THE TRAP.
The attic door was torn open, and three men in blue cloth blouses and
wearing masks of black paper came in. The first was thin, and carried
an iron--shod cudgel; the second, who was a species of Colossus, held a
butcher's pole-axe by the middle of the handle, with the hatchet down;
while the third, a broad-shouldered fellow, not so thin as the first
but not stout as the second, was armed with an enormous key stolen
from some prison-gate. It seemed as if Jondrette had been awaiting the
arrival of these men, and a hurried conversation took place between him
and the man with the cudgel.
"Is all ready?" asked Jondrette.
"Yes," the thin man replied.
"Where is Montparnasse?"
"That jeune premier has stopped to talk to your eldest daughter."
"Is there a coach down there?"
"Yes."
"With two good horses?"
"Excellent."
"Is it waiting where I ordered?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Jondrette.
M. Leblanc was very pale. He looked all round the room like a man who
understands into what a snare he has fallen, and his head, turned
toward all the heads that surrounded him, moved on his neck with
an attentive and surprised slowness, but there was nothing in his
appearance that resembled fear. He had formed an improvised bulwark
of the table, and this man, who a moment before merely looked like an
old man, had suddenly become an athlete, and laid his robust fist on
the back of his chair with a formidable and surprising gesture. This
old man, so firm and brave in the presence of such a danger, seemed to
possess one of those natures which are courageous in the same way as
they are good,--easily and simply. The father of a woman we love is
never a stranger to us, and Marius felt proud of this unknown man.
Three of the men whom Jondrette called chimney-menders had taken from
the mass of iron, one a large pair of shears, another a crowbar for
moving weights, and the third a hammer, and posted themselves in front
of the door without saying a word. The old man remained on the bed,
merely opening his eyes, and Mother Jondrette was sitting by his side.
Marius thought that the moment for interference was at hand, and raised
his right hand to the ceiling in the direction of the passage, ready to
fire his pistol. Jondrette, after finishing his colloquy with the three
men, turned again to M. Leblanc, and repeated the question with that
low, restrained, and terrible laugh of his,--
"Do you not recognize me?"
M. Leblanc looked him in the face and answered, "No!"
Jondrette then went up to the table; he bent over the candle with
folded arms, and placed his angular and ferocious face as close as he
could to M. Leblanc's placid face, and in this posture of a wild beast
which is going to bite he exclaimed,--
"My name is not Fabantou or Jondrette, but my name is Thénardier, the
landlord of the inn at Montfermeil! Do you hear me,--Thénardier? Now do
you recognize me?"
An almost imperceptible flush shot athwart M. Leblanc's forehead, and
he answered, with his ordinary placidity, and without the slightest
tremor in his voice,--
"No more than before."
Marius did not hear this answer, and any one who had seen him at this
moment in the darkness would have found him haggard, stunned, and
crushed. At the moment when Jondrette said, "My name is Thénardier,"
Marius trembled in all his limbs, and he leaned against the wall, as
if he felt a cold sword-blade thrust through his heart. Then his right
hand, raised in readiness to fire, slowly dropped, and at the moment
when Jondrette repeated, "Do you hear me,--Thénardier?" Marius's
relaxing fingers almost let the pistol fall. Jondrette, by revealing
who he was, did not affect M. Leblanc, but he stunned Marius, for
he knew this name of Thénardier, which was apparently unknown to M.
Leblanc. Only remember what that name was for him! He had carried it
in his heart, recorded in his father's will! He bore it in the deepest
shrine of his memory in the sacred recommendation,--"A man of the name
of Thénardier saved my life; if my son meet this man he will do all he
can for him." This name, it will be remembered, was one of the pieties
of his soul, and he blended it with his father's name in his worship.
What! this man was Thénardier, the landlord of Montfermeil, whom he had
so long and so vainly sought! He found him now, and in what a state!
His father's savior was a bandit! This man, to whom Marius burned to
devote himself, was a monster! The liberator of Colonel Pontmercy was
on the point of committing a crime whose outline Marius could not yet
see very distinctly, but which resembled an assassination! And on
whom? Great Heaven, what a fatality; what a bitter mockery of fate!
His father commanded him from his tomb to do all in his power for
Thénardier. During four years Marius had had no other idea but to pay
this debt of his father's; and at the very moment when he was about to
deliver over to justice a brigand in the act of crime, destiny cried
to him, "It is Thénardier!" and he was at length about to requite this
man for saving his father's life amid a hailstorm of grape-shot on the
heroic field of Waterloo, by sending him to the scaffold! He had vowed
that if ever he found this Thénardier he would throw himself at his
feet; and he had found him, but for the purpose of handing him over to
the executioner! His father said to him, "Help Thénardier," and he was
about to answer that adored and sacred voice by crushing Thénardier;
to show his father in his grave the spectacle of the man who had
dragged him from death at the peril of his own life being executed on
the Place St. Jacques by the agency of his son, that Marius to whom he
bequeathed this name! And then what a derision it was to have so long
carried in his heart the last wishes of his father in order to perform
exactly the contrary! But, on the other hand, how could he witness
a murder and not prevent it? What! should he condemn the victim and
spare the assassin? Could he be bound by any ties of gratitude to such
a villain? All the ideas which Marius had entertained for four years
were, as it were, run through the body by this unexpected stroke. He
trembled; all depended on him; and he held in his hands the unconscious
beings who were moving before his eyes. If he fired the pistol, M.
Leblanc was saved and Thénardier lost; if he did not fire, M. Leblanc
was sacrificed and Thénardier might, perhaps, escape. Must he hunt
down the one, or let the other fall? There was remorse on either side.
What should he do? Which should he choose,--be a defaulter to the most
imperious recollections, to so many profound pledges taken to himself,
to the most sacred duty, to the most venerated commands, disobey his
father's will, or let a crime be accomplished? On one side he fancied
he could hear "his Ursule" imploring him for her father, on the other
the Colonel recommending Thénardier to him. He felt as if he were
going mad. His knees gave way under him, and he had not even time to
deliberate, as the scene he had before him was being performed with
such furious precipitation. It was a tornado of which he had fancied
himself the master, but which was carrying him away: he was on the
verge of fainting.
In the mean while Thénardier (we will not call him otherwise in
future) was walking up and down before the table with a sort of wild
and frenzied triumph. He seized the candlestick and placed it on the
chimney-piece with such a violent blow that the candle nearly went out,
and the tallow spattered the wall. Then he turned round furiously to M.
Leblanc and spat forth these words:--
"Done brown! grilled, fricasseed! spatch-cocked!"
And he began walking again with a tremendous explosion.
"Ah! I have found you again, my excellent philanthropist, my
millionnaire with the threadbare coat, the giver of dolls, the old
niggard! Ah, you do not recognize me! I suppose it was n't you who came
to my inn at Montfermeil just eight years ago, on the Christmas night
of 1823! It was n't you who carried off Fantine's child, the Lark! It
was n't you who wore a yellow watchman's coat, and had a parcel of
clothes in your hand, just as you had this morning! Tell me, wife!
It is his mania, it appears, to carry to houses bundles of woollen
stockings,--the old charitable humbug! Are you a cap-maker, my Lord
Millionnaire? You give your profits to the poor--what a holy man!
what a mountebank! Ah, you do not recognize me! Well, I recognize you,
and did so directly you thrust your muzzle in here. Ah, you will be
taught that it is not a rosy game to go like that to people's houses,
under the excuse that they are inns, with such a wretched coat and
poverty-stricken look that they feel inclined to give you a son, and
then, to play the generous, rob them of their bread-winner and threaten
them in the woods! I'll teach you that you won't get off by bringing
people when they are ruined a coat that is too large, and two paltry
hospital blankets, you old scamp, you child-stealer!"
He stopped, and for a moment seemed to be speaking to himself. It
appeared as if his fury fell into some hole, like the Rhone: then, as
if finishing aloud the things he had just been saying to himself, he
struck the table with his fist, and cried,--
"With his simple look!"
Then he apostrophized M. Leblanc.
"By heaven! you made a fool of me formerly, and are the cause of all my
misfortunes. You got for fifteen hundred francs a girl who certainly
belonged to rich parents, who had already brought me in a deal of
money, and from whom I should have got an annuity! That girl would have
made up to me all I lost in that wretched pot-house, where I threw away
like an ass all my blessed savings! Oh, I wish that what was drunk at
my house were poison to those who drank it! However, no matter! Tell
me, I suppose you thought me a precious fool when you went off with the
Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest, and were the stronger. To-day
I shall have my revenge, for I hold all the trumps; you are done, my
good fellow! Oh, how I laugh when I think that he fell into the trap!
I told him that I was an actor, that my name was Fabantou, that I
had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle Muche, and that
my landlord insisted on being paid the next day; and he did not even
remember that January 8 and not February 4 is quarter-day,--the absurd
idiot! And he has brought me these four paltry philippes, the ass!
He had not the pluck to go as far as five hundred francs. And how he
swallowed my platitudes! It amused me, and I said to myself, 'There's
an ass for you! Well, I have got you; this morning I licked your paws,
and to-night I shall gnaw your heart!'"
Thénardier stopped, out of breath. His little narrow chest panted like
a forge-bellows; his eye was full of the ignoble happiness of a weak,
cruel, and cowardly creature who is at length able to trample on the
man he feared, and insult him whom he flattered; it is the joy of a
dwarf putting his heel on the head of Goliath, the joy of a jackal
beginning to rend a sick bull so near death as to be unable to defend
itself, but with enough vitality to still suffer. M. Leblanc did not
interrupt him, but said, when he ceased speaking,--
"I do not know what you mean, and you are mistaken. I am a very poor
man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you, and you take
me for somebody else."
"Ah!" Thénardier said hoarsely, "a fine dodge! So you adhere to that
joke, eh, old fellow? Ah, you do not remember, you do not see who I am!"
"Pardon me, sir," M. Leblanc replied, with a polite accent, which had
something strange and grand about it at such a moment, "I see that you
are a bandit."
We may remind those who have not noticed the fact, that odious beings
possess a susceptibility, and that monsters are ticklish. At the word
"bandit," Mother Thénardier leaped from the bed, and her husband
clutched a chair as if about to break it in his hand. "Don't stir,
you!" he shouted to his wife, and then turning to M. Leblanc, said,--
"Bandit! yes, I know that you rich swells call us so. It is true that
I have been bankrupt. I am in hiding, I have no bread, I have not a
farthing, and I am a bandit! For three days I have eaten nothing, and
I am a bandit! Ah, you fellows warm your toes, your wear pumps made by
Sakoski, you have wadded coats like archbishops, you live on the first
floors of houses where a porter is kept, you eat truffles, asparagus
at forty francs the bundle in January, and green peas. You stuff
yourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold you look in
the newspaper to see what Chevalier's thermometer marks; but we are the
thermometers. We have no call to go and look at the corner of the Jour
d'Horloge how many degrees of cold there are, for we feel the blood
stopped in our veins, and the ice reach our hearts, and we say, 'There
is no God!' and you come into our caverns,--yes, our caverns,--to
call us bandits! But we will eat you, we will devour you, poor little
chap! Monsieur le Millionnaire, learn this: I was an established man,
I held a license, I was an elector, and am still a citizen, while you,
perhaps, are not one!"
Here Thénardier advanced a step toward the men near the door, and added
with a quiver,--
"When I think that he dares to come and address me like a cobbler!"
Then he turned upon M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy,--
"And know this, too, my worthy philanthropist, I am not a doubtful
man, or one whose name is unknown, and carries off children from
houses! I am an ex-French soldier, and ought to have the cross! I was
at Waterloo, and in the battle I saved the life of a General called
the Comte de--I don't know what. He told me his name, but his dog of
a voice was so feeble that I did not understand it. I only understood
_Merci_. I should have liked his name better than his thanks. It
would have helped me find him, by all that's great and glorious! The
picture you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,
do you know whom it represents? It represents me, for David wished
to immortalize the exploit. I have the General on my back, and I am
carrying him through the grape-shot. That is the story! The General
never did anything for me, and he is no better than the rest; but,
for all that, I saved his life at the peril of my own, and I have
my pockets filled with certificates of the fact. I am a soldier of
Waterloo! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this,
let us come to a finish; I want money, I want a deal of money, an
enormous amount of money, or I shall exterminate you, by the thunder of
heaven!"
Marius had gained a little mastery over his agony, and was listening.
The last possibility of doubt had vanished, and it was really the
Thénardier of the will. Marius shuddered at the charge of ingratitude
cast at his father, and which he was on the point of justifying so
fatally, and his perplexities were redoubled. Besides, there was in
Thénardier's every word, in his accent and gestures, in his glance,
which caused flames to issue from every word, in this explosion of an
evil nature displaying everything, in this admixture of boasting and
abjectness, pride and meanness, rage and folly, in this chaos of real
griefs and false sentiments, in this impudence of a wicked man enjoying
the pleasure of violence, in this daring nudity of an ugly soul, and
in this conflagration of every suffering combined with every hatred,
something which was hideous as evil and poignant as truth.
The masterpiece, the picture by David, which he offered M. Leblanc,
was, as the reader will have perceived, nought else than his
public-house sign, painted by himself, and the sole relic he had
preserved from his shipwreck at Montfermeil. As he had stepped aside
Marius was now enabled to look at this thing, and in the daub he really
recognized a battle, a background of smoke, and one man carrying
another. It was the group of Thénardier and Pontmercy,--the savior
sergeant and the saved colonel. Marius felt as if intoxicated, for
this picture represented to some extent his loving father; it was no
longer an inn sign-board but a resurrection; a tomb opened, a phantom
rose. Marius heard his heart ringing at his temples; he had the guns
of Waterloo in his ears; his bleeding father vaguely painted on this
ill-omened board startled him, and he fancied that the shapeless figure
was gazing fixedly at him. When Thénardier regained breath he fastened
his bloodshot eyes on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, sharp
voice,--
"What have you to say before we put the screw on you?"
M. Leblanc was silent. In the midst of this silence a hoarse voice
uttered this grim sarcasm in the passage,--
"If there's any wood to be chopped, I'm your man."
It was the fellow with the pole-axe amusing himself. At the same time
an immense, hairy, earth-colored face appeared in the door with a
frightful grin, which displayed not teeth but tusks. It was the face of
the man with the pole-axe.
"Why have you taken off your mask?" Thénardier asked him furiously.
"To laugh," the man answered.
For some minutes past M. Leblanc seemed to be watching and following
every movement of Thénardier, who, blinded and dazzled by his own rage,
was walking up and down the room, in the confidence of knowing the door
guarded, of holding an unarmed man, and of being nine against one, even
supposing that his wife only counted for one man. In his speech to the
man with the pole-axe he turned his back to M. Leblanc; the latter
seizing the moment, upset the chair with his foot, the table with his
fist, and with one bound, ere Thénardier was able to turn, he was at
the window. To open it and bestride the sill took only a second, and
he was half out, when six powerful hands seized him and energetically
dragged him back into the room. The three "chimney-sweeps" had rushed
upon him, and at the same time Mother Thénardier seized him by the
hair. At the noise which ensued the other bandits ran in from the
passage, and the old man on the bed, who seemed the worse for liquor,
came up tottering with a road-mender's hammer in his hand. One of the
sweeps, whose blackened face the candle lit up, and in whom Marius
recognized, in spite of the blackening, Panchaud _alias_ Printanier
_alias_ Bigrenaille, raised above M. Leblanc's head a species of
life-preserver, made of two lumps of lead at the ends of an iron bar.
Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive
me!" and his finger sought the trigger. He was on the point of firing,
when Thénardier cried,--
"Do not hurt him!"
This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thénardier,
had calmed him. There were two men in him,--the ferocious man and the
skilful man. Up to this moment, in the exuberance of triumph, and while
standing before his motionless victim, the ferocious man had prevailed;
but when the victim made an effort and appeared inclined to struggle,
the skilful man reappeared and took the mastery.
"Do him no harm!" he repeated; and his first service was, though he
little suspected it, that he stopped the discharge of the pistol and
paralyzed Marius, to whom the affair did not appear so urgent, and
who in the presence of this new phase saw no harm in waiting a little
longer. Who knew whether some accident might not occur which would
deliver him from the frightful alternative of letting Ursule's father
perish, or destroying the Colonels savior? A herculean struggle had
commenced. With one blow of his fist in the chest M. Leblanc sent
the old man rolling in the middle of the room, and then with two
back-handers knocked down two other assailants, and held one under
each of his knees. The villains groaned under this pressure as under
a granite mill-stone; but the four others had seized the formidable
old man by the arms and neck, and were holding him down upon the two
"chimney-menders." Thus, master of two, and mastered by the others,
crushing those beneath him, and crushed by those above him, M. Leblanc
disappeared beneath this horrible group of bandits, like a boar
attacked by a howling pack of dogs. They succeeded in throwing him on
to the bed nearest the window, and held him down. Mother Thénardier did
not once let go his hair.
"Don't you interfere," Thénardier said to her; "you will tear your
shawl."
The woman obeyed, as the she-wolf obeys the wolf, with a snarl.
"You fellows," Thénardier continued, "can search him."
M. Leblanc appeared to have given up all thought of resistance, and
they searched him. He had nothing about him but a leathern purse
containing six francs and his handkerchief. Thénardier put the latter
in his own pocket.
"What! no pocket-book?" he asked.
"No, and no watch," one of the "chimney-menders" replied.
"No matter," the masked man who held the large key muttered in the
voice of a ventriloquist, "he is a tough old bird."
Thénardier went to the corner near the door, and took up some ropes,
which he threw to them.
"Fasten him to the foot of the bed," he said; and noticing the old man
whom M. Leblanc had knocked down still motionless on the floor, he
asked,--
"Is Boulatruelle dead?"
"No," Bigrenaille answered, "he's drunk."
"Sweep him into a corner," Thénardier said.
Two of the "chimney-menders" thrust the drunkard with their feet to the
side of the old iron.
"Babet, why did you bring so many?" Thénardier said in a whisper to the
man with the cudgel; "it was unnecessary."
"They all wanted to be in it," the man answered, "for the season is
bad, and there's nothing doing."
The bed upon which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital
bed, on four clumsy wooden legs. M. Leblanc made no resistance. The
bandits tied him firmly in an upright posture to the end of the bed,
farthest from the window and nearest the chimney-piece. When the last
knot was tied, Thénardier took a chair and sat down almost facing
the prisoner. He was no longer the same man; in a few minutes his
countenance had passed from frenzied violence to tranquil and cunning
gentleness. Marius had a difficulty in recognizing in this polite smile
of an official the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming a moment
previously; he regarded this fantastic and alarming metamorphosis with
stupor, and he felt as a man would feel who saw a tiger changed into an
attorney.
"Sir," said Thénardier, and made a sign to the bandits who still held
M. Leblanc to fall back;--"leave me to talk with the gentleman," he
said. All withdrew to the door, and he resumed,--
"You did wrong to try and jump out of the window, for you might
have broken a leg. Now, with your permission, we will talk quietly;
and, in the first place, I will communicate to you a thing I have
noticed,--that you have not yet uttered the slightest cry."
Thénardier was right; the fact was so, although it had escaped Marius
in his trouble. M. Leblanc had merely said a few words without raising
his voice, and even in his struggle near the window with the six
bandits he had preserved the profoundest and most singular silence.
Thénardier went on,--
"Good heavens! you might have cried 'Thieves!' a little while, and
I should not have thought it improper. Such a thing as 'Murder!' is
shouted on such occasions; I should not have taken it in ill part. It
is very simple that a man should make a bit of a row when he finds
himself with persons who do not inspire him with sufficient confidence.
If you had done so we should not have interfered with you or thought
of gagging you, and I will tell you the reason why. This room is very
deaf; it has only that in its favor, but it has that. It is a cellar;
you might explode a bombshell here and it would not produce the effect
of a drunkard's snore at the nearest post Here cannon would go _Boum!_
and thunder _Pouf!_ It is a convenient lodging. But still, you did not
cry out; all the better, and I compliment you on it, and will tell you
what conclusion I draw from the fact. My dear sir, when a man cries
for help, who come? The police; and after the police? Justice. Well,
you did not cry out, and so you are no more desirous than we are for
the arrival of the police. The fact is--and I have suspected it for
some time--that you have some interest in hiding something; for our
part, we have the same interest, and so we may be able to come to an
understanding."
While saying this, Thénardier was trying to drive the sharp points
that issued from his eyes into his prisoner's conscience. Besides,
his language, marked with a sort of moderate and cunning insolence,
was reserved and almost chosen, and in this villain who was just
before only a bandit could now be seen "the man who had studied for
the priesthood." The silence which the prisoner had maintained, this
precaution which went so far as the very forgetfulness of care for
his life, this resistance so opposed to the first movement of nature,
which is to utter a cry, troubled and painfully amazed Marius, so soon
as his attention was drawn to it. Thénardier's well-founded remark but
rendered denser the mysterious gloom behind which was concealed the
grave and peculiar face to which Courfeyrac had thrown the sobriquet
of M. Leblanc. But whoever this man might be, though bound with cords,
surrounded by bandits, and half buried, so to speak, in a grave where
the earth fell upon him at every step,--whether in the presence of
Thénardier furious or of Thénardier gentle,--he remained impassive,
and Marius could not refrain from admiring this face so superbly
melancholy at such a moment. His was evidently a soul inaccessible to
terror, and ignorant of what it is to be alarmed. He was one of those
men who master the amazement produced by desperate situations. However
extreme the crisis might be, however inevitable the catastrophe, he had
none of the agony of the drowning man, who opens horrible eyes under
water. Thénardier rose without any affectation, removed the screen
from before the fire-place, and thus unmasked the heating-pan full of
burning charcoal, in which the prisoner could perfectly see the chisel
at a white heat, and studded here and there with small red stars. Then
he came back and sat down near M. Leblanc.
"I will continue," he said; "we can come to an understanding, so let
us settle this amicably. I did wrong to let my temper carry me away
just now; I do not know where my senses were; I went much too far and
uttered absurdities. For instance, because you are a millionnaire, I
told you that I insisted on money, a great deal of money, an immense
sum of money, and that was not reasonable. Good heavens! you may be
rich, but you have burdens, for who is there that has not? I do not
wish to ruin you, for, after all, I am not an insatiable fellow. I am
not one of those men who, because they have advantage of position,
employ it to be ridiculous. Come, I will make a sacrifice on my side,
and be satisfied with two hundred thousand francs."
M. Leblanc did not utter a syllable, and so Thénardier continued,--
"You see that I put plenty of water in my wine. I do not know the
amount of your fortune, but I am aware that you do not care for money,
and a benevolent man like you can easily give two hundred thousand
francs to an unfortunate parent. Of course, you are reasonable too; you
cannot have supposed that I would take all that trouble this morning,
and organize this affair to-night,--which is a well-done job, in the
opinion of these gentlemen,--merely to ask you for enough money to
go and drink fifteen sous wine and eat veal at Desnoyer's. But two
hundred thousand francs, that's worth the trouble; once that trifle
has come out of your pocket I will guarantee that you have nothing
more to apprehend. You will say, 'But I have not two hundred thousand
francs about me.' Oh, I am not unreasonable, and I do not insist on
that. I only ask one thing of you: be good enough to write what I shall
dictate."
Here Thénardier stopped, but added, laying a stress on the words and
casting a smile at the heating-dish,--
"I warn you that I shall not accept the excuse that you cannot write."
A Grand Inquisitor might have envied that smile. Thénardier pushed the
table close up to M. Leblanc, and took pen, ink, and paper out of the
drawer, which he left half open, and in which the long knife-blade
flashed. He laid the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc.
"Write!" he said.
The prisoner at last spoke.
"How can you expect me to write? My arms are tied."
"That is true; I beg your pardon," said Thénardier, "you are quite
right;" and turning to Bigrenaille, he added, "Unfasten the gentleman's
right arm."
Panchaud _alias_ Printanier _alias_ Bigrenaille obeyed Thénardier's
orders, and when the prisoner's hand was free, Thénardier dipped the
pen in the ink and handed it to him.
"Make up your mind, sir, that you are in our absolute power; no human
interference can liberate you, and we should really be sorry to be
forced to proceed to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name
nor your address, but I warn you that you will remain tied up here
until the person commissioned to deliver the letter you are going to
write has returned. Now be good enough to write."
"What?" the prisoner asked.
Thénardier began dictating: "My daughter."
The prisoner started, and raised his eyes to Thénardier,--
"Make it, 'My dear daughter,'" said Thénardier.
M. Leblanc obeyed.
Thénardier continued,--
"Come to me at once, for I want you particularly. The person who
delivers this letter to you has instructions to bring you to me. I am
waiting. Come in perfect confidence."
M. Leblanc wrote this down.
Thénardier resumed,--"By the way, efface that 'Come in perfect
confidence,' for it might lead to a supposition that the affair is not
perfectly simple, and create distrust."
M. Leblanc erased the words.
"Now," Thénardier added, "sign it. What is your name?"
The prisoner laid down the pen, and asked,--
"For whom is this letter?"
"You know very well," Thénardier answered; "for the little one; I just
told you so."
It was evident that Thénardier avoided mentioning the name of the girl
in question: he called her "the Lark," he called her "the little one,"
but he did not pronounce her name. It was the precaution of a clever
man who keeps his secret from his accomplices, and mentioning the name
would have told them the whole affair, and taught them more than there
was any occasion for them to know. So he repeated,--
"Sign it. What is your name?"
"Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner.
Thénardier, with the movement of a cat, thrust his hand into his pocket
and drew out the handkerchief found on M. Leblanc. He sought for the
mark, and held it to the candle.
"'U. F.,' all right, Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it 'U. F.'"
The prisoner did so.
"As two hands are needed to fold a letter, give it to me and I will do
it."
This done, Thénardier added,--
"Write the address, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that
you live somewhere near here in the neighborhood of St. Jacques du
Haut-pas, as you attend Mass there every day, but I do not know in
what street. I see that you understand your situation, and as you have
not told a falsehood about your name, you will not do so about your
address. Write it yourself."
The prisoner remained pensive for a moment, and then took up the pen
and wrote,--
"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, No. 17, Rue St. Dominique
d'Enfer."
Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
"Wife!" he shouted, and the woman came up. "Here is the letter, and
you know what you have to do. There is a hackney coach down below,
so be off at once, and return ditto." Then he turned to the man with
the pole-axe, and said, "As you have taken off your muffler, you can
accompany her. Get up behind the coach. You know where you left it?"
"Yes," said the man; and depositing the axe in a corner, he followed
the woman. As they were going away Thénardier thrust his head out of
the door and shouted down the passage,--
"Mind and do not lose the letter! Remember you have two hundred
thousand francs about you."
The woman's hoarse voice replied,--
"Don't be frightened, I have put it in my stomach."
A minute had not elapsed when the crack of a whip could be heard
rapidly retiring.
"All right," Thénardier growled, "they are going at a good pace; with a
gallop like that she will be back in three quarters of an hour."
He drew up a chair to the fire-side, and sat down with folded arms, and
holding his muddy boots to the heating-pan.
"My feet are cold," he said.
Only five bandits remained in the den with Thénardier and the prisoner.
These men, through the masks or soot that covered their faces and
rendered them, with a choice of horror, charcoal-burners, negroes, or
demons, had a heavy, dull look, and it was plain that they performed
a crime like a job, tranquilly, without passion or pity, and with a
sort of _ennui_. They were heaped up in a corner like brutes, and were
silent. Thénardier was warming his feet. The prisoner had fallen back
into his taciturnity; a sinister calmness had succeeded the formidable
noise which had filled the garret a few moments previously. The candle,
on which a large mushroom had formed, scarce lit up the immense room;
the heating-dish had grown black, and all these monstrous heads cast
misshapen shadows upon the walls and the ceiling. No other sound was
audible save the regular breathing of the old drunkard, who was asleep.
Marius was waiting in a state of anxiety which everything tended to
augment. The enigma was more impenetrable than ever; who was this
"little one," whom Thénardier had also called "the Lark,"--was she
"his Ursule"? The prisoner had not seemed affected by this name of
the Lark, and had answered with the most natural air in the world,
"I do not know what you mean." On the other hand, the two letters
"U. F." were explained; they were Urbain Fabre, and Ursule's name was
no longer Ursule. This is what Marius saw most clearly. A sort of
frightful fascination kept him nailed to the spot, whence he surveyed
and commanded the whole scene. He stood there almost incapable of
reflection and movement, as if annihilated by the frightful things
which he saw close to him; and he waited, hoping for some incident, no
matter its nature, unable to collect his thoughts, and not knowing what
to do.
"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for
Mother Thénardier will bring her here. In that case I will give my life
and blood, should it be necessary, to save her, and nothing shall stop
me."
Nearly half an hour passed in this way; Thénardier seemed absorbed in
dark thoughts, and the prisoner did not stir. Still Marius fancied that
he could hear at intervals a low, dull sound in the direction of the
prisoner. All at once Thénardier addressed his victim.
"By the way, M. Fabre," he said, "I may as well tell you something at
once."
As these few words seemed the commencement of an explanation, Marius
listened carefully. Thénardier continued,--
"My wife will be back soon, so do not be impatient. I believe that the
Lark is really your daughter, and think it very simple that you should
keep her; but listen to me for a moment. My wife will go to her with
your letter, and I told Madame Thénardier to dress herself in the way
you saw, that your young lady might make no difficulty about following
her. They will both get into the hackney coach with my comrade behind;
near a certain barrier there is a trap drawn by two excellent horses;
your young lady will be driven up to it in the hackney coach, and
get into the trap with my pal, while my wife returns here to report
progress. As for your young lady, no harm will be done her; she will
be taken to a place where she will be all safe, and so soon as you
have handed me the trifle of two hundred thousand francs she will be
restored to you. If you have me arrested, my pal will settle the Lark,
that's all."
The prisoner did not utter a word, and after a pause Thénardier
continued,--
"It is simple enough, as you see, and there will be no harm, unless you
like to make harm. I have told you all about it, and warned you, that
you might know."
He stopped, but the prisoner did not interrupt the silence, and
Thénardier added,--
"So soon as my wife has returned and said to me, 'The Lark is under
way,' we will release you, and you can sleep at home if you like. You
see that we have no ill intentions."
Frightful images passed across the mind of Marius. What! they were not
going to bring the girl here! One of the monsters was going to carry
her off in the darkness!--where? Oh, if it were she! and it was plain
that it was she. Marius felt the beating of his heart stop; what should
he do? Fire the pistol and deliver all these villains into the hands of
justice? But the hideous man with the pole-axe could not be the less
out of reach with the girl, and Marius thought of Thénardier's words,
whose sanguinary meaning he could read,--"If you have me arrested, my
pal will settle the Lark;" now he felt himself checked, not only by the
Colonel's will, but by his love and the peril of her whom he loved. The
frightful situation, which had already lasted above an hour, changed
its aspect at every moment, and Marius had the strength to review in
turn all the most frightful conjectures, while seeking a hope and
finding none. The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the lugubrious
silence of the den. In the midst of this silence the sound of the
staircase door being opened and shut became audible. The prisoner gave
a start in his bonds.
"Here's my wife," said Thénardier.
He had scarce finished speaking when Mother Thénardier rushed into the
room, red, out of breath, and with flashing eyes, and shouted as she
struck her thighs with her two big hands,--
"A false address!"
The brigand who had accompanied her appeared behind, and took up his
pole-axe again.
"A false address?" Thénardier repeated, and she went on,--
"No Monsieur Urbain Fabre known at No. 17, Rue St. Dominique. They
never heard of him."
She stopped to snort, and then continued,--
"Monsieur Thénardier, that old cove has made a fool of you; for you are
too good-hearted, I keep on telling you. I would have cut his throat
to begin with! and if he had sulked I would have boiled him alive!
that would have made him speak and tell us where his daughter is, and
where he keeps his money. That is how I should have managed the affair.
People are right when they say that men are more stupid than women.
Nobody at No. 17, it is a large gateway. No Monsieur Fabre at No. 17,
and we went at a gallop, with a fee for the driver and all! I spoke to
the porter and his wife, who is a fine, tall woman, and they did not
know anybody of the name."
Marius breathed again, for She, Ursule, or the Lark--he no longer knew
her name--was saved. While the exasperated woman was vociferating,
Thénardier sat down at the table; he remained for some minutes without
saying a word, balancing his right leg and looking at the heating-dish
with an air of savage reverie. At last he said to the prisoner slowly,
and with a peculiarly ferocious accent,--
"A false address? Why, what did you expect?"
"To gain time!" the prisoner thundered.
And at the same moment he shook off his bonds, which were cut through:
the prisoner was only fastened to the bed by one leg. Ere the seven
men had time to look about them and rush forward, he had stretched out
his hand toward the fire-place, and the Thénardiers and the brigands,
driven back by surprise to the end of the room, saw him almost free,
and in a formidable attitude, waving round his head the red-hot chisel,
from which a sinister glare shot.
In the judicial inquiry that followed this affair it was stated that
a large sou, cut and worked in a peculiar manner, was found in the
garret when the police made their descent upon it. It was one of
those marvels of industry which the patience of the bagne engenders
in the darkness and for the darkness,--marvels which are nought but
instruments of escape. These hideous and yet delicate products of
a prodigious art are in the jewelry trade what slang metaphors are
in poetry; for there are Benvenuto Cellinis at the bagne, in the
same way as there are Villons in language. The wretch who aspires to
deliverance, finds means, without tools, or, at the most, with an old
knife, to saw a son in two, hollow out the two parts without injuring
the dies, and form a thread in the edge of the son, so that the son may
be reproduced. It screws and unscrews at pleasure, and is a box; and
in this box a watch-spring saw is concealed, which, if well managed,
will cut through fetters and iron bars. It is believed that the unhappy
convict possesses only a son; but, not at all,--he possesses liberty.
It was a son of this nature which was found by the police under the
bed near the window, and a small saw of blue steel, which could be
easily concealed in the sou, was also discovered. It is probable that
at the moment when the bandits searched the prisoner he had the double
sou about him, and hid it in his palm; and his right hand being at
liberty afterwards, he unscrewed it, and employed the saw to cut the
ropes. This would explain the slight noise and the almost imperceptible
movements which Marius had noticed. As, however, he was unable to stoop
down for fear of betraying himself, he had not cut the cord on his left
leg. The bandits gradually recovered from their surprise.
"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thénardier, "he is still held by one
leg, and will not fly away. I put the pack-thread round that paw."
Here the prisoner raised his voice,--
"You are villains, but my life is not worth so much trouble to defend.
As for imagining that you could make me speak, make me write what I do
not wish to write, or make me say what I do not intend to say--"
He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and added,--
"Look here!"
At the same time he stretched out his arm and placed on the naked flesh
the red-hot chisel, which he held in his right hand by the wooden
handle. Then could be heard the frizzling of the burnt flesh, and the
smell peculiar to torture-rooms spread through the garret. Marius
tottered in horror, and the brigands themselves shuddered; but the face
of the strange old man was scarce contracted, and while the red-hot
steel was burying itself in the smoking wound, he--impassive and almost
august--fixed on Thénardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no
hatred, and in which suffering disappeared in a serene majesty. For in
great and lofty natures the revolt of the flesh and of the senses when
suffering from physical pain makes the soul appear on the brow, in the
same way as the mutiny of troops compels the captain to show himself.
"Villains," he said, "be no more frightened of me than I am of you."
And tearing the chisel out of the wound, he hurled it through the
window, winch had been left open. The horrible red-hot tool whirled
through the night, and fell some distance off in the snow, which hissed
at the contact. The prisoner continued,--
"Do to me what you like."
He was defenceless.
"Seize him," said Thénardier.
Two of the brigands laid their hands on his shoulders, and the masked
man with the ventriloquist voice stood in front of him, ready to dash
out his brains with a blow of the key at the slightest movement on his
part. At the same time Marius heard below him, but so close that he
could not see the speakers, the following remarks exchanged in a low
voice,--
"There is only one thing to be done."
"Cut his throat!"
"Exactly."
It was the husband and wife holding council, and then Thénardier
walked slowly to the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife.
Marius clutched the handle of the pistol in a state of extraordinary
perplexity. For above an hour he had heard two voices in his
conscience, one telling him to respect his father's will, while the
other cried to him to succor the prisoner. These two voices continued
their struggle uninterruptedly, and caused him an agony. He had vaguely
hoped up to this moment to find some mode of reconciling these two
duties, but nothing possible had occurred to him. Still the peril
pressed; the last moment of delay was passed, for Thénardier, knife
in hand, was reflecting a few paces from the prisoner. Marius looked
wildly around him, which is the last mechanical resource of despair.
All at once he started; at his feet on his table a bright moonbeam lit
up and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this sheet he
read this line, written in large letters that very morning by the elder
of Thénardier's daughters,--"_Here are the Slops._" An idea, a flash,
crossed Marius's mind; this was the solution of the frightful problem
that tortured him, sparing the assassin and saving the victim. He knelt
down on the chest-of-drawers, stretched forth his arm, seized the
paper, softly detached a lump of plaster from the partition, wrapped it
up in the paper, and threw it through the hole into the middle of the
den. It was high time, for Thénardier had overcome his last fears, or
his last scruples, and was going toward the prisoner.
"There's something falling," his wife cried.
"What is it?" her husband asked.
The woman had bounded forward, and picked up the lump of plaster
wrapped in paper, which she handed to her husband.
"How did it get here?" Thénardier asked.
"Why, hang it!" his wife asked, "how do you expect that it did? Through
the window, of course."
"I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille.
Thénardier rapidly unfolded the paper, and held it close to the candle.
"Éponine's handwriting--The devil!"
He made a signal to his wife, who hurried up to him, and showed her
the line written on the paper, then added in a hollow voice,--
"Quick, the ladder! we must leave the bacon in the trap, and bolt."
"Without cutting the man's throat?" the Megæra asked.
"We haven't the time."
"Which way?" Bigrenaille remarked.
"By the window," Thénardier replied; "as Ponine threw the stone through
the window, that's a proof that the house is not beset on that side."
The mask with the ventriloquist voice laid his key on the ground,
raised his arms in the air, and opened and shut his hands thrice
rapidly, without saying a word. This was like the signal for clearing
for action aboard ship; the brigands who held the prisoner let him
go, and in a twinkling the rope-ladder was dropped out of window and
securely fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. The prisoner paid
no attention to what was going on around him; he seemed to be thinking
or praying. So soon as the ladder was fixed, Thénardier cried,--
"The lady first."
And he dashed at the window; but as he was stepping out, Bigrenaille
roughly seized him by the collar.
"No, no, my old joker, after us!" he said.
"After us!" the bandits yelled.
"You are children," said Thénardier; "we are losing time, and the
police are at our heels."
"Very well, then," said one of the bandits, "let us draw lots as to who
shall go first."
Thénardier exclaimed,--
"Are you mad? are you drunk? Why, what a set of humbugs; lose time, I
suppose, draw lots, eh,--with a wet finger, a short straw, write our
names and put them in a cap--"
"Would you like my hat?" a voice said at the door.
All turned; it was Javert, who held his hat in his hand and offered it
smilingly.