Kabanata Kabanata 303 · MINUS FIVE, PLUS ONE

After the man who decreed the “protest of corpses” had spoken, and had

given this formula of their common soul, there issued from all mouths a

strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense and triumphant

in tone:

“Long live death! Let us all remain here!”

“Why all?” said Enjolras.

“All! All!”

Enjolras resumed:

“The position is good; the barricade is fine. Thirty men are enough.

Why sacrifice forty?”

They replied:

“Because not one will go away.”

“Citizens,” cried Enjolras, and there was an almost irritated vibration

in his voice, “this republic is not rich enough in men to indulge in

useless expenditure of them. Vain-glory is waste. If the duty of some

is to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other.”

Enjolras, the man-principle, had over his co-religionists that sort of

omnipotent power which emanates from the absolute. Still, great as was

this omnipotence, a murmur arose. A leader to the very finger-tips,

Enjolras, seeing that they murmured, insisted. He resumed haughtily:

“Let those who are afraid of not numbering more than thirty say so.”

The murmurs redoubled.

“Besides,” observed a voice in one group, “it is easy enough to talk

about leaving. The barricade is hemmed in.”

“Not on the side of the Halles,” said Enjolras. “The Rue Mondétour is

free, and through the Rue des Prêcheurs one can reach the Marché des

Innocents.”

“And there,” went on another voice, “you would be captured. You would

fall in with some grand guard of the line or the suburbs; they will spy

a man passing in blouse and cap. ‘Whence come you?’ ‘Don’t you belong

to the barricade?’ And they will look at your hands. You smell of

powder. Shot.”

Enjolras, without making any reply, touched Combeferre’s shoulder, and

the two entered the tap-room.

They emerged thence a moment later. Enjolras held in his outstretched

hands the four uniforms which he had laid aside. Combeferre followed,

carrying the shoulder-belts and the shakos.

“With this uniform,” said Enjolras, “you can mingle with the ranks and

escape; here is enough for four.” And he flung on the ground, deprived

of its pavement, the four uniforms.

No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the

word.

“Come,” said he, “you must have a little pity. Do you know what the

question is here? It is a question of women. See here. Are there women

or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there

mothers, yes or no, who rock cradles with their foot and who have a lot

of little ones around them? Let that man of you who has never beheld a

nurse’s breast raise his hand. Ah! you want to get yourselves killed,

so do I—I, who am speaking to you; but I do not want to feel the

phantoms of women wreathing their arms around me. Die, if you will, but

don’t make others die. Suicides like that which is on the brink of

accomplishment here are sublime; but suicide is narrow, and does not

admit of extension; and as soon as it touches your neighbors, suicide

is murder. Think of the little blond heads; think of the white locks.

Listen, Enjolras has just told me that he saw at the corner of the Rue

du Cygne a lighted casement, a candle in a poor window, on the fifth

floor, and on the pane the quivering shadow of the head of an old

woman, who had the air of having spent the night in watching. Perhaps

she is the mother of some one of you. Well, let that man go, and make

haste, to say to his mother: ‘Here I am, mother!’ Let him feel at ease,

the task here will be performed all the same. When one supports one’s

relatives by one’s toil, one has not the right to sacrifice one’s self.

That is deserting one’s family. And those who have daughters! what are

you thinking of? You get yourselves killed, you are dead, that is well.

And tomorrow? Young girls without bread—that is a terrible thing. Man

begs, woman sells. Ah! those charming and gracious beings, so gracious

and so sweet, who have bonnets of flowers, who fill the house with

purity, who sing and prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove

the existence of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth,

that Jeanne, that Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures

who are your blessings and your pride, ah! good God, they will suffer

hunger! What do you want me to say to you? There is a market for human

flesh; and it is not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them,

that you will prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think

of the pavement covered with passers-by, think of the shops past which

women go and come with necks all bare, and through the mire. These

women, too, were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who

have them. Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare—that is what

those beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty,

gentleness and loveliness, fresher than lilacs in the month of May,

will come to. Ah! you have got yourselves killed! You are no longer on

hand! That is well; you have wished to release the people from Royalty,

and you deliver over your daughters to the police. Friends, have a

care, have mercy. Women, unhappy women, we are not in the habit of

bestowing much thought on them. We trust to the women not having

received a man’s education, we prevent their reading, we prevent their

thinking, we prevent their occupying themselves with politics; will you

prevent them from going to the dead-house this evening, and recognizing

your bodies? Let us see, those who have families must be tractable, and

shake hands with us and take themselves off, and leave us here alone to

attend to this affair. I know well that courage is required to leave,

that it is hard; but the harder it is, the more meritorious. You say:

‘I have a gun, I am at the barricade; so much the worse, I shall remain

there.’ So much the worse is easily said. My friends, there is a

morrow; you will not be here to-morrow, but your families will; and

what sufferings! See, here is a pretty, healthy child, with cheeks like

an apple, who babbles, prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet

beneath your kiss,—and do you know what becomes of him when he is

abandoned? I have seen one, a very small creature, no taller than that.

His father was dead. Poor people had taken him in out of charity, but

they had bread only for themselves. The child was always hungry. It was

winter. He did not cry. You could see him approach the stove, in which

there was never any fire, and whose pipe, you know, was of mastic and

yellow clay. His breathing was hoarse, his face livid, his limbs

flaccid, his belly prominent. He said nothing. If you spoke to him, he

did not answer. He is dead. He was taken to the Necker Hospital, where

I saw him. I was house-surgeon in that hospital. Now, if there are any

fathers among you, fathers whose happiness it is to stroll on Sundays

holding their child’s tiny hand in their robust hand, let each one of

those fathers imagine that this child is his own. That poor brat, I

remember, and I seem to see him now, when he lay nude on the dissecting

table, how his ribs stood out on his skin like the graves beneath the

grass in a cemetery. A sort of mud was found in his stomach. There were

ashes in his teeth. Come, let us examine ourselves conscientiously and

take counsel with our heart. Statistics show that the mortality among

abandoned children is fifty-five per cent. I repeat, it is a question

of women, it concerns mothers, it concerns young girls, it concerns

little children. Who is talking to you of yourselves? We know well what

you are; we know well that you are all brave, parbleu! we know well

that you all have in your souls the joy and the glory of giving your

life for the great cause; we know well that you feel yourselves elected

to die usefully and magnificently, and that each one of you clings to

his share in the triumph. Very well. But you are not alone in this

world. There are other beings of whom you must think. You must not be

egoists.”

All dropped their heads with a gloomy air.

Strange contradictions of the human heart at its most sublime moments.

Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers

of other men, and forgot his own. He was about to get himself killed.

He was “an egoist.”

Marius, fasting, fevered, having emerged in succession from all hope,

and having been stranded in grief, the most sombre of shipwrecks, and

saturated with violent emotions and conscious that the end was near,

had plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always

precedes the fatal hour voluntarily accepted.

A physiologist might have studied in him the growing symptoms of that

febrile absorption known to, and classified by, science, and which is

to suffering what voluptuousness is to pleasure. Despair, also, has its

ecstasy. Marius had reached this point. He looked on at everything as

from without; as we have said, things which passed before him seemed

far away; he made out the whole, but did not perceive the details. He

beheld men going and coming as through a flame. He heard voices

speaking as at the bottom of an abyss.

But this moved him. There was in this scene a point which pierced and

roused even him. He had but one idea now, to die; and he did not wish

to be turned aside from it, but he reflected, in his gloomy

somnambulism, that while destroying himself, he was not prohibited from

saving some one else.

He raised his voice.

“Enjolras and Combeferre are right,” said he; “no unnecessary

sacrifice. I join them, and you must make haste. Combeferre has said

convincing things to you. There are some among you who have families,

mothers, sisters, wives, children. Let such leave the ranks.”

No one stirred.

“Married men and the supporters of families, step out of the ranks!”

repeated Marius.

His authority was great. Enjolras was certainly the head of the

barricade, but Marius was its savior.

“I order it,” cried Enjolras.

“I entreat you,” said Marius.

Then, touched by Combeferre’s words, shaken by Enjolras’ order, touched

by Marius’ entreaty, these heroic men began to denounce each other.—“It

is true,” said one young man to a full grown man, “you are the father

of a family. Go.”—“It is your duty rather,” retorted the man, “you have

two sisters whom you maintain.”—And an unprecedented controversy broke

forth. Each struggled to determine which should not allow himself to be

placed at the door of the tomb.

“Make haste,” said Courfeyrac, “in another quarter of an hour it will

be too late.”

“Citizens,” pursued Enjolras, “this is the Republic, and universal

suffrage reigns. Do you yourselves designate those who are to go.”

They obeyed. After the expiration of a few minutes, five were

unanimously selected and stepped out of the ranks.

“There are five of them!” exclaimed Marius.

There were only four uniforms.

“Well,” began the five, “one must stay behind.”

And then a struggle arose as to who should remain, and who should find

reasons for the others not remaining. The generous quarrel began

afresh.

“You have a wife who loves you.”—“You have your aged mother.”—” You

have neither father nor mother, and what is to become of your three

little brothers?”—“You are the father of five children.”—“You have a

right to live, you are only seventeen, it is too early for you to die.”

These great revolutionary barricades were assembling points for

heroism. The improbable was simple there. These men did not astonish

each other.

“Be quick,” repeated Courfeyrac.

Men shouted to Marius from the groups:

“Do you designate who is to remain.”

“Yes,” said the five, “choose. We will obey you.”

Marius did not believe that he was capable of another emotion. Still,

at this idea, that of choosing a man for death, his blood rushed back

to his heart. He would have turned pale, had it been possible for him

to become any paler.

He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his

eyes full of that grand flame which one beholds in the depths of

history hovering over Thermopylæ, cried to him:

“Me! me! me!”

And Marius stupidly counted them; there were still five of them! Then

his glance dropped to the four uniforms.

At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, upon the other

four.

The fifth man was saved.

Marius raised his eyes and recognized M. Fauchelevent.

Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade.

He had arrived by way of Mondétour lane, whither by dint of inquiries

made, or by instinct, or chance. Thanks to his dress of a National

Guardsman, he had made his way without difficulty.

The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondétour had no

occasion to give the alarm for a single National Guardsman, and he had

allowed the latter to entangle himself in the street, saying to

himself: “Probably it is a reinforcement, in any case it is a

prisoner.” The moment was too grave to admit of the sentinel abandoning

his duty and his post of observation.

At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, no one had noticed

him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms.

Jean Valjean also had seen and heard, and he had silently removed his

coat and flung it on the pile with the rest.

The emotion aroused was indescribable.

“Who is this man?” demanded Bossuet.

“He is a man who saves others,” replied Combeferre.

Marius added in a grave voice:

“I know him.”

This guarantee satisfied every one.

Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean.

“Welcome, citizen.”

And he added:

“You know that we are about to die.”

Jean Valjean, without replying, helped the insurgent whom he was saving

to don his uniform.