Les Misérables, page 193
CHAPTER III--MARIUS GROWN UP
At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years sincehe had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the sameterms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking tosee each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Mariuswas the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot.
We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He hadimagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty,harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormedand brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only thataffection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy.Marius was in error. There are fathers who do not love their children;there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom,as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him afterhis own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on theear; but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart;he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the whilesecretly regretted that he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped thatthis Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, wouldreturn. But the weeks passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand'sgreat despair, the "blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I couldnot do otherwise than turn him out," said the grandfather to himself,and he asked himself: "If the thing were to do over again, would I doit?" His pride instantly answered "yes," but his aged head, which heshook in silence, replied sadly "no." He had his hours of depression.He missed Marius. Old men need affection as they need the sun. It iswarmth. Strong as his nature was, the absence of Marius had wrought somechange in him. Nothing in the world could have induced him to take astep towards "that rogue"; but he suffered. He never inquired about him,but he thought of him incessantly. He lived in the Marais in a more andmore retired manner; he was still merry and violent as of old, buthis merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences alwaysterminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy dejection. He sometimes said:"Oh! if he only would return, what a good box on the ear I would givehim!"
As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much; Marius was nolonger for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventuallycame to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or theparoquet which she probably had. What augmented Father Gillenormand'ssecret suffering was, that he locked it all up within his breast, anddid not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like thoserecently invented furnaces which consume their own smoke. It sometimeshappened that officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and askedhim: "What is your grandson doing?" "What has become of him?" The oldbourgeois replied with a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving afillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay: "Monsieur le Baron dePontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other."
While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the casewith all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness.He only thought of M. Gillenormand in an amiable light, but he hadset his mind on not receiving anything more from the man who _had beenunkind to his father_. This was the mitigated translation of his firstindignation. Moreover, he was happy at having suffered, and at sufferingstill. It was for his father's sake. The hardness of his life satisfiedand pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that-- _it wascertainly the least he could do_; that it was an expiation;--that, hadit not been for that, he would have been punished in some other way andlater on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such afather! that it would not have been just that his father should have allthe suffering, and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were histoils and his destitution compared with the colonel's heroic life? that,in short, the only way for him to approach his father and resemble him,was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiantbefore the enemy; and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel hadmeant to imply by the words: "He will be worthy of it." Words whichMarius continued to wear, not on his breast, since the colonel's writinghad disappeared, but in his heart.
And then, on the day when his grandfather had turned him out of doors,he had been only a child, now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, werepeat, had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, hasthis magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towardseffort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly laysmaterial life bare and renders it hideous; hence inexpressible boundstowards the ideal life. The wealthy young man has a hundred coarse andbrilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming,good repasts, and all the rest of it; occupations for the baser sideof the soul, at the expense of the loftier and more delicate sides.The poor young man wins his bread with difficulty; he eats; when he haseaten, he has nothing more but meditation. He goes to the spectacleswhich God furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars,flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, thecreation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that heperceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that hebeholds God. He dreams, he feels himself great; he dreams on, and feelshimself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to thecompassion of the man who meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forthin him, forgetfulness of self and pity for all. As he thinks of theinnumerable enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and lavishes to soulswhich stand open, and refuses to souls that are closed, he comes topity, he the millionnaire of the mind, the millionnaire of money. Allhatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates hisspirit. And is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is nevermiserable. The first young lad who comes to hand, however poor he maybe, with his strength, his health, his rapid walk, his brilliant eyes,his warmly circulating blood, his black hair, his red lips, his whiteteeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor.And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earninghis bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal columngains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns toineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his feet setin afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimesin the mire; his head in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle,peaceful, attentive, serious, content with little, kindly; and he thanksGod for having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many arich man lacks: work, which makes him free; and thought, which makes himdignified.
This is what had happened with Marius. To tell the truth, he inclined alittle too much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he hadsucceeded in earning his living with some approach to certainty, he hadstopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his workto give to thought; that is to say, he sometimes passed entire daysin meditation, absorbed, engulfed, like a visionary, in the mutevoluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propoundedthe problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at materiallabor, in order to toil as much as possible at the labor which isimpalpable; in other words, to bestow a few hours on real life, and tocast the rest to the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, hedid not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becomingone of the forms of idleness; that he was contenting himself withconquering the first necessities of life, and that he was resting fromhis labors too soon.
It was evident that, for this energetic and enthusiastic nature, thiscould only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock againstthe inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken.
In the meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever FatherGillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he wasnot even pettifogging. Meditation had turned him aside from pleading. Tohaunt attorneys, to follow the court, to hunt up cases--what a bore! Whyshould he do it? He saw no reason for changing the manner of gaining hislivelihood! The obscure and ill-paid publishing establishment had cometo mean for him a sure source of work which did not involve too muchlabor, as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants.
One of the publishers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offeredto take him into his own house, to lodge him well, to furnish him withregular occupation, and to give him fifteen hundred francs a year. To bewell lodged! Fifteen hundred francs! No doubt. But renounce his liberty!Be on fixed wages! A sort of hired man of letters! According to Marius'opinion, if he accepted, his position would become both better and worseat the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was afine and complete unhappiness converted into a repulsive and ridiculousstate of torture: something like the case of a blind man who shouldrecover the sight of one eye. He refused.
Marius dwelt in solitude. Owing to his taste for remaining outside ofeverything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entereddecidedly into the group presided over by Enjolras. They had remainedgood friends; they were ready to assist each other on occasion in everypossible way; but nothing more. Marius had two friends: one young,Courfeyrac; and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined more to the old man.In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had takenplace within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved hisfather. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said.
The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part.
It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm andimpassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightenedMarius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candlewhich some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one.
As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totallyincapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it.
As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not besuperfluous.
