1.F.3.2. A DOUBLE QUARTETTE
THESE Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from
Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban;
but they were students; and when one says student, one
says Parisian: to study in Paris is to be born in Paris.
These young men were insignificant; every one has seen
such faces; four specimens of humanity taken at random;
neither good nor bad, neither wise nor ignorant, neither
geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that charming April which
is called twenty years. They were four Oscars; for, at that
epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. Burn for him the perfumes
of Araby! exclaimed romance. Oscar advances. Oscar, I
shall behold him! People had just emerged from Ossian;
elegance was Scandinavian and Caledonian; the pure English
style was only to prevail later, and the first of the Arthurs,
Wellington, had but just won the battle of Waterloo.
These Oscars bore the names, one of Felix Tholomyes, of
Toulouse; the second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil,
of Limoges; the last, Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally,
each of them had his mistress. Blachevelle loved Favourite,
so named because she had been in England; Listolier adored
Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a flower;
Fameuil idolized Zephine, an abridgment of Josephine; Tholomyes
had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful,
sunny hair.
Favourite, Dahlia, Zephine, and Fantine were four ravishing
young women, perfumed and radiant, still a little like
working-women, and not yet entirely divorced from their
needles; somewhat disturbed by intrigues, but still retaining
on their faces something of the serenity of toil, and in their
souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall in
woman. One of the four was called the young, because she
was the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old
one was twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three
first were more experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated
into the tumult of life than Fantine the Blonde, who
was still in her first illusions.
Dahlia, Zephine, and especially Favourite, could not have
said as much. There had already been more than one episode
in their romance, though hardly begun; and the lover who
had borne the name of Adolph in the first chapter had turned
out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave in the third.
Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one scolds
and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the
people have both of them whispering in their ear, each on its
own side. These badly guarded souls listen. Hence the falls
which they accomplish, and the stones which are thrown at
them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of all that is
immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau
were hungry?
Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia
and Zephine. She had had an establishment of her own very
early in life. Her father was an old unmarried professor of
mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to
give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when he was a
young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on
a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident.
The result had been Favourite. She met her father from time
to time, and he bowed to her. One morning an old woman
with the air of a devotee, had entered her apartments, and had
said to her, "You do not know me, Mamemoiselle?" "No."
"I am your mother." Then the old woman opened the side-board,
and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned
brought in, and installed herself. This cross and pious old
mother never spoke to Favourite, remained hours without
uttering a word, breakfasted, dined, and supped for four, and
went down to the porter's quarters for company, where she
spoke ill of her daughter.
It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had
drawn Dahlia to Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How
could she make such nails work? She who wishes to remain
virtuous must not have pity on her hands. As for Zephine,
she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and caressing little
way of saying "Yes, sir."
The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends.
Such loves are always accompanied by such friendships.
Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof
of this is that, after making all due allowances for these little
irregular households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia were
philosophical young women, while Fantine was a good girl.
Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyes? Solomon
would reply that love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine
ourselves to saying that the love of Fantine was a first
love, a sole love, a faithful love.
She alone, of all the four, was not called "thou" by a single
one of them.
Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak,
from the dregs of the people. Though she had emerged from
the most unfathomable depths of social shadow, she bore
on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown.
She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can
say? She had never known father or mother. She was called
Fantine. Why Fantine? She had never borne any other
name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed.
She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal
name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name
which pleased the first random passerby, who had encountered
her, when a very small child, running bare-legged in
the street. She received the name as she received the water
from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was called
little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This human
creature had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten,
Fantine quitted the town and went to service with some
farmers in the neighborhood. At fifteen she came to Paris
"to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, and remained
pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with fine
teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold
was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.
She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her
living, — for the heart, also, has its hunger, — she loved.
She loved Tholomyes.
An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the
Latin quarter, filled with throngs of students and grisettes,
saw the beginning of their dream. Fantine had long evaded
Tholomyes in the mazes of the hill of the Pantheon, where
so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in such a way as
constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of
avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took
place.
Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group
of which Tholomyes was the head. It was he who possessed
the wit.
Tholomyes was the antique old student; he was rich; he had
an income of four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a
splendid scandal on Mount Sainte-Genevieve. Tholomyes was
a fast man of thirty, and badly preserved. He was wrinkled
and toothless, and he had the beginning of a bald spot, of
which he himself said with sadness,
the skull at thirty, the
knee at forty. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been
attacked by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his
youth disappeared, gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth
with buffooneries, his hair with mirth, his health with irony,
his weeping eye laughed incessantly. He was dilapidated but
still in flower. His youth, which was packing up for departure
long before its time, beat a retreat in good order, bursting
with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire. He had had
a piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few verses now
and then. In addition to this he doubted everything to the
last degree, which is a vast force in the eyes of the weak.
Being thus ironical and bald, he was the leader.
Iron is an
English word. Is it possible that irony is derived from it?
One day Tholomyes took the three others aside, with the
gesture of an oracle, and said to them: —
"Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite have been teasing
us for nearly a year to give them a surprise. We have promised
them solemnly that we would. They are forever talking
about it to us, to me in particular, just as the old women in
Naples cry to Saint Januarius, 'Faccia gialluta, fa o miracolo,
Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our beauties say to me
incessantly, 'Tholomyes, when will you bring forth your surprise?'
At the same time our parents keep writing to us.
Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to
me; let us discuss the question."
Thereupon, Tholomyes lowered his voice and articulated
something so mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke
out upon the four mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle
exclaimed, "That is an idea."
A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the
remainder of their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow.
The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party
which took place on the following Sunday, the four young
men inviting the four young girls.