The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the
barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect
of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented
itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness
offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the
gloom before despair, are tempting. Marius thrust aside the bar which
had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said: “I
will go.”
Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid in his
brain, incapable of accepting anything thenceforth of fate after those
two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love, overwhelmed at
once by all the reveries of despair, he had but one desire remaining,
to make a speedy end of all.
He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed, as
he had Javert’s pistols with him.
The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had
vanished from his sight in the street.
Marius, who had emerged from the Rue Plumet by the boulevard, traversed
the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champs-Élysées, the
Place Louis XV., and reached the Rue de Rivoli. The shops were open
there, the gas was burning under the arcades, women were making their
purchases in the stalls, people were eating ices in the Café Laiter,
and nibbling small cakes at the English pastry-cook’s shop. Only a few
posting-chaises were setting out at a gallop from the Hôtel des Princes
and the Hôtel Meurice.
Marius entered the Rue Saint-Honoré through the Passage Delorme. There
the shops were closed, the merchants were chatting in front of their
half-open doors, people were walking about, the street lanterns were
lighted, beginning with the first floor, all the windows were lighted
as usual. There was cavalry on the Place du Palais-Royal.
Marius followed the Rue Saint-Honoré. In proportion as he left the
Palais-Royal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows, the shops
were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew
sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the
passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in
this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull, deep murmur.
Near the fountain of the Arbre-Sec, there were “assemblages”,
motionless and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came as
stones in the midst of running water.
At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked.
It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable
block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in low tones.
There were hardly any black coats or round hats now, but smock frocks,
blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads. This multitude
undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the
hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not one of them was walking, a
dull trampling was audible in the mire. Beyond this dense portion of
the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the Rue des Prouvaires, and in the
extension of the Rue Saint-Honoré, there was no longer a single window
in which a candle was burning. Only the solitary and diminishing rows
of lanterns could be seen vanishing into the street in the distance.
The lanterns of that date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes,
and shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge
spider. These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles
of guns, moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer
passed that limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and
the army began.
Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been
summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng and to
pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols, he avoided the
sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Béthisy, and directed
his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des
Bourdonnais, there were no longer any lanterns.
After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits of
the troops; he found himself in something startling. There was no
longer a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light, there was
no one; solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized
hold upon one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar.
He continued to advance.
He took a few steps. Some one passed close to him at a run. Was it a
man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told. It
had passed and vanished.
Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he judged
to be the Rue de la Poterie; near the middle of this street, he came in
contact with an obstacle. He extended his hands. It was an overturned
wagon; his foot recognized pools of water, gullies, and paving-stones
scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned.
He climbed over the stones and found himself on the other side of the
barrier. He walked very near the street-posts, and guided himself along
the walls of the houses. A little beyond the barricade, it seemed to
him that he could make out something white in front of him. He
approached, it took on a form. It was two white horses; the horses of
the omnibus harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying
at random all day from street to street, and had finally halted there,
with the weary patience of brutes who no more understand the actions of
men, than man understands the actions of Providence.
Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which
seemed to him to be the Rue du Contrat-Social, a shot coming no one
knows whence, and traversing the darkness at random, whistled close by
him, and the bullet pierced a brass shaving-dish suspended above his
head over a hairdresser’s shop. This pierced shaving-dish was still to
be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the
pillars of the market.
This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered
nothing more.
The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps.
Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward.