Les Misérables, page 187
CHAPTER III--MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS
In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend. Youth is theseason for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars. Mariusbreathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new thing for him.Courfeyrac put no questions to him. He did not even think of such athing. At that age, faces disclose everything on the spot. Words aresuperfluous. There are young men of whom it can be said that theircountenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them.
One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogationto him:--
"By the way, have you any political opinions?"
"The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question.
"What are you?"
"A democrat-Bonapartist."
"The gray hue of a reassured rat," said Courfeyrac.
On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Café Musain.Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile: "I must give you your entryto the revolution." And he led him to the hall of the Friends of the A BC. He presented him to the other comrades, saying this simple word whichMarius did not understand: "A pupil."
Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he wassilent and grave, he was, none the less, both winged and armed.
Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy, and toasides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered by this coveyof young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited hisattention at once, and pulled him about. The tumultuous movements ofthese minds at liberty and at work set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes,in his trouble, they fled so far from him, that he had difficulty inrecovering them. He heard them talk of philosophy, of literature, ofart, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpsesof strange aspects; and, as he did not place them in proper perspective,he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped. Onabandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father,he had supposed himself fixed; he now suspected, with uneasiness, andwithout daring to avow it to himself, that he was not. The angleat which he saw everything began to be displaced anew. A certainoscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion. An oddinternal upsetting. He almost suffered from it.
It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things" for those youngmen. Marius heard singular propositions on every sort of subject, whichembarrassed his still timid mind.
A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title of a tragedyfrom the ancient repertory called classic: "Down with tragedy dear tothe bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And Marius heard Combeferre reply:--
"You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy, and thebourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy hasa reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order ofÆschylus, contest its right to existence. There are rough outlines innature; there are, in creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is nota beak, wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws whichare not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there isthe duck. Now, since poultry exists by the side of the bird, I donot see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antiquetragedy."
Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseaubetween Enjolras and Courfeyrac.
Courfeyrac took his arm:--
"Pay attention. This is the Rue Plâtrière, now called Rue Jean-JacquesRousseau, on account of a singular household which lived in it sixtyyears ago. This consisted of Jean-Jacques and Thérèse. From timeto time, little beings were born there. Thérèse gave birth to them,Jean-Jacques represented them as foundlings."
And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly:--
"Silence in the presence of Jean-Jacques! I admire that man. He deniedhis own children, that may be; but he adopted the people."
Not one of these young men articulated the word: The Emperor.Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all the others said"Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it "Buonaparte."
Marius was vaguely surprised. _Initium sapientiæ_.
