WRETCHEDNESS OFFERS HELP TO SORROW.
Marius ascended the stairs slowly, and at the moment when he was going to enter his cell he perceived behind him, in the passage, the elder of Jondrette's girls following him. This girl was odious in his sight, for it was she who had his five francs; but it was too late to ask them back from her, for both the hackney coach and the cab were now far away. Besides, she would not return them to him. As for questioning her about the abode of the persons who had been here just now, that was useless, and it was plain that she did not know, for the letter signed Fabantou was addressed "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas." Marius went into his room and threw the door to after him, but it did not close; he turned and saw a hand in the aperture.
"Who's that?" he asked.
It was the girl.
"Oh it's you!" Marius continued almost harshly,—"always you! What do you want of me?"
She seemed thoughtful, and made no answer, and she no longer had her boldness of the morning; she did not come in, but stood in the dark passage, where Marius perceived her through the half-open door.
"Well, answer!" said Marius; "what do you want of me?"
She raised her dull eye, in which a sort of lustre seemed to be vaguely illumined, and said,—
"Monsieur Marius, you look sad; what is the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, there is!"
"Leave me alone!"
Marius pushed the door again, but she still held it.
"Stay," she said; "you are wrong. Though you are not rich, you were kind this morning, and be so again now. You gave me food, and now tell me what is the matter with you. It is easy to see that you are in sorrow, and I do not wish you to be so. What can I do to prevent it, and can I be of any service to you? Employ me; I do not ask for your secrets, and you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use to you. Surely I can help you, as I help my father. When there are any letters to deliver, or any address to be found by following people, or asking from door to door, I am employed. Well, you can tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to persons. Now and then it is sufficient for some one to speak to persons in order to find out things, and all is arranged. Employ me."
An idea crossed Marius's mind, for no branch is despised when we feel ourselves falling. He walked up to the girl.
"Listen to me," he said; "you brought an old gentleman and his daughter here."
"Yes."
"Do you know their address?"
"No."
"Find it for me."
The girl's eye, which was dull, had become joyous, but now it became gloomy.
"Is that what you want?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know them?"
"No."
"That is to say," she added quickly, "you don't know her, but you would like to know her."
This "them," which became "her," had something most significant and bitter about it.
"Well, can you do it?" Marius said.
"You shall have the beautiful young lady's address."
In these words there was again a meaning which annoyed Marius, so he went on,—
"Well, no matter! the father and daughter's address,—their address, I say."
She looked at him fixedly.
"What will you give me for it?"
"Whatever you like."
"Whatever I like? You shall have the address."
She hung her head, and then closed the door with a hurried gesture; Marius was alone again. He fell into a chair, with his head and elbows on his bed, sunk in thoughts which he could not grasp, and suffering from a dizziness. All that had happened since the morning,—the apparition of the angel, her disappearance, and what this creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair, —this is what confusedly filled his brain. All at once he was violently dragged out of his reverie, for he heard Jondrette's loud, hard voice uttering words full of the strangest interest for him.
"I tell you that I am sure, and that I recognized him."
Of whom was Jondrette talking, and whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc, the father of "his Ursule." What! did Jondrette know him? Was Marius going to obtain, in this sudden and unexpected fashion, all the information without which his life was obscure for himself? Was he at last going to know who she was whom he loved, and who her father was? Was the thick cloud that covered them on the point of clearing off? Would the veil be rent asunder? Oh, heavens! He bounded rather than ascended upon the chest of drawers and resumed his place at the aperture in the partition: once more he saw the interior of Jondrette's den.
CHAPTER XII.
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.