +more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I +will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to +meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are +exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I +have such a bad headache. today. and write _by return_ to your longing + +Martha + +P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to +know. + +He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell +and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it +because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then +walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and +there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus +if you don't please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses +when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. +Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his +sidepocket. + +Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did she +wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me, +respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank +you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. +Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go +further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course. +Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time. + +Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it. +Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere: +pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses +without thorns. + +Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in the +Coombe, linked together in the rain. + + _O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers. + She didn't know what to do + To keep it up + To keep it up._ + +It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all +day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife +use. Now could you make out a thing like that? + + _To keep it up._ + +Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or +faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also +the two sluts in the Coombe would listen. + + _To keep it up._ + +Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there: +quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, +strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper: +fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like the hole +in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the +trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and +more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest. + +Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly +in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered +away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank. + +Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the +same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure +cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be +made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change +his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A +million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, +eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. +One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions +of barrels of porter. + +What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the same. + +An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach. +Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. +The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing +together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy +pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth. + +He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the porch +he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again +behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy +for a pass to Mullingar. + +Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S.J. +on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the +conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The +protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the true +religion. Save China's millions. Wonder how they explain it to the +heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for +them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy +with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown +of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? +Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking. Sorry I +didn't work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of that +Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't. They're taught that. He's +not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to baptise +blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like to see +them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Still +life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose. + +The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, +pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere. + +Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place +to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow +music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the +benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch +knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, +holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a +communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it +neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her hat +sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down +to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. +Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse. Good +idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They +don't seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a +corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it. + +He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by +one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in +its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. +We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here +and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for +it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that +sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes +them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. +There's a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. +First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family +party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of +that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. +Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, +waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old +fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. +Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next +year. + +He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an +instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace +affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what +to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S. +Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have +suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in. + +Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with +a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here +with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the +sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the +invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion +every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I am +thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children +at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, +now that's a good name for them, there's always something shiftylooking +about them. They're not straight men of business either. O, no, she's +not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear up that envelope? +Yes: under the bridge. + +The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs +smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank +what they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage +Wheatley's Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale +(aromatic). Doesn't give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. +Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old +booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the +whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is. + +Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music. Pity. +Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that +instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say he had in +Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _Stabat Mater_ +of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? +Christ, but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. +Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice +against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the +people looking up: + +_Quis est homo._ + +Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words. +Mozart's twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music, +on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example +too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting, +regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, +having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind +of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses. +Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a +placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don't they? Gluttons, tall, long +legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it. + +He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and +bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom +glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand +up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again +and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the +altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered +each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a +card: + +--O God, our refuge and our strength... + +Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them +the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious +and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More +interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful +organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants +to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon +in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I +schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look +down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears. +Husband learn to his surprise. God's little joke. Then out she comes. +Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy +Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation +army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting. +How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they +work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too? Bequests +also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. +Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors. +Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the +witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything. +Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the +church: they mapped out the whole theology of it. + +The priest prayed: + +--Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be +our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God +restrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly +host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those +other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. + +The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women +remained behind: thanksgiving. + +Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate +perhaps. Pay your Easter duty. + +He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the +time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a +(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. +Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don't. Why didn't you tell me +before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. +He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main +door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble +bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in +the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow +in her weeds. Notice because I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. +How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet. Better get that lotion +made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. +Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. +Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard +near there. Visit some day. + +He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other +trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. +O well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up +last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must +have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions book. + +The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems +to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone. The +alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? +Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. +Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his +alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. +Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He +ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow +that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to +be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue +litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. +Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the +phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever +of nature. + +--About a fortnight ago, sir? + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the +dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling +your aches and pains. + +--Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then +orangeflower water... + +It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax. + +--And white wax also, he said. + +Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to +her eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my +cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the +teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. +Skinfood. One of the old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only +one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to +make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your? _Peau +d'Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps +have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner. Hammam. +Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a nice +girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious longing +I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time for +massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum. + +--Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a +bottle? + +--No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day and +I'll take one of these soaps. How much are they? + +--Fourpence, sir. + +Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax. + +--I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny. + +--Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you +come back. + +--Good, Mr Bloom said. + +He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the +coolwrappered soap in his left hand. + +At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said: + +--Hello, Bloom. What's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a minute. + +Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look +younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am. + +Bantam Lyons's yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a +wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' +soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling. + +--I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam +Lyons said. Where the bugger is it? + +He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. +Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the +paper and get shut of him. + +--You can keep it, Mr Bloom said. + +--Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the +second. + +--I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said. + +Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly. + +--What's that? his sharp voice said. + +--I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away +that moment. + +Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread +sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms. + +--I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks. + +He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut. + +Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap +in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it +lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large +tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming +embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. +They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt. + +He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a +mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He +eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled +up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round +like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: +college. Something to catch the eye. + +There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands: +might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How +do you do, sir? + +Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. +Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it +here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the +Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more +in their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the +floor. Heatwave. Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which +in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. + +Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid +stream. This is my body. + +He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of +warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his +trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, +lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of +his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of +thousands, a languid floating flower. + + + +Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking +carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after +him, curving his height with care. + +--Come on, Simon. + +--After you, Mr Bloom said. + +Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: + +Yes, yes. + +--Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom. + +Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to +after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm +through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow +at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman +peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she +was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad +to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. +Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd +wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making +the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who +will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and +the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same after. Unclean +job. + +All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am +sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better shift +it out of that. Wait for an opportunity. + +All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer: +then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and +swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of +the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At +walking pace. + +They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were +passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels +rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook +rattling in the doorframes. + +--What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows. + +--Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street. + +Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. + +--That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died +out. + +All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by +passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the +smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, +clad in mourning, a wide hat. + +--There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. + +--Who is that? + +--Your son and heir. + +--Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across. + +The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway +before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back +to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus +fell back, saying: + +--Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_! + +--No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone. + +--Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding +faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump +of dung, the wise child that knows her own father. + +Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the +bottleworks: Dodder bridge. + +Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls +the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing +in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the +landlady's two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. +Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing +his back. Thinks he'll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. +About six hundred per cent profit. + +--He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a +contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks +all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll +make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother +or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. +I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. + +He cried above the clatter of the wheels: + +--I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper's +son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely. + +He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild +face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy +selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If +little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. +Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange +feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning +in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs at it by +the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had +that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, +Poldy. God, I'm dying for it. How life begins. + +Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her. +I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn +German too. + +--Are we late? Mr Power asked. + +--Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch. + +Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping +Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a +woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. +Life, life. + +The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying. + +--Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said. + +--He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Do +you follow me? + +He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away +crustcrumbs from under his thighs. + +--What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs? + +--Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power +said. + +All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless +leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward +and said: + +--Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin? + +--It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite +clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better. + +Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. + +--After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world. + +--Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of +his beard gently. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes. + +--And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked. + +--At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said. + +--I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come. + +The carriage halted short. + +--What's wrong? + +--We're stopped. + +--Where are we? + +Mr Bloom put his head out of the window. + +--The grand canal, he said. + +Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got +it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame +really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed +tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss +this chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, +Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. +A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men's +dogs usually are. + +A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower +spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. +I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now. + +--The weather is changing, he said quietly. + +--A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said. + +--Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There's the sun again coming +out. + +Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a +mute curse at the sky. + +--It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said. + +--We're off again. + +The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed +gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard. + +--Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking +him off to his face. + +--O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear +him, Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of _The Croppy Boy_. + +--Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simple +ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the +whole course of my experience._ + +--Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He's dead nuts on that. And the +retrospective arrangement. + +--Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Martin Cunningham asked. + +--I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it? + +--In the paper this morning. + +Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change +for her. + +--No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please. + +Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the +deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what +Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, +Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. +Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of +his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind: Quinlan. On +whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. + +_It is now a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the sky +While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him +on high._ + +I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it +in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry +fled. Before my patience are exhausted. + +National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. +Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round +with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their +hats. + +A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a +tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something +automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow +would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job +making the new invention? + +Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a +crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law +perhaps. + +They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the railway +bridge, past the Queen's theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene +Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see LEAH tonight, I wonder. +I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes Opera Company. Big +powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun on the Bristol_. +Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a +drink or two. As broad as it's long. + +He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs. + +Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he? + +--How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in +salute. + +--He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do? + +--Who? Mr Dedalus asked. + +--Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff. + +Just that moment I was thinking. + +Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the +white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed. + +Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right +hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees? +Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes +feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I +am just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body +getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes +that? I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh +falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. +Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks +behind. + +He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant +glance over their faces. + +Mr Power asked: + +--How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom? + +--O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good +idea, you see... + +--Are you going yourself? + +--Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the +county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the +chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other. + +--Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. + +Have you good artists? + +--Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all +topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in +fact. + +--And _Madame_, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least. + +Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped +them. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. Woman. +Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by +Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. + +Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his +mouth opening: oot. + +--Four bootlaces for a penny. + +Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. +Same house as Molly's namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. +Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. +Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake. +O'Callaghan on his last legs. + +And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing +her hair, humming. _voglio e non vorrei_. No. _vorrei e non_. Looking at +the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un poco +il_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A +throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that. + +His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over +the ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way. +Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the +woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it +told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played +out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her +a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the +Moira, was it? + +They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. + +Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power. + +--Of the tribe of Reuben, he said. + +A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner +of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his spine. + +--In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said. + +Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly: + +--The devil break the hasp of your back! + +Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as the +carriage passed Gray's statue. + +--We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly. + +His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. He caressed his beard, adding: + +--Well, nearly all of us. + +Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces. + +--That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J and +the son. + +--About the boatman? Mr Power asked. + +--Yes. Isn't it awfully good? + +--What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it. + +--There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to +send him to the Isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both +... + +--What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it? + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried +to drown... + +--Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did! + +Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. + +--No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself... + +Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: + +--Reuben and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on +their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got +loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey. + +--For God's sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead? + +--Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished +him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father +on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is... + +--And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for +saving his son's life. + +A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power's hand. + +--O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin. + +--Isn't it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly. + +--One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily. + +Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. + +Nelson's pillar. + +--Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny! + +--We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Dedalus sighed. + +--Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a laugh. +Many a good one he told himself. + +--The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his +fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and +he was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this. He's +gone from us. + +--As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went +very suddenly. + +--Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart. + +He tapped his chest sadly. + +Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. +Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent +colouring it. + +Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension. + +--He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said. + +--The best death, Mr Bloom said. + +Their wide open eyes looked at him. + +--No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep. + +No-one spoke. + +Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents, +temperance hotel, Falconer's railway guide, civil service college, +Gill's, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or +wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the +late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart. + +White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, +galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning +coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for +a nun. + +--Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child. + +A dwarf's face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body, +weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society +pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant +nothing. Mistake of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not +from the man. Better luck next time. + +--Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It's well out of it. + +The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his +bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns. + +--In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said. + +--But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own +life. + +Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back. + +--The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added. + +--Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We +must take a charitable view of it. + +--They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said. + +--It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's +large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. +Like Shakespeare's face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy +on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive +a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken +already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed +clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife +of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the +furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the life of the +damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday morning. Start +afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have looked a sight +that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about the place and +capering with Martin's umbrella. + + _And they call me the jewel of Asia, + Of Asia, + The Geisha._ + +He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones. + +That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The +room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through +the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and +hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like +yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. +Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son +Leopold. + +No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns. + +The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones. + +--We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said. + +--God grant he doesn't upset us on the road, Mr Power said. + +--I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow +in Germany. The Gordon Bennett. + +--Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith. + +As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent +over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody +here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._ He's +as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The _Mater +Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for +incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady's Hospice for the dying. +Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look +terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the +spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student +that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He's gone over to the +lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other. The +carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. + +--What's wrong now? + +A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching +by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony +croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their +fear. + +--Emigrants, Mr Power said. + +--Huuuh! the drover's voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks. + +Huuuh! out of that! + +Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them +about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for old +England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter +lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a +year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, +soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off +the train at Clonsilla. + +The carriage moved on through the drove. + +--I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the +parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken +in trucks down to the boats. + +--Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite +right. They ought to. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have +municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line +out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage +and all. Don't you see what I mean? + +--O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon +diningroom. + +--A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added. + +--Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn't it be more decent +than galloping two abreast? + +--Well, there's something in that, Mr Dedalus granted. + +--And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn't have scenes like that when +the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin on to the road. + +--That was terrible, Mr Power's shocked face said, and the corpse fell +about the road. Terrible! + +--First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup. + +--Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously. + +Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy Dignam +shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large +for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now. +Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose +quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. +The sphincter loose. Seal up all. + +--Dunphy's, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right. + +Dunphy's corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A +pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we'll pull up +here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. +Elixir of life. + +But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him +in the knocking about? He would and he wouldn't, I suppose. Depends on +where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It +would be better to bury them in red: a dark red. + +In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted +by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved. + +Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. + +Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his +dropping barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a +slacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._ + +Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his +raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of +reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, +Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or +cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at +the auction but a lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby +to row me o'er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. +Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without +writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by +lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his +brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam. + +They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now. + +--I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said. + +--Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said. + +--How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose? + +--Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear. + +The carriage steered left for Finglas road. + +The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of +land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, +knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: +appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and +sculptor. + +Passed. + +On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, +grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown +yawning boot. After life's journey. + +Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses. + +Mr Power pointed. + +--That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house. + +--So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. +Murdered his brother. Or so they said. + +--The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said. + +--Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That's the maxim of the +law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person +to be wrongfully condemned. + +They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless, +unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. +The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about +it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she met +her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large. +Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out. + +Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without +letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with +their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen. + +The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars, +rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the +trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain +gestures on the air. + +The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put +out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with +his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed. + +Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly +and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. +He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand +still held. + +Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It's all the same. +Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. +Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and +fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. +Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out. + +He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes +walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took +out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy. + +Where is that child's funeral disappeared to? + +A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, +dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a +granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted. + +Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at it +with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, pressing +on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here +every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount +Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every +minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands +every hour. Too many in the world. + +Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy, +hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl's face stained with dirt +and tears, holding the woman's arm, looking up at her for a sign to cry. +Fish's face, bloodless and livid. + +The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So +much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First +the stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the +boy followed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the +brother-in-law. + +All walked after. + +Martin Cunningham whispered: + +--I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom. + +--What? Mr Power whispered. How so? + +--His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the +Queen's hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare. +Anniversary. + +--O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself? + +He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed +towards the cardinal's mausoleum. Speaking. + +--Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked. + +--I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavily +mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane. + +--How many children did he leave? + +--Five. Ned Lambert says he'll try to get one of the girls into Todd's. + +--A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children. + +--A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added. + +--Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed. + +Has the laugh at him now. + +He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had +outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must +outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the +world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow +him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who +knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on +a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But +in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of +hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the +substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, +waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and +lie no more in her warm bed. + +--How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't +seen you for a month of Sundays. + +--Never better. How are all in Cork's own town? + +--I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert +said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy. + +--And how is Dick, the solid man? + +--Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered. + +--By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald? + +--Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said, +pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the +insurance is cleared up. + +--Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front? + +--Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is +behind. He put down his name for a quid. + +--I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought +to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world. + +--How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what? + +--Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh. + +They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind +the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the +slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there +when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment +and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three +shillings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin +into the chapel. Which end is his head? + +After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened +light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow +candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a +wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners +knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the +font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper +from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black +hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. + +A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a +door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one +hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly. +Who'll read the book? I, said the rook. + +They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book +with a fluent croak. + +Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Domine-namine._ Bully +about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe +betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst +sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on +him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: +burst sideways. + +_--Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine._ + +Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem mass. +Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly +place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the +gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too. +What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of +the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot +of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw +beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of +saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a +hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it +rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner. + +My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better. + +The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's +bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and +shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you +were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it. + +_--Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._ + +The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be +better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course +... + +Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed +up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. +What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal +day a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in +childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls +with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same +thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam +now. + +_--In paradisum._ + +Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over +everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something. + +The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny +Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the +coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher +gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed +them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last +folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground +till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the +gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the +trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. + +The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here. + +--The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. + +Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone. + +--He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But +his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, +Simon! + +--Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched +beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes. + +Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little +in his walk. Mr Power took his arm. + +--She's better where she is, he said kindly. + +--I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in +heaven if there is a heaven. + +Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to +plod by. + +--Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely. + +Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head. + +--The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can +do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place. + +They covered their heads. + +--The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think? +Mr Kernan said with reproof. + +Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret +eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We +are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else. + +Mr Kernan added: + +--The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more +impressive I must say. + +Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing. + +Mr Kernan said with solemnity: + +--_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man's inmost +heart. + +--It does, Mr Bloom said. + +Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two +with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. +Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood +every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of +them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn +the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are +dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come +forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! +Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the +rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of +powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. + +Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side. + +--Everything went off A1, he said. What? + +He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With +your tooraloom tooraloom. + +--As it should be, Mr Kernan said. + +--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said. + +Mr Kernan assured him. + +--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I +know his face. + +Ned Lambert glanced back. + +--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the +soprano. She's his wife. + +--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some +time. He was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen +seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good +armful she was. + +He looked behind through the others. + +--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery +line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls. + +Ned Lambert smiled. + +--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper. + +--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like +that for? She had plenty of game in her then. + +--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads. + +John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead. + +The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the +grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps. + +--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend. + +Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said: + +--I am come to pay you another visit. + +--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want +your custom at all. + +Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin +Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back. + +--Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe? + +--I did not, Martin Cunningham said. + +They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The +caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke +in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. + +--They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy +evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for +Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After +traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the +drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking +up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. + +The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He +resumed: + +--And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit like +the man_, says he. _That's not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_. + +Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting +the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked. + +--That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. + +--I know, Hynes said. I know that. + +--To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure +goodheartedness: damn the thing else. + +Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on good +terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys: +like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. +_Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I +write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me +writing to Martha? Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be +the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when +the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among +the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to +any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It +might thrill her first. Courting death... Shades of night hovering +here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when +churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a descendant I suppose +who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the +same like a big giant in the dark. Will o' the wisp. Gas of graves. +Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so +touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever +seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on +the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up. +Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might +pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. +Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both +ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to +the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting +to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway. + +He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field +after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. +Sitting or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some +day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed +the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim +grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, +so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant +poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic +Gardens are just over there. It's the blood sinking in the earth gives +new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every +man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable +for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor +and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With +thanks. + +I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh, +nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot +quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy +kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of +them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they +are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to +feed on feed on themselves. + +But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply +swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little +seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of +power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. +Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about +the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11 p.m. +(closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men +anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what's in +fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep +out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. +Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the human +heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuis +nil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. +Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live +longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. + +--How many have-you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked. + +--Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven. + +The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to +trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping +with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its +nose on the brink, looping the bands round it. + +Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He +doesn't know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot +over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know? Now I'd +give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never +dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he +could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after he died though he +could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too. First +thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to +life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you +come to look at it. + + _O, poor Robinson Crusoe! + How could you possibly do so?_ + +Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of +them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could +invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that +way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. +They're so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from +the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one +coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible +even in the earth. The Irishman's house is his coffin. Embalming in +catacombs, mummies the same idea. + +Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. +Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's +number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that +I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen. + +Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had +one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was +once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit +of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not +married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him. + +The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the +gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty. + +Pause. + +If we were all suddenly somebody else. + +Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they +say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away. + +Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The +boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in +the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. +Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. +Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be +damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone +else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then +darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you +like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid +all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his +lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the +soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the +floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing +him a woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia. +Shall i nevermore behold thee_? Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People +talk about you a bit: forget you. Don't forget to pray for him. Remember +him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: +dropping into a hole, one after the other. + +We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and +not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the +fire of purgatory. + +Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when +you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near +you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor +mamma, and little Rudy. + +The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in +on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all +the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of +course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have +some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or +a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of +distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well +to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there's no. + +The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. + +The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of +it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves +without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its +way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he +traversed the dismal fields. + +Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he +knows them all. No: coming to me. + +--I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your +christian name? I'm not sure. + +--L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too. He +asked me to. + +--Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the _Freeman_ once. + +So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good +idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. +He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. +Charley, you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does +no harm. I saw to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him +under an obligation: costs nothing. + +--And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was +over there in the... + +He looked around. + +--Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now? + +--M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that his +name? + +He moved away, looking about him. + +--No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes! + +Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all +the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good +Lord, what became of him? + +A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade. + +--O, excuse me! + +He stepped aside nimbly. + +Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over. +A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their +spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped +his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The +gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards +the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent +to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, +walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. +Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. +The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand. +Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For +yourselves just. + +The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at +whiles to read a name on a tomb. + +--Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time. + +--Let us, Mr Power said. + +They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr +Power's blank voice spoke: + +--Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled +with stones. That one day he will come again. + +Hynes shook his head. + +--Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was +mortal of him. Peace to his ashes. + +Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, +broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, +old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some +charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody +really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then +lump them together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be +at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. +Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's +door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of +their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the +bucket. More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So, +wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the +pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. +Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it +Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. +Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's +acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. +Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the _Church Times._ Marriage +ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of +bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more +poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses +nothing. Immortelles. + +A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the +wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him. +Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. +Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a +daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave. + +The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be +sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was +dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this +infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket +of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the +boy. Apollo that was. + +How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As +you are now so once were we. + +Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the +voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in +the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather. +Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain +hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph +reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after +fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died +when I was in Wisdom Hely's. + +Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop! + +He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he +goes. + +An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the +pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey +alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. +Good hidingplace for treasure. + +Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was +buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds. + +Tail gone now. + +One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones +clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat +gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that +_Voyages in China_ that the Chinese say a white man smells like a +corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the +other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the +plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. +Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. +Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole +life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the +air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about +whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication. We learned +that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for them. +Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't care +about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste +like raw white turnips. + +The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. +Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I +was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. +And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case +I read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running +gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after +death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after +death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like that +other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel +yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty +beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm +fullblooded life. + +Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely. + +Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor, +commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office. +Mat Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, +the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out +that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke +of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate +at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, +laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are by. + +Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably. + +--Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them. + +They stopped. + +--Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing. + +John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving. + +--There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also. John Henry Menton took +off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his +coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again. + +--It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said. + +John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment. + +--Thank you, he said shortly. + +They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind +a few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin +could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his +seeing it. + +Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. +Get the pull over him that way. + +Thank you. How grand we are this morning! + + +IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS + + +Before Nelson's pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started +for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, +Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, +Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United +Tramway Company's timekeeper bawled them off: + +--Rathgar and Terenure! + +--Come on, Sandymount Green! + +Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck +moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided parallel. + +--Start, Palmerston Park! + + +THE WEARER OF THE CROWN + + +Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and +polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion +mailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received +loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured +and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery. + +GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS + + +Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores +and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped +dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's +stores. + +--There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes. + +--Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to +the _Telegraph_ office. + +The door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a +large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with +a roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier. + +Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the newspaper +in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste. + +--I'll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut +square. + +--Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind +his ear, we can do him one. + +--Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. + +We. + +WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS, SANDYMOUNT + + +Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered: + +--Brayden. + +Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a +stately figure entered between the newsboards of the _Weekly Freeman +and National Press_ and the _Freeman's Journal and National Press_. +Dullthudding Guinness's barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase, +steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back +ascended each step: back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, +Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, +fat, neck, fat, neck. + +--Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered. + +The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build +one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out. + +Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha. +Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor. + +--Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said. + +--Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our +Saviour. + +Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his +heart. In _Martha._ + + _Co-ome thou lost one, + Co-ome thou dear one!_ + +THE CROZIER AND THE PEN + + +--His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely. + +They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck. + +A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and +stepped off posthaste with a word: + +_--Freeman!_ + +Mr Bloom said slowly: + +--Well, he is one of our saviours also. + +A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed +in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, +along the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? +Thumping. Thumping. + +He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn +packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards +Nannetti's reading closet. + +WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST +RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS + + +Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This +morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man +to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries +are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working +away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in. + +HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT + + +Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy +crown. + +Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for +College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth. +It's the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news in the +official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year +one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony +of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute +showing return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. +Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle +Toby's page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, +what is a good cure for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot +teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P. Mainly all pictures. +Shapely bathers on golden strand. World's biggest balloon. Double +marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at +each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than the Irish. + +The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he +got paralysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and +on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the +whole thing. Want a cool head. + +--Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said. + +Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say. + +The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the sheet +and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the +dirty glass screen. + +--Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off. + +Mr Bloom stood in his way. + +--If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said, +pointing backward with his thumb. + +--Did you? Hynes asked. + +--Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him. + +--Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too. + +He hurried on eagerly towards the _Freeman's Journal_. + +Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint. + +WE SEE THE CANVASSER AT WORK + + +Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk. + +--Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember? + +Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded. + +--He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said. + +The foreman moved his pencil towards it. + +--But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants +two keys at the top. + +Hell of a racket they make. He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves. +Maybe he understands what I. + +The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began +to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket. + +--Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top. + +Let him take that in first. + +Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the +foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the +obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles +of it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: +various uses, thousand and one things. + +Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew +swiftly on the scarred woodwork. + +HOUSE OF KEY(E)S + + +--Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name. +Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on. + +Better not teach him his own business. + +--You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the top +in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea? + +The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched +there quietly. + +--The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor, +the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the +isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that? + +I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that _voglio._ But then +if he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not. + +--We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design? + +--I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a +house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that +and just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. Highclass +licensed premises. Longfelt want. So on. + +The foreman thought for an instant. + +--We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal. + +A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it +silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching +the silent typesetters at their cases. + +ORTHOGRAPHICAL + + +Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot +to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view +the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a +harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry with a y of a peeled pear +under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on +account of the symmetry. + +I should have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought +to have said something about an old hat or something. No. I could have +said. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then. + +Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its +flyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost +human the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. +That door too sllt creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its +own way. Sllt. + +NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR + + +The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying: + +--Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the +_Telegraph._ Where's what's his name? + +He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines. + +--Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox. + +--Ay. Where's Monks? + +--Monks! + +Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out. + +--Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a +good place I know. + +--Monks! + +--Yes, sir. + +Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it +anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists +over for the show. + +A DAYFATHER + + +He walked on through the caseroom passing an old man, bowed, spectacled, +aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must have put +through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads, speeches, +divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now. Sober +serious man with a bit in the savingsbank I'd say. Wife a good cook and +washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn +nonsense. AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER + + +He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type. +Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice +that. mangiD kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards +with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! +All that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt +and into the house of bondage _Alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu_. +No, that's the other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then +the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water and the +butcher. And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he kills the +ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly till you come to look +into it well. Justice it means but it's everybody eating everyone else. +That's what life is after all. How quickly he does that job. Practice +makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers. + +Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to +the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch +him out perhaps. Better phone him up first. Number? Yes. Same as +Citron's house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four. + +ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP + + +He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over those +walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy +smell there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door +when I was there. + +He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap +I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief +he took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned, into the hip pocket +of his trousers. + +What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something +I forgot. Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No. + +A sudden screech of laughter came from the _Evening Telegraph_ office. +Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it +is. + +He entered softly. + +ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA + + +--The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to +the dusty windowpane. + +Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing +face, asked of it sourly: + +--Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse? + +Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on: + +--_Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles +on its way, tho' quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling +waters of Neptune's blue domain, 'mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest +zephyrs, played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast +o'er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of +the forest_. What about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his +newspaper. How's that for high? + +--Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said. + +Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating: + +--_The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage_. O boys! O boys! + +--And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on +the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea. + +--That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want to +hear any more of the stuff. + +He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and, +hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand. + +High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see. +Rather upsets a man's day, a funeral does. He has influence they +say. Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his +greatgranduncle. Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death +written this long time perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first +himself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The right honourable Hedges +Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque or two on +gale days. Windfall when he kicks out. Alleluia. + +--Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said. + +--What is it? Mr Bloom asked. + +--A recently discovered fragment of Cicero, professor MacHugh answered +with pomp of tone. _Our lovely land_. SHORT BUT TO THE POINT + + +--Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply. + +--Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With an +accent on the whose. + +--Dan Dawson's land Mr Dedalus said. + +--Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked. + +Ned Lambert nodded. + +--But listen to this, he said. + +The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was +pushed in. + +--Excuse me, J. J. O'Molloy said, entering. + +Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. + +--I beg yours, he said. + +--Good day, Jack. + +--Come in. Come in. + +--Good day. + +--How are you, Dedalus? + +--Well. And yourself? + +J. J. O'Molloy shook his head. + +SAD + + +Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline, poor chap. +That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's +in the wind, I wonder. Money worry. + +--_Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks._ + +--You're looking extra. + +--Is the editor to be seen? J. J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the +inner door. + +--Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in +his sanctum with Lenehan. + +J. J. O'Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back the +pink pages of the file. + +Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of +honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T. +Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on their sleeve +like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the +_Express_ with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began +on the _Independent._ Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when +they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same +breath. Wouldn't know which to believe. One story good till you hear +the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows +over. Hail fellow well met the next moment. + +--Ah, listen to this for God' sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. _Or again if we +but climb the serried mountain peaks..._ + +--Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated +windbag! + +--_Peaks_, Ned Lambert went on, _towering high on high, to bathe our +souls, as it were..._ + +--Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he +taking anything for it? + +_--As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio, +unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize +regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and +luscious pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent +translucent glow of our mild mysterious Irish twilight..._ + +HIS NATIVE DORIC + + +--The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet. + +_--That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of +the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence..._ + +--O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. Shite and +onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short. + +He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy +moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers. + +Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An +instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's +unshaven blackspectacled face. + +--Doughy Daw! he cried. + +WHAT WETHERUP SAID + + +All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot +cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn't he? Why they call +him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that +chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. +Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get +a grip of them by the stomach. + +The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested +by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared +about them and the harsh voice asked: + +--What is it? + +--And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said +grandly. + +--Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition. + +--Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink +after that. + +--Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass. + +--Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned. + +Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved +towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile. + +--Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked. + +MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED + + +--North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. We +won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers! + +--Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at +his toecaps. + +--In Ohio! the editor shouted. + +--So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed. + +Passing out he whispered to J. J. O'Molloy: + +--Incipient jigs. Sad case. + +--Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face. +My Ohio! + +--A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long. + +O, HARP EOLIAN! + + +He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking +off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant +unwashed teeth. + +--Bingbang, bangbang. + +Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door. + +--Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad. + +He went in. + +--What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming +to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder. + +--That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret. +Hello, Jack. That's all right. + +--Good day, Myles, J. J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip +limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today? + +The telephone whirred inside. + +--Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes. + +SPOT THE WINNER + + +Lenehan came out of the inner office with SPORT'S tissues. + +--Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O. +Madden up. + +He tossed the tissues on to the table. + +Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was +flung open. + +--Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops. + +Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin +by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the +steps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air +blue scrawls and under the table came to earth. + +--It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir. + +--Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a hurricane +blowing. + +Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he +stooped twice. + +--Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat +Farrell shoved me, sir. + +He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. + +--Him, sir. + +--Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly. + +He hustled the boy out and banged the door to. + +J. J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking: + +--Continued on page six, column four. + +--Yes, _Evening Telegraph_ here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office. +Is the boss...? Yes, _Telegraph_... To where? Aha! Which auction rooms +?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him. + +A COLLISION ENSUES + + +The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped +against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue. + +--_Pardon, monsieur_, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and +making a grimace. + +--My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a +hurry. + +--Knee, Lenehan said. + +He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee: + +--The accumulation of the _anno Domini_. + +--Sorry, Mr Bloom said. + +He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O'Molloy slapped +the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, +echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps: + + _--We are the boys of Wexford + Who fought with heart and hand._ + +EXIT BLOOM + + +--I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this +ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in +Dillon's. + +He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who, +leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand, +suddenly stretched forth an arm amply. + +--Begone! he said. The world is before you. + +--Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out. + +J. J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them, +blowing them apart gently, without comment. + +--He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his +blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps +after him. + +--Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window. + +A STREET CORTEGE + + +Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr +Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a +tail of white bowknots. + +--Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said, +and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the +walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks. + +He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding +feet past the fireplace to J. J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his +receiving hands. + +--What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two +gone? + +--Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for a +drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night. + +--Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat? + +He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his +jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the +air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer. + +--He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice. + +--Seems to be, J. J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase in +murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most +matches? + +THE CALUMET OF PEACE + + +He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan +promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J. J. +O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it. + +--_Thanky vous_, Lenehan said, helping himself. + +The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He +declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh: + +_--'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy +heart._ + +The professor grinned, locking his long lips. + +--Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said. + +He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him +with quick grace, said: + +--Silence for my brandnew riddle! + +--_Imperium romanum_, J. J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than +British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire. + +Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling. + +--That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire. +We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell. + +THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME + + +--Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We +mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome, +imperial, imperious, imperative. + +He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing: + +--What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers. +The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: _It is meet +to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah_. The Roman, like the +Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on +which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal +obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet to be +here. Let us construct a watercloset._ + +--Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient +ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial +to the running stream. + +--They were nature's gentlemen, J. J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have +also Roman law. + +--And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded. + +--Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O'Molloy asked. +It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly +... + +--First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready? + +Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from +the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered. + +--_Entrez, mes enfants!_ Lenehan cried. + +--I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by +Experience visits Notoriety. + +--How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your +governor is just gone.??? + + +Lenehan said to all: + +--Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder, +excogitate, reply. + +Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and +signature. + +--Who? the editor asked. + +Bit torn off. + +--Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said. + +--That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken? + + _On swift sail flaming + From storm and south + He comes, pale vampire, + Mouth to my mouth._ + +--Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their +shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...? + +Bullockbefriending bard. + +SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT + + +--Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr +Garrett Deasy asked me to... + +--O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The +bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth +disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's +face in the Star and Garter. Oho! + +A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of +Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni. + +--Is he a widower? Stephen asked. + +--Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the +typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on +the ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, +graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king +an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild +geese. O yes, every time. Don't you forget that! + +--The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly, +turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job. + +Professor MacHugh turned on him. + +--And if not? he said. + +--I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one +day... LOST CAUSES + +NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED + + +--We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for +us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never +loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin +language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is +the maxim: time is money. Material domination. _Dominus!_ Lord! Where is +the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend club. +But the Greek! + +KYRIE ELEISON! + + +A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long +lips. + +--The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios!_ Shining word! The vowels the +Semite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie!_ The radiance of the intellect. +I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison!_ The +closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We +are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at +Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ that +went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went +under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the +fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause. + +He strode away from them towards the window. + +--They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they +always fell. + +--Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in +the latter half of the _matinée_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus! + +He whispered then near Stephen's ear: + +LENEHAN'S LIMERICK + + + _There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh + Who wears goggles of ebony hue. + As he mostly sees double + To wear them why trouble? + I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?_ + +In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead. + +Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket. + +--That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be +all right. + +Lenehan extended his hands in protest. + +--But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline? + +--Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled. + +Lenehan announced gladly: + +--_The Rose of Castile_. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee! + +He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell +back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp. + +--Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness. + +Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling +tissues. + +The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across +Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties. + +--Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards. + +--Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O'Molloy said in +quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between +you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff. + +OMNIUM GATHERUM + + +--We were only thinking about it, Stephen said. + +--All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics... + +--The turf, Lenehan put in. + +--Literature, the press. + +--If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of +advertisement. + +--And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's +prime favourite. + +Lenehan gave a loud cough. + +--Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a +cold in the park. The gate was open. + +YOU CAN DO IT! + + +The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder. + +--I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite +in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. _In the lexicon of youth_ +... + +See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer. + +--Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great +nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the +public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn +its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy. + +--We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare. + +--He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O'Molloy said. + +THE GREAT GALLAHER + + +--You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in +emphasis. Wait a minute. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher +used to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the +Clarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You +know how he made his mark? I'll tell you. That was the smartest piece of +journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of +the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I +suppose. I'll show you. + +He pushed past them to the files. + +--Look at here, he said turning. The _New York World_ cabled for a +special. Remember that time? + +Professor MacHugh nodded. + +--_New York World_, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw +hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and +the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see? + +--Skin-the-Goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that +cabman's shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. +You know Holohan? + +--Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said. + +--And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for +the corporation. A night watchman. + +Stephen turned in surprise. + +--Gumley? he said. You don't say so? A friend of my father's, is it? + +--Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind +the stones, see they don't run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius +Gallaher do? I'll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away. +Have you _Weekly Freeman_ of 17 March? Right. Have you got that? + +He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point. + +--Take page four, advertisement for Bransome's coffee, let us say. Have +you got that? Right. + +The telephone whirred. + +A DISTANT VOICE + + +--I'll answer it, the professor said, going. + +--B is parkgate. Good. + +His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating. + +--T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon +gate. + +The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles. An illstarched +dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his +waistcoat. + +--Hello? _Evening Telegraph_ here... Hello?... Who's there?... Yes... +Yes... Yes. + +--F to P is the route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi, +Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F.A.B.P. +Got that? X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street. + +The professor came to the inner door. + +--Bloom is at the telephone, he said. + +--Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Davy's +publichouse, see? CLEVER, VERY + + +--Clever, Lenehan said. Very. + +--Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloody +history. + +Nightmare from which you will never awake. + +--I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, the +besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and +myself. + +Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing: + +--Madam, I'm Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba. + +--History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince's street was +there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of +an advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the +leg up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the _Star._ +Now he's got in with Blumenfeld. That's press. That's talent. Pyatt! He +was all their daddies! + +--The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the +brother-in-law of Chris Callinan. + +--Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he's here still. Come across +yourself. + +--Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried. He +flung the pages down. + +--Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O'Madden Burke. + +--Very smart, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +Professor MacHugh came from the inner office. + +--Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some hawkers +were up before the recorder? + +--O yes, J. J. O'Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home +through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that +cyclone last year and thought she'd buy a view of Dublin. And it +turned out to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or +Skin-the-Goat. Right outside the viceregal lodge, imagine! + +--They're only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said. +Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those +fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan. +Eh? Ah, bloody nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place. + +His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain. + +Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you +write it then? + +RHYMES AND REASONS + + +Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be +some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the same, +looking the same, two by two. + + _........................ la tua pace + .................. che parlar ti piace + .... mentreché il vento, come fa, si tace._ + +He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in +russet, entwining, _per l'aer perso_, in mauve, in purple, _quella +pacifica oriafiamma_, gold of oriflamme, _di rimirar fe piu ardenti._ +But I old men, penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth +south: tomb womb. + +--Speak up for yourself, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY... + + +J. J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage. + +--My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a false +construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for +the third profession qua profession but your Cork legs are running away +with you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and +Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod boss, +Harmsworth of the farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery +guttersheet not to mention _Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences_ +and our watchful friend _The Skibbereen Eagle_. Why bring in a master +of forensic eloquence like Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the +newspaper thereof. LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF YORE + + +--Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his +face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. +Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha! + +--Well, J. J. O'Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example. + +--Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes: Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it +in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe. + +--He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only for +... But no matter. + +J. J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly: + +--One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my life +fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide, +the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him. _And in the porches of mine +ear did pour._ + + +By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other +story, beast with two backs? + +--What was that? the professor asked. + +ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM + + +--He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O'Molloy said, of Roman justice +as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the _lex talionis_. And he +cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican. + +--Ha. + +--A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence! + +Pause. J. J. O'Molloy took out his cigarettecase. + +False lull. Something quite ordinary. + +Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar. + +I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that +it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, +that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives. A POLISHED +PERIOD + + +J. J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words: + +--He said of it: _that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and +terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and +of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor +has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring +deserves to live, deserves to live._ + +His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall. + +--Fine! Myles Crawford said at once. + +--The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +--You like it? J. J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. + +Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He +took a cigarette from the case. J. J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles +Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, +saying: + +--Muchibus thankibus. + +A MAN OF HIGH MORALE + + +--Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O'Molloy said +to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal +hush poets: A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. +She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee +interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning to +ask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have +been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale, +Magennis. + +Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say +about me? Don't ask. + +--No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarettecase aside. +Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I +ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical +society. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had +spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), +advocating the revival of the Irish tongue. + +He turned towards Myles Crawford and said: + +--You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his +discourse. + +--He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O'Molloy said, rumour has it, on +the Trinity college estates commission. + +--He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child's +frock. Go on. Well? + +--It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator, +full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will +not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely +upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, +therefore worthless. + +He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised +an outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and +ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new +focus. + +IMPROMPTU + + +In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O'Molloy: + +--Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he +had prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one +shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy +beard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he +looked (though he was not) a dying man. + +His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O'Molloy's towards +Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His +unglazed linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his +withering hair. Still seeking, he said: + +--When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply. +Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these. + +He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more. +Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet. + +He began: + +_--Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in +listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment +since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported +into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from +this age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the +speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses._ + +His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes +ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. _And let our +crooked smokes._ Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand +at it yourself? + +_--And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian +highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard +his words and their meaning was revealed to me._ + +FROM THE FATHERS + + +It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted +which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good +could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine. + +_--Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our +language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people. You +have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and +our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise +furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from +primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong +history and a polity._ + +Nile. + +Child, man, effigy. + +By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple +in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone. + +_--You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and +mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. +Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel +is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her +arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at +our name._ + +A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it +boldly: + +_--But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and +accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will +and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have +brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed +the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the +Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down +with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in +his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw._ + +He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence. + +OMINOUS--FOR HIM! + +J. J. O'Molloy said not without regret: + +--And yet he died without having entered the land of promise. + +--A sudden--at--the--moment--though--from--lingering--illness--often-- +previously--expectorated--demise, Lenehan added. And with a great future +behind him. + +The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and pattering +up the staircase. + +--That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted. Gone with the +wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of ears of +porches. The tribune's words, howled and scattered to the four winds. +A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of all +that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more. + +I have money. + +--Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may I +suggest that the house do now adjourn? + +--You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? +Mr O'Madden Burke asked. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, +metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry. + +--That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favour +say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To +which particular boosing shed?... My casting vote is: Mooney's! + +He led the way, admonishing: + +--We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not? Yes, +we will not. By no manner of means. + +Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally's lunge of his +umbrella: + +--Lay on, Macduff! + +--Chip of the old block! the editor cried, clapping Stephen on the +shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys? + +He fumbled in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets. + +--Foot and mouth. I know. That'll be all right. That'll go in. Where are +they? That's all right. + +He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office. LET US HOPE + + +J. J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen: + +--I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment. + +He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him. + +--Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn't it? It +has the prophetic vision. _Fuit Ilium!_ The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms +of this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today. + +The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and +rushed out into the street, yelling: + +--Racing special! + +Dublin. I have much, much to learn. + +They turned to the left along Abbey street. + +--I have a vision too, Stephen said. + +--Yes? the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will +follow. + +Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran: + +--Racing special! + +DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN + + +Dubliners. + +--Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fifty +and fiftythree years in Fumbally's lane. + +--Where is that? the professor asked. + +--Off Blackpitts, Stephen said. + +Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering +tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker, +darlint! + +On now. Dare it. Let there be life. + +--They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson's pillar. +They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. They +shake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies +with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven +in coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their +umbrellas for fear it may come on to rain. + +--Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said. + +LIFE ON THE RAW + + +--They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at +the north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins, +proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a girl +at the foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They +give two threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin +to waddle slowly up the winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each +other, afraid of the dark, panting, one asking the other have you the +brawn, praising God and the Blessed Virgin, threatening to come down, +peeping at the airslits. Glory be to God. They had no idea it was that +high. + +Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the +lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who got +a bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen +and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday. + +--Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can +see them. What's keeping our friend? + +He turned. + +A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in all +directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them +Myles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet +face, talking with J. J. O'Molloy. + +--Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm. + +He set off again to walk by Stephen's side. RETURN OF BLOOM + + +--Yes, he said. I see them. + +Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the +offices of the _Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal_, called: + +--Mr Crawford! A moment! + +--_Telegraph_! Racing special! + +--What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace. + +A newsboy cried in Mr Bloom's face: + +--Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows! + +INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR + + +--Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps, +puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes +just now. He'll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he'll +see. But he wants a par to call attention in the _Telegraph_ too, +the Saturday pink. And he wants it copied if it's not too late I told +councillor Nannetti from the _Kilkenny People_. I can have access to +it in the national library. House of keys, don't you see? His name is +Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he practically promised he'd give +the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell him, Mr +Crawford? K.M.A. + + +--Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwing +out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable. + +A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm. +Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is +that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him +today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in +muck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown? + +--Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I +suppose it's worth a short par. He'd give the ad, I think. I'll tell him +... K.M.R.I.A. + + +--He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over his +shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him. + +While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on +jerkily. + +RAISING THE WIND + + +--_Nulla bona_, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I'm up to +here. I've been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to +back a bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must take +the will for the deed. With a heart and a half if I could raise the wind +anyhow. + +J. J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught up +on the others and walked abreast. + +--When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty +fingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the +railings. + +--Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two old +Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar. + +SOME COLUMN!--THAT'S WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID + + +--That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies +Dargle. Two old trickies, what? + +--But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see +the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines' +blue dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them +giddy to look so they pull up their skirts... + +THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES + + +--Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We're in the +archdiocese here. + +--And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue +of the onehandled adulterer. + +--Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the +idea. I see what you mean. + +DAMES DONATE DUBLIN'S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, BELIEF + + +--It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too +tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between +them and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with +their handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and +spitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings. + +He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden +Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's. + +--Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse. + +SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH +MOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP. + + +--You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of +Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were +bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble +and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of +beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope. + +Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich. + +They made ready to cross O'Connell street. + +HELLO THERE, CENTRAL! + + +At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless +trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, +Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend +and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines, +all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery +waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water floats with +rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly. + +WHAT?--AND LIKEWISE--WHERE? + + +--But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get the +plums? + +VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES. + + +--Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to +reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: _deus nobis haec otia fecit._ + +--No, Stephen said. I call it _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the +Parable of The Plums._ + +--I see, the professor said. + +He laughed richly. + +--I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land. +We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy. + +HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY + + +J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held +his peace. + +--I see, the professor said. + +He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson +through the meshes of his wry smile. + +DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE WIMBLES, +FLO WANGLES--YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM? + + +--Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must +say. + +--Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's +truth was known. + + +Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl +shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school +treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His +Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red +jujubes white. + + +A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of +Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom. + +Heart to heart talks. + +Bloo... Me? No. + +Blood of the Lamb. + +His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are +washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen, +martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, +druids' altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of +the church in Zion is coming. + +_Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!! All heartily welcome._ Paying game. +Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put the stopper +on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix. +Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall, +hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in. + + +Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for +instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the +pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush +out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. +Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good +for the brain. + +From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk. +Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be +selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. +Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother +goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their +theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the +absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat +you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the +fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do +the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear +he'd collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you +could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting l.s.d. +out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching +his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence: mum's the +word. + +Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks +too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it. +Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution. + +As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from +the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, +I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the +brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in +too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on +the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking +that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things. + +Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt +quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben +J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and +eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the +things. Knows how to tell a story too. + +They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait. + +He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet +per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of +swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the +day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the +wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping. + + _The hungry famished gull + Flaps o'er the waters dull._ + +That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has +no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts. +Solemn. + + + _Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit + Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth._ + --Two apples a penny! Two for a penny! + + +His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians +they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag +or a handkerchief. + +Wait. Those poor birds. + +He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for +a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into +the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from +their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel. + +Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his +hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they +have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down +here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder +what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them. + +They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny +quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and +mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes +like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are +not salty? How is that? + +His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor +on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board. + +_Kino's_ 11/- _Trousers_ + +Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you +own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which +in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of +places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck +up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr +Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self +advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for +that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight. +Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose +burning him. + +If he...? + +O! + +Eh? + +No... No. + +No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely? + +No, no. + +Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about +that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time. +Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never +exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek: +parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her +about the transmigration. O rocks! + +Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's right +after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound. +She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. +Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone +voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a +barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as +witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get +outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number +one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out. + +A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him +along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like +that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He +read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. +Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his +foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our +staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after +street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are +not Boyl: no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either. +I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls +sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I +bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the +eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of +them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women +too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he +didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a +false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted +under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What? +Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson, +I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser _Kansell,_ sold +by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a +job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent. +That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small +head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. +Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her +devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world. +Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name +too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had +married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of +money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for +them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves +in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the +pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire. + +He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover +cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil +Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom's. +Got the job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago: +ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon +was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying +the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the +inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have +already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly +had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with +selfcovered buttons. She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle +first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old +Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies' picnic +too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, +shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we +had that day. People looking after her. + +Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper. +Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American +soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she +looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's +daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste. + +He walked along the curbstone. + +Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always +squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron's saint +Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen +...? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he +couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day. + +Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home +after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her +that song _Winds that blow from the south_. + +Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on +about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supperroom or +oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew +out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didn't. +Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin +linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell +concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and +may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar +up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her +skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed +in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up +those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she +liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth +unclamping the busk of her stays: white. + +Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. +Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two +taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. +That was the night... + +--O, Mr Bloom, how do you do? + +--O, how do you do, Mrs Breen? + +--No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for +ages. + +--In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in +Mullingar, you know. + +--Go away! Isn't that grand for her? + +--Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How +are all your charges? + +--All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said. + +How many has she? No other in sight. + +--You're in black, I see. You have no... + +--No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral. + +Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he +die of? Turn up like a bad penny. + +--O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation. + +May as well get her sympathy. + +--Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, +poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning. + +_Your funeral's tomorrow While you're coming through the rye. +Diddlediddle dumdum Diddlediddle..._ + +--Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. + +Now that's quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband. + +--And your lord and master? + +Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow. + +--O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's +in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me +heartscalded. Wait till I show you. + +Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured +out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's +gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, +or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot +arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of +hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork +chained to the table. + +Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on +those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. +Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. +Husband barging. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are +you feeding your little brother's family? Soiled handkerchief: +medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?... + +--There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you +know what he did last night? + +Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in +alarm, yet smiling. + +--What? Mr Bloom asked. + +Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me. + +--Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare. + +Indiges. + +--Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs. + +--The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said. + +She took a folded postcard from her handbag. + +--Read that, she said. He got it this morning. + +--What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.? + +--U.P.: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great +shame for them whoever he is. + +--Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said. + +She took back the card, sighing. + +--And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an +action for ten thousand pounds, he says. + +She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch. + +Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its +best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old +grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a +tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than +Molly. + +See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex. + +He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent. +Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry +on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. +Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell +that was. In Luke Doyle's long ago. Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U.P.: +up. + +Change the subject. + +--Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked. + +--Mina Purefoy? she said. + +Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' Club. Matcham often thinks of +the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act. + +--Yes. + +--I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the +lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three +days bad now. + +--O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that. + +--Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very stiff +birth, the nurse told me. + +---O, Mr Bloom said. + +His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in +compassion. Dth! Dth! + +--I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's +terrible for her. + +Mrs Breen nodded. + +--She was taken bad on the Tuesday... + +Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her: + +--Mind! Let this man pass. + +A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a +rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a +skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, +a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride. + +--Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. +Watch! + +--Who is he if it's a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty? + +--His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr +Bloom said smiling. Watch! + +--He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these +days. + +She broke off suddenly. + +--There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to +Molly, won't you? + +--I will, Mr Bloom said. + +He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen +in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's +hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old +times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust +his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke +earnestly. + +Meshuggah. Off his chump. + +Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the +tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two +days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. +And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have +with him. + +U.P.: up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote +it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton's +office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the +gods. + +He passed the _Irish Times_. There might be other answers Iying there. +Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch +now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there +to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart +lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty +darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is +the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who +made the world. The way they spring those questions on you. And the +other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good fortune to +meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo. Russell). No +time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of poetry. + +Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook +and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit +counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. +James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big +deal on Coates's shares. Ca' canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the +toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the _Irish Field_ +now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and +rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday +at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make +it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. +Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe. +First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood mare some of +those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss off a glass +of brandy neat while you'd say knife. That one at the Grosvenor this +morning. Up with her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or fivebarred gate +put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who +is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that sold me her old +wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel. Divorced Spanish +American. Didn't take a feather out of her my handling them. As if I was +her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park +ranger got me in with Whelan of the _Express._ Scavenging what the +quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was +custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to +be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks. + +Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun +and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating +with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his +muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore's +cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy +annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers +marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a +marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast +year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t's are. Dog in +the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please. + +He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at +Rowe's? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in +the Burton. Better. On my way. + +He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot +to tap Tom Kernan. + +Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a +vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew! +Dreadful simply! Child's head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her +trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me +that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent +something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea: +queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old +woman that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was +consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the +what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to +feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing +quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at +compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings +and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage +people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years +want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think. + +Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for +nothing. + +Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs +Moisel. Mothers' meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then +returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes. Weight +off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, +she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that's +nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall's son. His first bow to +the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking +them up at all hours. For God' sake, doctor. Wife in her throes. Then +keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on your wife. No +gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them. + +Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of +pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I +pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling +from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near +Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me. + +A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian +file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their +truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their +belts. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and +scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment +to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, +marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station. +Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive +soup. + +He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put him +up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women. +Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. _There is not in this +wide world a vallee_. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to +the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she? + +He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack +Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble +being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. +Can't blame them after all with the job they have especially the young +hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his +degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did! His +horse's hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had the +presence of mind to dive into Manning's or I was souped. He did come a +wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I +oughtn't to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the +Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to +know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now +he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police +whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why he fixed on me. Give me in +charge. Right here it began. + +--Up the Boers! + +--Three cheers for De Wet! + +--We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree. + +Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill. +The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and +civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows +used to. Whether on the scaffold high. + +Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in +his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on +the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to +get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. +Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are always +courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. Squarepushing up +against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And +who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was the young master saying +anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young +student fooling round her fat arms ironing. + +--Are those yours, Mary? + +--I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out +half the night. + +--There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see. + +--Ah, gelong with your great times coming. + +Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls. + +James Stephens' idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that +a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out +you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey's +daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the +Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi. + +You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a +squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about +our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom. +Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government. +That the language question should take precedence of the economic +question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them +up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here's a good lump of thyme +seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease +before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with +the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap pays +best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show us +over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule +sun rising up in the northwest. + +His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, +shadowing Trinity's surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing, +outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day: +squads of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies +mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a +bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second +somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. +Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the +blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa. + +Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other +coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of +pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. +Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets +his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have +all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age +after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese +wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling +suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan's mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, +for the night. + +No-one is anything. + +This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate +this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed. + +Provost's house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in +there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn't live in it if they paid me. Hope +they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum. + +The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverware +opposite in Walter Sexton's window by which John Howard Parnell passed, +unseeing. + +There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's a +coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don't +meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a +corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal's +uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on +his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the +woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a +pain. Great man's brother: his brother's brother. He'd look nice on the +city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess +there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to +pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That's the +fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister +Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright lik +surgeon M'Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath. Apply +for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The patriot's +banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said when they +put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the grave and +lead him out of the house of commons by the arm. + +--Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which +the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with +a Scotch accent. The tentacles... + +They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. +Young woman. + +And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence: second time. +Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the +eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. +E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, +Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world +with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult: symbolism. +Holding forth. She's taking it all in. Not saying a word. To aid +gentleman in literary work. + +His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, +a listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only +weggebobbles and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of +that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it's healthier. +Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as +a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me +nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating +rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by the +tap all night. + +Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless. +Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, +symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that +kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. +For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts +you couldn't squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don't know what poetry +is even. Must be in a certain mood. + + _The dreamy cloudy gull + Waves o'er the waters dull._ + +He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of Yeates +and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's and +have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his +lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz lenses six +guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to +capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost +property office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in +trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. +Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's +daughter's ba and hand it to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed money +too. There's a little watch up there on the roof of the bank to test +those glasses by. + + +His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can't see it. If you +imagine it's there you can almost see it. Can't see it. + +He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right +hand at arm's length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes: +completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. +Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses. +Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we +were in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific +explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn +some time. + +Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's +the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there +some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to +professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to: +man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman +proud to be descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it +on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt +out what you know you're not to: what's parallax? Show this gentleman +the door. + +Ah. + +His hand fell to his side again. + +Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about, +crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid: +then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, +like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she said. I +believe there is. + +He went on by la maison Claire. + +Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there +is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon. +She was humming. The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side +of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch. +Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes. + +Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must. + +Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. + +With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here +middle of the day of Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, +M Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or _cherchez la +femme_. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the +rest of the year sober as a judge. + +Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him +good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the +Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon +face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies, +eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, +laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat. +Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white +hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp +that once did starve us all. + +I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She +twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could +never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding +water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. +Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? +Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library. + +Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints, +silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the +baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope +the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to +the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of +plumb. + +He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades +of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a +flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that +here. _La causa è santa_! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must +be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom. + +Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all +over the place. Needles in window curtains. + +He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today +anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps. +Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't +like it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo. + +Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk +stockings. + +Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all. + +High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home and +houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim. +Wealth of the world. + +A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded. +Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he +mutely craved to adore. + +Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then. + +He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds. +Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields, +tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas, +creaking beds. + +--Jack, love! + +--Darling! + +--Kiss me, Reggy! + +--My boy! + +--Love! + +His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink +gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See +the animals feed. + +Men, men, men. + +Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables +calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy +food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced +young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New +set of microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round +him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his +plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump +chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten +off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see +us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone! +That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself +at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something +galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn't +swallow it all however. + +--Roast beef and cabbage. + +--One stew. + +Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish +cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale +of ferment. + +Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all +before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing +the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then +on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it +off the plate, man! Get out of this. + +He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of +his nose. + +--Two stouts here. + +--One corned and cabbage. + +That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended +on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his +three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a +silver knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means +born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost. + +An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head +bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well +up: it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, +elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift +across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something +with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un +thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith? + +Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said: + +--Not here. Don't see him. + +Out. I hate dirty eaters. + +He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap. +Keep me going. Had a good breakfast. + +--Roast and mashed here. + +--Pint of stout. + +Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff. + +He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat +or be eaten. Kill! Kill! + +Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down +with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the +street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every +mother's son don't talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women +and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From +Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, +lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My +plate's empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir +Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the microbes with your handkerchief. +Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O'Flynn would make +hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number one. Children +fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as big as the +Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Hate +people all round you. City Arms hotel _table d'hôte_ she called it. +Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then +who'd wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids +that time. Teeth getting worse and worse. + +After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from +the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp +of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw +fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe +to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering +bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobbly lights. Give us that +brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed +sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling +nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, +young one. + +Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed. +Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts. + +Ah, I'm hungry. + +He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now +and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once. + +What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff? + +--Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook. + +--Hello, Flynn. + +--How's things? + +--Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me +see. + +Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham +and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home +without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the +obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam's potted meat. +Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like +pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be +tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. _There was +a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the +reverend Mr MacTrigger_. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what +concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle +find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what +they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and +war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and +geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards +full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese. + +--Have you a cheese sandwich? + +--Yes, sir. + +Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of +burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber, +Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served +me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made +food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab. + +--Wife well? + +--Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you? + +--Yes, sir. + +Nosey Flynn sipped his grog. + +--Doing any singing those times? + +Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. +Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. +Does no harm. Free ad. + +--She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard +perhaps. + +--No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up? + +The curate served. + +--How much is that? + +--Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir. + +Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. _Mr MacTrigger_. Easier +than the dreamy creamy stuff. _His five hundred wives. Had the time of +their lives._ + +--Mustard, sir? + +--Thank you. + +He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. _Their lives_. I have +it. _It grew bigger and bigger and bigger_. + +--Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part +shares and part profits. + +--Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket +to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan +mixed up in it? + +A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He +raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock +five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet. + +His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, +longingly. + +Wine. + +He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to +speed it, set his wineglass delicately down. + +--Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact. + +No fear: no brains. + +Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal. + +--He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that +boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello +barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he +was telling me... + +Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up. + +--For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God +till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a +hairy chap. + +Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, +cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose +smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat +on the parsnips. + +--And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give +us a good one for the Gold cup? + +--I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a +horse. + +--You're right there, Nosey Flynn said. + +Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of +disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his +wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather +with the chill off. + +Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like +the way it curves there. + +--I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined +many a man, the same horses. + +Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits +for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose. + +--True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's +no straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving +Sceptre today. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won +at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one +against Saint Amant a fortnight before. + +--That so? Davy Byrne said... + +He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned +its pages. + +--I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit of +horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm, +Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow +cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it. +Ay. + +He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the +flutes. + +--Ay, he said, sighing. + +Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull. +Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him +forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. +Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly +beards they like. Dogs' cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling +stomach's Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her +lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy! + +Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish +cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath +of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. +Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She... + +Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so +off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy +lobsters' claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of +shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the +French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing +in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your +mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. +Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it +on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. +Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial +irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like +a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them +out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect +on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he +oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has +no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game. +Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, +blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might +mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no +yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the +scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, +then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. +Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in +the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the +grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom +pearls. The _élite. Crème de la crème_. They want special dishes to +pretend they're. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings +of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, +Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send +him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the +Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted _chef_ like a rabbi. Combustible duck. +Curly cabbage _à la duchesse de Parme_. Just as well to write it on the +bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the +broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese +stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. +Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, +halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, +miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect +that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. _Du, de la_ French. +Still it's the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped +the guts out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes' gills +can't write his name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape +with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of +brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds. + +Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck. + +Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress +grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me +memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns +on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple +by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. +Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. +Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub +my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with +ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn +away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. +Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. +Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate +it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky +gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles +fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a +nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns +she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, +her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's +veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was +kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. + +Me. And me now. + +Stuck, the flies buzzed. + +His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab. Beauty: +it curves: curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the +world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall, +naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don't care what man looks. All +to see. Never speaking. I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she +did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in +your proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes, all +ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and +turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods' +food. Lovely forms of women sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we +stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, +earth, food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. Never +looked. I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something drop +see if she. + +Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to +do there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and +walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men +lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard. + +When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book: + +--What is this he is? Isn't he in the insurance line? + +--He's out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for +the _Freeman._ + +--I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble? + +--Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why? + +--I noticed he was in mourning. + +--Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all at +home. You're right, by God. So he was. + +--I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a +gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their +minds. + +--It's not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before +yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's +wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home +to his better half. She's well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast. + +--And is he doing for the _Freeman?_ Davy Byrne said. + +Nosey Flynn pursed his lips. + +---He doesn't buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of +that. + +--How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book. + +Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He +winked. + +--He's in the craft, he said. + +---Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said. + +--Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He's +an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg +up. I was told that by a--well, I won't say who. + +--Is that a fact? + +--O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you're +down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they're as close as +damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it. + +Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one: + +--Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! + +--There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find +out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and +swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint +Legers of Doneraile. + +Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes: + +--And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here +and I never once saw him--you know, over the line. + +--God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips +off when the fun gets too hot. Didn't you see him look at his watch? Ah, +you weren't there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does +he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he +does. + +--There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He's a safe man, I'd say. + +--He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He's been known +to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O, +Bloom has his good points. But there's one thing he'll never do. + +His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog. + +--I know, Davy Byrne said. + +--Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said. + +Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning, +a plaining hand on his claret waistcoat. + +--Day, Mr Byrne. + +--Day, gentlemen. + +They paused at the counter. + +--Who's standing? Paddy Leonard asked. + +--I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered. + +--Well, what'll it be? Paddy Leonard asked. + +--I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said. + +--How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God' sake? What's +yours, Tom? + +--How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping. + +For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and +hiccupped. + +--Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said. + +--Certainly, sir. + +Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates. + +--Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold +water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. +He has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip. + +--Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked. + +Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set before +him. + +--That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking. + +--Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said. + +Tom Rochford nodded and drank. + +--Is it Zinfandel? + +--Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I'm going to plunge five bob on my +own. + +--Tell us if you're worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonard +said. Who gave it to you? + +Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting. + +--So long! Nosey Flynn said. + +The others turned. + +--That's the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered. + +--Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we'll take two +of your small Jamesons after that and a... + +--Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly. + +--Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby. + +Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth +smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with +those Rontgen rays searchlight you could. + +At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the +cobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks +having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom +coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move. +Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of his? +Wasting time explaining it to Flynn's mouth. Lean people long mouths. +Ought to be a hall or a place where inventors could go in and invent +free. Course then you'd have all the cranks pestering. + +He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars: + +_Don Giovanni, a cenar teco M'invitasti._ + +Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap +in the blues. Dutch courage. That _Kilkenny People_ in the national +library now I must. + +Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber, +turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way down, +swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the +body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of +intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the +time with his insides entrails on show. Science. + +--_A cenar teco._ + +What does that _teco_ mean? Tonight perhaps. + + _Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited + To come to supper tonight, + The rum the rumdum._ + +Doesn't go properly. + +Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten about +two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott's dyeworks +van over there. If I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. Five guineas +about. On the pig's back. + +Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new +garters. + +Today. Today. Not think. + +Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, +Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely +seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy +thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. +Will eat anything. + +Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of unbought tarts and +passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. _Why I left the church +of Rome? Birds' Nest._ Women run him. They say they used to give pauper +children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato blight. +Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same +bait. Why we left the church of Rome. + +A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No +tram in sight. Wants to cross. + +--Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked. + +The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He +moved his head uncertainly. + +--You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite. +Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way. + +The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom's eye followed its +line and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's. Where I +saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in +John Long's. Slaking his drouth. + +--There's a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it's not moving. I'll see you +across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street? + +--Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street. + +--Come, Mr Bloom said. + +He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to +guide it forward. + +Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust +what you tell them. Pass a common remark. + +--The rain kept off. + +No answer. + +Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different +for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child's hand, his hand. Like +Milly's was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder +if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse's legs: tired +drudge get his doze. That's right. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a +horse. + +--Thanks, sir. + +Knows I'm a man. Voice. + +--Right now? First turn to the left. + +The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing +his cane back, feeling again. + +Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone +tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? +Must have felt it. See things in their forehead perhaps: kind of sense +of volume. Weight or size of it, something blacker than the dark. Wonder +would he feel it if something was removed. Feel a gap. Queer idea of +Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he walk +in a beeline if he hadn't that cane? Bloodless pious face like a fellow +going in to be a priest. + +Penrose! That was that chap's name. + +Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers. +Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a +deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. +Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People +ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates +sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men they call them. + +Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched +together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring, +the summer: smells. Tastes? They say you can't taste wines with your +eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no +pleasure. + +And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl +passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have +them all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his +mind's eye. The voice, temperatures: when he touches her with his +fingers must almost see the lines, the curves. His hands on her hair, +for instance. Say it was black, for instance. Good. We call it black. +Then passing over her white skin. Different feel perhaps. Feeling of +white. + +Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two +shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer's just here +too. Wait. Think over it. + +With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above +his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt +the skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough. +The belly is the smoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick +street. Perhaps to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Might be settling +my braces. + +Walking by Doran's publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat +and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of +his belly. But I know it's whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to +see. + +He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to. + +Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would +he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being +born that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned +and drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration +for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses. +Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course: but somehow you can't cotton on to +them someway. + +Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons' hall. Solemn as Troy. +After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking +a magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat +school. I sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he'd turn up his nose +at that stuff I drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked on a +dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice in the recorder's court. +Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get their +percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout. The devil +on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J. a great strawcalling. Now he's really +what they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old topers +in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul. + +Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant. +Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. _The +Messiah_ was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out +there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a +leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate. + +Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library. + +Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is. + +His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to +the right. + +Is it? Almost certain. Won't look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too +heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Get on. + +Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes. +Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me? + +Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes. + +The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold +statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute. + +No. Didn't see me. After two. Just at the gate. + +My heart! + +His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir Thomas +Deane was the Greek architecture. + +Look for something I. + +His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded +Agendath Netaim. Where did I? + +Busy looking. + +He thrust back quick Agendath. + +Afternoon she said. + +I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. _Freeman._ +Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where? + +Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart. + +His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap +lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate. + +Safe! + + +Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred: + + +--And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of _Wilhelm Meister_. +A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul taking arms +against a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in +real life. + +He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step +backward a sinkapace on the solemn floor. + +A noiseless attendant setting open the door but slightly made him a +noiseless beck. + +--Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautiful +ineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always +feels that Goethe's judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis. + +Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door +he gave his large ear all to the attendant's words: heard them: and was +gone. + +Two left. + +--Monsieur de la Palice, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes +before his death. + +--Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked with +elder's gall, to write _Paradise Lost_ at your dictation? _The Sorrows +of Satan_ he calls it. + +Smile. Smile Cranly's smile. + + _First he tickled her + Then he patted her + Then he passed the female catheter. + For he was a medical + Jolly old medi..._ + +--I feel you would need one more for _Hamlet._ Seven is dear to the +mystic mind. The shining seven W.B. calls them. + +Glittereyed his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought +the face bearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He laughed +low: a sizar's laugh of Trinity: unanswered. + + _Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood + Tears such as angels weep. + Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta._ + +He holds my follies hostage. + +Cranly's eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed +Kathleen, her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house. +And one more to hail him: _ave, rabbi_: the Tinahely twelve. In the +shadow of the glen he cooees for them. My soul's youth I gave him, night +by night. God speed. Good hunting. + +Mulligan has my telegram. + +Folly. Persist. + +--Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a +figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though +I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry. + +--All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his +shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. +Clergymen's discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal +to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a +work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of +Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, +the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal +wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of +schoolboys for schoolboys. + +A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike +me! + +--The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely. +Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy. + +--And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said. One +can see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm. + +He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face. + +Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the +heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who +suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon +the altar. I am the sacrificial butter. + +Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval, the Name +Ineffable, in heaven hight: K.H., their master, whose identity is no +secret to adepts. Brothers of the great white lodge always watching +to see if they can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of +light, born of an ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the +plane of buddhi. The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. +must work off bad karma first. Mrs Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very +illustrious sister H.P.B.'s elemental. + +O, fie! Out on't! _Pfuiteufel!_ You naughtn't to look, missus, so you +naughtn't when a lady's ashowing of her elemental. + +Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with +grace a notebook, new, large, clean, bright. + +--That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet's musings about +the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and +undramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato's. + +John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth: + +--Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle +with Plato. + +--Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from his +commonwealth? + +Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of +allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the +street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through +spaces smaller than red globules of man's blood they creepycrawl after +Blake's buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a +shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to +the past. + +Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague. + +--Haines is gone, he said. + +--Is he? + +--I was showing him Jubainville's book. He's quite enthusiastic, don't +you know, about Hyde's _Lovesongs of Connacht._ I couldn't bring him in +to hear the discussion. He's gone to Gill's to buy it. + + _Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick + To greet the callous public. + Writ, I ween, 'twas not my wish + In lean unlovely English._ + +--The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined. + +We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green +twinkling stone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea. + +--People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of +Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the +world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the +hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the +living mother. The rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce the +sixshilling novel, the musichall song. France produces the finest flower +of corruption in Mallarme but the desirable life is revealed only to the +poor of heart, the life of Homer's Phaeacians. + +From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen. + +--Mallarme, don't you know, he said, has written those wonderful prose +poems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one about +_Hamlet._ He says: _il se promène, lisant au livre de lui-même_, don't +you know, _reading the book of himself_. He describes _Hamlet_ given in +a French town, don't you know, a provincial town. They advertised it. + +His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air. + + _HAMLET + ou + LE DISTRAIT + Pièce de Shakespeare_ + +He repeated to John Eglinton's newgathered frown: + +--_Pièce de Shakespeare_, don't you know. It's so French. The French +point of view. _Hamlet ou_... + +--The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended. + +John Eglinton laughed. + +--Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, but +distressingly shortsighted in some matters. + +Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder. + +--A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not +for nothing was he a butcher's son, wielding the sledded poleaxe and +spitting in his palms. Nine lives are taken off for his father's one. +Our Father who art in purgatory. Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to +shoot. The bloodboltered shambles in act five is a forecast of the +concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne. + +Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar. + +_Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none But we had spared..._ + +Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea. + +--He will have it that _Hamlet_ is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said +for Mr Best's behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our +flesh creep. + +_List! List! O List!_ + +My flesh hears him: creeping, hears. + +_If thou didst ever..._ + +--What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded +into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of +manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris +lies from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from _limbo patrum_, returning +to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet? + +John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge. + +Lifted. + +--It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with +a swift glance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the +bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. +Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the +groundlings. + +Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices. + +--Shakespeare has left the huguenot's house in Silver street and walks +by the swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the +pen chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon +has other thoughts. + +Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me! + +--The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the +castoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is the +ghost, the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare who +has studied _Hamlet_ all the years of his life which were not vanity in +order to play the part of the spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, +the young player who stands before him beyond the rack of cerecloth, +calling him by a name: + +_Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit,_ + +bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince, +young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has +died in Stratford that his namesake may live for ever. + +Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and in +the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words +to his own son's name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been +prince Hamlet's twin), is it possible, I want to know, or probable that +he did not draw or foresee the logical conclusion of those premises: you +are the dispossessed son: I am the murdered father: your mother is the +guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway? + +--But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began +impatiently. + +Art thou there, truepenny? + +--Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I +mean when we read the poetry of _King Lear_ what is it to us how the +poet lived? As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de +l'Isle has said. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, +the poet's drinking, the poet's debts. We have _King Lear_: and it is +immortal. + +Mr Best's face, appealed to, agreed. + +_Flow over them with your waves and with your waters, Mananaan, Mananaan +MacLir..._ + +How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry? + +Marry, I wanted it. + +Take thou this noble. + +Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's +daughter. Agenbite of inwit. + +Do you intend to pay it back? + +O, yes. + +When? Now? + +Well... No. + +When, then? + +I paid my way. I paid my way. + +Steady on. He's from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe +it. + +Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got +pound. + +Buzz. Buzz. + +But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under +everchanging forms. + +I that sinned and prayed and fasted. + +A child Conmee saved from pandies. + +I, I and I. I. + +A.E.I.O.U. + +--Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries? +John Eglinton's carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid +for ever. She died, for literature at least, before she was born. + +--She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She +saw him into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She bore +his children and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids closed +when he lay on his deathbed. + +Mother's deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into +this world lies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. _Liliata +rutilantium._ + +I wept alone. + +John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp. + +--The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got +out of it as quickly and as best he could. + +--Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His +errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + +Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, +softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous. + +--A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of +discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn +from Xanthippe? + +--Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring thoughts +into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (_absit +nomen!_), Socratididion's Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever +know. But neither the midwife's lore nor the caudlelectures saved him +from the archons of Sinn Fein and their naggin of hemlock. + +--But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem +to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her. + +His look went from brooder's beard to carper's skull, to remind, to +chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless +though maligned. + +--He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory. +He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling +_The girl I left behind me._ If the earthquake did not time it we should +know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds, +the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, _Venus and +Adonis_, lay in the bedchamber of every light-of-love in London. +Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and +beautiful. Do you think the writer of _Antony and Cleopatra_, a +passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose +the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good: he left her +and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy. +Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He +was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way. +By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and +twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping +to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford +wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself. + +And my turn? When? + +Come! + +--Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly, +brightly. + +He murmured then with blond delight for all: + +_Between the acres of the rye These pretty countryfolk would lie._ + +Paris: the wellpleased pleaser. + +A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its +cooperative watch. + +--I am afraid I am due at the _Homestead._ + +Whither away? Exploitable ground. + +--Are you going? John Eglinton's active eyebrows asked. Shall we see you +at Moore's tonight? Piper is coming. + +--Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back? + +Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper. + +--I don't know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get +away in time. + +Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. _Isis Unveiled._ Their Pali book we +tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an +Aztec logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. +The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, +ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies +tend them i'the eyes, their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god, +he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls, +shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled, +whirling, they bewail. + + _In quintessential triviality + For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt._ + +--They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian +said, friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering +together a sheaf of our younger poets' verses. We are all looking +forward anxiously. + +Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces, +lighted, shone. + +See this. Remember. + +Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his +ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with +two index fingers. Aristotle's experiment. One or two? Necessity is that +in virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise. Argal, +one hat is one hat. + +Listen. + +Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part. +Longworth will give it a good puff in the _Express._ O, will he? I liked +Colum's _Drover._ Yes, I think he has that queer thing genius. Do you +think he has genius really? Yeats admired his line: _As in wild earth +a Grecian vase_. Did he? I hope you'll be able to come tonight. Malachi +Mulligan is coming too. Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did you hear +Miss Mitchell's joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's +wild oats? Awfully clever, isn't it? They remind one of Don Quixote and +Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. +Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in +Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O'Neill Russell? O, yes, he must speak the +grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing some clever +sketches. We are becoming important, it seems. + +Cordelia. _Cordoglio._ Lir's loneliest daughter. + +Nookshotten. Now your best French polish. + +--Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be +so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman... + +--O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much +correspondence. + +--I understand, Stephen said. Thanks. + +God ild you. The pigs' paper. Bullockbefriending. + +Synge has promised me an article for _Dana_ too. Are we going to be +read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope +you will come round tonight. Bring Starkey. + +Stephen sat down. + +The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing, his mask said: + +--Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating. + +He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a +chopine, and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low: + +--Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet? + +Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light? + +--Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been +first a sundering. + +--Yes. + +Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks, +from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women +he won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, +bully tapsters' wives. Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack +dishonoured body that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as +cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow +grave and unforgiven. + +--Yes. So you think... + +The door closed behind the outgoer. + +Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and +brooding air. + +A vestal's lamp. + +Here he ponders things that were not: what Caesar would have lived to do +had he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of +the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when +he lived among women. + +Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. +Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the +voice of that Egyptian highpriest. _In painted chambers loaded with +tilebooks._ + +They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of +death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak +their will. + +--Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most +enigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so +much. Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest. + +--But _Hamlet_ is so personal, isn't it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind +of private paper, don't you know, of his private life. I mean, I don't +care a button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty... + +He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his +defiance. His private papers in the original. _Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim +in mo shagart_. Put beurla on it, littlejohn. + +Quoth littlejohn Eglinton: + +--I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but +I may as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that +Shakespeare is Hamlet you have a stern task before you. + +Bear with me. + +Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under +wrinkled brows. A basilisk. _E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca_. Messer +Brunetto, I thank thee for the word. + +--As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, +from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist +weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where +it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff +time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the image +of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, +when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that +which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the +future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but +by reflection from that which then I shall be. + +Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile. + +--Yes, Mr Best said youngly. I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitterness +might be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from +the son. + +Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son. + +--That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing. + +John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow. + +--If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a +drug in the market. The plays of Shakespeare's later years which Renan +admired so much breathe another spirit. + +--The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed. + +--There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a +sundering. + +Said that. + +--If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over +the hell of time of _King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida,_ +look to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a +man, shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, +prince of Tyre? + +Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded. + +--A child, a girl, placed in his arms, Marina. + +--The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant +quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead +to the town. + +Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon's wild oats. Cypherjugglers +going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town, good +masters? Mummed in names: A. E., eon: Magee, John Eglinton. East of the +sun, west of the moon: _Tir na n-og_. Booted the twain and staved. + +_How many miles to Dublin? Three score and ten, sir. Will we be there by +candlelight?_ + +--Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing +period. + +--Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his +name is, say of it? + +--Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, +that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter's +child. _My dearest wife_, Pericles says, _was like this maid._ Will any +man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother? + +--The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. _l'art d'être +grand_... + +--Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, +another image? + +Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all +men. Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus +... + +--His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of +all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The +images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them +grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself. + +The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope. + +--I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of +the public. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr George +Bernard Shaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles on +Shakespeare in the _Saturday Review_ were surely brilliant. Oddly +enough he too draws for us an unhappy relation with the dark lady of the +sonnets. The favoured rival is William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I own +that if the poet must be rejected such a rejection would seem more in +harmony with--what shall I say?--our notions of what ought not to have +been. + +Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk's egg, prize +of their fray. + +He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost +love thy man? + +--That may be too, Stephen said. There's a saying of Goethe's which Mr +Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because +you will get it in middle life. Why does he send to one who is +a _buonaroba,_ a bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a +scandalous girlhood, a lordling to woo for him? He was himself a lord +of language and had made himself a coistrel gentleman and he had written +_Romeo and Juliet_. Why? Belief in himself has been untimely killed. He +was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, I should say) and he will +never be a victor in his own eyes after nor play victoriously the game +of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism will not save him. No later +undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of the boar has wounded +him there where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is worsted yet there +remains to her woman's invisible weapon. There is, I feel in the words, +some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a darker shadow +of the first, darkening even his own understanding of himself. A like +fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool. + +They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour. + +--The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the +porch of a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep cannot +know the manner of their quell unless their Creator endow their souls +with that knowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the beast +with two backs that urged it King Hamlet's ghost could not know of were +he not endowed with knowledge by his creator. That is why the speech +(his lean unlovely English) is always turned elsewhere, backward. +Ravisher and ravished, what he would but would not, go with him from +Lucrece's bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen's breast, bare, with its +mole cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creation he has piled up +to hide him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But, because +loss is his gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminished +personality, untaught by the wisdom he has written or by the laws he +has revealed. His beaver is up. He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind by +Elsinore's rocks or what you will, the sea's voice, a voice heard +only in the heart of him who is the substance of his shadow, the son +consubstantial with the father. + +--Amen! was responded from the doorway. + +Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? + +_Entr'acte_. + +A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forward, then +blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram. + +--You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he +asked of Stephen. + +Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a bauble. + +They make him welcome. _Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen._ + +Brood of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most. + +He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself, +Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, +stripped and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on +crosstree, Who let Him bury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven +and there these nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His +Own Self but yet shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and dead +when all the quick shall be dead already. + +Glo--o--ri--a in ex--cel--sis De--o. + +He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells +aquiring. + +--Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion. +Mr Mulligan, I'll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of +Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented. + +He smiled on all sides equally. + +Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled: + +--Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name. + +A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features. + +--To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like +Synge. + +Mr Best turned to him. + +--Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He'll see you after at +the D. B. C. He's gone to Gill's to buy Hyde's _Lovesongs of Connacht_. + +--I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here? + +--The bard's fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tired +perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played +Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining +held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an +Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He +swears (His Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick. + +--The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde's, Mr Best said, +lifting his brilliant notebook. That _Portrait of Mr W. H._ where he +proves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues. + +--For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked. + +Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I? + +--I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Of +course it's all paradox, don't you know, Hughes and hews and hues, +the colour, but it's so typical the way he works it out. It's the very +essence of Wilde, don't you know. The light touch. + +His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe. +Tame essence of Wilde. + +You're darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan +Deasy's ducats. + +How much did I spend? O, a few shillings. + +For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry. + +Wit. You would give your five wits for youth's proud livery he pranks +in. Lineaments of gratified desire. + +There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool ruttime +send them. Yea, turtledove her. + +Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's kiss. + +--Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking. +The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious. + +They talked seriously of mocker's seriousness. + +Buck Mulligan's again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head +wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His +mobile lips read, smiling with new delight. + +--Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull! + +He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully: + +--_The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the +immense debtorship for a thing done._ Signed: Dedalus. Where did you +launch it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four +quid? The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram! +Malachi Mulligan, The Ship, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer! +O, you priestified Kinchite! + +Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a +querulous brogue: + +--It's what I'm telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we were, +Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did +for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with +leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's +sitting civil waiting for pints apiece. + +He wailed: + +--And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us your +conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the +drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful. + +Stephen laughed. + +Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down. + +--The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He +heard you pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He's out in pampooties to +murder you. + +--Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature. + +Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping +ceiling. + +--Murder you! he laughed. + +Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash +of lights in rue Saint-André-des-Arts. In words of words for words, +palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, +brandishing a winebottle. _C'est vendredi saint!_ Murthering Irish. His +image, wandering, he met. I mine. I met a fool i'the forest. + +--Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar. + +--... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his +_Diary of Master William Silence_ has found the hunting terms... Yes? +What is it? + +--There's a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward and +offering a card. From the _Freeman._ He wants to see the files of the +_Kilkenny People_ for last year. + +--Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?... + +He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked, +asked, creaked, asked: + +--Is he?... O, there! + +Brisk in a galliard he was off, out. In the daylit corridor he talked +with voluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most +honest broadbrim. + +--This gentleman? _Freeman's Journal? Kilkenny People?_ To be sure. Good +day, sir. _Kilkenny_... We have certainly... + +A patient silhouette waited, listening. + +--All the leading provincial... _Northern Whig, Cork Examiner, +Enniscorthy Guardian,_ 1903... Will you please?... Evans, conduct this +gentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me... +This way... Please, sir... + +Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing +dark figure following his hasty heels. + +The door closed. + +--The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried. + +He jumped up and snatched the card. + +--What's his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom. + +He rattled on: + +--Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in the +museum where I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth that +has never been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to her. +_Life of life, thy lips enkindle._ + +Suddenly he turned to Stephen: + +--He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker +than the Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove. +Venus Kallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! _The god pursuing the +maiden hid_. + +--We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best's approval. +We begin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if +at all, as a patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome. + +--Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beauty +from Kyrios Menelaus' brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy +in whom a score of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty +years he lived in London and, during part of that time, he drew a salary +equal to that of the lord chancellor of Ireland. His life was rich. His +art, more than the art of feudalism as Walt Whitman called it, is the +art of surfeit. Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar +of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies. Sir Walter +Raleigh, when they arrested him, had half a million francs on his +back including a pair of fancy stays. The gombeenwoman Eliza Tudor had +underlinen enough to vie with her of Sheba. Twenty years he dallied +there between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatory love +and its foul pleasures. You know Manningham's story of the burgher's +wife who bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had seen him in _Richard +III_ and how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado about nothing, +took the cow by the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, +answered from the capon's blankets: _William the conqueror came before +Richard III_. And the gay lakin, mistress Fitton, mount and cry O, +and his dainty birdsnies, lady Penelope Rich, a clean quality woman is +suited for a player, and the punks of the bankside, a penny a time. + +Cours la Reine. _Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries. +Minette? Tu veux?_ + +--The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of oxford's +mother with her cup of canary for any cockcanary. + +Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed: + +--Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock! + +--And Harry of six wives' daughter. And other lady friends from +neighbour seats as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those +twenty years what do you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing +behind the diamond panes? + +Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist, +he walks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of +Juno's eyes, violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. +Afar, in a reek of lust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness. + +Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton's desk sharply. + +--Whom do you suspect? he challenged. + +--Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twice +spurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove. + +Love that dare not speak its name. + +--As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a +lord. + +Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them. + +--It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for all +other and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for the +stallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he had a +shrew to wife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow. Two +deeds are rank in that ghost's mind: a broken vow and the dullbrained +yokel on whom her favour has declined, deceased husband's brother. Sweet +Ann, I take it, was hot in the blood. Once a wooer, twice a wooer. + +Stephen turned boldly in his chair. + +--The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said frowning. If you +deny that in the fifth scene of _Hamlet_ he has branded her with infamy +tell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years +between the day she married him and the day she buried him. All those +women saw their men down and under: Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her +poor dear Willun, when he went and died on her, raging that he was the +first to go, Joan, her four brothers, Judith, her husband and all her +sons, Susan, her husband too, while Susan's daughter, Elizabeth, to use +granddaddy's words, wed her second, having killed her first. + +O, yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in +royal London to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her +father's shepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein he +has commended her to posterity. + +He faced their silence. + + To whom thus Eglinton: + You mean the will. + But that has been explained, I believe, by jurists. + She was entitled to her widow's dower + At common law. His legal knowledge was great + Our judges tell us. + Him Satan fleers, + Mocker: + And therefore he left out her name + From the first draft but he did not leave out + The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters, + For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford + And in London. And therefore when he was urged, + As I believe, to name her + He left her his + Secondbest + Bed. + _Punkt._ + Leftherhis + Secondbest + Leftherhis + Bestabed + Secabest + Leftabed. + + +Woa! + +--Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, as +they have still if our peasant plays are true to type. + +--He was a rich country gentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms +and landed estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalist +shareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her +his best bed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in +peace? + +--It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, Mr +Secondbest Best said finely. + +--_Separatio a mensa et a thalamo_, bettered Buck Mulligan and was +smiled on. + +--Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered, bedsmiling. +Let me think. + +--Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage, +Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves, pays +tribute to his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his +dead wife and bids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don't forget +Nell Gwynn Herpyllis) and let her live in his villa. + +--Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean... + +--He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish for +a king. O, I must tell you what Dowden said! + +--What? asked Besteglinton. + +William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people's William. For +terms apply: E. Dowden, Highfield house... + +--Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he thought +of the charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his hands +and said: _All we can say is that life ran very high in those days._ +Lovely! + +Catamite. + +--The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best to +ugling Eglinton. + +Steadfast John replied severe: + +--The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You cannot eat your cake +and have it. + +Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me, the palm of beauty? + +--And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his +own long pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself +a cornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in the +famine riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship +mentioned by Chettle Falstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing. +He sued a fellowplayer for the price of a few bags of malt and exacted +his pound of flesh in interest for every money lent. How else could +Aubrey's ostler and callboy get rich quick? All events brought grist to +his mill. Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging +and quartering of the queen's leech Lopez, his jew's heart being plucked +forth while the sheeny was yet alive: _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ with +the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with a turn for +witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in _Love's Labour Lost_. +His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide of Mafeking +enthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a porter's theory +of equivocation. The _Sea Venture_ comes home from Bermudas and the play +Renan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American cousin. +The sugared sonnets follow Sidney's. As for fay Elizabeth, otherwise +carrotty Bess, the gross virgin who inspired _The Merry Wives of +Windsor_, let some meinherr from Almany grope his life long for deephid +meanings in the depths of the buckbasket. + +I think you're getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture of +theolologicophilolological. _Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere._ + +--Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared,'expectantly. Your dean +of studies holds he was a holy Roman. + +_Sufflaminandus sum._ + +--He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French +polisher of Italian scandals. + +--A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him +myriadminded. + +_Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitia +inter multos._ + +--Saint Thomas, Stephen began... + +--_Ora pro nobis_, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair. + +There he keened a wailing rune. + +--_Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!_ It's destroyed we are from this day! +It's destroyed we are surely! + +All smiled their smiles. + +--Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy +reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different +from that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his +wise and curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the +love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some +stranger who, it may be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with +avarice, are of all races the most given to intermarriage. Accusations +are made in anger. The christian laws which built up the hoards of the +jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm was shelter) bound their +affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sins or virtues old +Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds so tightly +to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will hold +tightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls his +wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his +manservant or his maidservant or his jackass. + +--Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned. + +--Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently. + +--Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed. + +--The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's +widow, is the will to die. + +_--Requiescat!_ Stephen prayed. + + _What of all the will to do? + It has vanished long ago..._ + +--She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the +mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as +rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven +parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed with her +at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid for but in +which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a soul. She +read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the _Merry +Wives_ and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought +over _Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches_ and _The most Spiritual +Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze_. Venus has twisted her +lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age +of exhausted whoredom groping for its god. + +--History shows that to be true, _inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos_. The +ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man's +worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that +Russell is right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say +that only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. +I feel that the fat knight is his supreme creation. + +Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping +with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it +him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman +to see you. Me? Says he's your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter +Magee Mor Matthew, a rugged rough rugheaded kern, in strossers with +a buttoned codpiece, his nether stocks bemired with clauber of ten +forests, a wand of wilding in his hand. + +Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower. + +Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I +touched his hand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is +attending her. The eyes that wish me well. But do not know me. + +--A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary +evil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father's death. +If you hold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters, with +thirtyfive years of life, _nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_, with +fifty of experience, is the beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg then +you must hold that his seventyyear old mother is the lustful queen. No. +The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to +hour it rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised +that mystical estate upon his son. Boccaccio's Calandrino was the first +and last man who felt himself with child. Fatherhood, in the sense of +conscious begetting, is unknown to man. It is a mystical estate, an +apostolic succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that +mystery and not on the madonna which the cunning Italian intellect +flung to the mob of Europe the church is founded and founded irremovably +because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon the void. +Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood. _Amor matris_, subjective and +objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be +a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love +him or he any son? + +What the hell are you driving at? + +I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons. + +_Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea._ + +Are you condemned to do this? + +--They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal +annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, +hardly record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, +lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with +grandmothers, jailbirds with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son +unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases +care. He is a new male: his growth is his father's decline, his youth +his father's envy, his friend his father's enemy. + +In rue Monsieur-le-Prince I thought it. + +--What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut. + +Am I a father? If I were? + +Shrunken uncertain hand. + +--Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the +field, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of +Aquin, with whom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well: if +the father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a +father be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet +of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote _Hamlet_ he was not the +father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt +himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, +the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was +born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection. + +Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly +glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine. + +Flatter. Rarely. But flatter. + +--Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big with +child. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The +play's the thing! Let me parturiate! + +He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands. + +--As for his family, Stephen said, his mother's name lives in the +forest of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in +_Coriolanus._ His boyson's death is the deathscene of young Arthur in +_King John._ Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who the +girls in _The Tempest_, in _Pericles,_ in _Winter's Tale_ are we know. +Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may +guess. But there is another member of his family who is recorded. + +--The plot thickens, John Eglinton said. + +The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with +haste, quake, quack. + +Door closed. Cell. Day. + +They list. Three. They. + +I you he they. + +Come, mess. + +STEPHEN: He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in his +old age told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister Gatherer +one time mass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the playwriter up +in Lunnon in a wrastling play wud a man on's back. The playhouse sausage +filled Gilbert's soul. He is nowhere: but an Edmund and a Richard are +recorded in the works of sweet William. + +MAGEEGLINJOHN: Names! What's in a name? + +BEST: That is my name, Richard, don't you know. I hope you are going to +say a good word for Richard, don't you know, for my sake. _(Laughter)_ + + +BUCKMULLIGAN: (_Piano, diminuendo_) + + _Then outspoke medical Dick + To his comrade medical Davy..._ + +STEPHEN: In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago, +Richard Crookback, Edmund in _King Lear_, two bear the wicked uncles' +names. Nay, that last play was written or being written while his +brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark. + +BEST: I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don't want Richard, my name +... + +_(Laughter)_ + +QUAKERLYSTER: (_A tempo_) But he that filches from me my good name... + +STEPHEN: _(Stringendo)_ He has hidden his own name, a fair name, +William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old +Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in +the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John o'Gaunt his name +is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend +sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer +than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What's in a name? +That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that +we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. +It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the +night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent +constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. His +eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as +he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from +Shottery and from her arms. + +Both satisfied. I too. + +Don't tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched. + +And from her arms. + +Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you? + +Read the skies. _Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos._ Where's your +configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: _sua donna. +Già: di lui. gelindo risolve di non amare_ S. D. + +--What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a +celestial phenomenon? + +--A star by night, Stephen said. A pillar of the cloud by day. + +What more's to speak? + +Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots. + +_Stephanos,_ my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my +feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too. + +--You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name is +strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour. + +Me, Magee and Mulligan. + +Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? +Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. +_Pater, ait._ Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing +be. + +Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say: + +--That's very interesting because that brother motive, don't you know, +we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three +brothers Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don't you know, the fairytales. The +third brother that always marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best +prize. + +Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best. + +The quaker librarian springhalted near. + +--I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand you +to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps +I am anticipating? + +He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained. + +An attendant from the doorway called: + +--Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants... + +--O, Father Dineen! Directly. + +Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone. + +John Eglinton touched the foil. + +--Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund. +You kept them for the last, didn't you? + +--In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie and +nuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A +brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. + +Lapwing. + +Where is your brother? Apothecaries' hall. My whetstone. Him, then +Cranly, Mulligan: now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They +mock to try you. Act. Be acted on. + +Lapwing. + +I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink. + +On. + +--You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which he +took the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others? +Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann +(what's in a name?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard +the conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered. The +other four acts of that play hang limply from that first. Of all his +kings Richard is the only king unshielded by Shakespeare's reverence, +the angel of the world. Why is the underplot of _King Lear_ in which +Edmund figures lifted out of Sidney's _Arcadia_ and spatchcocked on to a +Celtic legend older than history? + +--That was Will's way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine +a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. _Que +voulez-vous?_ Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and makes +Ulysses quote Aristotle. + +--Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or +the usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to +Shakespeare, what the poor are not, always with him. The note of +banishment, banishment from the heart, banishment from home, sounds +uninterruptedly from _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ onward till Prospero +breaks his staff, buries it certain fathoms in the earth and drowns his +book. It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in +another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe. +It repeats itself again when he is near the grave, when his married +daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery. But it +was the original sin that darkened his understanding, weakened his will +and left in him a strong inclination to evil. The words are those of +my lords bishops of Maynooth. An original sin and, like original sin, +committed by another in whose sin he too has sinned. It is between the +lines of his last written words, it is petrified on his tombstone under +which her four bones are not to be laid. Age has not withered it. Beauty +and peace have not done it away. It is in infinite variety everywhere in +the world he has created, in _Much Ado about Nothing_, twice in _As you +like It_, in _The Tempest_, in _Hamlet,_ in _Measure for Measure_--and +in all the other plays which I have not read. + +He laughed to free his mind from his mind's bondage. + +Judge Eglinton summed up. + +--The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He +is all in all. + +--He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act five. +All in all. In _Cymbeline,_ in _Othello_ he is bawd and cuckold. He acts +and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like Jose he +kills the real Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago +ceaselessly willing that the moor in him shall suffer. + +--Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear! + +Dark dome received, reverbed. + +--And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. When +all is said Dumas _fils_ (or is it Dumas _père?)_ is right. After God +Shakespeare has created most. + +--Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns after +a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he has +always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of +life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The +motion is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet _(père?)_ and Hamlet _fils._ +A king and a prince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what +though murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, +Dane or Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom +they refuse to be divorced. If you like the epilogue look long on it: +prosperous Prospero, the good man rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa's lump of +love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off by poetic justice to the +place where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He found in the world +without as actual what was in his world within as possible. Maeterlinck +says: _If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated +on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps +will tend._ Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through +ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, +widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright +who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light +first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom +the most Roman of catholics call _dio boia_, hangman god, is doubtless +all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and +cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there +are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife +unto himself. + +_--Eureka!_ Buck Mulligan cried. _Eureka!_ + +Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton's +desk. + +--May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi. + +He began to scribble on a slip of paper. + +Take some slips from the counter going out. + +--Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one, +shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. + +He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor. + +Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his +variorum edition of _The Taming of the Shrew._ + +--You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have +brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe +your own theory? + +--No, Stephen said promptly. + +--Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a +dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote. + +John Eclecticon doubly smiled. + +--Well, in that case, he said, I don't see why you should expect payment +for it since you don't believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is +some mystery in _Hamlet_ but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man +Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes +that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to +visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor +wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he +believes his theory. + +I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help +me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? _Egomen._ Who to unbelieve? Other +chap. + +--You are the only contributor to _Dana_ who asks for pieces of silver. +Then I don't know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an +article on economics. + +Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics. + +--For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview. + +Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then +gravely said, honeying malice: + +--I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper +Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the _Summa contra +Gentiles_ in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and +Rosalie, the coalquay whore. + +He broke away. + +--Come, Kinch. Come, wandering Aengus of the birds. + +Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left. Ay. I will serve you your orts +and offals. + +Stephen rose. + +Life is many days. This will end. + +--We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. _Notre ami_ Moore says +Malachi Mulligan must be there. + +Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama. + +--Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth of +Ireland. I'll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk +straight? + +Laughing, he... + +Swill till eleven. Irish nights entertainment. + +Lubber... + +Stephen followed a lubber... + +One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After. His +lub back: I followed. I gall his kibe. + +Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a wellkempt +head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering daylight of +no thought. + +What have I learned? Of them? Of me? + +Walk like Haines now. + +The constant readers' room. In the readers' book Cashel Boyle O'Connor +Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet +mad? The quaker's pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk. + +--O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased... + +Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself, selfnodding: + +--A pleased bottom. + +The turnstile. + +Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?... + +The curving balustrade: smoothsliding Mincius. + +Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling: + +_John Eglinton, my jo, John, Why won't you wed a wife?_ + +He spluttered to the air: + +--O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their +playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers' hall. Our players are creating a +new art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I +smell the pubic sweat of monks. + +He spat blank. + +Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And +left the _femme de trente ans._ And why no other children born? And his +first child a girl? + +Afterwit. Go back. + +The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, +minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair. + +Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he... + +--Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there... + +Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling: + + _I hardly hear the purlieu cry + Or a tommy talk as I pass one by + Before my thoughts begin to run + On F. M'Curdy Atkinson, + The same that had the wooden leg + And that filibustering filibeg + That never dared to slake his drouth, + Magee that had the chinless mouth. + Being afraid to marry on earth + They masturbated for all they were worth._ + + +Jest on. Know thyself. + +Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt. + +--Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing +black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black. + +A laugh tripped over his lips. + +--Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that +old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you +a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. +Couldn't you do the Yeats touch? + +He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms: + +--The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. +One thinks of Homer. + +He stopped at the stairfoot. + +--I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly. + +The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's morrice +with caps of indices. + +In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet: _Everyman His +own Wife or A Honeymoon in the Hand (a national immorality in three +orgasms) by Ballocky Mulligan._ + + +He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying: + +--The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen. + +He read, _marcato:_ + +--Characters: + + TODY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole) + CRAB (a bushranger) + MEDICAL DICK ) + and ) (two birds with one stone) + MEDICAL DAVY ) + MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier) + FRESH NELLY + and + ROSALIE (the coalquay whore). + +He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen: +and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men: + +--O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to +lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, +multicoloured, multitudinous vomit! + +--The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted +them. + +About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside. + +Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, +if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must +come to, ineluctably. + +My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between. + +A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting. + +--Good day again, Buck Mulligan said. + +The portico. + +Here I watched the birds for augury. Aengus of the birds. They go, they +come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots +after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see. + +--The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you +see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient +mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad. + +Manner of Oxenford. + +Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge. + +A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, +under portcullis barbs. + +They followed. + +Offend me still. Speak on. + +Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail +from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw +of softness softly were blown. + +Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic: +from wide earth an altar. + + _Laud we the gods + And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils + From our bless'd altars._ + + +The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S.J. reset his smooth watch +in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to +three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? +Dignam. Yes. _Vere dignum et iustum est._ Brother Swan was the person +to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good +practical catholic: useful at mission time. + +A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his +crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the +sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very +reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his +purse held, he knew, one silver crown. + +Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, +of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, +ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: +_If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have +abandoned me in my old days._ He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking +leaves: and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. + +--Very well, indeed, father. And you, father? + +Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton +probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at +Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. +And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to +be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was +very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, +yes: a very great success. A wonderful man really. + +Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. +Iooking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P. +Yes, he would certainly call. + +--Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy. + +Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the +jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again, +in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste. + +Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father +Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice. + +--Pilate! Wy don't you old back that owlin mob? + +A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his +way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. +Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not? + +O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial. + +Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy +square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were +they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his +name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? +His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have. + +Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and +pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street. + +--But mind you don't post yourself into the box, little man, he said. + +The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed: + +--O, sir. + +--Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said. + +Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee's letter +to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father +Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square +east. + +Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate +frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender +trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave +deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady +Maxwell at the corner of Dignam's court. + +Was that not Mrs M'Guinness? + +Mrs M'Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the +farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and +saluted. How did she do? + +A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to +think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he +say?... such a queenly mien. + +Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup +free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will (D.V.) +speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say +a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They +acted according to their lights. + +Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular +road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important +thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be. + +A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All +raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly. +Christian brother boys. + +Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint +Joseph's church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. +Father Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but +occasionally they were also badtempered. + +Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift +nobleman. And now it was an office or something. + +Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted +by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father +Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came +from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the +Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful +catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually +happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an +act of perfect contrition. + +Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse against the window of +which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted. + +Father Conmee passed H. J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny +Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. +A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted +the constable. In Youkstetter's, the porkbutcher's, Father Conmee +observed pig's puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in +tubes. + +Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a +turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty +straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above +him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of +the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it +out and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor +people. + +On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S.J. of saint Francis +Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound +tram. + +Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of +saint Agatha's church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge. + +At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for +he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island. + +Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with +care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence +and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse. +Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually +made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The +solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father Conmee excessive +for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum. + +It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father +Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee +supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with +the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, +tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, +sweetly. + +Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that +the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the +seat. + +Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the +mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head. + +At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old +woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the +bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and +a marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and +basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed +the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had +always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been +absolved, _pray for me._ But they had so many worries in life, so many +cares, poor creatures. + +From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at +Father Conmee. + +Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and +of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African mission and of +the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and +yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last +hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, +_Le Nombre des Élus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those +were millions of human souls created by God in His Own likeness to +whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But they were God's souls, +created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a pity that they should all +be lost, a waste, if one might say. + +At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the +conductor and saluted in his turn. + +The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name. +The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, +immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining. +Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. +Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times +in the barony. + +Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the +Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of +Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere. + +A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel, +Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, +not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the +jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed +adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with +her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned +as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband's brother. + +Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for +man's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways. + +Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and +honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at +smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit +clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble, +were impalmed by Don John Conmee. + +It was a charming day. + +The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, +curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of +small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French +said. A just and homely word. + +Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds +over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of +Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard +the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet +evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild. + +Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An +ivory bookmark told him the page. + +Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come. + +Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast. +_Deus in adiutorium._ + +He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he +came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas: +in eternum omnia indicia iustitiae tuae._ + +A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a +young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised +his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care +detached from her light skirt a clinging twig. + +Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his +breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis +formidavit cor meum._ + +* * * * * + +Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye +at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, +went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass +furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came +to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes +and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out. + +Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge. + +Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat +downtilted, chewing his blade of hay. + +Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day. + +--That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher. + +--Ay, Corny Kelleher said. + +--It's very close, the constable said. + +Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth +while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a +coin. + +--What's the best news? he asked. + +--I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with +bated breath. + +* * * * * + +A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting +Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards +Larry O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably: + +--_For England_... + +He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted +and growled: + +--_home and beauty._ + +J. J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the +warehouse with a visitor. + +A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it +into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly +at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four +strides. + +He halted and growled angrily: + +--_For England_... + +Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, +gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths. + +He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head +towards a window and bayed deeply: + +--_home and beauty._ + +The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. +The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ +slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was +seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A +woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the +path. + +One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the +minstrel's cap, saying: + +--There, sir. + +* * * * * + +Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen. + +--Did you put in the books? Boody asked. + +Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds +twice with her potstick and wiped her brow. + +--They wouldn't give anything on them, she said. + +Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles +tickled by stubble. + +--Where did you try? Boody asked. + +--M'Guinness's. + +Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table. + +--Bad cess to her big face! she cried. + +Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes. + +--What's in the pot? she asked. + +--Shirts, Maggy said. + +Boody cried angrily: + +--Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat? + +Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked: + +--And what's in this? + +A heavy fume gushed in answer. + +--Peasoup, Maggy said. + +--Where did you get it? Katey asked. + +--Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said. + +The lacquey rang his bell. + +--Barang! + +Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily: + +--Give us it here. + +Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, +sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her +mouth random crumbs: + +--A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly? + +--Gone to meet father, Maggy said. + +Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added: + +--Our father who art not in heaven. + +Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed: + +--Boody! For shame! + +A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the +Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed +around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, +between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay. + +* * * * * + +The blond girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling +fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper +and a small jar. + +--Put these in first, will you? he said. + +--Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top. + +--That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said. + +She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe +shamefaced peaches. + +Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the +fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red +tomatoes, sniffing smells. + +H. E. L. Y.'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, +plodding towards their goal. + +He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from +his fob and held it at its chain's length. + +--Can you send them by tram? Now? + +A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's +cart. + +--Certainly, sir. Is it in the city? + +--O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes. + +The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil. + +--Will you write the address, sir? + +Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her. + +--Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid. + +--Yes, sir. I will, sir. + +Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket. + +--What's the damage? he asked. + +The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits. + +Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took +a red carnation from the tall stemglass. + +--This for me? he asked gallantly. + +The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie +a bit crooked, blushing. + +--Yes, sir, she said. + +Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches. + +Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the +red flower between his smiling teeth. + +--May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly. + +* * * * * + +_--Ma!_ Almidano Artifoni said. + +He gazed over Stephen's shoulder at Goldsmith's knobby poll. + +Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, +gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men's arms frankly round their +stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of +the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed. + +--_Anch'io ho avuto di queste idee, ALMIDANO ARTIFONI SAID, quand' ero +giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è una bestia. +É peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via. +Invece, Lei si sacrifica._ + +--_Sacrifizio incruento,_ Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in +slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly. + +_--Speriamo,_ the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. _Ma, dia retta +a me. Ci rifletta_. + +By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram +unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band. + +--_Ci rifletterò,_ Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg. + +--_Ma, sul serio, eh?_ Almidano Artifoni said. + +His heavy hand took Stephen's firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously +an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram. + +_--Eccolo,_ Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. _Venga a trovarmi +e ci pensi. Addio, caro._ + +--_Arrivederla, maestro,_ Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand +was freed. _E grazie._ + +--_Di che?_ Almidano Artifoni said. _Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!_ + +Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, +trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, +signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling +implements of music through Trinity gates. + +* * * * * + +Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of _The Woman in White_ +far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her +typewriter. + +Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion? +Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye. + +The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them: +six. + +Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard: + +--16 June 1904. + +Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab +where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. +Y.'S and plodded back as they had come. + +Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming +soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and +capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking, +is she? The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that +fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a +concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and +all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he +won't keep me here till seven. + +The telephone rang rudely by her ear. + +--Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five. Only +those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go +after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and +six. I'll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six. + +She scribbled three figures on an envelope. + +--Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from SPORT was in looking for you. Mr +Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir. +I'll ring them up after five. + +* * * * * + +Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch. + +--Who's that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty? + +--Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold. + +--Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his +pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there. + +The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed itself in a long +soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and +mouldy air closed round them. + +--How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom. + +--Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic +council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed +himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin. +O'Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days. +The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and +the original jews' temple was here too before they built their synagogue +over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were you? + +--No, Ned. + +--He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory +serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court. + +--That's right, Ned Lambert said. That's quite right, sir. + +--If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to +allow me perhaps... + +--Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I'll +get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here +or from here. + +In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piled +seedbags and points of vantage on the floor. + +From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard. + +--I'm deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't trespass +on your valuable time... + +--You're welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next +week, say. Can you see? + +--Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you. + +--Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered. + +He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among +the pillars. With J. J. O'Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey +where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal, +O'Connor, Wexford. + +He stood to read the card in his hand. + +--The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint +Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He's writing a book about the +Fitzgeralds he told me. He's well up in history, faith. + +The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging +twig. + +--I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O'Molloy said. + +Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air. + +--God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare +after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? _I'm bloody +sorry I did it,_ says he, _but I declare to God I thought the archbishop +was inside._ He mightn't like it, though. What? God, I'll tell him +anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they +were all of them, the Geraldines. + +The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He +slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried: + +--Woa, sonny! + +He turned to J. J. O'Molloy and asked: + +--Well, Jack. What is it? What's the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard. + +With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an +instant, sneezed loudly. + +--Chow! he said. Blast you! + +--The dust from those sacks, J. J. O'Molloy said politely. + +--No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast +your soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of +draught... + +He held his handkerchief ready for the coming... + +--I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you call +him... Chow!... Mother of Moses! + +* * * * * + +Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his +claret waistcoat. + +--See? he said. Say it's turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On. + +He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove, wobbled +a while, ceased, ogling them: six. + +Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the +consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying +the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the +admiralty division of king's bench to the court of appeal an elderly +female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of +great amplitude. + +--See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here: Turns Over. +The impact. Leverage, see? + +He showed them the rising column of disks on the right. + +--Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late +can see what turn is on and what turns are over. + +--See? Tom Rochford said. + +He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle, stop: +four. Turn Now On. + +--I'll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good +turn deserves another. + +--Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I'm Boylan with impatience. + +--Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly. When you two begin + +Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it. + +--But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked. + +--Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later. + +He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court. + +--He's a hero, he said simply. + +--I know, M'Coy said. The drain, you mean. + +--Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole. + +They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming +soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile. + +Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall +Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like +a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it, half +choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky's vest and +all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope round +the poor devil and the two were hauled up. + +--The act of a hero, he said. + +At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past +them for Jervis street. + +--This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam's +to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and +chain? + +M'Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then at O'Neill's +clock. + +--After three, he said. Who's riding her? + +--O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is. + +While he waited in Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle +pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy +get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark. + +The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal +cavalcade. + +--Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons +in there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn't an +earthly. Through here. + +They went up the steps and under Merchants' arch. A darkbacked figure +scanned books on the hawker's cart. + +--There he is, Lenehan said. + +--Wonder what he's buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind. + +--_Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye,_ Lenehan said. + +--He's dead nuts on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he +bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were +fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and +comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about. + +Lenehan laughed. + +--I'll tell you a damn good one about comets' tails, he said. Come over +in the sun. + +They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the +riverwall. + +Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, +carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks. + +--There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said +eagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord +mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan +Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell d'Arcy sang and Benjamin +Dollard... + +--I know, M'Coy broke in. My missus sang there once. + +--Did she? Lenehan said. + +A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ reappeared on the windowsash of number 7 +Eccles street. + +He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh. + +--But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the +catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were +there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and curacao to +which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came +solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies... + +--I know, M'Coy said. The year the missus was there... + +Lenehan linked his arm warmly. + +--But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after +all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the +morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's +night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one +side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing +glees and duets: _Lo, the early beam of morning_. She was well primed +with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the +bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She +has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that. + +He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning: + +--I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. +Know what I mean? + +His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in +delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips. + +--The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey +mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets +in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and +Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was +lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last +she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. _And what star is that, +Poldy?_ says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. _That one, is it?_ +says Chris Callinan, _sure that's only what you might call a pinprick._ +By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark. + +Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft laughter. + +--I'm weak, he gasped. + +M'Coy's white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan +walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead +rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy. + +--He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one +of your common or garden... you know... There's a touch of the artist +about old Bloom. + +* * * * * + +Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of _The Awful Disclosures of Maria +Monk,_ then of Aristotle's _Masterpiece._ Crooked botched print. Plates: +infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered +cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the world. All +butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute +somewhere. Mrs Purefoy. + +He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: _Tales of the Ghetto_ +by Leopold von Sacher Masoch. + +--That I had, he said, pushing it by. + +The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter. + +--Them are two good ones, he said. + +Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth. +He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his +unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain. + +On O'Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay +apparel of Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c. + +Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. _Fair Tyrants_ by James +Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes. + +He opened it. Thought so. + +A woman's voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: the man. + +No: she wouldn't like that much. Got her it once. + +He read the other title: _Sweets of Sin_. More in her line. Let us see. + +He read where his finger opened. + +_--All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on +wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For raoul!_ + +Yes. This. Here. Try. + +--_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands +felt for the opulent curves inside her deshabillé._ + +Yes. Take this. The end. + +--_You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare. +The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her +queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played +round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly._ + +Mr Bloom read again: _The beautiful woman._ + +Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply +amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched +themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (_for Him! For Raoul!_). +Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (_her heaving embonpoint!_). +Feel! Press! Crushed! Sulphur dung of lions! + +Young! Young! + +An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of +chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in +the lord chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the +admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the +Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal +reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident +and Guarantee Corporation. + +Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy +curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven +reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the +floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it, +and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired. + +Mr Bloom beheld it. + +Mastering his troubled breath, he said: + +--I'll take this one. + +The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum. + +--_Sweets of Sin,_ he said, tapping on it. That's a good one. + +* * * * * + +The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell +twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet. + +Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the +bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely +curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any +advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings. + +The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it: + +--Barang! + +Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint. +J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched +necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library. + +Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row. He +halted near his daughter. + +--It's time for you, she said. + +--Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. +Are you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon +shoulder? Melancholy God! + +Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and +held them back. + +--Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine. +Do you know what you look like? + +He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders +and dropping his underjaw. + +--Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you. + +Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache. + +--Did you get any money? Dilly asked. + +--Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin +would lend me fourpence. + +--You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes. + +--How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek. + +Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along +James's street. + +--I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now? + +--I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns +taught you to be so saucy? Here. + +He handed her a shilling. + +--See if you can do anything with that, he said. + +--I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that. + +--Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of +them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother +died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from +me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I +was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead. + +He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat. + +--Well, what is it? he said, stopping. + +The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs. + +--Barang! + +--Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him. + +The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but +feebly: + +--Bang! + +Mr Dedalus stared at him. + +--Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to +talk. + +--You got more than that, father, Dilly said. + +--I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave +you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there's all I have. I got +two shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the +funeral. + +He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously. + +--Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said. + +Mr Dedalus thought and nodded. + +--I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell +street. I'll try this one now. + +--You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning. + +--Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk +for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly. + +He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on. + +The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of +Parkgate. + +--I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said. + +The lacquey banged loudly. + +Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing +mincing mouth gently: + +--The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do +anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica! + +* * * * * + +From the sundial towards James's gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the +order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James's street, +past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr +Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other +establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive. +Lovely weather we're having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those +farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best +gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that +General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And +heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal +thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most +scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the +firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever +allowed a boat like that... Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins. +You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look +at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we were +bad here. + +I smiled at him. _America,_ I said quietly, just like that. _What is +it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true?_ +That's a fact. + +Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's +always someone to pick it up. + +Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy +appearance. Bowls them over. + +--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? + +--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. + +Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter +Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson +street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built +under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street +club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian +bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he +remembered me. + +Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road. +Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom +again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying +has it. + +North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains, +sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the +ferrywash, Elijah is coming. + +Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course. +Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy +body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned +Lambert's brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn +it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash +like that. Damn like him. + +Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good +drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his +fat strut. + +Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope. +Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife +drove by in her noddy. + +Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too. +Fourbottle men. + +Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight +burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the +wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn +down here. Make a detour. + +Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by +the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin +Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, +the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary +bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse. + +Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John +Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the +office of Messrs Collis and Ward. + +Mr Kernan approached Island street. + +Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those +reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all +now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No +cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table +by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major +Sirr. Stables behind Moira house. + +Damn good gin that was. + +Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that +sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were +on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that +is: Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad +touchingly. Masterly rendition. + +_At the siege of Ross did my father fall._ + +A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, +leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades. + +Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily. + +His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a +pity! + +* * * * * + +Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers +prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust +darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept +on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, +leprous and winedark stones. + +Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights +shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of +their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest +them. + +She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman, +rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed +silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her +hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg. + +Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it +and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating +on a stolen hoard. + +And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words +of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat +standing from everlasting to everlasting. + +Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through +Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella, +one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled. + +The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the +powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always +without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I +between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. +Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me +you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A +look around. + +Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say +right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed. + +Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against +his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan +boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood +round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed +gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes' +hearts. + +He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart. + +--Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence. + +Tattered pages. _The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Curé of +Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney._ + +I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. _Stephano Dedalo, +alumno optimo, palmam ferenti._ + +Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet +of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers. + +Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses. +Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read. +Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for +white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the +following talisman three times with hands folded: + +--_Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen._ + +Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter +Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's +charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your +wool. + +--What are you doing here, Stephen? + +Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress. + +Shut the book quick. Don't let see. + +--What are you doing? Stephen said. + +A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It +glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her +of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a +pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. _Nebrakada femininum._ + +--What have you there? Stephen asked. + +--I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing +nervously. Is it any good? + +My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring. +Shadow of my mind. + +He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer. + +--What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French? + +She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips. + +Show no surprise. Quite natural. + +--Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on you. +I suppose all my books are gone. + +--Some, Dilly said. We had to. + +She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will +drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, +my heart, my soul. Salt green death. + +We. + +Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite. + +Misery! Misery! + +* * * * * + +--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? + +--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. + +They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley +brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand. + +--What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said. + +--Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon, with +two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance. + +--Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it? + +--O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance. + +--With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked. + +--The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I'm just +waiting for Ben Dollard. He's going to say a word to long John to get +him to take those two men off. All I want is a little time. + +He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in +his neck. + +--I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He's always +doing a good turn for someone. Hold hard! + +He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant. + +--There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets. + +Ben Dollard's loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops +crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards +them at an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails. + +As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted: + +--Hold that fellow with the bad trousers. + +--Hold him now, Ben Dollard said. + +Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben +Dollard's figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered +sneeringly: + +--That's a pretty garment, isn't it, for a summer's day? + +--Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I +threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw. + +He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his roomy clothes +from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying: + +--They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow. + +--Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be to +God he's not paid yet. + +--And how is that _basso profondo_, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked. + +Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring, +glassyeyed, strode past the Kildare street club. + +Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter's mouth, gave forth a +deep note. + +--Aw! he said. + +--That's the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone. + +--What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What? + +He turned to both. + +--That'll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also. + +The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint +Mary's abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by +Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of +hurdles. + +Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward, +his joyful fingers in the air. + +--Come along with me to the subsheriff's office, he said. I want to +show you the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He's a cross between +Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He's well worth seeing, mind you. Come along. +I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now and it will cost +me a fall if I don't... Wait awhile... We're on the right lay, Bob, +believe you me. + +--For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously. + +Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button +of his coat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the +heavy shraums that clogged his eyes to hear aright. + +--What few days? he boomed. Hasn't your landlord distrained for rent? + +--He has, Father Cowley said. + +--Then our friend's writ is not worth the paper it's printed on, Ben +Dollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the +particulars. 29 Windsor avenue. Love is the name? + +--That's right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He's a +minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that? + +--You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put that +writ where Jacko put the nuts. + +He led Father Cowley boldly forward, linked to his bulk. + +--Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his +glasses on his coatfront, following them. + +* * * * * + +--The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they +passed out of the Castleyard gate. + +The policeman touched his forehead. + +--God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily. + +He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on +towards Lord Edward street. + +Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head, appeared above +the crossblind of the Ormond hotel. + +--Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father +Conmee and laid the whole case before him. + +--You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward. + +--Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not. + +John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them +quickly down Cork hill. + +On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed +Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending. + +The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street. + +--Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the _Mail_ +office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings. + +--Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the +five shillings too. + +--Without a second word either, Mr Power said. + +--Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added. + +John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes. + +--I'll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly. + +They went down Parliament street. + +--There's Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's. + +--Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes. + +Outside _la Maison Claire_ Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's +brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties. + +John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took +the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked +uncertainly, with hasty steps past Micky Anderson's watches. + +--The assistant town clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John +Wyse Nolan told Mr Power. + +They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The +empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, +speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not +glance. + +--And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as +life. + +The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood. + +--Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and +greeted. + +Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay +decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all +their faces. + +--Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he +said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk. + +Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, +about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted +to know, to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the +macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, +no quorum even, and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little +Lorcan Sherlock doing _locum tenens_ for him. Damned Irish language, +language of our forefathers. + +Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips. + +Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the +assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his +peace. + +--What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked. + +Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot. + +--O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness' sake +till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind! + +Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning's flank and +passed in and up the stairs. + +--Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think +you knew him or perhaps you did, though. + +With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in. + +--Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of long +John Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror. + +--Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin Cunningham +said. + +Long John Fanning could not remember him. + +Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air. + +--What's that? Martin Cunningham said. + +All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the +cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, +harness and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past +before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, +leaping leaders, rode outriders. + +--What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the +staircase. + +--The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse +Nolan answered from the stairfoot. + +* * * * * + +As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his +Panama to Haines: + +--Parnell's brother. There in the corner. + +They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose +beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard. + +--Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat. + +--Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city marshal. + +John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw +went up again to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after, under +its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell +once more upon a working corner. + +--I'll take a _mélange,_ Haines said to the waitress. + +--Two _mélanges,_ Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and +butter and some cakes as well. + +When she had gone he said, laughing: + +--We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed +Dedalus on _Hamlet._ + +Haines opened his newbought book. + +--I'm sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all +minds that have lost their balance. + +The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street: + +--_England expects_... + +Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter. + +--You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. +Wandering Aengus I call him. + +--I am sure he has an _idée fixe,_ Haines said, pinching his chin +thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it +would be likely to be. Such persons always have. + +Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely. + +--They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never +capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white +death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. +The joy of creation... + +--Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him +this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. +It's rather interesting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an +interesting point out of that. + +Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to +unload her tray. + +--He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid +the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, +of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does +he write anything for your movement? + +He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. +Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its +smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily. + +--Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write +something in ten years. + +--Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon. +Still, I shouldn't wonder if he did after all. + +He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup. + +--This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don't +want to be imposed on. + +Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of +ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping +street past Benson's ferry, and by the threemasted schooner _Rosevean_ +from Bridgwater with bricks. + +* * * * * + +Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. +Behind him Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with +stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith's +house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a +blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park. + +Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as +Mr Lewis Werner's cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along +Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling. + +At the corner of Wilde's house he halted, frowned at Elijah's name +announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of +duke's lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth +bared he muttered: + +--_Coactus volui._ + +He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word. + +As he strode past Mr Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat +brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, +having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly +face after the striding form. + +--God's curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder +nor I am, you bitch's bastard! + +* * * * * + +Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the +pound and a half of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been +sent for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming +dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs +MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping +sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. +And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake, jawing the whole +blooming time and sighing. + +After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner, +stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their +pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning +Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin's pet lamb, will +meet sergeantmajor Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty +sovereigns. Gob, that'd be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, +that's the chap sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar +entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master +Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That's me in mourning. When +is it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He +turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, +his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the +image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One +of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old +fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out. + +Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going +for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would +knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for +science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of +him, dodging and all. + +In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and +a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was +telling him and grinning all the time. + +No Sandymount tram. + +Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to +his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The +blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming +end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow +either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice +I'm in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the paper tonight. +Then they'll all see it in the paper and read my name printed and pa's +name. + +His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a +fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they +were screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were +bringing it downstairs. + +Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling +the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and +heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing +on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney's for +to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see him +again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be +a good son to ma. I couldn't hear the other things he said but I saw +his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poor pa. That was +Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he's in purgatory now because he went to +confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night. + +* * * * * + +William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied by +lieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal +lodge. In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de +Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward A.D.C. in attendance. + +The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix park saluted by +obsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern +quays. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the +metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted +him vainly from afar Between Queen's and Whitworth bridges lord Dudley's +viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. +L., M. A., who stood on Arran quay outside Mrs M. E. White's, the +pawnbroker's, at the corner of Arran street west stroking his nose with +his forefinger, undecided whether he should arrive at Phibsborough +more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot +through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the +porch of Four Courts Richie Goulding with the costbag of Goulding, +Collis and Ward saw him with surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the +doorstep of the office of Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the +Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed +her plan and retracing her steps by King's windows smiled credulously +on the representative of His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall +under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of +liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel, gold by bronze, +Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. On Ormond +quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for the +subsheriff's office, stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low. +His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus' greeting. From Cahill's +corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M.A., made obeisance unperceived, +mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich +advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of each +other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office and +Dollard's big red printinghouse Gerty MacDowell, carrying the Catesby's +cork lino letters for her father who was laid up, knew by the style +it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn't see what Her +Excellency had on because the tram and Spring's big yellow furniture van +had to stop in front of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant. +Beyond Lundy Foot's from the shaded door of Kavanagh's winerooms +John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen coldness towards the lord +lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland. The Right Honourable +William Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed Micky Anderson's all +times ticking watches and Henry and James's wax smartsuited freshcheeked +models, the gentleman Henry, _dernier cri_ James. Over against Dame gate +Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the approach of the cavalcade. Tom +Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley fixed on him, took his thumbs +quickly out of the pockets of his claret waistcoat and doffed his cap to +her. A charming _soubrette,_ great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and +lifted skirt smiled daubily from her poster upon William Humble, earl +of Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine, and also upon +the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck +Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage +over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the +chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's +street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first +French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the +glare. John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, +stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not +looked at in his fat left hand not feeling it. Where the foreleg of King +Billy's horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband +back from under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear the +tidings. Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast +and saluted the second carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A.D.C., +agreeably surprised, made haste to reply. At Ponsonby's corner a jaded +white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons halted behind +him, E.L.Y'S, while outriders pranced past and carriages. Opposite +Pigott's music warerooms Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, +gaily apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and unobserved. +By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes +and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of _My girl's a Yorkshire +girl._ + +Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high +action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a +suit of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute +but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and +the red flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His +Excellency drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of +music which was being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen highland +laddies blared and drumthumped after the _cortège_: + + _But though she's a factory lass + And wears no fancy clothes. + Baraabum. + Yet I've a sort of a + Yorkshire relish for + My little Yorkshire rose. + Baraabum._ + +Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H. +Shrift, T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, +C. Adderly and W. C. Huggard, started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's +hotel Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a +fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr M. E. Solomons +in the window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster +street by Trinity's postern a loyal king's man, Hornblower, touched +his tallyho cap. As the glossy horses pranced by Merrion square Master +Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutes being given to the gent +with the topper and raised also his new black cap with fingers greased +by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up. The viceroy, on his way to +inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer's hospital, +drove with his following towards Lower Mount street. He passed a blind +stripling opposite Broadbent's. In Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a +brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and unscathed across +the viceroy's path. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his hoarding, +Mr Eugene Stratton, his blub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome to +Pembroke township. At Haddington road corner two sanded women halted +themselves, an umbrella and a bag in which eleven cockles rolled to view +with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his golden chain. +On Northumberland and Lansdowne roads His Excellency acknowledged +punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small +schoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired +by the late queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the +prince consort, in 1849 and the salute of Almidano Artifoni's sturdy +trousers swallowed by a closing door. + + + +Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing Imperthnthn thnthnthn. + +Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. + +Horrid! And gold flushed more. + +A husky fifenote blew. + +Blew. Blue bloom is on the. + +Goldpinnacled hair. + +A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile. + +Trilling, trilling: Idolores. + +Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold? + +Tink cried to bronze in pity. + +And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call. + +Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping +answer. + +O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking. + +Jingle jingle jaunted jingling. + +Coin rang. Clock clacked. + +Avowal. _Sonnez._ I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. _La +cloche!_ Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye! + +Jingle. Bloo. + +Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum. + +A sail! A veil awave upon the waves. + +Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now. + +Horn. Hawhorn. + +When first he saw. Alas! + +Full tup. Full throb. + +Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring. + +Martha! Come! + +Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap. + +Goodgod henev erheard inall. + +Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up. + +A moonlit nightcall: far, far. + +I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming. + +Listen! + +The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other, +plash and silent roar. + +Pearls: when she. Liszt's rhapsodies. Hissss. + +You don't? + +Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra. + +Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do. + +Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee. + +But wait! + +Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore. + +Naminedamine. Preacher is he: + +All gone. All fallen. + +Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair. + +Amen! He gnashed in fury. + +Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding. + +Bronzelydia by Minagold. + +By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom. + +One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock. + +Pray for him! Pray, good people! + +His gouty fingers nakkering. + +Big Benaben. Big Benben. + +Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone. + +Pwee! Little wind piped wee. + +True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your +tschink with tschunk. + +Fff! Oo! + +Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs? + +Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl. + +Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt. + +Done. + +Begin! + +Bronze by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the +crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing +steel. + +--Is that her? asked miss Kennedy. + +Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and _eau de Nil._ + +--Exquisite contrast, miss Kennedy said. + +When all agog miss Douce said eagerly: + +--Look at the fellow in the tall silk. + +--Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly. + +--In the second carriage, miss Douce's wet lips said, laughing in the +sun. + +He's looking. Mind till I see. + +She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against +the pane in a halo of hurried breath. + +Her wet lips tittered: + +--He's killed looking back. + +She laughed: + +--O wept! Aren't men frightful idiots? + +With sadness. + +Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair +behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a +hair. + +Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear. + +--It's them has the fine times, sadly then she said. + +A man. + +Bloowho went by by Moulang's pipes bearing in his breast the sweets +of sin, by Wine's antiques, in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by +Carroll's dusky battered plate, for Raoul. + +The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them +unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china. And + +--There's your teas, he said. + +Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned +lithia crate, safe from eyes, low. + +--What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked. + +--Find out, miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint. + +--Your _beau,_ is it? + +A haughty bronze replied: + +--I'll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of your +impertinent insolence. + +--Imperthnthn thnthnthn, bootssnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as +she threatened as he had come. + +Bloom. + +On her flower frowning miss Douce said: + +--Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn't conduct himself +I'll wring his ear for him a yard long. + +Ladylike in exquisite contrast. + +--Take no notice, miss Kennedy rejoined. + +She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered +under their reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned, +waiting for their teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black +satin, two and nine a yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and +seven. + +Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear, hoofs +ring from afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel. + +--Am I awfully sunburnt? + +Miss bronze unbloused her neck. + +--No, said miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax with +the cherry laurel water? + +Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror +gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their +midst a shell. + +--And leave it to my hands, she said. + +--Try it with the glycerine, miss Kennedy advised. + +Bidding her neck and hands adieu miss Douce + +--Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that +old fogey in Boyd's for something for my skin. + +Miss Kennedy, pouring now a fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed: + +--O, don't remind me of him for mercy' sake! + +--But wait till I tell you, miss Douce entreated. + +Sweet tea miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears +with little fingers. + +--No, don't, she cried. + +--I won't listen, she cried. + +But Bloom? + +Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey's tone: + +--For your what? says he. + +Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak: but said, but prayed +again: + +--Don't let me think of him or I'll expire. The hideous old wretch! That +night in the Antient Concert Rooms. + +She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped, sweet tea. + +--Here he was, miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three quarters, +ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa! + +Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from miss Kennedy's throat. Miss Douce +huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a +snout in quest. + +--O! shrieking, miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget his goggle eye? + +Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting: + +--And your other eye! + +Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner's name. Why do I always think +Figather? Gathering figs, I think. And Prosper Lore's huguenot name. +By Bassi's blessed virgins Bloom's dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white +under, come to me. God they believe she is: or goddess. Those today. I +could not see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus' son. +He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of +fellows in: her white. + +By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets. + +Of sin. + +In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy +your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let +freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other, +high piercing notes. + +Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down. + +Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and +gigglegiggled. Miss Douce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her +nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping, +her fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed, +spluttered out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter, +coughing with choking, crying: + +--O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried. +With his bit of beard! + +Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman, +delight, joy, indignation. + +--Married to the greasy nose! she yelled. + +Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each +each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze, +shrilldeep, to laughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I +knows. Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and +pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!), +panting, sweating (O!), all breathless. + +Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom. + +--O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I +wished + +I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet. + +--O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing! + +And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly. + +By Cantwell's offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi's virgins, bright of +their oils. Nannetti's father hawked those things about, wheedling at +doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I want. +Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. +Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five +guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets +of sin. + +Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled. + +Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his +rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled. + +--O, welcome back, miss Douce. + +He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays? + +--Tiptop. + +He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor. + +--Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the +strand all day. + +Bronze whiteness. + +--That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed +her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males. + +Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away. + +--O go away! she said. You're very simple, I don't think. + +He was. + +--Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they +christened me simple Simon. + +--You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did the +doctor order today? + +--Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I'll trouble +you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky. + +Jingle. + +--With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed. + +With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane's +she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from +her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought +pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky +fifenotes. + +--By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must +be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at +last, they say. Yes. Yes. + +Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid's, into the +bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute. + +None nought said nothing. Yes. + +Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling: + +--_O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!_ + +--Was Mr Lidwell in today? + +In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex +bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. +Buy paper. Daly's. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on +the rye. + +--He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said. + +Lenehan came forward. + +--Was Mr Boylan looking for me? + +He asked. She answered: + +--Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs? + +She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her +gaze upon a page: + +--No. He was not. + +Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the +sandwichbell wound his round body round. + +--Peep! Who's in the corner? + +No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her +stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess. + +Jingle jaunty jingle. + +Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice +while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly: + +--Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your +bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone? + +He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside. + +He sighed aside: + +--Ah me! O my! + +He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod. + +--Greetings from the famous son of a famous father. + +--Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked. + +Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who? + +--Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard. + +Dry. + +Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe. + +--I see, he said. I didn't recognise him for the moment. I hear he is +keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately? + +He had. + +--I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In +Mooney's _en ville_ and in Mooney's _sur mer._ He had received the rhino +for the labour of his muse. + +He smiled at bronze's teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes: + +--The _élite_ of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh + +MacHugh, Dublin's most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy +of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the +O'Madden Burke. + +After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and + +--That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see. + +He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his +glass. + +He looked towards the saloon door. + +--I see you have moved the piano. + +--The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking +concert and I never heard such an exquisite player. + +--Is that a fact? + +--Didn't he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too, +poor fellow. Not twenty I'm sure he was. + +--Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said. + +He drank and strayed away. + +--So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled. + +God's curse on bitch's bastard. + +Tink to her pity cried a diner's bell. To the door of the bar and +diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. +Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served. + +With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for +jinglejaunty blazes boy. + +Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique +triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her +hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt +advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action. + +Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in +Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought. Are you not +happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means +something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. +Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed +on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke +mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: lovelorn. For some man. +For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a +jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence. + +Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. +Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out. + +--Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say. + +--Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse... + +--And four. + +At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go. +Ternoon. Think you're the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all. + +For men. + +In drowsy silence gold bent on her page. + +From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the +tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now +poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly +and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call. + +Pat paid for diner's popcorked bottle: and over tumbler, tray and +popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss + +Douce. + +--_The bright stars fade_... + +A voiceless song sang from within, singing: + +--... _the morn is breaking._ + +A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive +hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, +called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's +leavetaking, life's, love's morn. + +--_The dewdrops pearl_... + +Lenehan's lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy. + +--But look this way, he said, rose of Castile. + +Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped. + +She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile: fretted, forlorn, +dreamily rose. + +--Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her. + +She answered, slighting: + +--Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies. + +Like lady, ladylike. + +Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. +Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and +hailed him: + +--See the conquering hero comes. + +Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered +hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked +towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting. + +--_And I from thee_... + +--I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan. + +He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled +on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer +hair, a bosom and a rose. + +Smart Boylan bespoke potions. + +--What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a +sloegin for me. Wire in yet? + +Not yet. At four she. Who said four? + +Cowley's red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff's office. + +Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. + +Wait. + +Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What, +Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. +See, not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom +followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince. + +Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her +bust, that all but burst, so high. + +--O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O! + +But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph. + +--Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan. + +Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his +lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and +syrupped with her voice: + +--Fine goods in small parcels. + +That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe. + +--Here's fortune, Blazes said. + +He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang. + +--Hold on, said Lenehan, till I... + +--Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale. + +--Sceptre will win in a canter, he said. + +--I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you +know. Fancy of a friend of mine. + +Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce's +lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. + +Idolores. The eastern seas. + +Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), +bearing away teatray. Clock clacked. + +Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It +clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till +and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For +me. + +--What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four? + +O'clock. + +Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged Blazes +Boylan's elbowsleeve. + +--Let's hear the time, he said. + +The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. +Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near +the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: +whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited. + +Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes. + +--Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's no-one. He never heard. + +--... _to Flora's lips did hie._ + +High, a high note pealed in the treble clear. + +Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought + +Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes. + +--Please, please. + +He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal. + +--_I could not leave thee_... + +--Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly. + +--No, now, urged Lenehan. _Sonnezlacloche!_ O do! There's no-one. + +She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling +faces watched her bend. + +Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord, +and lost and found it, faltering. + +--Go on! Do! _Sonnez!_ + +Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted +them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes. + +_--Sonnez!_ + +Smack. She set free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter +smackwarm against her smackable a woman's warmhosed thigh. + +--_La Cloche!_ cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust +there. + +She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren't men?), but, lightward +gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan. + +--You're the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said. + +Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his +chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound +eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by +mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, +a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze. + +Yes, bronze from anearby. + +--... _Sweetheart, goodbye!_ + +--I'm off, said Boylan with impatience. + +He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change. + +--Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you. + +Tom Rochford... + +--Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going. + +Lenehan gulped to go. + +--Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I'm coming. + +He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the +threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender. + +--How do you do, Mr Dollard? + +--Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard's vague bass answered, turning an +instant from Father Cowley's woe. He won't give you any trouble, Bob. +Alf Bergan will speak to the long fellow. We'll put a barleystraw in +that Judas Iscariot's ear this time. + +Sighing Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an eyelid. + +--Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon. Give us a +ditty. We heard the piano. + +Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders. Power for Richie. +And Bloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now. How +warm this black is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat. Let me +see. Cider. Yes, bottle of cider. + +--What's that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man. + +--Come on, come on, Ben Dollard called. Begone dull care. Come, Bob. + +He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the: +hold him now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His +gouty paws plumped chords. Plumped, stopped abrupt. + +Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered, he wanted +Power and cider. Bronze by the window, watched, bronze from afar. + +Jingle a tinkle jaunted. + +Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He's off. Light sob of breath Bloom +sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He's gone. Jingle. +Hear. + +--Love and War, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times. + +Miss Douce's brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind, smitten +by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting light), +she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive +(why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar where +bald stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite +nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of shadow, _eau de +Nil._ + +--Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded +them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the +Collard grand. + +There was. + +--A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn't stop him. +He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink. + +--God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the +punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment. + +They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding +garment. + +--Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said. Where's +my pipe, by the way? + +He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried two +diners' drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again. + +--I saved the situation, Ben, I think. + +--You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too. +That was a brilliant idea, Bob. + +Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the situa. +Tight trou. Brilliant ide. + +--I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano in +the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and +who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you +remember? We had to search all Holles street to find them till the +chap in Keogh's gave us the number. Remember? Ben remembered, his broad +visage wondering. + +--By God, she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there. + +Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand. + +--Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He +wouldn't take any money either. What? Any God's quantity of cocked hats +and boleros and trunkhose. What? + +--Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of +all descriptions. + +Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres. + +Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat. + +Mrs Marion. Met him pike hoses. Smell of burn. Of Paul de Kock. Nice +name he. + +--What's this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion... + +--Tweedy. + +--Yes. Is she alive? + +--And kicking. + +--She was a daughter of... + +--Daughter of the regiment. + +--Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor. + +Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after + +--Irish? I don't know, faith. Is she, Simon? + +Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling. + +--Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My +Irish Molly, O. + +He puffed a pungent plumy blast. + +--From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way. + +They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze +by maraschino, thoughtful all two. Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace, +Drumcondra with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent. + +Pat served, uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before he +ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods' roes while +Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, +bite by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate. + +Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes. + +By Bachelor's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun in +heat, mare's glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres: +sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the? +Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn. + +Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding +chords: + +--_When love absorbs my ardent soul_... + +Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roofpanes. + +--War! War! cried Father Cowley. You're the warrior. + +--So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love or +money. + +He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge. + +--Sure, you'd burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said +through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours. + +In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would. + +--Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time, Ben. +_Amoroso ma non troppo._ Let me there. + +Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She +passed a remark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful weather. +They drank cool stout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant was going? +And heard steelhoofs ringhoof ring. No, she couldn't say. But it would +be in the paper. O, she need not trouble. No trouble. She waved about +her outspread _Independent,_ searching, the lord lieutenant, her +pinnacles of hair slowmoving, lord lieuten. Too much trouble, +first gentleman said. O, not in the least. Way he looked that. Lord +lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron steel. + + --............ _my ardent soul_ + _I care not foror the morrow._ + +In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and War someone is. +Ben Dollard's famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit +for that concert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers. +Molly did laugh when he went out. Threw herself back across the bed, +screaming, kicking. With all his belongings on show. O saints above, +I'm drenched! O, the women in the front row! O, I never laughed so many! +Well, of course that's what gives him the base barreltone. For instance +eunuchs. Wonder who's playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley. Musical. +Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap. Stopped. + +Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George +Lidwell, gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist (a +lady's) hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old +dingdong again. + +--Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell. + +George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand. + +Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the +Burton, gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables, +flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do. +Best value in Dub. + +Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together, +mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the +bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. +Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between +the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's +legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide them. + +Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty. + +Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a +lovely. Gravy's rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that +once or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their +harps. I. He. Old. Young. + +--Ah, I couldn't, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless. + +Strongly. + +--Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits. + +--_M'appari,_ Simon, Father Cowley said. + +Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long +arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he +sang to a dusty seascape there: _A Last Farewell._ A headland, a ship, a +sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the +wind upon the headland, wind around her. + +Cowley sang: + + _--M'appari tutt'amor: + Il mio sguardo l'incontr..._ + +She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to +wind, love, speeding sail, return. + +--Go on, Simon. + +--Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben... Well... + +Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting, +touched the obedient keys. + +--No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat. + +The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused. + +Up stage strode Father Cowley. + +--Here, Simon, I'll accompany you, he said. Get up. + +By Graham Lemon's pineapple rock, by Elvery's elephant jingly jogged. +Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom +and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider. + +Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: _Sonnambula._ He +heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M'Guckin! Yes. In his way. +Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like. +Never forget it. Never. + +Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. +Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the +piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. +Sings too: _Down among the dead men._ Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to +the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. +Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry +water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign +in dribs and drabs. And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed +refusing to pay his fare. Curious types. + +Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived: never. In the +gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note. + +Speech paused on Richie's lips. + +Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. + +Believes his own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good +memory. + +--Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom. + +--_All is lost now_. + +Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee +murmured: all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth +he's proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two +notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my +motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all. +Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he +whistled. Fall, surrender, lost. + +Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase. +Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence +in the moon. Brave. Don't know their danger. Still hold her back. Call +name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That's +why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost. + +--A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well. + +Never in all his life had Richie Goulding. + +He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise +child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me? + +Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking +Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his +eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I +did sir. Wouldn't trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise. + +Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably. +Stopped again. + +Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it. + +--With it, Simon. + +--It, Simon. + +--Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind +solicitations. + +--It, Simon. + +--I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall +endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down. + +By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a +lady's grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous _eau de Nil_ Mina +to tankards two her pinnacles of gold. + +The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant, +drew a voice away. + +--_When first I saw that form endearing_... + +Richie turned. + +--Si Dedalus' voice, he said. + +Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow +endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to +Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the +bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting +to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door. + +--_Sorrow from me seemed to depart._ + +Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves +in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem +dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their +each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each +seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw, +lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn't expect +it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word. + +Love that is singing: love's old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the +elastic band of his packet. Love's old sweet _sonnez la_ gold. Bloom +wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound +it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast. + +--_Full of hope and all delighted_... + +Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his +feet. When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He +can't sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. +What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last +look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How +do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phial of cachous, kissing comfits, +in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent. + +Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud. + +--_But alas, 'twas idle dreaming_... + +Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly +man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out +his wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he +doesn't break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing +too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind +soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy. + +Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That's the chat. +Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect. + +Words? Music? No: it's what's behind. + +Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded. + +Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music +out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her +tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy +the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, +gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! Language of love. + +--... _ray of hope is_... + +Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse +unsqueaked a ray of hopk. + +_Martha_ it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel's song. +Lovely name you have. Can't write. Accept my little pres. Play on her +heartstrings pursestrings too. She's a. I called you naughty boy. Still +the name: Martha. How strange! Today. + +The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to +Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to +wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, +how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom's heart. + +Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in +Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still +hear it better here than in the bar though farther. + +--_Each graceful look_... + +First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure. Yellow, +black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. +Fate. + +Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she +sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees. + +--_Charmed my eye_... + +Singing. _Waiting_ she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume +of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat +warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy +eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in +shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring. + +--_Martha! Ah, Martha!_ + +Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant +to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In +cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For +only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. +Somewhere. + + --_Co-ome, thou lost one! + Co-ome, thou dear one!_ + +Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return! + +_--Come!_ + +It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb +it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too +long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, +aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the +etherial bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all +soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness... + +--_To me!_ + +Siopold! + +Consumed. + +Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her, +you too, me, us. + +--Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap +clap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said, +cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina +Kennedy, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank +and bronze miss Douce and gold MJiss Mina. + +Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before. +Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, +reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted, as said before just now. +Atrot, in heat, heatseated. _Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la._ +Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too +slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare. + +An afterclang of Cowley's chords closed, died on the air made richer. + +And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank, +Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two +more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, +coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind. + +--Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you'd +sing, Simon, like a garden thrush. + +Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy +served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired, +admired. But Bloom sang dumb. + +Admiring. + +Richie, admiring, descanted on that man's glorious voice. He remembered +one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang _'Twas rank and +fame_: in Ned Lambert's 'twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a +note like that he never did _then false one we had better part_ so clear +so God he never heard _since love lives not_ a clinking voice lives not +ask Lambert he can tell you too. + +Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the +night, Si in Ned Lambert's, Dedalus house, sang _'Twas rank and fame._ + +He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom, of +the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing 'TWAS RANK AND FAME in +his, Ned Lambert's, house. + +Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the +lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. +The night Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, wonderful, +more than all others. + +That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It's in the silence after you +feel you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air. + +Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the +slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzz, it twanged. While +Goulding talked of Barraclough's voice production, while Tom Kernan, +harking back in a retrospective sort of arrangement talked to listening +Father Cowley, who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While +big Ben Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus, lighting, who nodded as he +smoked, who smoked. + +Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his +string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. +Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. +Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. +_Corpus paradisum._ Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. +They sing. Forgotten. I too; And one day she with. Leave her: get +tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her +wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevyhair un comb:'d. + +Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in +your? Twang. It snapped. + +Jingle into Dorset street. + +Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased. + +--Don't make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted. + +George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe. + +First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And +second tankard told her so. That that was so. + +Miss Douce, miss Lydia, did not believe: miss Kennedy, Mina, did not +believe: George Lidwell, no: miss Dou did not: the first, the first: +gent with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: +the tank. + +Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted. + +Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A +pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is. +Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who +is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, +envelope: unconcerned. It's so characteristic. + +--Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said. + +--It is, Bloom said. + +Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two +divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two +plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always +find out this equal to that. Symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't +see my mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you +think you're listening to the etherial. But suppose you said it like: +Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite +flat. It's on account of the sounds it is. + +Instance he's playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like, till you +hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear +chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over barrels, +through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood +you're in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls +learning. Two together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos +for that. _Blumenlied_ I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, +a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia +street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, I mean. + +Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite +flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went. + +It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a +boy in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. +Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the +moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such +music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole. + +Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a +moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying. + +Down the edge of his _Freeman_ baton ranged Bloom's, your other eye, +scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. +Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking... + +Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his _Freeman._ +Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear +sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I +put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline _imposs._ To write +today. + +Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting +fingers on flat pad Pat brought. + +On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres +enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the +gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a +crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you +despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? +You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the string of her. Bye for today. Yes, +yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other +world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must +believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True. + +Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives. +Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she +found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If +they don't see. Woman. Sauce for the gander. + +A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James +of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young +gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George +Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing +a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great +Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and +jingled. By Dlugacz' porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a +gallantbuttocked mare. + +--Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect. + +Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You +know how. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he +playing now? Improvising. Intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will +you pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want +to. Know. O. Course if I didn't I wouldn't ask. La la la ree. Trails off +there sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. +P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee. + +He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper. +Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote: + +Miss Martha Clifford c/o P. O. Dolphin's Barn Lane Dublin + +Blot over the other so he can't read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit. +Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea +per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. +P: up. + +Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms. +Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be. +Wisdom while you wait. + +In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life is +all. One body. Do. But do. + +Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. +Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. + +House of mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn't hear. Deaf beetle he is. + +Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn't. Settling those napkins. +Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then +he'd be two. Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off. + +Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of his +hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He +waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits +while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. +Hee hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait. + +Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose. + +She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell +she brought. + +To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding +seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear. + +--Listen! she bade him. + +Under Tom Kernan's ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow. +Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband +took him by the throat. _Scoundrel,_ said he, _You'll sing no more +lovesongs._ He did, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. +Cowley lay back. + +Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. + +Wonderful. She held it to her own. And through the sifted light pale +gold in contrast glided. To hear. + +Tap. + +Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more +faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for +other, hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar. + +Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened. + +Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside. +Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream +first make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn't forget. +Fever near her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with +seaweed. Why do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks the +mouth, why? Her eyes over the sheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. +No admittance except on business. + +The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in +the ear sometimes. Well, it's a sea. Corpuscle islands. + +Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur, +hearing: then laid it by, gently. + +--What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled. + +Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled. + +Tap. + +By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan +turned. + +From the forsaken shell miss Mina glided to her tankards waiting. No, +she was not so lonely archly miss Douce's head let Mr Lidwell know. +Walks in the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly +answered: with a gentleman friend. + +Bob Cowley's twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord +has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben. Lightly he played a +light bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, +and for their gallants, gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one, one, one: +two, one, three, four. + +Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket, +cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. +Ruttledge's door: ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of _Don +Giovanni_ he's playing now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle +chambers dancing. Misery. Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating +dockleaves. Nice that is. Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look +at us. + +That's joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other +joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows +you are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then +know. + +M'Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing cat. Like tearing silk. +Tongue when she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can't manage +men's intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I'm warm, dark, open. +Molly in _quis est homo_: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. +Want a woman who can deliver the goods. + +Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue +clocks came light to earth. + +O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. +It is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. +Tinkling. Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the +resonance changes according as the weight of the water is equal to +the law of falling water. Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, +gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddleiddle addleaddle ooddleooddle. +Hissss. Now. Maybe now. Before. + +One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock +with a loud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock. + +Tap. + +--_Qui sdegno,_ Ben, said Father Cowley. + +--No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered. _The Croppy Boy._ Our native Doric. + +--Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true. + +--Do, do, they begged in one. + +I'll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To +me. How much? + +--What key? Six sharps? + +--F sharp major, Ben Dollard said. + +Bob Cowley's outstretched talons griped the black deepsounding chords. + +Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must. Got +money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears +lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence +tip. Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting +Patty come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they wait. + +But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the +dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic. + +The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach +and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men +and true. The priest he sought. With him would he speak a word. + +Tap. + +Ben Dollard's voice. Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. +Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big +ships' chandler's business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships' +lanterns. Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh +home. Cubicle number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him. + +The priest's at home. A false priest's servant bade him welcome. Step +in. The holy father. With bows a traitor servant. Curlycues of chords. + +Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their days +in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die. + +The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered +a lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footsteps there, told them +the gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive. + +Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he'll win in _Answers,_ poets' +picture puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching +in a nest. Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee +what domestic animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he +has still. No eunuch yet with all his belongings. + +Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf +Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened. The chords harped slower. + +The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous. +Ben's contrite beard confessed. _in nomine Domini,_ in God's name he +knelt. He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing: _mea culpa._ + +Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion +corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey, +_corpusnomine._ Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape. + +Tap. + +They listened. Tankards and miss Kennedy. George Lidwell, eyelid well +expressive, fullbusted satin. Kernan. Si. + +The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since Easter he had cursed +three times. You bitch's bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play. +Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother's rest he had +not prayed. A boy. A croppy boy. + +Bronze, listening, by the beerpull gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn't +half know I'm. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking. + +Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face? +They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate. + +Cockcarracarra. + +What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes. +Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked +that best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. +Custom his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. +Tootling. Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses helpless, +gashes in their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile +music hath jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin's name. + +She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show. +Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. +Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, +listening. Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down +into her with his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you +must hear twice. Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the +tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. O rocks! + +All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his +brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of +his name and race. + +I too. Last of my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No +son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still? + +He bore no hate. + +Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old. Big Ben his voice +unfolded. Great voice Richie Goulding said, a flush struggling in his +pale, to Bloom soon old. But when was young? + +Ireland comes now. My country above the king. She listens. Who fears to +speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough. + +--_Bless me, father,_ Dollard the croppy cried. _Bless me and let me +go._ + +Tap. + +Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week. +Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those +girls, those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters +read out for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's owny Mumpsypum. +Laughter in court. Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you. + +Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest +rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by +heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap. + +Tap. Tap. + +Thrilled she listened, bending in sympathy to hear. + +Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it: +page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. +Even admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, +a flute alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes, all women. Goddess I +didn't see. They want it. Not too much polite. That's why he gets them. +Gold in your pocket, brass in your face. Say something. Make her hear. +With look to look. Songs without words. Molly, that hurdygurdy boy. +She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so like the Spanish. +Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of nature. + +Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What? + +Will? You? I. Want. You. To. + +With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed, swelling in apoplectic bitch's +bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour's your time to live, +your last. + +Tap. Tap. + +Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs that want +to, dying to, die. For all things dying, for all things born. Poor Mrs +Purefoy. Hope she's over. Because their wombs. + +A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly, +hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder +river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red +rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats: her breath: breath that is +life. And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair. + +But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castile. The morn. Ha. Lidwell. +For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here though. +Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties. + +On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave +it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over +the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and +finger passed in pity: passed, reposed and, gently touching, then slid +so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding +through their sliding ring. + +With a cock with a carra. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. + +I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing. + +The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be. Get out before the +end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass by her. Can leave +that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No. Walk, walk, +walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall Farrell. +Waaaaaaalk. + +Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O'er ryehigh blue. +Ow. Bloom stood up. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have +sweated: music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card +inside. Yes. + +By deaf Pat in the doorway straining ear Bloom passed. + +At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid. +Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to +dolorous prayer. + +By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties, +by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and +faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely +Bloom. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace. Breathe +a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy. + +Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway +heard the growls and roars of bravo, fat backslapping, their boots all +treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to +wash it down. Glad I avoided. + +--Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you're as good as ever you +were. + +--Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad, +upon my soul and honour It is. + +--Lablache, said Father Cowley. + +Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed +and all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering +castagnettes in the air. + +Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben. + +Rrr. + +And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all +laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer. + +--You're looking rubicund, George Lidwell said. + +Miss Douce composed her rose to wait. + +--Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben's fat back shoulderblade. +Fit as a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his +person. + +Rrrrrrrsss. + +--Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled. + +Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly +he waited. Unpaid Pat too. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one. + +--Mr Dollard, they murmured low. + +--Dollard, murmured tankard. + +Tank one believed: miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the +tank. + +He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that +is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it? +Dollard, yes. + +Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely, +murmured Mina. Mr Dollard. And _The last rose of summer_ was a lovely +song. Mina loved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina. + +'Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round +inside. + +Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J's +one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. +Wish I hadn't promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your +nerves. Beerpull. Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. +That rules the world. + +Far. Far. Far. Far. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with +sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went Poldy +on. + +Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap. + +Cowley, he stuns himself with it: kind of drunkenness. Better give way +only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All +ears. Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. +You daren't budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop. +Fiddlefaddle about notes. + +All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you +never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year. +Queer up there in the cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys. +Seated all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or +the other fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing +(want to have wadding or something in his no don't she cried), then all +of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipy wind. + +Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom's little wee. + +--Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with him +this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam's... + +--Ay, the Lord have mercy on him. + +--By the bye there's a tuningfork in there on the... + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +--The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked. + +--O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw, +forgot it when he was here. + +Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so +exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid, minagold. + +--Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out! + +--'lldo! cried Father Cowley. + +Rrrrrr. + +I feel I want... + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap + +--Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine. + +Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely, last +sardine of summer. Bloom alone. + +--Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Bloom went by Barry's. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had. +Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love +one another. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of +attorney. Goulding, Collis, Ward. + +But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation: Mickey +Rooney's band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after +pig's cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band +part. Pom. Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses' skins. Welt them through +life, then wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call +yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate. + +Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by +Daly's window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn't see) +blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid, coolest whiff of +all. + +Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even +comb and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in +Lombard street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its +own, don't you see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? _Cloche. +Sonnez la._ Shepherd his pipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle. +Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o'clock's all's well! Sleep! All is lost +now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John. +Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little _nominedomine._ Pom. It is +music. I mean of course it's all pom pom pom very much what they call +_da capo._ Still you can hear. As we march, we march along, march along. +Pom. + +I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of +custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same +he must have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. +Muffled up. Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown macin. O, +the whore of the lane! + +A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the day +along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing? +Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had +the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any +chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with +you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that. Appointment +we made knowing we'd never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home +sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a fright in the day. Face like dip. +Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest. Look in here. + +In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold +dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered +candlesticks melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might +learn to play. Cheap. Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you +don't want it. That's what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants +to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razor he shaved me with. Wanted to +charge me for the edge he gave it. She's passing now. Six bob. + +Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund. + +Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking +glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia's tempting last +rose of summer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth: +Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard. + +Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall. + +Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks's window. Robert +Emmet's last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is. + +--True men like you men. + +--Ay, ay, Ben. + +--Will lift your glass with us. + +They lifted. + +Tschink. Tschunk. + +Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw +not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie +nor Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see. + +Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. _When my country takes +her place among._ + +Prrprr. + +Must be the bur. + +Fff! Oo. Rrpr. + +_Nations of the earth._ No-one behind. She's passed. _Then and not till +then._ Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm +sure it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. _Let my epitaph be._ Kraaaaaa. +_Written. I have._ + +Pprrpffrrppffff. + +_Done._ + + + +I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the +corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along +and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have +the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter +only Joe Hynes. + +--Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody +chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush? + +--Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to? + +--Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give that +fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and +ladders. + +--What are you doing round those parts? says Joe. + +--Devil a much, says I. There's a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the +garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane--old Troy was just giving +me a wrinkle about him--lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar +to pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a +hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury +street. + +--Circumcised? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm +hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny +out of him. + +--That the lay you're on now? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful +debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a day's +walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain. +_Tell him,_ says he, _I dare him,_ says he, _and I doubledare him +to send you round here again or if he does,_ says he, _I'll have +him summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a +licence._ And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Jesus, +I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. _He drink me my +teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys?_ + +For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's +parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter +called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, +esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward, +gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds +avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per +pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, +at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the +said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value +received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in +weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no +pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or +pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall +be and remain and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the +said vendor to be disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the +said amount shall have been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said +vendor in the manner herein set forth as this day hereby agreed between +the said vendor, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the one +part and the said purchaser, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns +of the other part. + +--Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe. + +--Not taking anything between drinks, says I. + +--What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe. + +--Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. + +--Drinking his own stuff? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain. + +--Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen. + +--Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe? + +--Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms. + +---What was that, Joe? says I. + +--Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to +give the citizen the hard word about it. + +So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the +courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he +has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over +that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a +licence, says he. + +In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There +rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in +life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land +it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the +gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the +grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed coarse +fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too numerous to +be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the east the lofty +trees wave in different directions their firstclass foliage, the wafty +sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic +eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which +that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in close +proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs +while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden +ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, +creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes +voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to Slievemargy, the peerless +princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth +sleek Leinster and of Cruahan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of +the noble district of Boyle, princes, the sons of kings. + +And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen +by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for +that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits +of that land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain +descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring +foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, +pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, +drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, +York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of +mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and red +green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples and +chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, +and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes. + +I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you +notorious bloody hill and dale robber! + +And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed +ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers +and roaring mares and polled calves and longwoods and storesheep and +Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the +various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus +heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime +premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, +cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, +champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from +pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy +vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and +lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the +place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of +milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and +targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, +various in size, the agate with this dun. + +So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the +citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that +bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would +drop in the way of drink. + +--There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his +load of papers, working for the cause. + +The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps. Be +a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody +dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a +constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper +about a licence. + +--Stand and deliver, says he. + +--That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here. + +--Pass, friends, says he. + +Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he: + +--What's your opinion of the times? + +Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to +the occasion. + +--I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his +fork. + +So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says: + +--Foreign wars is the cause of it. + +And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket: + +--It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. + +--Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I've a thirst on me +I wouldn't sell for half a crown. + +--Give it a name, citizen, says Joe. + +--Wine of the country, says he. + +--What's yours? says Joe. + +--Ditto MacAnaspey, says I. + +--Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says +he. + +--Never better, _a chara_, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh? + +And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck +and, by Jesus, he near throttled him. + +The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was +that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired +freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded +deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed +hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his +rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his +body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in +hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (_Ulex Europeus_). +The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue +projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous +obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes +in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the +dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath +issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth +while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his +formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of +the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and +tremble. + +He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching +to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by +a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of +deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased +in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod +with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same +beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled at every +movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude +yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of +antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, +Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, +Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, +Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy +Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, +Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain +Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, +Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the +Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, the Man for +Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, +The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. +Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir +Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of +Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick +W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, +Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas +Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig +Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly +Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, +Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama +Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, +the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah +O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of +acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage +animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was +sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and +spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time +by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of +paleolithic stone. + +So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the +sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid O, as true as +I'm telling you. A goodlooking sovereign. + +--And there's more where that came from, says he. + +--Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I. + +--Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the +wheeze. + +--I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and +Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish. + +Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, +the son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the +prudent soul. + +--For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen, the subsidised +organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at this +blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. _The Irish Independent,_ if +you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman's friend. Listen to +the births and deaths in the _Irish all for Ireland Independent,_ and +I'll thank you and the marriages. + +And he starts reading them out: + +--Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's +on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How's that, eh? Wright +and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the +late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and +Ridsdale at Saint Jude's, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, +dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London: Carr, +Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the Moat +house, Chepstow... + +--I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience. + +--Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller, +Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, +Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my brown +son! How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber? + +--Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had +the start of us. Drink that, citizen. + +--I will, says he, honourable person. + +--Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form. + +Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. +Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click. + +And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came +swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him +there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred +scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, +fairest of her race. + +Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's +snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in +the corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob +Doran. I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the +door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen +in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and +the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting like a +poodle. I thought Alf would split. + +--Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a +postcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li... + +And he doubled up. + +--Take a what? says I. + +--Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds. + +--O hell! says I. + +The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you +seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs. + +_--Bi i dho husht,_ says he. + +--Who? says Joe. + +--Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went round +to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to +the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p: up. The +long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old +lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man. + +--When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe. + +--Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan? + +--Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a +pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen +long John's eye. U. p... + +And he started laughing. + +--Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan? + +--Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf. + +Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup +full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and +Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of +deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and +mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour +juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day +from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. + +Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, +that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that +thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals. + +But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone +in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of +costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen +the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, +Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the +United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions +beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even +she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the wellbeloved, for +they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down +thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop. + +--What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and +down outside? + +--What's that? says Joe. + +--Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging, +I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at here. + +So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his pocket. + +--Are you codding? says I. + +--Honest injun, says Alf. Read them. + +So Joe took up the letters. + +--Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. + +So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust Bob's a queer chap when +the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk: + +--How's Willy Murray those times, Alf? + +--I don't know, says Alf I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy +Dignam. Only I was running after that... + +--You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who? + +--With Dignam, says Alf. + +--Is it Paddy? says Joe. + +--Yes, says Alf. Why? + +--Don't you know he's dead? says Joe. + +--Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf. + +--Ay, says Joe. + +--Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as +a pikestaff. + +--Who's dead? says Bob Doran. + +--You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm. + +--What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray +with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim's... What? Dignam +dead? + +--What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about...? + +--Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are. + +--Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning +anyhow. + +--Paddy? says Alf. + +--Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him. + +--Good Christ! says Alf. + +Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted. + +In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by +tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing +luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of +the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge +of jivic rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was +effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the orangefiery +and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. +Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts in the heavenworld he +stated that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still +submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty entities on the +lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his first sensations +in the great divide beyond he stated that previously he had seen as in a +glass darkly but that those who had passed over had summit possibilities +of atmic development opened up to them. Interrogated as to whether life +there resembled our experience in the flesh he stated that he had heard +from more favoured beings now in the spirit that their abodes were +equipped with every modern home comfort such as talafana, alavatar, +hatakalda, wataklasat and that the highest adepts were steeped in +waves of volupcy of the very purest nature. Having requested a quart of +buttermilk this was brought and evidently afforded relief. Asked if he +had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the +wrong side of Maya to acknowledge the true path for it was reported +in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the +eastern angle where the ram has power. It was then queried whether there +were any special desires on the part of the defunct and the reply was: +_We greet you, friends of earth, who are still in the body. Mind C. K. +doesn't pile it on._ It was ascertained that the reference was to Mr +Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H. J. O'Neill's popular +funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had been +responsible for the carrying out of the interment arrangements. Before +departing he requested that it should be told to his dear son Patsy that +the other boot which he had been looking for was at present under the +commode in the return room and that the pair should be sent to Cullen's +to be soled only as the heels were still good. He stated that this had +greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly +requested that his desire should be made known. + +Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was +intimated that this had given satisfaction. + +He is gone from mortal haunts: O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was +his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with +your wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind. + +--There he is again, says the citizen, staring out. + +--Who? says I. + +--Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last ten +minutes. + +And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again. + +Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was. + +--Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him. + +And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest +blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence: + +--Who said Christ is good? + +--I beg your parsnips, says Alf. + +--Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy +Dignam? + +--Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his troubles. + +But Bob Doran shouts out of him. + +--He's a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam. + +Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't +want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran +starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there. + +--The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character. + +The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter +for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, the +bumbailiff's daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that +used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was +stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing +her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour. + +--The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy, +poor little Paddy Dignam. + +And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that +beam of heaven. + +Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round +the door. + +--Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen. + +So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was +Martin Cunningham there. + +--O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to +this, will you? + +And he starts reading out one. + +_7 Hunter Street, Liverpool. To the High Sheriff of Dublin, Dublin._ + +_Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful +case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of Febuary 1900 and i +hanged..._ + +--Show us, Joe, says I. + +--_... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in +Pentonville prison and i was assistant when..._ + +--Jesus, says I. + +--_... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith..._ + +The citizen made a grab at the letter. + +--Hold hard, says Joe, _i have a special nack of putting the noose once +in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my +terms is five ginnees._ + +_H. RUMBOLD, MASTER BARBER._ + +--And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen. + +--And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them +to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have? + +So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he +couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well +he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake. + +--Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe. + +And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with a +black border round it. + +--They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang +their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses. + +And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his +heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they +chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull. + +In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their +deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever +wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so +saith the Lord. + +So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom +comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the +business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those jewies +does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't +know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on. + +--There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf. + +--What's that? says Joe. + +--The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf. + +--That so? says Joe. + +--God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in + +Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when +they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like +a poker. + +--Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said. + +--That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural +phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the... + +And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and +this phenomenon and the other phenomenon. + +The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered +medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the +cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, +according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be +calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent +ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, +thereby causing the elastic pores of the _corpora cavernosa_ to rapidly +dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood +to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ +resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty +a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection _in articulo +mortis per diminutionem capitis._ + +So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and +he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and +the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with +him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for +the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that +and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a new +dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all round +the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob Doran that +was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get. So of +course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him: + +--Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw +here! Give us the paw! + +Arrah, bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from +tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking +all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and +intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few +bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to +bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging +out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry bloody +mongrel. + +And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the +brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet +and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and +she's far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown +cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he +married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley. +Time they were stopping up in the _City Arms_ pisser Burke told me there +was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and Bloom +trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing bézique +to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating meat of a +Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and taking the +lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of Dublin and, +by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him home as +drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him the evils of +alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn't near roast him, it's +a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that kept the +hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them off chewing +the fat. And Bloom with his _but don't you see?_ and _but on the other +hand_. And sure, more be token, the lout I'm told was in Power's after, +the blender's, round in Cope street going home footless in a cab five +times in the week after drinking his way through all the samples in the +bloody establishment. Phenomenon! + +--The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and +glaring at Bloom. + +--Ay, ay, says Joe. + +--You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is... + +--_Sinn Fein!_ says the citizen. _Sinn Fein amhain!_ The friends we love +are by our side and the foes we hate before us. + +The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far +and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the +gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums +punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening +claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up +the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its +supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain +poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the +bared heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the +lowest computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin +Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person +maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and +reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on +their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from +the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains +and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our +country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable +amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and +M-ll-g-n who sang _The Night before Larry was stretched_ in their usual +mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade +with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody +who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity +will grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and +Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the scene +were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day's entertainment +and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their +excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children +a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal houseparty which included +many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their Excellencies to the most +favourable positions on the grandstand while the picturesque foreign +delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated +on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation, present in full force, +consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed +_doyen_ of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a +powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker +Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von +Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, +Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh +Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras +y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung +Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe +Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus +Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, +Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent +-generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the +delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest +possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which +they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which +all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth +or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland's +patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars, +boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, +catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to +and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable +MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly +restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth +of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending +parties. The readywitted ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to all +and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily +congratulated by all the F.O.T.E.I., several of whom were bleeding +profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from +underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal +adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his +thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the +pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their +senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies' and +gentlemen's gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their +rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme. + +Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless +morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the _Gladiolus +Cruentus_. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough +which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate--short, +painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the +worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the +huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in +their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates +cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, _hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, +chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah_, amid which the ringing +_evviva_ of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling +those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured +our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly +seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by +megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore's +patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family +since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser +in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who administered the last +comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death +penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his +cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to the throne of grace +fervent prayers of supplication. Hand by the block stood the grim figure +of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot +with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered +furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his +horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated +in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the +admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table +near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife, the various +finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially supplied by the +worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield), +a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, +blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two +commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of the +most precious victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats' and +dogs' home was in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished +to that beneficent institution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of +rashers and eggs, fried steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious +hot breakfast rolls and invigorating tea had been considerately provided +by the authorities for the consumption of the central figure of the +tragedy who was in capital spirits when prepared for death and evinced +the keenest interest in the proceedings from beginning to end but he, +with an abnegation rare in these our times, rose nobly to the occasion +and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal +should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of the sick and +indigent roomkeepers' association as a token of his regard and esteem. +The _nec_ and _non plus ultra_ of emotion were reached when the blushing +bride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders +and flung herself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be +launched into eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in +a loving embrace murmuring fondly _Sheila, my own_. Encouraged by +this use of her christian name she kissed passionately all the various +suitable areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb +permitted her ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt +streams of their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she +would never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his +lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She +brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood +together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the +innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present, +they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable +pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply +rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped +their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from their +lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the inmost +core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the +aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and +genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of +their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye +in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a +handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair +sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook +and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, +requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every lady +in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion +in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous +act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the gallant young +Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most timehonoured names +in Albion's history) placed on the finger of his blushing _fiancée_ an +expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a +fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the +ster provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan +Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a +considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, +could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed gauntlet +he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those privileged +burghers who happened to be in his immediate _entourage,_ to murmur to +himself in a faltering undertone: + +--God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it +makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause +I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way. + +So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the +corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak +their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a +quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that +he cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the +antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is +about the size of it. Gob, he'd let you pour all manner of drink down +his throat till the Lord would call him before you'd ever see the froth +of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their +musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of +hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly +blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen +bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals +and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh +entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And +then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers +shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two +sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the +females, hitting below the belt. + +So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty +starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I +would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again +where it wouldn't blind him. + +--Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, jeering. + +--No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost. + +So he calls the old dog over. + +--What's on you, Garry? says he. + +Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the +old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera. +Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone that +has nothing better to do ought to write a letter _pro bono publico_ to +the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling +and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the +hydrophobia dropping out of his jaws. + +All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the +lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not +missing the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the +famous old Irish red setter wolfdog formerly known by the _sobriquet_ of +Garryowen and recently rechristened by his large circle of friends and +acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of years +of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, +comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse. Our +greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from us!) +has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and compare +the verse recited and has found it bears a _striking_ resemblance (the +italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic bards. We are not +speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which the writer who +conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the Little +Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as +a contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting communication +published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and more personal +note which is found in the satirical effusions of the famous Raftery and +of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more modern lyrist at present +very much in the public eye. We subjoin a specimen which has been +rendered into English by an eminent scholar whose name for the moment we +are not at liberty to disclose though we believe that our readers will +find the topical allusion rather more than an indication. The metrical +system of the canine original, which recalls the intricate alliterative +and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more +complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has +been well caught. Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly +increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in +a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour. + + _The curse of my curses + Seven days every day + And seven dry Thursdays + On you, Barney Kiernan, + Has no sup of water + To cool my courage, + And my guts red roaring + After Lowry's lights._ + +So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could +hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have +another. + +--I will, says he, _a chara_, to show there's no ill feeling. + +Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one +pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog +and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for +man and beast. And says Joe: + +--Could you make a hole in another pint? + +--Could a swim duck? says I. + +--Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in +the way of liquid refreshment? says he. + +--Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet +Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's. +Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't +serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and +nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy. + +--Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is +landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what? + +--Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers. + +--Whose admirers? says Joe. + +--The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom. + +Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act +like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit +of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that +Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow +contested the mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled +with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in +himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a +friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal +Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you're there. O, commend me to an +israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery. + +So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he +was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and +to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was +never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her. +Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic +to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another. + +--Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however +slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, +as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of +you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve +let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my boldness. + +--No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which +actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to +me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, +this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of +the cup. + +--Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, +I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words +the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose +poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of +speech. + +And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five +o'clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the +bobby, 14A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after +closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard, drinking +porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, +Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he serving +mass in Adam and Eve's when he was young with his eyes shut, who wrote +the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and smugging. And +the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his pockets, the bloody +fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawls +screeching laughing at one another. _How is your testament? Have you got +an old testament?_ Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you what. Then +see him of a Sunday with his little concubine of a wife, and she wagging +her tail up the aisle of the chapel with her patent boots on her, no +less, and her violets, nice as pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney's +sister. And the old prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street +couples. Gob, Jack made him toe the line. Told him if he didn't patch up +the pot, Jesus, he'd kick the shite out of him. + +So Terry brought the three pints. + +--Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen. + +--_Slan leat_, says he. + +--Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen. + +Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small +fortune to keep him in drinks. + +--Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe. + +--Friend of yours, says Alf. + +--Nannan? says Joe. The mimber? + +--I won't mention any names, says Alf. + +--I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William +Field, M. P., the cattle traders. + +--Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of +all countries and the idol of his own. + +So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease +and the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen +sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his +sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the +guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a +knacker's yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head +and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot +for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how +to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used +to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out +with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn't loosen her farting +strings but old cod's eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do +it. What's your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor +animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn't +cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob, +he'd have a soft hand under a hen. + +Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for +us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then +comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her +fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. + +--Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London +to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons. + +--Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see +him, as it happens. + +--Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight. + +--That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr +Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure? + +--Nannan's going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question +tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the +park. What do you think of that, citizen? _The Sluagh na h-Eireann_. + +Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of +my honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right +honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these +animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming +as to their pathological condition? + +Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in +possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole +house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the +honourable member's question is in the affirmative. + +Mr Orelli O'Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued +for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the +Phoenix park? + +Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative. + +Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous +Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury +bench? (O! O!) + +Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question. + +Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot. + +(Ironical opposition cheers.) + +The speaker: Order! Order! + +(The house rises. Cheers.) + +--There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There +he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion +of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best +throw, citizen? + +--_Na bacleis_, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a +time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow. + +--Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better. + +--Is that really a fact? says Alf. + +--Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that? + +So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of +lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil +and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom +had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent +exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw +from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: _Look at, Bloom. Do you +see that straw? That's a straw_. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it +for an hour so he would and talk steady. + +A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of _Brian +O'ciarnain's_ in _Sraid na Bretaine Bheag_, under the auspices of +_Sluagh na h-Eireann_, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the +importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and +ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. +The venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the +attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by +the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, +a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard +of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of +the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic forefathers. The +wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of our old tongue, Mr +Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of +the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning and evening +by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manly +strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who +met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the +negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in +response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts of +a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal +Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses (happily too familiar to need +recalling here) _A nation once again_ in the execution of which the +veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction +to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in +superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest +advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing +it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly +enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously +applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many +prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press +and the bar and the other learned professions. The proceedings then +terminated. + +Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. +L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. +Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. +P. J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr. +Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T. +Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, +V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. +M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the +rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr +M'Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. +D. Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy +canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. +Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc. + +--Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that +Keogh-Bennett match? + +--No, says Joe. + +--I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf. + +--Who? Blazes? says Joe. + +And says Bloom: + +--What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training +the eye. + +--Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up +the odds and he swatting all the time. + +--We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put +English gold in his pocket. + +---True for you, says Joe. + +And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the +blood, asking Alf: + +--Now, don't you think, Bergan? + +--Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only +a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See +the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, +he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made +him puke what he never ate. + +It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled +to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he +was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative +skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both +champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret +in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of +rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the +pet's nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to +business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish +gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of +Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a +left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. +Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with +the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose +right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally +drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of +pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was +a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers +and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy +for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. +After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of +the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the +lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to +Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean +and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being +counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the +towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of +the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with +delight. + +--He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's +running a concert tour now up in the north. + +--He is, says Joe. Isn't he? + +--Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer +tour, you see. Just a holiday. + +--Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe. + +--My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success +too. + +He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent. + +Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the +cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the +tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island +bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight +the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr +Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the +bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh. + +Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There +grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The +gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. +The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms. + +And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely hero +of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned +in the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of +Lambert. + +--Hello, Ned. + +--Hello, Alf. + +--Hello, Jack. + +--Hello, Joe. + +--God save you, says the citizen. + +--Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned? + +--Half one, says Ned. + +So J. J. ordered the drinks. + +--Were you round at the court? says Joe. + +--Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he. + +--Hope so, says Ned. + +Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list +and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. +Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their +eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. +Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would +know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing +his boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and +done says I. Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, +I'm thinking. + +--Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up. + +--Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective. + +--Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only +Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined +first. + +--Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to +hear him before a judge and jury. + +--Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson. + +--Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character. + +--Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence +against you. + +--Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not +_compos mentis_. U. p: up. + +_--Compos_ your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he's balmy? +Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat +on with a shoehorn. + +--Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an +indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law. + +--Ha ha, Alf, says Joe. + +--Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife. + +--Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half +and half. + +--How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he... + +--Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish +nor flesh. + +--Nor good red herring, says Joe. + +--That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what +that is. + +Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on +account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the +old stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody +povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him, +bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she +married him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the +pope. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, +the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the +Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was +he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a +week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to +the world. + +--And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to +be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my +opinion an action might lie. + +Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our +pints in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself. + +--Well, good health, Jack, says Ned. + +--Good health, Ned, says J. J. + +---There he is again, says Joe. + +--Where? says Alf. + +And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter +and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in +as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a +secondhand coffin. + +--How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe. + +--Remanded, says J. J. + +One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James +Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers +saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see +any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? +Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and +his own kidney too. J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew +Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him, +swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid. + +--Who tried the case? says Joe. + +--Recorder, says Ned. + +--Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes. + +--Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrears +of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll dissolve +in tears on the bench. + +--Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock +the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for +the corporation there near Butt bridge. + +And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry: + +--A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children? +Ten, did you say? + +--Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid. + +--And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court +immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you, +sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking +industrious man! I dismiss the case. + +And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and +in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, +the daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first +quarter, it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the +halls of law. There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave +his rede and master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the +probate court, weighed well and pondered the claim of the first +chargeant upon the property in the matter of the will propounded and +final testamentary disposition _in re_ the real and personal estate of +the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versus Livingstone, +an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn court of +Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat him there +about the hour of five o'clock to administer the law of the brehons at +the commission for all that and those parts to be holden in and for the +county of the city of Dublin. And there sat with him the high sinhedrim +of the twelve tribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe of +Patrick and of the tribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the +tribe of Conn and of the tribe of Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and +of the tribe of Finn and of the tribe of Dermot and of the tribe of +Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of the tribe of Caolte and of the +tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good men and true. And he +conjured them by Him who died on rood that they should well and +truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined between their +sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and true verdict +give according to the evidence so help them God and kiss the book. And +they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and they swore by +the name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His +rightwiseness. And straightway the minions of the law led forth from +their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended +in consequence of information received. And they shackled him hand and +foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge +against him for he was a malefactor. + +--Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland +filling the country with bugs. + +So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, +telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first +but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high +and holy by this and by that he'd do the devil and all. + +--Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have +repetition. That's the whole secret. + +--Rely on me, says Joe. + +--Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We +want no more strangers in our house. + +--O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that +Keyes, you see. + +--Consider that done, says Joe. + +--Very kind of you, says Bloom. + +--The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. +We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon +robbers here. + +--Decree _nisi,_ says J. J. + +And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a +spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling +after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and +when. + +--A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all +our misfortunes. + +--And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the _Police Gazette_ +with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint. + +--Give us a squint at her, says I. + +And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off +of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct +of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds +pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her +bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles +and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be +late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor. + +--O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is! + +--There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off +of that one, what? + +So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on +him as long as a late breakfast. + +--Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action? +What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide +about the Irish language? + +O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the +puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of +that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient +city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after +due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn +counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into +honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael. + +--It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal +Sassenachs and their _patois._ + +So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till +you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your +blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach +a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and +their colonies and their civilisation. + +--Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with +them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody +thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature +worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us. +Tonguetied sons of bastards' ghosts. + +--The European family, says J. J.... + +--They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin +Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language +anywhere in Europe except in a _cabinet d'aisance._ + +And says John Wyse: + +--Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. + +And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo: + +--_Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!_ + +He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the +medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan _Lamh +Dearg Abu_, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty +valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster +silent as the deathless gods. + +--What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had +lost a bob and found a tanner. + +--Gold cup, says he. + +--Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry. + +_--Throwaway,_ says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest +nowhere. + +--And Bass's mare? says Terry. + +--Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid +on my tip _Sceptre_ for himself and a lady friend. + +--I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on _Zinfandel_ that Mr Flynn +gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's. + +--Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. _Throwaway,_ +says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy name +is _Sceptre._ + +So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was +anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his +luck with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard. + +--Not there, my child, says he. + +--Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the +other dog. + +And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom +sticking in an odd word. + +--Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they +can't see the beam in their own. + +--_Raimeis_, says the citizen. There's no-one as blind as the fellow +that won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing +twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost +tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! +And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax +and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our +tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our +Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk +and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent +in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Where are the +Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar +now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to +sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even +Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver from +Tipperary, second to none, our farfamed horses even today, the Irish +hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for +the right to fish in our waters. What do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe +us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths? And the beds of the +Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and +bog to make us all die of consumption? + +--As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland +with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. +Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was +reading a report of lord Castletown's... + +--Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain +elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the +trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of +Eire, O. + +--Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan. + +The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon +at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief +ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine +Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, +Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde +Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia +Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs +Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss +Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel +Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, +Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana +Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis +graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by +her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in +a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip +of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with +a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by +bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss +Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very +becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty _motif_ of plume rose being +worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the +jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. +Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability +and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played +a new and striking arrangement of _Woodman, spare that tree_ at the +conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre _in +Horto_ after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a +playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, +ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs +Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest. + +--And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with +Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were +pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway. + +--And will again, says Joe. + +--And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the +citizen, clapping his thigh, our harbours that are empty will be full +again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom +of Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with +a fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the +O'Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with +the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the +first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to +the fore, none of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, +the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue +field, the three sons of Milesius. + +And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like +a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody +life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled +multitude in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly +Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the +holding of an evicted tenant. + +--Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have? + +--An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion. + +--Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you +asleep? + +--Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir. + +Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead of +attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to +crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head +down like a bull at a gate. And another one: _Black Beast Burned in +Omaha, Ga_. A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a +Sambo strung up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under +him. Gob, they ought to drown him in the sea after and electrocute and +crucify him to make sure of their job. + +--But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at +bay? + +--I'll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is. +Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on +the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself +_Disgusted One_. + +So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew +of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the +parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad +brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of +a gun. + +--A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John +Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on +the breech. + +And says John Wyse: + +--'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. + +Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane +and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad +till he yells meila murder. + +--That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the +earth. + +The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber +on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen +gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about +of drudges and whipped serfs. + +--On which the sun never rises, says Joe. + +--And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The +unfortunate yahoos believe it. + +They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, +and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, +born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, +flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose +again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till +further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid. + +--But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn't +it be the same here if you put force against force? + +Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his +last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living. + +--We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater +Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the +black 47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid +low by the batteringram and the _Times_ rubbed its hands and told the +whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as +redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the +Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full +of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, +they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in +the coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember +the land of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no +cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan. + +--Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was... + +--We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the +poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at +Killala. + +--Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us +against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the +broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the +wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan +in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria +Teresa. But what did we ever get for it? + +--The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know +what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they +trying to make an _Entente cordiale_ now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with +perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were. + +--_Conspuez les Français_, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer. + +--And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we +had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the +elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead? + +Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one +with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of +God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting +her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the +whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about _Ehren on the Rhine_ +and come where the boose is cheaper. + +--Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now. + +--Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox +than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin! + +--And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests +and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic +Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his +jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less. + +--They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little +Alf. + +And says J. J.: + +--Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision. + +--Will you try another, citizen? says Joe. + +--Yes, sir, says he. I will. + +--You? says Joe. + +--Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less. + +--Repeat that dose, says Joe. + +Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with +his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about. + +--Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. +Perpetuating national hatred among nations. + +--But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse. + +--Yes, says Bloom. + +--What is it? says John Wyse. + +--A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same +place. + +--By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm +living in the same place for the past five years. + +So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck +out of it: + +--Or also living in different places. + +--That covers my case, says Joe. + +--What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen. + +--Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. + +The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, +gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner. + +--After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to +swab himself dry. + +--Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and +repeat after me the following words. + +The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth +attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors +of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth +prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the +cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each +of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters +his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far +nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), +a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted +on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs +and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as +wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo +illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in +the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, +the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, +Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery +of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's +banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick +Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the +Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, +Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, +Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college +refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of +Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street +Warehouse, Fingal's Cave--all these moving scenes are still there for us +today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have +passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time. + +--Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which? + +--That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman. + +--And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. +Also now. This very moment. This very instant. + +Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar. + +--Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs +to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold +by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. + +--Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen. + +--I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom. + +--Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men. + +That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old +lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a +sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And +then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as +limp as a wet rag. + +--But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not +life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's +the very opposite of that that is really life. + +--What? says Alf. + +--Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says +he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is +there. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment. + +Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning. + +--A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love. + +--Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your neighbour. + +--That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love, +moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. + +Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A +loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. +B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, +the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear +trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the +brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her +Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love +a certain person. And this person loves that other person because +everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. + +--Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, +citizen. + +--Hurrah, there, says Joe. + +--The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen. + +And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle. + +--We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. +What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women +and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text _God is love_ +pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit +in the _United Irishman_ today about that Zulu chief that's visiting +England? + +--What's that? says Joe. + +So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts +reading out: + +--A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented +yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, +Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt +thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his +dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which +the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely translated +by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, +tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial +relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire, stating that +he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, +the volume of the word of God and the secret of England's greatness, +graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great squaw +Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal +Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the +toast _Black and White_ from the skull of his immediate predecessor in +the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited +the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors' +book, subsequently executing a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the +course of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious +applause from the girl hands. + +--Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that +bible to the same use as I would. + +--Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land +the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly. + +--Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse. + +--No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only +initialled: P. + +--And a very good initial too, says Joe. + +--That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag. + +--Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the +Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man +what's this his name is? + +--Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman. + +--Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and +flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can +out of them. + +--I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. + +--Who? says I. + +--Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on +_Throwaway_ and he's gone to gather in the shekels. + +--Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a +horse in anger in his life? + +--That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back +that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. +Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the +only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse. + +--He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe. + +--Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out. + +--There you are, says Terry. + +Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. So I just went round the back of +the yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was +letting off my _(Throwaway_ twenty to) letting off my load gob says I +to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in +Slattery's off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings +is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was +telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have +done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube _she's +better_ or _she's_ (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if +he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland +my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's +the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos. + +So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it +was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper +all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off +of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk +about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that +puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. +Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody +mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before +him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that +poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country +with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. +Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No +security. Gob, he's like Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of the +road with every one. + +--Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll +tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham. + +Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power +with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of +the collector general's, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the +registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the +country at the king's expense. + +Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their +palfreys. + +--Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party. +Saucy knave! To us! + +So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice. + +Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard. + +--Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow. + +--Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds. +And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it. + +--Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare +larder. I know not what to offer your lordships. + +--How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant +countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun? + +An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage. + +--Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's +messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The +king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my +house I warrant me. + +--Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty +trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us? + +Mine host bowed again as he made answer: + +--What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of +venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head +with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon +of old Rhenish? + +--Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios! + +--Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare +larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue. + +So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom. + +--Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans. + +--Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen +about Bloom and the Sinn Fein? + +--That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege. + +--Who made those allegations? says Alf. + +--I, says Joe. I'm the alligator. + +--And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like +the next fellow? + +--Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is. + +--Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the +hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton. + +--Who is Junius? says J. J. + +--We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian. + +--He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was +he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that +in the castle. + +--Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power. + +--Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the +father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the +father did. + +--That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints +and sages! + +--Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that +matter so are we. + +--Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be their +Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till +he knows if he's a father or a mother. + +--Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan. + +--O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his +that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a +tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered. + +--_En ventre sa mère_, says J. J. + +--Do you call that a man? says the citizen. + +--I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe. + +--Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power. + +--And who does he suspect? says the citizen. + +Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed +middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a +month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm +telling you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like +of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it +would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of +stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your +eye. + +--Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait. + +--A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag +from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God. + +--Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned. + +--Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S. + +--You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry. + +--Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, +says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our +shores. + +--Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my +prayer. + +--Amen, says the citizen. + +--And I'm sure He will, says Joe. + +And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with +acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and +subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors +and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, +Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians +and Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, +Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter +Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet +led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and +friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers, +minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of +Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks +of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the +christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And +after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and +S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. +Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and +S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S. Leugarde +and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent de Paul and +S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and S. Joseph and +S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S. Terence +and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous +and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. +Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James of Dingle and +Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S. +Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S. +Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and S. +Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of Brittany +and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy youth +S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans +and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. +Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr +and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother +Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. +Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and +S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and +the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. +Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came +with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords +and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of +their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes, +trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, +dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, +soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, +forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a +dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way by +Nelson's Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little Britain +street chanting the introit in _Epiphania Domini_ which beginneth +_Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual _Omnes_ +which saith _de Saba venient_ they did divers wonders such as casting +out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes, healing the +halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had been mislaid, +interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying. +And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the reverend Father +O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good fathers +had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co, +limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine +and brandy shippers, licensed fo the sale of beer, wine and spirits for +consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed +the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and +the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches +and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with +blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had +blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of +His light to inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the +beverages and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers. + +--_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._ + +--_Qui fecit coelum et terram._ + +--_Dominus vobiscum._ + +--_Et cum spiritu tuo._ + +And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed +and they all with him prayed: + +--_Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde +super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et +voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem +sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam Te auctore +percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._ + +--And so say all of us, says Jack. + +--Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford. + +--Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish. + +I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when +be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry. + +--I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope +I'm not... + +--No, says Martin, we're ready. + +Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. +Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's +a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to +five. + +--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, + +--Beg your pardon, says he. + +--Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now. + +--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a +secret. + +And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl. + +--Bye bye all, says Martin. + +And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or +whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all +at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car. + +---Off with you, says + +Martin to the jarvey. + +The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the +helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward +with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew +nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of +the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning +wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the +equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them +all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they +ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did +they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And +they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the +waves. + +But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the +citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the +dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and +candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf +round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. + +--Let me alone, says he. + +And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls +out of him: + +--Three cheers for Israel! + +Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake +and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's +always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about +bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it +would. + +And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and +Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf +and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and +the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit +down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over +his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew_ and +a slut shouts out of her: + +--Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister! + +And says he: + +--Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And +the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. + +--He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. + +--Whose God? says the citizen. + +--Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a +jew like me. + +Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop. + +--By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy +name. + +By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here. + +--Stop! Stop! says Joe. + +A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from +the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid +farewell to Nagyasagos uram Lipoti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander +Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure +for the distant clime of Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas (Meadow of +Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _éclat_ was +characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll +of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to +the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the +community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket, tastefully +executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work which reflects +every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob. The departing +guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were +present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes +struck up the wellknown strains of _Come back to Erin_, followed +immediately by _Rakoczsy's March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted +along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of +Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of +Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles +and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M Gillicuddy, Slieve +Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the +welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of +henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic +pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from +the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers +while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, +the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute +as were also those of the electrical power station at the +Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. _Visszontlátásra, kedves baráton! +Visszontlátásra!_ Gone but not forgotten. + +Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin +anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he +shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's +royal theatre: + +--Where is he till I murder him? + +And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing. + +--Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel. + +But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other +way and off with him. + +--Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop! + +Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the +sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it +into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old +mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and +laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street. + +The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The +observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth +grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar +seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year +of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been +that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and +parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods +and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity +of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, +in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in +progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be +feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of +eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by +a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of +headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the +crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle +with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of +the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick +Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties +in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third +basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the +extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near +the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed +an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the +atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest +by west. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received +from all parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has +been graciously pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_ +shall be celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every +cathedral church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual +authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful +departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. +The work of salvage, removal of _débris,_ human remains etc has been +entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, +and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by +the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the +general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir +Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. +C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. +L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. +R. C. S. I. + +You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that +lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he +would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and +battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by +furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And +he let a volley of oaths after him. + +--Did I kill him, says he, or what? + +And he shouting to the bloody dog: + +--After him, Garry! After him, boy! + +And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old +sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his +lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. +Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise +you. + +When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld +the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in +the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment +as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not +look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: _Elijah! +Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ And they +beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend +to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over +Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel. + + + +The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious +embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of +all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud +promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on +the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on +the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness +the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to +the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea. + +The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening +scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and +oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy +chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy +Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and +Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with +caps to match and the name H.M.S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy +and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and +spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little fellows with +bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They were dabbling in +the sand with their spades and buckets, building castles as children do, +or playing with their big coloured ball, happy as the day was long. And +Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while +that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven +months and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just +beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to +him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin. + +--Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of +water. + +And baby prattled after her: + +--A jink a jink a jawbo. + +Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children, +so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to +take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and +promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden +syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But to be sure baby +Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy +bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy +Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with +a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe +red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at +the quaint language of little brother. + +But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and +Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception +to this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand +which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go +wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the +Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was +selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman's house +is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose that the +wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle +too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master Tommy drew the +attention of the girl friends. + +--Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you, +Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I +catch you for that. + +His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their +big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was +too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables +were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing +over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to +be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening +with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and +shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him +she wouldn't be far from him, her eyes dancing in admonition. + +--Nasty bold Jacky! she cried. + +She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly: + +--What's your name? Butter and cream? + +--Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your +sweetheart? + +--Nao, tearful Tommy said. + +--Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried. + +--Nao, Tommy said. + +--I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from +her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart. Gerty is +Tommy's sweetheart. + +--Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears. + +Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to +Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman +couldn't see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes. + +But who was Gerty? + +Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, +gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen +of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced +beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was +more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, +inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking +of late had done her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's +female pills and she was much better of those discharges she used to +get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almost +spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine +Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster +with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments +could make them though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves +in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once to +Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers drawn +with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their little tiffs from time to +time like the rest of mortals) and she told her not to let on whatever +she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her +again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, +a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced +in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed +her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had +she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might +easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen +herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors +at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. +Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that lent to her +softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed meaning, +that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful eyes, a charm +few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of +the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive +brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive. It +was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of the +Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which +gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders +of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing +scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you +have a beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because +she had a button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of +wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut +it that very morning on account of the new moon and it nestled about +her pretty head in a profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails +too, Thursday for wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale +flush, delicate as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she +looked so lovely in her sweet girlish shyness that of a surety God's +fair land of Ireland did not hold her equal. + +For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She +was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. +Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent. +The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out into +a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May +morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy +say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a +lovers' quarrel. As per usual somebody's nose was out of joint about the +boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up +and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in the +evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was +on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when +he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing +in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little recked he +perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, +piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he might learn +to love her in time. They were protestants in his family and of course +Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virgin and then +Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite nose and +he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too +at the back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something +off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his +hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes +and besides they were both of a size too he and she and that was why Edy +Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and +ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden. + +Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of +Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be +out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it +was expected in the _Lady's Pictorial_ that electric blue would be worn) +with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in +which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her +favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy +threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful figure +to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved +nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and +at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday week afternoon +she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she found what she +wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it, slightly shopsoiled but you +would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She did it up all by +herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the +lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her! And when she put +it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that would take the +shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest thing in +footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very _petite_ but she +never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, +oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over +her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect +proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of +her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and +wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty's chief care and who +that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though +Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in his heart to +blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery, +three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with different +coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen, and she aired +them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and ironed +them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't +trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things. +She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour +and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because +the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father +brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because +she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that +morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that +was for luck and lovers' meeting if you put those things on inside +out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so long as it +wasn't of a Friday. + +And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is +there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give +worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, +giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup +feelingsthough not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before +the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening +falls upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns +in vain. Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a +marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy +Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be +Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was +wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox +was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in +love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer's +(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole +an arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her +little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the +first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from +the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of +character had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he who would +woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting, always +waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be over. No +prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her +feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who had not found +his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who would +understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her to him in all +the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her with a long +long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns this balmy +summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only, his +affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death +us two part, from this to this day forward. + +And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was +just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his +little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in +the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would +be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature comforts +too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that +feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue and +queen Ann's pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions +from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge +in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same direction, +then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of eggs though +she didn't like the eating part when there were any people that made her +shy and often she wondered why you couldn't eat something poetical like +violets or roses and they would have a beautifully appointed drawingroom +with pictures and engravings and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's +lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was so human and chintz +covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in Clery's summer +jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be tall with +broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a husband) with +glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed sweeping moustache +and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon (three wonderful +weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug and cosy little +homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple but +perfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to +business he would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze +for a moment deep down into her eyes. + +Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then she +buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off +and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said +he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the +ball and if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it +was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if +you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy +Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off +now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him. + +--You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball. + +But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her +finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and +Tommy after it in full career, having won the day. + +--Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss. + +And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played +here's the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread +carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper +chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way +like that from everyone always petting him. + +--I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't +say. + +--On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily. + +Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy +saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her +life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was +sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared +Ciss. + +--Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of +her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at +him. + +Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes. +For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and +jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's faces on her +nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go +where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss +White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget her the +evening she dressed up in her father's suit and hat and the burned cork +moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette. There +was none to come up to her for fun. But she was sincerity itself, one of +the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever made, not one of your twofaced +things, too sweet to be wholesome. + +And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the pealing +anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted +by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and +benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered +together without distinction of social class (and a most edifying +spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the +storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate, +reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede +for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How +sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had her father only avoided the clutches of +the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit +cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, +second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by +the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two +lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at +the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction +which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cist its shadow over her +childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of +violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father, a prey to +the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there was +one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who lifts +his hand to a woman save in the way of kindness, deserves to be branded +as the lowest of the low. + +And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful, +Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard +her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman +off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like +himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him +any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a +father because he was too old or something or on account of his face +(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the +pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor +father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me, +Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they +had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for +supper and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that +died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her +mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom +and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have +had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now he +was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a warning to +him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the funeral on +account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the +letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, +standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright +and cheery in the home. + +A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the +house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in +gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was +it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't +like her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single +thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the +world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at +the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that +place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr +Tunney the grocer's christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days +where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a +threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with +oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a +story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in +a soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in +chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them +dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own +arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back +and thought about those times because she had found out in Walker's +pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the +halcyon days what they meant. + +The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion +till at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was +no getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he +could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was +not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was +sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted +the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and +to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to +her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw +it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and +stopped right under Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The +twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and +let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their +stupid ball hadn't come rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she +missed and Edy and Cissy laughed. + +--If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said. + +Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her +pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted +her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a +jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down +towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw +attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the +warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and +flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of +the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she ventured a +look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the twilight, wan +and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had ever seen. + +Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted +and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of +original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray +for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And +careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many +who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all +that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told +them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary, the +most pious Virgin's intercessory power that it was not recorded in any +age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever abandoned +by her. + +The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of +childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with +baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep +she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy +gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, +didn't the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa. + +--Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa. + +And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for +eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of +health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out +to be something great, they said. + +--Haja ja ja haja. + +Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to +sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried +out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half +blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most +obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it: + +--Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa. + +And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all +no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the +geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave +him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was +quickly appeased. + +Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out +of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little +brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the +paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured +chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the +evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to +hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they burned +in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart went +pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his +look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through +and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly +expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. She could +see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face that he +was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin Harvey, the +matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred because she +wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they two to always +dress the same on account of a play but she could not see whether he had +an aquiline nose or a slightly _retroussé_ from where he was sitting. +He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting +sorrow was written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what +it was. He was looking up so intently, so still, and he saw her kick the +ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if +she swung them like that thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad +that something told her to put on the transparent stockings thinking +Reggy Wylie might be out but that was far away. Here was that of which +she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on +her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he +was like no-one else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, +her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him. If he had +suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even, even, if he had +been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if he was a +protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly loved +her. There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a +womanly woman not like other flighty girls unfeminine he had known, +those cyclists showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to +know all, to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, +make him forget the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her +gently, like a real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, +his ownest girlie, for herself alone. + +Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Well +has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy +can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge +for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced +her own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the +stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue +banners of the blessed Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping +Canon O'Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes +cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet +and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever +she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come to +the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time when +she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots of her +hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was only the +voice of nature and we were all subject to nature's laws, he said, in +this life and that that was no sin because that came from the nature of +woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady herself said +to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to Thy Word. He +was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and thought could +she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design for him as a +present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the mantelpiece +white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little house to tell +the time the day she went there about the flowers for the forty hours' +adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to give or +perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place. + +The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky +threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little +monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them +a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of +them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they +were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned. + +--Jacky! Tommy! + +Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very +last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and +she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had +a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the +thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow +long because it wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at +it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up +her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a lot +of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever +she thought she had a good opportunity to show and just because she was +a good runner she ran like that so that he could see all the end of her +petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. It +would have served her just right if she had tripped up over something +accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French heels on her to +make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_ That would have +been a very charming expose for a gentleman like that to witness. + +Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints, +they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed +the thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the +Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was +itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't +because she thought he might be watching but she never made a bigger +mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking that +he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the +thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the Blessed +Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and she just +swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to +the _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for those +stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the Monday +before Easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was what he +was looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had +neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his +head to see the difference for himself. + +Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with +her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a +streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only +a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her petticoat +hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to +settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was +never seen on a girl's shoulders--a radiant little vision, in sooth, +almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel many a long +mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She could almost +see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes that set her +tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she could see from +underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster for her breath +caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was eying her as a +snake eyes its prey. Her woman's instinct told her that she had raised +the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet swept from throat +to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a glorious rose. + +Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, +half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the +baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why +no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of +hers. And she said to Gerty: + +--A penny for your thoughts. + +--What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I +was only wondering was it late. + +Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and +their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just +gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy +asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half +past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because +they were told to be in early. + +--Wait, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the +time by his conundrum. + +So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his +hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his +watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was +Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he +had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the +next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed +in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure. + +Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the +right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it +and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his +watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the +sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in +measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. +Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said +his waterworks were out of order. + +Then they sang the second verse of the _Tantum ergo_ and Canon O'Hanlon +got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told +Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the +flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could +see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and she +swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he +could see and he was looking all the time that he was winding the watch +or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands +back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a sensation rushing all over +her and she knew by the feel of her scalp and that irritation against +her stays that that thing must be coming on because the last time too +was when she clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyes +fixed themselves on her again drinking in her every contour, literally +worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a +man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man's face. +It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it. + +Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty +noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect +because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place +to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied +their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood +up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the +card to read off and he read out _Panem de coelo praestitisti eis_ and +Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and asking her +but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just answered +with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken about +her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze +shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt--O +yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet way of saying things +like that she knew would wound like the confounded little cat she was. +Gerty's lips parted swiftly to frame the word but she fought back +the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless, so beautifully +moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She had loved him +better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex +he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an instant +there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes were +probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in +sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see. + +--O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head +flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year. + +Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the +ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young +voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As +for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck +him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as +much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a dozen +pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him one +look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot. Miss +puny little Edy's countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty could +see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a towering +rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft had +struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was +something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and +never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it +so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it. + +Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked in +the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the +sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told him +too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby +looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy +poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby, without as +much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and sundry on to +his brandnew dribbling bib. + +--O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed. + +The slight _contretemps_ claimed her attention but in two twos she set +that little matter to rights. + +Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy +asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was +flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed +it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction +because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet +seashore because Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that +Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the +Blessed Sacrament in his hands. + +How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse +of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same +time a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, +thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of +the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of +paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter +would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church grounds and along +by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked and lighting the +lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn his freewheel like +she read in that book _The Lamplighter_ by Miss Cummins, author of +_Mabel Vaughan_ and other tales. For Gerty had her dreams that no-one +knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a keepsake from +Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the coralpink cover +to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her toilettable +which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was scrupulously +neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure trove, the +tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the +eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change +when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful +thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame +Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only +express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that +she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the +potherbs. _Art thou real, my ideal?_ it was called by Louis J Walsh, +Magherafelt, and after there was something about _twilight, wilt thou +ever?_ and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient +loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that +the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one +shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an +accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. +But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there +would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She +would make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his +thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his +days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was +dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife +or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land +of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. +But even if--what then? Would it make a very great difference? From +everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively +recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the +accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and +coarse men with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and +being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be +just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other +in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was +an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She +thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men were +so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white +hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would +follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he +was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was +the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be +wild, untrammelled, free. + +Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and +genuflected and the choir sang _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_ and then +he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and +Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't +she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out: + +--O, look, Cissy! + +And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over the +trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple. + +--It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said. + +And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church, +helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy +holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running. + +--Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks. + +But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and +call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could +see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her +pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and +a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion +silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were left +alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he could +be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible +honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working and a tremour +went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were +and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall back looking up +and there was no-one to see only him and her when she revealed all her +graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply soft and delicately +rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse +breathing, because she knew too about the passion of men like that, +hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and made +her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with +them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of +papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do +something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But +this was altogether different from a thing like that because there was +all the difference because she could almost feel him draw her face to +his and the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides there +was absolution so long as you didn't do the other thing before being +married and there ought to be women priests that would understand +without your telling out and Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy +kind of dreamy look in her eyes so that she too, my dear, and Winny +Rippingham so mad about actors' photographs and besides it was on +account of that other thing coming on the way it did. + +And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back +and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and +they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was and +she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was +flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And she saw a +long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense +hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and +higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, +high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an +entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things +too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than +those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being +white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high +it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from +being bent so far back that he had a full view high up above her knee +where no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed +and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he +couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like +those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he +kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, +held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on +her white brow, the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, +wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a +rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle +burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures +and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they +shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so +lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft! + +Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She +glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of +piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl He +was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) +stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a +brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him +and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been! +He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, +for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and +wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their +secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to +know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through the evening +to and fro and little bats don't tell. + +Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to show +what a great person she was: and then she cried: + +--Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up. + +Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into +her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of +course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too +far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet +again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her +dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls +met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full +of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She +half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged +on tears, and then they parted. + +Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy, +to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was +darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and +slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic +of her but with care and very slowly because--because Gerty MacDowell +was... + +Tight boots? No. She's lame! O! + +Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's +left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was +wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse +in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on +show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a +nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. +Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such +a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All +kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent +that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I +suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. +Something in the air. That's the moon. But then why don't all women +menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends on the +time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out of +step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of that. +Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning over her silly I +will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That +gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife engagement in the +country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small mercies. +Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves. Their +natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. +Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. +Pity they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was +that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping +Tom. Willy's hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those +girls or is it all a fake? _Lingerie_ does it. Felt for the curves +inside her _deshabillé._ Excites them also when they're. I'm all clean +come and dirty me. And they like dressing one another for the sacrifice. +Milly delighted with Molly's new blouse. At first. Put them all on to +take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her the violet garters. Us too: +the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turnedup trousers. He wore a pair +of gaiters the night that first we met. His lovely shirt was shining +beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a charm with every pin she +takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy lost the pin of her. Dressed up to +the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just changes when +you're on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as +then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry either. Always +off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an appointment. Out on +spec probably. They believe in chance because like themselves. And the +others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms +round each other's necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and +whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with +whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down, +vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and +write to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie +Powell. Till Mr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon. +_Tableau!_ O, look who it is for the love of God! How are you at all? +What have you been doing with yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, +to see you. Picking holes in each other's appearance. You're looking +splendid. Sister souls. Showing their teeth at one another. How many +have you left? Wouldn't lend each other a pinch of salt. + +Ah! + +Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance. +Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my +foot. O that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest +once in a way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. +Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I +read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's +a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt 1. When you feel like that you often +meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a +fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same +and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? +Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss +in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner +have me as I am than some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, +lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary. Ought to +attend to my appearance my age. Didn't let her see me in profile. Still, +you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and the +beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her hat to show her +hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face, meeting someone might know +her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong in rut. +Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the rocks in Holles +street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice. +She's worth ten, fifteen, more, a pound. What? I think so. All that for +nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion. Did I forget to write address on +that letter like the postcard I sent to Flynn? And the day I went to +Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle with Molly it was put me off. No, +I remember. Richie Goulding: he's another. Weighs on his mind. Funny +my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark liver oil they use to +clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he, she? + +O, he did. Into her. She did. Done. + +Ah! + +Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that little +limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. +Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented +perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers with the +kiddies. Well, aren't they? See her as she is spoil all. Must have +the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. +_Amours_ of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. +Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive +bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel. The strength +it gives a man. That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind +the wall coming out of Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't +have. Makes you want to sing after. _Lacaus esant taratara_. Suppose I +spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you don't know how to end +the conversation. Ask them a question they ask you another. Good idea if +you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course +if you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O +but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O +thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty +things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's +so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must +be horrible for them till they harden. And kissed my hand when I gave +her the extra two shillings. Parrots. Press the button and the bird will +squeak. Wish she hadn't called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you +a married man with a single girl! That's what they enjoy. Taking a man +from another woman. Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get +away from other chap's wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the +Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in +my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, +I don't think. Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is +beginning. How they change the venue when it's not what they like. Ask +you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask +you what someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. +Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. +Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want +something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must +have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since +she came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. +The propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell +by their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till +their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the +Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts +were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when we +drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor +had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic. + +There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up +like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must +be, waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in +mother's clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And +the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could +whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass whore in +Jammet's wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling +me the right time? I'll tell you the right time up a dark lane. +Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for fat lips. +Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game. Of course +they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line. + +Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that +satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine +eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so +much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond +a dog's jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school +drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that +innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see +them sit on a bench marked _Wet Paint_. Eyes all over them. Look under +the bed for what's not there. Longing to get the fright of their lives. +Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at the corner of +Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like, twigged at once he +had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that? Typist going up Roger +Greene's stairs two at a time to show her understandings. Handed down +from father to, mother to daughter, I mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for +example drying her handkerchief on the mirror to save the ironing. Best +place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a mirror. And when I sent +her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's by the way that ad I must, +carrying home the change in her stocking! Clever little minx. I never +told her. Neat way she carries parcels too. Attract men, small thing +like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back +when it was red. Who did you learn that from? Nobody. Something the +nurse taught me. O, don't they know! Three years old she was in front of +Molly's dressingtable, just before we left Lombard street west. Me have +a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world. Young student. +Straight on her pins anyway not like the other. Still she was game. +Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, +stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled +stockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel. + +A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads and +zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see and +Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. +Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, +I saw, your. I saw all. + +Lord! + +Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For +this relief much thanks. In _Hamlet,_ that is. Lord! It was all things +combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt +of my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a +worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then +I will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It +couldn't be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however like +my name and the address Dolphin's barn a blind. + +_Her maiden name was Jemina Brown And she lived with her mother in +Irishtown._ + +Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush +Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if +it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw +anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however +because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping +and papa's pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for the baby +when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps +them out of harm's way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam. +Children's hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even +closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds. Oughtn't +to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind. +Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan +there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly was in the +Coffee Palace. That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his coat. +And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst +of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in +drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in +the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning: was I drunk +last night? Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come home +to roost. They stick by one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault +also. That's where Molly can knock spots off them. It's the blood of the +south. Moorish. Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. +Just compare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton +in the cupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out some +kind of a nondescript, wouldn't know what to call her. Always see a +fellow's weak point in his wife. Still there's destiny in it, falling +in love. Have their own secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the +dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, +height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them +he matched them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought +makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May +and repent in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the +foreskin is not back. Better detach. + +Ow! + +Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and +the short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch. +Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic +influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I +suppose, at once. Cat's away, the mice will play. I remember looking +in Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. +Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. +And time, well that's the time the movement takes. Then if one thing +stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it's all +arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what's going on in the sun, the +stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. +Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up +and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if you're +a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you +have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly. + +Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third +person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw +stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at +the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. +Fine voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like +flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the +paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her +slipper on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick +the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all +round over me and half down my back. + +Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave +you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it? +Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that +kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, +with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the +dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She +was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good +conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. +For instance if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing +too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself, +slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains +blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this +morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine +fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you +call it gossamer, and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as +anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything +she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little +kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff +in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. +Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There +or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes +and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. +Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs +at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. +Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that way. +We're the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have their +period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on. Like +what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the grass. + +Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long +John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives +that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests +that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies +round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree +of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to. That +diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life. And +it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me. + +Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat. +Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that's the soap. + +O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never +went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag +this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could +mention Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. +Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do +I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving +credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run +up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into +somewhere else. + +Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as +far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a +good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk +a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk +after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you +learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't +mock what matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he +now. _The Mystery Man on the Beach_, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold +Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow +today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet +however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain they say. +Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels the +atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton's +prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs +of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh. + +Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or +they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of +the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds +flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt +you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through +the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. +Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in +the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv +Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A +star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet. Two. When three it's night. Were +those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No. +Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting +sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land, +goodnight. + +Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white +fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his +way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, +sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the +position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't +know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green +apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it's the only time we cross +legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy chairs +under them. But it's the evening influence. They feel all that. Open +like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in +ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat +Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length +oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns. +History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. +Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her +lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity. They +take advantage. + +All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The +rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the +plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change: +that's all. Lovers: yum yum. + +Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of +me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it +comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the +same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing +new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's Barn. Are you not happy in +your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. +Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, +Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the old +major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I an +only child. So it returns. Think you're escaping and run into yourself. +Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she. +Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip: tear in +Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle: cockles and +periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the +sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. +All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from the dew. + +Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a tree, +so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could +be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. +Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very +likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him +out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray +for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same +thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there's the light in +the priest's house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the mistake in the +valuation when I was in Thom's. Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. +Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out +at night like mice. They're a mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice. +What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit still. All instinct +like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of a jar by throwing +in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands. Weeny +bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white. Colours depend +on the light you see. Stare the sun for example like the eagle then look +at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to stamp his trademark on +everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase. Colour of +brown turf. Say you never see them with three colours. Not true. That +half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the _City Arms_ with the letter em on +her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. +Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his name with the +burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' +matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and +light. Or broken bottles in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun. +Archimedes. I have it! My memory's not so bad. + +Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last +week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might +be the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what +they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they have +to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph +wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of oceangoing steamers +floundering along in the dark, lowing out like seacows. _Faugh a +Ballagh!_ Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in vessels, bit of +a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when the stormy +winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at the ends of the +earth somewhere. No ends really because it's round. Wife in every port +they say. She has a good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching +home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail end of ports. How can +they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed. Off he sails with +a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well. And the tephilim no what's +this they call it poor papa's father had on his door to touch. That +brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage. +Something in all those superstitions because when you go out never know +what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life, +lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and that's the last of his nibs +till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick? + +Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, +crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker, moon looking down so +peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum. + +A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of +funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster +of violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The +shepherd's hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to +house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock +postman, the glowworm's lamp at his belt gleaming here and there through +the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted lintstock +lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By screens of lighted windows, by equal +gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: _Evening Telegraph, stop +press edition! Result of the Gold Cup race!_ and from the door of +Dignam's house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat flew here, +flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth +settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was +old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. +He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, +slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship +twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom. + +Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish +Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and +breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in +the Erin's King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. +Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard +to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. +Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what +death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they +fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! +Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them +up in the air to catch them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or +children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each +other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire and +nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better +asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What do they love? Another +themselves? But the morning she chased her with the umbrella. Perhaps so +as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little hand it was: now big. +Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you touch. Loved to count +my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made me laugh to see. +Little paps to begin with. Left one is more sensitive, I think. Mine +too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves out if fat is in fashion. Her +growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened she was when +her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for the mother +too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. +O'Hara's tower. The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all +his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking +out over the sea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. +I always thought I'd marry a lord or a rich gentleman coming with a +private yacht. _Buenas noches, señorita. El hombre ama la muchacha +hermosa_. Why me? Because you were so foreign from the others. + +Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you +dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for +_Leah, Lily of Killarney._ No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital +to see. Hope she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the bath, funeral, +house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Then that +bawler in Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what +I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. +Ought to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in +company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look +at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. +Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked +about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty. Particularly nice +old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of the wild man of +Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early morning at close +range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. But +Dignam's put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so depressing because +you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to those Scottish +Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for granted we're going to +pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's that +looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on +the premium. Her widow's mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must +wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man +O'Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. +Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take +him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette +bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, +loved for ever, they say. Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be +handsome for tomorrow we die. See him sometimes walking about trying to +find out who played the trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also +a shop often noticed. Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. +Something confused. She had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. +Suppose she does? Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. +Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad +of Keyes's. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has +something to put in them. What's that? Might be money. + +Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He +brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read. Better go. +Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and +pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with +story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children +always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters. +What's this? Bit of stick. + +O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here +tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do. +Will I? + +Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write a +message for her. Might remain. What? + +I. + +Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide +comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark +mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and +letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don't know. What is the +meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not +like. + +AM. A. + +No room. Let it go. + +Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. +Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here. +Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by +design. + +He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now +if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance. +We'll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made +me feel so young. + +Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.. +Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I +won't go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes +a moment. Won't sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat +again. No harm in him. Just a few. + +O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do +love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met +him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave +under embon _señorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle +red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end +Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in +her next her next. + +A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom +with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just +for a few + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + +The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed where Canon +O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were +taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup +and talking about + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + +Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house +to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there +because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty +MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was +sitting on the rocks looking was + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + + +Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. + +Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send +us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us +bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. + +Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! + +Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive +concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by +mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that +which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in +them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain +when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being +equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more +efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may +have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent +continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately +present constitutes the certain sign of omnipotent nature's incorrupted +benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has +apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the +surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone +so is there unilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature's boon +can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just +citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and +to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently +commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence +accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced +the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of +profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the +hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone +be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously +command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance +or with diminution's menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating +function ever irrevocably enjoined? + +It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians +relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature +admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured. +Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, +their greatest doctors, the O'Shiels, the O'Hickeys, the O'Lees, +have sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the +relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling +withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work which +in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with importance +commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted (whether by having +preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it is difficult in +being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent inquirers are not +up to the present congrued to render manifest) whereby maternity was so +far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient +in that all hardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely +for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being sufficiently +moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist valiantly and +for an inconsiderable emolument was provided. + +To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be +molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent +mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received +eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the +case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying +desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be +received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in +being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that +they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly +to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt! + +Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in that +one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with +wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were +now done and by wise foresight set: but to this no less of what drugs +there is need and surgical implements which are pertaining to her +case not omitting aspect of all very distracting spectacles in various +latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine +and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct females is to tumescence +conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of +mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her +thereto to lie in, her term up. + +Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night's oncoming. Of +Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark +ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house. + +Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming +mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale +so God's angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters +in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve moons +thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding +wariest ward. + +In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising +with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping +lightens in eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin. Full she drad that +God the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. +Christ's rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe +infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in +Horne's house. + +Loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow he +ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land +and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe +meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with +good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so +young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes +his word winning. + +As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad +after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings +sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare +Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so +heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for +friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. +She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His goodness with +masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. +The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death the dead man was +died and the nun answered him and said that he was died in Mona Island +through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God +the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her +sad words, in held hat sad staring. So stood they there both awhile in +wanhope sorrowing one with other. + +Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the +dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came +naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the +last for to go as he came. + +The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and +he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. +The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes +now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear +but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she had +seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that woman's +birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew the man +that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to her words +for he felt with wonder women's woe in the travail that they have of +motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair face for +any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Nine +twelve bloodflows chiding her childless. + +And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed +them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came +against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And +the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they +had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this +learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be +healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a +horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make +a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he +said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with +them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go +otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady +was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well +that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But +the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have +him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a marvellous +castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for to rest him +for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in divers +lands and sometime venery. + +And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy +and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not +move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and +knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white +flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there +abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic of +Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that he +blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was on +the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there was +a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay strange +fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible +thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie +in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness +that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was +a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of +fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits +that they do in to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And +they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks +out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a +brewage like to mead. + +And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp +thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe +Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat +in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and +anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and +his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle with +them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God. + +This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at the +reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for +there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time hied +fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what +cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it +be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw +a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than +any of the tother and for that they both were knights virtuous in the +one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke to him full +gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth by God His +bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellous long. +And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be her +next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never +none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully +delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their both's health for +he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the +goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars' hall and that was the meekest +man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was +the very truest knight of the world one that ever did minion service +to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman's woe with wonder +pondering. + +Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be +drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side +the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable's +with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the +franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and +young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at head of the board +and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of +him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the +most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and beside the meek sir +Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised to have +come and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow. +And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to sir Simon +and to this his son young Stephen and for that his languor becalmed him +there after longest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for that +time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red him, love led on with will to +wander, loth to leave. + +For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each gen +other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that +put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a +matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne's house that +now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next before her +death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And +they said farther she should live because in the beginning, they said, +the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were of +this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for he had +conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young Lynch +were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it was never +other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his +judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said +but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife +should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot +upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the +franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at the +least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the whole +affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion sake by +rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint Ultan of +Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby they were +all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words following: +Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now +glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire. +But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly +impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord +and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means +to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. +Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had +overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he +would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if +it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereat +Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi's praise of that beast the +unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other all +this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did malice +him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that +he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. Thereat +laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold which +never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour which he would +not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare whoso she might +be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of mother Church +that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, +patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness +or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the +influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie +with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu secuto_, or +peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses +Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the second month a human soul +was infused and how in all our holy mother foldeth ever souls for God's +greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was but a dam to bear +beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth the fisherman's +seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages +founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like +case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of +mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said +dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever +loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his +experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother +Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort +deliverly he scaped their questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, +and, or I err, a pregnant word. Which hearing young Stephen was a +marvellous glad man and he averred that he who stealeth from the poor +lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild manner when he was drunken and +that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons. + +But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had +pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour +and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only +manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art +could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart +for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of +lamb's wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and +lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now Sir +Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him his +friend's son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and +as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all +accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure +for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and +murdered his goods with whores. + +About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty +so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed +their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying for +the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the +vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, +quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed parcel +of my body but my soul's bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to them +that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for this +will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he showed +them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the worth of +two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song which he +writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of +money as was herebefore. His words were then these as followeth: Know +all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means +this? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a +bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman's +womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh +that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the +postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but her name is +puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, +our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly +that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem_, that is to wit, an +almightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and she won +us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other, our grandam, which we are +linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, +seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin. But here is the matter +now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was but creature of her +creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or she knew him not and +then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy with Peter Piscator who +lives in the house that Jack built and with Joseph the joiner patron of +the happy demise of all unhappy marriages, _parceque M. Léo Taxil nous +a dit que qui l'avait mise dans cette fichue position c'était le +sacre pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_ transubstantiality ODER +consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried out +upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said, a +birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness. +Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will we +withstand, withsay. + +Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would +sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod +of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack: +_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse +Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor +was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all +orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that +no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an +ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, +in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her +hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them +all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and +shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode +with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou +chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, +thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up +his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir +Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain +gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most sacred and most worthy +to be most sacred. In Horne's house rest should reign. + +To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in +Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he +had not cided to take friar's vows and he answered him obedience in the +womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master +Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds +and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue +of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all +intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he +said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was +the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and +they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and +deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she +to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with +burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and +the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was +there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those +delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is +in their _Maid's Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers: +_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable +concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most +mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous +flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium +of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, +but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher +for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said +indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them +and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran +very high in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. +Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his +wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that +effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters +to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom +mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it will +go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres, pro +memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy +generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by +my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication +in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou +sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of +servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why +hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for +a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of +dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, +my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and +from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk +and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon and my +sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for ever +in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast thou +kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to say, +hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much as +mentioned for the Orient from on high Which brake hell's gates visited a +darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates atrocities (as Tully +saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father showeth the prince no +blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon of life is an Egypt's +plague which in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity is their +most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends and ultimates of +all things accord in some mean and measure with their inceptions and +originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth +from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that minishing +and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto nature so is it +with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, +batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they +bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed +of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted +sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as +no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall +thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way +is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness +the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness. + +Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he loudly +bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majestic +longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all in applepie +order, a penny for him who finds the pea. + + _Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack + See the malt stored in many a refluent sack, + In the proud cirque of Jackjohn's bivouac._ + +A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on +left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm +that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and +witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And +he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all +mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift +was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the +cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some +mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which +Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and +a blow on any the least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an +old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would +not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye his desperation as +cowed he crouched in Horne's hall. He drank indeed at one draught to +pluck up a heart of any grace for it thundered long rumblingly over all +the heavens so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked +him on his ribs upon that crack of doom and Master Bloom, at the +braggart's side, spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, +advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, +the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having taken +place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon. + +But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? No, for he +had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be +done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the +other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But +could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the +bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not +there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the +god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard? +Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube +Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw that +he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one day die +as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to +die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though he must nor +would he make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon +has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that +other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise +which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there +is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall +come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and +Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was that in the way he +fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she +said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him wrongways from the true +path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn +aside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him so +flatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named Two-in-the-Bush +or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. + +This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse +of Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore +Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a +wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and +know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else +but notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first, +Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and +in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words +printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by +Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they +cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of +oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring +that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was +named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr +Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, +Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, +were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a +very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and +spill their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them +contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth. + +So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and +after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a +fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won't sprout, fields +athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. +Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle +this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The rosy buds +all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought but dry flag +and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world saying, for +aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that did havoc the +land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness. But by and +by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in the +west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the +weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and +after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and +in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking +shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or +kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the +pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through +Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was +before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but +no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice +Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the +college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come +from Mr Moore's the writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, +a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are +now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from +Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a +month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, +he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup +of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of +her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and +so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal +sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., +scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will. Madden, +T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom +there for a languor he had but was now better, be having dreamed tonight +a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of +Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and +Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now +on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put +to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a +shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than good +and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they say, but God give her +soon issue. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off +her last chick's nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three +all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king's bible. +Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to +be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour +dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has +trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum +an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase +the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come +for a prognostication of Malachi's almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell +has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out of the Hindustanish +for his farmer's gazette) to have three things in all but this a mere +fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes +they are found in the right guess with their queerities no telling how. + +With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the letter +was in that night's gazette and he made a show to find it about him +(for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but on +Stephen's persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit near +by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman that +went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of women, +horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he was mean +in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehouses +and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul's men, runners, +flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues of the +game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at nights +till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much loose +gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook's and if he had but gotten +into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a bare +tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his tongue, +some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother's son of +them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is, hearing this +talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank (that was +his name), 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered along of +the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with their +bully beef, a pox on it. There's as good fish in this tin as ever came +out of it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that +stood by which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place +which was indeed the chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. +_Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in the French language that had been +indentured to a brandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he +spoke French like a gentleman too. From a child this Frank had been +a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to +school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at +the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his +teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the +parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be a playactor, +then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from the bearpit +and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it on +the roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by favour of +moonlight or fecking maids' linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He +had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked +pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint +of tears as often as he saw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands +across, that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter +all? I protest I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool +boats, says he. I can scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he. And he had +experience of the like brood beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and +wether wool, having been some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, +a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow +auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in Prussia street. I question with +you there, says he. More like 'tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr +Stephen, a little moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and +that he had dispatches from the emperor's chief tailtickler thanking +him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the +bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to +take the bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. +He'll find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a +bull that's Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr +Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English +chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was +sent to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them +all, with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent +cross the table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper +and a portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns +galore, a coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of +his nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and +rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. +What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas +that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who +were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my +cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer's blessing, and +with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the +blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him +a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to +this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper +in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his +long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in +the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his word: And they +dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat with a tippet and +girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him +all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him at every turn of +the road with a gold manger in each full of the best hay in the market +so that he could doss and dung to his heart's content. By this time the +father of the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavy that +he could scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames and +damsels brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his +belly was full he would rear up on his hind uarters to show their +ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of him in bulls' language +and they all after him. Ay, says another, and so pampered was he that he +would suffer nought to grow in all the land but green grass for himself +(for that was the only colour to his mind) and there was a board put up +on a hillock in the middle of the island with a printed notice, saying: +By the Lord Harry, Green is the grass that grows on the ground. And, +says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or +the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much +as a handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he'd run amok over half +the countryside rooting up with his horns whatever was planted and all +by lord Harry's orders. There was bad blood between them at first, says +Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks +in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house +and I'll meddle in his matters, says he. I'll make that animal smell +hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But +one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal +pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for +himself but the first rule of the course was that the others were to row +with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull +and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry +he found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous +champion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin for +boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his +head into a cow's drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers +and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the +water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had +belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls' language +to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first personal +pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if ever he went +out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it upon what +took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of +cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as +fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and +the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as +the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded +themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts +erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three +sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, +ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the +bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover +the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the +composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty: + + _--Pope Peter's but a pissabed. + A man's a man for a' that._ + +Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway +as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend +whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, +who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a +cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil +enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a +project of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched +on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards +which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend +printed in fair italics: _Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. +Lambay Island_. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw +from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir +Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself +to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, +let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it +smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. 'Tis as cheap sitting as +standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon +his design, told his hearers that he had been led into this thought by +a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the inhibitory and the +prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due to conjugal +vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether the +prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities +acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch +defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable +females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their +flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly +bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might +multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of +their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he +assured them, made his heart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which +he concluded due to a suppression of latent heat), having advised with +certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he had +resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay +island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of +note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to set up +there a national fertilising farm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk +hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful +yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life +soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the +functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he +take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the +opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers +were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. +For his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a +diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these +latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both +broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum +chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of +asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with +which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by the +rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be +observed by Mr Mulligan's smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now +somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourably entertained +by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of +Mary's excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he purpose also +to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made court to the +scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as it dwelt +upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of his +contention: _Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, +ut matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici +titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus +centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt_, while for those of ruder +wit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more +suitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, the +farmyard drake and duck. + +Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper +man of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with +animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics +while the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had +advanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a +passage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his +nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for whom +were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him +a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professional +assistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very +heartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he was +come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne's house, that was in an +interesting condition, poor body, from woman's woe (and here he fetched +a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon, +to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whether +his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an +ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due, +as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. +For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote +himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll +mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though +'tis pity she's a trollop): There's a belly that never bore a bastard. +This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw +the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry +rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the +antechamber. + +Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little +fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion +with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient +point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the +obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by +a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had +not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but +contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was ever +done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. _Mais bien sûr_, +noble stranger, said he cheerily, _et mille compliments_. That you may +and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to crown my +felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in my wallet +and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would accept of them and +find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give thanks to +the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver of good +things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a +complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his +bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very +picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. +Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he +said, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting +instant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her +feastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of so +melting a tenderness, 'pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been +impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the hands of +such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was never so +touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days! +Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her +favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having +replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. +Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great +and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in +thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, +the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer +years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and +imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in +anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my +cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured +seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me, +he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and, +thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, Monsieur Poyntz, +from whom I can have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion +as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fecondateur, +tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller +(I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a circle of the best wits +of the town), is my authority that in Cape Horn, _ventre biche_, they +have a rain that will wet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A +drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sans blague_, has sent more +than one luckless fellow in good earnest posthaste to another world. +Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy things are dear at a +sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten +such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My dear Kitty told me +today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would starve in +such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing piquantly and +whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words but giddy +butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it in +our hearts and it has become a household word that _il y a deux choses_ +for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a +breach of the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The +first, said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her +tilbury, to fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer +chamber of my ear), the first is a bath... But at this point a bell +tinkling in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for +the enrichment of our store of knowledge. + +Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while +all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and, +having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with +a profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a +party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and +not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of +the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of +ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled. +A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I'll be sworn she has rendezvoused +you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad's bud, immensely +so, said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater +hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the +chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid +there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young +blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest +squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless +me, I'm all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you're as bad as dear little Father +Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, cried +Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a lady what's got a +white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young surgeon, however, +rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just +then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful providence +had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady who was +_enceinte_ which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had +given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those +who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling +profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest +power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if +need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of +her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a +glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? +Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of +her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most +momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I +shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of such malice +have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother and +maid in house of Horne. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he +saluted those present on the by and repaired to the door. A murmur +of approval arose from all and some were for ejecting the low soaker +without more ado, a design which would have been effected nor would +he have received more than his bare deserts had he not abridged his +transgression by affirming with a horrid imprecation (for he swore a +round hand) that he was as good a son of the true fold as ever drew +breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was always the sentiments of +honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most particular to honour thy +father and thy mother that had the best hand to a rolypoly or a hasty +pudding as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart. + +To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of +some impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits +of that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not +pity. The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies +as overgrown children: the words of their tumultuary discussions +were difficultly understood and not often nice: their testiness and +outrageous _mots_ were such that his intellects resiled from: nor were +they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund of +strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of Mr Costello +was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that +seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out +of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the +world, which the dint of the surgeon's pliers in his skull lent indeed +a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link of +creation's chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now +for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had passed +through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a wary +ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined his heart +to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting them +with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast that plenitude +of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and all find +tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create themselves wits at the +cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which he never did hold +with) to them he would concede neither to bear the name nor to herit +the tradition of a proper breeding: while for such that, having lost +all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the sharp antidote of +experience to cause their insolency to beat a precipitate and inglorious +retreat. Not but what he could feel with mettlesome youth which, caring +nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlings of the severe, is ever +(as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer expresses it) for eating of the +tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanity upon any +condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her lawful +occasions. To conclude, while from the sister's words he had reckoned +upon a speedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little +alleviated by the intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an +ordeal of such duress now testified once more to the mercy as well as to +the bounty of the Supreme Being. + +Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express +his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express +one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not +to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement +since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers. The dressy +young blade said it was her husband's that put her in that expectation +or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I +must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to +evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round +again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his +nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her. I +bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event would burst anon. +'Slife, I'll be round with you. I cannot but extol the virile potency of +the old bucko that could still knock another child out of her. All fell +to praising of it, each after his own fashion, though the same young +blade held with his former view that another than her conjugial had +been the man in the gap, a clerk in orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or +an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household. Singular, +communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of +metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the +dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the +mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a +pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of +an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, +he further added, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in +common oppress them for I have more than once observed that birds of a +feather laugh together. + +But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, +has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted +to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our +internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have +counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary +advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that +moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a tenant +at will while he trembled for the security of his four per cents? Has he +forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is it that from +being a deluder of others he has become at last his own dupe as he is, +if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer? Far be it from +candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of +a gallant major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her +virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed highly his +interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman, she has been +too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to +listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of +the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his +piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt +illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata +of society! Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary +angel, it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the +question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in +Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing +retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill +becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield +that lies fallow for the want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible +at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must +dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste +to restore to health a generation of unfledged profligates let his +practice consist better with the doctrines that now engross him. His +marital breast is the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant +to adduce. The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for +a consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and +healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in +its native orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm +but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their +quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant, acid +and inoperative. + +The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial +usage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the +junior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the +delegation that an heir had been born, When he had betaken himself +to the women's apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the +afterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domestic +affairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimous +exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length and +solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence would +palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and +obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of +tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring +to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the +display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union among +tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively +eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean +section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, +with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs +Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate +Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the +rights of primogeniture and king's bounty touching twins and triplets, +miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac +_foetus in foetu_ and aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia +of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in +consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the medial +line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other spoke, the +benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation of labour +pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the vein, the +premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the +actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial +insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent +upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in +the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing +manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers _Sturzgeburt,_ the +recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births +conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents--in +a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified +in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. The gravest +problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much +animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as +the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, +by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and +the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and +ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her +person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. +The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro's +inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a +_prima facie_ and natural hypothetical explanation of those swineheaded +(the case of Madame Grissel Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired +infants occasionally born. The hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced +by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the metaphysical traditions of +the land he stood for, envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic +development at some stage antecedent to the human. An outlandish +delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat as almost +carried conviction, the theory of copulation between women and the males +of brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of fables +such as that of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet +has handed down to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression +made by his words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily +as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in +that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, +postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. +Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate +Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological +dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, +the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom +for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, +whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity +of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward +voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the +ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has +joined. + +But Malachias' tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up the +scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and +in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh +creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the +other a phial marked _Poison._ Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted +on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. I anticipated some +such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, +history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am the murderer of Samuel +Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has no terrors for me. This +is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what way would I be resting +at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping Dublin this while back +with my share of songs and himself after me the like of a soulth or a +bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland's, is in this life. It is what I tried +to obliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting, the Erse language +(he recited some), laudanum (he raised the phial to his lips), camping +out. In vain! His spectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope... Ah! +Destruction! The black panther! With a cry he suddenly vanished and the +panel slid back. An instant later his head appeared in the door opposite +and said: Meet me at Westland Row station at ten past eleven. He was +gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host. The seer +raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: The vendetta of Mananaun! The +sage repeated: _Lex talionis_. The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy +without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, +overcome by emotion, ceased. The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the +third brother. His real name was Childs. The black panther was himself +the ghost of his own father. He drank drugs to obliterate. For this +relief much thanks. The lonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited. +No soul will live there. The spider pitches her web in the solitude. +The nocturnal rat peers from his hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. +Murderer's ground. + +What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the +chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the +merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as +her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing +the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a +modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is +young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within +a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then +is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old +house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on +him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's +thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first +hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged +traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented +handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! +a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this +or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for +a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his +studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but, more than these, the dark +eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at duskfall many a commission +to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in +the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), +reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a +month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young +knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the +mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his +sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a +drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the +first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine +and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear +the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal +university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever +remember the night: first night, the bridenight. They are entwined +in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant +(_fiat_!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, +fair reader. In a breath 'twas done but--hold! Back! It must not be! In +terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of +darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe +of day. No, Leopold. Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful +illusion of thy strength was taken from thee--and in vain. No son of thy +loins is by thee. There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was +for Rudolph. + +The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the +infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions +of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight +ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her +dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with +ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms +are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim shapely +haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull. They +fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home of +screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more. And +on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder of rebellion, +the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads +them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk and +yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come +trooping to the sunken sea, _Lacus Mortis_. Ominous revengeful zodiacal +host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the +trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, the giantantlered, snouter +and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning +multitude, murderers of the sun. + +Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible +gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent +grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own +magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder +of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the +daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, +Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she now +arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, +shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call +it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it +streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents +of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, +writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad +metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign +upon the forehead of Taurus. + +Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at +school together in Conmee's time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, +Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the +past and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them +into life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to +my call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending +bard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair +with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those +leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something +more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius +father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see +you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I +heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent Lenehan said, laying +a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his +mother an orphan. The young man's face grew dark. All could see how hard +it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He +would have withdrawn from the feast had not the noise of voices allayed +the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the +rider's name: Lenehan as much more. He told them of the race. The flag +fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran out freshly with 0. Madden +up. She was leading the field. All hearts were beating. Even Phyllis +could not contain herself. She waved her scarf and cried: Huzzah! +Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run home when all were in close +order the dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All +was lost now. Phyllis was silent: her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she +cried, I am undone. But her lover consoled her and brought her a bright +casket of gold in which lay some oval sugarplums which she partook. A +tear fell: one only. A whacking fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. +Four winners yesterday and three today. What rider is like him? Mount +him on the camel or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a hack canter +is still his. But let us bear it as was the ancient wont. Mercy on the +luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh. She is not the filly +that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold such another. By gad, +sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish you could +have seen my queen today, Vincent said. How young she was and radiant +(Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of +muslin, I do not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded +us were in bloom: the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with +pollen floating by us. In the sunny patches one might easily have +cooked on a stone a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that +Periplipomenes sells in his booth near the bridge. But she had nought +for her teeth but the arm with which I held her and in that she nibbled +mischievously when I pressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four +days on the couch, but today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. +She is more taking then. Her posies tool Mad romp that she is, she had +pulled her fill as we reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you +will not think who met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was +walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, +a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet +creature turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a +slight disorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the +very trees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely +echo in that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going +by he had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had +poor luck with Bass's mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more +propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and +withheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. +Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far +away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be +born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the +incorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos +told me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptian +priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of the +moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha +of the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these +were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the second +constellation. + +However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him +being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which +was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was +not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above +was going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of +animation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody +that conjectured the contrary would have found themselves pretty +speedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereabouts +he had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottled +by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situated +amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which was +certainly calculated to attract anyone's remark on account of its +scarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently +transpired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite an +altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the moment +before's observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting two +or three private transactions of his own which the other two were as +mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both +their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other was +endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily determined +to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the neck of the +mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and +made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the +same time, however, a considerable degree of attentiveness in order not +to upset any of the beer that was in it about the place. + +The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the +course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The +debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on +the loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne's house had never +beheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the +old rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so +encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there at +the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowing +from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite to him, +was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of early depravity +and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place assigned to +Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in stolid repose +the squat form of Madden. The chair of the resident indeed stood vacant +before the hearth but on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in +explorer's kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted +sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi +Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board was the young +poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical +inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while +to right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, +fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the +dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible +dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril +or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous +loveliness which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages +yet to come. + +It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted +transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) contentions +would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to +accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, +deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in the +street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain +them as best he can. There may be, it is true, some questions which +science cannot answer--at present--such as the first problem submitted +by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. +Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary +(the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth +of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the +differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to +opine, such as Culpepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, +Leopold and Valenti, a mixture of both? This would be tantamount to +a cooperation (one of nature's favourite devices) between the _nisus +formativus_ of the nemasperm on the one hand and on the other a happily +chosen position, _succubitus felix_ of the passive element. The other +problem raised by the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant +mortality. It is interesting because, as he pertinently remarks, we +are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr M. +Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitary conditions in which +our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by +inhaling the bacteria which lurk in dust. These factors, he alleged, +and the revolting spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicity +posters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers +and sailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of +dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas--these, he +said, were accountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of +the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted +and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, +light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of +the classical statues such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured +photographs of prize babies, all these little attentions would enable +ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months +in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes +some of these demises to abdominal trauma in the case of women workers +subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital discipline in +the home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or official, +culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal +abortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former +(we are thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he +cites of nurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity +is too rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the +wonder is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they +do, all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which +often baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is +that thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and +mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidal movements, +lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general, everything, in +fine, in nature's vast workshop from the extinction of some remote sun +to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers which beautify our +public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. +Still the plain straightforward question why a child of normally healthy +parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly looked after succumbs +unaccountably in early childhood (though other children of the same +marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's words, give us pause. +Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for +whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law +of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken +up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the +plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at an +increasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement which, though +productive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), is +nevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the +race in general in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. +Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) +that an omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and +apparently pass through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect +imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous females +emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not to speak +of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric +relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought +else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency above alluded to. +For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately acquainted with +the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this morbidminded esthete and +embryo philosopher who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things +scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali prides +himself on being, it should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in +the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the +cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In +a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took +place in the commons' hall of the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 +and 31 Holles street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in +Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported +by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the cat +into the bag (an esthete's allusion, presumably, to one of the most +complicated and marvellous of all nature's processes--the act of sexual +congress) she must let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, +to save her own. At the risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of +his interlocutor, none the less effective for the moderate and measured +tone in which it was delivered. + +Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a +happy _accouchement._ It had been a weary weary while both for patient +and doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave +woman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and +now she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone +before, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching +scene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with the motherlight +in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a pretty sight it is +to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood, breathing a silent +prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the Universal Husband. And as her +loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only one blessing more, to have +her dear Doady there with her to share her joy, to lay in his arms that +mite of God's clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces. He is older now +(you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in the shoulders yet +in the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the conscientious +second accountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O Doady, +loved one of old, faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that +faroff time of the roses! With the old shake of her pretty head she +recalls those days. God! How beautiful now across the mist of years! But +their children are grouped in her imagination about the bedside, hers +and his, Charley, Mary Alice, Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, +Budgy (Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little +Bobsy (called after our famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs +of Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a +Purefoy if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful +will be christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of +Mr Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer's office, Dublin Castle. And so +time wags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh +break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from +your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for +you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the light whereby you read +in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and so with a tranquil +heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in His own good time. You +too have fought the good fight and played loyally your man's part. Sir, +to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithful servant! + +There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil +memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart +but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, +let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself +that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will +call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the +most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel +and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the +evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. +Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under +her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded +in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful. + +The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of +that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied +trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an +unhealthiness, a _flair,_ for the cruder things of life. A scene +disengages itself in the observer's memory, evoked, it would seem, by +a word of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really present +there (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space +of lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at +Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the game but +with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forward over +the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a brief alert +shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at times +in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, +Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in +her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent +from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily +against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey +(blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth when ere long +the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the urn secured by +that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little just as this young +man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of the danger but +must needs glance at whiles towards where his mother watches from the +PIAZZETTA giving upon the flowerclose with a faint shadow of remoteness +or of reproach (_alles Vergangliche_) in her glad look. + +Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that +antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their +faces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of +custody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant +watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long +ago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with +preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, +compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched field +and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an +instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of the +thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was the +transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the +word. + +Burke's! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and +bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor, +punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear, +ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and +what not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse +Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon +coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if a +milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out, +tumultuously, off for a minute's race, all bravely legging it, Burke's +of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them +sharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with +nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up +there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward +of watching in Horne's house has told its tale in that washedout pallor. +Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers close in +going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? + +The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence +celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny _coelum._ +God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. +Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a +doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor +barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. +Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which +thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! +Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all +Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping +under thy load, bemoiled with butcher's bills at home and ingots (not +thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt +gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy +Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed +curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead +gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. +Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the +innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile +cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary +pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, +bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious +attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and +trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty +years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that +will and would and wait and never--do. Thou sawest thy America, thy +lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How +saith Zarathustra? _Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die +süsse Milch des Euters_. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, +man, an udderful! Mother's milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk +too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, +punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk +of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's land. Thy cow's dug was tough, +what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this +but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! _Per deam +Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum_! + +All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides. +Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole +Billyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil's +sawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o' me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward +to the ribbon counter. Where's Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the +drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! _Benedicat vos +omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius_. A make, mister. The Denzille lane +boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the +bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou +heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. _En avant, mes enfants_! Fire +away number one on the gun. Burke's! Burke's! Thence they advanced five +parasangs. Slattery's mounted foot. Where's that bleeding awfur? Parson +Steve, apostates' creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. +Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What's on you? _Ma +mère m'a mariée._ British Beatitudes! _Retamplatan Digidi Boumboum_. +Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two +designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art +shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. _Silentium!_ +Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex +liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (atitudes!) +parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery +and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the +bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep +the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt! Heave to. +Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most +amazingly sorry! + +Query. Who's astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare +misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week +gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the _Übermensch._ Dittoh. Five +number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's caudle. +Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go +again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy? _Caramba!_ Have an eggnog or +a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular's got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated +awful. Don't mention it. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got +bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. +Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. +Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey +lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. +Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don't wait to get +up. Five, seven, nine. Fine! Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And +her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. +Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O +gluepot. Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you'll scuse me +saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? +Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity sagaciating O K? How's the squaws +and papooses? Womanbody after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. +Password. There's hair. Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! +Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer's wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. +Jesified, orchidised, polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch. +Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. + +Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw +Hielentman's your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot +boil! My tipple. _Merci._ Here's to us. How's that? Leg before wicket. +Don't stain my brandnew sitinems. Give's a shake of peppe, you there. +Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every +cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. _Les petites femmes_. Bold bad +girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding +Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had +left but the name. What do you want for ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. +Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all together. _Ex!_ + +Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, +seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He've got the +chink _ad lib_. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. +Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the +oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy +bilks? Won't wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de +cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. +We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you. + +'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, +two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. +Gum, I'm jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With +a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castile. Rows +of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. +Gemini. He's going to holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, +cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner +today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen +Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire +big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form +hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal +diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the +harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back. O +lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. +Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, +our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. +Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her +spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers +if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, +I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. +Through yerd our lord, Amen. + +You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy +drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of +most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate +one expensive inaugurated libation? Give's a breather. Landlord, +landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. +Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. _Nos omnes +biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria_. +Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say +onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous. Play +low, pardner. Slide. _Bonsoir la compagnie_. And snares of the poxfiend. +Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en +gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help +yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown +of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my +shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, +couple of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not +a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other +licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through the world. Health all! +_a la vôtre_! + +Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep +at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, +by James. Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the +Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. +Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once +a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all +forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh +of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. +Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o' yourn passed in his checks? +Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou'll no be telling me thot, Pold veg! +Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in black +bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like +since I was born. _Tiens, tiens_, but it is well sad, that, my faith, +yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. +Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies? High +angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor +any Rooshian. Time all. There's eleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, +woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah the Excellent One your soul this +night ever tremendously conserve. + +Your attention! We're nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The +least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable +regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook. + +Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. +Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not +come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap! + +Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o' me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for +Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. +Righto, any old time. _Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis_. You coming long? +Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned +against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to +judge the world by fire. Pflaap! _Ut implerentur scripturae_. Strike +up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. +Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion +hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on you +winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you +dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed +fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple +extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that's my name, that's +yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok. +The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He's on the +square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing +yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You'll +need to rise precious early you sinner there, if you want to diddle the +Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch +in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket. Just you try it on. + + + +_The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches +an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green +will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping +doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice +gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which +are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. +Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the +murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer._ + +THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I'll be with you. + +THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable. + +_(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, +jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children 's hands +imprisons him.)_ + +THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute! + +THE IDIOT: _(Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles)_ Grhahute! + +THE CHILDREN: Where's the great light? + +THE IDIOT: _(Gobbing)_ Ghaghahest. + +_(They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung +between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and +muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and +snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches +to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky +oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his +booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone +makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the +doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, +clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands +the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a comer two night watch in +shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate +crashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, +cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by a +candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair +of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice, still young, sings shrill +from a lane.)_ + +CISSY CAFFREY: + + _I gave it to Molly + Because she was jolly, + The leg of the duck, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, +as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their +mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago +retorts.)_ + +THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl. + +CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. _(She +sings)_ + + _I gave it to Nelly + To stick in her belly, + The leg of the duck, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics +bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped +polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the +redcoats.)_ + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Jerks his finger)_ Way for the parson. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Turns and calls)_ What ho, parson! + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Her voice soaring higher)_ + + _She has it, she got it, + Wherever she put it, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy +the_ introit _for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, +attends him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)_ + +STEPHEN: _Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia_. + +_(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a +doorway.)_ + +THE BAWD: _(Her voice whispering huskily)_ Sst! Come here till I tell +you. Maidenhead inside. Sst! + +STEPHEN: _(Altius aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista_. + +THE BAWD: _(Spits in their trail her jet of venom)_ Trinity medicals. +Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence. + +_(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws her shawl +across her nostrils.)_ + +EDY BOARDMAN: _(Bickering)_ And says the one: I seen you up Faithful +place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his +cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You +never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The +likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with +two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal +Oliphant. + +STEPHEN: _(Ttriumphaliter) Salvi facti sunt._ + +_(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light +over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, +growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)_ + +LYNCH: So that? + +STEPHEN: (_Looks behind_) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be +a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay +sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. + +LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street! + +STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even +the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of +love. + +LYNCH: Ba! + +STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? +This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar. +Hold my stick. + +LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going? + +STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, _to la belle dame sans merci,_ Georgina +Johnson, _ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam._ + +_(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, +his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down +turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left +being higher.)_ + +LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the +customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk. + +_(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs +in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to +climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the +dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his +nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. +Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring +cresset._ + +_Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, +middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south +beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, +cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding on the farther side +under the railway bridge bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread +and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a +composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror +at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave +Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. he passes, struck by the +stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck +the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy._ + +_At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright +arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)_ + +BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah! + +_(He disappears into Olhausen's, the porkbutcher's, under the downcoming +rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, +puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one +containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter, +sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to +one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans.)_ + +BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run? + +_(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset +siding. The glow leaps again.)_ + +BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight. + +_(He stands at Cormack's corner, watching)_ + +BLOOM: _Aurora borealis_ or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. +South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're +safe. _(He hums cheerfully)_ London's burning, London's burning! On +fire, on fire! (_He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the +crowd at the farther side of Talbot street_) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. +Better cross here. + +_(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)_ + +THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister! (_Two cyclists, with lighted paper +lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling_) + +THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall. + +BLOOM: _(Halts erect, stung by a spasm)_ Ow! + +_(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon +sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, +its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The +motorman bangs his footgong.)_ + +THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. + +_(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved +hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown +forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over +chains and keys.)_ + +THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick? + +BLOOM: _(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a +mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)_ No thoroughfare. Close +shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. +On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. +_(He feels his trouser pocket)_ Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch +in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled +off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. +Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. +Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same +style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word +spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I +ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He +closes his eyes an instant)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of +the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow! + +(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a +visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved +sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.) + +BLOOM: _Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?_ + +THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm_) Password. _Sraid Mabbot._ + +BLOOM: Haha. _Merci._ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters)_ Gaelic +league spy, sent by that fireeater. + +_(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps +left, ragsackman left.)_ + +BLOOM: I beg. (_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on_.) + +BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted +by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who +lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the +letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right. +Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer +makes for. Wash off his sins of the world. + +_(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against +Bloom.)_ + +BLOOM: O + +_(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. +Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, +sweets of sin, potato soap.)_ + +BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch +your purse. + +_(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form +sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan +of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned +spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are +on the drawn face.)_ + +RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with +drunken goy ever. So you catch no money. + +BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, +feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi._ + +RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(with +feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom)_ Are you not +my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold +who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham +and Jacob? + +BLOOM: _(With precaution)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's +left of him. + +RUDOLPH: _(Severely)_ One night they bring you home drunk as dog after +spend your good money. What you call them running chaps? + +BLOOM: _(In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, +narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver +waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one +side of him coated with stiffening mud)_ Harriers, father. Only that +once. + +RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make +you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps. + +BLOOM: _(Weakly)_ They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I +slipped. + +RUDOLPH: _(With contempt) Goim nachez_! Nice spectacles for your poor +mother! + +BLOOM: Mamma! + +ELLEN BLOOM: _(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's +crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, +grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, +appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, +and cries out in shrill alarm)_ O blessed Redeemer, what have they done +to him! My smelling salts! _(She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks +the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a +shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out)_ Sacred Heart of Mary, +where were you at all at all? + +_(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in +his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)_ + +A VOICE: _(Sharply)_ Poldy! + +BLOOM: Who? _(He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily)_ At your service. + +_(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in +Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet +trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles +her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free +only her large dark eyes and raven hair.)_ + +BLOOM: Molly! + +MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to +me. _(Satirically)_ Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long? + +BLOOM: _(Shifts from foot to foot)_ No, no. Not the least little bit. + +_(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, +hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, +spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled +toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her +a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of +innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with +disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb +wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)_ + +MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum! + +_(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit, +offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his +head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops +his back for leapfrog.)_ + +BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs +Marion... if you... + +MARION: So you notice some change? _(Her hands passing slowly over her +trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes)_ O Poldy, +Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the +wide world. + +BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower +water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the +morning. _(He pats divers pockets)_ This moving kidney. Ah! + +_(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon +soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)_ + +THE SOAP: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the +earth. I polish the sky. + + +_(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the +soapsun.)_ + +SWENY: Three and a penny, please. + +BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe. + +MARION: _(Softly)_ Poldy! + +BLOOM: Yes, ma'am? + +MARION: _ti trema un poco il cuore?_ + +_(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon, +humming the duet from_ Don Giovanni.) + +BLOOM: Are you sure about that _voglio_? I mean the pronunciati... + +_(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes +his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)_ + +THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. +Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk. + +_(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie +Kelly stands.)_ + +BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind? + +_(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues +with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into +gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)_ + +THE BAWD: _(Her wolfeyes shining)_ He's getting his pleasure. You won't +get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night +before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch. + +_(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling, +and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)_ + +GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. _(She murmurs)_ You +did that. I hate you. + +BLOOM: I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you. + +THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman +false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take +the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. + +GERTY: _(To Bloom)_ When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer. +_(She paws his sleeve, slobbering)_ Dirty married man! I love you for +doing that to me. + +_(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat +with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes +wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)_ + +MRS BREEN: Mr... + +BLOOM: _(Coughs gravely)_ Madam, when we last had this pleasure by +letter dated the sixteenth instant... + +MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you +nicely! Scamp! + +BLOOM: _(Hurriedly)_ Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me? +Don't give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It's ages since I. +You're looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having +this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting +quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary... + +MRS BREEN: _(Holds up a finger)_ Now, don't tell a big fib! I know +somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! _(Slily)_ +Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! + +BLOOM: _(Looks behind)_ She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. +The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. +Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at +the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter. + +_(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks, +upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes, +leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands +jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they +rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to +back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)_ + +TOM AND SAM: + + There's someone in the house with Dina + There's someone in the house, I know, + There's someone in the house with Dina + Playing on the old banjo. + +_(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling, +chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)_ + +BLOOM: _(With a sour tenderish smile)_ A little frivol, shall we, if +you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a +fraction of a second? + +MRS BREEN: _(Screams gaily)_ O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself! + +BLOOM: For old sake' sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage +mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft +corner for you. _(Gloomily)_ 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear +gazelle. + +MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. _(She +puts out her hand inquisitively)_ What are you hiding behind your back? +Tell us, there's a dear. + +BLOOM: _(Seizes her wrist with his free hand)_ Josie Powell that was, +prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking +back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina +Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, +finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this +snuffbox? + +MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic +recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the +ladies. + +BLOOM: _(Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, +blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl +studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand)_ Ladies and +gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. + +MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song. + +BLOOM: _(Meaningfully dropping his voice)_ I confess I'm teapot with +curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot +at present. + +MRS BREEN: _(Gushingly)_ Tremendously teapot! London's teapot and I'm +simply teapot all over me! _(She rubs sides with him)_ After the parlour +mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase +ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company. + +BLOOM: _(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his +fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which +she surrenders gently)_ The witching hour of night. I took the splinter +out of this hand, carefully, slowly. _(Tenderly, as he slips on her +finger a ruby ring) Là ci darem la mano._ + +MRS BREEN: _(In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a +tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside +her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) +Voglio e non._ You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the +heart. + +BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and +the beast. I can never forgive you for that. _(His clenched fist at +his brow)_ Think what it means. All you meant to me then. _(Hoarsely)_ +Woman, it's breaking me! + +_(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, +shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, +muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of +the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)_ + +ALF BERGAN: _(Points jeering at the sandwichboards)_ U. p: Up. + +MRS BREEN: _(To Bloom)_ High jinks below stairs. _(She gives him the +glad eye)_ Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to. + +BLOOM: _(Shocked)_ Molly's best friend! Could you? + +MRS BREEN: _(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss)_ +Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there? + +BLOOM: _(Offhandedly)_ Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without +potted meat is incomplete. I was at _Leah._ Mrs Bandmann Palmer. +Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the +programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Feel. + +_(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears +weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which +a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it +and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and +tightpacked pills.)_ + +RICHIE: Best value in Dub. + +_(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his +napkin, waiting to wait.)_ + +PAT: _(Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy)_ Steak and +kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait. + +RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall... + +_(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by, +gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)_ + +RICHIE: _(With a cry of pain, his hand to his back)_ Ah! Bright's! +Lights! + +BLOOM: _(Ooints to the navvy)_ A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate +stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament. + +MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and +bull story. + +BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. +But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular +reason. + +MRS BREEN: _(All agog)_ O, not for worlds. + +BLOOM: Let's walk on. Shall us? + +MRS BREEN: Let's. + +_(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The +terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)_ + +THE BAWD: Jewman's melt! + +BLOOM: _(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, +tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white +spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in +bandolier and a grey billycock hat)_ Do you remember a long long time, +years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was +weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it? + +MRS BREEN: _(In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider +veil)_ Leopardstown. + +BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three +year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old +fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and +you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that +Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and +eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I'll lay you what +you like she did it on purpose... + +MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser! + +BLOOM: Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky +little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired +on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a +pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with +a heart the size of a fullstop. + +MRS BREEN: _(Squeezes his arm, simpers)_ Naughty cruel I was! + +BLOOM: _(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly)_ And Molly was eating a +sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Frankly, +though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her +style. She was... + +MRS BREEN: Too... + +BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly +were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, +the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses +was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I +ever heard or read or knew or came across... + +MRS BREEN: _(Eagerly)_ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. + +_(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on +towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her +feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers +listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous +humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed +sodden playfight.)_ + +THE GAFFER: _(Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout)_ And when Cairns +came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing +it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the +shavings for Derwan's plasterers. + +THE LOITERERS: _(Guffaw with cleft palates)_ O jays! + +_(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their +lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)_ + +BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad +daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman. + +THE LOITERERS: Jays, that's a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the +men's porter. + +_(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, +call from lanes, doors, corners.)_ + +THE WHORES: + + Are you going far, queer fellow? + How's your middle leg? + Got a match on you? + Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. + + +_(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From +a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. +In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two +redcoats.)_ + +THE NAVVY: _(Belching)_ Where's the bloody house? + +THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. +Respectable woman. + +THE NAVVY: _(Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them)_ +Come on, you British army! + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Behind his back)_ He aint half balmy. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Laughs)_ What ho! + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To the navvy)_ Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for +Carr. Just Carr. + +THE NAVVY: _(Shouts)_ + +We are the boys. Of Wexford. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor? + +PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett. + +THE NAVVY: _(Shouts)_ + + The galling chain. + And free our native land. + +_(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. +The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting)_ + +BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they +are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at +Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. +Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding +for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What +am I following him for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't +heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have +met. Kismet. He'll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for +cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have +lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only +for presence of mind. Can't always save you, though. If I had passed +Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been shot. +Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages +for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. +God help his gamekeeper. + +_(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend_ Wet Dream +_and a phallic design._) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane +at Kingstown. What's that like? _(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted +doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The +odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow round ovalling +wreaths.)_ + +THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin. + +BLOOM: My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get +all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too +much. _(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, +wagging his tail.)_ Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. +Better speak to him first. Like women they like _rencontres._ Stinks +like a polecat. _Chacun son gout_. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain +in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! _(The +wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his +long black tongue lolling out.)_ Influence of his surroundings. Give +and have done with it. Provided nobody. _(Calling encouraging words he +shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the setter into +a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the +crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)_ Sizeable for +threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. +Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six. + +_(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The +mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, +crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. +They murmur together.)_ + +THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom. + +_(Each lays hand on Bloom's shoulder.)_ + +FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance. + +BLOOM: _(Stammers)_ I am doing good to others. + +_(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with +Banbury cakes in their beaks.)_ + +THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake. + +BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness. + +_(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the +munching spaniel.)_ + +BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw. + +_(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig's knuckle +between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran +fills silently into an area.)_ + +SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals. + +BLOOM: _(Enthusiastically)_ A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on +Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. +Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last +tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. + +_(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs +in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a +curling carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging +boarhound.)_ + +SIGNOR MAFFEI: _(With a sinister smile)_ Ladies and gentlemen, my +educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my +patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted +thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to +heel, no matter how fractious, even _Leo ferox_ there, the Libyan +maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part +produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. _(He glares)_ I possess +the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. +_(With a bewitching smile)_ I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride +of the ring. + +FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address. + +BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! _(He takes off his high +grade hat, saluting)_ Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard +of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. _Donnerwetter!_ Owns half Austria. +Egypt. Cousin. + +FIRST WATCH: Proof. + +_(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.)_ + +BLOOM: _(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing +a false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and +offers it)_ Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: +Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Reads)_ Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watching +and besetting. + +SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned. + +BLOOM: _(Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower)_ This +is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don't know his +name. _(Plausibly)_ You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The +change of name. Virag. _(He murmurs privately and confidentially)_ We +are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. _(He +shoulders the second watch gently)_ Dash it all. It's a way we gallants +have in the navy. Uniform that does it. _(He turns gravely to the first +watch)_ Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in +some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. _(To the second watch +gaily)_ I'll introduce you, inspector. She's game. Do it in the shake of +a lamb's tail. + +_(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)_ + +THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of +the army. + +MARTHA: _(Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of +the_ Irish Times _in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing)_ Henry! +Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Sternly)_ Come to the station. + +BLOOM: _(Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart +and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and +dueguard of fellowcraft)_ No, no, worshipful master, light of love. +Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember +the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with +a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than +ninetynine wrongfully condemned. + +MARTHA: _(Sobbing behind her veil)_ Breach of promise. My real name +is Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my +brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt. + +BLOOM: _(Behind his hand)_ She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. _(He +murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim)_ Shitbroleeth. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Tears in his eyes, to Bloom)_ You ought to be thoroughly +well ashamed of yourself. + +BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am +a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable +married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. +My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant +upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, +one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his +majority for the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift. + +FIRST WATCH: Regiment. + +BLOOM: _(Turns to the gallery)_ The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the +earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms +up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police, +guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, +as physique, in the service of our sovereign. + +A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain? + +BLOOM: _(His hand on the shoulder of the first watch)_ My old dad too +was a J. P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with +the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general +Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was +mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. _(With quiet +feeling)_ Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank. + +FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade. + +BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact +we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the +inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected +with the British and Irish press. If you ring up... + +_(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His +scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles +a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a +telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)_ + +MYLES CRAWFORD: _(His cock's wattles wagging)_ Hello, seventyseven +eightfour. Hello. _Freeman's Urinal_ and _Weekly Arsewipe_ here. +Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom? + +_(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate +morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, +creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio +labelled_ Matcham's Masterstrokes.) + +BEAUFOY: _(Drawls)_ No, you aren't. Not by a long shot if I know it. +I don't see it that's all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most +rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly +loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak +masquerading as a litterateur. It's perfectly obvious that with the most +inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really +gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath +suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which +your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the +kingdom. + +BLOOM: _(Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum)_ That bit about the +laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... + +BEAUFOY: _(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court)_ You +funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully weird for words! I don't +think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. +My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my +lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? We are +considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw +of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. + +BLOOM: _(Indistinctly)_ University of life. Bad art. + +BEAUFOY: _(Shouts)_ It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral +rottenness of the man! _(He extends his portfolio)_ We have here damning +evidence, the _corpus delicti_, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work +disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. + +A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY: + +Moses, Moses, king of the jews, Wiped his arse in the Daily News. + +BLOOM: _(Bravely)_ Overdrawn. + +BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you +rotter! _(To the court)_ Why, look at the man's private life! Leading +a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be +mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age! + +BLOOM: _(To the court)_ And he, a bachelor, how... + +FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll. + +THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid! + +_(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket +on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)_ + +SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class? + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Indignantly)_ I'm not a bad one. I bear a respectable +character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, +six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave +owing to his carryings on. + +FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with? + +MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself +as poor as I am. + +BLOOM: _(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless +slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly)_ I treated you white. +I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station. +Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering. +There's a medium in all things. Play cricket. + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Excitedly)_ As God is looking down on me this night if +ever I laid a hand to them oysters! + +FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen? + +MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour, +when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety +pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he +interfered twict with my clothing. + +BLOOM: She counterassaulted. + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Scornfully)_ I had more respect for the scouringbrush, +so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it +quiet. + +_(General laughter.)_ + +GEORGE FOTTRELL: _(Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly)_ Order in +court! The accused will now make a bogus statement. + +_(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins +a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in +his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though +branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to +retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to +nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths' child, he had been +carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There +might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over +a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping post, +to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by the +affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An +acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate +of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain +refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of +loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly +rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one +and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to +the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or +model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour +reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the +boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what +times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with +four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain +ever..._ + +_(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that +they cannot hear.)_ + +LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: _(Without looking up from their notebooks)_ +Loosen his boots. + +PROFESSOR MACHUGH: _(From the presstable, coughs and calls)_ Cough it +up, man. Get it out in bits. + +_(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. +Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street Gripe, yes. Quite bad. +A plasterer's bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. +Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial +moment. He did not look in the bucket Nobody. Rather a mess. Not +completely._ A Titbits _back number_.) + +_(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, +dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across +his nose, talks inaudibly.)_ + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: _(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with +a voice of pained protest)_ This is no place for indecent levity at +the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a +beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My +client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as +a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up +misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on +by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence +being quite permitted in my client's native place, the land of the +Pharaoh. _Prima facie_, I put it to you that there was no attempt at +carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of +by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would +deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and +somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak he could +a tale unfold--one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between +the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from +cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian +extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact. + +BLOOM: _(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar's vest and trousers, +apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about +him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches +his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes +the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.)_ Him makee velly muchee fine +night. _(He begins to lilt simply)_ + + Li li poo lil chile + Blingee pigfoot evly night + Payee two shilly... + +_(He is howled down.)_ + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: _(Hotly to the populace)_ This is a lonehand fight. By +Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this +fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has +superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically, +without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused +was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered +with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very +own daughter. _(Bloom takes J. J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his +lips.)_ I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the +hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My +client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to +do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or +cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, +responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. He +wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down +on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property +at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be +shown. _(To Bloom)_ I suggest that you will do the handsome thing. + +BLOOM: A penny in the pound. + +_(The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in +silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, +in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an +orange citron and a pork kidney.)_ + +DLUGACZ: _(Hoarsely)_ Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. + +_(J. J. O'Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his +coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with +sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. +Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the +galloping tide of rosepink blood.)_ + +J.J.O'MOLLOY: _(Almost voicelessly)_ Excuse me. I am suffering from a +severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. +_(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of +Seymour Bushe.)_ When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught +that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of +soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar +the sacred benefit of the doubt. _(A paper with something written on it +is handed into court._) + +BLOOM: _(In court dress)_ Can give best references. Messrs Callan, +Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon, +ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the +highest... Queens of Dublin society. _(Carelessly)_ I was just chatting +this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and +lady Ball, astronomer royal at the levee. Sir Bob, I said... + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength +ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of +brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair)_ Arrest him, constable. He +wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was +in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James +Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as +I sat in a box of the _Theatre Royal_ at a command performance of _La +Cigale_. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures +to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following +Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work +of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled _The Girl with the Three +Pairs of Stays_. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: _(In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the +nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell +quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff)_ +Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because +he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day +during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the +wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently +he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, +in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the +information that it was ablossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined +from a forcingcase of the model farm. + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him! + +_(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward)_ + +THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: _(Screaming)_ Stop thief! Hurrah there, +Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo! + +SECOND WATCH: _(Produces handcuffs)_ Here are the darbies. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome +compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my +frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself +as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate +proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery +and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, +a buck's head couped or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether +extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and +eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, +he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (stating that he felt it +his mission in life to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit +adultery at the earliest possible opportunity. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(In amazon costume, hard hat, +jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets +with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she +strikes her welt constantly)_ Also me. Because he saw me on the polo +ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of +Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger +Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob +_Centaur._ This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car +and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold +after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. +It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely (his wife, as +he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit +intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me +to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He +implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise +him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most +vicious horsewhipping. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too. + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too. + +_(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters +received from Bloom.)_ + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Stamps her jingling spurs in a +sudden paroxysm of fury)_ I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge the +pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive. + +BLOOM: _(His eyes closing, quails expectantly)_ Here? _(He squirms)_ +Again! _(He pants cringing)_ I love the danger. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I'll make it hot for +you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and +stripes on it! + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married +man! + +BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling +glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Laughs derisively)_ O, did you, my +fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your +life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained +for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: _(Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively)_ +Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within +an inch of his life. The cat-o'-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him. + +BLOOM: _(Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien)_ O +cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. +Let me off this once. _(He offers the other cheek)_ + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(Severely)_ Don't do so on any account, Mrs +Talboys! He should be soundly trounced! + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Unbuttoning her gauntlet +violently)_ I'll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since +he was pupped! To dare address me! I'll flog him black and blue in +the public streets. I'll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a +wellknown cuckold. _(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air)_ +Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! +Ready? + +BLOOM: _(Trembling, beginning to obey)_ The weather has been so warm. + +_(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)_ + +DAVY STEPHENS: _Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph_ +with Saint Patrick's Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of all +the cuckolds in Dublin. + +_(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and +exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend +John Hughes S.J. bend low.)_ + +THE TIMEPIECE: _(Unportalling)_ + + Cuckoo. + Cuckoo. + Cuckoo. + +_(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)_ + +THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag. + +_(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox +the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon +Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, +Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of a +Nameless One.)_ + +THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised +her. + +THE JURORS: _(All their heads turned to his voice)_ Really? + +THE NAMELESS ONE: _(Snarls)_ Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five. + +THE JURORS: _(All their heads lowered in assent)_ Most of us thought as +much. + +FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted: Jack +the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Awed, whispers)_ And in black. A mormon. Anarchist. + +THE CRIER: _(Loudly)_ Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a +wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public +nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of +assizes the most honourable... + +_(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial +garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his +arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic +ramshorns.)_ + +THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid +Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! _(He dons the black cap)_ Let +him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and +detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure +and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not +at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. _(A +black skullcap descends upon his head.)_ + +_(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry +Clay.)_ + +LONG JOHN FANNING: _(Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance)_ +Who'll hang Judas Iscariot? + +_(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's +apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life +preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs +grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)_ + +RUMBOLD: _(To the recorder with sinister familiarity)_ Hanging Harry, +your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or +nothing. + +_(The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)_ + +THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho! + +BLOOM: _(Desperately)_ Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence. +Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. _(Breathlessly)_ Pelvic +basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. _(Overcome with emotion)_ I left +the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing) Hynes, may +I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you +want a little more... + +HYNES: _(Coldly)_ You are a perfect stranger. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Points to the corner)_ The bomb is here. + +FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse. + +BLOOM: No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a funeral. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Draws his truncheon)_ Liar! + +_(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy +Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. +He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown +mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all +the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)_ + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(In a hollow voice)_ It is true. It was my funeral. +Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease +from natural causes. + +_(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)_ + +BLOOM: _(In triumph)_ You hear? + +PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list! + +BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Blesses himself)_ How is that possible? + +FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism. + +PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks. + +A VOICE: O rocks. + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, +solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. +Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The +poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that +bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him)_ A lamp. I must satisfy an +animal need. That buttermilk didn't agree with me. + +_(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding +a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, +chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, +holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.)_ + +FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak)_ Namine. +Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen. + +JOHN O'CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone)_ Dignam, +Patrick T, deceased. + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(With pricked up ears, winces)_ Overtones. _(He wriggles +forward and places an ear to the ground)_ My master's voice! + +JOHN O'CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. +Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one. + +_(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail +stiffpointcd, his ears cocked.)_ + +PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul. + +_(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether +over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on +fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is +heard baying under ground:_ Dignam's dead and gone below. _Tom Rochford, +robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned +machine.)_ + +TOM ROCHFORD: _(A hand to his breastbone, bows)_ Reuben J. A florin I +find him. _(He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare)_ My turn now on. +Follow me up to Carlow. + +_(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the +coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes. +Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid +the rifts of fog a piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, +listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers fly about him, +twittering, warbling, cooing.)_ + +THE KISSES: _(Warbling)_ Leo! _(Twittering)_ Icky licky micky sticky for +Leo! _(Cooing)_ Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! _(Warbling)_ Big comebig! +Pirouette! Leopopold! _(Twittering)_ Leeolee! _(Warbling)_ O Leo! + +_(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, +silvery sequins.)_ + +BLOOM: A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here. + +_(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three +bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips +down the steps and accosts him.)_ + +ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend. + +BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack's? + +ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse. +Mother Slipperslapper. _(Familiarly)_ She's on the job herself tonight +with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for +her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. +_(Suspiciously)_ You're not his father, are you? + +BLOOM: Not I! + +ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight? + +_(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his +left thigh.)_ + +ZOE: How's the nuts? + +BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose. +One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. + +ZOE: _(In sudden alarm)_ You've a hard chancre. + +BLOOM: Not likely. + +ZOE: I feel it. + +_(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard +black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist +lips.)_ + +BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom. + +ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh? + +_(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, +cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by +note, oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her +eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)_ + +ZOE: You'll know me the next time. + +BLOOM: _(Forlornly)_ I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to... + +_(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round +their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong +hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by +the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity nude, white, +still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth +roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, +strangely murmuring.)_ + +ZOE: _(Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously +smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater) Schorach ani wenowach, +benoith Hierushaloim._ + +BLOOM: _(Fascinated)_ I thought you were of good stock by your accent. + +ZOE: And you know what thought did? + +_(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on +him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a +sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat +awkward hand)_ Are you a Dublin girl? + +ZOE: _(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil)_ No bloody +fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot? + +BLOOM: _(As before)_ Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish +device. _(Lewdly)_ The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder +of rank weed. + +ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it. + +BLOOM: _(In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating +tie and apache cap)_ Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought +from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of +pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, +memory, will understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison +a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the +food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our public life! + +_(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)_ + +THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin! + +BLOOM: _(In alderman's gown and chain)_ Electors of Arran Quay, Inns +Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, +from the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. +That's my programme. _Cui bono_? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in +their phantom ship of finance... + +AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate! + +_(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)_ + +THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray! + +_(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city +shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late +thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and +white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. +They nod vigorously in agreement.)_ + +LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: _(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral +chain and large white silk scarf)_ That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech +be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which +he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the +thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth +designated Boulevard Bloom. + +COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously. + +BLOOM: _(Impassionedly)_ These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as +they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? +Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving +apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual +murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts +upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are +grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges +in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for +rever and ever and ev... + +_(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring +up. A streamer bearing the legends_ Cead Mile Failte _and_ Mah Ttob +Melek Israel _Spans the street. All the windows are thronged with +sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the +royal Dublin Fusiliers, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron +Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back +the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, +telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, +rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the cloud appears. A +fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The +beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and +waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, +surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession +appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard +tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are +followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of +Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the +mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish +representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth +of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the +saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop +of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of +Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William +Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief +rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, +methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society +of friends. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands +with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper +canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, +chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, +Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, +undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, +assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, +fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository +hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, +egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. After +them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, +Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, the earl +marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's +iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. +Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph +Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with +ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the dove, +the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson +tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. Wild excitement. The +ladies from their balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed +with essences. The men cheer. Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders with +branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)_ + +BLOOM'S BOYS: + + The wren, the wren, + The king of all birds, + Saint Stephen's his day + Was caught in the furze. + + +A BLACKSMITH: _(Murmurs)_ For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He +scarcely looks thirtyone. + +A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest +reformer. Hats off! + +_(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)_ + +A MILLIONAIRESS: _(Richly)_ Isn't he simply wonderful? + +A NOBLEWOMAN: _(Nobly)_ All that man has seen! + +A FEMINIST: _(Masculinely)_ And done! + +A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker. + +_(Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)_ + +THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted +emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and very +puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First! + +ALL: God save Leopold the First! + +BLOOM: _(In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and +Connor, with dignity)_ Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. + +WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(In purple stock and shovel hat)_ +Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your +judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? + +BLOOM: _(Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears)_ So may the +Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do. + +MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's +head) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem._ Leopold, +Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed! + +_(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He +ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put +on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ +church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar +fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic +designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and +genuflecting.)_ + +THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly +worship. + +_(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor +diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless +intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception +of message.)_ + +BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix +hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated +our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess +Selene, the splendour of night. + +_(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black +Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her +head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of +cheering.)_ + +JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: _(Raises the royal standard)_ Illustrious Bloom! +Successor to my famous brother! + +BLOOM: _(Embraces John Howard Parnell)_ We thank you from our heart, +John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of +our common ancestors. + +_(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The +keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows +all that he is wearing green socks.)_ + +TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour. + +BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at +Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with +telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do +we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the +left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering +their warcry _Bonafide Sabaoth_, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man. + +THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear! + +JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There's the man that got away James Stephens. + +A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo! + +AN OLD RESIDENT: You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you +are. + +AN APPLEWOMAN: He's a man like Ireland wants. + +BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell +you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall +ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem +in the Nova Hibernia of the future. + +_(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, +under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. +It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a +huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its +extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government +offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses +are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and +boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. several paupers +fill from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal +sightseers, collapses.)_ + +THE SIGHTSEERS: _(Dying) Morituri te salutant. (They die)_ + +_(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an +elongated finger at Bloom.)_ + +THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don't you believe a word he says. That man is +Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins. + +BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh! + +_(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his +sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many +powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing +committees, are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, +commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive +Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in +sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,_ +billets doux _in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers +of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' +indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, +season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and +privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of +the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the +Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? +(historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant's Compendium of the +Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum +(journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who's Who in +Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise's Way +to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward +to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts +through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks +amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. +Babes and sucklings are held up.)_ + +THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father! + +THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: + + Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, + Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone. + + +_(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)_ + +BABY BOARDMAN: _(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth)_ +Hajajaja. + +BLOOM: _(Shaking hands with a blind stripling)_ My more than Brother! +_(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple)_ Dear old +friends! _(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls)_ +Peep! Bopeep! _(He wheels twins in a perambulator)_ Ticktacktwo +wouldyousetashoe? _(He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, +yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his +mouth)_ Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. _(He consoles a widow)_ Absence +makes the heart grow younger. _(He dances the Highland fling with +grotesque antics)_ Leg it, ye devils! _(He kisses the bedsores of a +palsied veteran_) Honourable wounds! _(He trips up a fit policeman)_ +U. p: up. U. p: up. _(He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and +laughs kindly)_ Ah, naughty, naughty! _(He eats a raw turnip offered +him by Maurice Butterly, farmer)_ Fine! Splendid! _(He refuses to +accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist)_ My dear +fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar) Please accept. _(He +takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples)_ +Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls! + +THE CITIZEN: _(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald +muffler)_ May the good God bless him! + +_(The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and +reads solemnly)_ Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom +Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim +Meshuggah Talith. + +_(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town +clerk.)_ + +JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic +Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal +advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. +Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the Paradisiacal +Era. + +PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes? + +BLOOM: Pay them, my friend. + +PADDY LEONARD: Thank you. + +NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? + +BLOOM: _(Obdurately)_ Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are +bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five +pounds. + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien! + +NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds? + +PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble? + +BLOOM: + + _Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil.,_ 20 minims + _Tinct. nux vom.,_ 5 minims + _Extr. taraxel. iiq.,_ 30 minims. + _Aq. dis. ter in die._ + +CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of +Aldebaran? + +BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II. + +JOE HYNES: Why aren't you in uniform? + +BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the +Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? + +BEN DOLLARD: Pansies? + +BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens. + +BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive? + +BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking. + +LARRY O'ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember +me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen +of stout for the missus. + +BLOOM: _(Coldly)_ You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no +presents. + +CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity. + +BLOOM: _(Solemnly)_ You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament. + +ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys? + +BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten +commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. +Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. +Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and +night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy +must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, +bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal +brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. +Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay +state. + +O'MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost. + +DAVY BYRNE: _(Yawning)_ Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! + +BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage. + +LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing? + +_(bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration. +All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare Street Museum appears, +dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked +goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and +plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, +Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural +Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, +Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)_ + +FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian +seeking to overthrow our holy faith. + +MRS RIORDAN: _(Tears up her will)_ I'm disappointed in you! You bad man! + +MOTHER GROGAN: _(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom)_ You beast! You +abominable person! + +NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs. + +BLOOM: _(With rollicking humour)_ + + I vowed that I never would leave her, + She turned out a cruel deceiver. + With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. + +HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all. + +PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman! + +BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of +Casteele._(Laughter.)_ + +LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom! + +THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Enthusiastically)_ I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it. +I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest +man on earth. + +BLOOM: _(Winks at the bystanders)_ I bet she's a bonny lassie. + +THEODORE PUREFOY: _(In fishingcap and oilskin jacket)_ He employs a +mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature. + +THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Stabs herself)_ My hero god! _(She dies)_ + +_(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by +stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening +their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from +the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, +asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging +themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different +storeys.)_ + +ALEXANDER J DOWIE: _(Violently)_ Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the +man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian +men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat +of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the +cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, +bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. +A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his +nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. +Caliban! + +THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox! + +_(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper +and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, +hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's +tails, odd pieces of fat.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Excitedly)_ This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. +By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. +He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the +viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, _sgenl inn ban bata +coisde gan capall._ I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex +specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf. + +DR MULLIGAN: _(In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow)_ Dr +Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's +private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary +epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of +elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are +marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also +latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in +consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a +family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him +to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal +examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal, +axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be _virgo intacta._ + +_(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)_ + +DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming +generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in +spirits of wine in the national teratological museum. + +DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid. +Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent. + +DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The _fetor judaicus_ is most perceptible. + +DR DIXON: _(Reads a bill of health)_ Professor Bloom is a finished +example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. +Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint +fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. +He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court +missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up +everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that +he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried +grocer's peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and +summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand, at one +time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another report +states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency in the +name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon +to speak. He is about to have a baby. + +_(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American +makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank +cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, +I. O. U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets +are rapidly collected.)_ + +BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother. + +MRS THORNTON: _(In nursetender's gown)_ Embrace me tight, dear. You'll +be soon over it. Tight, dear. + +_(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white +children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive +plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, +wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern +languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each +has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, +Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, +Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of +high public trust in several different countries as managing directors +of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability +companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)_ + +A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? + +BLOOM: _(Darkly)_ You have said it. + +BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. + +BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger. + +_(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes +through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top ledge +by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals +several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble +many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, +Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip +van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, +Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot +simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, +eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)_ + +BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: _(In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as +breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches +and brown paper mitre) Leopoldi autem generatio._ Moses begat Noah +and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat +Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and +Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat +MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz +and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat +Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy +Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat +O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum +begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes +begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat +Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone +begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely +begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom _et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel._ + +A DEADHAND: _(Writes on the wall)_ Bloom is a cod. + +CRAB: _(In bushranger's kit)_ What did you do in the cattlecreep behind +Kilbarrack? + +A FEMALE INFANT: _(Shakes a rattle)_ And under Ballybough bridge? + +A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil's glen? + +BLOOM: _(Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears +filling from his left eye)_ Spare my past. + +THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: _(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook +fair shillelaghs)_ Sjambok him! + +_(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms, +his feet protruding. He whistles_ Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. _Artane +orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate +Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)_ + +THE ARTANE ORPHANS: + + You hig, you hog, you dirty dog! + You think the ladies love you! + THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: + + + If you see Kay + Tell him he may + See you in tea + Tell him from me. + +HORNBLOWER: _(In ephod and huntingcap, announces)_ And he shall carry +the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, +and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, +yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham. + +_(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide +travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky +and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their +beards at Bloom.)_ + +MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! +Abulafia! Recant! + +_(George R Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his +arm, presenting a bill)_ + +MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. + +BLOOM: _(Rubs his hands cheerfully)_ Just like old times. Poor Bloom! + +_(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his +shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)_ + +REUBEN J: _(Whispers hoarsely)_ The squeak is out. A split is gone for +the flatties. Nip the first rattler. + +THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap! + +BROTHER BUZZ: _(Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of +painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round +his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying)_ Forgive him his +trespasses. + +_(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets +fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)_ + +THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven! + +BLOOM: _(In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid +phoenix flames)_ Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. + +_(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of +Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles +in their hands, kneel down and pray.)_ + +THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: + + Kidney of Bloom, pray for us + Flower of the Bath, pray for us + Mentor of Menton, pray for us + Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us + Charitable Mason, pray for us + Wandering Soap, pray for us + Sweets of Sin, pray for us + Music without Words, pray for us + Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us + Friend of all Frillies, pray for us + Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us + Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. + +_(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O'brien, sings +the chorus from Handel's Messiah alleluia for the lord god omnipotent +reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes mute, +shrunken, carbonised.)_ + + +ZOE: Talk away till you're black in the face. + +BLOOM: _(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an +emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak +pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye)_ Let me be going now, woman of +the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the +father and mother of a bating. _(With a tear in his eye)_ All insanity. +Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not +to be. Life's dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. _(He +gazes far away mournfully)_ I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The +blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. _(He breathes softly)_ No +more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell. + +ZOE: _(Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet)_ Honest? Till the next +time. _(She sneers)_ Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or +came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts! + +BLOOM: _(Bitterly)_ Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle. +I'm sick of it. Let everything rip. + +ZOE: _(In sudden sulks)_ I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a +bleeding whore a chance. + +BLOOM: _(Repentantly)_ I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. +Where are you from? London? + +ZOE: _(Glibly)_ Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I'm +Yorkshire born. _(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple)_ +I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a +short time? Ten shillings? + +BLOOM: _(Smiles, nods slowly)_ More, houri, more. + +ZOE: And more's mother? _(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws)_ +Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll +peel off. + +BLOOM: _(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled +embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled +pears)_ Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed +monster. _(Earnestly)_ You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you. + +ZOE: _(Flattered)_ What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for. +_(She pats him)_ Come. + +BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle. + +ZOE: Babby! + +BLOOM: _(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair, +fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a +chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping)_ One two tlee: tlee +tlwo tlone. + +THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me. + +ZOE: Silent means consent. _(With little parted talons she captures his +hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, +luring him to doom.)_ Hot hands cold gizzard. + +_(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards +the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her +painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the +lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)_ + +THE MALE BRUTES: _(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their +loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro)_ +Good! + +_(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. +They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to +his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)_ + +ZOE: _(Her lucky hand instantly saving him)_ Hoopsa! Don't fall +upstairs. + +BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. _(He stands aside at the +threshold)_ After you is good manners. + +ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after. + +_(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out +her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall +hang a man 's hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing +them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is +flung open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes +with an ape's gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a +full waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting +his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel +eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe +into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the +chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The +floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar +rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, +heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet +without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls +are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate +is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on +the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he +beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, +doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in +her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and +glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag +of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates +mockingly the couple at the piano.)_ + +KITTY: _(Coughs behind her hand)_ She's a bit imbecillic. _(She signs +with a waggling forefinger)_ Blemblem. _(Lynch lifts up her skirt and +white petticoat with his wand she settles them down quickly.)_ Respect +yourself. _(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which +her hair glows, red with henna)_ O, excuse! + +ZOE: More limelight, Charley. _(She goes to the chandelier and turns the +gas full cock)_ + +KITTY: _(Peers at the gasjet)_ What ails it tonight? + +LYNCH: _(Deeply)_ Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. + +ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe. + +_(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at +the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he +repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond +feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, +lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the +bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)_ + +KITTY: _(Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot)_ O, excuse! + +ZOE: _(Promptly)_ Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift. + +_(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over +her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled +caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances +behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)_ + +STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto +Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an +old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate _Coela enarrant gloriam Domini._ +It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and +mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's +that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip +from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his +almightiness. _Mais nom de nom,_ that is another pair of trousers. +_Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at +Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs)_ Which side is your knowledge bump? + +THE CAP: _(With saturnine spleen)_ Bah! It is because it is. Woman's +reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form +of life. Bah! + +STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. +How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone! + +THE CAP: Bah! + +STEPHEN: Here's another for you. _(He frowns)_ The reason is because +the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible +interval which... + +THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can't. + +STEPHEN: _(With an effort)_ Interval which. Is the greatest possible +ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which. + +THE CAP: Which? + +_(Outside the gramophone begins to blare_ The Holy City.) + +STEPHEN: _(Abruptly)_ What went forth to the ends of the world to +traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, +having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a +moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self +which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. _Ecco!_ + +LYNCH: _(With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe +Higgins)_ What a learned speech, eh? + +ZOE: _(Briskly)_ God help your head, he knows more than you have +forgotten. + +_(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)_ + +FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer. + +KITTY: No! + +ZOE: _(Explodes in laughter)_ Great unjust God! + +FLORRY: _(Offended)_ Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my +foot's tickling. + +_(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, +yelling.)_ + +THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea +serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist. + +_(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)_ + +STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time. + +_(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his +spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from +which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his +shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden +huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from +the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, +hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead +and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering +darkness.)_ + +ALL: What? + +THE HOBGOBLIN: _(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his +eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then +all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs) Il +vient! C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round +and round with dervish howls) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He +crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux +sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks) Rien +va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He +springs off into vacuum.)_ + +FLORRY: _(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly)_ The end of +the world! + +_(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity +occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares +over coughs and feetshuffling.)_ + +THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem! + +Open your gates and sing + +Hosanna... + +_(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star fills from it, +proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. +Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End +of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan +filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the +Three Legs of Man.)_ + +THE END OF THE WORLD: _(with a Scotch accent)_ Wha'll dance the keel +row, the keel row, the keel row? + +_(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh +as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with +funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the +banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)_ + +ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole +Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths +shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's +time is 12.25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play +a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the +nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the +second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen +Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to +you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? +No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something +within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, +an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once +nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back +number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever +was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just the cutest snappiest line +out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know +and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. +J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K. +Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up +by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. _(He shouts)_ +Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! _(He +sings)_ Jeru... + +THE GRAMOPHONE: _(Drowning his voice)_ Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh... +_(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle)_ + +THE THREE WHORES: _(Covering their ears, squawk)_ Ahhkkk! + +ELIJAH: _(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top +of his voice, his arms uplifted)_ Big Brother up there, Mr President, +you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of +believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss +Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems +to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, +Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long +and help me save our sisters dear. _(He winks at his audience)_ Our Mr +President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. + +KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did +on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in +the brown scapular. My mother's sister married a Montmorency. It was a +working plumber was my ruination when I was pure. + +ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it. + +FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of +Hennessy's three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the +bed. + +STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without +end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes. + +_(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, +Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, +goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching)_ + +THE BEATITUDES: _(Incoherently)_ Beer beef battledog buybull businum +barnum buggerum bishop. + +LYSTER: _(In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says +discreetly)_ He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the +light. + +_(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily +laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a +mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda +hat.)_ + +BEST: _(Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown +of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot)_ I was +just beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know, +Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. + +JOHN EGLINTON: _(Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it +towards a corner: with carping accent)_ Esthetics and cosmetics are for +the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee +wants the facts and means to get them. + +_(In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave, +holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. +He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his +head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His +right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by +its two talons.)_ + +MANANAUN MACLIR: _(With a voice of waves)_ Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! +Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. +_(With a voice of whistling seawind)_ Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't +have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult +of Shakti. _(With a cry of stormbirds)_ Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! +_(He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its +cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with +the vehemence of the ocean.)_ Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the +homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter. + +_(A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to +mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)_ + +THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii! + +_(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the +mantle.)_ + +ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here? + +LYNCH: _(Tossing a cigarette on to the table)_ Here. + +ZOE: _(Her head perched aside in mock pride)_ Is that the way to hand +the _pot_ to a lady? _(She stretches up to light the cigarette over the +flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch +with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up +her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly +at her cigarette.)_ Can you see the beautyspot of my behind? + +LYNCH: I'm not looking + +ZOE: _(Makes sheep's eyes)_ No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you +suck a lemon? + +_(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom, +then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue +fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, +twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her +spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, +basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts +two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several +overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of +parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor +Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. +Two quills project over his ears.)_ + +VIRAG: _(Heels together, bows)_ My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. +_(He coughs thoughtfully, drily)_ Promiscuous nakedness is much in +evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact +that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you +are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you +perceived? Good. + +BLOOM: Granpapachi. But... + +VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and +coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of +gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I +should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always +understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of +lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a +word. Hippogriff. Am I right? + +BLOOM: She is rather lean. + +VIRAG: _(Not unpleasantly)_ Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier +pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest +bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull +has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the +attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you +can wear today. Parallax! _(With a nervous twitch of his head)_ Did you +hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax! + +BLOOM: _(An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek)_ +She seems sad. + +VIRAG: _(Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left +eye with a finger and barks hoarsely)_ Hoax! Beware of the flapper +and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button +discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. +_(More genially)_ Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item +number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe +the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she +bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel. + +BLOOM: _(Regretfully)_ When you come out without your gun. + +VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your +money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either... + +BLOOM: With...? + +VIRAG: _(His tongue upcurling)_ Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She +is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in +weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two +protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the +noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional +protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, +which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts +are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers +reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and +gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their +brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That +suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in +it. Lycopodium. _(His throat twitches)_ Slapbang! There he goes again. + +BLOOM: The stye I dislike. + +VIRAG: _(Arches his eyebrows)_ Contact with a goldring, they say. +_Argumentum ad feminam_, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece +in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve's +sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. _(He twitches)_ It +is a funny sound. _(He coughs encouragingly)_ But possibly it is only a +wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on +that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. + +BLOOM: _(Reflecting)_ Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This +searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of +accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said... + +VIRAG: _(Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking)_ Stop +twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. +Exercise your mnemotechnic. _La causa è santa_. Tara. Tara. _(Aside)_ He +will surely remember. + +BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over +parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a +deadhand cures. Mnemo? + +VIRAG: _(Excitedly)_ I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. _(He taps his +parchmentroll energetically)_ This book tells you how to act with all +descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, +melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about +amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with +horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar +and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike +women in male habiliments? _(With a dry snigger)_ You intended to devote +an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer +months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! +From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? +Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, +those complicated combinations, camiknickers? _(He crows derisively)_ +Keekeereekee! + +_(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled +mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)_ + +BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence +this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is +will then morrow as now was be past yester. + +VIRAG: _(Prompts in a pig's whisper)_ Insects of the day spend their +brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the +inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve +in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! _(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally)_ +They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand +five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will +attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt +vinegar. Bear's buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time +we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. _(He coughs and, bending +his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand)_ You shall +find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember +their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the +seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion +which Doctor L.B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to +example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That +is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! +_(He blows into bloom's ear)_ Buzz! + +BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self +then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I... + +VIRAG: _(His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key)_ Splendid! +Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. _(He gobbles +gluttonously with turkey wattles)_ Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are +we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! _(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and +reads, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he +claws)_ Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will +shortly be upon us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may +help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister +omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or +viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. _(He wags his head with +cackling raillery)_ Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. _(He +sneezes)_ Amen! + +BLOOM: _(Absently)_ Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open +sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve +and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy +to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way +through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like +those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. + +VIRAG: _(His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly +closed, psalms in outlandish monotone)_ That the cows with their those +distended udders that they have been the the known... + +BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. _(He repeats)_ +Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their +teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. _(Profoundly)_ Instinct +rules the world. In life. In death. + +VIRAG: _(Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers +at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and cries)_ +Who's moth moth? Who's dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is +Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe +pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass +tablenumpkin? _(He mews)_ Puss puss puss puss! _(He sighs, draws back +and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw)_ Well, well. He doth +rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air) + +THE MOTH: + + I'm a tiny tiny thing + Ever flying in the spring + Round and round a ringaring. + Long ago I was a king + Now I do this kind of thing + On the wing, on the wing! + Bing! + +_(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily)_ Pretty pretty +pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. + +_(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes +forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed +sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed +bamboo Jacob's pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears +dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's +face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and +sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles +down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his +amorous tongue.)_ + +HENRY: _(In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar)_ +There is a flower that bloometh. + +_(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards +Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the piano.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(To himself)_ Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my +belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. +Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old +Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep +impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially +drunk, by the way. _(He touches the keys again)_ Minor chord comes now. +Yes. Not much however. + +_(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous +moustachework.)_ + +ARTIFONI: _Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto._ + +FLORRY: Sing us something. Love's old sweet song. + +STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you +the letter about the lute? + +FLORRY: _(Smirking)_ The bird that can sing and won't sing. + +_(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with +lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew +Arnold's face.)_ + +PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with +the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve +you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. +Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street +hospital, Burke's. Eh? I am watching you. + +PHILIP DRUNK: _(Impatiently)_ Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. +If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. +Who was it told me his name? _(His lawnmower begins to purr)_ Aha, yes. +_Zoe mou sas agapo_. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not +Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He +told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no? + +FLORRY: And the song? + +STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. + +FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once. + +STEPHEN: Out of it now. _(To himself)_ Clever. + +PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: _(Their lawnmowers purring with a +rigadoon of grasshalms)_ Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the +bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. +Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us. + +ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of +business with his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to +him. I know you've a Roman collar. + +VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. _(Harshly, +his pupils waxing)_ To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I +am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why +I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the +Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. _(He wriggles)_ Woman, undoing +with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's +lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. +Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni +fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. _(He cries) Coactus volui._ +Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses woman's wrist. +Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman's fat +yadgana. _(He chases his tail)_ Piffpaff! Popo! _(He stops, sneezes)_ +Pchp! _(He worries his butt)_ Prrrrrht! + +LYNCH: I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for +shooting a bishop. + +ZOE: _(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils)_ He couldn't get a +connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush. + +BLOOM: Poor man! + +ZOE: _(Lightly)_ Only for what happened him. + +BLOOM: How? + +VIRAG: _(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, +cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) +Verfluchte Goim!_ He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig +God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the +pope's bastard. _(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, +his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world)_ +A son of a whore. Apocalypse. + +KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from +Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow +and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all +subscribed for the funeral. + +PHILIP DRUNK: _(Gravely) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, +Philippe?_ + +PHILIP SOBER: _(Gaily) c'était le sacré pigeon, Philippe._ + +_(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. +And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a +whore's shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)_ + +LYNCH: _(Laughs)_ And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated +anthropoid apes. + +FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Locomotor ataxy. + +ZOE: _(Gaily)_ O, my dictionary. + +LYNCH: Three wise virgins. + +VIRAG: _(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony +epileptic lips)_ She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, +the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. _(He sticks out +a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork)_ +Messiah! He burst her tympanum. _(With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks +his hips in the cynical spasm)_ Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk! + +_(Ben Jumbo Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, +hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat-papped, stands +forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing +bagslops.)_ + +BEN DOLLARD: _(Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels +jovially in base barreltone)_ When love absorbs my ardent soul. + +_(The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the +ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)_ + +THE VIRGINS: _(Gushingly)_ Big Ben! Ben my Chree! + +A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches. + +BEN DOLLARD: _(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter)_ Hold him now. + +HENRY: _(Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs)_ Thine +heart, mine love. _(He plucks his lutestrings)_ When first I saw... + +VIRAG: _(Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting)_ Rats! +_(He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward +push of his parchmentroll)_ After having said which I took my departure. +Farewell. Fare thee well. _Dreck!_ + +_(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb +and gives a cow's lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to +the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two +ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the +wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)_ + +THE FLYBILL: K. II. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. + +HENRY: All is lost now. + +_(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)_ + +VIRAG'S HEAD: Quack! + +_(Exeunt severally.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Over his shoulder to zoe)_ You would have preferred +the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware +Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The +agony in the closet. + +LYNCH: All one and the same God to her. + +STEPHEN: _(Devoutly)_ And sovereign Lord of all things. + +FLORRY: _(To Stephen)_ I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk. + +LYNCH: He is. A cardinal's son. + +STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw. + +_(His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, +appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven +dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, +peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His +thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his +neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. +Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave +gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:)_ + +THE CARDINAL: + + Conservio lies captured + He lies in the lowest dungeon + With manacles and chains around his limbs + Weighing upwards of three tons. + +_(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left +cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and +fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_ + + O, the poor little fellow + Hihihihihis legs they were yellow + He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake + But some bloody savage + To graize his white cabbage + He murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. + +_(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself +with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_ + +I'm suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to +Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd +walk me off the face of the bloody globe. + +_(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, +imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying +his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his +trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, +Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, +merciful male, melodious:)_ + + Shall carry my heart to thee, + Shall carry my heart to thee, + And the breath of the balmy night + Shall carry my heart to thee! + _(The trick doorhandle turns.)_ + + +THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee! + +ZOE: The devil is in that door. + +_(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking +the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily +and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his +pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)_ + +ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the +rabbits. I'm very fond of what I like. + +BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, +pricks his ears)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double +event? + +ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil)_ Fingers was made before forks. _(She +breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then +turns kittenishly to Lynch)_ No objection to French lozenges? _(He nods. +She taunts him.)_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He opens his +mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head +follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.)_ Catch! + +_(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it +through with a crack.)_ + +KITTY: _(Chewing)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have +lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with +his lady. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still. + +BLOOM: _(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic +forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance +towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift +pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing +his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.)_ Go, go, go, I conjure +you, whoever you are! + +_(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside. +Bloom's features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing +calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Solemnly)_ Thanks. + +ZOE: Do as you're bid. Here! + +_(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I +bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red +influences lupus. Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This +black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats)_ Influence +taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That +priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews. + +_(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She +is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with +tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like +Minnie Hauck in_ Carmen. _On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. +Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her +olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted +nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)_ + +BELLA: My word! I'm all of a mucksweat. + +_(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with +hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck +and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)_ + +THE FAN: _(Flirting quickly, then slowly)_ Married, I see. + +BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid... + +THE FAN: _(Half opening, then closing)_ And the missus is master. +Petticoat government. + +BLOOM: _(Looks down with a sheepish grin)_ That is so. + +THE FAN: _(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop)_ Have you +forgotten me? + +BLOOM: Yes. Yo. + +THE FAN: _(Folded akimbo against her waist)_ Is me her was you dreamed +before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now +we? + +_(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Wincing)_ Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which +women love. + +THE FAN: _(Tapping)_ We have met. You are mine. It is fate. + +BLOOM: _(Cowed)_ Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your +domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to +speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before +the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door +and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per +second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant +a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. +Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed +in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the +end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with +Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as you probably... _(He +winces)_ Ah! + +RICHIE GOULDING: _(Bagweighted, passes the door)_ Mocking is catch. Best +value in Dub. Fit for a prince's. Liver and kidney. + +THE FAN: _(Tapping)_ All things end. Be mine. Now. + +BLOOM: _(Undecided)_ All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. +Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of +life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. + +THE FAN: _(Points downwards slowly)_ You may. + +BLOOM: _(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace)_ We are +observed. + +THE FAN: _(Points downwards quickly)_ You must. + +BLOOM: _(With desire, with reluctance)_ I can make a true black knot. +Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for +Kellett's. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. +I knelt once before today. Ah! + +_(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the +edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. +Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers +draws out and in her laces.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Murmurs lovingly)_ To be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my +love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace +up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so +incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model +Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb +toe, as worn in Paris. + +THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight. + +BLOOM: _(Crosslacing)_ Too tight? + +THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. + +BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar +dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. +That night she met... Now! + +_(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises +his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow +dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Mumbles)_ Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen,... + +BELLO: _(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice)_ Hound of +dishonour! + +BLOOM: _(Infatuated)_ Empress! + +BELLO: _(His heavy cheekchops sagging)_ Adorer of the adulterous rump! + +BLOOM: _(Plaintively)_ Hugeness! + +BELLO: Dungdevourer! + +BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed)_ Magmagnificence! + +BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan)_ Incline feet +forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. +On the hands down! + +BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps)_ +Truffles! + +_(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, +snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut +tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most +excellent master.)_ + +BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his +shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport +skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his hands stuck deep in +his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in)_ +Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of +your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness. + +BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats)_ I promise never to disobey. + +BELLO: _(Laughs loudly)_ Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for +you. I'm the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet +Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, +I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be +inflicted in gym costume. + +_(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.)_ + +ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her)_ She's not here. + +BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes)_ She's not here. + +FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown)_ She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. +She'll be good, sir. + +KITTY: Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir. + +BELLO: _(Coaxingly)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, +just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, +sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head)_ There's a good girly now. +_(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward)_ I only want +to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender +behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready. + +BLOOM: _(Fainting)_ Don't tear my... + +BELLO: _(Savagely)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging +hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian +slave of old. You're in for it this time! I'll make you remember me for +the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins swollen, his face +congested)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after +my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle +of Guinness's porter. _(He belches)_ And suck my thumping good Stock +Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed Victualler's Gazette_. Very +possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and +enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted +and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will +hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom squeals, turning turtle.)_ + +BLOOM: Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't! + +BELLO: _(Twisting)_ Another! + +BLOOM: _(Screams)_ O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches +like mad! + +BELLO: _(Shouts)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best +bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn +you! _(He slaps her face)_ + +BLOOM: _(Whimpers)_ You're after hitting me. I'll tell... + +BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. + +ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will. + +FLORRY: I will. Don't be greedy. + +KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me. + +_(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib, +men's grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck +with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)_ + +MRS KEOGH: _(Ferociously)_ Can I help? _(They hold and pinion Bloom.)_ + +BELLO: _(Squats with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing +cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg)_ I see Keating Clay is elected +vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference +shares are at sixteen three quaffers. Curse me for a fool that didn't +buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, +curse it. And that Goddamned outsider _Throwaway_ at twenty to one. +_(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear)_ Where's that Goddamned +cursed ashtray? + +BLOOM: _(Goaded, buttocksmothered)_ O! O! Monsters! Cruel one! + +BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never +prayed before. _(He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar)_ Here, +kiss that. Both. Kiss. _(He throws a leg astride and, pressing with +horseman's knees, calls in a hard voice)_ Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury +cross. I'll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. _(He bends sideways and +squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting)_ Ho! Off we pop! I'll +nurse you in proper fashion. _(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the +saddle)_ The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot +and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop. + +FLORRY: _(Pulls at Bello)_ Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked +before you. + +ZOE: _(Pulling at florry)_ Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, +suckeress? + +BLOOM: _(Stifling)_ Can't. + +BELLO: Well, I'm not. Wait. _(He holds in his breath)_ Curse it. Here. +This bung's about burst. _(He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting +his features, farts loudly)_ Take that! _(He recorks himself)_ Yes, by +Jingo, sixteen three quarters. + +BLOOM: _(A sweat breaking out over him)_ Not man. _(He sniffs)_ Woman. + +BELLO: _(Stands up)_ No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has +come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing +under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male +garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously +rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too! + +BLOOM: _(Shrinks)_ Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I +tiptouch it with my nails? + +BELLO: _(Points to his whores)_ As they are now so will you be, wigged, +singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape +measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel +force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to +the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, +plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, +pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, +with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice +scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be +a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly +flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you... + +BLOOM: _(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large +male hands and nose, leering mouth)_ I tried her things on only twice, +a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to +save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift. + +BELLO: _(Jeers)_ Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed +off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds +your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, +eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and +short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that +Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? + +BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine. + +BELLO: _(Guffaws)_ Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this! You were +a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and +lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be +violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. +P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, +Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the +varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland +and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. _(He guffaws again)_ Christ, +wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? + +BLOOM: _(Her hands and features working)_ It was Gerald converted me to +be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School +play _Vice Versa_. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by +sister's stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his +eyelids. Cult of the beautiful. + +BELLO: _(With wicked glee)_ Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you +took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the +smoothworn throne. + +BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. _(Earnestly)_ +And really it's better the position... because often I used to wet... + +BELLO: _(Sternly)_ No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the +corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it +standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a +trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a +martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds. + +THE SINS OF THE PAST: _(In a medley of voices)_ He went through a form +of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the +Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn +at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to +the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged +a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary +outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences +he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all +strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did +he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and +what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, +gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to +him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? + +BELLO: _(Whistles loudly)_ Say! What was the most revolting piece of +obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be +candid for once. + +_(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, +Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny Cassidy's hag, blind +stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, +the...)_ + +BLOOM: Don't ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought +the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath... + +BELLO: _(Peremptorily)_ Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. +Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a +line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how +many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... + +BLOOM: _(Docile, gurgles)_ I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant + +BELLO: _(Imperiously)_ O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak +when you're spoken to. + +BLOOM: _(Bows)_ Master! Mistress! Mantamer! + +_(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fill.)_ + +BELLO: _(Satirically)_ By day you will souse and bat our smelling +underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines +with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be +nice? _(He places a ruby ring on her finger)_ And there now! With this +ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress. + +BLOOM: Thank you, mistress. + +BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in +the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. +Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. +Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you +on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, +with the hairbrush. You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night +your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves +newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such +favours knights of old laid down their lives. _(He chuckles)_ My boys +will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above +all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new +attraction in gilded heels. First I'll have a go at you myself. A man I +know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just +now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is +on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. +Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? _(He points)_ For that lot. Trained +by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. _(He bares his arm and +plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva)_ There's fine depth for you! +What, boys? That give you a hardon? _(He shoves his arm in a bidder's +face)_ Here wet the deck and wipe it round! + +A BIDDER: A florin. + +_(Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.)_ + +THE LACQUEY: Barang! + +A VOICE: One and eightpence too much. + +CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean. + +BELLO: _(Gives a rap with his gavel)_ Two bar. Rockbottom figure and +cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine his points. +Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If +I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid +gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His +sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. +Whoa my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! _(He brands his initial C on Bloom's +croup)_ So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen? + +A DARKVISAGED MAN: _(In disguised accent)_ Hoondert punt sterlink. + +VOICES: _(Subdued)_ For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid. + +BELLO: _(Gaily)_ Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short +skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a +potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the +long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better +instincts of the _blasé_ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk +on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, +the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of +fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. + +BLOOM: _(Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with +forefinger in mouth)_ O, I know what you're hinting at now! + +BELLO: What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? _(He +stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds +of Bloom's haunches)_ Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your +curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, +sing. It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy +a bucket or sell your pump. _(Loudly)_ Can you do a man's job? + +BLOOM: Eccles street... + +BELLO: _(Sarcastically)_ I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but +there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my +gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for +you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all +over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, +belly to belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he +has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, +my lad! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts +already! That makes you wild, don't it? Touches the spot? _(He spits in +contempt)_ Spittoon! + +BLOOM: I was indecently treated, I... Inform the police. Hundred +pounds. Unmentionable. I... + +BELLO: Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your +drizzle. + +BLOOM: To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll... We... Still... + +BELLO: _(Ruthlessly)_ No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will +since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. +Return and see. + +_(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)_ + +SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle! + +BLOOM: _(In tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, +fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond +panes, cries out)_ I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! +But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he... + +BELLO: _(Laughs mockingly)_ That's your daughter, you owl, with a +Mullingar student. + +_(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf +in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and +calls, her young eyes wonderwide.)_ + +MILLY: My! It's Papli! But, O Papli, how old you've grown! + +BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, +aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and +his menfriends are living there in clover. The _Cuckoos' Rest!_ Why not? +How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, +exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? +Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the +goose, my gander O. + +BLOOM: They... I... + +BELLO: _(Cuttingly)_ Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet +you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to +find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue +you carried home in the rain for art for art' sake. They will violate +the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook +of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten +shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. + +BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. +I will prove... + +A VOICE: Swear! + +_(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his +teeth.)_ + +BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your +secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You +are down and out and don't you forget it, old bean. + +BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody...? _(He bites his +thumb)_ + +BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency +or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you +skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! +If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury +you in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck +Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and +sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, +whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. _(He +explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh)_ We'll manure you, Mr Flower! _(He +pipes scoffingly)_ Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli! + +BLOOM: _(Clasps his head)_ My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have +suff... + +_(He weeps tearlessly)_ + +BELLO: _(Sneers)_ Crybabby! Crocodile tears! + +_(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to +the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the +circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. +Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. +Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold +Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the +recreant Bloom.)_ + +THE CIRCUMCISED: _(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit +upon him, no flowers) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad._ + +VOICES: _(Sighing)_ So he's gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never +heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, +yes. + +_(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of +incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with +hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her +grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.)_ + +THE YEWS: _(Their leaves whispering)_ Sister. Our sister. Ssh! + +THE NYMPH: _(Softly)_ Mortal! _(Kindly)_ Nay, dost not weepest! + +BLOOM: _(Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, +with dignity)_ This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of +habit. + +THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster +picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in +fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical +act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt +of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to +disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, +proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured +gentleman. Useful hints to the married. + +BLOOM: _(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap)_ We have met before. On +another star. + +THE NYMPH: _(Sadly)_ Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the +aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited +testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust +developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. + +BLOOM: You mean _Photo Bits?_ + +THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me +above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in +four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my +shame. + +BLOOM: _(Humbly kisses her long hair)_ Your classic curves, beautiful +immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, +almost to pray. + +THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise. + +BLOOM: _(Quickly)_ Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst +side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed +or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest +there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days +ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive +vent. _(He sighs)_ 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage. + +THE NYMPH: _(Her fingers in her ears)_ And words. They are not in my +dictionary. + +BLOOM: You understood them? + +THE YEWS: Ssh! + +THE NYMPH: _(Covers her face with her hands)_ What have I not seen in +that chamber? What must my eyes look down on? + +BLOOM: _(Apologetically)_ I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up +with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. + +THE NYMPH: _(Bends her head)_ Worse, worse! + +BLOOM: _(Reflects precautiously)_ That antiquated commode. It wasn't her +weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds +after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd +orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. + +_(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)_ + +THE WATERFALL: + + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. + +THE YEWS: _(Mingling their boughs)_ Listen. Whisper. She is right, our +sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous +summer days. + + +JOHN WYSE NOLAN: _(In the background, in Irish National Forester's +uniform, doffs his plumed hat)_ Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, +trees of Ireland! + +THE YEWS: _(Murmuring)_ Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School +excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? + +BLOOM: _(Scared)_ High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession of +faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram. + +THE ECHO: Sham! + +BLOOM: _(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript +juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis +shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with +badge)_ I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a +jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, +the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, +instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles +vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were +sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days. + +_(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and +shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen +Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing +of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)_ + +THE HALCYON DAYS: Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray! _(They cheer)_ + +BLOOM: _(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent +snowballs, struggles to rise)_ Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let's +ring all the bells in Montague street. _(He cheers feebly)_ Hurray for +the High School! + +THE ECHO: Fool! + +THE YEWS: _(Rustling)_ She is right, our sister. Whisper. _(Whispered +kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from +the boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.)_ Who +profaned our silent shade? + +THE NYMPH: _(Coyly, through parting fingers)_ There? In the open air? + +THE YEWS: _(Sweeping downward)_ Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward. + +THE WATERFALL: + + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca + Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca. + +THE NYMPH: _(With wide fingers)_ O, infamy! + +BLOOM: I was precocious. Youth. The fauna. I sacrificed to the god of +the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing +time. Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, +flaxenhaired, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains +with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled +downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. +She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The +demon possessed me. Besides, who saw? + +_(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with +humid nostrils through the foliage.)_ + +STAGGERING BOB: (LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, +SNIVELS) Me. Me see. + +BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need I... _(With pathos)_ No girl would when +I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play... + +_(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, +plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.)_ + +THE NANNYGOAT: _(Bleats)_ Megeggaggegg! Nannannanny! + +BLOOM: _(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and +gorsespine)_ Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. _(He gazes +intently downwards on the water)_ Thirtytwo head over heels per second. +Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government +printer's clerk. _(Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, +rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the +purple waiting waters.)_ + +THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg! + +_(Far out in the bay between bailey and kish lights the_ Erin's King +_sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards +the land.)_ + +COUNCILLOR NANNETII: _(Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, +his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims)_ When my country takes her +place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my +epitaph be written. I have... + +BLOOM: Done. Prff! + +THE NYMPH: _(Loftily)_ We immortals, as you saw today, have not such +a place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat +electric light. _(She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing +her forefinger in her mouth)_ Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then +could you...? + +BLOOM: _(Pawing the heather abjectly)_ O, I have been a perfect pig. +Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which +add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's +syringe, the ladies' friend. + +THE NYMPH: In my presence. The powderpuff. _(She blushes and makes a +knee)_ And the rest! + +BLOOM: _(Dejected)_ Yes. _Peccavi!_ I have paid homage on that living +altar where the back changes name. _(With sudden fervour)_ For why +should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...? + +_(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems, +cooeeing)_ + +THE VOICE OF KITTY: _(In the thicket)_ Show us one of them cushions. + +THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Here. + +_(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)_ + +THE VOICE OF LYNCH: _(In the thicket)_ Whew! Piping hot! + +THE VOICE OF ZOE: _(From the thicket)_ Came from a hot place. + +THE VOICE OF VIRAG: _(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war +panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over +beechmast and acorns)_ Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull! + +BLOOM: It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit +where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to +grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted +white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full. + +THE WATERFALL: + + _Phillaphulla Poulaphouca + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca._ + +THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak! + +THE NYMPH: _(Eyeless, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, +softly, with remote eyes)_ Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount +Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. _(She +reclines her head, sighing)_ Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull +waves o'er the waters dull. + +_(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)_ + +THE BUTTON: Bip! + +_(Two sluts of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)_ + +THE SLUTS: + + O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers + He didn't know what to do, + To keep it up, + To keep it up. + +BLOOM: _(Coldly)_ You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there +were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy +but willing like an ass pissing. + +THE YEWS: _(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms +aging and swaying)_ Deciduously! + +THE NYMPH: _(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit)_ +Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! _(A large moist stain appears on her +robe)_ Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a +pure woman. _(She clutches again in her robe)_ Wait. Satan, you'll sing +no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. _(She draws a poniard and, +clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his +loins)_ Nekum! + +BLOOM: _(Starts up, seizes her hand)_ Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o' nine lives! +Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What +do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? _(He +clutches her veil)_ A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, +or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, +eh Reynard? + +THE NYMPH: _(With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast +cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks)_ Poli...! + +BLOOM: _(Calls after her)_ As if you didn't get it on the double +yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. +Your strength our weakness. What's our studfee? What will you pay on +the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. _(The fleeing nymph +raises a keen)_ Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind +me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool +someone else, not me. _(He sniffs)_ Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease. + +_(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)_ + +BELLA: You'll know me the next time. + +BLOOM: _(Composed, regards her) Passée._ Mutton dressed as lamb. Long +in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night +would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your +eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the +dimensions of your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw +propeller. + +BELLA: _(Contemptuously)_ You're not game, in fact. _(Her sowcunt +barks)_ Fbhracht! + +BLOOM: _(Contemptuously)_ Clean your nailless middle finger first, your +bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of +hay and wipe yourself. + +BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod! + +BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor! + +BELLA: _(Turns to the piano)_ Which of you was playing the dead march +from _Saul?_ + +ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. _(She darts to the piano and bangs +chords on it with crossed arms)_ The cat's ramble through the slag. +_(She glances back)_ Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? _(She darts +back to the table)_ What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own. + +_(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom +approaches Zoe.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Gently)_ Give me back that potato, will you? + +ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing. + +BLOOM: _(With feeling)_ It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma. + +ZOE: + + Give a thing and take it back + God'll ask you where is that + You'll say you don't know + God'll send you down below. + +BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it. + +STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question. + +ZOE: Here. _(She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, +and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking)_ Those that hides +knows where to find. + +BELLA: _(Frowns)_ Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. And don't you +smash that piano. Who's paying here? + +_(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out +a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(With exaggerated politeness)_ This silken purse I made out +of the sow's ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. _(He +indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom)_ We are all in the same sweepstake, +Kinch and Lynch. _Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre état_. + +LYNCH: _(Calls from the hearth)_ Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me. + +STEPHEN: _(Hands Bella a coin)_ Gold. She has it. + +BELLA: _(Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and +Kitty)_ Do you want three girls? It's ten shillings here. + +STEPHEN: _(Delightedly)_ A hundred thousand apologies. _(He fumbles +again and takes out and hands her two crowns)_ Permit, _brevi manu_, my +sight is somewhat troubled. + +_(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to +himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over +Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, +adds his head to the group.)_ + +FLORRY: _(Strives heavily to rise)_ Ow! My foot's asleep. _(She limps +over to the table. Bloom approaches.)_ + +BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: _(Chattering and squabbling)_ The +gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a +moment... this gentleman pays separate... who's touching it?... ow! +... mind who you're pinching... are you staying the night or a short +time?... who did?... you're a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid +down like a gentleman... drink... it's long after eleven. + +STEPHEN: _(At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence)_ No bottles! +What, eleven? A riddle! + +ZOE: _(Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the +top of her stocking)_ Hard earned on the flat of my back. + +LYNCH: _(Lifting Kitty from the table)_ Come! + +KITTY: Wait. _(She clutches the two crowns)_ + +FLORRY: And me? + +LYNCH: Hoopla! _(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the +sofa.)_ + +STEPHEN: + + The fox crew, the cocks flew, + The bells in heaven + Were striking eleven. + 'Tis time for her poor soul + To get out of heaven. + +BLOOM: _(Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between bella and +florry)_ So. Allow me. _(He takes up the poundnote)_ Three times ten. +We're square. + +BELLA: _(Admiringly)_ You're such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss +you. + +ZOE: _(Points)_ Him? Deep as a drawwell. _(Lynch bends Kitty back over +the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)_ + +BLOOM: This is yours. + +STEPHEN: How is that? _Les distrait_ or absentminded beggar. _(He +fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object +fills.)_ That fell. + +BLOOM: _(Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches)_ This. + +STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks. + +BLOOM: _(Quietly)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take care +of. Why pay more? + +STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins)_ Be just before you are generous. + +BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts)_ One, seven, eleven, and +five. Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost. + +STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next +Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly)_ Burying his grandmother. +Probably he killed her. + +BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say. + +STEPHEN: Doesn't matter a rambling damn. + +BLOOM: No, but... + +STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a +cigarette from the sofa to the table)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead +and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it)_ +Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds to +light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy)_ + +LYNCH: _(Watching him)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it if +you held the match nearer. + +STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye)_ Lynx eye. Must get glasses. +Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all +flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near: +far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously)_ Hm. +Sphinx. The beast that has twobacks at midnight. Married. + +ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with +him. + +FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Mr Lambe from London. + +STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. + +LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply) Dona nobis pacem._ + +_(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. Bloom picks it up and +throws it in the grate.)_ + +BLOOM: Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe)_ You +have nothing? + +ZOE: Is he hungry? + +STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the +bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the Gods) + + Hangende Hunger, + Fragende Frau, + Macht uns alle kaputt. + + +ZOE: _(Tragically)_ Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! _(She takes +his hand)_ Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand. _(She points to his +forehead)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts)_ Two, three, Mars, that's +courage. _(Stephen shakes his head)_ No kid. + +LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and +shake. _(To Zoe)_ Who taught you palmistry? + +ZOE: _(Turns)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. _(To Stephen)_ I see +it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered head)_ + +LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice)_ Like that. Pandybat. + +_(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, +the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)_ + +FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little +schemer. See it in your eye. + +_(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises +from the pianola coffin.)_ + +DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very +good little boy! + +ZOE: _(Examining Stephen's palm)_ Woman's hand. + +STEPHEN: _(Murmurs)_ Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read +His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. + +ZOE: What day were you born? + +STEPHEN: Thursday. Today. + +ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go. _(She traces lines on his hand)_ +Line of fate. Influential friends. + +FLORRY: _(Pointing)_ Imagination. + +ZOE: Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... _(She peers at his hands +abruptly)_ I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to +know? + +BLOOM: _(Detaches her fingers and offers his palm)_ More harm than good. +Here. Read mine. + +BELLA: Show. _(She turns up bloom's hand)_ I thought so. Knobby knuckles +for the women. + +ZOE: _(Peering at bloom's palm)_ Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and +marry money. + +BLOOM: Wrong. + +ZOE: _(Quickly)_ O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That +wrong? + +_(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, +stretches her wings and clucks.)_ + +BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. + +_(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off)_ + +BLOOM: _(Points to his hand)_ That weal there is an accident. Fell and +cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen. + +ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news. + +STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago +he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo +years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. _(He winces)_ Hurt my hand +somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money? + +_(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and +writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)_ + +FLORRY: What? + +_(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a +gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, +Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the +sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the +crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)_ + +THE BOOTS: _(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers)_ +Haw haw have you the horn? + +_(Bronze by gold they whisper.)_ + +ZOE: _(To Florry)_ Whisper. + +_(They whisper again)_ + +_(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set +sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman's cap and +white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat +shoulder.)_ + +LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a +few quims? + +BOYLAN: _(Seated, smiles)_ Plucking a turkey. + +LENEHAN: A good night's work. + +BOYLAN: _(Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks)_ Blazes +Kate! Up to sample or your money back. _(He holds out a forefinger)_ +Smell that. + +LENEHAN: _(Smells gleefully)_ Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah! + +ZOE AND FLORRY: _(Laugh together)_ Ha ha ha ha. + +BOYLAN: _(Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear)_ +Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet? + +BLOOM: _(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings +and powdered wig)_ I'm afraid not, sir. The last articles... + +BOYLAN: _(Tosses him sixpence)_ Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. +_(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head)_ Show me +in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? + +BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. + +MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. _(She plops splashing +out of the water)_ Raoul darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only +my new hat and a carriage sponge. + +BOYLAN: _(A merry twinkle in his eye)_ Topping! + +BELLA: What? What is it? + +_(Zoe whispers to her.)_ + +MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll +write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to +raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed +and stamped receipt. + +BOYLAN: (clasps himself) Here, I can't hold this little lot much longer. +(he strides off on stiff cavalry legs) + +BELLA: _(Laughing)_ Ho ho ho ho. + +BOYLAN: _(To Bloom, over his shoulder)_ You can apply your eye to the +keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times. + +BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness +the deed and take a snapshot? _(He holds out an ointment jar)_ Vaseline, +sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...? + +KITTY: _(From the sofa)_ Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What. + +_(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping +loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)_ + +MINA KENNEDY: _(Her eyes upturned)_ O, it must be like the scent of +geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! +Stuck together! Covered with kisses! + +LYDIA DOUCE: _(Her mouth opening)_ Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round +the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and +New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. + +KITTY: _(Laughing)_ Hee hee hee. + +BOYLAN'S VOICE: _(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach)_ Ah! +Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht! + +MARION'S VOICE: _(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat)_ O! +Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? + +BLOOM: _(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself)_ Show! Hide! Show! +Plough her! More! Shoot! + +BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee! + +LYNCH: _(Points)_ The mirror up to nature. _(He laughs)_ Hu hu hu hu hu! + +_(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, +beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the +reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)_ + +SHAKESPEARE: _(In dignified ventriloquy)_ 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks +the vacant mind. _(To Bloom)_ Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest +invisible. Gaze. _(He crows with a black capon's laugh)_ Iagogo! How my +Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo! + +BLOOM: _(Smiles yellowly at the three whores)_ When will I hear the +joke? + +ZOE: Before you're twice married and once a widower. + +BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements +were taken next the skin after his death... + +_(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with +deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, +her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a +pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late +husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds +a Scottish widows' insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under +which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar +loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a +crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, +her streamers flaunting aloft.)_ + +FREDDY: Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! + +SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over! + +SHAKESPEARE: _(With paralytic rage)_ Weda seca whokilla farst. + +_(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's +beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run +aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and +kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.)_ + +MRS CUNNINGHAM: _(Sings)_ + +And they call me the jewel of Asia! + +MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: _(Gazes on her, impassive)_ Immense! Most bloody +awful demirep! + +STEPHEN: _Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti._ Queens lay with prize bulls. +Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first +confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions +of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was +open. + +BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop. + +LYNCH: Let him alone. He's back from Paris. + +ZOE: _(Runs to stephen and links him)_ O go on! Give us some parleyvoo. + +_(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he +stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile +on his face.)_ + +LYNCH: _(Oommelling on the sofa)_ Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm. + +STEPHEN: _(Gabbles with marionette jerks)_ Thousand places of +entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves +and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable +house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about +princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries +extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english +how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. +Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show +with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. +Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in +universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then +disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young +with _dessous troublants_. _(He clacks his tongue loudly)_ _Ho, la la! +Ce pif qu'il a!_ + +LYNCH: _Vive le vampire!_ + +THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo! + +STEPHEN: _(Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)_ +Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy +apostles big damn ruffians. _Demimondaines_ nicely handsome sparkling of +diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs +they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? _(He points about him with +grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to)_ Caoutchouc +statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very +lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every +positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act +awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on +the belly _pièce de Shakespeare._ + +BELLA: _(Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of +laughter)_ An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the... + +STEPHEN: _(Mincingly)_ I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman +tongue for _double entente cordiale._ O yes, _mon loup_. How much cost? +Waterloo. Watercloset. _(He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger)_ + +BELLA: _(Laughing)_ Omelette... + +THE WHORES: _(Laughing)_ Encore! Encore! + +STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon. + +ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady. + +LYNCH: Across the world for a wife. + +FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries. + +STEPHEN: _(Extends his arms)_ It was here. Street of harlots. In +Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the +red carpet spread? + +BLOOM: _(Approaching Stephen)_ Look... + +STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World +without end. _(He cries) P_ater! Free! + +BLOOM: I say, look... + +STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? _O merde alors! (He cries, his +vulture talons sharpened)_ Hola! Hillyho! + +_(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)_ + +SIMON: That's all right. _(He swoops uncertainly through the air, +wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard +wings)_ Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those +halfcastes. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep +our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. +Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! _(He makes the beagle's call, giving +tongue)_ Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! + +_(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. +A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his +grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, +under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, +sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward +Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six +Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty +sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, +bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, greynegroes +waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, +thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high +wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)_ + +THE CROWD: + + Card of the races. Racing card! + Ten to one the field! + Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! + Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! + Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! + Ten to one bar one! + Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! + I'll give ten to one! + Ten to one bar one! + +_(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, +his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of +bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, +the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort's +Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping +in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded +isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, +orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at +the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky +road.)_ + +THE ORANGE LODGES: _(Jeering)_ Get down and push, mister. Last lap! +You'll be home the night! + +GARRETT DEASY: _(Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with +postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the +prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop)_ + +_Per vias rectas!_ + +_(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent +of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, +potatoes.)_ + +THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! + +_(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the +windows, singing in discord.)_ + +STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street. + +ZOE: _(Holds up her hand)_ Stop! + +PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY: + +Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish for... + +ZOE: That's me. _(She claps her hands)_ Dance! Dance! _(She runs to the +pianola)_ Who has twopence? + +BLOOM: Who'll...? + +LYNCH: _(Handing her coins)_ Here. + +STEPHEN: _(Cracking his fingers impatiently)_ Quick! Quick! Where's my +augur's rod? _(He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his +foot in tripudium)_ + +ZOE: _(Turns the drumhandle)_ There. + +_(She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights +start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor +Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained +inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the +room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts +and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's +grace, his bowknot bobbing)_ + +ZOE: _(Twirls round herself, heeltapping)_ Dance. Anybody here for +there? Who'll dance? Clear the table. + +_(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of_ +My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. _Stephen throws his ashplant on the table +and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards +the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to +waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve filling from +gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the +curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins +a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and +jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk +lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar +with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary +gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed +directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places +a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and +buttons.)_ + +MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection +with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Fancy dress balls arranged. +Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean +abilities. _(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet) Tout +le monde en avant! Révérence! Tout le monde en place!_ + +_(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels, +sinks, his live cape filling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz +time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, +fide gold rosy violet.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + +Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, +Sweethearts they'd left behind... + +_(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, +in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, +twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. +Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking +mirrors, lifting their arms.)_ + +MAGINNI: _(Clipclaps glovesilent hands) Carré! Avant deux!_ Breathe +evenly! _Balance!_ + +_(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing +to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind +them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, +rising from their shoulders.)_ + +HOURS: You may touch my. + +CAVALIERS: May I touch your? + +HOURS: O, but lightly! + +CAVALIERS: O, so lightly! + +THE PIANOLA: + +My little shy little lass has a waist. + +_(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours +advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their +cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey +gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)_ + +MAGINNI: _Avant huit! Traversé! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisé!_ + +_(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon +and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered +hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.)_ + +THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho! + +ZOE: _(Twirling, her hand to her brow)_ O! + +MAGINNI: _Les tiroirs! Chaîne de dames! La corbeille! Dos à dos!_ + +_(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving, +unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.)_ + +ZOE: I'm giddy! + +_(She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns +with her.)_ + +MAGINNI: Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots! + +_(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each +each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn +cumbrously.)_ + +MAGINNI: _Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit +bouquet à votre dame! Remerciez!_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + Best, best of all, + Baraabum! + +KITTY: (JUMPS UP) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus +bazaar! + +_(She runs to Stephen. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. +A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling +Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the +room.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + My girl's a Yorkshire girl. + +ZOE: + +Yorkshire through and through. + +Come on all! + +_(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)_ + +STEPHEN: _Pas seul!_ + +_(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant from +the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella +Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits +in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under +thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow +flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded +snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall +again.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + Though she's a factory lass + And wears no fancy clothes. + +_(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they +scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)_ + +TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore! + +SIMON: Think of your mother's people! + +STEPHEN: Dance of death. + +_(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, +Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded +ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On +nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone +onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram +filling bawling gum he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. +evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly +with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up +and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber +bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)_ + +_(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes +closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn +roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.)_ + +STEPHEN: Ho! + +_(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper +grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her +face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and +lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens +her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and +confessors sing voicelessly.)_ + +THE CHOIR: + + Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... + Iubilantium te virginum... + +_(from the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress +of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at +her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)_ + +BUCK MULLIGAN: She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the +afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes)_ Mercurial Malachi! + +THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death's madness)_ I was once the +beautiful May Goulding. I am dead. + +STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick +is this? + +BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell)_ The mockery of it! Kinch +dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten +butter fall from his eyes on to the scone)_ Our great sweet mother! _Epi +oinopa ponton._ + +THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of +wetted ashes)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in +the world. You too. Time will come. + +STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror)_ They say I killed +you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny. + +THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth)_ +You sang that song to me. _Love's bitter mystery._ + +STEPHEN: _(Eagerly)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word +known to all men. + +THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at +Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the +strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the +Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen. + +STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena! + +THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that +boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved +you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb. + +ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan)_ I'm melting! + +FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen)_ Look! He's white. + +BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more)_ Giddy. + +THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell! + +STEPHEN: _(Panting)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw +head and bloody bones. + +THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen +breath)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly +towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger)_ Beware God's hand! +_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in +Stephen's heart.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn grey +and old)_ + +BLOOM: _(At the window)_ What? + +STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple!_ The intellectual imagination! With me +all or not at all. _Non serviam!_ + +FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. _(She rushes out)_ + +THE MOTHER: _(Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately)_ O Sacred +Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred +Heart! + +STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I'll bring +you all to heel! + +THE MOTHER: _(In the agony of her deathrattle)_ Have mercy on Stephen, +Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, +grief and agony on Mount Calvary. + +STEPHEN: _Nothung_! + +_(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. +Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of +all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)_ + +THE GASJET: Pwfungg! + +BLOOM: Stop! + +LYNCH: _(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand)_ Here! Hold on! Don't +run amok! + +BELLA: Police! + +_(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, +beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)_ + +BELLA: _(Screams)_ After him! + +_(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede +from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)_ + +THE WHORES: _(Jammed in the doorway, pointing)_ Down there. + +ZOE: _(Pointing)_ There. There's something up. + +BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? _(She seizes Bloom's coattail)_ Here, you +were with him. The lamp's broken. + +BLOOM: _(Rushes to the hall, rushes back)_ What lamp, woman? + +A WHORE: He tore his coat. + +BELLA: _(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points)_ Who's to pay +for that? Ten shillings. You're a witness. + +BLOOM: _(Snatches up Stephen's ashplant)_ Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you +lifted enough off him? Didn't he...? + +BELLA: _(Loudly)_ Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A +ten shilling house. + +BLOOM: _(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet +lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.)_ Only +the chimney's broken. Here is all he... + +BELLA: _(Shrinks back and screams)_ Jesus! Don't! + +BLOOM: _(Warding off a blow)_ To show you how he hit the paper. There's +not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings! + +FLORRY: _(With a glass of water, enters)_ Where is he? + +BELLA: Do you want me to call the police? + +BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. +Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. _(He makes +a masonic sign)_ Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You +don't want a scandal. + +BELLA: _(Angrily)_ Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces +and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I'll +charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (She Shouts) Zoe! Zoe! + +BLOOM: _(Urgently)_ And if it were your own son in Oxford? _(Warningly)_ +I know. + +BELLA: _(Almost speechless)_ Who are. Incog! + +ZOE: _(In the doorway)_ There's a row on. + +BLOOM: What? Where? _(He throws a shilling on the table and starts)_ +That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. + +_(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, +spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores +clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared +off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front +of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is +about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts +his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow +ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly +lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty +still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's hood +and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun +al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the +railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn +envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack +of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in +tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking +up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing +their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, +runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, +cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's +slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops +in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch, John Henry +Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, +Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, +Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, +Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir +Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, +red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John +Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs +Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland +Row postmistress, C. P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, +maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, +rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe +Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, +Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, +dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs +Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide +behindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of_ Sweets of Sin, _Miss +Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, +the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, +Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, +Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner, +old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a +retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.)_ + +THE HUE AND CRY: _(Helterskelterpelterwelter)_ He's Bloom! Stop Bloom! +Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner! + +_(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting +stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a +jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly)_ You +are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh +of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy Caffrey)_ Was he insulting you? + +STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter. +Ungenitive. + +VOICES: No, he didn't. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs +Cohen's. What's up? Soldier and civilian. + +CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to +do--you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I'm faithful to +the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. + +STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads)_ Hail, Sisyphus. +_(He points to himself and the others)_ Poetic. Uropoetic. + +VOICES: Shes faithfultheman. + +CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff +him one, Harry. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was +having a piss? + +LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket +flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded)_ Theirs not to reason why. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry. + +STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton)_ I don't know your name but you are quite +right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their +shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(To The Crowd)_ No, I was with the privates. + +STEPHEN: _(Amiably)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every +lady for example... + +PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen)_ Say, how would it +be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw? + +STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of +selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand)_ Hand +hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey)_ +Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely? + +DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign +of the heroine of Jericho)_ Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to +Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. + +_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve +vigorously)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting. + +STEPHEN: _(Turns)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself)_ Why should I not speak +to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? +_(He points his finger)_ I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see +his eye. Retaining the perpendicular. + +_(He staggers a pace back)_ + +BLOOM: _(Propping him)_ Retain your own. + +STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have +forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle +for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the +tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps his +brow)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor +out of the college. + +CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of +phraseology. + +CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite +trenchancy. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward)_ What's that +you're saying about my king? + +_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wars a white jersey on +which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of +Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's +and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable +artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed +as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, +marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket +on which is printed_ Défense d'uriner. _A roar of welcome greets him.)_ + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly)_ Peace, perfect +peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. _(He turns +to his subjects)_ We have come here to witness a clean straight fight +and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak. + +_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and +Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously +in acknowledgment.)_ + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen)_ Say it again. + +STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up)_ I understand your point +of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of +patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the +point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on Private +Carr's sleeve)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country +die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn't want it to die. +Damn death. Long live life! + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and +with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent +face)_ + +My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I +throw dust in their eyes. + +STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He fills back a pace)_ Come somewhere and +we'll... What was that girl saying?... + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one +into Jerry. + +BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly)_ He doesn't know what he's saying. +Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I +know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right. + +STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar and +judge of impostors. + +PRIVATE CARR: I don't give a bugger who he is. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: We don't give a bugger who he is. + +STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull. + +_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day +boy's hat signs to Stephen.)_ + +KEVIN EGAN: H'lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents +jaunes_. + +_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince +leaf.)_ + +PATRICE: _Socialiste!_ + +DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk, +two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a +mailed hand against the privates)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big +grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! + +BLOOM: _(To Stephen)_ Come home. You'll get into trouble. + +STEPHEN: _(Swaying)_ I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician +lineage. + +THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone. + +THE BAWD: The red's as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! +Up King Edward! + +A ROUGH: _(Laughs)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet. + +THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls)_ + + May the God above + Send down a dove + With teeth as sharp as razors + To slit the throats + Of the English dogs + That hanged our Irish leaders. + +THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing +bowels with both hands)_ + +I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king. + +RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, +advances with gladstone bag which he opens)_ Ladies and gents, +cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin +dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the +cellar, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial +containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon +to the gallows. + +_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim's legs and drag +him downward, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.)_ + +THE CROPPY BOY: + +Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest. + +_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts +of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs +Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys +rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_ + +RUMBOLD: I'm near it myself. _(He undoes the noose)_ Rope which hanged +the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. +_(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out +his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails)_ My painful +duty has now been done. God save the king! + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and +sings with soft contentment)_ + +On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, +Drinking whisky, beer and wine! + +PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king? + +STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. +He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for +some brutish empire of his. Money I haven't. _(He searches his pockets +vaguely)_ GAVE IT TO SOMEONE. + +PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money? + +STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off)_ Will someone tell me where I am least +likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ça se voit aussi à paris._ Not +that I... But, by Saint Patrick...! + +_(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears +seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her +breast.)_ + +STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats +her farrow! + +OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro)_ Ireland's sweetheart, the king +of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! +_(She keens with banshee woe)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! _(She +wails)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand? + +STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of +the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill)_ Stop them from fighting! + +A ROUGH: Our men retreated. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt)_ I'll wring the neck of any fucker +says a word against my fucking king. + +BLOOM: _(Terrified)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure +misunderstanding. + +THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_ + +_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, +decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce +hostility.)_ + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer. + +STEPHEN: Did I? When? + +BLOOM: _(To the redcoats)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish +missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by +our monarch. + +THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a +krowawr! O! Bo! + +_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted +spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in +bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt +chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. +He gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)_ + +MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly)_ Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them! +Mahar shalal hashbaz. + +PRIVATE CARR: I'll do him in. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back)_ Fair play, here. Make a +bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger. + +_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.) + +CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight. For me! + +CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best. + +CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry +saint George for me! + +STEPHEN: + +The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland's +windingsheet. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts)_ I'll wring the neck of any +fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king. + +BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders)_ Speak, you! Are you struck +dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, +sacred lifegiver! + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve)_ Amn't I with +you? Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. _(She cries)_ Police! + +STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey)_ + + White thy fambles, red thy gan + And thy quarrons dainty is. + + +VOICES: Police! + +DISTANT VOICES: Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire! + +_(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns +boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse +commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. +Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on +cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, +rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, +cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, +blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The +midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin +from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black +goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless +yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives +at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. +He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they +spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy +clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their +skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red +cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters +blisters. It rains dragons' teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. +They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight +duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith +O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, +Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, +John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord +Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The +O'Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the feldaltar +of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. +From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the +smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of +unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. +Father Malachi O'Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his +two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr +Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head +and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant's head an open +umbrella.)_ + +FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli._ + +THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young +days. + +FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a +blooddripping host) Corpus meum._ + +THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant's +petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot +is stuck)_ My body. + +THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, +Aiulella! + +_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ + +ADONAI: Dooooooooooog! + +THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent +reigneth! + +_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ + +ADONAI: Goooooooooood! + +_(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions +sing_ Kick the Pope _and_ Daily, daily sing to Mary.) + +PRIVATE CARR: _(With ferocious articulation)_ I'll do him in, so help me +fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking +windpipe! + +OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand)_ Remove +him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be +free. _(She prays)_ O good God, take him! + +(THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) + +BLOOM: _(Runs to lynch)_ Can't you get him away? + +LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! _(To Bloom)_ +Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. + +_(He drags Kitty away.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Points) exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit._ + +BLOOM: _(Runs to Stephen)_ Come along with me now before worse happens. +Here's your stick. + +STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Pulling Private Carr)_ Come on, you're boosed. He +insulted me but I forgive him. _(Shouting in his ear)_ I forgive him for +insulting me. + +BLOOM: _(Over Stephen's shoulder)_ Yes, go. You see he's incapable. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Breaks loose)_ I'll insult him. + +_(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the +face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his +face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it +up.)_ + +MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Loudly)_ Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute! + +THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking furiously)_ Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. + +THE CROWD: Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The +soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! +He's fainted! + +A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under +the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers! + +THE BAWD: Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with +his girl? He gave him the coward's blow. + +_(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit)_ + +THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking)_ Wow wow wow. + +BLOOM: _(Shoves them back, loudly)_ Get back, stand back! + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Tugging his comrade)_ Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here's +the cops! _(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)_ + +FIRST WATCH: What's wrong here? + +PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And +assaulted my chum. _(The retriever barks)_ Who owns the bleeding tyke? + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(With expectation)_ Is he bleeding! + +A MAN: _(Rising from his knees)_ No. Gone off. He'll come to all right. + +BLOOM: _(Glances sharply at the man)_ Leave him to me. I can easily... + +SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him? + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Lurches towards the watch)_ He insulted my lady friend. + +BLOOM: _(Angrily)_ You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness. +Constable, take his regimental number. + +SECOND WATCH: I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my +duty. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Pulling his comrade)_ Here, bugger off Harry. Or +Bennett'll shove you in the lockup. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Staggering as he is pulled away)_ God fuck old Bennett. +He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Takes out his notebook)_ What's his name? + +BLOOM: _(Peering over the crowd)_ I just see a car there. If you give me +a hand a second, sergeant... + +FIRST WATCH: Name and address. + +_(Corny Kelleker, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, +appears among the bystanders.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Quickly)_ O, the very man! _(He whispers)_ Simon Dedalus' son. +A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back. + +SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(To the watch, with drawling eye)_ That's all right. +I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. _(He laughs)_ +Twenty to one. Do you follow me? + +FIRST WATCH: _(Turns to the crowd)_ Here, what are you all gaping at? +Move on out of that. + +_(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. _(He +laughs, shaking his head)_ We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. +What? Eh, what? + +FIRST WATCH: _(Laughs)_ I suppose so. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Nudges the second watch)_ Come and wipe your name off +the slate. _(He lilts, wagging his head)_ With my tooraloom tooraloom +tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me? + +SECOND WATCH: _(Genially)_ Ah, sure we were too. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Winking)_ Boys will be boys. I've a car round there. + +SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night. + +CORNY KELLEHER: I'll see to that. + +BLOOM: _(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn)_ Thank you very +much, gentlemen. Thank you. _(He mumbles confidentially)_ We don't want +any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected +citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand. + +FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir. + +SECOND WATCH: That's all right, sir. + +FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report +it at the station. + +BLOOM: _(Nods rapidly)_ Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty. + +SECOND WATCH: It's our duty. + +CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men. + +THE WATCH: _(Saluting together)_ Night, gentlemen. _(They move off with +slow heavy tread)_ + +BLOOM: _(Blows)_ Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?... + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to +the car brought up against the scaffolding)_ Two commercials that were +standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two +quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the +jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. + +BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to... + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs)_ Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. +No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. _(He +laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye)_ Thanks be to God we have it +in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah! + +BLOOM: _(Tries to laugh)_ He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just +visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor +fellow, he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and +I was just making my way home... + +_(The horse neighs.)_ + +THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome! + +CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after +we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and +got off to see. _(He laughs)_ Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I +give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what? + +BLOOM: No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop. + +_(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls +at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Scratches his nape)_ Sandycove! _(He bends down and +calls to Stephen)_ Eh! _(He calls again)_ Eh! He's covered with shavings +anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him. + +BLOOM: No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick. + +CORNY KELLEHER: Ah, well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll +shove along. _(He laughs)_ I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the +dead. Safe home! + +THE HORSE: _(Neighs)_ Hohohohohome. + +BLOOM: Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few... + +_(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse +harness jingles.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(From the car, standing)_ Night. + +BLOOM: Night. + +_(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The +car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the +sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. +The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the +farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb +and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the +sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom +conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car +jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher +again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny +Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling +harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding +in his hand Stephen's hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant, stands +irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the shoulder.)_ + +BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again)_ Mr Dedalus! +_(There is no answer)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends +again and hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate +form)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen! + +STEPHEN: _(Groans)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and +stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels)_ + + Who... drive... Fergus now + And pierce... wood's woven shade?... + +_(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_ + +BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes +the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the +woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers)_ One +pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens)_ What? + +STEPHEN: _(Murmurs)_ + + ... shadows... the woods + ... white breast... dim sea. + +_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom, +holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. +Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on +Stephen's face and form.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Communes with the night)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother. +In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A +girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs)_... swear +that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, +art or arts... _(He murmurs)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a +cabletow's length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows +... + +_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips +in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears +slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an +eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book +in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the +page.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly)_ Rudy! + +RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing, +smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and +ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a +violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)_ + + + + +-- III -- + +Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of +the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up +generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His +(Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit +unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr +Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water +available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an +expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's +shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge +where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and +soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he +was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him +to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means +during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was +rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable +to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their +then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always +assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a +few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten +to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman +service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver +street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier's and the +distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of +Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence +debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But +as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for +hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some +fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was +no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was +anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting +a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice. + +This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently +there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it +which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the +Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the +direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped +by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, +to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, +entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made +light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed +for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it +cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered +along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or a +jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company's sandstrewer +happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his companion _à +propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of some little +while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway +station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was +suspended at that late hour and passing the backdoor of the morgue +(a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more +especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course +turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station. +Between this point and the high at present unlit warehouses of Beresford +place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's the +stonecutter's in his mind somehow in Talbot place, first turning on the +right, while the other who was acting as his _fidus Achates_ inhaled +with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, +situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed +of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and +most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me +where is fancy bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is said. + +_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not +yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete +possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, +spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame +and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not +as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for +young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking +habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu +for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could +administer a nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential +was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was +blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the +eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a +candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and +an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the +solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply +spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned +the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked, +were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr +Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil +street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on +the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for +example, the + +guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being +they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented +on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description +liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them +against civilians should by any chance they fall out over anything. You +frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and +also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women +of the _demimonde_ ran away with a lot of l s. d. into the bargain and +the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching +the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old +wine in season as both + +nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a +good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond +a certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to +trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of +others practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion +of Stephen by all his pubhunting _confreres_ but one, a most glaring +piece of ratting on the part of his brother medicos under all the circs. + +--And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing +whatsoever of any kind. + +Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back +of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier +of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted +their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for +no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by +the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker +figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He +began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having +happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered +that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend of his father's, +Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway +bridge. + +--Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said. + +A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches +saluted again, calling: + +--_Night!_ + +Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the +compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch +as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but +nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety +though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he +knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next +to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising +peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some +secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the +Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply +marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell +swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there +to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. + +Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, +though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley's +breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him +and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of +inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married +a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His +grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow +of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. +Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of +the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably +fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or +some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed +the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore +was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute +man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious +proclivities as Lord John Corley. + +Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell. +Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends +had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called +him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other +uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to +tell him where on God's earth he could get something, anything at all, +to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that +was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected +through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same +time if the whole thing wasn't a complete fabrication from start to +finish. Anyhow he was all in. + +--I wouldn't ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows +I'm on the rocks. + +--There'll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys' +school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You +may mention my name. + +--Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I was +never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck +twice in the junior at the christian brothers. + +--I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him. + +Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to +do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody +tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs +Maloney's, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but +M'Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over +in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person +addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he +hadn't said a word about it. + +Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it +still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew +that Corley's brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly +deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum miseris +succurrere disco_ etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck +would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on +the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though +a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke +was nothing would get it out of Corley's head that he was living in +affluence and hadn't a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. +He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food +there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu +so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but +the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash +missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation. +He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost +as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a +pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too +fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect. +About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he +wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came +across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however, +as it turned out. + +--Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him. + +And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him +one of them. + +--Thanks, Corley answered, you're a gentleman. I'll pay you back one +time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse +in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good +word for us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only +the girl in the office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, +man. God, you've to book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl +Rosa. I don't give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a +crossing sweeper. + +Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six +he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky +that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's, +bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara +and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he was lagged +the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and +refusing to go with the constable. + +210 + +Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the +cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation +watchman's sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, +was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own +private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time +now and then at Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor +as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was +not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. +Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in +point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated +hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic +impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the +matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor +neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for +the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock +himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be +a very rara avis altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of +cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning. +Pretty thick that was certainly. + +The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his +practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the +blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said, +laughingly, Stephen, that is: + +--He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named +Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman. + +At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr +Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the +direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana, +moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair, +whereupon he observed evasively: + +--Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it +his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much +did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive? + +--Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep +somewhere. + +--Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at +the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he +invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according +to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with +a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of +the question. And even supposing you did you won't get in after what +occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I +don't mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why +did you leave your father's house? + +--To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer. + +--I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom +diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on +yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of +conversation that he had moved. + +--I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. +Why? + +--A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects +than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great +pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he +hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row +terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, +that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred +their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally +station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion, +which they did. + +There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it +was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his +family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by +the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell +cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he +could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings +they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and +Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells +and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in +accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain +on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or +something like that. + +--No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust +in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr +Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He +knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he +never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you +didn't notice as much as I did. But it wouldn't occasion me the least +surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in +your drink for some ulterior object. + +He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile +allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly +coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade +fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as +a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services +in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from +certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first +aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an +exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that +frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be +at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, +pure and simple. + +--Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking +your brains, he ventured to throw out. + +The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by +friendliness which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression +of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the +problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by +two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw +through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself +allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect +and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he +possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet. + +Adjacent to the men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car round +which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting +rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly +animated way, there being some little differences between the parties. + +--_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_ + +_--Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piu..._ + +_--Dice lui, pero!_ + +_--Mezzo._ + +_--Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_ + +_--Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa piu..._ + +Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious +wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been +before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few +hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat +Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual +facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few +moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner +only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection +of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus _homo_ +already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation +for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity. + +--Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest +to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the +shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description. + +Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order +these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores +or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes +apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual +portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for +some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the +floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having +just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be +sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his _protégé_ in +an audible tone of voice _a propos_ of the battle royal in the street +which was still raging fast and furious: + +--A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not +write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious +and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._ + +Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering +from lassitude generally, replied: + +--To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money. + +--Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the +inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were +absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds +it. + +The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tête-â-tête_ put a +boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table +and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After +which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have +a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For which +reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did +the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily +supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him. + +--Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time, +like names. Cicero, Podmore. Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle. +Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name? + +--Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name +was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across. + +The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded +Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely +by asking: + +--And what might your name be? + +Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but +Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected +quarter, answered: + +--Dedalus. + +The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes, +rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old +Hollands and water. + +--You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length. + +--I've heard of him, Stephen said. + +Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently +eavesdropping too. + +--He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same +way and nodding. All Irish. + +--All too Irish, Stephen rejoined. + +As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole business +and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the sailor +of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with the +remark: + +--I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his +shoulder. The lefthand dead shot. + +Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his +gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain. + +--Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. +Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims. + +He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then he +screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night +with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. + +--Pom! he then shouted once. + +The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation, there +being still a further egg. + +--Pom! he shouted twice. + +Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding +bloodthirstily: + +_--Buffalo Bill shoots to kill, Never missed nor he never will._ + +A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like +asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the +Bisley. + +--Beg pardon, the sailor said. + +--Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth. + +--Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic +influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He +toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in +Stockholm. + +--Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively. + +--Murphy's my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe. +Know where that is? + +--Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied. + +--That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's +where I hails from. I belongs there. That's where I hails from. My +little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I know. _For England, +home and beauty_. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years +now, sailing about. + +Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming +to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, +a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a +number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, +Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc +O'Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of +poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way. +Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the +absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he +finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent +his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but +I've come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, +at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the +deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the +publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and +onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on +her knee, _post mortem_ child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my +galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I +remain with much love your brokenhearted husband D B Murphy. + +The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one +of the jarvies with the request: + +--You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you? + +The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die of +plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was +passed from hand to hand. + +--Thank you, the sailor said. + +He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow +stammers, proceeded: + +--We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster _Rosevean_ +from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this +afternoon. There's my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S. + +In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket +and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document. + +--You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked, +leaning on the counter. + +--Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I've circumnavigated +a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and +North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. +I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, +the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever +scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. _Gospodi pomilyou_. That's how the +Russians prays. + +--You seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in a jarvey. + +--Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen +queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an +anchor same as I chew that quid. + +He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his +teeth, bit ferociously: + +--Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and +the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent +me. + +He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to +be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The +printed matter on it stated: _Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia._ + +All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage +women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, +sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of +them) outside some primitive shanties of osier. + +--Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs +like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more +children. + +See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver +raw. + +His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for +several minutes if not more. + +--Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally. + +Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying: + +--Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass. + +Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the +card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran +as follows: _Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, +Chile._ There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. +Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the +eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the +Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in _Maritana_ on which +occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat) having +detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person +he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours +after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and +the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some +suspicions of our friend's _bona fides_ nevertheless it reminded him in +a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday +or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had +ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a +born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained +a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. +Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but +some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that +the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking +down the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse +permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to +Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. +The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in +every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was +out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, +Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of +the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon +where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, +wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just +struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around +on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert +tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, +Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, +Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel +islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative. +Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies +on the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me your valise and I'll post +you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste, the +Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal consort as leading +lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and Moody-Manners, +perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of success, providing +puffs in the local papers could be managed by some fellow with a bit of +bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and thus combine business +with pleasure. But who? That was the rub. Also, without being actually +positive, it struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line +of opening up new routes to keep pace with the times _apropos_ of the +Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted, was once more on the +_tapis_ in the circumlocution departments with the usual quantity of red +tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A +great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet +the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e. +Brown, Robinson and Co. + +It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no +small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the +system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry +pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead +of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me +for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum +months of it and merited a radical change of _venue_ after the grind +of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her +spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. +There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home +island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora +of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around +Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there was +a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, +rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly +wheelmen so long as it didn't come down, and in the wilds of Donegal +where if report spoke true the _coup d'oeil_ was exceedingly grand +though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the +influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the +signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic +associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV, +rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt +with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young +men's fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the +cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left +leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour's run from the +pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely +in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be +desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of +curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created +the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the +other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen. + +--I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had +little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and +every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, +another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, +the chinks does. + +Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the +globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures. + +--And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his +back. Knife like that. + +Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in +keeping with his character and held it in the striking position. + +--In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers. +Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. _Prepare to +meet your God_, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt. + +His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further +questions even should they by any chance want to. + +--That's a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable +_stiletto_. + +After which harrowing _denouement_ sufficient to appal the stoutest he +snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in +his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket. + +--They're great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in +the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought +the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of +them using knives. + +At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of _where ignorance +is bliss_ Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both +instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the +strictly _entre nous_ variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, +_alias_ the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid +from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work +of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed +the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on. +Funny, very! + +There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and +starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the +natives _choza de_, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far +as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He +vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well +as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the +land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively +speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was +just turned fifteen. + +--Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers. + +The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape. + +--Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired. + +The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or +no. + +--Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he +had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but +he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust, +and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn. + +--What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the +boats? + +Our _soi-disant_ sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before +answering: + +--I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships. +Salt junk all the time. + +Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not +likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, +fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the +globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, +it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly +what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen +at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a +superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the +not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at +it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone +somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to +find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes +and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, +tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no +secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the _minutiae_ +of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in +all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had +to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went +to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the +other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were +run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no +other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the +public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case +might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its +gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had +to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the +season when duty called _Ireland expects that every man_ and so on and +sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the +Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding +which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, +not to say stormy, weather. + +--There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog, +himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as +gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on +me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, +shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, +run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where +he could be drawing easy money. + +--What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the +side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away +from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy +getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage. + +--Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny? +He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it. + +The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow +shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to +be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an +anchor. + +--There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts. +I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects +to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does. + +Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged +his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the +mariner's hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a +young man's sideface looking frowningly rather. + +--Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were Iying +becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the +name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek. + +--Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor. + +That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the. +Someway in his. Squeezing or. + +--See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And +there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his +fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn. + +And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did +actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the +unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this +time stretched over. + +--Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He's gone +too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay. + +He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression +of before. + +--Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said. + +--And what's the number for? loafer number two queried. + +--Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor. + +--Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this +time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the +direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was. + +And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged +end: + +_--As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on my ownio._ + +The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat +peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on +her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr +Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment +flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink +sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had +laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though +why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment +round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that +afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the +lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) +and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed +rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to +admit he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles +street and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled +with Bewley and Draper's marking ink (hers were, that is) if they really +loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just +then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's room more than her +company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude +sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he +just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door +with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all +there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper +Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her. + +--The gunboat, the keeper said. + +--It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, +how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with +disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober +senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of +course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition. +Still no matter what the cause is from... + +Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely +remarking: + +--In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a +roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to +buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap. + +The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude, +said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a +stop to _instanter_ to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from +any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, w ere +not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, +he could truthfully state, he, as a _paterfamilias_, was a stalwart +advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of +the sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a +lasting boon on everybody concerned. + +--You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe +in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, +as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I +believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as +the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such +inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you? + +Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try +and concentrate and remember before he could say: + +--They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and +therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the +possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I +can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other +practical jokes, _corruptio per se_ and _corruptio per accidens_ both +being excluded by court etiquette. + +Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the +mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still +he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly +rejoining: + +--Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant +you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a +blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for +instance to invent those rays Rontgen did or the telescope like Edison, +though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, +and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural +phenomenon such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour +to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. + +--O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several +of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial +evidence. + +On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they +were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in +their respective ages, clashed. + +--Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his +original point with a smile of unbelief. I'm not so sure about that. +That's a matter for everyman's opinion and, without dragging in the +sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you _in toto_ +there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were +genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the +big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them +like _Hamlet_ and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely +better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that +coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It's +like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what +he hasn't got. Try a bit. + +--Couldn't, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the +moment refusing to dictate further. + +Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir +or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something +approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and +lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or +nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in +run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings +and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower +orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection +they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently +associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for +her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was +to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak +of. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something in some dried peas he +remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't +remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, +of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary which possibly +accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's Vi-Cocoa on account of the +medical analysis involved. + +--Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being +stirred. + +Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug +from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and +took a sip of the offending beverage. + +--Still it's solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid +food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but +regular meals as the _sine qua non_ for any kind of proper work, mental +or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different +man. + +--Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away that +knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history. + +Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article, +a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman or +antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least +conspicuous point about it. + +--Our mutual friend's stories are like himself, Mr Bloom _apropos_ of +knives remarked to his _confidante sotto voce_. Do you think they are +genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and +lie like old boots. Look at him. + +Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was +full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it +was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an +entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent +probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly +accurate gospel. + +He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and +Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a +wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, +there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail +delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate +such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He +might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, +as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself +and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say +nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage +of identical name who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who +expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above described. On the +other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because +meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting +news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean +seas to draw the long bow about the schooner _Hesperus_ and etcetera. +And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself +couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle to the wholesale whoppers +other fellows coined about him. + +--Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he resumed. +Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, +though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the +midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some +Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn't straighten +their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he +proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews +or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly +powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as +gods. There's an example again of simple souls. + +However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who +reminded him a bit of Ludwig, _alias_ Ledwidge, when he occupied +the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the +management in the _Flying Dutchman_, a stupendous success, and his host +of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him +though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually +fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically +incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the +back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he +was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish +way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little +Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows +except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary +animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good +old succulent tuckin with garlic _de rigueur_ off him or her next day on +the quiet and, he added, on the cheap. + +--Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like +that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own +hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they +carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. +My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could +actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in +(technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite +dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate +accounts for character. That's why I asked you if you wrote your poetry +in Italian. + +--The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very +passionate about ten shillings. _Roberto ruba roba sua_. + +--Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed. + +--Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown +listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles +triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san +Tommaso Mastino. + +--It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the +blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare +street museum 890 today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call +it, and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid +proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don't knock against those kind of +women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a way +you find but what I'm talking about is the female form. Besides they +have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly enhances a +woman's natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled stockings, it +may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it's a thing I simply +hate to see. + +Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the +others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog, +goo collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course +had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and +weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all +those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him +or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him. + +So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt's rock, wreck +of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for +the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell +remembered it _Palme_ on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the +town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original +verse of 910 distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish _Times_), +breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in +commotion petrified with horror. Then someone said something about the +case of the s. s. _Lady Cairns_ of Swansea run into by the _Mona_ which +was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all +hands on deck. No aid was given. Her master, the _Mona's_, said he +was afraid his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it +appears, in her hold. + +At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him +to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat. + +--Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just +gently dropping off into a peaceful doze. + +He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door, +stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore +due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who +noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's +rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his +burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and, +applying its nozz1e to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of +it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a +shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the +counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared +to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when +duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and +girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all +radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person +or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the +cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief +space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently +giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his +bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where +it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for +new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his +sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation +stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other +in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the +parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human +probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about +and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms +of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent +form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent +home comforts all his life who came in for a cool 100 pounds a year +at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make +general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether +after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly +stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a +moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if--a +big if, however--he had contrived to cure himself of his particular +partiality. + +All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, +coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same +thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, +the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no +ships ever called. + +There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently _au +fait_. + +What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only +rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr +Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised +them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day's +work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line. + +--Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his +private potation and the rest of his exertions. + +That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words +growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other +in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate +the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the +time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs +and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in +he rolled after his successful libation-_cum_-potation, introducing an +atmosphere of drink into the _soirée_, boisterously trolling, like a +veritable son of a seacook: + + _--The biscuits was as hard as brass + And the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse. + O, Johnny Lever! + Johnny Lever, O!_ + +After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene +and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form +provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to +grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent +the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he +described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on +the face of God's earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in +large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, +ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of +it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the +nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot more +surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly became +general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal +thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel Everard down +there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find anywhere the like +of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated _crescendo_ with no +uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the conversation, was in +store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her +crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. +The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he +affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was +toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, +which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the +Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped +their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His +advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work +for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare +a single one of her sons. + +Silence all round marked the termination of his _finale_. The impervious +navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed. + +--Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a +bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism. + +To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper +concurred but nevertheless held to his main view. + +--Who's the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately +interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and +generals we've got? Tell me that. + +--The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial +blemishes apart. + +--That's right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic +peasant. He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins? + +While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added +he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman +worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few +irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing +to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long +as they didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows. + +From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was +rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, +pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was +fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, +unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather +concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with +the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years +the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as +time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could +personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, +equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly +advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even +though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of +whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish +soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in +fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee +of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous +invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as +being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was +prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything, +the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, +who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (B.) couldn't help +feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the +goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have +anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their +felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming +forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter +Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked +those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such +criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any +shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly +remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who +had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his +political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to +any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south, +have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words +passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky +mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on +his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial _liaison_ +by plunging his knife into her, until it just struck him that +Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual +perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, +actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some +legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient +history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he +had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died +naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell +positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a +fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, +always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very +shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some l s d. in the +course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere +of the _Old Ireland_ tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for +the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he +told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender. + +--He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the +whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and +in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts +in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his +family like me though in reality I'm not. That was one for him. A soft +answer turns away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself as everyone +saw. Am I not right? + +He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride +at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to +glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly. + +--_Ex quibus_, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or +four eyes conversing, _Christus_ or Bloom his name is or after all any +other, _secundum carnem_. + +--Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides +of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to +right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is +though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the +government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all +very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. +I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never +reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due +instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate +people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, +in the next house so to speak. + +--Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes' war, Stephen +assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond market. + +Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that +was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of +thing. + +--You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of +conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely... + +All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up +bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, +erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were +very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of +everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop. + +--They accuse, remarked he audibly. + +He turned away from the others who probably and spoke nearer to, so as +the others in case they. + +--Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of +ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would +you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the +inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, +an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, +imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They +are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any +because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as +you are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest +spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead +America. Turks. It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd +go straight to heaven when they die they'd try to live better, at least +so I think. That's the juggle on which the p.p's raise the wind on false +pretences. I'm, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an Irishman +as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see +everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes _pro rata_ having a +comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something +in the neighbourhood of 300 pounds per annum. That's the vital issue +at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier +intercourse between man and man. At least that's my idea for what it's +worth. I call that patriotism. _Ubi patria_, as we learned a smattering +of in our classical days in _Alma Mater, vita bene_. Where you can live +well, the sense is, if you work. + +Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this +synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. +He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those +crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours +of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere +beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or +didn't say the words the voice he heard said, if you work. + +--Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work. + +The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person +who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all +must work, have to, together. + +--I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest +possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of +the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel +nowadays. That's work too. Important work. After all, from the little +I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are +entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit +as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the +peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. +Each is equally important. + +--You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may +be important because I belong to the _faubourg Saint Patrice_ called +Ireland for short. + +--I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated. + +--But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important +because it belongs to me. + +--What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under +some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the +latter portion. What was it you...? + +Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of +coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding: 1170 + +--We can't change the country. Let us change the subject. + +At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked +down but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell exactly what construction +to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some +kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of +his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way +foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached +the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn't +been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear +for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air +of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, +the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister, +failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind +instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in the +bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance +there was the case of O'Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist, +respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries +among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance +to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in +public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual _denouement_ +after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got 1190 landed into hot +water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint +to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to +be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, +certain names of those subpoenaed being handed in but not divulged +for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, +putting two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a +deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo +which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house +of lords because early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir +apparent, the other members of the upper ten and other high personages +simply following in the footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected +about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to +morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under their +veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy, +as the law stands, was terribly down on though not for the reason they +thought they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were +always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of +dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing +should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider +between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of +impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her, +mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety +degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the +original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way +to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer +force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir. + +For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even +to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could +not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the +bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the +acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food +for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation, +as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. +Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, +old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the +whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the +world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz. +coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the microscope +lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet +with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken +down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common +groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea per +column. _My Experiences_, let us say, _in a Cabman's Shelter_. + +The pink edition extra sporting of the _Telegraph_ tell a graphic lie +lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling +again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the +preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was +addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly +over the respective captions which came under his special province the +allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a +start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H. +du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle, +Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, 200 pounds damages. Gordon Bennett. +Emigration Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William. Ascot meeting, +the Gold Cup. Victory of outsider _Throwaway_ recalls Derby of '92 when +Capt. Marshall's dark horse _Sir Hugo_ captured the blue ribband at long +odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of +the late Mr Patrick Dignam. + +So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he +reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address +anyway. + +--_This morning_ (Hynes put it in of course) _the remains of the late Mr +Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue, +Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a +most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a +brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom +he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the +deceased were present, were carried out_ (certainly Hynes wrote it with +a nudge from Corny) _by Messrs H. J. O'Neill and Son, 164 North Strand +Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan +(brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John +Power, eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora_ (must be where he called +Monks the dayfather about Keyes's ad) _Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, +Stephen Dedalus B.,4., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph +M'C Hynes, L. Boom, CP M'Coy,--M'lntosh and several others_. + +Nettled not a little by L. _Boom_ (as it incorrectly stated) and the +line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M'Coy +and Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by +their total absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh) L. Boom pointed it +out to his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half +nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of +misprints. + +--Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom +jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it. + +--It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to +the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could +be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit +flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. There. + +While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the +nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits +and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, +his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire +colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander's _Throwaway_, b. h. by _Rightaway_, +5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1, lord Howard de Walden's _Zinfandel_ (M. +Cannon) z, Mr W. Bass's _Sceptre_ 3. Betting 5 to 4 on _Zinfandel_, +20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Sceptre_ a shade heavier, 5 to 4 on +_Zinfandel_, 20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Throwaway_ and _Zinfandel_ +stood close order. It was anybody's race then the rank outsider drew to +the fore, got long lead, beating lord Howard de Walden's chestnut +colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. Winner +trained by Braime so that Lenehan's version of the business was all pure +buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with +3000 in specie. Also ran: J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was +anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) _Maximum +II_. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though +that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get +left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing +though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to +congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced +itself to eventually. + +--There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said. + +--Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said. + +One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read: +_Return of Parnell_. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was +in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it +was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for +a time after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with +no-one to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone +down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered +his senses. Dead he wasn't. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they +brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer +general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on. + +All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their +memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and +not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it +was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow +of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly +inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in +his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when +his various different political arrangements were nearing completion +or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to +change his boots and clothes-after a wetting when a cold resulted and +failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he +eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at +an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken +out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements +even before there was absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which +were decidedly of the _Alice, where art thou_ order even prior to his +starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart so the +remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of +possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader +of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure, a sixfooter +or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas +Messrs So and So who, though they weren't even a patch on the former +man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and +far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay, +and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual +mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come +back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in +the title _rôle_ how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion +when they broke up the type in the _Insuppressible_ or was it _United +Ireland_, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, +handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said _Thank you_, +excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding +the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip: what's +bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if +they didn't set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of +shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And +then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to +produce your credentials like the claimant in the Tichborne case, +Roger Charles Tichborne, _Bella_ was the boat's name to the best of his +recollection he, the heir, went down in as the evidence went to show +and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew was it, as he +might very easily have picked up the details from some pal on board ship +and then, when got up to tally with the description given, introduce +himself with: _Excuse me, my name is So and So_ or some such commonplace +remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to the not over effusive, +in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him, +would have been to sound the lie of the land first. + +--That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor +commented. She put the first nail in his coffin. + +--Fine lump of a woman all the same, the _soi-disant_ townclerk Henry +Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man's thighs. +I seen her picture in a barber's. The husband was a captain or an +officer. + +--Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one. + +This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair +amount of laughter among his _entourage_. As regards Bloom he, without +the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of +the door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused +extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters +worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed +between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till +nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till bit by +bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town +till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few +evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his downfall +though the thing was public property all along though not to anything +like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Since +their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, +where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file +from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared her bedroom +which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the +packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses +swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in +the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance +of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same +fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply +coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was +it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with +nothing in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man +arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim +to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask +in the loved one's smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, +needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to +be another chap in the case, exist between married folk? Poser. +Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with +affection, carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of +manhood he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a high order, as +compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the +usual everyday _farewell, my gallant captain_ kind of an individual in +the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable +doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own +peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly +likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the +priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch +adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman +service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on +their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, +very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of +fire on his head much in the same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking +back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of +dream. And then coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it +went without saying you would feel out of place as things always moved +with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he +had not been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow +since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or +south, however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and +simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the +very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that +wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting +every shred of decency to the winds. + +--Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to +Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don't greatly mistake she +was Spanish too. + +--The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or +other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and +the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and +so many. + +--Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any +means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it +was as she lived there. So, Spain. + +Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket _Sweets of_, which reminded him +by the by of that Cap l street library book out of date, he took out his +pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly +finally he. + +--Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded +photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type? + +Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large +sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she +was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously +low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than +vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing +near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was _In Old +Madrid_, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her +(the lady's) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about +something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's +premier photographic artist, being responsible for the esthetic +execution. + +--Mrs Bloom, my wife the _prima donna_ Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom +indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like +her then. + +Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his +1440 legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of +Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency +as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years +numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking +likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure which +came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the +best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, +have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of +the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female +form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later +than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, 1450 perfectly +developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give +the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, +puritanisme, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors +(Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply +wasn't art in a word. + +The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's good +example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for +itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for +himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the +camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional +etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet +wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm. +And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a +kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. +Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased +by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away +thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the +other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving +_embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like +the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact +with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp +which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of +his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and +the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (_sic_) in it which must +have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot +with apologies to Lindley Murray. + +The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated, +_distingué_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the +bunch though you wouldn't think he had it in him yet you would. Besides +he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though +at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of +makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur +with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial +tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest +stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole +business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up +between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye +was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and +compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly +cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and +relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course +intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King's proctor tries to show +cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made absolute. But as +for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one +another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till +the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for +the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being +close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on +the historic _fracas_ when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to +his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery, +(leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or +possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the +_Insuppressible_ or no it was _United Ireland_ (a by no means by the +by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or +something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from +the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging +occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though +palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though +carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went +a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast +discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a +pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were +particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a +minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that +of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, +fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was +inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was +the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence +meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost +celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away +from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a +stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more +for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone +instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of +knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to +the donor and thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you, +sir_, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the +legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the +course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after +the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory +after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave. + +On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes +of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing 1530 +immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the +wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case +for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate +husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from +the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial +moment in a loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing +attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic +rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and +master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not +receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook +the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though +possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite +possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical +bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either +that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting +list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world +and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when, +neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on +for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on +her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred +on another, the cause of many _liaisons_ between still attractive +married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as +several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt. + +It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of +brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time +with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him +his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take +unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim +ladies' society was a _conditio sine qua non_ though he had the gravest +possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen +about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who +brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he +would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea +and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or +triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and +walking out leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To +think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any +stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things +he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years the +other's senior or like his father but something substantial he certainly +ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal +nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled. + +--At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired +though unwrinkled face. + +--Some time yesterday, Stephen said. + +--Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow +Friday. Ah, you mean it's after twelve! + +--The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself. + +Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected. +Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there +somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the +one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly +some score of years previously when he had been a _quasi_ aspirant to +parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in +retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had +a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the +evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely in +people's mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a copper +or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which wouldn't +exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all events was in +thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern +opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his mistake, he was +subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted with going a +step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time +inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly +resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our +friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, +though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of +mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give +him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics +themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties +invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity +and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on +fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word. + +Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it +was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it +was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue +(somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash +altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed +unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or +the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he +very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the +other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount +or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of +the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him +to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered. +His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over +effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn't what you +call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him was +he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he +did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal +pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some +wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, +eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and +a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat +doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as +a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm +in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. +A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the grasswidower +in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn't appear in any +particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly beloved Queenstown +and it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties +where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue +to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to come, +alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber +revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze +the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms +betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large +potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who +he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra +remarks _passim_. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle +repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. +People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled +them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender +Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he +came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo. + +--I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while +prudently pocketing her photo, as it's rather stuffy here you just come +home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the +vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I'll just +pay this lot. + +The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain +sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper +of the shanty who didn't seem to. + +--Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of +that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less. + +All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B's) busy brain, +education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, +up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed +with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian +with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other +things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the +housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. +Because he more than suspected he had his father's voice to bank his +hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as +well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of +that particular red herring just to. + +The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former +viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association +dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this +thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared +to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell +had left Euston for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect. +To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why. + +--Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner +put in, manifesting some natural impatience. + +--And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed. + +The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles +which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears. + +--Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk +queried. + +--Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was +a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen +portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading. +Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, +manner of speaking. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_ was my favourite +and _Red as a Rose is She._ + +Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what, +found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a +hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which +time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied +loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched +him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were +sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, +that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial +remark. + +To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first +to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first +and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for +the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine +host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were +not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a +grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in +four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously +spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him +in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well +worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark. + +--Come, he counselled to close the _séance_. + +Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the +shelter or shanty together and the _élite_ society of oilskin and +company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their +_dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and +fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door. + +--One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of +the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs +upside down, on the tables in cafes. To which impromptu the neverfailing +Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off: + +--To sweep the floor in the morning. + +So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same +time apologetic to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the +bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The +night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit +weak on his pins. + +--It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in +a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. +Come. It's not far. Lean on me. + +Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on +accordingly. + +--Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange +kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and +all that. + +Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where +the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and +purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming +of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the +analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the +part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the +time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the +selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings. + +So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which +Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made +tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though +confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to +follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's _Huguenots_, +Meyerbeer's _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart's _Twelfth Mass_ +he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the acme +of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into +a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic +church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as +those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and i will live +thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of +Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, +in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable +sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laureis and +putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church +in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the +doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the +unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it +to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was +a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring +preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_, +a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface +knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And +talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old +favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel's air in _Martha, +M'appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be +more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the +lips of Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the +number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in +reply to a politely put query, said he didn't sing it but launched +out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that +period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the +herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an instrument he was +contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite +recall though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas +and Farnaby and son with their _dux_ and _comes_ conceits and Byrd +(William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's chapel or +anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and +John Bull. + +On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond +the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground, +brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not +perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive +guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political +celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a +striking coincidence. + +By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom, +who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other's sleeve +gently, jocosely remarking: + +--Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller. + +They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth +anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite +near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh +because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a +taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the +lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such +a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he +wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency +that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a +horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, +take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy +horror to face. But it was no animal's fault in particular if he was +built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes +into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or +trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a +harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the +joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely +reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat +distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was +manoeuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old. + +--What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging +_in medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your +acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind. + +He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen, +image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome +blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as +he was perhaps not that way built. + +Still, supposing he had his father's gift as he more than suspected, +it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall's Irish +industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general. + +Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has +End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows +come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_ +about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, +which boggled Bloom a bit: + + _Von der Sirenen Listigkeit + Tun die Poeten dichten._ + +These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding, +said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which +he did. + +A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons, +which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, +if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production +such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, +command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for +its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entrée_ into fashionable +houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large +way of business and titled people where with his university degree of +B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more +influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct +success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the +purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended +to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a +youthful tyro in--society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a +little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a +matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their +musical and artistic _conversaziones_ during the festivities of the +Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes +of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, +cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record--in fact, without +giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could +easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument +by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition +fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need +necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy +space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or +nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his +dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to +be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. +Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original +music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly +have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical +world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a +confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus +omne_. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in +his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win +a high place in the city's esteem where he could command a stiff figure +and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King +street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him +upstairs, so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the +goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often +tripped-up a too much fêted prince of good fellows. And it need not +detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would +have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when +desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or +containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself +alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason +why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat +of any sort, hung on to him at all. + +The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he +purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on +the _fools step in where angels_ principle, advising him to sever his +connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was +prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious +pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it +which in Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of +a person's character, no pun intended. + +The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and, +rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on +the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking +globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full +crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had +ended, patient in his scythed car. + +Side by side Bloom, profiting by the _contretemps_, with Stephen passed +through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping +over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, +Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad. + +_Und alle Schiffe brücken._ + +The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely +watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, +one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, _to be married by +Father Maher_. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again +continuing their _tête-à-tête_ (which, of course, he was utterly out +of) about sirens enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other +topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind +while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the +sleeper car who in any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too +far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street _and +looked after their lowbacked car_. + + + +What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning? + +Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they +followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and +Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left, +Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of +Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing +right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, +disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before +George's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than +the arc which it subtends. + + +Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary? + +Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman, +prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and +glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed +corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, +ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, +the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the +presabbath, Stephen's collapse. + +Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective +like and unlike reactions to experience? + +Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to +plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner +of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both +indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of +heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox +religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted +the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual +magnetism. + + +Were their views on some points divergent? + +Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's views on the importance of dietary +and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views +on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom +assented covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism +involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to +christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, +son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of +Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (died +266 A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty +and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to +gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of +adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and +the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen +attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both +from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first +no bigger than a woman's hand. + + +Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative? + +The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining +paraheliotropic trees. + + +Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in +the past? + +In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public +thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's +corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue. + +In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall +between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony +of Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and +prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class +railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian +Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on +the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once +in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour +of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street, west. + + +What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885, +1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at +their destination? + +He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual +development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction +of the converse domain of interindividual relations. + + +As in what ways? + +From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received: +existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence +to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived. + +What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination? + +At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number +7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket +of his trousers to obtain his latchkey. + + +Was it there? + +It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on +the day but one preceding. + + +Why was he doubly irritated? + +Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded +himself twice not to forget. + + +What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly +(respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple? + +To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock. + + +Bloom's decision? + +A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the +area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at +the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its +length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches +of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by +separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for +the impact of the fall. + + +Did he fall? + +By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in +avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for +periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman, +pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast +of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year +one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five +thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three +hundred and twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9, +dominical letters C B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV. + + +Did he rise uninjured by concussion? + +Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by +the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force +at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied +at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the +subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free +inflammable coal gas by turningon the ventcock, lit a high flame which, +by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a +portable candle. + + +What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive? + +Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent +kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a +candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man +leaving the kitchen holding a candle. + + +Did the man reappear elsewhere? + +After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible +through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the +halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space +of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle. + + +Did Stephen obey his sign? + +Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed +softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted +candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down +a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's +house. + + +What did Bloom do? + +He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its +flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for +Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when +necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid +resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons +of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs +Flower and M'Donald of 14 D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting +points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing +the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and +hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air. + + +Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think? + +Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two, +had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the +college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the +county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room +of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: +of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss +Julia Morkan at 15 Usher's Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie +(Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil +street: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of +number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of +Saint Francis Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the +physics' theatre of university College, 16 Stephen's Green, north: of +his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra. + + +What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from +the fire towards the opposite wall? + +Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope, +stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the +chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs +folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of +ladies' grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual +position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer +extremities and the third at their point of junction. + + +What did Bloom see on the range? + +On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left +(larger) hob a black iron kettle. + + +What did Bloom do at the range? + +He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron +kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to +let it flow. + + +Did it flow? + +Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of +2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of +filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial +plant cost of 5 pounds per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, +Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, +a distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of +relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at +Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth +and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below +the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and +waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of +the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for +purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of +recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals +as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding +their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch +meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by +a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of +the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the +detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers, +solvent, sound. + +What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, +returning to the range, admire? + +Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature +in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's +projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific +exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface +particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence +of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic +quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: +its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar +icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: +its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its +indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region +below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability +of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve +and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of +tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and +islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas +and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and +volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: +its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: +its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and +confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic +currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence +in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, +freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, +cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: +its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and +latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments +and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown +gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its +composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part +of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead +Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate +dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst +and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and +paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, +hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs +and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and +archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and +arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility +in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power +stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, +rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality +derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level +to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), +numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its +ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness +of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded +flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon. + + +Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he +return to the stillflowing tap? + +To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of +Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought +thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh +cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a +long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller. + + +What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer? + +That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by +submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the month +of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of +glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language. + + +What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and +prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a +preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with +rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region +in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most +sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot? + +The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. + + +What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress? + +Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric +energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the +lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed. + + +Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest? + +Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and +recuperation. + + +What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the +agency of fire? + +The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of +ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was +communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral +masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the +foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn +derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat +(radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous +ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such +combustion, was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source +of calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated +through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part +reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising +the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in +temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal +units needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50 degrees to 212 degrees +Fahrenheit. + + +What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature? + +A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at +both sides simultaneously. + + +For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled? + +To shave himself. + + +What advantages attended shaving by night? + +A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from +shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly +encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours: +quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when +awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and +perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper +read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a +shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might +cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with +precision cut and humected and applied adhered: which was to be done. + + +Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise? + +Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine +feminine passive active hand. + + +What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting +influence? + +The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human +blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their +natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic +surgery. + + +What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the +kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom? + +On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal +breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a +moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white +goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly +copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf +a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four +conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of +Plumtree's potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and +containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and +Co's white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue +paper, a packet of Epps's soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's +choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical +canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one, +the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with +augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's cream, +a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured +adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and +semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr +Bloom's and Mrs Fleming's breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total +quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish +containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of +jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences. + + +What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser? + +Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets, +numbered 8 87, 88 6. + + +What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow? + +Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction, +preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official +and definitive result of which he had read in the _Evening Telegraph_, +late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge. + + +Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected, +been received by him? + +In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 little Britain +street: in David Byrne's licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in O'Connell +street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had placed in +his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah, +restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of +F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick +M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and +restituted the copy of the current issue of the _Freeman's Journal and +National Press_ which he had been about to throw away (subsequently +thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of +the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the light of +inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the +secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction. + +What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations? + +The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event +followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the +electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss +by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding +originally from a successful interpretation. + + +His mood? + +He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he +was satisfied. + + +What satisfied him? + +To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to +others. Light to the gentiles. + + +How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile? + +He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's +soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed +on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the +prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity +prescribed. + + +What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his +guest? + +Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation +Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly), +he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served +extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the +viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion +(Molly). + + +Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of +hospitality? + +His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted +them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct, +the creature cocoa. + + +Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed, +reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to +complete the act begun? + +The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right +side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four +lady's handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable +condition. + + +Who drank more quickly? + +Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and taking, +from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady +flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent's one, six to +two, nine to three. + + +What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act? + +Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was +engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from +literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had +applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the +solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life. + + +Had he found their solution? + +In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, +aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, +the answers not bearing in all points. + + +What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him, +potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering +of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively for competition by the +_Shamrock_, a weekly newspaper? + + _An ambition to squint + At my verses in print + Makes me hope that for these you'll find room?. + If you so condescend + Then please place at the end + The name of yours truly, L. Bloom._ + +Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him? + +Name, age, race, creed. + + +What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? + + Leopold Bloom + Ellpodbomool + Molldopeloob + Bollopedoom + Old Ollebo, M. P. + + +What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic +poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the 14 February 1888? + + _Poets oft have sung in rhyme + Of music sweet their praise divine. + Let them hymn it nine times nine. + Dearer far than song or wine. + You are mine. The world is mine._ + + +What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G. +Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years, +entitled _If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now_, +commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, +49 South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the +valley of diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand +annual Christmas pantomime _Sinbad the Sailor_ (produced by R Shelton +26 December 1892, written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by George +A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan under +the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir, +harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist, principal +girl? + +Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest, +the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded +1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market: +secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the +questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the +duke and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru +(imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and +professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand +Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street: +fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist's +non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical expression of countenance +and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist's revelations of white +articles of non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing +while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the +difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous +allusions from _Everybody's Book of Jokes_ (1000 pages and a laugh in +every one): sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous, associated +with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high +sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket +Barton. + + +What relation existed between their ages? + +16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen +was 6. 16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present +age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54 +their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13 +1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according +as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in +1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then +1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen +would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when +Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom, +being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have +surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, +969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would +attain that age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to +have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in +the year 81,396 B.C. + + +What events might nullify these calculations? + +The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a +new era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent +extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable. + + +How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance? + +Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house, Medina +Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen's +mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his +hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a +rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen's father +and Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older. + + +Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and +afterwards seconded by the father? + +Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative +gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined. + + +Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a +third connecting link between them? + +Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the +house of Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and +had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City Arms +Hotel owned by Elizabeth O'Dowd of 54 Prussia street where, during parts +of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of Bloom +who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the +employment of Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence of +sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular road. + + +Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her? + +He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow +of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair +with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North +Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she had +remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular +fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles +equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, +private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from +the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa. + + +Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity? + +Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel +of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with +continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, +velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round +and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe. + + +What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years +deceased? + +The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her +suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient +catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue +of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles +Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers. + + +Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation +which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the +more desirable? + +The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently +abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's _Physical Strength and How to +Obtain It_ which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in +sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in +front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of +muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant +relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility. + + +Had any special agility been his in earlier youth? + +Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full +circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he +had excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever +movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed +abdominal muscles. + + +Did either openly allude to their racial difference? + +Neither. + + +What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts +about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen's thoughts about +Bloom's thoughts about Stephen? + +He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he +knew that he knew that he was not. + + +What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective +parentages? + +Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently +Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and +Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born +Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest surviving male +consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary, +daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier). + + +Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or +layman? + +Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A., alone, +in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James +O'Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump +in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in +the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend +Charles Malone C. C., alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, +Rathgar. + + +Did they find their educational careers similar? + +Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively +through a dame's school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for +Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, +junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the +matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the +royal university. + + +Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university +of life? + +Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation +had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him. + + +What two temperaments did they individually represent? + +The scientific. The artistic. + + +What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards +applied, rather than towards pure, science? + +Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining +in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his +appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once +revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting +telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water +siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump. + + +Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of +kindergarten? + +Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard, +catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the +twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature +mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical +to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, +historically costumed dolls. + + +What also stimulated him in his cogitations? + +The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James, +the former by his 1d bazaar at 42 George's street, south, the latter +at his 6 1/2d shop and world's fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30 +Henry street, admission 2d, children 1d: and the infinite possibilities +hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed +in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility +(divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of +magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to +convince, to decide. + + +Such as? + +K. II. Kino's 11/- Trousers. House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes. + + +Such as not? + +Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive +gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle power. +Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot street. + +Bacilikil (Insect Powder). Veribest (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined +pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner). + + +Such as never? + +What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? + +Incomplete. + +With it an abode of bliss. + +Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants' quay, Dublin, put up in +4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda +Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries +of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot, +registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. +Plamtroo. + + +Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that +originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably +conduce to success? + +His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn +by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be +seated engaged in writing. + + +What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen? + +Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark +corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She +sits. She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks. +On solitary hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs. +Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He +seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads. +Solitary. + + +What? + +In sloping, upright and backhands: Queen's Hotel, Queen's Hotel, Queen's +Hotel. Queen's Ho... + + +What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom? + +The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf +Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated, +in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in +the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of 2 parts of aconite liniment +to I of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on the +morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 +Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having, +purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater +straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of +having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin +aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, +Ennis. + + +Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or +intuition? + +Coincidence. + + +Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see? + +He preferred himself to see another's face and listen to another's +words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament +relieved. + + +Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to +him, described by the narrator as _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The +Parable of the Plums_? + +It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by +implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms +(e.g. _My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the Thief of Time_) +composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and +in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of +financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially +collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent +merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or +contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy +or Doctor Dick or Heblon's _Studies in Blue_, to a publication of +certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual +stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of successful +narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during +the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice +on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday, 21 June (S. Aloysius +Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m. + + +Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other +frequently engaged his mind? + +What to do with our wives. + + +What had been his hypothetical singular solutions? + +Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, +nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, +chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the +policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano +and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: +biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial activity as +pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in +a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine satisfaction of +erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically +controlled: social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals +and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female +acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity: courses of +evening instruction specially designed to render liberal instruction +agreeable. + + +What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him +in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution? + +In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper +with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and +Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals +as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of +a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political +complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating +the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. +After completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned +the implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to +the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual +polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by false +analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), _alias_ (a +mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture). + + +What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and +such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things? + +The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all +balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her +proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment. + + +How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance? + +Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a +certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent +knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other's +ignorant lapse. + + +With what success had he attempted direct instruction? + +She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest +comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty +remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated +with error. + + +What system had proved more effective? + +Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest. + + +Example? + +She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she +disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new +hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat. + + +Accepting the analogy implied in his guest's parable which examples of +postexilic eminence did he adduce? + +Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, +author of _More Nebukim_ (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn +of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there +arose none like Moses (Maimonides). + + +What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth +seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by +Stephen? + +That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher, +name uncertain. + + +Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a +selected or rejected race mentioned? + +Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), +Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist). + + +What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish +languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts +by guest to host and by host to guest? + +By Stephen: _suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin_ +(walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care). + + +By Bloom: _Kkifeloch, harimon rakatejch m'baad l'zamatejch_ (thy temple +amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate). + + +How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages +made in substantiation of the oral comparison? + +By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior +literary style, entituled _Sweets of Sin_ (produced by Bloom and so +manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of +the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish +characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn +wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of +mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal +and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1, 4, and 100. + + +Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the +extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical? + +Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence +and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary. + + +What points of contact existed between these languages and between the +peoples who spoke them? + +The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and +servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been +taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary +instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, +and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their +archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, +toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works +of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara), Massor, +Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, +Book of Kells: their dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the +isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. +Mary's Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve's tavern): the proscription +of their national costumes in penal laws and jewish dress acts: the +restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the possibility of Irish +political autonomy or devolution. + + +What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, +ethnically irreducible consummation? + + _Kolod balejwaw pnimah + Nefesch, jehudi, homijah._ + + +Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich? + +In consequence of defective mnemotechnic. + + +How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency? + +By a periphrastic version of the general text. + + +In what common study did their mutual reflections merge? + +The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic +hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of +modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions +(Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic). Did +the guest comply with his host's request? + +Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters. + +What was Stephen's auditive sensation? + +He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation +of the past. + + +What was Bloom's visual sensation? + +He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a +future. + + +What were Stephen's and Bloom's quasisimultaneous volitional +quasisensations of concealed identities? + +Visually, Stephen's: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted +by Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as +leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair. Auditively, Bloom's: The +traditional accent of the ecstasy of catastrophe. + + +What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with +what exemplars? + +In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very +reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of +Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: +exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage modern +or Shakespearean: exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian Osmond +Tearle (died 1901), exponent of Shakespeare. + + +Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange +legend on an allied theme? + +Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being +secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid +residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream +plus cocoa, having been consumed. + + +Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend. + + _Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all + Went out for to play ball. + And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played + He drove it o'er the jew's garden wall. + And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played + He broke the jew's windows all._ + + + +How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part? + + +With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew he heard with pleasure and saw the +unbroken kitchen window. + + +Recite the second part (minor) of the legend. + + _Then out there came the jew's daughter + And she all dressed in green. + "Come back, come back, you pretty little boy, + And play your ball again." + + "I can't come back and I won't come back + Without my schoolfellows all. + For if my master he did hear + He'd make it a sorry ball." + + She took him by the lilywhite hand + And led him along the hall + Until she led him to a room + Where none could hear him call. + + She took a penknife out of her pocket + And cut off his little head. + And now he'll play his ball no more + For he lies among the dead._ + + +How did the father of Millicent receive this second part? + +With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's +daughter, all dressed in green. + + +Condense Stephen's commentary. + +One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by +inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he +is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope +and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, +to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, +consenting. + + +Why was the host (victim predestined) sad? + +He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him +should by him not be told. + + +Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still? + +In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy. + + +Why was the host (secret infidel) silent? + +He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the +incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the +propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of +opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of +atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, +hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism. + + +From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not +totally immune? + +From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his +sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an +indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From +somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and +crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained +its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain, +sleeping. + + +Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member +of his family? + +Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent +(Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an exclamation +of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night +attire with a vacant mute expression. + + +What other infantile memories had he of her? + +15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and +lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks +her moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo, +tlee: a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark, +she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, +Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British +navy. + + +What endemic characteristics were present? + +Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct +line of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant +intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals. + + +What memories had he of her adolescence? + +She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke's lawn, +entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and +take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South +Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual +of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned +abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the 15th +anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county +Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year +not stated). + + +Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him? + +Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped. + + +What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly, +if differently? + +A temporary departure of his cat. + + +Why similarly, why differently? + +Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male + +(Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, +because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the +habitation. + + +In other respects were their differences similar? + +In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in +unexpectedness. + + +As? + +Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it +for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake +in Stephen's green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented +spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the +constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf +mousewatching cat). + +Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and consequences +of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair (cf +earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had +an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been +Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which +it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in +passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, +their differences were similar. + + +In what way had he utilised gifts (1) an owl, (2) a clock, given as +matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her? + +As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous +animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of +vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the +pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation +in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of +clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the +recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and the +shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, _videlicet_, 5 +5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression. + + +In what manners did she reciprocate? + +She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to +him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. +She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases +had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his +necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon +having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire +to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the +moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part. + + +What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make +to Stephen, noctambulist? + +To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and +Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately +above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of +his host and hostess. + + +What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation +of such an extemporisation? + +For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the +host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the +hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian +pronunciation. + + +Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and +a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent +eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew's +daughter? + +Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother +through daughter. + + +To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest +return a monosyllabic negative answer? + +If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney +Parade railway station, 14 October 1903. + + +What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the +host? + +A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment +of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding), 26 June 1903, vigil of the +anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag). + + +Was the proposal of asylum accepted? + +Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined. +What exchange of money took place between host and guest? + +The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money +(1-7-0), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to +the former. + + +What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, +declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed? + +To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place +the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal +instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate +a series of static semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, +places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident in +the same place), the Ship hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street (W. and +E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare +street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, a +public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two +or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line +drawn between their residences (if both speakers were resident in +different places). + + +What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually +selfexcluding propositions? + +The irreparability of the past: once at a performance of Albert +Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive +particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring +to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had +publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his +(the clown's) papa. The imprevidibility of the future: once in the +summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2/-) with three notches +on the milled edge and tendered it m payment of an account due to and +received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand +Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, +circuitous or direct, return. + + +Was the clown Bloom's son? + +No. + + +Had Bloom's coin returned? + +Never. + + +Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him? + +Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to +amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and +international animosity. He believed then that human life was infinitely +perfectible, eliminating these conditions? + +There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct +from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of +destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of +the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and +death: the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human +females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable +accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies +and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital +criminality, decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make +terror the basis of human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres +of which are located in densely populated regions: the fact of vital +growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis, from infancy through +maturity to decay. + + +Why did he desist from speculation? + +Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other +more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena +to be removed. + + +Did Stephen participate in his dejection? + +He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding +syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational +reagent between a micro and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the +incertitude of the void. + + +Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom? + +Not verbally. Substantially. + + +What comforted his misapprehension? + +That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from +the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. + + +In what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the exodus +from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation effected? + +Lighted Candle in Stick borne by + +BLOOM + +Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by + +STEPHEN: + + +With what intonation secreto of what commemorative psalm? + +The 113th, _modus peregrinus: In exitu Israel de Egypto: domus Jacob de +populo barbaro_. + + +What did each do at the door of egress? + +Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his head. + + +For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? + +For a cat. + + +What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the +guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from +the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden? + +The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. + + +With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his +companion of various constellations? + +Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in +incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous +scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an +observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 +ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius +(alpha in Canis Maior) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant +and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the +precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and +nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could be contained: of moribund +and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging +towards the constellation of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic +drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from +immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with +which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a +parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity. + + +Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast? + +Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the +earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed +in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, +of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the incalculable +trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained +by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe +of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves +universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in +continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was +again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends +and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the +progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached. + + +Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result? + +Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem +of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a +number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude +and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9, that, +the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 +pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to +be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed +integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, +hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, +billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of every series +containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to the utmost +kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers. + + +Did he find the problems of the inhabitability of the planets and their +satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and +moral redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution? + +Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism, +normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, +when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere +suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as +the line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was +approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, +when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a +working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more +adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might +subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, +Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though +an apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite +differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another would +probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to +vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity. + + And the problem of possible redemption? + The minor was proved by the major. + + +Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered? + +The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white, +yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy: +their magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions: +the waggoner's star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular +cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the +interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous +discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, +Galle: the systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes +of distances and squares of times of revolution: the almost infinite +compressibility of hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive +and reentrant orbits from perihelion to aphelion: the sidereal origin of +meteoric stones: the Libyan floods on Mars about the period of the birth +of the younger astroscopist: the annual recurrence of meteoric showers +about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence (martyr, lo August): the +monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old moon in her arms: +the posited influence of celestial on human bodies: the appearance of a +star (1st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating by night and +day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and amalgamation in +incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the period of the +birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent neversetting +constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (2nd magnitude) of similar +origin but of lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and disappeared +from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about the period +of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of (presumably) similar +origin which had (effectively or presumably) appeared in and disappeared +from the constellation of Andromeda about the period of the birth of +Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the constellation of Auriga some years +after the birth and death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in and from +other constellations some years before or after the birth or death of +other persons: the attendant phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, +from immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, +taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular +animals, persistence of infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, +pallor of human beings. + + +His (Bloom's) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing +for possible error? + +That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not +a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from +the known to the unknown: an infinity renderable equally finite by the +suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and of +different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space, +remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a +present before its probable spectators had entered actual present +existence. + + +Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle? + +Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the +delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection +invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the +satellite of their planet. + + +Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological +influences upon sublunary disasters? + +It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the +nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to +verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of dreams, the +sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity. + + +What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and +woman? + +Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian +generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: +her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising +and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced +invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative +interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power +to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to +incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her +visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent +propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her +light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her +arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, +when invisible. + + +What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's, +gaze? + +In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom's) house the light of a +paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller +blind supplied by Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving +shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street. + + +How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his +wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp? + +With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued +affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with +suggestion. + + +Both then were silent? + +Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal +flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces. + + +Were they indefinitely inactive? + +At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's instigation both, first Stephen, +then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs +of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, +their gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's, elevated to the projected +luminous and semiluminous shadow. + + +Similarly? + +The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations +were dissimilar: Bloom's longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of +the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter, who in his ultimate +year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point +of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the +institution, 210 scholars: Stephen's higher, more sibilant, who in the +ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption +an insistent vesical pressure. + + +What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the +invisible audible collateral organ of the other? + +To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, +reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity. + +To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised +(I January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from +unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine +prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic +church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of +the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine +excrescences as hair and toenails. + + +What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed? + +A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament +from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the Tress +of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo. + + +How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal +departer? + +By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an +unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and +turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its +staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and +revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress. + + +How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation? + +Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its +base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and +forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles. + + +What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their +(respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands? + +The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells +in the church of Saint George. + + +What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard? + +By Stephen: + +_Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet. Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus +excipiat._ + +By Bloom: + + _Heigho, heigho, + Heigho, heigho._ + + +Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day +at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south +to Glasnevin in the north? + +Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in bed), +Ned Lambert (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed), John +Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in bed), +Paddy Dignam (in the grave). + + +Alone, what did Bloom hear? + +The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth, the +double vibration of a jew's harp in the resonant lane. + + +Alone, what did Bloom feel? + +The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing +point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Reaumur: the +incipient intimations of proximate dawn. + + +Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind +him? + +Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct: Percy +Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis, +Jervis Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin +Bay), Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart (phthisis, +Mater Misericordiae hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount). + + +What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain? + +The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the +apparition of a new solar disk. + + +Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena? + +Once, in 1887, after a protracted performance of charades in the house +of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition +of the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the +direction of Mizrach, the east. + + +He remembered the initial paraphenomena? + +More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at +various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer, +the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the +first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon. + + +Did he remain? + +With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering +the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the +candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room, +hallfloor, and reentered. + + +What suddenly arrested his ingress? + +The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into +contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible +fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in +consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered. + + +Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of +furniture. + +A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite +the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an +alteration which he had frequently intended to execute): the blue and +white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the +door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard +(a projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had +been moved from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but +more perilous position in front of the door: two chairs had been moved +from right and left of the ingleside to the position originally occupied +by the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table. + + +Describe them. + +One: a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back +slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an +irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply +upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. +The other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed +directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat +to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of +white plaited rush. + + +What significances attached to these two chairs? + +Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial +evidence, of testimonial supermanence. + + +What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard? + +A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin +supporting a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves and an emerald ashtray +containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two +discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in +the key of G natural for voice and piano of _Love's Old Sweet Song_ +(words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam +Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications +_ad libitum, forte_, pedal, _animato_, sustained pedal, _ritirando_, +close. + + +With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects? + +With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right +temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on +a large dull passive and a slender bright active: with solicitation, +bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, +remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the +gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent +act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility +the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual +discolouration. + + +His next proceeding? + +From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black +diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on +a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the +mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus +(illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined +it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the +candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the +latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin +of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to +facilitate total combustion. + + +What followed this operation? + +The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a +vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. + + +What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the +mantelpiece? + +A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 +a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf +tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial +gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of +Alderman John Hooper. + + +What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and +Bloom? + +In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the +dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before +the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear +melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom +while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated +gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle. + + +What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his +attention? + +The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man. + + +Why solitary (ipsorelative)? + +_Brothers and sisters had he none. Yet that man's father was his +grandfather's son._ + + +Why mutable (aliorelative)? + +From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. +From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal +procreator. + + +What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror? + +The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged +and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles +on the two bookshelves opposite. + + +Catalogue these books. + +_Thom's Dublin Post Office Directory, 1886_. Denis Florence M'Carthy's +_Poetical Works_ (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5). Shakespeare's +_Works_ (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled). + +_The Useful Ready Reckoner_ (brown cloth). + +_The Secret History of the Court of Charles II_ (red cloth, tooled +binding). _The Child's Guide_ (blue cloth). + +_The Beauties of Killarney_ (wrappers). + +_When We Were Boys_ by William O'Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly +faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217). + +_Thoughts from Spinoza_ (maroon leather). + +_The Story of the Heavens_ by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth). Ellis's +_Three Trips to Madagascar_ (brown cloth, title obliterated). + +_The Stark-Munro Letters_ by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of +Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve) 1904, +due 4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white +letternumber ticket). + +_Voyages in China_ by "Viator" (recovered with brown paper, red ink +title). + +_Philosophy of the Talmud_ (sewn pamphlet). Lockhart's _Life of +Napoleon_ (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, +aggrandising defeats of the protagonist). + +_Soll und Haben_ by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, +cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24). Hozier's _History of the +Russo-Turkish War_ (brown cloth, a volumes, with gummed label, Garrison +Library, Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover). + +_Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland_ by William Allingham (second edition, +green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's name on recto of +flyleaf erased). + +_A Handbook of Astronomy_ (cover, brown leather, detached, S plates, +antique letterpress long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal +clues brevier, captions small pica). + +_The Hidden Life of Christ_ (black boards). + +_In the Track of the Sun_ (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent +title intestation). + +_Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ by Eugen Sandow (red cloth). + +_Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry_ written in French by F. +Ignat. Pardies and rendered into English by John Harris D. D. London, +printed for R. Knaplock at the Bifhop's Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory +epiftle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, efquire, Member of Parliament +for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the +flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, +dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requefting the perfon who should +find it, if the book should be loft or go aftray, to reftore it to +Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Ennifcorthy, county Wicklow, +the fineft place in the world. + + +What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of +the inverted volumes? + +The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its +place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: +the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella +inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document +behind, beneath or between the pages of a book. + + +Which volume was the largest in bulk? + +Hozier's _History of the Russo-Turkish war._ + + +What among other data did the second volume of the work in question +contain? + +The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a +decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered). + + +Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question? + +Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an +interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to consult +the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the +military engagement, Plevna. + + +What caused him consolation in his sitting posture? + +The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a +statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased +by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor's Walk. + + +What caused him irritation in his sitting posture? Inhibitory pressure +of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two articles of clothing +superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alterations +of mass by expansion. + + +How was the irritation allayed? + +He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible +stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He +unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt +and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black hairs +extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over the +circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the medial +line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral vertebrae, +thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in circles +described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits +of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of six minus +one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one incomplete. + + +What involuntary actions followed? + +He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice in +the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a sting +inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee. +He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of +prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly +abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of +his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin (I shilling), +placed there (presumably) on the occasion (17 October 1903) of the +interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade. + + +Compile the budget for 16 June 1904. DEBIT + + 1 Pork Kidney + 1 Copy FREEMAN'S JOURNAL + 1 Bath And Gratification + Tramfare + 1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam + 2 Banbury cakes + 1 Lunch + 1 Renewal fee for book + 1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes + 1 Dinner and Gratification + 1 Postal Order and Stamp + Tramfare + 1 Pig's Foot + 1 Sheep's Trotter + 1 Cake Fry's Plain Chocolate + 1 Square Soda Bread + 1 Coffee and Bun + Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded + BALANCE + + + L. s. d. + 0--0--3 + 0--0--1 + 0--1--6 + 0--0--1 + 0--5--0 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--7 + 0--1--0 + 0--0--2 + 0--2--0 + 0--2--8 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--4 + 0--0--3 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--4 + 0--0--4 + 1--7--0 + 0-17--5 + 2-19--3 + CREDIT + + Cash in hand + Commission recd. _Freeman's Journal_ + Loan (Stephen Dedalus) + + + + + + L. s. d. + 0--4--9 + 1--7--6 + 1--7--0 + + + + + + 2-19--3 + + + + +Did the process of divestiture continue? + +Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended +his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient +points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in +several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots, +unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the +second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the +fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised +his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, +took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin +of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding +part of the great toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and +inhaled the odour of the quick, then, with satisfaction, threw away the +lacerated ungual fragment. + + +Why with satisfaction? + +Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other +ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs +Ellis's juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief +genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation. + + +In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions +now coalesced? + +Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English, +or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of +acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation 42 pounds), of +grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage +drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa, +described as _Rus in Urbe_ or _Qui si sana_, but to purchase by private +treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse of +southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, connected +with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia +creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat +doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, +if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable prospect from balcony +with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent +pastures and standing in 5 or 6 acres of its own ground, at such +a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as to render its +houselights visible at night above and through a quickset hornbeam hedge +of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less than 1 statute +mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time limit of not +more than 15 minutes from tram or train line (e.g., Dundrum, south, or +Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to resemble the +terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical subjects), +the premises to be held under feefarm grant, lease 999 years, the +messuage to consist of 1 drawingroom with baywindow (2 lancets), +thermometer affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms, 2 servants' rooms, tiled +kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen +wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia +Britannica and New Century Dictionary, transverse obsolete medieval and +oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite +automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted +Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table with +pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel +chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer +with hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, +upholstered in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three +banner Japanese screen and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured +leather, gloss renewable with a minimum of labour by use of linseed +oil and vinegar) and pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, +bentwood perch with fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed +mural paper at 10/- per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral +design and top crown frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at +successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and +risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with steppedup panel dado, +dressed with camphorated wax: bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining +and shower: water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane +oblong window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, +armrests, footstool and artistic oleograph on inner face of door: +ditto, plain: servants' apartments with separate sanitary and hygienic +necessaries for cook, general and betweenmaid (salary, rising by +biennial unearned increments of 2 pounds, with comprehensive fidelity +insurance, annual bonus (1 pound) and retiring allowance (based on +the 65 system) after 30 years' service), pantry, buttery, larder, +refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still +and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if entertained to +dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply throughout. + + +What additional attractions might the grounds contain? + +As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse +with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery +with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval +flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of +scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet +William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James +W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and +nurserymen, agents for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper), an +orchard, kitchen garden and vinery protected against illegal trespassers +by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various +inventoried implements. + + +As? + +Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, +clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth +rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, +brush, hoe and so on. + +What improvements might be subsequently introduced? + +A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2 hammocks +(lady's and gentleman's), a sundial shaded and sheltered by laburnum +or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle +gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious waterbutt, +a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with +hydraulic hose. + + +What facilities of transit were desirable? + +When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their +respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound +velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar +attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart +phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14 h). + + +What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence? + +Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville. + + +Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville? + +In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful +garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned +young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling a +weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the scent +of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving +longevity. + + +What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible? + +Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative +to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the +celestial constellations. + + +What lighter recreations? + +Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways +ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and +unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge +anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation), +vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with inspection +of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers' fires of +smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor: discussion in +tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal problems: lecture of +unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house carpentry with toolbox +containing hammer, awl nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers, +bullnose plane and turnscrew. Might he become a gentleman farmer of +field produce and live stock? + +Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and +requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip pulper +etc. + + +What would be his civic functions and social status among the county +families and landed gentry? + +Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that +of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his +career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest +and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto _(Semper paratus_), +duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C., +K. P., L. L. D. (_honoris causa_), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in +court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left +Kingstown for England). + + +What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity? + +A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: +the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, +incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality, +of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants +of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing +with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to +the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of +rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, +the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every +measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be +contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter +of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in +covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, +all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of +venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators +of international persecution, all perpetuators of international +animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all +recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality. + + +Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth. + +To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his +disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his +father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the +Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting +Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of +Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony +in 1888. To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882 during a juvenile +friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he +had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of +colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of +Charles Darwin, expounded in _The Descent of Man_ and _The Origin +of Species_. In 1885 he had publicly expressed his adherence to the +collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan +Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J. F. X. O'Brien and others, +the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of +Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City), the programme of +peace, retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M. P. for +Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions, had +climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree +on Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February 1888) into the +capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000 torchbearers, +divided into 120 trade corporations, bearing 2000 torches in escort of +the marquess of Ripon and (honest) John Morley. + + +How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence? + +As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised +Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum +of 60 pounds per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from +giltedged securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of +1200 pounds (estimate of price at 20 years' purchase), of which to be +paid on acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. 800 +pounds plus 2 1/2 % interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal +annual instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for +purchase within a period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of +64 pounds, headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession +of the lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale, +foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure +to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the absolute +property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of years +stipulated. + + +What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate +purchase? + +A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash system +the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase) of I or +more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1 at 3 hr +8 m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received and +available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink time). +The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value (precious +stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7 schilling, +mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue paper, perforate, +Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official, rouletted, diagonal +surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical ring, unique relic) in +unusual repositories or by unusual means: from the air (dropped by an +eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised remains of an incendiated +edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict), on +earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A Spanish prisoner's +donation of a distant treasure of valuables or specie or bullion lodged +with a solvent banking corporation loo years previously at 5% compound +interest of the collective worth of 5,000,000 pounds stg (five million +pounds sterling). A contract with an inconsiderate contractee for the +delivery of 32 consignments of some given commodity in consideration of +cash payment on delivery per delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d to be +increased constantly in the geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d, 1/2d, +1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s 4d, 2s 8d to 32 terms). A prepared scheme +based on a study of the laws of probability to break the bank at Monte +Carlo. A solution of the secular problem of the quadrature of the +circle, government premium 1,000,000 pounds sterling. + + +Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels? + +The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the +prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 15, by the +cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation. +The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement +possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the +first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third, +every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing +annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed +animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035, the total +population of Ireland according to census returns of 1901. + + +Were there schemes of wider scope? + +A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour +commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power), +obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at +head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main +streams for the economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity. +A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at Dollymount +and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links and rifle +ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting galleries, +hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for mixed bathing. +A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the delivery of early +morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish tourist traffic in +and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the +fluvial fairway between Island bridge and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow +gauge local railways, and pleasure steamers for coastwise navigation +(10/- per person per day, guide (trilingual) included). A scheme for +the repristination of passenger and goods traffics over Irish waterways, +when freed from weedbeds. A scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle +Market (North Circular road and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff +street, lower, and East Wall), parallel with the Link line railway +laid (in conjunction with the Great Southern and Western railway line) +between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great +Western Railway 43 to 45 North + +Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of Great +Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam Packet +Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and Glasgow +Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet +Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company, Dublin +and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway Company, Dublin +Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy +and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers from Mediterranean, +Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and for Liverpool +Underwriters' Association, the cost of acquired rolling stock for +animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the Dublin United +Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers' fees. + + +Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes +become a natural and necessary apodosis? + +Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of +gift and transfer vouchers during donor's lifetime or by bequest +after donor's painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha, +Rothschild Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller) +possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and +joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done. + + +What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth? + +The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. + + +For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation? + +It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic +relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil +recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for +the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and +renovated vitality. + + +His justifications? + +As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human +life at least 2/7, viz. 20 years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher +he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an +infinitesimal part of any person's desires has been realised. As a +physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant +agencies chiefly operative during somnolence. + + +What did he fear? + +The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration +of the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence +situated in the cerebral convolutions. + + +What were habitually his final meditations? + +Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in +wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded, +reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span +of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life. + + +What did the first drawer unlocked contain? + +A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent) +Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked _Papli_, +which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in +profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot: 2 +fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud Branscombe, +actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing on it a +pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend _Mizpah_, the +date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M. Comerford, the +versicle: _May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome +glee_: a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the +stores department of Messrs Hely's, Ltd., 89, 90, and 91 Dame street: +a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt "J" pennibs, obtained +from same department of same firm: an old sandglass which rolled +containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy (never unsealed) written +by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences of the passing into +law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule bill of 1886 (never passed +into law): a bazaar ticket, no 2004, of S. Kevin's Charity Fair, price +6d, 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small em monday, reading: +capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of interrogation +capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature with +flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo brooch, property of Ellen +Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: a cameo scarfpin, property of Rudolph +Bloom (born Virag), deceased: 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry +Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. +Dolphin's Barn: the transliterated name and address of the addresser +of the 3 letters in reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated +quadrilinear cryptogram (vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. +MH/Y. IM: a press cutting from an English weekly periodical _Modern +Society_, subject corporal chastisement in girls' schools: a pink ribbon +which had festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled +rubber preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box +32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid +envelopes and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3: some +assorted Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged +Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards +showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation, +superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior +position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes +abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by +post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: a press cutting +of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: a Id adhesive stamp, +lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of the measurements +of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months' consecutive +use of Sandow-Whiteley's pulley exerciser (men's 15/-, athlete's 20/-) +viz. chest 28 in and 29 1/2 in, biceps 9 in and 10 in, forearm 8 1/2 in +and 9 in, thigh 10 in and 12 in, calf 11 in and 12 in: 1 prospectus of +The Wonderworker, the world's greatest remedy for rectal complaints, +direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South Place, London E C, +addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief accompanying note +commencing (erroneously): Dear Madam. + + +Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for +this thaumaturgic remedy. + +It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking +wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant relief +in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural action, an +initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth living. +Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise when +they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring water on +a sultry summer's day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen friends, +lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker. + + +Were there testimonials? + +Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city +man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar. + + +How did absentminded beggar's concluding testimonial conclude? + +What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers +during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been! + + +What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects? + +A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.) +from Martha Clifford (find M. C.). + + +What pleasant reflection accompanied this action? + +The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic +face, form and address had been favourably received during the course of +the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie Powell), +a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid, Gertrude (Gerty, +family name unknown). + + +What possibility suggested itself? + +The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not +immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in +the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately +mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin. + + +What did the 2nd drawer contain? + +Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment +assurance policy of 500 pounds in the Scottish Widows' Assurance +Society, intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 +years as with profit policy of 430 pounds, 462/10/0 and 500 pounds at +60 years or death, 65 years or death and death, respectively, or +with profit policy (paidup) of 299/10/0 together with cash payment of +133/10/0, at option: a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College +Green branch showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December +1903, balance in depositor's favour: 18/14/6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen +shillings and sixpence, sterling), net personalty: certificate of +possession of 900 pounds, Canadian 4 percent (inscribed) government +stock (free of stamp duty): dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries' +(Glasnevin) Committee, relative to a graveplot purchased: a local press +cutting concerning change of name by deedpoll. + + +Quote the textual terms of this notice. + +I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin, +formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice +that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all +times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom. + + +What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the +2nd drawer? + +An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold +Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their +(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar, +Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex +spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual +prayers for Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen's Hotel, +Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: _To My Dear Son +Leopold_. + + +What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words +evoke? + +Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be +... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... +all for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... +always... of me... _das Herz... Gott... dein_... + + +What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive +melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom? + +An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered, +sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses +of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the +face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison. + + +Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse? + +Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain +beliefs and practices. + + +As? + +The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the +hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete +mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of +male infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the +ineffability of the tetragrammaton: the sanctity of the sabbath. + + +How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him? + +Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than +other beliefs and practices now appeared. + + +What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)? + +Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a +retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between +Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with +statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia, +empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having +taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). +Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant +consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by +suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the +various centres mentioned. + + +Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these +migrations in narrator and listener? + +In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of +narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of +the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences. + + +What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of +amnesia? + +Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. +Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an +inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food +by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper. + + +What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent? + +The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon +repletion. + + +What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences? + +The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the +possession of scrip. + + +Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which +these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values +to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity. + +Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor +hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and +doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy: +that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. +in the pound, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, +insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated +bailiffs man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric +public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded +perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal +Hospital) Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but +respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of +misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic +pauper. + + +With which attendant indignities? + +The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the +contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, +the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of +illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of +decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less +than nothing. + + +By what could such a situation be precluded? + +By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place). + + +Which preferably? + +The latter, by the line of least resistance. + + +What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable? + +Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. +The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity +to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest. + + +What considerations rendered departure not irrational? + +The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which +being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if +not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, +which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting +parties, which was impossible. + + +What considerations rendered departure desirable? + +The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad, +as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or +in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and +hachures. + + +In Ireland? + +The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with +submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort +Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the +pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island +shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney. + + +Abroad? + +Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for +Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing Lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame +street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate +of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique +birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude +Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled +international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where +O'Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no human +being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters +of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller +returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea. + + +Under what guidance, following what signs? + +At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of +intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior produced +and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the rightangled +triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the line alpha +delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed +in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice +of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating +female, a pillar of the cloud by day. + + +What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the departed? + +5 pounds reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles +street, missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold +(Poldy), height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may +have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above +sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery. + + +What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and +nonentity? + +Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman. + + +What tributes his? + +Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph +immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman. + + +Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear? + +Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his +cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic +planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of +space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere +imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey +the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of +the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the +constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination +return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark +crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial resources (by supposition) +surpassing those of Rothschild or the silver king. + + +What would render such return irrational? + +An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through +reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible +time. + + +What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable? + +The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity +of the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares, +rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the +proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of +warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and +rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, +desired desire. + + +What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an +unoccupied bed? + +The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human +(mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation of +matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in the +case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between the +spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit section). + + +What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of +accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate? + +The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering): intestinal congestion and +premeditative defecation (holy of holies): the bath (rite of John): the +funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of Alexander Keyes (Urim and +Thummim): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek): the visit to +museum and national library (holy place): the bookhunt along Bedford +row, Merchants' Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah): the music in the +Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a truculent troglodyte +in Bernard Kiernan's premises (holocaust): a blank period of time +including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a leavetaking +(wilderness): the eroticism produced by feminine exhibitionism (rite of +Onan): the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina Purefoy (heave offering): +the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone +street, lower and subsequent brawl and chance medley in Beaver street +(Armageddon)--nocturnal perambulation to and from the cabman's shelter, +Butt Bridge (atonement). + + +What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to +conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend? + +The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by +the insentient material of a strainveined timber table. + + +What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering multicoloured +multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily apprehending, not +comprehend? + +Who was M'Intosh? + + +What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30 +years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the extinction +of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend? + +Where was Moses when the candle went out? + + +What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, charged with +collected articles of recently disvested male wearing apparel, silently, +successively, enumerate? + +A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement: to obtain +a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook, +Robertson and Co, 5 Dame Street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing Lane, London E. +C.): to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in +the case of Hellenic female divinities: to obtain admission (gratuitous +or paid) to the performance of Leah by Mrs Bandmann Palmer at the Gaiety +Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street. + + +What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall? + +The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal Dublin +Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin's Barn. + + +What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by hypothesis? + +Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens +street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines +meeting at infinity, if produced: along parallel lines, reproduced from +infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the +Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning. + + +What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were +perceived by him? + +A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies' hose, a pair of new +violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies' drawers of India mull, cut on +generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti's Turkish +cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded +curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion +underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed +irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened, +having capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its fore +side in white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy). + + +What impersonal objects were perceived? + +A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne +cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady's black straw hat. +Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware +and ironmongery manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore street, disposed +irregularly on the washstand and floor and consisting of basin, soapdish +and brushtray (on the washstand, together), pitcher and night article +(on the floor, separate). + + +Bloom's acts? + +He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining +articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the +bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the +proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to +the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the +bed. + + +How? + +With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or +not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress +being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous +under stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of +lust or adders: lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of +conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of +marriage, of sleep and of death. + + +What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter? + +New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, +female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, +some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed. + + +If he had smiled why would he have smiled? + +To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to +enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if +the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, +last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor +alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. + + +What preceding series? + +Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell +d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father +Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, +Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor +of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, +an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon +Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John +Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack +at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so +on to no last term. + + +What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and +late occupant of the bed? + +Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a +billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a +boaster). + + +Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal +proportion and commercial ability? + +Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding +members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably +transmitted, first with alarm, then with understanding, then with +desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene +comprehension and apprehension. + + +With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections +affected? + +Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity. + + +Envy? + +Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the +superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic +piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of +a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental +female organism, passive but not obtuse. + + +Jealousy? + +Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately +the agent and reagent of attraction. Because attraction between agent(s) +and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of +increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial +reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of +attraction produced, if desired, a fluctuation of pleasure. + + +Abnegation? + +In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the +establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden +Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and +reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of +ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d) +extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, +e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net +proceeds divided. + + +Equanimity? + +As as natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or +understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in accordance +with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar similarity. +As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the planet in +consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than +theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money +under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public +money, betrayal of public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of +minors, criminal libel, blackmail, contempt of court, arson, treason, +felony, mutiny on the high seas, trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, +practice of unnatural vice, desertion from armed forces in the field, +perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence with the king's enemies, +impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter, wilful and premeditated +murder. As not more abnormal than all other parallel processes of +adaptation to altered conditions of existence, resulting in a reciprocal +equilibrium between the bodily organism and its attendant circumstances, +foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged inclinations, significant +disease. As more than inevitable, irreparable. + + +Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity? + +From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but +outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially +violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the +adulterously violated. + + +What retribution, if any? + +Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by +combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic +bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witnesses), not yet. Suit +for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault with evidence of +injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly. Hushmoney by moral +influence possibly. If any, positively, connivance, introduction of +emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency of publicity: moral, +a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation, alienation, +humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from the other, +protecting the separator from both. + + +By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void of +incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments? + +The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed intangibility +of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion between +the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the +selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done; the fallaciously inferred +debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the variations of +ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving +no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as +masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct +feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist +preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb +and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary +masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of +seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by +distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the +inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy +of the stars. + + +In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and +reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge? + +Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial +hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored +(the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of +Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female +hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and +seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude, +insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression, +expressive of mute immutable mature animality. + + +The visible signs of antesatisfaction? + +An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a +tentative revelation: a silent contemplation. + + +Then? + +He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each +plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure +prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. + + +The visible signs of postsatisfaction? + +A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a +solicitous aversion: a proximate erection. + + +What followed this silent action? + +Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, +catechetical interrogation. + + +With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation? + +Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between +Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and +in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, +Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation +and response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), +surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs +Bandmann Palmer of LEAH at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King +street, an invitation to supper at Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel, 35, 36 and +37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency +entituled SWEETS OF SIN, anonymous author a gentleman of fashion, a +temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the +course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely +recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving +son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat +executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness, the professor +and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and gymnastic +flexibility. + + +Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications? + +Absolutely. + + +Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration? + +Stephen Dedalus, professor and author. + + +What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were +perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the +course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration? + +By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been +celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8 +September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with +female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated +on the lo September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse, +with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last +taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29 +December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894, +aged 11 days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days +during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation +of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a limitation +of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental +intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since +the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the +female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there remained +a period of 9 months and 1 day during which, in consequence of a +preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the +consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of +action had been circumscribed. + + +How? + +By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine +destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration +for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences, +projected or effected. + + +What moved visibly above the listener's and the narrator's invisible +thoughts? + +The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of +concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow. + + +In what directions did listener and narrator lie? + +Listener, S. E. by E.: Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel +of latitude, N., and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45 +degrees to the terrestrial equator. + + +In what state of rest or motion? + +At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being each +and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the +proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of +neverchanging space. + + +In what posture? + +Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right +leg extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the +attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator: +reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index +finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in +the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the +childman weary, the manchild in the womb. + + +Womb? Weary? + +He rests. He has travelled. + + +With? + +Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and +Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and +Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad +the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the +Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer. + + +When? + +Going to dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc's auk's +egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the +Brightdayler. + + +Where? + + + +Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his +breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the _City Arms_ hotel +when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his +highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan +that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing +all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually +afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her +ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes +and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the +world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks +of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because +no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder +she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman +certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there +I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and +always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like +that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too +hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything +really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into +a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it +into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing +on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun +maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes +because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman +to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that +dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at +the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore that dress +Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the +bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with +her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to +never see thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard +a bit grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and +dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed +get bloodpoisoning but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see what +attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble +they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its +not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those +night women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he +made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me who did I +meet ah yes I met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see +that big babbyface I saw him and he not long married flirting with a +young girl at Pooles Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked +out looking quite conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make +up to me one time well done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of +all the big stupoes I ever met and thats called a solicitor only for +I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some +little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the +sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before +yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the +front room to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told +me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking +about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks +she has a softy in him because all men get a bit like that at his age +especially getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle any money she +can out of him no fool like an old fool and then the usual kissing my +bottom was to hide it not that I care two straws now who he does it with +or knew before that way though Id like to find out so long as I dont +have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary +we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad +enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice +I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the +long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen +pretending he was drinking water 1 woman is not enough for them it was +all his fault of course ruining servants then proposing that she could +eat at our table on Christmas day if you please O no thank you not in my +house stealing my potatoes and the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see +her aunt if you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had +something on with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he +said you have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of +oysters but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to +be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I +found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a little +bit too much her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her her +weeks notice I saw to that better do without them altogether do out the +rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt +I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even +touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven +like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the place in +the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he couldnt +possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last +time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a +great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another +I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back +singing the young May moon shes beaming love because he has an idea +about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to +the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case +God knows hes a change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the +same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do +it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with +him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn +red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down +on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour +question and answer would you do this that and the other with the +coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some dean +or bishop was sitting beside me in the jews temples gardens when I was +knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and +so on about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging +him making him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are +you thinking of who is it tell me his name who tell me who the german +Emperor is it yes imagine Im him think of him can you feel him trying to +make a whore of me what he never will he ought to give it up now at this +age of his life simply ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it +pretending to like it till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway +and it makes your lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with +all the talk of the world about it people make its only the first time +after that its just the ordinary do it and think no more about it why +cant you kiss a man without going and marrying him first you sometimes +love to wildly when you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help +yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there +and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to +your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used +to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did +where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your +person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was +it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and +have done with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever +way he put it I forget no father and I always think of the real father +what did he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had +a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither +would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know +me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed +never turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre +lost for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone +them Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of +incense off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if +youre married hes too careful about himself then give something to H +H the pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I +didnt like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall +though I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking +of his fathers I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in +it who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of +drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick +their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking green +and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with the +opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American that +had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to +keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took the +port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely +and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped +straight into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful to us +I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us when I +blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in +Gibraltar as if the world was coming to an end and then they come and +tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing +about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that +evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it brought +its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to church +mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only grey +matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I lit the +lamp because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red +brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they +call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took +off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and +perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar +standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he +was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had +one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole +sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the +middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all +they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had +to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in +him when I made him pull out and do it on me considering how big it is +so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last +time I let him finish it in me nice invention they made for women for +him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch of it +themselves theyd know what I went through with Milly nobody would +believe cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys husband give us a swing +out of your whiskers filling her up with a child or twins once a year +as regular as the clock always with a smell of children off her the one +they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock of hair on +it Jesusjack the child is a black the last time I was there a squad of +them falling over one another and bawling you couldnt hear your ears +supposed to be healthy not satisfied till they have us swollen out like +elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked having another not off +him though still if he was married Im sure hed have a fine strong child +but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly +I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about +me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll +do him any good I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene +he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons +housewarming and then he wanted to ram it down my neck it was on account +of not liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup +row over politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a +carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive about +everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for I knew +he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he annoyed me +so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot of mixedup +things especially about the body and the inside I often wanted to study +up that myself what we have inside us in that family physician I could +always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded and watch him +after that I pretended I had a coolness on with her over him because he +used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked who are you going +to and I said over to Floey and he made me the present of Byron's poems +and the three pairs of gloves so that finished that I could quite easily +get him to make it up any time I know how Id even supposing he got in +with her again and was going out to see her somewhere Id know if he +refused to eat the onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the +collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going out I +kiss then would send them all spinning however alright well see then let +him go to her she of course would only be too delighted to pretend shes +mad in love with him that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and +ask her do you love him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool +me but he might imagine he was and make a declaration to her with his +plabbery kind of a manner like he did to me though I had the devils own +job to get it out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could +hold in and wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking +me too the night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres +something I want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was +in a temper with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let +out too much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let +him know more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me +Josie whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and +when I said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me and did +you wash possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on +thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on +the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what +spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at +that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked though he +was too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged +afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of +laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling +out one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great +humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it +meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us +not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault +she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes +got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her +face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she +must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment she +was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk about him +to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes he used to +go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him just imagine +having to get into bed with a thing like that that might murder you +any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes mad Poldy +anyhow whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes +in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes +off his hat when he comes up in the street like then and now hes going +about in his slippers to look for 10000 pounds for a postcard U p up +O sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff to +extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what +could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than marry +another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to +put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and he knows +that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned +her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man yes it was +found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do a thing +like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad +and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them +for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on +without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I +wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek +leave us as wise as we were before she must have been madly in love with +the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if +that was her nature what could she do besides theyre not brutes enough +to go and hang a woman surely are they + +theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he +noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C +with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both +ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his +two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was +what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches +he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all +myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I +did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after +some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish times +lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs +Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning +door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea 2 days +after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him because I was +crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the shoes +that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that if I only had a +ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick him for one +and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him spend +once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so cold +and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire +wasnt black out when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the +hearthrug in Lombard street west and another time it was my muddy boots +hed like me to walk in all the horses dung I could find but of course +hes not natural like the rest of the world that I what did he say I +could give 9 points in 10 to Katty Lanner and beat her what does that +mean I asked him I forget what he said because the stoppress edition +just passed and the man with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so +polite I think I saw his face before somewhere I noticed him when I was +tasting the butter so I took my time Bartell dArcy too that he used to +make fun of when he commenced kissing me on the choir stairs after I +sang Gounods _Ave Maria_ what are we waiting for O my heart kiss me +straight on the brow and part which is my brown part he was pretty hot +for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was always raving about if +you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth singing then he +said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that I dont see +anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day not now +and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very place +too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing +can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till we +were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was +lo times worse himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off +my drawers that was the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed +me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off asking me questions +is it permitted to enquire the shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it +as if I forgot it to think of me when I saw him slip it into his pocket +of course hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen +always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their +skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I were out with +him at the open air fete that one in the cream muslin standing right +against the sun so he could see every atom she had on when he saw me +from behind following in the rain I saw him before he saw me however +standing at the corner of the Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on +him with the muffler in the Zingari colours to show off his complexion +and the brown hat looking slyboots as usual what was he doing there +where hed no business they can go and get whatever they like from +anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions but +they want to know where were you where are you going I could feel him +coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been keeping +away from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I +halfturned and stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my +glove slowly watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for +the rain anything for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers +the whole blessed time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll +to carry about in his waistcoat pocket _O Maria Santisima_ he did look +a big fool dreeping in the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me +hungry to look at them and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat +I had on with the sunray pleats that there was nobody he said hed kneel +down in the wet if I didnt so persevering he would too and ruin his new +raincoat you never know what freak theyd take alone with you theyre so +savage for it if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit and touched +his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring hand +to keep him from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find +out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want +to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it and father +waiting all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in +the butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me +that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face to any +woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we met +asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw I +wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henny Doyle he was +always breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky +man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake +dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course +it used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in +Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children +seeing it too young then writing every morning a letter sometimes twice +a day I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman +when he sent me the 8 big poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote +the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it +simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he never knew how to +embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the +same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the door you +think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or +the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface +Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after +dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me +professor I had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his +way it was impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you +have to peep out through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought +it was a putoff first him sending the port and the peaches first and I +was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a +fool of me when I knew his tattarrattat at the door he must have been +a bit late because it was l/4 after 3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls +coming from school I never know the time even that watch he gave me +never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after when I threw +the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty when I was +whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even put on my +clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were to go +to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary +the 27th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel +were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt +tell him to stop and not bother me with him in the next room or perhaps +some protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the wall then hed +never believe the next day we didnt do something its all very well a +husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we never did +anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes going where +he is besides something always happens with him the time going to the +Mallow concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for the two of +us then the bell rang out he walks down the platform with the soup +splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he the nerve and the waiter +after him making a holy show of us screeching and confusion for the +engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the two gentlemen +in the 3rd class carriage said he was quite right so he was too hes so +pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job he was +able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us on +to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting +in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take +a 1st class for me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the +guard well O I suppose therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at +us with their eyes as stupid as ever they can possibly be that was an +exceptional man that common workman that left us alone in the carriage +that day going to Howth Id like to find out something about him l or 2 +tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the window all the nicer +then coming back suppose I never came back what would they say eloped +with him that gets you on on the stage the last concert I sang at where +its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall Clarendon St little +chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney and her like +on account of father being in the army and my singing the absentminded +beggar and wearing a brooch for Lord Roberts when I had the map of it +all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I wouldnt +put it past him like he got me on to sing in the _Stabat Mater_ by going +around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to +that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano +lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about +with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves +talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed +me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffiths is he +well he doesnt look it thats all I can say still it must have been him +he knew there was a boycott I hate the mention of their politics after +the war that Pretoria and Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner lieut +Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd East Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely +fellow in khaki and just the right height over me Im sure he was brave +too he said I was lovely the evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock +my Irish beauty he was pale with excitement about going away or wed be +seen from the road he couldnt stand properly and I so hot as I never +felt they could have made their peace in the beginning or old oom Paul +and the rest of the other old Krugers go and fight it out between them +instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were +with their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so +bad I love to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the +Spanish cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay +from Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham +battles on the 15 acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the +march past the 10th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O the +lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made his +money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me a +nice present up in Belfast after what I gave him theyve lovely linen up +there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like I +had before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going +round with him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave +this ring behind want to keep turning and turning to get it over the +knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in their papers or +tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let them all go and +smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of money and hes +not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I could find +out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when I looked +close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the expression +besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big +hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having +to lie down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way +Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and +stick out her tongue as far as ever she could and he so quiet and mild +with his tingating cither can you ever be up to men the way it takes +them lovely stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish tie and socks +with the skyblue silk things on them hes certainly well off I know by +the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he was like a perfect +devil for a few minutes after he came back with the stoppress tearing up +the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost 20 quid he said he lost +over that outsider that won and half he put on for me on account of +Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that sponger he was making +free with me after the Glencree dinner coming back that long joult over +the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor looking at me with his +dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert +when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked +every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so tasty +and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat +everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked +silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into +my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for +money in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to +be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be +noticed the way the world is divided in any case if its going to go on I +want at least two other good chemises for one thing and but I dont know +what kind of drawers he likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and +half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them either naked as God made +them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt make much secret of +what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette stockings is laddered +after one days wear I could have brought them back to Lewers this +morning and kicked up a row and made that one change them only not to +upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole +thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in +the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have +but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful figure line +11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower back to +reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the +stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from +ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they +call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a +bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get +anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or +I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good +might overdo it the thin ones are not so much the fashion now garters +that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats all he bought me +out of the cheque he got on the first O no there was the face lotion +I finished the last of yesterday that made my skin like new I told him +over and over again get that made up in the same place and dont forget +it God only knows whether he did after all I said to him 111 know by +the bottle anyway if not I suppose 111 only have to wash in my piss like +beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet I thought +it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath is much +finer where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a pity +it isnt all like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about 6/- in all +sure you cant get on in this world without style all going in food and +rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style I always +want to throw a handful of tea into the pot measuring and mincing if +I buy a pair of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes how +much were they Ive no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and +jacket and the one at the cleaners 3 whats that for any woman cutting +up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look at you and +women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with all +the things getting dearer every day for the 4 years more I have of life +up to 35 no Im what am I at all 111 be 33 in September will I what O +well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when +I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman +magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it back like +that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street 1st thing I did every morning +to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of it +pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that Mrs Langtry +the jersey lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes like +the first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all +made the one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what +was she 45 there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what +was it at all and an oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind +of a tin thing round her and the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster +knife cant be true a thing like that like some of those books he brings +me the works of Master Francois Somebody supposed to be a priest about +a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for +any priest to write and her a--e as if any fool wouldnt know what that +meant I hate that pretending of all things with that old blackguards +face on him anybody can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair Tyrants +he brought me that twice I remember when I came to page 5 o the part +about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate +sure theres nothing for a woman in that all invention made up about he +drinking the champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over like +the infant Jesus in the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms +sure no woman could have a child that big taken out of her and I thought +first it came out of her side because how could she go to the chamber +when she wanted to and she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H R H +he was in Gibraltar the year I was born I bet he found lilies there too +where he planted the tree he planted more than that in his time he might +have planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as +I am he ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings +he knocks out of it and go into an office or something where hed get +regular pay or a bank where they could put him up on a throne to count +the money all the day of course he prefers plottering about the house +so you cant stir with him any side whats your programme today I wish hed +even smoke a pipe like father to get the smell of a man or pretending +to be mooching about for advertisements when he could have been in Mr +Cuffes still only for what he did then sending me to try and patch it up +I could have got him promoted there to be the manager he gave me a great +mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as the mischief really and +truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress +that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre +coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was +no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Bums +as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a +lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me +altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and +cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if +I went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes +take that thats alright the one like a weddingcake standing up miles +off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my +backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton +street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as +ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too +much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was +awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked +Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very +hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of +him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me +without making it too marked the first time after him being insulted and +me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I know my chest was +out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry and Im sure you +were + +yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he +made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow +stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up +and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him +what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the same +in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there +like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with +her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks +like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down out of +him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a +cabbageleaf that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or +that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue +of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing +standing out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one side the +Queens own they were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved them +theyre always trying to show it to you every time nearly I passed +outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street station just to +try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye as if it was I of the +7 wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night +coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade +to make you feel nice and watery I went into r of them it was so biting +cold I couldnt keep it when was that 93 the canal was frozen yes it was +a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see +me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a picture of +it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not +afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang of something there the +woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a +picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the +job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee +palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes only +shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish photo +he has nymphs used they go about like that I asked him about her and +that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some +jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply +the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of +the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his +teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent +they fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly +enough for two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a +pound a week as a wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate +looking student that stopped in no 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly +caught me washing through the window only for I snapped up the towel to +my face that was his studenting hurt me they used to weaning her till he +got doctor Brady to give me the belladonna prescription I had to get him +to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter and thicker than +cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond everything I +declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only could remember +the I half of the things and write a book out of it the works of Master +Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an hour he was at them +Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant I had at me they +want everything in their mouth all the pleasure those men get out of a +woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch myself I wished he was +here or somebody to let myself go with and come again like that I feel +all fire inside me or if I could dream it when he made me spend the 2nd +time tickling me behind with his finger I was coming for about 5 minutes +with my legs round him I had to hug him after O Lord I wanted to shout +out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to look +ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way hed take it you +want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank God some +of them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does +it and doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose +from the tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage +brute Thursday Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait +till Monday + +frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those engines +have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out of +them all sides like the end of Loves old sweeeetsonnnng the poor men +that have to be out all the night from their wives and families in those +roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half of +those old Freemans and Photo Bits leaving things like that lying about +hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C 111 +get him to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for +the next year to get a few pence for them have him asking wheres last +Januarys paper and all those old overcoats I bundled out of the hall +making the place hotter than it is that rain was lovely and refreshing +just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get like Gibraltar +my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black as night +and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared +with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with the red sentries +here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the smell of the +rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on +you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs Stanhope sent me from +the B Marche paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina she wrote on it +she was very nice whats this her other name was just a p c to tell you I +sent the little present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very +clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything +to be back in Gib and hear you sing Waiting and in old Madrid Concone +is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word +I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing +still there lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas +we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore +well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out +regards to your father also captain Grove with love yrs affly Hester x +x x x x she didnt look a bit married just like a girl he was years older +than her wogger he was awfully fond of me when he held down the wire +with his foot for me to step over at the bullfight at La Linea when +that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear these clothes we have to wear +whoever invented them expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for +example at that picnic all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in +them in a crowd run or jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when +that other ferocious old Bull began to charge the banderilleros with +the sashes and the 2 things in their hats and the brutes of men shouting +bravo toro sure the women were as bad in their nice white mantillas +ripping all the whole insides out of those poor horses I never heard of +such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his heart at me taking +off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became +of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all +through a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had +everything all to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair +mine was thicker than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back +when I put it up and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with +the one hand we were like cousins what age was I then the night of the +storm I slept in her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting +in the morning with the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he +got an opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with +father and captain Grove I looked up at the church first and then at the +windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me like +all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked +at myself in the glass hardly recognised myself the change he was +attractive to a girl in spite of his being a little bald intelligent +looking disappointed and gay at the same time he was like Thomas in +the shadow of Ashlydyat I had a splendid skin from the sun and the +excitement like a rose I didnt get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been +nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me +the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East +Lynne I read and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by +that other woman I lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he +see I wasnt without and Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me +by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I dont like books with a Molly +in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders a whore +always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards of it +O this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent even one decent +nightdress this thing gets all rolled under me besides him and his +fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my shift +drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the chair +when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the sofa +cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night +and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems +centuries of course they never came back and she didnt put her address +right on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were always +going away and we never I remember that day with the waves and the +boats with their high heads rocking and the smell of ship those Officers +uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he was +very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing +she kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near +it my lips were taittering when I said goodbye she had a Gorgeous wrap +of some special kind of blue colour on her for the voyage made very +peculiarly to one side like and it was extremely pretty it got as dull +as the devil after they went I was almost planning to run away mad out +of it somewhere were never easy where we are father or aunt or marriage +waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me waiting nor speeeed +his flying feet their damn guns bursting and booming all over the shop +especially the Queens birthday and throwing everything down in all +directions if you didnt open the windows when general Ulysses Grant +whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the +ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood +dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old +bugles for reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate +poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins smelling the place +more than the old longbearded jews in their jellibees and levites +assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men to cross the lines and +the warden marching with his keys to lock the gates and the bagpipes and +only captain Groves and father talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and +sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum lighting their pipes for +them everytime they went out drunken old devil with his grog on the +windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking his nose trying to think +of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner but he never forgot +himself when I was there sending me out of the room on some blind excuse +paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking of course but hed +do the same to the next woman that came along I suppose he died of +galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a living +soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them so +bored sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab +with the one eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah +aheah all my compriments on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now +with the hands hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a +nice fellow even in the opposite house that medical in Holles street the +nurse was after when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show +I was going out not a notion what I meant arent they thick never +understand what you say even youd want to print it up on a big poster +for them not even if you shake hands twice with the left he didnt +recognise me either when I half frowned at him outside Westland row +chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know +grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me those country +gougers up in the City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less than +the bulls and cows they were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that +noisy bugger trying to swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of his +hat what a pair of paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken +bottles for a poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his +cheques or some advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him +addressed dear Madam only his letter and the card from Milly this +morning see she wrote a letter to him who did I get the last letter from +O Mrs Dwenn now what possessed her to write from Canada after so many +years to know the recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since +she wrote to say she was married to a very rich architect if Im to +believe all I hear with a villa and eight rooms her father was an +awfully nice man he was near seventy always goodhumoured well now Miss +Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the piannyer that was a solid silver +coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far +away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody +has their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute +neumonia well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend +more than mine poor Nancy its a bother having to answer he always tells +me the wrong things and no stops to say like making a speech your sad +bereavement symphathy I always make that mistake and newphew with 2 +double yous in I hope hell write me a longer letter the next time if its +a thing he really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody +to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no +chances at all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody +would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write +what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid stuff silly women +believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered +be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life +always something to think about every moment and see it all round you +like a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me +short just a few words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used +to write to the fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted +her after out of the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few +simple words he could twist how he liked not acting with precipat precip +itancy with equal candour the greatest earthly happiness answer to a +gentlemans proposal affirmatively my goodness theres nothing else its +all very fine for them but as for being a woman as soon as youre old +they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit. + +Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio +brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her +to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin +to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her +in the face with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her +appearance ugly as she was near 80 or a loo her face a mass of wrinkles +with all her religion domineering because she never could get over the +Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world and the Union Jack +flying with all her carabineros because 4 drunken English sailors took +all the rock from them and because I didnt run into mass often enough in +Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there was +a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black blessed +virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter +Sunday morning and when the priest was going by with the bell bringing +the vatican to the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an admirer +he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him up when +I saw him following me along the Calle Real in the shop window then +he tipped me just in passing but I never thought hed write making an +appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it up +in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill instructing to +find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I remember +shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock to +near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my +sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till +he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my +knee up to him a few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was +engaged for for fun to the son of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de +la Flora and he believed me that I was to be married to him in 3 years +time theres many a true word spoken in jest there is a flower that +bloometh a few things I told him true about myself just for him to be +imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I suppose one of them wouldnt +have him I got him excited he crushed all the flowers on my bosom he +brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the perragordas till I +taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the black water but it was +too short then the day before he left May yes it was May when the infant +king of Spain was born Im always like that in the spring Id like a new +fellow every year up on the tiptop under the rockgun near OHaras tower +I told him it was struck by lightning and all about the old Barbary apes +they sent to Clapham without a tail careering all over the show on each +others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock scorpion robbing +the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you went anear +he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open in the front to +encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just +beginning to be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove +a wild place I suppose it must be the highest rock in existence the +galleries and casemates and those frightful rocks and Saint Michaels +cave with the icicles or whatever they call them hanging down and +ladders all the mud plotching my boots Im sure thats the way down the +monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die the ships out far like +chips that was the Malta boat passing yes the sea and the sky you could +do what you liked lie there for ever he caressed them outside they love +doing that its the roundness there I was leaning over him with my white +ricestraw hat to take the newness out of it the left side of my face the +best my blouse open for his last day transparent kind of shirt he had I +could see his chest pink he wanted to touch mine with his for a moment +but I wouldnt lee him he was awfully put out first for fear you never +know consumption or leave me with a child embarazada that old servant +Ines told me that one drop even if it got into you at all after I tried +with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and get lost up in me +somewhere because they once took something down out of a woman that was +up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to get in there +where they come out of youd think they could never go far enough up and +then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes because theres +a wonderful feeling there so tender all the time how did we finish it +off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to +be excited but I opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my +petticoat because I had a skirt opening up the side I tormented the +life out of him first tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel +rrrsssstt awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was +shy all the same I liked him like that moaning I made him blush a little +when I got over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and +drew back the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men +down the middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me +what was his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant +he was rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went round to +the whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said +hed come back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married +hed do it to me and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me +now flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a captain or admiral its nearly +20 years if I said firtree cove he would if he came up behind me and +put his hands over my eyes to guess who I might recognise him hes young +still about 40 perhaps hes married some girl on the black water and is +quite changed they all do they havent half the character a woman has she +little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he ever dreamt +of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you might +say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I was a bit +wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from Benady +Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons +screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round +by the old guardhouse and the jews burialplace pretending to read out +the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he +didnt know what to make of me with his peak cap on that he always wore +crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat +that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans +higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak +caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I +suppose theyre called after him I never thought that would be my +name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it looked on a +visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M Bloom youre +looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better +than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with bottom in them +Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad +about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my mother whoever she +was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows after the lovely +one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along Williss road to +Europa point twisting in and out all round the other side of Jersey they +were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like Millys little ones now +when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at them I was jumping +up at the pepper trees and the white poplars pulling the leaves off and +throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the voyages those +men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least they +might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be +drowned or blown up somewhere I went up Windmill hill to the flats +that Sunday morning with captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the +sentry had he said hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock +from the B Marche paris and the coral necklace the straits shining I +could see over to Morocco almost the bay of Tangier white and the Atlas +mountain with snow on it and the straits like a river so clear Harry +Molly darling I was thinking of him on the sea all the time after at +mass when my petticoat began to slip down at the elevation weeks and +weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for the smell of him there +was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar only that cheap peau +dEspagne that faded and left a stink on you more than anything else I +wanted to give him a memento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh ring for +luck that I gave Gardner going to south Africa where those Boers killed +him with their war and fever but they were well beaten all the same as +if it brought its bad luck with it like an opal or pearl still it must +have been pure 18 carrot gold because it was very heavy but what could +you get in a place like that the sandfrog shower from Africa and that +derelict ship that came up to the harbour Marie the Marie whatyoucallit +no he hadnt a moustache that was Gardner yes I can see his face +cleanshaven Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone +once in the dear deaead days beyondre call close my eyes breath my lips +forward kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began +I hate that istsbeg comes loves sweet sooooooooooong Ill let that out +full when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney +and her lot of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of +sparrowfarts skitting around talking about politics they know as much +about as my backside anything in the world to make themselves someway +interesting Irish homemade beauties soldiers daughter am I ay and whose +are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon coach I thought you +were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if ever they got +a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like me on the +bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help their +poor head I knew more about men and life when I was I S than theyll all +know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no +man could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that and not think of +it I was afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father +left me in spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow +he always said theyre so snotty about themselves some of those cads he +wasnt a bit like that he was dead gone on my lips let them get a husband +first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they +can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants +like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each others arms or the +voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes +looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys +Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and +vaunted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave +after the choirstairs performance Ill change that lace on my black dress +to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get that big fan mended make +them burst with envy my hole is itching me always when I think of him I +feel I want to I feel some wind in me better go easy not wake him have +him at it again slobbering after washing every bit of myself back belly +and sides if we had even a bath itself or my own room anyway I wish hed +sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give us room even +to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them like that +a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away +pianissimo eeeee one more song + +that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if +that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the +heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in +the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill +my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all +night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see +why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter its +more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was +only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes +dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those +mountains the something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with +the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing +about in it then make a race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite +used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out in the +summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love myself then +stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to the +chamber performance I put out the light too so then there were 2 of us +goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get in +with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming +in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners +not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night squandering +money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink water then he +starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea and Findon haddy and hot +buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like the king of +the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down in his egg +wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling up the +stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then play +with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she +fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their +claws I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like that when +she sits at the top of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always +what a robber too that lovely fresh place I bought I think Ill get a bit +of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange +with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum +and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as +far only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece +of cod Im always getting enough for 3 forgetting anyway Im sick of that +everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin chops and leg beef and rib +steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very name is enough or +a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let him pay it and invite +some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drove out to the furry glen +or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails +first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes with +some cold veal and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down +at the bottom of the banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he +says not a bank holiday anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes +out for the day Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit +him better the seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat +with him after him at Bray telling the boatman he knew how to row if +anyone asked could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say +yes then it came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the +weight all down my side telling me pull the right reins now pull the +left and the tide all swamping in floods in through the bottom and his +oar slipping out of the stirrup its a mercy we werent all drowned he can +swim of course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in +his flannel trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before +all the people and give him what that one calls flagellate till he was +black and blue do him all the good in the world only for that longnosed +chap I dont know who he is with that other beauty Burke out of the City +Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on the slip always where he +wasnt wanted if there was a row on youd vomit a better face there was no +love lost between us thats 1 consolation I wonder what kind is that book +he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de +Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his +tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white shoes +all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all +blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell of +the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay +round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens +baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall +old chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to climb up to to +get at I suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago besides I dont like +being alone in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have +to put up with it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved +in the confusion musical academy he was going to make on the first floor +drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go +and ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like +all the things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw +through him telling me all the lovely places we could go for the +honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he +had a picture cut out of some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O +how nice I said whatever I liked he was going to do immediately if +not sooner will you be my man will you carry my can he ought to get a +leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he invents then leaving +us here all day youd never know what old beggar at the door for a crust +with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to +prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he +was called in Lloyds Weekly news 20 years in jail then he comes out and +murders an old woman for her money imagine his poor wife or mother or +whoever she is such a face youd run miles away from I couldnt rest easy +till I bolted all the doors and windows to make sure but its worse again +being locked up like in a prison or a madhouse they ought to be all shot +or the cat of nine tails a big brute like that that would attack a poor +old woman to murder her in her bed Id cut them off him so I would not +that hed be much use still better than nothing the night I was sure +I heard burglars in the kitchen and he went down in his shirt with a +candle and a poker as if he was looking for a mouse as white as a sheet +frightened out of his wits making as much noise as he possibly could +for the burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows +still its the feeling especially now with Milly away such an idea for +him to send the girl down there to learn to take photographs on account +of his grandfather instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed +have to learn not like me getting all IS at school only hed do a thing +like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did +it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn +round with her in the place lately unless I bolted the door first gave +me the fidgets coming in without knocking first when I put the chair +against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove +get on your nerves then doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase +with two at a time to look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off +that little gimcrack statue with her roughness and carelessness before +she left that I got that little Italian boy to mend so that you cant +see the join for 2 shillings wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of +course shes right not to ruin her hands I noticed he was always talking +to her lately at the table explaining things in the paper and she +pretending to understand sly of course that comes from his side of the +house he cant say I pretend things can he Im too honest as a matter of +fact and helping her into her coat but if there was anything wrong with +her its me shed tell not him I suppose he thinks Im finished out and +laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see +now shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating +me whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly +come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her +round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well +he sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to +go on the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I +smelt it off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button +I sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I +tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a +parting and the last plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes out +no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste +your blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle +blackbottom and I had to tell her not to cock her legs up like that on +show on the windowsill before all the people passing they all look at +her like me when I was her age of course any old rag looks well on +you then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the Only Way in the +Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people touching +me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of that +touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always +trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the Gaiety for +Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed +like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me +there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to +get near two stylishdressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same +little game I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but +he didnt remember me yes and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the +Broadstone going away well I hope shell get someone to dance attendance +on her the way I did when she was down with the mumps and her glands +swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she cant feel anything +deep yet I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it went into the +wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling that +Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with +sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he +looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and +supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man +gives up his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are a +few men like that left its hard to believe in it though unless it really +happened to me the majority of them with not a particle of love in their +natures to find two people like that nowadays full up of each other that +would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit foolish in the +head his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison himself +after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost shes always making +love to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to put her hair up +at I S my powder too only ruin her skin on her shes time enough for that +all her life after of course shes restless knowing shes pretty with her +lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too but theres no use +going to the fair with the thing answering me like a fishwoman when +I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we met Mrs Joe +Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to see us in her +trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I gave her 2 +damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering +me like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of +course contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was +a weed in the tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it +and I told her over and over again not to leave knives crossed like that +because she has nobody to command her as she said herself well if he +doesnt correct her faith I will that was the last time she turned on the +teartap I was just like that myself they darent order me about the place +its his fault of course having the two of us slaving here instead of +getting in a woman long ago am I ever going to have a proper servant +again of course then shed see him coming Id have to let her know or shed +revenge it arent they a nuisance that old Mrs Fleming you have to be +walking round after her putting the things into her hands sneezing and +farting into the pots well of course shes old she cant help it a good +job I found that rotten old smelly dishcloth that got lost behind the +dresser I knew there was something and opened the area window to let out +the smell bringing in his friends to entertain them like the night he +walked home with a dog if you please that might have been mad especially +Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser with his glasses up with +his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great big hole in his +sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all those +prizes for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing +over the railings if anybody saw him that knew us I wonder he didnt tear +a big hole in his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt +enough for anybody hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he +right in his head I ask pity it wasnt washing day my old pair of drawers +might have been hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed +ever care with the ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them +he might think was something else and she never even rendered down the +fat I told her and now shes going such as she was on account of her +paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong with them +disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its +drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every +day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im +stretched out dead in my grave I suppose 111 have some peace I want to +get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on +me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting +and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday +wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men +do God knows theres always something wrong with us 5 days every 3 or 4 +weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came +on me like that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn +gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he +did about insurance for him in Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I +wouldnt give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with +his glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his +soul thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I +could all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to +sit it out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in +a hurry supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the +gallery hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and +had a woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after +to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the cat +itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O +patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make +me pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets I just +put on I suppose the clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn +it and they always want to see a stain on the bed to know youre a virgin +for them all thats troubling them theyre such fools too you could be a +widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink would do or blackberry +juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh sweets of +sin whoever suggested that business for women what between clothes and +cooking and children this damned old bed too jingling like the dickens +I suppose they could hear us away over the other side of the park till I +suggested to put the quilt on the floor with the pillow under my bottom +I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I think Ill cut +all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a young girl +wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my clothes on +me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a +holy horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder +was I too heavy sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair +purposely when I took off only my blouse and skirt first in the other +room he was so busy where he oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my +breath was sweet after those kissing comfits easy God I remember one +time I could scout it out straight whistling like a man almost easy O +Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for a wad of money from some +fellow 111 have to perfume it in the morning dont forget I bet he +never saw a better pair of thighs than that look how white they are the +smoothest place is right there between this bit here how soft like a +peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman +O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey lily easy easy O how the +waters come down at Lahore + +who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I +something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when was +it last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to go to the +doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that white +thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr +Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I +suppose thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round +those rich ones off Stephens green running up to him for every little +fiddlefaddle her vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of course so +theyre all right I wouldnt marry him not if he was the last man in +the world besides theres something queer about their children always +smelling around those filthy bitches all sides asking me if what I did +had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but the one thing gold +maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly old face +for him with all my compriments I suppose hed know then and could you +pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the rock of +Gibraltar the way he put it thats a very nice invention too by the +way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I can +squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles +still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by Millys +when she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the same +paying him for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and asking +me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words +they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked sideways I +wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what else +still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so +severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O +anything no matter who except an idiot he was clever enough to spot +that of course that was all thinking of him and his mad crazy letters +my Precious one everything connected with your glorious Body everything +underlined that comes from it is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever +something he got out of some nonsensical book that he had me always at +myself 4 and 5 times a day sometimes and I said I hadnt are you sure +O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut him up I knew what was +coming next only natural weakness it was he excited me I dont know how +the first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace we +stood staring at one another for about lo minutes as if we met somewhere +I suppose on account of my being jewess looking after my mother he used +to amuse me the things he said with the half sloothering smile on him +and all the Doyles said he was going to stand for a member of Parliament +O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his blather about home rule +and the land league sending me that long strool of a song out of the +Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O beau pays de la Touraine +that I never even sang once explaining and rigmaroling about religion +and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything naturally then might he +as a great favour the very 1st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton +square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his hands to +wash it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and the +gelatine still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day I better +not make an alnight sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a +natural size so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to +do it I suppose there isnt in all creation another man with the habits +he has look at the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he +without a hard bolster its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out +all my teeth breathing with his hand on his nose like that Indian god +he took me to show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all +yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes +sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and +Our Lords both put together all over Asia imitating him as hes always +imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed +too with his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking +thing anyway wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old +press doesnt creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time +somewhere still she must have given him great value for his money of +course he has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope +theyll have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves +up God help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly +bed always reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it +often enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used +to admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O +I like my bed God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many +houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard +street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on +the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the +men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse +and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always +somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them +always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right +something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr +Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old +lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives +impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the +Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the +freemasons then well see if the little man he showed me dribbling +along in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane will give him much +consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed +judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres +Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the hour l wait 2 oclock well +thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody +climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that +little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if +he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I +dont know deceitful men all their 20 pockets arent enough for their lies +then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you +then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece +he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life +without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more +with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the +kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another thing in +their empty heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then +tea and toast for him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose +Im nothing any more when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one +night man man tyrant as ever for the one thing he slept on the floor +half the night naked the way the jews used when somebody dies belonged +to them and wouldnt eat any breakfast or speak a word wanting to be +petted so I thought I stood out enough for one time and let him he does +it all wrong too thinking only of his own pleasure his tongue is too +flat or I dont know what he forgets that wethen I dont Ill make him do +it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock him down to sleep in the +coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it her Josie off her head +with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage +with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan though as for her +Denis as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you couldnt call +him a husband yes its some little bitch hes got in with even when I was +with him with Milly at the College races that Hornblower with the childs +bonnet on the top of his nob let us into by the back way he was throwing +his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried to +wink at him first no use of course and thats the way his money goes this +is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the +grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers +funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse +walking behind in black L Boom and Tom Kernan that drunken little +barrelly man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk +in some place or other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and +Fanny MCoys husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in +her eye trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and +her old green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other +way like dabbling on a rainy day I see it all now plainly and they call +that friendship killing and then burying one another and they all with +their wives and families at home more especially Jack Power keeping that +barmaid he does of course his wife is always sick or going to be sick +or just getting better of it and hes a goodlooking man still though +hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of them well +theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if I can +help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he goes +on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every +penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after his wife and +family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im sorry in a +way for him what are his wife and 5 children going to do unless he was +insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in some pub corner and +her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come home her widows +weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if +youre goodlooking what men wasnt he yes he was at the Glencree dinner +and Ben Dollard base barreltone the night he borrowed the swallowtail +to sing out of in Holles street squeezed and squashed into them and +grinning all over his big Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty +didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough that must have been a +spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the preserved seats for +that to see him trotting off in his trowlers and Simon Dedalus too he +was always turning up half screwed singing the second verse first the +old love is the new was one of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the +hawthorn bough he was always on for flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana +with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he had a delicious glorious +voice Phoebe dearest goodbye _sweet_heart sweetheart he always sang it +not like Bartell Darcy sweet tart goodbye of course he had the gift of +the voice so there was no art in it all over you like a warm showerbath +O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though it was a bit too +high for my register even transposed and he was married at the time to +May Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good out of +it hes a widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author +and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons +what is he driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I +ought to have got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion +still I look young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it +altogether and me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the +Kingsbridge station with his father and mother I was in mourning thats +11 years ago now yes hed be 11 though what was the good in going into +mourning for what was neither one thing nor the other the first cry was +enough for me I heard the deathwatch too ticking in the wall of course +he insisted hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by +this time he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his +lord Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I +saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember they all do wait by +God yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid +out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met +before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either +besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th card after +that the 10 of spades for a journey by land then there was a letter on +its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise +in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look +at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about +poetry in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or +standing up like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only +getting themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry +when I was a girl first I thought he was a poet like lord Byron and not +an ounce of it in his composition I thought he was quite different I +wonder is he too young hes about wait 88 I was married 88 Milly is 15 +yesterday 89 what age was he then at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I suppose +hes 20 or more Im not too old for him if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not +that stuckup university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting +down in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and talking of +course he pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was +out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not +a professor like Goodwin was he was a potent professor of John Jameson +they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont +find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where +poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully +coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point +the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will I ever go back +there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that +for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly +bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star +itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk +to about yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad +and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad then if anything goes wrong in their +business we have to suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to +meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those +fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathingplace from the +side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something +and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that +thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he +bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his shoulders +his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you +I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock +there so simple I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was +looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looks +with his boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if some of it went +down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed +be so clean compared with those pigs of men I suppose never dream of +washing it from I years end to the other the most of them only thats +what gives the women the moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I can only +get in with a handsome young poet at my age Ill throw them the 1st thing +in the morning till I see if the wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing +the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can +find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew who he likes so he wont think +me stupid if he thinks all women are the same and I can teach him the +other part Ill make him feel all over him till he half faints under +me then hell write about me lover and mistress publicly too with our 2 +photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous O but then what am +I going to do about him though + +no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no +nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because +I didnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a +cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place +pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so +barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar +way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a +butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course +hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might +as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something +better to say for himself an old Lion would O well I suppose its because +they were so plump and tempting in my short petticoat he couldnt resist +they excite myself sometimes its well for men all the amount of pleasure +they get off a womans body were so round and white for them always I +wished I was one myself for a change just to try with that thing they +have swelling up on you so hard and at the same time so soft when you +touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those cornerboys saying +passing the comer of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a thing hairy +because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it didnt make me +blush why should it either its only nature and he puts his thing long +into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be you put the handle +in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick and choose what they +please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl for their different +tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no but were to be +always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn fear +once I start I tell you for their stupid husbands jealousy why cant we +all remain friends over it instead of quarrelling her husband found it +out what they did together well naturally and if he did can he undo it +hes coronado anyway whatever he does and then he going to the other +mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of course the man never even +casts a 2nd thought on the husband or wife either its the woman he wants +and he gets her what else were we given all those desires for Id like to +know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a wonder Im not an old +shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold never embracing +me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not knowing I +suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat at +him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent I atom of any +kind of expression in us all of us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever +Id do that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought is enough +I kiss the feet of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss +our halldoor yes he did what a madman nobody understands his cracked +ideas but me still of course a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day +almost to make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love +or loved by somebody if the fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the +Lord God I was thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark +evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be +hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only do it off up in a gate +somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their +camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if +they could I only sent mine there a few times for the name model +laundry sending me back over and over some old ones odd stockings that +blackguardlooking fellow with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me +in the dark and ride me up against the wall without a word or a murderer +anybody what they do themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats +that K C lives up somewhere this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the +night he gave us the fish supper on account of winning over the boxing +match of course it was for me he gave it I knew him by his gaiters and +the walk and when I turned round a minute after just to see there was +a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he goes +home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors are +rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for +the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so +well he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if +he knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to +sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for +Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around +down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled +up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running Id just like +to see myself at it show them attention and they treat you like dirt +I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be +governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one +another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk +like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses +yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they +wouldnt be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to +be a woman and a mother how could they where would they all of them be +if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I never had thats +why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from his books +and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowy house I +suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like that +theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my +fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind +in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I +suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I +knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well +Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same +since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any +more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I felt all the time it was +somebody strange he brought in instead of roving around the city meeting +God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt +like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps still its a +lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the air of +the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants +what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I +hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a +dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us +so snappy Im not like that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa +in the other room I suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young +hardly 20 of me in the next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah +what harm Dedalus I wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz +Delagracia they had the devils queer names there father Vilaplana of +Santa Maria that gave me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las +Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a +name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like +her O my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and +Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small +blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I +dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round +any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I havent +forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the +name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel +cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all +upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can +tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not +so ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead +tired and wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his +breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on +the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the +watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the +kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines +I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the +other way you see something was telling me all the time Id have to +introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his +wife or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods +notion where he is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things +come into my head sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us +why not theres the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room +he could do his writing and studies at the table in there for all the +scribbling he does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning +like me as hes making the breakfast for I he can make it for 2 Im sure +Im not going to take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes +a gesabo of a house like this Id love to have a long talk with an +intelligent welleducated person Id have to get a nice pair of red +slippers like those Turks with the fez used to sell or yellow and a +nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a peachblossom +dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or 18/6 Ill +just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im sick of +Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all +the vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of +splendid fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st +man Id meet theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used +to say they are and the night too that was her massgoing Id love a +big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth like when I used to be in the +longing way then Ill throw him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup +she gave him to make his mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream +too I know what Ill do Ill go about rather gay not too much singing a +bit now and then mi fa pieta Masetto then Ill start dressing myself to +go out presto non son piu forte Ill put on my best shift and drawers let +him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him Ill +let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is I s l o fucked yes +and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times +handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt +bother to even iron it out that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe +me feel my belly unless I made him stand there and put him into me Ive a +mind to tell him every scrap and make him do it out in front of me serve +him right its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in +the gallery said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in +this vale of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they +hide it I suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or +He wouldnt have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he +wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out +in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole +as hes there my brown part then Ill tell him I want LI or perhaps 30/- +Ill tell him I want to buy underclothes then if he gives me that well he +wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all out of him like other women +do I could often have written out a fine cheque for myself and write his +name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he forgot to lock it up +besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me behind provided he +doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do +the indifferent l or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes like +that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my +bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or +the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait +now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O +but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldnt know +which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have +to wear the old things so much the better itll be more pointed hell +never know whether he did it or not there thats good enough for you +any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me just like a business his +omission then Ill go out Ill have him eying up at the ceiling where is +she gone now make him want me thats the only way a quarter after what an +unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out +their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus +theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two +for his night office or the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering +the brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what +kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper +in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that +something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again +so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and +get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he +brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first +I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im +asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I +must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear +a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich +big shop at 7 1/2d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them +and the pinky sugar I Id a couple of lbs of those a nice plant for the +middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them +not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in +roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then +the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields +of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going +about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers +all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the +ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no +God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why +dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever +they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then +they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre +afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them +well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody +that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you +are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun +shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on +Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to +propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth +and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long +kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain +yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he +said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I +liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew +I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could +leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first +only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many +things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and +old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop +and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front +of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil +half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their +tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and +the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and +Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons +and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the +cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts +of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those +handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit +down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the +posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron +and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we +missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his +lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson +sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the +Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink +and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and +geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower +of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian +girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the +Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked +him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to +say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and +drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his +heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. + +Trieste-Zurich-Paris 1914-1921 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulysses, by James Joyce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULYSSES *** + +***** This file should be named 4300-8.txt or 4300-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/4300/ + +Produced by Col Choat + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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