Chương Chương 323 · PRISONER

Marius was, in fact, a prisoner.

The hand which had seized him from behind and whose grasp he had felt

at the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of

Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean had taken no other part in the combat than to expose

himself in it. Had it not been for him, no one, in that supreme phase

of agony, would have thought of the wounded. Thanks to him, everywhere

present in the carnage, like a providence, those who fell were picked

up, transported to the tap-room, and cared for. In the intervals, he

reappeared on the barricade. But nothing which could resemble a blow,

an attack or even personal defence proceeded from his hands. He held

his peace and lent succor. Moreover, he had received only a few

scratches. The bullets would have none of him. If suicide formed part

of what he had meditated on coming to this sepulchre, to that spot, he

had not succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an

irreligious act.

Jean Valjean, in the thick cloud of the combat, did not appear to see

Marius; the truth is, that he never took his eyes from the latter. When

a shot laid Marius low, Jean Valjean leaped forward with the agility of

a tiger, fell upon him as on his prey, and bore him off.

The whirlwind of the attack was, at that moment, so violently

concentrated upon Enjolras and upon the door of the wine-shop, that no

one saw Jean Valjean sustaining the fainting Marius in his arms,

traverse the unpaved field of the barricade and disappear behind the

angle of the Corinthe building.

The reader will recall this angle which formed a sort of cape on the

street; it afforded shelter from the bullets, the grape-shot, and all

eyes, and a few square feet of space. There is sometimes a chamber

which does not burn in the midst of a conflagration, and in the midst

of raging seas, beyond a promontory or at the extremity of a blind

alley of shoals, a tranquil nook. It was in this sort of fold in the

interior trapezium of the barricade, that Éponine had breathed her

last.

There Jean Valjean halted, let Marius slide to the ground, placed his

back against the wall, and cast his eyes about him.

The situation was alarming.

For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a

shelter, but how was he to escape from this massacre? He recalled the

anguish which he had suffered in the Rue Polonceau eight years before,

and in what manner he had contrived to make his escape; it was

difficult then, to-day it was impossible. He had before him that deaf

and implacable house, six stories in height, which appeared to be

inhabited only by a dead man leaning out of his window; he had on his

right the rather low barricade, which shut off the Rue de la Petite

Truanderie; to pass this obstacle seemed easy, but beyond the crest of

the barrier a line of bayonets was visible. The troops of the line were

posted on the watch behind that barricade. It was evident, that to pass

the barricade was to go in quest of the fire of the platoon, and that

any head which should run the risk of lifting itself above the top of

that wall of stones would serve as a target for sixty shots. On his

left he had the field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that

wall.

What was to be done?

Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament.

And it was necessary to decide on the instant, to devise some

expedient, to come to some decision. Fighting was going on a few paces

away; fortunately, all were raging around a single point, the door of

the wine-shop; but if it should occur to one soldier, to one single

soldier, to turn the corner of the house, or to attack him on the

flank, all was over.

Jean Valjean gazed at the house facing him, he gazed at the barricade

at one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of

the last extremity, bewildered, and as though he would have liked to

pierce a hole there with his eyes.

By dint of staring, something vaguely striking in such an agony began

to assume form and outline at his feet, as though it had been a power

of glance which made the thing desired unfold. A few paces distant he

perceived, at the base of the small barrier so pitilessly guarded and

watched on the exterior, beneath a disordered mass of paving-stones

which partly concealed it, an iron grating, placed flat and on a level

with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about

two feet square. The frame of paving-stones which supported it had been

torn up, and it was, as it were, unfastened.

Through the bars a view could be had of a dark aperture, something like

the flue of a chimney, or the pipe of a cistern. Jean Valjean darted

forward. His old art of escape rose to his brain like an illumination.

To thrust aside the stones, to raise the grating, to lift Marius, who

was as inert as a dead body, upon his shoulders, to descend, with this

burden on his loins, and with the aid of his elbows and knees into that

sort of well, fortunately not very deep, to let the heavy trap, upon

which the loosened stones rolled down afresh, fall into its place

behind him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below

the surface,—all this was executed like that which one does in dreams,

with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of an eagle; this took

only a few minutes.

Jean Valjean found himself with Marius, who was still unconscious, in a

sort of long, subterranean corridor.

There reigned profound peace, absolute silence, night.

The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the

wall into the convent recurred to him. Only, what he was carrying

to-day was not Cosette; it was Marius. He could barely hear the

formidable tumult in the wine-shop, taken by assault, like a vague

murmur overhead.

BOOK SECOND—THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN