His virgin lips closed; and he remained for some time standing on the spot where he had shed blood, in marble immobility.
His staring eye caused those about him to speak in low tones.
Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each other’s hands silently, and, leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also of rock.
Let us say at once that later on, after the action, when the bodies were taken to the morgue and searched, a police agent’s card was found on Le Cabuc.
The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832.
We will add, that if we are to believe a tradition of the police, which is strange but probably well founded, Le Cabuc was Claquesous.
The fact is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any question of Claquesous.
Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his disappearance; he would seem to have amalgamated himself with the invisible.
His life had been all shadows, his end was night.
The whole insurgent group was still under the influence of the emotion of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly terminated, when Courfeyrac again beheld on the barricade, the small young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius.
This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the insurgents.
BOOK THIRTEENTH.—MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW
CHAPTER I—FROM THE RUE PLUMET TO THE QUARTIER SAINT-DENIS
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-Elysees, 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 Cafe 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 Hotel des Princes and the Hotel Meurice.
Marius entered the Rue Saint-Honore 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-Honore.
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-Honore, 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 Bethisy, and directed his course towards the Halles.