2.M.4.3. MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS
IN a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend.
Youth is the season for prompt welding and the rapid healing
of scars. Marius breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a
decidedly new thing for him. Courfeyrac put no questions to
him. He did not even think of such a thing. At that age,
faces disclose everything on the spot. Words are superfluous.
There are young men of whom it can be said that their
countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them.
One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this
interrogation to him: —
"By the way, have you any political opinions?"
"The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question.
"What are you?"
"A democrat-Bonapartist."
"The gray hue of a reassured rat," said Courfeyrac.
On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the
Cafe Musain. Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile: "I
must give you your entry to the revolution." And he led him
to the hall of the Friends of the A B C. He presented him to
the other comrades, saying this simple word which Marius did
not understand: "A pupil."
Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However,
although he was silent and grave, he was, none the less, both
winged and armed.
Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to
soliloquy,
and to asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered
by this covey of young men around him. All these various
initiatives solicited his attention at once, and pulled him
about. The tumultuous movements of these minds at liberty
and at work set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, in his
trouble, they fled so far from him, that he had difficulty in
recovering them. He heard them talk of philosophy, of
literature,
of art, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion.
He caught glimpses of strange aspects; and, as he did not
place them in proper perspective, he was not altogether sure
that it was not chaos that he grasped. On abandoning his
grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father, he had
supposed himself fixed; he now suspected, with uneasiness,
and without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not.
The angle at which he saw everything began to be displaced
anew. A certain oscillation set all the horizons of his brains
in motion. An odd internal upsetting. He almost suffered
from it.
It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things"
for those young men. Marius heard singular propositions
on every sort of subject, which embarrassed his still timid
mind.
A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title
of
a tragedy from the ancient repertory called classic: "Down
with tragedy dear to the bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And
Marius heard Combeferre reply: —
"You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy,
and the bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score.
Bewigged tragedy has a reason for its existence, and I am not
one of those who, by order of AEschylus, contest its right to
existence. There are rough outlines in nature; there are, in
creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is not a beak,
wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws
which are not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to
laugh, there is the duck. Now, since poultry exists by the
side of the bird, I do not see why classic tragedy should not
exist in the face of antique tragedy."
Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques
Rousseau between Enjolras and Courfeyrac.
Courfeyrac took his arm: —
"Pay attention. This is the Rue Platriere, now called Rue
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on account of a singular household
which lived in it sixty years ago. This consisted of JeanJacques
and Therese. From time to time, little beings were
born there. Therese gave birth to them, Jean-Jacques represented
them as foundlings."
And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly: —
"Silence in the presence of Jean-Jacques! I admire that
man. He denied his own children, that may be; but he
adopted the people."
Not one of these young men articulated the word: The
Emperor.
Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all
the others said "Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it
"Buonaparte."
Marius was vaguely surprised. Initium
sapientiae.