บทที่ บทที่ 229 · ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS
It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible
catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census.
All were present at a secret meeting at the Café Musain.
Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few half-enigmatical but
significant metaphors:—
“It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may
count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no
harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have
more chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when
there are none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How
many of us are there? There is no question of postponing this task
until to-morrow. Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has
no time to lose. Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught
unprepared. We must go over all the seams that we have made and see
whether they hold fast. This business ought to be concluded to-day.
Courfeyrac, you will see the polytechnic students. It is their day to
go out. To-day is Wednesday. Feuilly, you will see those of the
Glacière, will you not? Combeferre has promised me to go to Picpus.
There is a perfect swarm and an excellent one there. Bahorel will visit
the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm; you will
bring us news from the lodge of the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré. Joly
will go to Dupuytren’s clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the
medical school. Bossuet will take a little turn in the court and talk
with the young law licentiates. I will take charge of the Cougourde
myself.”
“That arranges everything,” said Courfeyrac.
“No.”
“What else is there?”
“A very important thing.”
“What is that?” asked Courfeyrac.
“The Barrière du Maine,” replied Enjolras.
Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then
he resumed:—
“At the Barrière du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and
journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic
family, but liable to cool off. I don’t know what has been the matter
with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They
are becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There
is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but
with firmness. They meet at Richefeu’s. They are to be found there
between twelve and one o’clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow.
For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good
fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for
the Barrière du Maine. I have no one.”
“What about me?” said Grantaire. “Here am I.”
“You?”
“I.”
“You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold
in the name of principle!”
“Why not?”
“Are you good for anything?”
“I have a vague ambition in that direction,” said Grantaire.
“You do not believe in everything.”
“I believe in you.”
“Grantaire will you do me a service?”
“Anything. I’ll black your boots.”
“Well, don’t meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your
absinthe.”
“You are an ingrate, Enjolras.”
“You the man to go to the Barrière du Maine! You capable of it!”
“I am capable of descending the Rue de Grès, of crossing the Place
Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking
the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the
Rue d’Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me
the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, of
striding across the boulevard, of following the Chaussée du Maine, of
passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu’s. I am capable of that. My
shoes are capable of that.”
“Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?”
“Not much. We only address each other as _thou_.”
“What will you say to them?”
“I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.”
“You?”
“I. But I don’t receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I
have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution
of the year Two by heart. ‘The liberty of one citizen ends where the
liberty of another citizen begins.’ Do you take me for a brute? I have
an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the
sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hébertist. I
can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in
hand.”
“Be serious,” said Enjolras.
“I am wild,” replied Grantaire.
Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who
has taken a resolution.
“Grantaire,” he said gravely, “I consent to try you. You shall go to
the Barrière du Maine.”
Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Café Musain. He
went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put
on a Robespierre waistcoat.
“Red,” said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then,
with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of
the waistcoat across his breast.
And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:—
“Be easy.”
He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed.
A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Café Musain was
deserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own
direction, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved the
Cougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave.
Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on the
plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous
in that side of Paris.
As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation in
review in his own mind. The gravity of events was self-evident. When
facts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily,
the slightest complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon
whence arises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a luminous
uplifting beneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps
the moment was at hand. The people were again taking possession of
right, and what a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically
taking possession of France and saying to the world: “The sequel
to-morrow!” Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had
at that moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He
composed, in his own mind, with Combeferre’s philosophical and
penetrating eloquence, Feuilly’s cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac’s
dash, Bahorel’s smile, Jean Prouvaire’s melancholy, Joly’s science,
Bossuet’s sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly
everywhere at once. All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer
to the effort. This was well. This made him think of Grantaire.
“Hold,” said he to himself, “the Barrière du Maine will not take me far
out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu’s? Let us
have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on.”
One o’clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras
reached the Richefeu smoking-room.
He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door
fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with
tables, men, and smoke.
A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another
voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary.
Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Anne
table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was
hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:—
“Double-six.”
“Fours.”
“The pig! I have no more.”
“You are dead. A two.”
“Six.”
“Three.”
“One.”
“It’s my move.”
“Four points.”
“Not much.”
“It’s your turn.”
“I have made an enormous mistake.”
“You are doing well.”
“Fifteen.”
“Seven more.”
“That makes me twenty-two.” [Thoughtfully, “Twenty-two!”]
“You weren’t expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the
beginning, the whole play would have been changed.”
“A two again.”
“One.”
“One! Well, five.”
“I haven’t any.”
“It was your play, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“Blank.”
“What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long reverie.] Two.”
“One.”
“Neither five nor one. That’s bad for you.”
“Domino.”
“Plague take it!”
BOOK SECOND—ÉPONINE