“Ah, my dear, my dear!”

An hour later Tihon came to summon Princess Marya to the old prince, and added that Prince Vassily was with him. When Tihon came to her, Princess Marya was sitting on the sofa in her own room holding in her arms the weeping Mademoiselle Bourienne. Princess Marya was softly stroking her head. Her beautiful eyes had regained all their luminous peace, and were gazing with tender love and commiseration at the pretty little face of Mademoiselle Bourienne.

“Oh, princess, I am ruined for ever in your heart,” Mademoiselle Bourienne was saying.

“Why? I love you more than ever,” said Princess Marya, “and I will try to do everything in my power for your happiness.”

“But you despise me, you who are so pure, you will never understand this frenzy of passion. Ah, it is only my poor mother …”

“I understand everything,” said Princess Marya, smiling mournfully. “Calm yourself, my dear. I am going to my father,” she said, and she went out.

When the princess went in, Prince Vassily was sitting with one leg crossed high over the other, and a snuff-box in his hand. There was a smile of emotion on his face, and he looked as though moved to such an extreme point that he could but regret and smile at his own sensibility. He took a hasty pinch of snuff.

“Ah, my dear, my dear!” he said, getting up and taking her by both hands. He heaved a sigh, and went on: “My son’s fate is in your hands. Decide, my good dear, sweet Marie, whom I have always loved like a daughter.” He drew back. There was a real tear in his eye.

“Fr … ffr …” snorted the old prince. “The prince in his protégé’s … his son’s name makes you a proposal. Are you willing or not to be the wife of Prince Anatole Kuragin? You say: yes or no,” he shouted, “and then I reserve for myself the right to express my opinion. Yes, my opinion, and nothing but my opinion,” added the old prince, to Prince Vassily in response to his supplicating expression, “Yes or no!”

“My wish, mon père, is never to leave you; never to divide my life from yours. I do not wish to marry,” she said resolutely, glancing with her beautiful eyes at Prince Vassily and at her father.

“Nonsense, fiddlesticks! Nonsense, nonsense!” shouted the old prince, frowning. He took his daughter’s hand, drew her towards him and did not kiss her, but bending over, touched her forehead with his, and wrung the hand he held so violently that she winced and uttered a cry. Prince Vassily got up.

“My dear, let me tell you that this is a moment I shall never forget, never; but, dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching so kind and generous a heart. Say that perhaps.… The future is so wide.… Say: perhaps.”

“Who’s there? What do you want?

 “

“I don’t know how you, mon père…” the princess articulated in a whisper.

“I? I? what have I to do with it? leave me out of the question. I am not going to be married. What do you say? that’s what it’s desirable to learn.”

The princess saw that her father looked with ill-will on the project, but at that instant the thought had occurred to her that now or never the fate of her life would be decided. She dropped her eyes so as to avoid the gaze under which she felt incapable of thought, and capable of nothing but her habitual obedience: “My only desire is to carry out your wishes,” she said; “if I had to express my own desire…”

She had not time to finish. The prince cut her short. “Very good, then!” he shouted. “He shall take you with your dowry, and hook on Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She’ll be his wife, while you…” The prince stopped. He noticed the effect of these words on his daughter. She had bowed her head and was beginning to cry.

“Come, come, I was joking, I was joking,” he said. “Remember one thing, princess; I stick to my principles, that a girl has a full right to choose. And I give you complete freedom. Remember one thing; the happiness of your life depends on your decision. No need to talk about me.”

“But I don’t know…father.”

“No need for talking! He’s told to, and he’s ready to marry any one, but you are free to choose.… Go to your own room, think it over, and come to me in an hour’s time and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I know you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like. Only you’d do better to think. You can go.”

“Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!” he shouted again as the princess went out of the room, reeling in a sort of fog. Her fate was decided, and decided for happiness. But what her father had said about Mademoiselle Bourienne, that hint was horrible. It was not true, of course, but still it was horrible; she could not help thinking of it. She walked straight forward through the winter garden, seeing and hearing nothing, when all of a sudden she was roused by the familiar voice of Mademoiselle Bourienne. She lifted her eyes, and only two paces before her she saw Anatole with his arms round the Frenchwoman, whispering something to her. With a terrible expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked round at Princess Marya, and did not for the first second let go the waist of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who had not seen her.

“Who’s there? What do you want? Wait a little!” was what Anatole’s face expressed. Princess Marya gazed blankly at them. She could not believe her eyes. At last Mademoiselle Bourienne shrieked and ran away. With a gay smile Anatole bowed to Princess Marya, as though inviting her to share his amusement at this strange incident, and with a shrug of his shoulders he went to the door that led to his apartment.

The devil brought them here!

The devil brought them here!” he thought, as Tihon slipped his nightshirt over his dried-up old body and his chest covered with grey hair.

“I didn’t invite them. They come and upset my life. And there’s not much of it left. Damn them!” he muttered, while his head was hidden in the nightshirt. Tihon was used to the prince’s habit of expressing his thoughts aloud, and so it was with an unmoved countenance that he met the wrathful and inquiring face that emerged from the nightshirt.

“Gone to bed?” inquired the prince.

Tihon, like all good valets, indeed, knew by instinct the direction of his master’s thoughts. He guessed that it was Prince Vassily and his son who were meant.

“Their honours have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency.”

“They had no reason, no reason…” the prince articulated rapidly, and slipping his feet into his slippers and his arms into his dressing-gown, he went to the couch on which he always slept.

Although nothing had been said between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne, they understood each other perfectly so far as the first part of the romance was concerned, the part previous to the pauvre mère episode. They felt that they had a great deal to say to each other in private, and so from early morning they sought an opportunity of meeting alone. While the princess was away, spending her hour as usual with her father, Mademoiselle Bourienne was meeting Anatole in the winter garden.

That day it was with even more than her usual trepidation that Princess Marya went to the door of the study. It seemed to her not only that every one was aware that her fate would be that day decided, but that all were aware of what she was feeling about it. She read it in Tihon’s face and in the face of Prince Vassily’s valet, who met her in the corridor with hot water, and made her a low bow.

The old prince’s manner to his daughter that morning was extremely affectionate, though strained. That strained expression Princess Marya knew well. It was the expression she saw in his face at the moments when his withered hands were clenched with vexation at Princess Marya’s not understanding some arithmetical problem, and he would get up and walk away from her, repeating the same words over several times in a low voice.

He came to the point at once and began talking. “A proposal has been made to me on your behalf,” he said, with an unnatural smile. “I dare say, you have guessed,” he went on “that Prince Vassily has not come here and brought his protégé” (for some unknown reason the old prince elected to refer to Anatole in this way) “for the sake of my charms. Yesterday, they made me a proposal on your behalf. And as you know my principles, I refer the matter to you.”

“How am I to understand you, mon père?” said the princess, turning pale and red.

“How understand me!” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vassily finds you to his taste as a daughter-in-law, and makes you a proposal for his protégé. That’s how to understand it. How understand it!… Why, I ask you.” have � " a l y� �q� been living a secluded life apart from masculine society, on the appearance of Anatole on the scene, all the three women in Prince Nikolay Andreivitch’s house felt alike that their life had not been real life till then. Their powers of thought, of feeling, of observation, were instantly redoubled. It seemed as though their life had till then been passed in darkness, and was all at once lighted up by a new brightness that was full of significance.

Chapter 5

THEY ALL WENT to their rooms, and except Anatole, who fell asleep the instant he got into bed, no one could get to sleep for a long while that night. “Can he possibly be—my husband, that stranger, that handsome, kind man; yes, he is certainly kind,” thought Princess Marya, and a feeling of terror, such as she scarcely ever felt, came upon her. She was afraid to look round; it seemed to her that there was some one there—the devil, and he was that man with his white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.

She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.

Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the winter garden for a long while that evening, in vain expectation of some one; at one moment she was smiling at that some one, the next, moved to tears by an imaginary reference to ma pauvre mère reproaching her for her fall.

The little princess kept grumbling to her maid that her bed had not been properly made. She could not lie on her side nor on her face. She felt uncomfortable and ill at ease in every position. Her burden oppressed her, oppressed her more than ever that night, because Anatole’s presence had carried her vividly back to another time when it was not so, and she had been light and gay. She sat in a low chair in her nightcap and dressing-jacket. Katya, sleepy and dishevelled, for the third time beat and turned the heavy feather bed, murmuring something.

“I told you it was all in lumps and hollows,” the little princess repeated; “I should be glad enough to go to sleep, so it’s not my fault.”

And her voice quivered like a child’s when it is going to cry.

The old prince too could not sleep. Tihon, half asleep, heard him pacing angrily up and down and blowing his nose. The old prince felt as though he had been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more bitter because it concerned not himself, but another, his daughter, whom he loved more than himself. He said to himself that he would think the whole matter over thoroughly and decide what was right and what must be done, but instead of doing so, he only worked up his irritation more and more.

“The first stray comer that appears! and father and all forgotten, and she runs upstairs, and does up her hair, and rigs herself out, and doesn’t know what she’s doing! She’s glad to abandon her father! And she knew I should notice it. Fr…fr…fr…And don’t I see the fool has no eyes but for Bourienne (must get rid of her). And how can she have so little pride, as not to see it? If not for her own sake, if she has no pride, at least for mine. I must show her that the blockhead doesn’t give her a thought, and only looks at Bourienne. She has no pride, but I’ll make her see it…”

By telling his daughter that she was making a mistake, that Anatole was getting up a flirtation with Mademoiselle Bourienne, the old prince knew that he would wound her self-respect, and so his object (not to be parted from his daughter) would be gained, and so at this reflection he grew calmer. He called Tihon and began undressing.

“How she loves me!”

The little princess, like an old warhorse hearing the blast of the trumpet, was prepared to gallop off into a flirtation as her habit was, unconsciously forgetting her position, with no ulterior motive, no struggle, nothing but simple-hearted, frivolous gaiety in her heart.

Although in feminine society Anatole habitually took up the attitude of a man weary of the attentions of women, his vanity was agreeably flattered by the spectacle of the effect he produced on these three women. Moreover, he was beginning to feel towards the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne that violent, animal feeling, which was apt to come upon him with extreme rapidity, and to impel him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.

After tea the party moved into the divan-room, and Princess Marya was asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole leaned on his elbow facing her, and near Mademoiselle Bourienne, and his eyes were fixed on Princess Marya, full of laughter and glee. Princess Marya felt his eyes upon her with troubled and joyful agitation. Her favourite sonata bore her away to a world of soul-felt poetry, and the feeling of his eyes upon her added still more poetry to that world. The look in Anatole’s eyes, though they were indeed fixed upon her, had reference not to her, but to the movements of Mademoiselle’s little foot, which he was at that very time touching with his own under the piano. Mademoiselle Bourienne too was gazing at Princess Marya, and in her fine eyes, too, there was an expression of frightened joy and hope that was new to the princess.

“How she loves me!” thought Princess Marya. “How happy I am now and how happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Can he possibly be my husband?” she thought, not daring to glance at his face, but still feeling his eyes fastened upon her.

When the party broke up after supper, Anatole kissed Princess Marya’s hand. She was herself at a loss to know how she had the hardihood, but she looked straight with her short-sighted eyes at the handsome face as it came close to her. After the princess, he bent over the hand of Mademoiselle Bourienne (it was a breach of etiquette, but he did everything with the same ease and simplicity) and Mademoiselle Bourienne crimsoned and glanced in dismay at the princess.

“Quelle délicatesse!” thought Princess Marya. “Can Amélie” (Mademoiselle’s name) “suppose I could be jealous of her, and fail to appreciate her tenderness and devotion to me?” She went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne and kissed her warmly. Anatole went to the little princess.

“No, no, no! When your father writes me word that you are behaving well, I will give you my hand to kiss.” And shaking her little finger at him, she went smiling out of the room.

`To-night,' said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods.

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail.

The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just intelligible:

`How goes it, Jacques?'

`All well, Jacques.'

`Touch then!'

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.

`No dinner?'

`Nothing but supper now,' said the mender of roads, with a hungry face.

`It is the fashion,' growled the man. `I meet no dinner anywhere.'

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke.

`Touch then.' It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands.

`To-night?' said the mender of roads.

`To-night,' said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

`Where?'

`Here.'

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village.

`Show me!' said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill.

`See.' returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. `You go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain---

Now do you want me to tell you who you are?

I pay.

　　I wish to eat."

　　"I have nothing," said the landlord.

　　The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the stoves:

　　"Nothing! and all that?"

　　"All that is engaged."

　　"By whom?"

　　"By messieurs the wagoners."

　　"How many are there of them?"

　　"Twelve."

　　"There is enough food there for twenty."

　　"They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance."

　　The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his voice, "I am at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain."

　　Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him start, "Go away!"

　　At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some brands into the fire with the iron-shod tip of his staff; he turned quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply, the host gazed steadily at him and added, still in a low voice: "Stop! there's enough of that sort of talk.

　　Do you want me to tell you your name?

　　Your name is Jean Valjean.

　　Now do you want me to tell you who you are?

　　When I saw you come in I suspected something; I sent to the town-hall, and this was the reply that was sent to me. Can you read?"

　　So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the paper which had just travelled from the inn to the town-hall, and from the town-hall to the inn.

　　The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord resumed after a pause.

　　"I am in the habit of being polite to every one.

　　Go away!"

　　The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he had deposited on the ground, and took his departure.

　　He chose the principal street.

　　He walked straight on at a venture, keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not turn round a single time.

　　Had he done so, he would have seen the host of the Cross of Colbas standing on his threshold, surrounded by all the guests of his inn, and all the passers-by in the street, talking vivaciously, and pointing him out with his finger; and, from the glances of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that his arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town.

　　He saw nothing of all this.

all worn out.

Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers' shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in common, afterwards supping at their doors.

Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day, played gently with their meagre children; and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped.

It was almost morning, when Defarge's wine-shop parted with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door:

`At last it is come, my dear!'

`Eh well!' returned madame. `Almost.'

Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum's was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint Antoine's bosom.

CHAPTER XXIII

Fire Rises

THERE was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it would probably not be what he was ordered.

Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them--all worn out.

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely Thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable.

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures of the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high-caste, chiseled, and otherwise beatified and beatifying features of Monseigneur.

"What then?"

But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller.

　　"Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man.

　　"Immediately," replied the landlord.

　　While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with his back turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his pocket, then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on a small table near the window.

　　On the white margin he wrote a line or two, folded it without sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper to a child who seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and lackey.

　　The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the child set off on a run in the direction of the town-hall.

　　The traveller saw nothing of all this.

　　Once more he inquired, "Will dinner be ready soon?"

　　"Immediately," responded the host.

　　The child returned.

　　He brought back the paper.

　　The host unfolded it eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply.

　　He seemed to read it attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a moment.

　　Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who appeared to be immersed in reflections which were not very serene.

　　"I cannot receive you, sir," said he.

　　The man half rose.

　　"What!

　　Are you afraid that I will not pay you?

　　Do you want me to pay you in advance?

　　I have money, I tell you."

　　"It is not that."

　　"What then?"

　　"You have money--"

　　"Yes," said the man.

　　"And I," said the host, "have no room."

　　The man resumed tranquilly, "Put me in the stable."

　　"I cannot."

　　"Why?"

　　"The horses take up all the space."

　　"Very well!" retorted the man; "a corner of the loft then, a truss of straw.

　　We will see about that after dinner."

　　"I cannot give you any dinner."

　　This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger as grave.

　　He rose.

　　"Ah! bah!

　　But I am dying of hunger.

　　I have been walking since sunrise. I have travelled twelve leagues.

`Bring him out!

No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance from him in the Hall.

`See!' cried madame, pointing with her knife. `See the old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now!' Madame put her knife under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play.

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of brawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge's frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building.

At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner's head. The favour was too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him!

It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace--Madame Defarge had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied--The Vengeance and Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high perches--when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, `Bring him out! Bring him to the lamp!'

Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go--as a cat might have done to a mouse--and silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. Nor was this the end of the day's bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the son-in-law of the despatched, another of the people's enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under guard five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on flaring sheets of paper, seized him--would have torn him out of the breast of an army to bear Foulon company--set his head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession, through the streets.