บทที่ บทที่ 30 · A DOUBLE QUARTETTE

These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the

third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were

students; and when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in

Paris is to be born in Paris.

These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four

specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither

wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that

charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars;

for, at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. _Burn for him the

perfumes of Araby!_ exclaimed romance. _Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall

behold him!_ People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was

Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail

later, and the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the

battle of Waterloo.

These Oscars bore the names, one of Félix Tholomyès, of Toulouse; the

second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last,

Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress.

Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England;

Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a

flower; Fameuil idolized Zéphine, an abridgment of Joséphine; Tholomyès

had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair.

Favourite, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Fantine were four ravishing young

women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not

yet entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by

intrigues, but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity

of toil, and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the

first fall in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she

was the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was

twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more

experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of

life than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions.

Dahlia, Zéphine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much.

There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though

hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the

first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave

in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one

scolds and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the

people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side.

These badly guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they

accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at them. They are

overwhelmed with splendor of all that is immaculate and inaccessible.

Alas! what if the Jungfrau were hungry?

Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zéphine.

She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father

was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a

braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This

professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid’s

gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this

accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time

to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of

a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had said to her, “You do not

know me, Mamemoiselle?” “No.” “I am your mother.” Then the old woman

opened the sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned

brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother

never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word,

breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and went down to the porter’s

quarters for company, where she spoke ill of her daughter.

It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to

Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such

nails work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her

hands. As for Zéphine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and

caressing little way of saying “Yes, sir.”

The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves

are always accompanied by such friendships.

Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this is

that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular

households, Favourite, Zéphine, and Dahlia were philosophical young

women, while Fantine was a good girl.

Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyès? Solomon would reply that

love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that

the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love.

She alone, of all the four, was not called “thou” by a single one of

them.

Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the

dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable

depths of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous

and the unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can

say? She had never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why

Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth

the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family;

no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name

which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when

a very small child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the

name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it

rained. She was called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This

human creature had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten,

Fantine quitted the town and went to service with some farmers in the

neighborhood. At fifteen she came to Paris “to seek her fortune.”

Fantine was beautiful, and remained pure as long as she could. She was

a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her

dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.

She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,—for

the heart, also, has its hunger,—she loved.

She loved Tholomyès.

An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the Latin quarter,

filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of

their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tholomyès in the mazes of the hill

of the Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in

such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of

avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took place.

Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which

Tholomyès was the head. It was he who possessed the wit.

Tholomyès was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of

four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on Mount

Sainte-Geneviève. Tholomyès was a fast man of thirty, and badly

preserved. He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a

bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, _the skull at thirty,

the knee at forty_. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been

attacked by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth

disappeared, gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth with

buffooneries, his hair with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping

eye laughed incessantly. He was dilapidated but still in flower. His

youth, which was packing up for departure long before its time, beat a

retreat in good order, bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything

but fire. He had had a piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few

verses now and then. In addition to this he doubted everything to the

last degree, which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus

ironical and bald, he was the leader. _Iron_ is an English word. Is it

possible that irony is derived from it?

One day Tholomyès took the three others aside, with the gesture of an

oracle, and said to them:—

“Fantine, Dahlia, Zéphine, and Favourite have been teasing us for

nearly a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly

that we would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in

particular, just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius,

‘_Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo_, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,’

so our beauties say to me incessantly, ‘Tholomyès, when will you bring

forth your surprise?’ At the same time our parents keep writing to us.

Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us

discuss the question.”

Thereupon, Tholomyès lowered his voice and articulated something so

mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four

mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, “That is an idea.”

A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of

their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow.

The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took

place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four

young girls.