________________________________________________
_ The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the
barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the
effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity
presented itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand
in the darkness offered him the key. These melancholy openings
which take place in the gloom before despair, are tempting.
Marius thrust aside the bar which had so often allowed him to pass,
emerged from the garden, and said: "I will go."
Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid
in his brain, incapable of accepting anything thenceforth of fate
after those two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love,
overwhelmed at once by all the reveries of despair, he had but one
desire remaining, to make a speedy end of all.
He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed,
as he had Javert's pistols with him.
The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse,
had vanished from his sight in the street.
Marius, who had emerged from the Rue Plumet by the boulevard,
traversed the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champs
Elysees, the Place Louis XV., and reached the Rue de Rivoli.
The shops were open there, the gas was burning under the arcades,
women were making their purchases in the stalls, people were eating
ices in the Cafe Laiter, and nibbling small cakes at the English
pastry-cook's shop. Only a few posting-chaises were setting out
at a gallop from the Hotel des Princes and the Hotel Meurice.
Marius entered the Rue Saint-Honore through the Passage Delorme.
There the shops were closed, the merchants were chatting in front
of their half-open doors, people were walking about, the street
lanterns were lighted, beginning with the first floor, all the
windows were lighted as usual. There was cavalry on the Place du
Palais-Royal.
Marius followed the Rue Saint-Honore. In proportion as he left
the Palais-Royal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows,
the shops were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds,
the street grew sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased
in density. For the passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could
be seen to speak in this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull,
deep murmur.
Near the fountain of the Arbre-Sec, there were "assemblages",
motionless and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came
as stones in the midst of running water.
At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked.
It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable
block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in
low tones. There were hardly any black coats or round hats now,
but smock frocks, blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads.
This multitude undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom.
Its whisperings had the hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not
one of them was walking, a dull trampling was audible in the mire.
Beyond this dense portion of the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the
Rue des Prouvaires, and in the extension of the Rue Saint-Honore,
there was no longer a single window in which a candle was burning.
Only the solitary and diminishing rows of lanterns could be seen
vanishing into the street in the distance. The lanterns of that
date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes, and shed upon
the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider.
These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns,
moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer passed
that limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and
the army began.
Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had
been summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng
and to pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols,
he avoided the sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue
de Bethisy, and directed his course towards the Halles. At the
corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais, there were no longer any lanterns.
After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits
of the troops; he found himself in something startling. There was
no longer a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light,
there was no one; solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill
which seized hold upon one. Entering a street was like entering
a cellar.
He continued to advance.
He took a few steps. Some one passed close to him at a run. Was it
a man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told.
It had passed and vanished.
Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he
judged to be the Rue de la Poterie; near the middle of this street,
he came in contact with an obstacle. He extended his hands.
It was an overturned wagon; his foot recognized pools
of water, gullies, and paving-stones scattered and piled up.
A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. He climbed over
the stones and found himself on the other side of the barrier.
He walked very near the street-posts, and guided himself along
the walls of the houses. A little beyond the barricade, it seemed
to him that he could make out something white in front of him.
He approached, it took on a form. It was two white horses;
the horses of the omnibus harnessed by Bossuet in the morning,
who had been straying at random all day from street to street,
and had finally halted there, with the weary patience of brutes
who no more understand the actions of men, than man understands the
actions of Providence.
Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching
a street which seemed to him to be the Rue du Contrat-Social,
a shot coming no one knows whence, and traversing the darkness
at random, whistled close by him, and the bullet pierced a brass
shaving-dish suspended above his head over a hairdresser's shop.
This pierced shaving-dish was still to be seen in 1848, in the
Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the pillars of the market.
This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he
encountered nothing more.
The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps.
Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK THIRTEENTH - MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW: CHAPTER II. An Owl's View of Paris
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK TWELFTH - CORINTHE: CHAPTER VIII. Many Interrogation Points with Regard to a Certain Le Cabuc, whose Name may not have been Le Cabuc
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