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 ?schylus, 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 Jean-Jacques 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 sapienti?.
CHAPTER IV—THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFE MUSAIN
One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his mind.
This took place in the back room of the Cafe Musain.
Nearly all the Friends of the A B C had convened that evening.
The argand lamp was solemnly lighted.
They talked of one thing and another, without passion and with noise.
With the exception of Enjolras and Marius, who held their peace, all were haranguing rather at hap-hazard.
Conversations between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults.
It was a game and an uproar as much as a conversation.
They tossed words to each other and caught them up in turn.
They were chattering in all quarters.
No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the dish-washer of the cafe, who passed through it from time to time, to go to her washing in the “lavatory.”
Grantaire, thoroughly drunk, was deafening the corner of which he had taken possession, reasoning and contradicting at the top of his lungs, and shouting:—
“I am thirsty.
Mortals, I am dreaming: that the tun of Heidelberg has an attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which will be applied to it.
I want a drink.
I desire to forget life.
Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom.
It lasts no time at all, and is worth nothing.
One breaks one’s neck in living.
Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.
Happiness is an antique reliquary painted on one side only.
Ecclesiastes says: ‘All is vanity.’
I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps.