Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [266]
She looked steadily at him.
“What will you give me?”
“Anything you wish!”
“Anything I wish?”
“Yes.”
“You shall have the address.”
She looked down, and then with a hasty movement closed the door.
Marius was alone.
He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on the bed swallowed up in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as if he were in a fit of vertigo. All that had taken place since morning, the appearance of the angel, her disappearance, what this poor creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an ocean of despair,—all this was confusedly crowding his brain.
Suddenly he was violently awakened from his reverie.
He heard the loud, harsh voice of Jondrette pronounce these words for him, full of the strangest interest:
“I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognised him!”
Of whom was Jondrette talking? he had recognised whom? M. Leblanc? the father of “his Ursula”? What! did Jondrette know him? was Marius just about to get in this sudden and unexpected way all the information the lack of which made his life obscure to himself? was he at last to know whom he loved, who that young girl was? who her father was? was the thick shadow which enveloped them to be rolled away? was the veil to be rent? Oh! heavens!
He sprang, rather than mounted, upon the bureau, and resumed his place near the little aperture in the partition.
He again saw the interior of the Jondrette den.
11 (12)
THE USE OF M. LEBLANC’S FIVE-FRANC COIN
NOTHING HAD CHANGED in the appearance of the family, except that the wife and daughters had opened the package, and put on the woollen stockings and underclothes. Two new blankets were thrown over the two beds.
Jondrette had evidently just come in. He was still out of breath from the cold outdoors. His daughters were sitting on the floor near the fire place, the elder binding up the hand of the younger. His wife lay as if exhausted upon the pallet near the fireplace with an astonished countenance. Jondrette was walking up and down the garret with rapid strides. His eyes had an extraordinary look.
The woman, who seemed timid and stricken with stupor before her husband, ventured to say to him:
“What, really? you are sure?”
“Sure! It was eight years ago! but I recognise him! Ah! I recognise him! I recognised him immediately. What! it did not strike you?”
“No.”
“And yet I told you to pay attention. But it is the same height, the same face, hardly any older; there are some men who do not grow old; I don’t know how they do it; it is the same tone of voice. He is better dressed, that is all! Ah! mysterious old devil, I have got you, all right!”
He checked himself, and said to his daughters:
“You go out! It is queer that it did not strike your eye.”
They got up to obey.
The mother stammered out:
“With her sore hand?”
“The air will do her good,” said Jondrette. “Go along.”
It was clear that this man was one of those to whom there is no reply. The two girls went out.
Just as they were passing the door, the father caught the elder by the arm, and said with a peculiar tone:
“You will be here at five o‘clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need you.”
Marius redoubled his attention.
Alone with his wife, Jondrette began to walk the room again, and took two or three turns in silence. Then he spent a few minutes in tucking the bottom of the woman’s chemise which he wore into the waist of his trousers.
Suddenly he turned towards the woman, folded his arms, and exclaimed:
“And do you want to know something? the young lady—”
“Well, what?” said the woman, “the young lady?”
Marius could doubt no longer, it was indeed of her that they were talking. He listened with an intense anxiety. His whole life was concentrated in his ears.
But Jondrette stooped down, and whispered to his wife. Then he straightened up and finished aloud:
“It is she!”
“That girl?” said the wife.
“That girl!” said the husband.
No words could express what there was in the that girl of the mother. It was surprise,