第 二百一十一 章 · TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR

Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had

seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart

had, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from the moment

of her very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, he

had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and

precipitates the whole soul on a single point. He contemplated, not

that girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet

bonnet. The star Sirius might have entered the room, and he would not

have been any more dazzled.

While the young girl was engaged in opening the package, unfolding the

clothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the

little injured girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, he sought

to catch her words. He knew her eyes, her brow, her beauty, her form,

her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied

that he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was not

absolutely sure of the fact. He would have given ten years of his life

to hear it, in order that he might bear away in his soul a little of

that music. But everything was drowned in the lamentable exclamations

and trumpet bursts of Jondrette. This added a touch of genuine wrath to

Marius’ ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believe

that it really was that divine creature whom he saw in the midst of

those vile creatures in that monstrous lair. It seemed to him that he

beheld a humming-bird in the midst of toads.

When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to

cling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where she lived,

not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously

re-discovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat.

As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point of

opening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor was

long, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had, no

doubt, not yet regained his carriage; if, on turning round in the

corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius,

in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to

escape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was he to

do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriage

might drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk and

quitted his room.

There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There was

no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the

boulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue du

Petit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris.

Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of

the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending

the Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and there

was no means of overtaking it; what! run after it? Impossible; and

besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an

individual running at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father

would recognize him. At that moment, wonderful and unprecedented good

luck, Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There

was but one thing to be done, to jump into this cab and follow the

fiacre. That was sure, efficacious, and free from danger.

Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him:—

“By the hour?”

Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destitute

of buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom.

The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius,

rubbing his forefinger gently with his thumb.

“What is it?” said Marius.

“Pay in advance,” said the coachman.

Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him.

“How much?” he demanded.

“Forty sous.”

“I will pay on my return.”

The driver’s only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to

whip up his horse.

Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewildered air. For

the lack of four and twenty sous, he was losing his joy, his happiness,

his love! He had seen, and he was becoming blind again. He reflected

bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five

francs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable

girl. If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved, he

would have been born again, he would have emerged from the limbo and

darkness, he would have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from

his widowed state; he might have re-knotted the black thread of his

destiny to that beautiful golden thread, which had just floated before

his eyes and had broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to

his hovel in despair.

He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return in

the evening, and that all he had to do was to set about the matter more

skilfully, so that he might follow him on that occasion; but, in his

contemplation, it is doubtful whether he had heard this.

As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he perceived, on the

other side of the boulevard, near the deserted wall skirting the Rue De

la Barrière-des-Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped in the “philanthropist’s”

great-coat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of

disquieting aspect who have been dubbed by common consent, _prowlers of

the barriers_; people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, who

present the air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in the

daytime, which suggests the supposition that they work by night.

These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the

snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman

would surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed.

Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain

from saying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom

Jondrette was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier,

alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a

very dangerous nocturnal roamer. This man’s name the reader has learned

in the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias

Bigrenaille, figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a

notorious rascal. He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he

exists in the state of tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was

at the head of a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the

evening, at nightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in

whispers, he was discussed at La Force in the Fosse-aux-Lions. One

might even, in that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which

served the unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty

prisoners, in 1843, passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD,

audaciously carved by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one

of his attempts at flight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on

him, but he had not as yet made a serious beginning.