________________________________________________
_ In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend. Youth is
the season for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars.
Marius breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new
thing for him. Courfeyrac put no questions to him. He did not
even think of such a thing. At that age, faces disclose everything
on the spot. Words are superfluous. There are young men of whom
it can be said that their countenances chatter. One looks at them
and one knows them.
One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation
to him:--
"By the way, have you any political opinions?"
"The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question.
"What are you?"
"A democrat-Bonapartist."
"The gray hue of a reassured rat," said Courfeyrac.
On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Cafe Musain.
Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile: "I must give you your
entry to the revolution." And he led him to the hall of the Friends
of the A B C. He presented him to the other comrades, saying this
simple word which Marius did not understand: "A pupil."
Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he
was silent and grave, he was, none the less, both winged and armed.
Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy,
and to asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered
by this covey of young men around him. All these various
initiatives solicited his attention at once, and pulled him about.
The tumultuous movements of these minds at liberty and at work
set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, in his trouble, they fled
so far from him, that he had difficulty in recovering them.
He heard them talk of philosophy, of literature, of art, of history,
of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpses of
strange aspects; and, as he did not place them in proper perspective,
he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped.
On abandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father,
he had supposed himself fixed; he now suspected, with uneasiness,
and without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not.
The angle at which he saw everything began to be displaced anew.
A certain oscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion.
An odd internal upsetting. He almost suffered from it.
It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things"
for those young men. Marius heard singular propositions
on every sort of subject, which embarrassed his still timid mind.
A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title of a tragedy
from the ancient repertory called classic: "Down with tragedy dear
to the bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And Marius heard Combeferre reply:--
"You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy,
and the bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score.
Bewigged tragedy has a reason for its existence, and I am not one
of those who, by order of AEschylus, contest its right to existence.
There are rough outlines in nature; there are, in creation,
ready-made parodies; a beak which is not a beak, wings which are
not wings, gills which are not gills, paws which are not paws,
a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there is the duck.
Now, since poultry exists by the side of the bird, I do not see
why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique tragedy."
Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques
Rousseau between Enjolras and Courfeyrac.
Courfeyrac took his arm:--
"Pay attention. This is the Rue Platriere, now called Rue
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on account of a singular household which lived
in it sixty years ago. This consisted of Jean-Jacques and Therese.
From time to time, little beings were born there. Therese gave
birth to them, Jean-Jacques represented them as foundlings."
And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly:--
"Silence in the presence of Jean-Jacques! I admire that man.
He denied his own children, that may be; but he adopted the people."
Not one of these young men articulated the word: The Emperor.
Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all the others
said "Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it "Buonaparte."
Marius was vaguely surprised. Initium sapientiae. _
Read next: VOLUME III: BOOK FOURTH - THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC: CHAPTER IV. The Back Room of the Cafe Musain
Read previous: VOLUME III: BOOK FOURTH - THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC: CHAPTER II. Blondeau's Funeral Oration by Bossuet
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