He must have flung himself into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it!
He must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the cesspool,—more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his back!
And with what object?
With the sole object of saving the corpse.
And that corpse I was.
He said to himself:
‘There may still be a glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that miserable spark!’
And his existence he risked not once but twenty times!
And every step was a danger.
The proof of it is, that on emerging from the sewer, he was arrested.
Do you know, sir, that that man did all this?
And he had no recompense to expect.
What was I?
An insurgent.
What was I?
One of the conquered.
Oh! if Cosette’s six hundred thousand francs were mine….”
“They are yours,” interrupted Jean Valjean.
“Well,” resumed Marius, “I would give them all to find that man once more.”
Jean Valjean remained silent.
BOOK SIXTH.—THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT
CHAPTER I—THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833
The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed night.
Above its shadows heaven stood open.
It was the wedding night of Marius and Cosette.
The day had been adorable.
It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather, a fairy spectacle, with a confusion of cherubim and Cupids over the heads of the bridal pair, a marriage worthy to form the subject of a painting to be placed over a door; but it had been sweet and smiling.
The manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it is to-day.
France had not yet borrowed from England that supreme delicacy of carrying off one’s wife, of fleeing, on coming out of church, of hiding oneself with shame from one’s happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with the delights of the Song of Songs.
People had not yet grasped to the full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency of jolting their paradise in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, in a commonplace chamber, at so much a night, the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of the inn.
In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now living, the mayor and his scarf, the priest and his chasuble, the law and God no longer suffice; they must be eked out by the Postilion de Lonjumeau; a blue waistcoat turned up with red, and with bell buttons, a plaque like a vantbrace, knee-breeches of green leather, oaths to the Norman horses with their tails knotted up, false galloons, varnished hat, long powdered locks, an enormous whip and tall boots.
France does not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility, and raining down on the post-chaise of the bridal pair a hail storm of slippers trodden down at heel and of worn-out shoes, in memory of Churchill, afterwards Marlborough, or Malbrouck, who was assailed on his wedding-day by the wrath of an aunt which brought him good luck.
Old shoes and slippers do not, as yet, form a part of our nuptial celebrations; but patience, as good taste continues to spread, we shall come to that.
In 1833, a hundred years ago, marriage was not conducted at a full trot.
Strange to say, at that epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies whence a family is destined to spring, should begin at home, and that the household should thenceforth have its nuptial chamber as its witness.
And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes.
The marriage took place, therefore, in accordance with this now superannuated fashion, at M. Gillenormand’s house.
Natural and commonplace as this matter of marrying is, the banns to publish, the papers to be drawn up, the mayoralty, and the church produce some complication.
They could not get ready before the 16th of February.
Now, we note this detail, for the pure satisfaction of being exact, it chanced that the 16th fell on Shrove Tuesday.
Hesitations, scruples, particularly on the part of Aunt Gillenormand.
“Shrove Tuesday!” exclaimed the grandfather, “so much the better. There is a proverb:
“‘Mariage un Mardi gras
N’aura point enfants ingrats.‘
Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th!
Do you want to delay, Marius?”
“No, certainly not!” replied the lover.
“Let us marry, then,” cried the grandfather.
Accordingly, the marriage took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the public merrymaking.
It rained that day, but there is always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of creation is under an umbrella.