第 五十二 章 · M. BAMATABOIS’S INACTIVITY

There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular,

a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred

francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred

thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter

species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a

little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and

who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, “My fields,

my peasants, my woods”; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that

they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison to

prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of

tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the

diligence, live at the café, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the

bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table;

who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise

women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris

through the medium of Pont-à-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work,

serve no use, and do no great harm.

M. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province and never

beheld Paris, would have been one of these men.

If they were richer, one would say, “They are dandies;” if they were

poorer, one would say, “They are idlers.” They are simply men without

employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored,

dreamers, and some knaves.

At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a

watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top

of the other—the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat,

with a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each

other and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a

lighter shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite,

but always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to eleven—a limit

which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons on

the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an

enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all,

spurs and a moustache. At that epoch moustaches indicated the

bourgeois, and spurs the pedestrian.

The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of

moustaches.

It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America

with the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats

were royalist, and were called _morillos_; liberals wore hats with wide

brims, which were called _bolivars_.

Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding

pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of

these dandies, one of these unemployed, a “right thinker,” for he wore

a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large

cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was

amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a

ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of

the officers’ café. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly

fashionable.

Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her,

together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he

considered witty and mirthful, such as, “How ugly you are!—Will you get

out of my sight?—You have no teeth!” etc., etc. This gentleman was

known as M. Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre

which went and came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even

glance at him, and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and

with a sombre regularity, which brought her every five minutes within

reach of this sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the

rods. The small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger;

and taking advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up

behind her with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down,

picked up a handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly

into her back, between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar,

whirled round, gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the

man, burying her nails in his face, with the most frightful words which

could fall from the guard-room into the gutter. These insults, poured

forth in a voice roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous

wise from a mouth which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine.

At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the

café, passers-by collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and

applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings,

whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman: the

man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet

and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath,

horrible.

Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd,

seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and

said to her, “Follow me!”

The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her

eyes were glassy; she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled

with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert.

The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape.