Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER IV—THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFÉ MUSAIN
2819 words | Chapter 257
One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was
present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his
mind.
This took place in the back room of the Café Musain. Nearly all the
Friends of the A B C had convened that evening. The argand lamp was
solemnly lighted. They talked of one thing and another, without passion
and with noise. With the exception of Enjolras and Marius, who held
their peace, all were haranguing rather at hap-hazard. Conversations
between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It
was a game and an uproar as much as a conversation. They tossed words
to each other and caught them up in turn. They were chattering in all
quarters.
No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the
dish-washer of the café, who passed through it from time to time, to go
to her washing in the “lavatory.”
Grantaire, thoroughly drunk, was deafening the corner of which he had
taken possession, reasoning and contradicting at the top of his lungs,
and shouting:—
“I am thirsty. Mortals, I am dreaming: that the tun of Heidelberg has
an attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which
will be applied to it. I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is
a hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is
worth nothing. One breaks one’s neck in living. Life is a theatre set
in which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an
antique reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: ‘All is
vanity.’ I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero
not wishing to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The
patching up of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a
dancer is a professor, an acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist,
an apothecary is a chemist, a wigmaker is an artist, a hodman is an
architect, a jockey is a sportsman, a wood-louse is a pterigybranche.
Vanity has a right and a wrong side; the right side is stupid, it is
the negro with his glass beads; the wrong side is foolish, it is the
philosopher with his rags. I weep over the one and I laugh over the
other. What are called honors and dignities, and even dignity and
honor, are generally of pinchbeck. Kings make playthings of human
pride. Caligula made a horse a consul; Charles II. made a knight of a
sirloin. Wrap yourself up now, then, between Consul Incitatus and
Baronet Roastbeef. As for the intrinsic value of people, it is no
longer respectable in the least. Listen to the panegyric which neighbor
makes of neighbor. White on white is ferocious; if the lily could
speak, what a setting down it would give the dove! A bigoted woman
prating of a devout woman is more venomous than the asp and the cobra.
It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise I would quote to you a mass
of things; but I know nothing. For instance, I have always been witty;
when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of daubing wretched little
pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; _rapin_24 is the
masculine of _rapine_. So much for myself; as for the rest of you, you
are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your perfections, excellencies,
and qualities. Every good quality tends towards a defect; economy
borders on avarice, the generous man is next door to the prodigal, the
brave man rubs elbows with the braggart; he who says very pious says a
trifle bigoted; there are just as many vices in virtue as there are
holes in Diogenes’ cloak. Whom do you admire, the slain or the slayer,
Cæsar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the slayer. Long live
Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, granted, but
madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The Brutus who
killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. This statue
was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, who also carved
that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, Eucnemos, which
Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion left but two
statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was in love with
the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but wearisome
repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The battle of
Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and the
Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. I
don’t attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to
conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If
you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering,
what wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything
obeys success, even grammar. _Si volet usus_, says Horace. Therefore I
disdain the human race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you
wish me to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please?
Shall it be Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by,
slew Phocion, as we might say Coligny, and fawned upon tyrants to such
an extent that Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: “His urine attracts the
bees.” The most prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that
grammarian Philetas, who was so small and so thin that he was obliged
to load his shoes with lead in order not to be blown away by the wind.
There stood on the great square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion
and catalogued by Pliny; this statue represented Episthates. What did
Episthates do? He invented a trip. That sums up Greece and glory. Let
us pass on to others. Shall I admire England? Shall I admire France?
France? Why? Because of Paris? I have just told you my opinion of
Athens. England? Why? Because of London? I hate Carthage. And then,
London, the metropolis of luxury, is the headquarters of wretchedness.
There are a hundred deaths a year of hunger in the parish of
Charing-Cross alone. Such is Albion. I add, as the climax, that I have
seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of roses and blue spectacles.
A fig then for England! If I do not admire John Bull, shall I admire
Brother Jonathan? I have but little taste for that slave-holding
brother. Take away _Time is money_, what remains of England? Take away
_Cotton is king_, what remains of America? Germany is the lymph, Italy
is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? Voltaire admired
it. He also admired China. I admit that Russia has its beauties, among
others, a stout despotism; but I pity the despots. Their health is
delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, a strangled Paul,
another Paul crushed flat with kicks, divers Ivans strangled, with
their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils poisoned, all this
indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia is in a condition
of flagrant insalubrity. All civilized peoples offer this detail to the
admiration of the thinker; war; now, war, civilized war, exhausts and
sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the brigandage of the
Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding of the Comanche
Indians in the Doubtful Pass. ‘Bah!’ you will say to me, ‘but Europe is
certainly better than Asia?’ I admit that Asia is a farce; but I do not
precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand Lama, you peoples
of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and your elegances all
the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty chemise of Queen
Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen of the human
race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels that the most beer
is consumed, at Stockholm the most brandy, at Madrid the most
chocolate, at Amsterdam the most gin, at London the most wine, at
Constantinople the most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe; there are
all the useful notions. Paris carries the day, in short. In Paris, even
the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a
rag-picker of the Place Maubert better than to be a philosopher at the
Piræus. Learn this in addition; the wineshops of the rag-pickers are
called _bibines_; the most celebrated are the _Saucepan_ and _The
Slaughter-House_. Hence, tea-gardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis,
mastroquets, bastringues, manezingues, bibines of the rag-pickers,
caravanseries of the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I
eat at Richard’s at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to
roll naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you, Louison.
Good day.”
Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into speech, catching
at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of
the Café Musain.
Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on
him, and Grantaire began again worse than ever:—
“Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on me no effect with
your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes’ bric-à-brac. I excuse
you from the task of soothing me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish
me to say to you? Man is evil, man is deformed; the butterfly is a
success, man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A crowd
offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch,
_Femme_—woman—rhymes with _infâme_,—infamous. Yes, I have the spleen,
complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and
I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to
death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil!”
“Silence then, capital R!” resumed Bossuet, who was discussing a point
of law behind the scenes, and who was plunged more than waist high in a
phrase of judicial slang, of which this is the conclusion:—
“—And as for me, although I am hardly a legist, and at the most, an
amateur attorney, I maintain this: that, in accordance with the terms
of the customs of Normandy, at Saint-Michel, and for each year, an
equivalent must be paid to the profit of the lord of the manor, saving
the rights of others, and by all and several, the proprietors as well
as those seized with inheritance, and that, for all emphyteuses,
leases, freeholds, contracts of domain, mortgages—”
“Echo, plaintive nymph,” hummed Grantaire.
Near Grantaire, an almost silent table, a sheet of paper, an inkstand
and a pen between two glasses of brandy, announced that a vaudeville
was being sketched out.
This great affair was being discussed in a low voice, and the two heads
at work touched each other: “Let us begin by finding names. When one
has the names, one finds the subject.”
“That is true. Dictate. I will write.”
“Monsieur Dorimon.”
“An independent gentleman?”
“Of course.”
“His daughter, Célestine.”
“—tine. What next?”
“Colonel Sainval.”
“Sainval is stale. I should say Valsin.”
Beside the vaudeville aspirants, another group, which was also taking
advantage of the uproar to talk low, was discussing a duel. An old
fellow of thirty was counselling a young one of eighteen, and
explaining to him what sort of an adversary he had to deal with.
“The deuce! Look out for yourself. He is a fine swordsman. His play is
neat. He has the attack, no wasted feints, wrist, dash, lightning, a
just parade, mathematical parries, _bigre!_ and he is left-handed.”
In the angle opposite Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were playing
dominoes, and talking of love.
“You are in luck, that you are,” Joly was saying. “You have a mistress
who is always laughing.”
“That is a fault of hers,” returned Bahorel. “One’s mistress does wrong
to laugh. That encourages one to deceive her. To see her gay removes
your remorse; if you see her sad, your conscience pricks you.”
“Ingrate! a woman who laughs is such a good thing! And you never
quarrel!”
“That is because of the treaty which we have made. On forming our
little Holy Alliance we assigned ourselves each our frontier, which we
never cross. What is situated on the side of winter belongs to Vaud, on
the side of the wind to Gex. Hence the peace.”
“Peace is happiness digesting.”
“And you, Jolllly, where do you stand in your entanglement with
Mamselle—you know whom I mean?”
“She sulks at me with cruel patience.”
“Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness.”
“Alas!”
“In your place, I would let her alone.”
“That is easy enough to say.”
“And to do. Is not her name Musichetta?”
“Yes. Ah! my poor Bahorel, she is a superb girl, very literary, with
tiny feet, little hands, she dresses well, and is white and dimpled,
with the eyes of a fortune-teller. I am wild over her.”
“My dear fellow, then in order to please her, you must be elegant, and
produce effects with your knees. Buy a good pair of trousers of
double-milled cloth at Staub’s. That will assist.”
“At what price?” shouted Grantaire.
The third corner was delivered up to a poetical discussion. Pagan
mythology was giving battle to Christian mythology. The question was
about Olympus, whose part was taken by Jean Prouvaire, out of pure
romanticism.
Jean Prouvaire was timid only in repose. Once excited, he burst forth,
a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both
laughing and lyric.
“Let us not insult the gods,” said he. “The gods may not have taken
their departure. Jupiter does not impress me as dead. The gods are
dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is to-day, after the
flight of these dreams, we still find all the grand old pagan myths.
Such and such a mountain with the profile of a citadel, like the
Vignemale, for example, is still to me the headdress of Cybele; it has
not been proved to me that Pan does not come at night to breathe into
the hollow trunks of the willows, stopping up the holes in turn with
his fingers, and I have always believed that Io had something to do
with the cascade of Pissevache.”
In the last corner, they were talking politics. The Charter which had
been granted was getting roughly handled. Combeferre was upholding it
weakly. Courfeyrac was energetically making a breach in it. On the
table lay an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac
had seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the
rattling of this sheet of paper.
“In the first place, I won’t have any kings; if it were only from an
economical point of view, I don’t want any; a king is a parasite. One
does not have kings gratis. Listen to this: the dearness of kings. At
the death of François I., the national debt of France amounted to an
income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two
milliards, six hundred millions, at twenty-eight livres the mark, which
was equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five
hundred millions, which would to-day be equivalent to twelve milliards.
In the second place, and no offence to Combeferre, a charter granted is
but a poor expedient of civilization. To save the transition, to soften
the passage, to deaden the shock, to cause the nation to pass
insensibly from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of
constitutional fictions,—what detestable reasons all those are! No! no!
let us never enlighten the people with false daylight. Principles
dwindle and pale in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no
compromise, no grant from the king to the people. In all such grants
there is an Article 14. By the side of the hand which gives there is
the claw which snatches back. I refuse your charter point-blank. A
charter is a mask; the lie lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a
charter abdicates. The law is only the law when entire. No! no
charter!”
It was winter; a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This
was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor
Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper
flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn
philosophically, and contented himself with saying:—
“The charter metamorphosed into flame.”
And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called
_entrain_, and that English thing which is called humor, good and bad
taste, good and bad reasons, all the wild pyrotechnics of dialogue,
mounting together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a
sort of merry bombardment over their heads.
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