________________________________________________
_ Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly
than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch.
The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together.
They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent.
They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks
are called, bini. On the morning of the 5th of June, they went to
Corinthe to breakfast. Joly, who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh
which Laigle was beginning to share. Laigle's coat was threadbare,
but Joly was well dressed.
It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door
of Corinthe.
They ascended to the first floor.
Matelote and Gibelotte received them.
"Oysters, cheese, and ham," said Laigle.
And they seated themselves at a table.
The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves.
Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table.
While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared
at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:--
"I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor
of Brie cheese. I enter." It was Grantaire.
Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table.
At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine
on the table.
That made three.
"Are you going to drink those two bottles?" Laigle inquired
of Grantaire.
Grantaire replied:--
"All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous. Two bottles never
yet astonished a man."
The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking.
Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down.
"So you have a hole in your stomach?" began Laigle again.
"You have one in your elbow," said Grantaire.
And after having emptied his glass, he added:--
"Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old."
"I should hope so," retorted Laigle. "That's why we get on
well together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds,
it does not bind me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities,
it falls in with all my movements, I am only conscious of it
because it keeps me warm. Old coats are just like old friends."
"That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue,
"an old goat is an old abi" (ami, friend).
"Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up,"
said Grantaire.
"Grantaire," demanded Laigle, "have you just come from the boulevard?"
"No."
"We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I."
"It's a marvellous sight," said Joly.
"How quiet this street is!" exclaimed Laigle. "Who would suspect
that Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen
that in former days there were nothing but convents here!
In this neighborhood! Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them,
and so does the Abbe Lebeuf. They were all round here, they fairly
swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white,
Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Carmelites, Little Augustines,
Great Augustines, old Augustines--there was no end of them."
"Don't let's talk of monks," interrupted Grantaire, "it makes
one want to scratch one's self."
Then he exclaimed:--
"Bouh! I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking
possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly.
I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu,
in front of the big public library. That pile of oyster-shells which
is called a library is disgusting even to think of. What paper!
What ink! What scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal
was it who said that man was a featherless biped?[51] And then, I met
a pretty girl of my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring,
worthy to be called Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured,
as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful
banker all spotted with small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her!
Alas! woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover;
cats chase mice as well as birds. Two months ago that young woman
was virtuous in an attic, she adjusted little brass rings in the
eyelet-holes of corsets, what do you call it? She sewed, she had
a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot of flowers, she was contented.
Now here she is a bankeress. This transformation took place last night.
I met the victim this morning in high spirits. The hideous point
about it is, that the jade is as pretty to-day as she was yesterday.
Her financier did not show in her face. Roses have this advantage
or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by
caterpillars are visible. Ah! there is no morality on earth.
I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel,
the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace,
the apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips,
and the fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you
know what right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium,
and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers:
`The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you,
the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done
to you. They were your neighbors. The Clusians are ours.
We understand neighborliness just as you do. You have stolen Alba,
we shall take Clusium.' Rome said: `You shall not take Clusium.'
Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: `Vae victis!' That is what right is.
Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world! What eagles!
It makes my flesh creep."
[51] Bipede sans plume: biped without feathers--pen.
He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and
went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine,
of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice:--
"Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes
the grisette is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one
case than in the other. So we believe in nothing. There is but
one reality: drink. Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the
lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or in favor of the fat cock,
like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, drink. You talk to me
of the boulevard, of that procession, et caetera, et caetera.
Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This poverty
of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep
greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch,
it won't work. Quick, a revolution! The good God has his hands
perpetually black with that cart-grease. If I were in his place,
I'd be perfectly simple about it, I would not wind up my mechanism
every minute, I'd lead the human race in a straightforward way,
I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, without breaking the thread, I would
have no provisional arrangements, I would have no extraordinary
repertory. What the rest of you call progress advances by means
of two motors, men and events. But, sad to say, from time to time,
the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary troupe suffices
neither for event nor for men: among men geniuses are required,
among events revolutions. Great accidents are the law; the order
of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition
of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds
actors needed for its performance. At the moment when one expects
it the least, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament.
Some queer star turns up, underlined by an enormous tail.
And that causes the death of Caesar. Brutus deals him a blow
with a knife, and God a blow with a comet. Crac, and behold
an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold a great man;
'93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 at the head
of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded
with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show!
Raise your eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star
as well as the drama. Good God, it is too much and not enough.
These resources, gathered from exception, seem magnificence and poverty.
My friends, Providence has come down to expedients. What does
a revolution prove? That God is in a quandry. He effects a coup
d'etat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet.
In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as to Jehovah's fortune;
and when I see so much distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird
who has not a grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand
livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly worn,
and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness the Prince de
Conde hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent in the
zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even
in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills,
when I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost,
that paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up,
and so many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I
see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich.
The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up.
He gives a revolution as a tradesman whose money-box is empty
gives a ball. God must not be judged from appearances.
Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive a poverty-stricken universe.
Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am discontented. Here it
is the 4th of June, it is almost night; ever since this morning
I have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, and I
bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an
ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits
anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on
the opposition, everything goes awry; the universe is a tease.
It's like children, those who want them have none, and those who don't
want them have them. Total: I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux,
that bald-head, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I
am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I
do not insult. The universe is what it is. I speak here without
evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, Eternal Father,
the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah! by all
the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not
intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever,
like a shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the
loungers to the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk,
watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite
Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a
Beauceron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewoman,
or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot-soldier
to the Germanic confederation, and occupying his leisure with
drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to say, his frontier.
Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I have said
a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people can
habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points;
respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises
with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion
which is ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink.
The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they
are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other's
profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the
month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm,
to breathe the immense heaps of new-mown hay in the meadows!
Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken
lantern which I have just seen at a bric-a-brac merchant's suggests
a reflection to my mind; it is time to enlighten the human race.
Yes, behold me sad again. That's what comes of swallowing an
oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy
once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each
other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used
to it!"
And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing,
which was well earned.
"A propos of revolution," said Joly, "it is decidedly abberent
that Barius is in lub."
"Does any one know with whom?" demanded Laigle.
"Do."
"No?"
"Do! I tell you."
"Marius' love affairs!" exclaimed Grantaire. "I can imagine it.
Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race
of poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbraeus Apollo.
Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette.
They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like.
Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined
in heaven. They are souls possessed of senses. They lie among
the stars."
Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second
harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture
of the stairs. It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged,
very small, yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous
amount of hair drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air.
The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three,
addressed himself to Laigle de Meaux.
"Are you Monsieur Bossuet?"
"That is my nickname," replied Laigle. "What do you want with me?"
"This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me:
`Do you know Mother Hucheloup?' I said: `Yes, Rue Chanvrerie,
the old man's widow;' he said to me: `Go there. There you will find
M. Bossuet. Tell him from me: "A B C".' It's a joke that they're
playing on you, isn't it. He gave me ten sous."
"Joly, lend me ten sous," said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire:
"Grantaire, lend me ten sous."
This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad.
"Thank you, sir," said the urchin.
"What is your name?" inquired Laigle.
"Navet, Gavroche's friend."
"Stay with us," said Laigle.
"Breakfast with us," said Grantaire,
The child replied:--
"I can't, I belong in the procession, I'm the one to shout `Down
with Polignac!'"
And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is
the most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure.
The child gone, Grantaire took the word:--
"That is the pure-bred gamin. There are a great many varieties
of the gamin species. The notary's gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter,
the cook's gamin is called a scullion, the baker's gamin is called
a mitron, the lackey's gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is
called the cabin-boy, the soldier's gamin is called the drummer-boy,
the painter's gamin is called paint-grinder, the tradesman's gamin
is called an errand-boy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion,
the kingly gamin is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called
the bambino."
In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection; he said half aloud:--
"A B C, that is to say: the burial of Lamarque."
"The tall blonde," remarked Grantaire, "is Enjolras, who is sending
you a warning."
"Shall we go?" ejaculated Bossuet.
"It's raiding," said Joly. "I have sworn to go through fire,
but not through water. I don't wand to ged a gold."
"I shall stay here," said Grantaire. "I prefer a breakfast
to a hearse."
"Conclusion: we remain," said Laigle. "Well, then, let us drink.
Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot."
"Ah! the riot, I am with you!" cried Joly.
Laigle rubbed his hands.
"Now we're going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter
of fact, it does hurt the people along the seams."
"I don't think much of your revolution," said Grantaire. "I don't
execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton
night-cap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think
that to-day, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize
his royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre
end against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven."
The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction
of daylight. There was no one in the wine-shop, or in the street,
every one having gone off "to watch events."
"Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your
hand before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light."
Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way.
"Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: `Joly is ill,
Grantaire is drunk.' It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet.
If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse
for Enjolras! I won't go to his funeral."
This resolution once arrived at, Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire did
not stir from the wine-shop. By two o'clock in the afternoon,
the table at which they sat was covered with empty bottles.
Two candles were burning on it, one in a flat copper candlestick
which was perfectly green, the other in the neck of a cracked carafe.
Grantaire had seduced Joly and Bossuet to wine; Bossuet and Joly had
conducted Grantaire back towards cheerfulness.
As for Grantaire, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate inspirer
of dreams, ever since mid-day. Wine enjoys only a conventional
popularity with serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter
of inebriety, white magic and black magic; wine is only white magic.
Grantaire was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible
fit of drunkenness yawning before him, far from arresting him,
attracted him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beerglass.
The beer-glass is the abyss. Having neither opium nor hashish
on hand, and being desirous of filling his brain with twilight,
he had had recourse to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe,
which produces the most terrible of lethargies. It is of these
three vapors, beer, brandy, and absinthe, that the lead of the soul
is composed. They are three grooms; the celestial butterfly is
drowned in them; and there are formed there in a membranous smoke,
vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, three mute furies,
Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the slumbering Psyche.
Grantaire had not yet reached that lamentable phase; far from it.
He was tremendously gay, and Bossuet and Joly retorted.
They clinked glasses. Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation
of words and ideas, a peculiarity of gesture; he rested his left
fist on his knee with dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and,
with cravat untied, seated astride a stool, his full glass in his
right hand, he hurled solemn words at the big maid-servant Matelote:--
"Let the doors of the palace be thrown open! Let every one be a member
of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup.
Let us drink."
And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added:--
"Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may
contemplate thee!"
And Joly exclaimed:--
"Matelote and Gibelotte, dod't gib Grantaire anything more to drink.
He has already devoured, since this bording, in wild prodigality,
two francs and ninety-five centibes."
And Grantaire began again:--
"Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting
them on the table in the guise of candles?"
Bossuet, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity.
He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back
in the falling rain, and gazing at his two friends.
All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps,
cries of "To arms!" He turned round and saw in the Rue Saint-Denis,
at the end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing,
gun in hand, and Gavroche with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword,
Courfeyrac with his sword, and Jean Prouvaire with his blunderbuss,
Combeferre with his gun, Bahorel with his gun, and the whole armed
and stormy rabble which was following them.
The Rue de la Chanvrerie was not more than a gunshot long.
Bossuet improvised a speaking-trumpet from his two hands placed
around his mouth, and shouted:--
"Courfeyrac! Courfeyrac! Hohee!"
Courfeyrac heard the shout, caught sight of Bossuet, and advanced a few
paces into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, shouting: "What do you want?"
which crossed a "Where are you going?"
"To make a barricade," replied Courfeyrac.
"Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here!"
"That's true, Aigle," said Courfeyrac.
And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into
the Rue de la Chanvrerie. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK TWELFTH - CORINTHE: CHAPTER III. Night begins to descend upon Grantaire
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK TWELFTH - CORINTHE: CHAPTER I. History of Corinthe from its Foundation
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