Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (98 page)

At the moment of this discovery, it was supposed that Thénardier was out of all reach. The reality is, that he was no longer in the Bâtiment Neuf, but that he was still in great danger.

Thénardier on reaching the roof of the Bâtiment Neuf, found the remnant of Brujon’s cord hanging to the bars of the upper trap of the chimney, but this broken end being much too short, he was unable to escape over the sentry’s path as Brujon and Gueulemer had done.

On turning from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi de Sicile, on the right you meet almost immediately with a dirty recess. There was a house there in the last century, of which only the rear wall remains, a genuine ruin wall which rises to the height of the third story among the neighbouring buildings. This ruin can be recognised by two large square windows which may still be seen; the one in the middle, nearer the right gable, is crossed by a worm-eaten joist fitted like a cap-piece for a brace. Through these windows could formerly be discerned a high and dismal wall, which was a part of the encircling wall of La Force.

The void which the demolished house left upon the street is half filled by a palisade fence of rotten boards, supported by five stone posts. Hidden in this inclosure is a little shanty built against that part of the ruin which remains standing. The fence has a gate which a few years ago was fastened only by a latch.

Thénardier was upon the crest of this ruin a little after three o‘clock in the morning.

How had he got there? That is what nobody has ever been able to explain or understand. The lightning must have both confused and helped him. Did he use the ladders and the scaffoldings of the slaters to get from roof to roof, from inclosure to inclosure, from compartment to compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court, then the buildings of the Cour Saint Louis, the encircling wall, and from thence to the ruin on the Rue du Roi de Sicile? But there were gaps in this route which seemed to render it impossible. Did he lay down the plank from his bed as a bridge from the roof of the Bel Air to the encircling wall, and did he crawl on his belly along the coping of the wall, all round the prison as far as the ruin? But the encircling wall of La Force followed an indented and uneven line, it rose and fell, it sank down to the barracks of the firemen, it rose up to the bathing-house, it was cut by buildings, it was not of the same height on the Hotel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pavée, it had slopes and right angles everywhere; and then the sentinels would have seen the dark outline of the fugitive; on this supposition again, the route taken by Thénardier is still almost inexplicable. By either way, an impossible flight. Had Thénardier, illuminated by that fearful thirst for liberty which changes precipices into ditches, iron gratings into osier screens, a cripple into an athlete, an old gouty person into a bird, stupidity into instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had Thénardier invented and extemporised a third method? It has never been discovered.

One cannot always comprehend the marvels of escape. The man who escapes, let us repeat, is inspired; there is something of the star and the lightning in the mysterious gleam of flight; the effort towards deliverance is not less surprising than the flight towards the sublime; and we say of an escaped robber: How did he manage to scale that roof? just as it is said of Corneille: Where did he learn
that he would die?

However this may be, dripping with sweat, soaked through by the rain, his clothes in strips, his hands skinned, his elbows bleeding, his knees torn, Thénardier had reached what children, in their figurative language, call the cutting edge of the wall of the ruin, he had stretched himself on it at full length, and there his strength failed him. A steep escarpment, three stories high, separated him from the pavement of the street.

The rope which he had was too short.

He was waiting there, pale, exhausted, having lost all the hope which he had had, still covered by night, but saying to himself that day was just about to dawn, dismayed at the idea of hearing in a few moments the neighbouring clock of Saint Paul’s strike four, the hour when they would come to relieve the sentinel and would find him asleep under the broken roof, gazing with a kind of stupor through the fearful depth, by the glimmer of the lamps, upon the wet and black pavement, that longed for yet terrible pavement which was death yet which was liberty.

He asked himself if his three accomplices in escape had succeeded, if they had heard him, and if they would come to his aid. He listened. Except a patrolman, nobody had passed through the street since he had been there. Nearly all the travel of the gardeners of Montreuil Charonne, Vin cennes, and Bercy to the Market, is through the Rue Saint Antoine.

The clock struck four. Thénardier shuddered. A few moments afterwards, that wild and confused noise which follows upon the discovery of an escape, broke out in the prison. The sounds of doors opening and shutting, the grinding of gratings upon their hinges, the tumult in the guard-house, the harsh calls of the gate-keepers, the sound of the butts of muskets upon the pavement of the yards reached him. Lights moved up and down in the grated windows of the dormitories, a torch ran along the attic of the Bâtiment Neuf, the firemen of the barracks alongside had been called. Their caps, which the torches lighted up in the rain, were going to and fro along the roofs. At the same time Thénardier saw in the direction of the Bastille a whitish tint throwing a dismal pallor over the lower part of the sky.

He was on the top of a wall ten inches wide, stretched out beneath the storm, with two precipices, at the right and at the left, unable to stir, giddy at the prospect of falling, and horror-stricken at the certainty of arrest, and his thoughts, like the pendulum of a clock, went from one of these ideas to the other: “Dead if I fall, taken if I stay.”

In this anguish, he suddenly saw, the street being still wrapped in darkness, a man who was gliding along the walls, and who came from the direction of the Rue Pavée, stop in the recess above which Thénardier was as it were suspended. This man was joined by a second, who was walking with the same precaution, then by a third, then by a fourth. When these men were together, one of them lifted the latch of the gate in the fence, and they all four entered the inclosure of the shanty. They were exactly under Thénardier. These men had evidently selected this recess so as to be able to talk without being seen by the passers-by or by the sentinel who guards the gate of La Force a few steps off. It must also be stated that the rain kept this sentinel blockaded in his sentry-box. Thénardier, not being able to distinguish their faces, listened to their words with the desperate attention of a wretch who feels that he is lost.

Something which resembled hope passed before Thénardier’s eyes; these men spoke argot.

The first said, in a low voice, but distinctly:

“Décarrons.
What is it we maquillons
icigo?”
^es

The second answered:

“Il lansquine
enough to put out the
riffe
of the
rabouin.
And then the
coqueurs
are going by, there is a
grivier
there who carries a
gaffe,
shall we let them
emballer
us
icicaille?”
^et

These are two words, icigo and
icicaille,
which both mean ici [here], and which belong, the first to the argot of the Barrières, the second to the argot of the Temple, were revelations to Thénardier. By icigo he recognised Brujon, who was a prowler of the Barrières, and by
icicaille
Babet, who, among all his other trades, had been a second-hand dealer at the Temple.

The ancient argot of the age of Louis XIV, is now spoken only at the Temple, and Babet was the only one who spoke it quite purely. Without icicaille, Thenardier would not have recognised him, for he had entirely disguised his voice.

Meanwhile the third put in a word:

“Nothing is urgent yet, let us wait a little. How do we know that he doesn’t need our help?”

By this, which was only French, Thénardier recognised Montparnasse, whose elegance consisted in understanding all argots and speaking none.

As to the fourth, he was silent, but his huge shoulders betrayed him. Thénardier had no hesitation. It was Gueulemer.

Brujon replied almost impetuously, but still in a low voice:

“What is it you
bonnez
us there? The
tapissier
couldn’t draw his
crampe.
He don’t know the
trus,
indeed! Bouliner his
limace
and
faucher
his
empaffes, maquiller
a
tortouse, caler boulins
in the
lourdes, braser
the
taffes, maquiller caroubles, faucher
the Bards, balance his
tortouse
outside,
panquer
himself,
camoufler
himself, one must be a
mariol?
The old man couldn’t do it, he don’t know how to
goupiner! ”
^eu

Babet added, still in that prudent, classic argot which was spoken by Poulailler and Cartouche, and which is to the bold, new, strongly-coloured, and hazardous argot which Brujon used, what the language of Racine is to the language of André Chénier:

“Your
orgue tapissier
must have been made
marron
on the stairs. One must be
arcasien.
He is a
galifard.
He has been played the
harnache
by a
roussin,
perhaps even by a
roussi,
who has beaten him
comtois.
Lend your
oche,
Montparnasse, do you hear those
criblements
in the college? You have seen all those
camoufles.
He has
tombé,
come! He must be left to draw his twenty
longes.
I have no
taf,
I am no
taffeur,
that is
colombé,
but there is nothing more but to make the
lezards,
or otherwise they will make us
gambiller
for it. Don’t
renauder,
come with
nousiergue.
Let us go and
picter
a
rouillarde encible.“
^ev

“Friends are not left in difficulty,” muttered Montparnasse.

“I
bonnis
you that he is
malade,”
replied Brujon. “At the hour which
toque,
the
tapissier
isn’t worth a
broque!
We can do nothing here.
Décarrons.
I expect every moment that a
cogne
will
cintrer
me in
pogne!”
^ew

Montparnasse resisted now but feebly; the truth is, that these four men, with that faithfulness which bandits exhibit in never abandoning each other, had been prowling all night about La Force at whatever risk, in hope of seeing Thénardier rise above some wall. But the night which was becoming really too fine, it was storming enough to keep all the streets empty, the cold which was growing upon them, their soaked clothing, their wet shoes, the alarming uproar which had just broken out in the prison, the passing hours, the patrolmen they had met, hope departing, fear returning, all this impelled them to retreat. Montparnasse himself, who was, perhaps, to some slight extent a son-in-law of Thénardier, yielded. A moment more, they were gone. Thénardier gasped upon his wall like the shipwrecked sailors of the
Méduse
on their raft when they saw the ship which had appeared, vanish in the horizon.

He dared not call them, a cry overheard might destroy all; he had an idea, a final one, a flash of light; he took from his pocket the end of Brujon’s rope, which he had detached from the chimney of the Bâtiment Neuf, and threw it into the inclosure.

This rope fell at their feet.

“A widow! ”
^ex
said Babet.

“My tortouse!”
^ey
said Brujon.

“There is the innkeeper,” said Montparnasse.

They raised their eyes. Thénardier advanced his head a little.

“Quick!” said Montparnasse, “have you the other end of the rope, Brujon?”

“Yes.”

“Tie the two ends together, we will throw him the rope, he will fasten it to the wall, he will have enough to get down.”

Thénardier ventured to speak:

“I am benumbed.”

“We will warm you.”

“I can’t stir.”

“Let yourself slip down, we will catch you.”

“My hands are stiff.”

“Only tie the rope to the wall.”

“I can’t.”

“One of us must get up,” said Montparnasse.

“Three stories!” said Brujon.

An old plaster flue, which had served for a stove which had formerly been in use in the shanty, crept along the wall, rising almost to the spot at which they saw Thénardier. This flue, then very much cracked and full of seams, has since fallen, but its traces can still be seen. It was very small.

“We could get up by that,” said Montparnasse.

“By that flue!” exclaimed Babet, “an
orgue,
^ez
never! it would take a
mion.”
^fa

“It would take a
môme,”
^fb
added Brujon.

“Where can we find a brat?” said Gueulemer.

“Wait,” said Montparnasse, “I have the thing.”

He opened the gate of the fence softly, made sure that nobody was passing in the street, went out carefully, shut the door after him, and started on a run in the direction of the Bastille.

Seven or eight minutes elapsed, eight thousand centuries to Thénardier; Babet, Brujon, and Gueulemer kept their teeth clenched; the door at last opened again, and Montparnasse appeared, out of breath, with Gavroche. The rain still kept the street entirely empty.

Little Gavroche entered the inclosure and looked upon these bandit forms with a quiet air. The water was dripping from his hair. Gueulemer addressed him:

“Brat, are you a man?”