| EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT INFALLIBLEMARKSMANSHIP
WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796
Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the
gunwas about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could
nothold out a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessaryto
deaden the blows.
Enjolras issued this command:
"We must place a mattress there."
"We have none," said Combeferre, "the wounded
are lying on them."
Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the
cornerof the tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to
that moment,taken no part in anything that was going on. He did
not appearto hear the combatants saying around him: "Here
is a gun that isdoing nothing."
At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose.
It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in
the Ruede la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets,
had placedher mattress in front of her window. This window, an
attic window,was on the roof of a six-story house situated a little
beyondthe barricade. The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported
atthe bottom on two poles for drying linen, was upheld at the
topby two ropes, which, at that distance, looked like two threads,and
which were attached to two nails planted in the window frames.
These ropes were distinctly visible, like hairs, against the sky.
"Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?"
said Jean Valjean.
Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him.
Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired.
One of the mattress ropes was cut.
The mattress now hung by one thread only.
Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashedthe
panes of the attic window. The mattress slipped betweenthe two
poles and fell into the street.
The barricade applauded.
All voices cried:
"Here is a mattress!"
"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and
fetch it?"
The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade,between
besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeantof artillery
having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had,for several minutes,
been lying flat on their stomachs behindthe line of paving-stones
which they had erected, and, in orderto supply the forced silence
of the piece, which was quiet whileits service was in course of
reorganization, they had opened fireon the barricade. The insurgents
did not reply to this musketry,in order to spare their ammunition
The fusillade broke againstthe barricade; but the street, which
it filled, was terrible.
Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street,traversed
the storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress,hoisted it upon
his back, and returned to the barricade.
He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixedit
there against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-menshould
not see it.
That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot.
It was not long in coming.
The cannon vomited forth its package of buck-shot with a roar.
But there was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen hadbeen
attained. The barricade was saved.
"Citizen," said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, "the
Republic thanks you."
Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed:
"It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power.
Triumph of that which yields over that which strikes with lightning.
But never mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!"
CHAPTER X
DAWN
At that moment, Cosette awoke.
Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window,facing
the East on the back court-yard of the house.
Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had
notbeen there on the preceding evening, and she had already retiredto
her chamber when Toussaint had said:
"It appears that there is a row."
Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had hadsweet
dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her littlebed
was very white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to herin
the light. She awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first,produced
on her the effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first
thought on emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette
felt herself thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean,she had,
a few hours previously, passed through that reactionof the soul
which absolutely will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish
hope, with all her might, without knowing why. Then she felt a
pang at her heart. It was three days since shehad seen Marius.
But she said to herself that he must have receivedher letter,
that he knew where she was, and that he was so cleverthat he would
find means of reaching her.--And that certainlyto-day, and perhaps
that very morning.--It was broad daylight,but the rays of light
were very horizontal; she thought that itwas very early, but that
she must rise, nevertheless, in order toreceive Marius.
She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that,consequently,
that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was
valid. All this was certain. It was monstrous enoughalready to
have suffered for three days. Marius absent three days,this was
horrible on the part of the good God. Now, this cruelteasing from
on high had been gone through with. Marius was aboutto arrive,
and he would bring good news. Youth is made thus;it quickly dries
its eyes; it finds sorrow useless and does notaccept it. Youth
is the smile of the future in the presence of anunknown quantity,
which is itself. It is natural to it to be happy. It seems as
though its respiration were made of hope.
Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to
heron the subject of this absence which was to last only one day,and
what explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticedwith
what nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rollsaway
and hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable.
There are thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle awayin
a corner of our brain; that is the end of them; they are lost;it
is impossible to lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat
vexedat the useless little effort made by her memory. She told
herself,that it was very naughty and very wicked of her, to have
forgottenthe words uttered by Marius.
She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of
souland body, her prayers and her toilet.
One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader intoa
nuptial chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse wouldhardly
venture it, prose must not.
It is the interior of a flower that is not yet unfolded, it
iswhiteness in the dark, it is the private cell of a closed lily,which
must not be gazed upon by man so long as the sun has notgazed
upon it. Woman in the bud is sacred. That innocent budwhich opens,
that adorable half-nudity which is afraid of itself,that white
foot which takes refuge in a slipper, that throatwhich veils itself
before a mirror as though a mirror were an eye,that chemise which
makes haste to rise up and conceal the shoulderfor a creaking
bit of furniture or a passing vehicle, those cords tied,those
clasps fastened, those laces drawn, those tremors, those shiversof
cold and modesty, that exquisite affright in every movement,that
almost winged uneasiness where there is no cause for alarm,the
successive phases of dressing, as charming as the clouds of dawn,--it
is not fitting that all this should be narrated, and it is too
muchto have even called attention to it.
The eye of man must be more religious in the presence of the
risingof a young girl than in the presence of the rising of a
star. The possibility of hurting should inspire an augmentation
of respect. The down on the peach, the bloom on the plum, the
radiated crystal ofthe snow, the wing of the butterfly powdered
with feathers, are coarsecompared to that chastity which does
not even know that it is chaste. The young girl is only the flash
of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bed-chamber is hidden
in the sombre part of the ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance
brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation.
We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flutterof
Cosette's rising.
An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God,but
that Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and shewas ashamed
and turned crimson. We are of the number who fallspeechless in
the presence of young girls and flowers, since wethink them worthy
of veneration.
Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her
hair,which was a very simple matter in those days, when women
did notswell out their curls and bands with cushions and puffs,
and didnot put crinoline in their locks. Then she opened the windowand
cast her eyes around her in every direction, hoping to descrysome
bit of the street, an angle of the house, an edge of pavement,so
that she might be able to watch for Marius there. But no viewof
the outside was to be had. The back court was surrounded bytolerably
high walls, and the outlook was only on several gardens. Cosette
pronounced these gardens hideous: for the first timein her life,
she found flowers ugly. The smallest scrap of thegutter of the
street would have met her wishes better. She decidedto gaze at
the sky, as though she thought that Marius might comefrom that
quarter.
All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was ficklenessof
soul; but hopes cut in twain by dejection--that was her case.
She had a confused consciousness of something horrible. Thoughts
wererife in the air, in fact. She told herself that she was not
sureof anything, that to withdraw herself from sight was to be
lost;and the idea that Marius could return to her from heaven
appearedto her no longer charming but mournful.
Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her,and
hope and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trustin
God.
Every one in the house was still asleep. A country-like silence
reigned. Not a shutter had been opened. The porter's lodge was
closed. Toussaint had not risen, and Cosette, naturally, thought
that herfather was asleep. She must have suffered much, and she
must havestill been suffering greatly, for she said to herself,
that herfather had been unkind; but she counted on Marius. The
eclipseof such a light was decidedly impossible. Now and then,
she heardsharp shocks in the distance, and she said: "It
is odd that peopleshould be opening and shutting their carriage
gates so early." They were the reports of the cannon battering
the barricade.
A few feet below Cosette's window, in the ancient and perfectlyblack
cornice of the wall, there was a martin's nest; the curveof this
nest formed a little projection beyond the cornice,so that from
above it was possible to look into this little paradise. The mother
was there, spreading her wings like a fan over her brood;the father
fluttered about, flew away, then came back, bearing inhis beak
food and kisses. The dawning day gilded this happy thing,the great
law, "Multiply," lay there smiling and august, and that
sweetmystery unfolded in the glory of the morning. Cosette, with
her hairin the sunlight, her soul absorbed in chimeras, illuminated
by lovewithin and by the dawn without, bent over mechanically,
and almostwithout daring to avow to herself that she was thinking
at the sametime of Marius, began to gaze at these birds, at this
family,at that male and female, that mother and her little ones,with
the profound trouble which a nest produces on a virgin.
|
