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_ One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat; he remembered
that he had not dined on the preceding day either; this was becoming
tiresome. He resolved to make an effort to secure some supper.
He strolled out beyond the Salpetriere into deserted regions;
that is where windfalls are to be found; where there is no one,
one always finds something. He reached a settlement which appeared
to him to be the village of Austerlitz.
In one of his preceding lounges he had noticed there an old garden
haunted by an old man and an old woman, and in that garden, a passable
apple-tree. Beside the apple-tree stood a sort of fruit-house,
which was not securely fastened, and where one might contrive to get
an apple. One apple is a supper; one apple is life. That which was
Adam's ruin might prove Gavroche's salvation. The garden abutted
on a solitary, unpaved lane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting
the arrival of houses; the garden was separated from it by a hedge.
Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden; he found the lane,
he recognized the apple-tree, he verified the fruit-house, he examined
the hedge; a hedge means merely one stride. The day was declining,
there was not even a cat in the lane, the hour was propitious.
Gavroche began the operation of scaling the hedge, then suddenly paused.
Some one was talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of
the breaks in the hedge.
A couple of paces distant, at the foot of the hedge on the other side,
exactly at the point where the gap which he was meditating would
have been made, there was a sort of recumbent stone which formed
a bench, and on this bench was seated the old man of the garden,
while the old woman was standing in front of him. The old woman
was grumbling. Gavroche, who was not very discreet, listened.
"Monsieur Mabeuf!" said the old woman.
"Mabeuf!" thought Gavroche, "that name is a perfect farce."
The old man who was thus addressed, did not stir. The old
woman repeated:--
"Monsieur Mabeuf!"
The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up
his mind to answer:--
"What is it, Mother Plutarque?"
"Mother Plutarque!" thought Gavroche, "another farcical name."
Mother Plutarque began again, and the old man was forced to accept
the conversation:--
"The landlord is not pleased."
"Why?"
"We owe three quarters rent."
"In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters."
"He says that he will turn you out to sleep."
"I will go."
"The green-grocer insists on being paid. She will no longer
leave her fagots. What will you warm yourself with this winter?
We shall have no wood."
"There is the sun."
"The butcher refuses to give credit; he will not let us have any
more meat."
"That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. It is too heavy."
"What shall we have for dinner?"
"Bread."
"The baker demands a settlement, and says, `no money, no bread.'"
"That is well."
"What will you eat?"
"We have apples in the apple-room."
"But, Monsieur, we can't live like that without money."
"I have none."
The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell
into thought. Gavroche became thoughtful also. It was almost dark.
The first result of Gavroche's meditation was, that instead
of scaling the hedge, he crouched down under it. The branches
stood apart a little at the foot of the thicket.
"Come," exclaimed Gavroche mentally, "here's a nook!" and he curled up
in it. His back was almost in contact with Father Mabeuf's bench.
He could hear the octogenarian breathe.
Then, by way of dinner, he tried to sleep.
It was a cat-nap, with one eye open. While he dozed, Gavroche kept
on the watch.
The twilight pallor of the sky blanched the earth, and the lane
formed a livid line between two rows of dark bushes.
All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance.
One was in front, the other some distance in the rear.
"There come two creatures," muttered Gavroche.
The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent
and thoughtful, dressed more than plainly, and who was walking slowly
because of his age, and strolling about in the open evening air.
The second was straight, firm, slender. It regulated its pace
by that of the first; but in the voluntary slowness of its gait,
suppleness and agility were discernible. This figure had also
something fierce and disquieting about it, the whole shape was
that of what was then called an elegant; the hat was of good shape,
the coat black, well cut, probably of fine cloth, and well fitted
in at the waist. The head was held erect with a sort of robust grace,
and beneath the hat the pale profile of a young man could be made
out in the dim light. The profile had a rose in its mouth.
This second form was well known to Gavroche; it was Montparnasse.
He could have told nothing about the other, except that he was
a respectable old man.
Gavroche immediately began to take observations.
One of these two pedestrians evidently had a project connected with
the other. Gavroche was well placed to watch the course of events.
The bedroom had turned into a hiding-place at a very opportune moment.
Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in such a place,
betokened something threatening. Gavroche felt his gamin's heart
moved with compassion for the old man.
What was he to do? Interfere? One weakness coming to the aid
of another! It would be merely a laughing matter for Montparnasse.
Gavroche did not shut his eyes to the fact that the old man,
in the first place, and the child in the second, would make but two
mouthfuls for that redoubtable ruffian eighteen years of age.
While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place,
abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass,
the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed
away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the collar,
grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche with difficulty restrained
a scream. A moment later one of these men was underneath
the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee of marble upon
his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had expected.
The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse; the one who was on top
was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from Gavroche.
The old man had received the shock, had returned it, and that
in such a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant
and the assailed had exchanged roles.
"Here's a hearty veteran!" thought Gavroche.
He could not refrain from clapping his hands. But it was applause
wasted. It did not reach the combatants, absorbed and deafened
as they were, each by the other, as their breath mingled in the struggle.
Silence ensued. Montparnasse ceased his struggles. Gavroche indulged
in this aside: "Can he be dead!"
The goodman had not uttered a word, nor given vent to a cry.
He rose to his feet, and Gavroche heard him say to Montparnasse:--
"Get up."
Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast.
Montparnasse's attitude was the humiliated
and furious attitude of the wolf who has been caught by a sheep.
Gavroche looked on and listened, making an effort to reinforce
his eyes with his ears. He was enjoying himself immensely.
He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety in the character
of a spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue
which borrowed from the darkness an indescribably tragic accent.
The goodman questioned, Montparnasse replied.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work?"
"It bores me."
"What is your trade?"
"An idler."
"Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you
like to be?"
"A thief."
A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbed in profound thought.
He stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse.
Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the
twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk,
tried a crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made
efforts to escape.
The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms
with one hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force.
The old man's revery lasted for some time, then, looking steadily
at Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice,
in the midst of the darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue,
of which Gavroche did not lose a single syllable:--
"My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most
laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare
to toil. There is a certain formidable machine, have you seen it?
It is the rolling-mill. You must be on your guard against it,
it is crafty and ferocious; if it catches hold of the skirt of
your coat, you will be drawn in bodily. That machine is laziness.
Stop while there is yet time, and save yourself! Otherwise, it is
all over with you; in a short time you will be among the gearing.
Once entangled, hope for nothing more. Toil, lazybones! there is no
more repose for you! The iron hand of implacable toil has seized you.
You do not wish to earn your living, to have a task, to fulfil a duty!
It bores you to be like other men? Well! You will be different.
Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find ennui his torment.
You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a slave.
Toil lets go of you on one side only to grasp you again on
the other. You do not desire to be its friend, you shall be its
negro slave. Ah! You would have none of the honest weariness
of men, you shall have the sweat of the damned. Where others sing,
you will rattle in your throat. You will see afar off, from below,
other men at work; it will seem to you that they are resting.
The laborer, the harvester, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear
to you in glory like the blessed spirits in paradise. What radiance
surrounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind the sheaves,
is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, what delight! Do you,
lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your halter.
You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing
is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall
you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing
without anguish. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack.
What is a feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest
things will become steep acclivities. Life will become monstrous
all about you. To go, to come, to breathe, will be just so many
terrible labors. Your lungs will produce on you the effect of weighing
a hundred pounds. Whether you shall walk here rather than there,
will become a problem that must be solved. Any one who wants to go
out simply gives his door a push, and there he is in the open air.
If you wish to go out, you will be obliged to pierce your wall.
What does every one who wants to step into the street do? He goes
down stairs; you will tear up your sheets, little by little you
will make of them a rope, then you will climb out of your window,
and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and it
will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the
rope is too short, but one way of descending will remain to you,
to fall. To drop hap-hazard into the gulf, from an unknown height,
on what? On what is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up
a chimney-flue, at the risk of burning; or you will creep through
a sewer-pipe, at the risk of drowning; I do not speak of the holes
that you will be obliged to mask, of the stones which you will have
to take up and replace twenty times a day, of the plaster that you
will have to hide in your straw pallet. A lock presents itself;
the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a locksmith. If you
wish to pass out, you will be condemned to execute a terrible work
of art; you will take a large sou, you will cut it in two plates;
with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your business.
Then you will hollow out the interior of these plates, taking great
care of the outside, and you will make on the edges a thread, so that
they can be adjusted one upon the other like a box and its cover.
The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected.
To the overseers it will be only a sou; to you it will be a box.
What will you put in this box? A small bit of steel. A watch-spring,
in which you will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw.
With this saw, as long as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will
cut the bolt of the lock, you will sever bolts, the padlock of
your chain, and the bar at your window, and the fetter on your leg.
This masterpiece finished, this prodigy accomplished, all these miracles
of art, address, skill, and patience executed, what will be your
recompense if it becomes known that you are the author? The dungeon.
There is your future. What precipices are idleness and pleasure!
Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy resolution?
To live in idleness on the property of society! to be useless,
that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth
of wretchedness. Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite!
He will become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work?
Ah! You have but one thought, to drink well, to eat well,
to sleep well. You will drink water, you will eat black bread,
you will sleep on a plank with a fetter whose cold touch you
will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to your limbs.
You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well.
You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat
grass like the beasts of the forest. And you will be recaptured.
And then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall,
groping for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible
loaf of darkness which dogs would not touch, eating beans that
the worms have eaten before you. You will be a wood-louse in
a cellar. Ah! Have pity on yourself, you miserable young child,
who were sucking at nurse less than twenty years ago, and who have,
no doubt, a mother still alive! I conjure you, listen to me,
I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes,
to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on your locks,
to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven clean,
and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings
on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck.
If you glance at a woman, you will receive a blow. And you will
enter there at the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty!
You will enter young, rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, and all
your white teeth, and your handsome, youthful hair; you will come
out broken, bent, wrinkled, toothless, horrible, with white locks!
Ah! my poor child, you are on the wrong road; idleness is
counselling you badly; the hardest of all work is thieving.
Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of an idle man.
It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less disagreeable
to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said
to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it
is."
And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the
latter's hand; Montparnasse weighed it for a moment, after which
he allowed it to slide gently into the back pocket of his coat,
with the same mechanical precaution as though he had stolen it.
All this having been said and done, the goodman turned his back
and tranquilly resumed his stroll.
"The blockhead!" muttered Montparnasse.
Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt, already divined.
Montparnasse watched him with amazement, as he disappeared in the dusk.
This contemplation was fatal to him.
While the old man was walking away, Gavroche drew near.
Gavroche had assured himself, with a sidelong glance, that Father
Mabeuf was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep.
Then the gamin emerged from his thicket, and began to crawl after
Montparnasse in the dark, as the latter stood there motionless.
In this manner he came up to Montparnasse without being seen or heard,
gently insinuated his hand into the back pocket of that frock-coat
of fine black cloth, seized the purse, withdrew his hand, and having
recourse once more to his crawling, he slipped away like an adder
through the shadows. Montparnasse, who had no reason to be on his guard,
and who was engaged in thought for the first time in his life,
perceived nothing. When Gavroche had once more attained the point
where Father Mabeuf was, he flung the purse over the hedge, and fled
as fast as his legs would carry him.
The purse fell on Father Mabeuf's foot. This commotion roused him.
He bent over and picked up the purse.
He did not understand in the least, and opened it.
The purse had two compartments; in one of them there was some
small change; in the other lay six napoleons.
M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter to his housekeeper.
"That has fallen from heaven," said Mother Plutarque. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK FIFTH - THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING: CHAPTER I. Solitude and Barracks Combined
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK FOURTH - SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH: CHAPTER I. A Wound without, Healing within
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