THE USE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE.
There was no change in the appearance of the family, save that mother
and daughters had put on stockings and flannel waistcoats taken out
of the parcel, and two new blankets were thrown on the beds. The man
had evidently just returned, for he was out of breath; his daughters
were seated near the chimney-piece on the ground, the elder tying
up the younger's hand. The mother was crouching on the bed near the
fire-place, with an astonished face, while Jondrette was walking up and
down the room with long strides and extraordinary eyes. The woman, who
seemed frightened and struck with stupor before him, ventured to say,--
"What, really, are you sure?"
"Sure! it is eight years ago, but I can recognize him! I recognized him
at once. What I did it not strike you?"
"No."
"And yet I said to you, 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, his
face, very little older,--for there are some people who never age,
though I do not know how they manage it,--and the sound of his voice.
He is better dressed, that's all! Ah! you mysterious old villain, I
hold you!"
He stopped and said to his daughters,--
"Be off, you two!--It is funny that it did not strike you."
They rose to obey, and the mother stammered,--
"With her bad hand?"
"The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Off with you!"
It was evident that this man was one of those who are not answered. The
girls went out, but just as they passed the door the father clutched
the elder by the arm, and said, with a peculiar accent,--
"You will be here at five o'clock precisely, both of you, for I shall
want you."
Marius redoubled his attention. When left alone with his wife,
Jondrette began walking up and down room again, and took two or three
turns in silence. Then he spent several minutes thrusting the tail of
the chemise which he wore into his trousers. All at once he turned to
his wife, folded his arms, and exclaimed,--
"And shall I tell you something? The young lady--"
"Well, what?" the wife retorted.
Marius could not doubt, they were really talking about her. He listened
with ardent anxiety, and all his life was in his ears. But Jondrette
had stooped down, and was whispering to his wife. Then he rose, and
ended aloud,--
"It is she."
"That one?" the wife asked.
"That one!" said the husband.
No expression could render all there was in the mother's _that one_;
it was surprise, rage, hatred, and passion mingled and combined in a
monstrous intonation. A few words, doubtless a name which her husband
whispered in her ear, were sufficient to arouse this fat, crushed
woman, and to make her more than repulsive and frightful.
"It is not possible," she exclaimed; "when I think that my daughters
go about barefooted, and have not a gown to put on! What! a satin
pelisse, a velvet bonnet, clothes worth more than two hundred francs,
so that you might take her for a lady! No, you are mistaken; and then,
the other was hideous, while this one is not ugly, indeed, rather
good-looking. Oh, it cannot be!"
"And I tell you that it is; you will see."
At this absolute assertion the woman raised her large red and white
face and looked at the ceiling with a hideous expression. At this
moment she appeared to Marius even more formidable than her husband,
for she was a sow with the glance of a tigress.
"What!" she continued, "that horrible young lady who looked at my
daughters with an air of pity is that vagabond! Oh! I should like to
jump on her stomach with wooden shoes."
She leaped off the bed, and stood for a moment unkempt, with swollen
nostrils, parted lips, and clenched fists; then she fell back again on
the bed. The husband walked up and down and paid no attention to his
wife. After a short silence he went up to her and stood in front of her
with folded arms, as he had done a few moments previously.
"And shall I tell you something else?"
"What?" she asked.
He replied in a low, guttural voice, "That my fortune is made."
The wife looked at him in the way which means, "Can the man who is
talking to me have suddenly gone mad?" He continued,--
"Thunder! I have been a long time a parishioner of the parish of
die-of-hunger-if-you-are-cold, and die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I
have had enough of that misery! I am not jesting, for I no longer
consider this comical. I have had enough jokes, good God! and want no
more farces, by the Eternal Father! I wish to eat when I am hungry, and
drink when I am thirsty: to gorge, sleep, and do nothing. I want to
have my turn now, and mean to be a bit of a millionnaire before I rot!"
He walked up and down the room and added, "like the rest!"
"What do you mean?" his wife asked.
He shook his head, winked, and raised his voice like a street quack who
is going to furnish a proof.
"What I mean? Listen!"
"Not so loud," said his wife, "if it is business which ought not to be
overheard."
"Nonsense! by whom,--by the neighbor? I saw him go out just now.
Besides, what does that long-legged ass listen to? And then, I tell
you I saw him go out." Still, by a species of instinct Jondrette
lowered his voice, though not so low that his remarks escaped Marius. A
favorable circumstance was that the fallen snow deadened the sound of
the vehicles on the boulevard. This is what Marius heard:--
"Listen carefully. The Crœsus is trapped, or as good as trapped. It
is done, arranged, and I have seen the people. He will come at six
this evening to bring the sixty francs, the vagabond! Did you notice
how I blabbed to him about my sixty francs, my landlord, my February
4th? Why, it is not a quarter-day, the ass. Well, he will come at
six o'clock, and at that hour the neighbor has gone to dinner, and
Mother Bourgon is washing up dishes in town, so there will be no one
in the house. The neighbor never comes in before eleven o'clock. The
little ones will be on the watch, you will help us, and he will make a
sacrifice."
"And suppose he does not?" the wife asked.
Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said, "We will do it for him."
And he burst into a laugh: it was the first time that Marius saw him
laugh, and this laugh was cold and gentle, and produced a shudder.
Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fire-place, and took out an old
cap, which he put on his head, after brushing it with his cuff.
"Now," he said, "I am going out, for I have some more people to see,
good men. I shall be away as short a time as possible, for it is a
famous affair; and do you keep house."
And he stood thoughtfully with his hands in his trousers' pockets and
suddenly exclaimed,--
"Do you know that it is very lucky he did not recognize me, for if he
had done so he would not have returned, and would have slipped from
us. It was my beard that saved us,--my romantic beard, my pretty little
beard."
And he laughed again. He went to the window; the snow was still
falling, and striping the gray sky.
"What filthy weather!" he said.
Then he buttoned up his great-coat.
"The skin is too big, but no matter," he added. "It was devilish lucky
that the old villain left it for me, for had he not I could not have
gone out, and the whole affair would have been spoiled. On what slight
accidents things depend!"
And pulling his cap over his eyes, he went out, but had only gone a
short distance when the door opened again, and his sharp, intelligent
face reappeared in the aperture.
"I forgot," he said; "you will get a chafing-dish of charcoal ready."
And he threw into his wife's apron the five-franc piece which the
"philanthropist" left him.
"How many bushels of charcoal?" the wife asked.
"Two, at least."
"That will cost thirty sous, and with the rest I will buy some grub."
"Hang it, no!"
"Why?"
"Don't spend the five _balls."_
"Why not?"
"Because I have something to buy too."
"What?"
"Something."
"How much do you want?"
"Where is the nearest ironmonger's?"
"In the Rue Mouffetard."
"Ah, yes, at the corner of a street. I remember the shop."
"But tell me how much you want for what you have to buy."
"From fifty sous to three francs."
"There won't be much left for dinner."
"Don't bother about eating to-day; there is something better to do."
"That's enough, my jewel."
Jondrette closed the door again, and then Marius heard his steps as
he went along the passage and down the stairs. It struck one at this
moment from St. Médard's.