2.M.8.18. MARIUS' TWO CHAIRS FORM A VIS-A-VIS
SUDDENLY, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock
shook the panes. Six o'clock was striking from Saint-Medard.
Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head.
When the sixth had struck, he snuffed the candle with his
fingers.
Then he began to pace up and down the room, listened at
the
corridor, walked on again, then listened once more.
"Provided only that he comes!" he muttered, then he
returned
to his chair.
He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened.
Mother Jondrette had opened it, and now remained in the
corridor making a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the
holes of the dark-lantern illuminated from below.
"Enter, sir," she said.
"Enter, my benefactor," repeated Jondrette, rising
hastily.
M. Leblanc made his appearance.
He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly
venerable.
He laid four louis on the table.
"Monsieur Fabantou," said he, "this is for your rent and
your most pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest
hereafter."
"May
God requite it to you, my generous benefactor!" said
Jondrette.
And rapidly approaching his wife: —
"Dismiss the carriage!"
She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes
and
offering M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned
and whispered in his ear: —
"'Tis done."
The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning,
was so deep that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible,
and they did not now hear its departure.
Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself.
Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing
M. Leblanc.
Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to
follow,
let the reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold
night, the solitudes of the Salpetriere covered with snow and
white as winding-sheets in the moonlight, the taper-like lights
of the street lanterns which shone redly here and there along
those tragic boulevards, and the long rows of black elms, not a
passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, the Gorbeau
hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of
darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in
the midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by
a single candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M.
Leblanc tranquil, Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette
woman, the female wolf, in one corner, and, behind the
partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not losing a word, not
missing
a single movement, his eye on the watch, and pistol in
hand.
However, Marius experienced only an emotion of horror, but
no fear. He clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt
reassured.
"I shall be able to stop that wretch whenever I please,"
he thought.
He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade,
waiting for the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out
their arm.
Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter
between
Jondrette and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all
the things which he was interested in learning.