Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [339]
The six assassins, sullen and abashed at being held in check by a girl, went under the protecting shade of the lantern and held counsel, with humiliated and furious shrugs of their shoulders.
She watched them the while with a quiet yet indomitable air.
“Something is the matter with her,” said Babet. “Some reason. Is she in love with the cab? But it is a pity to lose it. Two women, an old fellow who lodges in a back-yard, there are pretty good curtains at the windows. The old fellow must be a guinal.gb I think it is a good thing.”
“Well, go in the rest of you,” exclaimed Montparnasse. “Do the thing. I will stay here with the girl, and if she budges——”
He made the open knife which he had in his hand gleam in the light of the lantern.
Thénardier said not a word and seemed ready for anything.gc
Brujon, who was something of an oracle, and who had, as we know, “got up the thing,” had not yet spoken. He appeared thoughtful. He had a reputation for recoiling from nothing, and they knew that he had plundered, from sheer bravado, a police station. Moreover he made verses and songs, which gave him a great authority.
Babet questioned him.
“You don’t say anything, Brujon?”
Brujon remained silent a minute longer, then he shook his head in several different ways, and at last decided to speak.
“Here: I met two sparrows fighting this morning; to-night, I run against a woman quarrelling. All this is bad. Let us go away.”
They went away.
As they went, Montparnasse murmured:
“No matter, if they had said so, I would have finished her off.”
Babet answered:
“Not I. I don’t strike a lady.”
At the corner of the street, they stopped and exchanged this enigmatic dialogue in a smothered voice:
“Where are we going to sleep to-night?”
“Under Patin.”gd
“Have you the key of the grating with you, Thénardier?”
“Humph.”
Eponine, who had not taken her eyes off from them, saw them turn back the way they had come. She rose and began to creep along the walls and houses behind them. She followed them as far as the boulevard. There, they separated, and she saw these men sink away in the darkness into which they seemed to melt.
5 (6)
MARIUS BECOMES SO REAL AS TO GIVE COSETTE HIS ADDRESS
WHILE THIS SPECIES of dog in human form was mounting guard over the grating, and the six bandits were slinking away before a girl, Marius was with Cosette.
Never had the sky been more studded with stars, or more charming, the trees more tremulous, the odour of the shrubs more penetrating; never had the birds gone to sleep in the leaves with a softer sound; never had all the harmonies of the universal serenity better responded to the interior music of love; never had Marius been more enamoured, more happy, more in ecstasy. But he had found Cosette sad. Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were red.
It was the first cloud in this wonderful dream.
Marius’ first word was:
“What is the matter?”
“See.”
Then she sat down on the bench near the stairs, and as he took his place all trembling beside her, she continued:
“My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, that he had business, and that perhaps we should go away.”
Marius shuddered from head to foot.
When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.
For six weeks Marius, gradually, slowly, by degrees, had been each day taking possession of Cosette. A possession entirely ideal, but thorough. Marius felt Cosette living within him. To have Cosette, to possess Cosette, this to him was not separable from breathing. Into the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of this virginal possession, marvellous and absolute, of this sovereignty, these words: “We are going away,” fell all at once, and the sharp voice of reality cried to him: “Cosette is not yours!”
Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had lived, as we have said, outside of life; this word, going away,