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M. Leblanc uttered not a word.
Thenardier went on:--
"You see that I put not a little water in my wine; I'm
very moderate. I don't know the state of your fortune, but I do
know that you don't stick at money, and a benevolent man like
yourself can certainly give two hundred thousand francs to the
father of a family who is out of luck.
Certainly, you are reasonable, too; you haven't imagined that
I should take all the trouble I have to-day and organized this
affair this evening, which has been labor well bestowed, in the
opinion of these gentlemen, merely to wind up by asking you for
enough to go and drink red wine at fifteen sous and eat veal at
Desnoyer's. Two hundred thousand francs--it's surely worth all
that. This trifle once out of your pocket, I guarantee you that
that's the end of the matter, and that you have no further demands
to fear. You will say to me:
`But I haven't two hundred thousand francs about me.'
Oh!
I'm not extortionate.
I don't demand that. I only ask one thing of you.
Have the goodness to write what I am about to dictate to you."
Here Thenardier paused; then he added, emphasizing his words,
and casting a smile in the direction of the brazier:--
"I warn you that I shall not admit that you don't know
how to write."
A grand inquisitor might have envied that smile.
Thenardier pushed the table close to M. Leblanc, and took
an inkstand, a pen, and a sheet of paper from the drawer which
he left half open, and in which gleamed the long blade of the
knife.
He placed the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc.
"Write," said he.
The prisoner spoke at last.
"How do you expect me to write?
I am bound."
"That's true, excuse me!" ejaculated Thenardier,
"you are quite right."
And turning to Bigrenaille:--
"Untie the gentleman's right arm."
Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, executed Thenardier's
order.
When the prisoner's right arm was free, Thenardier dipped
the pen in the ink and presented it to him.
"Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power,
at our discretion, that no human power can get you out of this,
and that we shall be really grieved if we are forced to proceed
to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name, nor your
address, but I warn you, that you will remain bound until the
person charged with carrying the letter which you are about to
write shall have returned.
Now, be so good as to write."
"What?" demanded the prisoner.
"I will dictate."
M. Leblanc took the pen.
Thenardier began to dictate:--
"My daughter--"
The prisoner shuddered, and raised his eyes to Thenardier.
"Put down `My dear daughter'--" said Thenardier.
M. Leblanc obeyed.
Thenardier continued:--
"Come instantly--"
He paused:--
"You address her as thou, do you not?"
"Who?" asked M. Leblanc.
"Parbleu!" cried Thenardier, "the little one,
the Lark."
M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:--
"I do not know what you mean."
"Go on, nevertheless," ejaculated Thenardier, and
he continued to dictate:--
"Come immediately, I am in absolute need of thee.
The person who will deliver this note to thee is instructed
to conduct thee to me. I am waiting for thee.
Come with confidence."
M. Leblanc had written the whole of this.
Thenardier resumed:--
"Ah! erase `come with confidence'; that might lead her
to suppose that everything was not as it should be, and that distrust
is possible."
M. Leblanc erased the three words.
"Now," pursued Thenardier, "sign it.
What's your name?"
The prisoner laid down the pen and demanded:--
"For whom is this letter?"
"You know well," retorted Thenardier, "for
the little one I just told you so."
It was evident that Thenardier avoided naming the young girl
in question.
He said "the Lark," he said "the little one,"
but he did not pronounce her name--the precaution of a clever
man guarding his secret from his accomplices.
To mention the name was to deliver the whole "affair"
into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was
any need of their knowing.
He went on:--
"Sign.
What is your name?"
"Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner.
Thenardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into
his pocket and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized
on M. Leblanc. He looked for the mark on it, and held it close
to the candle.
"U. F. That's it.
Urbain Fabre.
Well, sign it U. F."
The prisoner signed.
"As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it
to me, I will fold it."
That done, Thenardier resumed:--
"Address it, `Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house.
I know that you live a long distance from here, near Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas,
because you go to mass there every day, but I don't know in what
street. I see that you understand your situation.
As you have not lied about your name, you will not lie about
your address.
Write it yourself."
The prisoner paused thoughtfully for a moment, then he took
the pen and wrote:--
"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, Rue Saint-Dominique-D'Enfer,
No. 17."
Thenardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
"Wife!" he cried.
The Thenardier woman hastened to him.
"Here's the letter.
You know what you have to do.
There is a carriage at the door.
Set out at once, and return ditto."
And addressing the man with the meat-axe:--
"Since you have taken off your nose-screen, accompany
the mistress. You will get up behind the fiacre.
You know where you left the team?"
"Yes," said the man.
And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thenardier.
As they set off, Thenardier thrust his head through the half-open
door, and shouted into the corridor:--
"Above all things, don't lose the letter! remember that
you carry two hundred thousand francs with you!"
The Thenardier's hoarse voice replied:--
"Be easy.
I have it in my bosom."
A minute had not elapsed, when the sound of the cracking of
a whip was heard, which rapidly retreated and died away.
"Good!" growled Thenardier.
"They're going at a fine pace. At such a gallop, the
bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour."
He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms,
and presenting his muddy boots to the brazier.
"My feet are cold!" said he.
Only five ruffians now remained in the den with Thenardier
and the prisoner.
These men, through the black masks or paste which covered
their faces, and made of them, at fear's pleasure, charcoal-burners,
negroes, or demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could
be felt that they perpetrated a crime like a bit of work, tranquilly,
without either wrath or mercy, with a sort of ennui.
They were crowded together in one corner like brutes, and
remained silent.
Thenardier warmed his feet.
The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity.
A sombre calm had succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled
the garret but a few moments before.
The candle, on which a large "stranger" had formed,
cast but a dim light in the immense hovel, the brazier had grown
dull, and all those monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows on
the walls and ceiling.
No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old
drunken man, who was fast asleep.
Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by
every trifle. The enigma was more impenetrable than ever.
Who was this "little one" whom Thenardier had called
the Lark? Was she his "Ursule"? The prisoner had not
seemed to be affected by that word, "the Lark," and
had replied in the most natural manner in the world:
"I do not know what you mean."
On the other hand, the two letters U. F. were explained; they
meant Urbain Fabre; and Ursule was no longer named Ursule.
This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all.
A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post,
from which he was observing and commanding this whole scene. There
he stood, almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though
annihilated by the abominable things viewed at such close quarters.
He waited, in the hope of some incident, no matter of what nature,
since he could not collect his thoughts and did not know upon
what course to decide.
"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark,
I shall see her, for the Thenardier woman is to bring her hither.
That will be the end, and then I will give my life and my
blood if necessary, but I will deliver her!
Nothing shall stop me."
Nearly half an hour passed in this manner.
Thenardier seemed to be absorbed in gloomy reflections, the
prisoner did not stir. Still, Marius fancied that at intervals,
and for the last few moments, he had heard a faint, dull noise
in the direction of the prisoner.
All at once, Thenardier addressed the prisoner:
"By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to
you at once."
These few words appeared to be the beginning of an explanation.
Marius strained his ears.
"My wife will be back shortly, don't get impatient.
I think that the Lark really is your daughter, and it seems
to me quite natural that you should keep her.
Only, listen to me a bit.
My wife will go and hunt her up with your letter.
I told my wife to dress herself in the way she did, so that
your young lady might make no difficulty about following her.
They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind.
Somewhere, outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed
to two very good horses.
Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from
the fiacre.
My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife
will come back here to tell us: `It's done.'
As for the young lady, no harm will be done to her; the trap
will conduct her to a place where she will be quiet, and just
as soon as you have handed over to me those little two hundred
thousand francs, she will be returned to you.
If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his
thumb to the Lark, that's all."
The prisoner uttered not a syllable.
After a pause, Thenardier continued:--
"It's very simple, as you see.
There'll be no harm done unless you wish that there should
be harm done.
I'm telling you how things stand. I warn you so that you may
be prepared."
He paused:
the prisoner did not break the silence, and Thenardier resumed:--
"As soon as my wife returns and says to me:
`The Lark is on the way,' we will release you, and you will
be free to go and sleep at home. You see that our intentions are
not evil."
Terrible images passed through Marius' mind.
What!
That young girl whom they were abducting was not to be brought
back? One of those monsters was to bear her off into the darkness?
Whither?
And what if it were she!
It was clear that it was she.
Marius felt his heart stop beating.
What was he to do?
Discharge the pistol?
Place all those scoundrels in the hands of justice?
But the horrible man with the meat-axe would, none the less,
be out of reach with the young girl, and Marius reflected on Thenardier's
words, of which he perceived the bloody significance:
"If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn
of his thumb to the Lark."
Now, it was not alone by the colonel's testament, it was by
his own love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he
felt himself restrained.
This frightful situation, which had already lasted above half
an hour, was changing its aspect every moment.
Marius had sufficient strength of mind to review in succession
all the most heart-breaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding
none.
The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the funereal silence
of the den.
In the midst of this silence, the door at the bottom of the
staircase was heard to open and shut again.
The prisoner made a movement in his bonds.
"Here's the bourgeoise," said Thenardier.
He had hardly uttered the words, when the Thenardier woman
did in fact rush hastily into the room, red, panting, breathless,
with flaming eyes, and cried, as she smote her huge hands on her
thighs simultaneously:--
"False address!"
The ruffian who had gone with her made his appearance behind
her and picked up his axe again.
She resumed:--
"Nobody there!
Rue Saint-Dominique, No. 17, no Monsieur Urbain Fabre! They
know not what it means!"
She paused, choking, then went on:--
"Monsieur Thenardier!
That old fellow has duped you!
You are too good, you see!
If it had been me, I'd have chopped the beast in four quarters
to begin with!
And if he had acted ugly, I'd have boiled him alive!
He would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl
is, and where he keeps his shiners!
That's the way I should have managed matters!
People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal
stupider than women!
Nobody at No. 17. It's nothing but a big carriage gate!
No Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all
that racing and fee to the coachman and all!
I spoke to both the porter and the portress, a fine, stout
woman, and they know nothing about him!"
Marius breathed freely once more.
She, Ursule or the Lark, he no longer knew what to call her,
was safe.
While his exasperated wife vociferated, Thenardier had seated
himself on the table.
For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right
foot, which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of
savage revery.
Finally, he said to the prisoner, with a slow and singularly
ferocious tone:
"A false address?
What did you expect to gain by that?"
"To gain time!" cried the prisoner in a thundering
voice, and at the same instant he shook off his bonds; they were
cut. The prisoner was only attached to the bed now by one leg.
Before the seven men had time to collect their senses and
dash forward, he had bent down into the fireplace, had stretched
out his hand to the brazier, and had then straightened himself
up again, and now Thenardier, the female Thenardier, and the ruffians,
huddled in amazement at the extremity of the hovel, stared at
him in stupefaction, as almost free and in a formidable attitude,
he brandished above his head the red-hot chisel, which emitted
a threatening glow.
The judicial examination to which the ambush in the Gorbeau
house eventually gave rise, established the fact that a large
sou piece, cut and worked in a peculiar fashion, was found in
the garret, when the police made their descent on it.
This sou piece was one of those marvels of industry, which
are engendered by the patience of the galleys in the shadows and
for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than instruments
of escape. These hideous and delicate products of wonderful art
are to jewellers' work what the metaphors of slang are to poetry.
There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, just as there
are Villons in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance
finds means sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common wooden-handled
knife, to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these
plates without affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow
on the edge of the sou in such a manner that the plates will adhere
again. This can be screwed together and unscrewed at will; it
is a box. In this box he hides a watch-spring, and this watch-spring,
properly handled, cuts good-sized chains and bars of iron. The
unfortunate convict is supposed to possess merely a sou; not at
all, he possesses liberty.
It was a large sou of this sort which, during the subsequent
search of the police, was found under the bed near the window.
They also found a tiny saw of blue steel which would fit the
sou.
It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his
person at the moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived
to conceal it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right
hand free, he unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords
which fastened him, which would explain the faint noise and almost
imperceptible movements which Marius had observed.
As he had not been able to bend down, for fear of betraying
himself, he had not cut the bonds of his left leg.
The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise.
"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thenardier.
"He still holds by one leg, and he can't get away.
I'll answer for that.
I tied that paw for him."
In the meanwhile, the prisoner had begun to speak:--
"You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble
of defending it.
When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make
me write what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say
what I do not choose to say--"
He stripped up his left sleeve, and added:--
"See here."
At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing
chisel which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on
his bare flesh.
The crackling of the burning flesh became audible, and the
odor peculiar to chambers of torture filled the hovel.
Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered,
hardly a muscle of the old man's face contracted, and while the
red-hot iron sank into the smoking wound, impassive and almost
august, he fixed on Thenardier his beautiful glance, in which
there was no hatred, and where suffering vanished in serene majesty.
With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and
the senses when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul
to spring forth, and make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions
among the soldiery force the captain to show himself.
"Wretches!" said he, "have no more fear of
me than I have for you!"
And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through
the window, which had been left open; the horrible, glowing tool
disappeared into the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far
away on the snow.
The prisoner resumed:--
"Do what you please with me."
He was disarmed.
"Seize him!" said Thenardier.
Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and
the masked man with the ventriloquist's voice took up his station
in front of him, ready to smash his skull at the slightest movement.
At the same time, Marius heard below him, at the base of the
partition, but so near that he could not see who was speaking,
this colloquy conducted in a low tone:--
"There is only one thing left to do."
"Cut his throat."
"That's it."
It was the husband and wife taking counsel together.
Thenardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer,
and took out the knife.
Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol. Unprecedented
perplexity!
For the last hour he had had two voices in his conscience,
the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the other
crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices continued
uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him to agony.
Up to that moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should
find some means of reconciling these two duties, but nothing within
the limits of possibility had presented itself.
However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had
been reached; Thenardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces
distant from the prisoner.
Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource
of despair.
All at once a shudder ran through him.
At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the
full moon illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of
paper. On this paper he read the following line written that very
morning, in large letters, by the eldest of the Thenardier girls:--
"THE BOBBIES ARE HERE."
An idea, a flash, crossed Marius' mind; this was the expedient
of which he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem
which was torturing him, of sparing the assassin and saving the
victim.
He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized
the sheet of paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the
wall, wrapped the paper round it, and tossed the whole through
the crevice into the middle of the den.
It was high time.
Thenardier had conquered his last fears or his last scruples,
and was advancing on the prisoner.
"Something is falling!" cried the Thenardier woman.
"What is it?" asked her husband.
The woman darted forward and picked up the bit of plaster.
She handed it to her husband.
"Where did this come from?" demanded Thenardier.
"Pardie!" ejaculated his wife, "where do you
suppose it came from? Through the window, of course."
"I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille.
Thenardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it close to
the candle.
"It's in Eponine's handwriting.
The devil!"
He made a sign to his wife, who hastily drew near, and showed
her the line written on the sheet of paper, then he added in a
subdued voice:--
"Quick!
The ladder!
Let's leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp!"
"Without cutting that man's throat?" asked, the
Thenardier woman.
"We haven't the time."
"Through what?" resumed Bigrenaille.
"Through the window," replied Thenardier.
"Since Ponine has thrown the stone through the window,
it indicates that the house is not watched on that side."
The mask with the ventriloquist's voice deposited his huge
key on the floor, raised both arms in the air, and opened and
clenched his fists, three times rapidly without uttering a word.
This was the signal like the signal for clearing the decks
for action on board ship.
The ruffians who were holding the prisoner released him; in
the twinkling of an eye the rope ladder was unrolled outside the
window, and solidly fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks.
The prisoner paid no attention to what was going on around
him. He seemed to be dreaming or praying.
As soon as the ladder was arranged, Thenardier cried:
"Come! the bourgeoise first!"
And he rushed headlong to the window.
But just as he was about to throw his leg over, Bigrenaille
seized him roughly by the collar.
"Not much, come now, you old dog, after us!"
"After us!" yelled the ruffians.
"You are children," said Thenardier, "we are
losing time. The police are on our heels."
"Well, said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see
who shall go down first."
Thenardier exclaimed:--
"Are you mad!
Are you crazy!
What a pack of boobies!
You want to waste time, do you?
Draw lots, do you?
By a wet finger, by a short straw!
With written names!
Thrown into a hat!--"
"Would you like my hat?" cried a voice on the threshold.
All wheeled round.
It was Javert.
He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them
with a smile.
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