But one morning Courfeyrac did put a question to Marius. He asked abruptly:
‘By the way, have you any political views?’
‘Of course,’ said Marius, slightly ruffled.
‘Well, what are you?’
‘I’m a Bonapartist democrat.’
‘A wary compromise,’ commented Courfeyrac.
The next day he took Marius to the Café Musain. Murmuring with a smile, ‘I must introduce you to the revolution,’ he led him into the back room used by the ABC Society and presented him to his friends with the single word, ‘A novice’.
Marius had fallen into a hornet’s nest of lively minds, albeit, taciturn and sober though he normally was, he was no less winged or capable of stinging than they. Being a solitary both by force of circumstances and inclination, and given to self-communion, he was at first somewhat dismayed by the tumult with which these young men assailed him, the hubbub of outspoken, unbridled thoughts, some so remote from his own thinking that he could not grasp them. He heard philosophy, literature, art, history, and religion discussed in terms that were quite new to him. New vistas were opened up, and since he could not get them in any perspective he was not sure that they were not visions of chaos. When he discarded his grandfather’s views in favour of those of his father he had thought that his mind was made up; but now, in some perturbation and without wholly admitting it to himself, he began to suspect that this was not the case. His whole outlook began again to change; all his previous notions were called in question in a process of internal upheaval that he found almost painful. It seemed that his new friends held nothing sacred. No matter what the subject, it gave rise to forthright language that was disconcerting to his still-timid mind.
A theatre poster, announcing a new production of a stock repertory ‘classic’, came up for discussion, and Bahorel exclaimed, ‘To hell with these old bourgeois tragedies!,’ to which Combeferre replied:
‘You’re wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie adore tragedies and they must be allowed to go on doing so. Costume-drama has its place in the scheme of things, and I am not one of those who in the name of Aeschylus deny it the right to exist Nature contains its abortions, and its self-parodies. Take a beak that isn’t a beak, wings that aren’t wings, fins that aren’t fins, paws that aren’t paws, agonized squawks that make you want to laugh, and you have a duck. But if domestic poultry can exist side by side with real birds I see no reason why our “classic” tragedy should not exist side by side with the antique.’
It happened one day that Marius was strolling with Enjolras and Courfeyrac along the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Courfeyrac took him by the arm.
‘Do you see where we are? This is the former Rue Plâtrière, now named the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau after a curious household which lived here sixty years ago. Jean-Jacques and Thérèse. Children were born to them. Thérèse brought them forth and Jean-Jacques threw them out.’
Enjolras said sternly:
‘I won’t hear a word against Jean-Jacques. He is a man I revere. True, he disowned his children; but he adopted the people.’
None of the young men ever used the word ‘Emperor’. Jean Prouvaire occasionally referred to Napoleon; the others all called him Bonaparte. Enjolras pronounced it Buonaparte.
IV
The back room at the Café Musain
One of the many conversations to which Marius listened, occasionally joining in, had a profoundly disturbing effect upon him.
It took place in the back room at the Café Musain on an evening when nearly all the members of the ABC Society were present. The big lamp had been ceremonially lighted. They had been talking casually of one thing and another, without excitement or uproar, each of them except Enjolras and Marius holding forth more or less at random. These gatherings of comrades can be tranquil occasions. Separate conversations were going on in all four corners of the room, words flung occasionally from one group to another.
No woman was allowed in that room except Louison, the scullery-maid, who passed through it now and then on her way to the kitchen, which they called the ‘laboratory’.
Grantaire, who was decidedly drunk, was booming away in his own corner, arguing and refuting at the top of his voice. Suddenly he cried:
‘I’m thirsty! I have a dream, brothers – that the great wine-tun of Heidelberg is seized with apoplexy and I am one of the leeches attached to it. I want to drink. I want to forget life. Life is the disgusting invention of God-knows-who. It doesn’t last and it isn’t worth anything. We twist our necks trying to stay alive. Life is a stage setting in which almost nothing is real. Happiness is an old canvas painted on one side. “All is vanity,” said the preacher in Ecclesiastes, and I agree with him, even if he never existed. Nothingness, not wanting to go naked, has clothed herself in vanity, which is the dressing-up of everything in big words. The kitchen becomes a laboratory, the dancer a professor of the dance, the fairground tumbler a gymnast, the boxer a pugilist, the apothecary a chemist, the wig-maker an artist, the house-botcher an architect, the jockey a sportsman, the wood-louse a pterygibranchiate. Vanity has an outside and an inside. The outside is the negro decked in beads, and the inside is the philosopher in rags. I weep for the one and laugh at the other. Our so-called honours and dignities, and even true dignity and honour, are generally an empty shell. Kings make a mock of human pride. Caligula made his horse a consul, Charles II knighted a sirloin of beef. Thus we may array ourselves between the Consul Incitatus and the most excellent Sir Sirloin. And the true worth of man is scarcely more admirable. Listen to any man praising his neighbour. White is the ferocious enemy of white; if the lily could speak, how it would tear the dove to shreds! A bigot talking of another bigot is as venomous as a snake. It is a pity that I am ignorant; I would tell you countless things if only I knew them. I have always had brains, but when I was at school I spent my time robbing orchards instead of poring over my books. So much for me. As for you others, I value you. I care nothing for your perfections, your excellences and good qualities. Every virtue flows over into vice. Prudence is the neighbour of miserliness, generosity of prodigality, bravery of bravado; excessive piety becomes sanctimoniousness; there are as many vices in virtue as holes in Diogenes’s cloak. Which do we admire more, the killed or the killer, Caesar or Brutus? Generally it is the killer. Long live Brutus, who killed. That’s virtue for you! Virtue perhaps, but madness as well. There are strange flaws in those great men. The Brutus who stabbed Caesar was in love with the statue of a little boy, the work of the Greek sculptor Strongylion who also carved the statue of the Amazon Eucnemon, renowned for the beauty of her legs, which Nero took with him on his travels. Strongylion left only those two statues, and they are a link between Brutus and Nero, each of whom loved one of them. History is one long repetition, each century plagiarizing the next. The battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna, and Clovis’s victory at Tolbiac resembles Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz as closely as two drops of blood. I care nothing for victory. Nothing is more pointless than to win, the real triumph is to win over. But try to prove anything! We are content with success, which is mediocrity; and to conquer is misery. Alas, we meet everywhere with vanity and betrayal. Everything bows to success, even grammar. Si volet usus, if use ordains it, said Horace. So I scorn the human race. To come down from the whole to the part, am I to admire one particular people? Which people, may I ask? The Greeks? The Athenians, those Parisians of the ancient world, killed Phocion, as it might have been Coligny, and so toadied to their tyrants that Anacephores said of Pisistratus, “His urine attracts the bees.” The most considerable man in Greece for fifty years was the grammarian, Philetas, who was so small and frail that he had to wear soles of lead to prevent himself being carried away by the wind. In the main square of Corinth there was a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny. It was a statue of Episthates. And who was he? He was the wrestler who invented the cross-buttock. So much for the glory of Greece. Let us move on. Am I to admire England or France? Why Fra
nce? Because of Paris? I have told you what I think of Athens. Why England? Because of London? I detest Carthage. And then London, the metropolis of luxury, is also the capital of poverty. Every year a hundred people die of hunger in the parish of Charing Cross alone. That’s Albion. I may add, to put the lid on it, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing with a crown of roses and blue spectacles. So to hell with England. But if I refuse to esteem John Bull should I therefore esteem Brother Jonathan? I have no fondness for that slave-owner. If we leave out “Time is money” what is left of England; and if we leave out “Cotton is king” what remains of America? Germany is lymphatic and Italy is bilious. Should we then love Russia? Voltaire did so, but he admired China as well. I will agree that there are beauties to be found in Russia, among others that of a strong despotism. But I feel sorry for the despots. Their health is precarious. One Alexis was beheaded, one Peter was stabbed, one Paul was strangled and another stamped to death by jackboots. Various Ivans have had their throats cut and several Nicholases and Basils have been poisoned. All of which suggests that the imperial residence of a Russian Tsar is a decidedly unhealthy place. All civilized people have one offering to propose for the admiration of the thinker: it is war. But warfare, civilized warfare, contains and summarizes every form of banditry, from brigandage on a mountain-pass to the marauding raids of the Comanche Indians in the American west. Never mind, you may say to me, Europe is at least better than Asia. I will agree with you that Asia is a farce, but I do not see that we have much reason to deride the Grand Lama, we western peoples who have adopted into our modes and fashions all the complicated filth of majesty, from Queen Isabella’s dirty chemise to the Dauphin’s holed chair. Gentlemen of the human race, I say to hell with the lot of you. They drink the most beer in Brussels, the most eau-de-vie in Stockholm, the most chocolate in Madrid, the most gin in Amsterdam, the most wine in London, the most coffee in Constaninople and the most absinthe in Paris – and that is all we need to know. On the whole Paris comes off best. In Paris even the street scavengers are sybarites; Diogenes would have enjoyed being a scavenger in the Place Maubert as much as he enjoyed being a philosopher in the Piraeus. And here’s something else you should know. The scavengers’ drinking-places are called bibines. I salute all drinking-places, bars, bistros, cabarets, guinguettes, the bibines of the scavengers, and the caravenserais of caliphs. I am a voluptuary. I dine chez Richard at forty sous a head, but I must have a Persian carpet on which to roll Cleopatra naked. And here comes Cleopatra. Oh, it’s you, Louison. How are you, my love?’
Then Grantaire, something more than drunk and pouring out words, seized hold of the scullery-wench and sought to drive her into his corner of the back room of the Café Musain. When Bossuet put out a hand to restrain him he became more voluble than ever.
‘Hands off, Aigle de Meaux. You can do no good with Hippocratic gestures offering soothing potions. I refuse to be calmed. Besides, I am depressed. What can I say to you? Mankind is shoddy and misshapen. The butterfly is a success, but Man is a failure. God made a mess of that particular animal. A crowd is an assembly of ugliness and each member of it is a wretch. Femme rhymes with infame – woman with infamy. Yes, I am suffering from spleen, complicated by melancholy, nostalgia and hypochondria, and so I rant and rage and splutter and bore and irritate myself, and may God go to the devil’
‘Well, shut up in any case,’ said Bossuet, who was discussing a point of law, up to the neck in a flood of legal terminology of which the following is a sample:
‘For my part, although I’m scarcely a lawyer, at best only a half-taught amateur, this is what I maintain – that by Norman custom, a token sum should be paid to the lord at Michaelmas every year, subject to the rights of other title-holders whether by lease or copyhold or right of succession, whether mortgagors or mortgagees, holders of common or woodland rights –’
‘Woodland rites,’ sang Grantaire. ‘Echo, sweet nymph of nowhere.’
On a quiet table near that of Grantaire there were arrayed a sheaf of paper, ink-well and pen, flanked by two glasses, in evidence of the fact that a stage-comedy was being roughed out. Its two compilers were talking in low voices with their heads close together.
‘Better find some names first. When we’ve got the names they’ll give us a plot.’
‘That’s true. You dictate and I’ll write them down.’
‘How about Monsieur Dorimon?’
‘A rentier?’
‘Undoubtedly. And with a daughter, Célestine.’
‘Célestine. And then?’
‘Colonel Sainval’
‘Sainval’s too ordinary. Call him Valsin.’
Alongside the aspiring dramatists another couple, also taking advantage of the general hubbub to talk in low voices, were discussing a duel. An older man, aged thirty, was telling a youngster of eighteen about his prospective adversary.
‘You’ll have to watch out for yourself. He’s a fine swordsman, no nonsense about him, no wasted passes, always on the attack, good wrists, quick reflexes and, damme, he’s left-handed!’
In the corner opposite Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were talking about their love-affairs over a game of dominoes.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Joly. ‘Your mistress is always laughing.’
‘It’s a mistake on her part,’ said Bahorel. ‘A mistress shouldn’t laugh too much. It encourages you to be unfaithful. If she always looks happy your conscience doesn’t trouble you, whereas if she looks miserable it does.’
‘Wretch! A happy woman is a lovely thing. And you say you never quarrel.’
‘That’s because of the treaty we signed when we formed our little Holy Alliance. We drew a frontier and we never intrude on the other’s territory. Hence the peace between us.’
‘Peace,’ said Joly, ‘is happiness in process of digestion.’
‘And what about you, Joly? How’s your squabble going with Mamselle – you know who I mean.’
‘She’s still holding me off with cruel persistence.’
‘And yet you look wan and thin enough to melt any girl’s heart.’
‘Alas.’
‘If I were you, I’d ditch her.’
‘That’s easy to say.’
‘And easy to do. Her name’s Musichetta, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But, my dear Bahorel, she’s a wonderful girl, very literary, with small hands and feet, well dressed, fair complexion, dimples and eyes like a fortune-teller. I’m mad about her.’
“Then, my dear boy, you’ll have to woo her. Be elegant and cut a dash. Get Staub the tailor to make you a pair of doeskin trousers, like Lucien de Rubempré in Illusions perdues. That would help.’
‘But at what a cost!’ cried Grantaire.
The third comer of the room was immersed in a discussion of poetry, pagan mythology as opposed to Christian mythology, with Jean Prouvaire taking the side of Olympus. Jean Prouvaire was diffident only in repose. When overtaken by excitement a sort of wild gaiety was mingled with his ardour and he became at once humorous and lyrical.
‘We must not insult the antique gods,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they haven’t left us after all. I can never feel that Jupiter is dead. You may say that they were all dreams; but even now, when the dreaming is over, all the great pagan myths are still with us. A mountain like Vignemale, for instance, with the outline of a fortress, still looks to me like the headdress of Cybele, and I have yet to be convinced that Pan doesn’t come at night and blow through the hollow trunks of willows, covering the holes in turn with his hand …’
In the last corner they were talking politics, dissecting Louis XVIII’s Charter, with Combeferre mildly defending it and Courfeyrac tearing it to shreds. They had a copy of the famous document in front of them, and he picked it up and brandished it, punctuating his discourse with the rustle of paper.
‘In the first place, I’ve no use for kings. I’d like to see them abolished if only for economic reasons. A king is a parasite, and you don’t get him for nothing. Have you any idea what
they cost? At the death of François I the French national debt amounted to thirty thousand livres revenue; at the death of Louis XIV it was two milliard six hundred million, at twenty-six livres to the mark, which, according to Desmarest, was the equivalent of four milliard five hundred millions in 1760 and today would be the equivalent of twelve milliards. Secondly, with all respect to Combeferre, the concession of a charter is a dangerous way of doing things. To ease the transition, smooth the passage, damp the shock, slide the country imperceptibly from monarchy into democracy – all those are detestable proceedings. The people must never be led by the nose. Principles wilt and wither away in that constitutional fog. There must be no half-measures, no compromises, no concessions offered by the king to the people. Those offerings always include a Clause Fourteen, empowering the monarch to make special decrees “in the national interest” – giving with one hand and taking back with the other. I absolutely reject the Charter. It’s nothing but a smoke-screen covering a lie. A nation which accepts it is abandoning its rights. Rights must be whole or they are nothing. The Charter – no!’
It was winter and two logs were crackling in the hearth. The temptation was more than Courfeyrac could resist. Crumpling the document, he tossed it on the fire, remarking dryly:
‘So Louis XVIII’s master-stroke goes up in flames!’
This was the tone of the gathering, sarcasm, jest and foolery, the thing that the French call wit and the English call humour, good taste and bad taste, good reasoning and bad, the tumult of talk volleyed from every corner of the room to echo like a cheerful cannonade above the talkers’ heads.
V
Widening of the horizon
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