2 (4)
AN APPARITION TO MARIUS
Distracted by Cosette’s disappearance, and unable to concentrate on the translation work Marius does to survive, he goes out nearly every day to sit on a bench in “The Field of the Lark,” which reminds him of her because of the coincidence of that name with Cosette’s nickname.
One day, a few days after this visit of a “spirit” to Father Mabeuf, one morning—it was Monday, the day on which Marius borrowed the hundred-sous coin of Courfeyrac for Thénardier—Marius had put this hundred-sous coin into his pocket and before carrying it to the prison once, he had gone “to take a little walk,” hoping that it would enable him to work on his return. It was eternally so. As soon as he rose in the morning, he sat down before a book and a sheet of paper to work upon some translation; the work he had on hand at that time was the translation into French of a celebrated quarrel between two Germans, the controversy between Gans and Savigny; he took Savigny, he took Gans, read four lines, tried to write one of them, could not, saw a star between his paper and his eyes, and rose from his chair, saying: “I will go out. That will put me in trim.”
And he would go to the Field of the Lark.
There he saw the star more than ever, and Savigny and Gans less than ever.
He returned, tried to resume his work, and did not succeed; he found no means of tying a single one of the broken threads in his brain; then he would say: “I will not go out to-morrow. It prevents my working.” Yet he went out every day.
He lived in the Field of the Lark rather than in Courfeyrac’s room. This was his real address: Boulevard de la Santé, seventh tree from the Rue Croulebarbe.
That morning, he had left this seventh tree, and sat down on the bank of the brook of the Gobelins. The bright sun was gleaming through the new and glossy leaves.
He was thinking of “Her!” And his dreaminess, becoming reproachful, fell back upon himself; he thought sorrowfully of the idleness, the paralysis of the soul, which was growing up within him, and of that night which was thickening before him hour by hour so rapidly that he had already ceased to see the sun.
Meanwhile, through this painful evolution of indistinct ideas which were not even a soliloquy, so much had action become enfeebled within him, and he no longer had even strength to develop his grief—through this melancholy distraction, the sensations of the world without reached him. He heard behind and below him, on both banks of the stream, the washerwomen of the Gobelins beating their linen; and over his head, the birds chattering and singing in the elms. On the one hand the sound of liberty, of happy unconcern, of winged leisure; on the other, the sound of labour. A thing which made him muse profoundly, and almost reflect, these two joyous sounds.
All at once, in the midst of his ecstasy of exhaustion, he heard a voice which was known to him, say:
“Ah! there he is!”
He raised his eyes and recognised the unfortunate child who had come to his room one morning, the elder of the Thénardier girls, Eponine; he now knew her name. Singular fact, she had become more wretched and more beautiful, two steps which seemed impossible. She had accomplished a double progress towards the light, and towards distress. She was bare footed and in rags, as on the day when she had so resolutely entered his room, only her rags were two months older; the holes were larger, the tatters dirtier. It was the same rough voice, the same forehead tanned and wrinkled by exposure; the same free, wild, and wandering gaze. She had, in addition to her former expression, that mixture of fear and sorrow which the experience of a prison adds to misery.
She had spears of straw and grass in her hair, not like Ophelia from having gone mad through the contagion of Hamlet’s madness but because she had slept in some stable loft.
And with all this, she was beautiful. What a star thou art, O youth!
Meantime, she had stopped before Marius, with an expression of pleasure upon her livid face, and something which resembled a smile.
She stood for a few seconds, as if she could not speak.
“I have found you, then?” said she at last. “Father Mabeuf was right; it was on this boulevard. How I have looked for you! if you only knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They have let me out! seeing that there was nothing against me and then I was not of the age of discernment. It lacked two months. Oh! how I have looked for you! it is six weeks now. You don’t live down there any longer?”
“No,” said Marius.
“Oh! I understand. On account of the affair. Such scares are disagreeable. You have moved. What! why do you wear such an old hat as that? a young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, Monsieur Marius? Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I forget what more. It’s not true that you are a baron? barons are old fellows, they go to the Luxembourg Gardens in front of the château where there is the most sun, they read the Quotidienne for a sou. I went once for a letter to a baron’s like that. He was more than a hundred years old. But tell me, where do you live now?”
Marius did not answer.
“Ah!” she continued, “you have a hole in your shirt. I must mend it for you.”
She resumed with an expression which gradually grew darker:
“You don’t seem to be glad to see me?”
Marius said nothing; she herself was silent for a moment, then exclaimed:
“But if I would, I could easily make you glad!”
“How?” inquired Marius. “What does that mean?”
“Ah! you used to speak more kindly to me!” replied she.
“Well, what is it that you mean?”
She bit her lip; she seemed to hesitate, as if passing through a kind of interior struggle. At last, she appeared to decide upon her course.
“So much the worse, it makes no difference. You look sad, I want you to be glad. But promise me that you will laugh, I want to see you laugh and hear you say: Ah, well! that is good. Poor Monsieur Marius! you know, you promised me that you would give me whatever I should ask—”
“Yes! but tell me!”
She looked into Marius’ eyes and said:
“I have the address.”
Marius turned pale. All his blood flowed back to his heart.
“What address?”
“The address you asked me for.”
She added as if she were making an effort:
“The address—you know well enough!”
“Yes!” stammered Marius.
“Of the young lady!”
Having pronounced this word, she sighed deeply.
Marius sprang up from the bank on which he was sitting, and took her wildly by the hand.
“Oh! come! show me the way, tell me! ask me for whatever you will! Where is it?”
“Come with me,” she answered. “I am not sure of the street and the number; it is away on the other side from here, but I know the house very well. I will show you.”
She withdrew her hand and added in a tone which would have pierced the heart of an observer, but which did not even touch the intoxicated and transported Marius:
“Oh! how glad you are!”
A cloud passed over Marius’ brow. He seized Eponine by the arm:
“Swear to me one thing!”
“Swear?” said she, “what does that mean? Ah! you want me to swear?”
And she laughed.
“Your father! promise me, Eponine! swear to me that you will not give this address to your father!”
She turned towards him with an astounded appearance.
“Eponine! How do you know that my name is Eponine?”
“Promise what I ask you!”
But she did not seem to understand.
“That is nice! you called me Eponine!”
Marius caught her by both arms at once. “But answer me now, in heaven’s name! pay attention to what I am saying, swear to me that you will not give the address you know to your father!”
“My father?” said she. “Oh! yes, my father! Do not be concerned on his account. He is in solitary. Besides, do I busy myself about my father!”
“But you don’t promise me!” exclaimed Marius.
“Let me go then!” said she, bursting into a laugh, “how you shake me! Yes! yes! I promise you that! I swear to you that! What is it to me? I won’t give the address to my father. There! will that do? is that it?”
“Nor to anybody?” said Marius.
“Nor to anybody.”
“Now,” added Marius, “show me the way.”
“Right away?”
“Right away.”
“Come. Oh! how glad he is!” said she.
After a few steps, she stopped.
“You follow too near me, Monsieur Marius. Let me go forward, and follow me like that, without seeming to. It won’t do for a fine young man, like you, to be seen with a woman like me.”
No tongue could tell all that there was in that word, woman, thus uttered by this child.
She went on a few steps, and stopped again; Marius rejoined her. She spoke to him aside and without turning:
“By the way, you know you have promised me something?”
Marius fumbled in his pocket. He had nothing in the world but the five francs intended for Thénardier. He took it, and put it into Eponine’s hand.
She opened her fingers and let the coin fall on the ground, and, looking at him with a gloomy look:
“I don’t want your money,” said she.