Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER III—THE “SPUN” MAN
1683 words | Chapter 412
This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even
in the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its
duties connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt was, in its
eyes, no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own
mouths, and for neglecting society for the reason that the government
was in peril. The ordinary service was performed correctly in company
with the extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In
the midst of an incalculable political event already begun, under the
pressure of a possible revolution, a police agent, “spun” a thief
without allowing himself to be distracted by insurrection and
barricades.
It was something precisely parallel which took place on the afternoon
of the 6th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the slope of the right
shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides.
There is no longer any bank there now. The aspect of the locality has
changed.
On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be
watching each other while mutually avoiding each other. The one who was
in advance was trying to get away, the one in the rear was trying to
overtake the other.
It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in silence.
Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly, as though
each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner redouble his
pace.
One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and
purposely without wearing the air of doing so. The prey was crafty and
on its guard.
The proper relations between the hunted pole-cat and the hunting dog
were observed. The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant
mien and not an impressive appearance; the one who was seeking to seize
him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter.
The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second;
but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious; any one who
could have observed him would have discerned in his eyes the sombre
hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains.
The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even a boatman
nor a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored here and there.
It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay opposite,
and to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man
who was in advance would have appeared like a bristling, tattered, and
equivocal being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath a ragged blouse,
and the other like a classic and official personage, wearing the
frock-coat of authority buttoned to the chin.
Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see
them closer at hand.
What was the object of the second man?
Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly.
When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order
to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state. Only, the whole
question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be
dressed in red is disagreeable.
There is a purple from below.
It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this sort which
the first man is desirous of shirking.
If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him as yet, it
was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing him lead up to
some significant meeting-place and to some group worth catching. This
delicate operation is called “spinning.”
What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the buttoned-up
man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackney-coach on the quay as
it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver; the driver
understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal,
turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, at
a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered
personage who was in advance.
The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-Élysées. The
bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the
parapet.
One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to their
agents contains this article: “Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in
case of emergency.”
While these two men were manœuvring, each on his own side, with
irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay
which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving
from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined
plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die
of thirst, but the eye is gratified.
It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to ascend this
inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the
Champs-Élysées, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much
infested with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise
violence.
This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought
to Paris from Moret in 1824, by Colonel Brack, and designated as “the
house of François I.” A guard house is situated close at hand.
To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did
not mount by the inclined plane for watering. He continued to advance
along the quay on the shore.
His position was visibly becoming critical.
What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine?
Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay; there was
no other inclined plane, no staircase; and they were near the spot,
marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont de Jéna, where the
bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and was
lost in the water. There he would inevitably find himself blocked
between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and
in front of him, and the authorities on his heels.
It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by
a heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced by some
demolition or other. But did this man hope to conceal himself
effectually behind that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The
expedient would have been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of
such a thing. The innocence of thieves does not extend to that point.
The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water’s edge,
which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay.
The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound and went
round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other.
The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took advantage of
this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk very rapidly. In a
few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap and passed round it. There
he halted in sheer amazement. The man whom he had been pursuing was no
longer there.
Total eclipse of the man in the blouse.
The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces
long, then it plunged into the water which beat against the wall of the
quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without
being seen by the man who was following him. What had become of him?
The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the extremity of the shore,
and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists clenched, his
eyes searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived,
at the point where the land came to an end and the water began, a large
iron grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three
massive hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the
quay, opened on the river as well as on the shore. A blackish stream
passed under it. This stream discharged into the Seine.
Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor
could be descried. The man folded his arms and stared at the grating
with an air of reproach.
As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside; he shook it,
it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened,
although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a
grating; but it is certain that it had been closed again. This
indicated that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a
hook but a key.
This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to
move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation:
“That is too much! A government key!”
Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world
of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables accented almost
ironically: “Come! Come! Come! Come!”
That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should
see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch
behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer.
The hackney-coach, which regulated all its movements on his, had, in
its turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet. The
coachman, foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses’ muzzles in
the bag of oats which is damp at the bottom, and which is so familiar
to Parisians, to whom, be it said in parenthesis, the Government
sometimes applies it. The rare passers-by on the Pont de Jéna turned
their heads, before they pursued their way, to take a momentary glance
at these two motionless items in the landscape, the man on the shore,
the carriage on the quay.
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