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Les Misérables, Volume 3: Marius, Book Fifth: The Excellence of Misfortune, Chapter 2: Marius Poor 
(Tome 3: Marius, Livre cinqième: Excellence du malheur, Chapitre 2: Marius pauvre)

==General notes on this chapter==

==French text==

Il en est de la misère comme de tout. Elle arrive à devenir possible.
Elle finit par prendre une forme et se composer. On végète, c'est-à-dire
on se développe d'une certaine façon chétive, mais suffisante à la vie.
Voici de quelle manière l'existence de Marius Pontmercy s'était
arrangée:

Il était sorti du plus étroit, le défilé s'élargissait un peu devant
lui. À force de labeur, de courage, de persévérance et de volonté, il
était parvenu à tirer de son travail environ sept cents francs par an.
Il avait appris l'allemand et l'anglais. Grâce à Courfeyrac qui l'avait
mis en rapport avec son ami le libraire, Marius remplissait dans la
littérature-librairie le modeste rôle d'''utilité''. Il faisait des
prospectus, traduisait des journaux, annotait des éditions, compilait
des biographies, etc. Produit net, bon an mal an, sept cents francs. Il
en vivait. Pas mal. Comment? Nous l'allons dire.

Marius occupait dans la masure Gorbeau, moyennant le prix annuel de
trente francs, un taudis sans cheminée qualifié cabinet où il n'y avait,
en fait de meubles, que l'indispensable. Ces meubles étaient à lui. Il
donnait trois francs par mois à la vieille principale locataire pour
qu'elle vînt balayer le taudis et lui apporter chaque matin un peu d'eau
chaude, un &oelig;uf frais et un pain d'un sou. De ce pain et de cet &oelig;uf, il
déjeunait. Son déjeuner variait de deux à quatre sous selon que les
&oelig;ufs étaient chers ou bon marché. À six heures du soir, il descendait
rue Saint-Jacques, dîner chez Rousseau, vis-à-vis Basset le marchand
d'estampes du coin de la rue des Mathurins. Il ne mangeait pas de soupe.
Il prenait un plat de viande de six sous, un demi-plat de légumes de
trois sous, et un dessert de trois sous. Pour trois sous, du pain à
discrétion. Quant au vin, il buvait de l'eau. En payant au comptoir, où
siégeait majestueusement madame Rousseau, à cette époque toujours grasse
et encore fraîche, il donnait un sou au garçon, et madame Rousseau lui
donnait un sourire. Puis il s'en allait. Pour seize sous, il avait eu un
sourire et un dîner.

Ce restaurant Rousseau, où l'on vidait si peu de bouteilles et tant de
carafes, était un calmant plus encore qu'un restaurant. Il n'existe plus
aujourd'hui. Le maître avait un beau surnom; on l'appelait ''Rousseau
l'aquatique''.

Ainsi, déjeuner quatre sous, dîner seize sous; sa nourriture lui coûtait
vingt sous par jour; ce qui faisait trois cent soixante-cinq francs par
an. Ajoutez les trente francs de loyer et les trente-six francs à la
vieille, plus quelques menus frais; pour quatre cent cinquante francs,
Marius était nourri, logé et servi. Son habillement lui coûtait cent
francs, son linge cinquante francs, son blanchissage cinquante francs,
le tout ne dépassait pas six cent cinquante francs. Il lui restait
cinquante francs. Il était riche. Il prêtait dans l'occasion dix francs
à un ami; Courfeyrac avait pu lui emprunter une fois soixante francs.
Quant au chauffage, n'ayant pas de cheminée, Marius l'avait «simplifié».

Marius avait toujours deux habillements complets; l'un vieux, «pour tous
les jours», l'autre tout neuf, pour les occasions. Les deux étaient
noirs. Il n'avait que trois chemises, l'une sur lui, l'autre dans sa
commode, la troisième chez la blanchisseuse. Il les renouvelait à mesure
qu'elles s'usaient. Elles étaient habituellement déchirées, ce qui lui
faisait boutonner son habit jusqu'au menton.

Pour que Marius en vînt à cette situation florissante, il avait fallu
des années. Années rudes; difficiles, les unes à traverser, les autres à
gravir. Marius n'avait point failli un seul jour. Il avait tout subi, en
fait de dénûment; il avait tout fait, excepté des dettes. Il se rendait
ce témoignage que jamais il n'avait dû un sou à personne. Pour lui, une
dette, c'était le commencement de l'esclavage. Il se disait même qu'un
créancier est pire qu'un maître; car un maître ne possède que votre
personne, un créancier possède votre dignité et peut la souffleter.
Plutôt que d'emprunter il ne mangeait pas. Il avait eu beaucoup de jours
de jeûne. Sentant que toutes les extrémités se touchent et que, si l'on
n'y prend garde, l'abaissement de fortune peut mener à la bassesse
d'âme, il veillait jalousement sur sa fierté. Telle formule ou telle
démarche qui, dans toute autre situation, lui eût paru déférence, lui
semblait platitude, et il se redressait. Il ne hasardait rien, ne
voulant pas reculer. Il avait sur le visage une sorte de rougeur sévère.
Il était timide jusqu'à l'âpreté.

Dans toutes ses épreuves il se sentait encouragé et quelquefois même
porté par une force secrète qu'il avait en lui. L'âme aide le corps, et
à de certains moments le soulève. C'est le seul oiseau qui soutienne sa
cage.

À côté du nom de son père, un autre nom était gravé dans le c&oelig;ur de
Marius, le nom de Thénardier. Marius, dans sa nature enthousiaste et
grave, environnait d'une sorte d'auréole l'homme auquel, dans sa pensée,
il devait la vie de son père, cet intrépide sergent qui avait sauvé le
colonel au milieu des boulets et des balles de Waterloo. Il ne séparait
jamais le souvenir de cet homme du souvenir de son père, et il les
associait dans sa vénération. C'était une sorte de culte à deux degrés,
le grand autel pour le colonel, le petit pour Thénardier. Ce qui
redoublait l'attendrissement de sa reconnaissance, c'est l'idée de
l'infortune où il savait Thénardier tombé et englouti. Marius avait
appris à Montfermeil la ruine et la faillite du malheureux aubergiste.
Depuis il avait fait des efforts inouïs pour saisir sa trace et tâcher
d'arriver à lui dans ce ténébreux abîme de la misère où Thénardier avait
disparu. Marius avait battu tout le pays; il était allé à Chelles, à
Bondy, à Gournay, à Nogent, à Lagny. Pendant trois années il s'y était
acharné, dépensant à ces explorations le peu d'argent qu'il épargnait.
Personne n'avait pu lui donner de nouvelles de Thénardier; on le croyait
passé en pays étranger. Ses créanciers l'avaient cherché aussi, avec
moins d'amour que Marius, mais avec autant d'acharnement, et n'avaient
pu mettre la main sur lui. Marius s'accusait et s'en voulait presque de
ne pas réussir dans ses recherches. C'était la seule dette que lui eût
laissée le Colonel, et Marius tenait à honneur de la payer.—Comment!
pensait-il, quand mon père gisait mourant sur le champ de bataille,
Thénardier, lui, a bien su le trouver à travers la fumée et la mitraille
et l'emporter sur ses épaules, et il ne lui devait rien cependant, et
moi qui dois tant à Thénardier, je ne saurais pas le rejoindre dans
cette ombre où il agonise et le rapporter à mon tour de la mort à la
vie! Oh! je le retrouverai!—Pour retrouver Thénardier en effet, Marius
eût donné un de ses bras, et, pour le tirer de la misère, tout son sang.
Revoir Thénardier, rendre un service quelconque à Thénardier, lui dire:
Vous ne me connaissez pas, eh bien, moi, je vous connais! je suis là!
disposez de moi!—c'était le plus doux et le plus magnifique rêve de
Marius.

==English text==

It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by
becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One
vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, which
is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the existence
of Marius Pontmercy was arranged:

He had passed the worst straits; the narrow pass was opening out a little
in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and will, he had
managed to draw from his work about seven hundred francs a year. He had
learned German and English; thanks to Courfeyrac, who had put him in
communication with his friend the publisher, Marius filled the modest post
of utility man in the literature of the publishing house. He drew up
prospectuses, translated newspapers, annotated editions, compiled
biographies, etc.; net product, year in and year out, seven hundred
francs. He lived on it. How? Not so badly. We will explain.

Marius occupied in the Gorbeau house, for an annual sum of thirty francs,
a den minus a fireplace, called a cabinet, which contained only the most
indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged to him. He
gave three francs a month to the old principal tenant to come and sweep
his hole, and to bring him a little hot water every morning, a fresh egg,
and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His breakfast
varied in cost from two to four sous, according as eggs were dear or
cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the Rue Saint-Jacques to
dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's, the stamp-dealer's, on the corner
of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. He took a six-sou plate of meat,
a half-portion of vegetables for three sous, and a three-sou dessert. For
three sous he got as much bread as he wished. As for wine, he drank water.
When he paid at the desk where Madam Rousseau, at that period still plump
and rosy majestically presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam
Rousseau gave him a smile. Then he went away. For sixteen sous he had a
smile and a dinner.

This Restaurant Rousseau, where so few bottles and so many water carafes
were emptied, was a calming potion rather than a restaurant. It no longer
exists. The proprietor had a fine nickname: he was called Rousseau the
Aquatic.

Thus, breakfast four sous, dinner sixteen sous; his food cost him twenty
sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add the
thirty francs for rent, and the thirty-six francs to the old woman, plus a
few trifling expenses; for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius was fed,
lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, his linen
fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not exceed six
hundred and fifty francs. He was rich. He sometimes lent ten francs to a
friend. Courfeyrac had once been able to borrow sixty francs of him. As
far as fire was concerned, as Marius had no fireplace, he had "simplified
matters."

Marius always had two complete suits of clothes, the one old, "for every
day"; the other, brand new for special occasions. Both were black. He had
but three shirts, one on his person, the second in the commode, and the
third in the washerwoman's hands. He renewed them as they wore out. They
were always ragged, which caused him to button his coat to the chin.

It had required years for Marius to attain to this flourishing condition.
Hard years; difficult, some of them, to traverse, others to climb. Marius
had not failed for a single day. He had endured everything in the way of
destitution; he had done everything except contract debts. He did himself
the justice to say that he had never owed any one a sou. A debt was, to
him, the beginning of slavery. He even said to himself, that a creditor is
worse than a master; for the master possesses only your person, a creditor
possesses your dignity and can administer to it a box on the ear. Rather
than borrow, he went without food. He had passed many a day fasting.
Feeling that all extremes meet, and that, if one is not on one's guard,
lowered fortunes may lead to baseness of soul, he kept a jealous watch on
his pride. Such and such a formality or action, which, in any other
situation would have appeared merely a deference to him, now seemed
insipidity, and he nerved himself against it. His face wore a sort of
severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness.

During all these trials he had felt himself encouraged and even uplifted,
at times, by a secret force that he possessed within himself. The soul
aids the body, and at certain moments, raises it. It is the only bird
which bears up its own cage.

Besides his father's name, another name was graven in Marius' heart, the
name of Thenardier. Marius, with his grave and enthusiastic nature,
surrounded with a sort of aureole the man to whom, in his thoughts, he
owed his father's life,—that intrepid sergeant who had saved the
colonel amid the bullets and the cannon-balls of Waterloo. He never
separated the memory of this man from the memory of his father, and he
associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two steps,
with the grand altar for the colonel and the lesser one for Thenardier.
What redoubled the tenderness of his gratitude towards Thenardier, was the
idea of the distress into which he knew that Thenardier had fallen, and
which had engulfed the latter. Marius had learned at Montfermeil of the
ruin and bankruptcy of the unfortunate inn-keeper. Since that time, he had
made unheard-of efforts to find traces of him and to reach him in that
dark abyss of misery in which Thenardier had disappeared. Marius had
beaten the whole country; he had gone to Chelles, to Bondy, to Gourney, to
Nogent, to Lagny. He had persisted for three years, expending in these
explorations the little money which he had laid by. No one had been able
to give him any news of Thenardier: he was supposed to have gone abroad.
His creditors had also sought him, with less love than Marius, but with as
much assiduity, and had not been able to lay their hands on him. Marius
blamed himself, and was almost angry with himself for his lack of success
in his researches. It was the only debt left him by the colonel, and
Marius made it a matter of honor to pay it. "What," he thought, "when my
father lay dying on the field of battle, did Thenardier contrive to find
him amid the smoke and the grape-shot, and bear him off on his shoulders,
and yet he owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thenardier, cannot
join him in this shadow where he is lying in the pangs of death, and in my
turn bring him back from death to life! Oh! I will find him!" To find
Thenardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue
him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see
Thenardier, to render Thenardier some service, to say to him: "You do not
know me; well, I do know you! Here I am. Dispose of me!" This was Marius'
sweetest and most magnificent dream.

 
 
 
 
== CHAPTER III—MARIUS GROWN UP ==

At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since he
had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same terms,
without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to see each
other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius was the
brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot.

We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He had
imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty,
harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed and
brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that affection,
which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. Marius was
in error. There are fathers who do not love their children; there exists
no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, as we have
said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after his own
fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the ear; but,
this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart; he would allow no
one to mention the child to him, and all the while secretly regretted that
he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped that this Buonapartist, this
Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would return. But the weeks
passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand's great despair, the
"blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I could not do otherwise
than turn him out," said the grandfather to himself, and he asked himself:
"If the thing were to do over again, would I do it?" His pride instantly
answered "yes," but his aged head, which he shook in silence, replied
sadly "no." He had his hours of depression. He missed Marius. Old men need
affection as they need the sun. It is warmth. Strong as his nature was,
the absence of Marius had wrought some change in him. Nothing in the world
could have induced him to take a step towards "that rogue"; but he
suffered. He never inquired about him, but he thought of him incessantly.
He lived in the Marais in a more and more retired manner; he was still
merry and violent as of old, but his merriment had a convulsive harshness,
and his violences always terminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy
dejection. He sometimes said: "Oh! if he only would return, what a good
box on the ear I would give him!"

As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much; Marius was no longer
for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually came to
occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the paroquet which
she probably had. What augmented Father Gillenormand's secret suffering
was, that he locked it all up within his breast, and did not allow its
existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those recently invented
furnaces which consume their own smoke. It sometimes happened that
officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and asked him: "What is your
grandson doing?" "What has become of him?" The old bourgeois replied with
a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving a fillip to his cuff, if he
wished to appear gay: "Monsieur le Baron de Pontmercy is practising
pettifogging in some corner or other."

While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case with
all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness. He only
thought of M. Gillenormand in an amiable light, but he had set his mind on
not receiving anything more from the man who had been unkind to his
father. This was the mitigated translation of his first indignation.
Moreover, he was happy at having suffered, and at suffering still. It was
for his father's sake. The hardness of his life satisfied and pleased him.
He said to himself with a sort of joy that—it was certainly the
least he could do; that it was an expiation;—that, had it not been
for that, he would have been punished in some other way and later on for
his impious indifference towards his father, and such a father! that it
would not have been just that his father should have all the suffering,
and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were his toils and his
destitution compared with the colonel's heroic life? that, in short, the
only way for him to approach his father and resemble him, was to be brave
in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant before the enemy;
and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel had meant to imply by the
words: "He will be worthy of it." Words which Marius continued to wear,
not on his breast, since the colonel's writing had disappeared, but in his
heart.

And then, on the day when his grandfather had turned him out of doors, he
had been only a child, now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, we repeat,
had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, has this
magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards
effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays
material life bare and renders it hideous; hence inexpressible bounds
towards the ideal life. The wealthy young man has a hundred coarse and
brilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming, good
repasts, and all the rest of it; occupations for the baser side of the
soul, at the expense of the loftier and more delicate sides. The poor
young man wins his bread with difficulty; he eats; when he has eaten, he
has nothing more but meditation. He goes to the spectacles which God
furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, flowers,
children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the creation amid
which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he perceives its soul,
he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he beholds God. He dreams,
he feels himself great; he dreams on, and feels himself tender. From the
egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the compassion of the man who
meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forth in him, forgetfulness of
self and pity for all. As he thinks of the innumerable enjoyments which
nature offers, gives, and lavishes to souls which stand open, and refuses
to souls that are closed, he comes to pity, he the millionnaire of the
mind, the millionnaire of money. All hatred departs from his heart, in
proportion as light penetrates his spirit. And is he unhappy? No. The
misery of a young man is never miserable. The first young lad who comes to
hand, however poor he may be, with his strength, his health, his rapid
walk, his brilliant eyes, his warmly circulating blood, his black hair,
his red lips, his white teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the
envy of an aged emperor. And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh
to the task of earning his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his
dorsal column gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he
returns to ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his
feet set in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles,
sometimes in the mire; his head in the light. He is firm serene, gentle,
peaceful, attentive, serious, content with little, kindly; and he thanks
God for having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many a rich
man lacks: work, which makes him free; and thought, which makes him
dignified.

This is what had happened with Marius. To tell the truth, he inclined a
little too much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he had
succeeded in earning his living with some approach to certainty, he had
stopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his work
to give to thought; that is to say, he sometimes passed entire days in
meditation, absorbed, engulfed, like a visionary, in the mute
voluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propounded the
problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at material labor, in
order to toil as much as possible at the labor which is impalpable; in
other words, to bestow a few hours on real life, and to cast the rest to
the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, he did not perceive
that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming one of the forms of
idleness; that he was contenting himself with conquering the first
necessities of life, and that he was resting from his labors too soon.

It was evident that, for this energetic and enthusiastic nature, this
could only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock against the
inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken.

In the meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever Father
Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was not
even pettifogging. Meditation had turned him aside from pleading. To haunt
attorneys, to follow the court, to hunt up cases—what a bore! Why
should he do it? He saw no reason for changing the manner of gaining his
livelihood! The obscure and ill-paid publishing establishment had come to
mean for him a sure source of work which did not involve too much labor,
as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants.

One of the publishers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offered to
take him into his own house, to lodge him well, to furnish him with
regular occupation, and to give him fifteen hundred francs a year. To be
well lodged! Fifteen hundred francs! No doubt. But renounce his liberty!
Be on fixed wages! A sort of hired man of letters! According to Marius'
opinion, if he accepted, his position would become both better and worse
at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was a fine
and complete unhappiness converted into a repulsive and ridiculous state
of torture: something like the case of a blind man who should recover the
sight of one eye. He refused.

Marius dwelt in solitude. Owing to his taste for remaining outside of
everything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entered
decidedly into the group presided over by Enjolras. They had remained good
friends; they were ready to assist each other on occasion in every
possible way; but nothing more. Marius had two friends: one young,
Courfeyrac; and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined more to the old man. In
the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken place
within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved his father.
"He operated on me for a cataract," he said.

The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part.

It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and
impassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightened
Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle
which some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one.

As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally
incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it.

As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be
superfluous.

==Translation notes==

==Textual notes==

==Citations==
<references />

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	== CHAPTER III—MARIUS GROWN UP ==		== CHAPTER III—MARIUS GROWN UP ==

Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 2 - Revision history

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