CHAPTER X--TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR

  Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, hadseen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his hearthad, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from the moment ofher very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, hehad lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions andprecipitates the whole soul on a single point. He contemplated, not thatgirl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. Thestar Sirius might have entered the room, and he would not have been anymore dazzled.

  While the young girl was engaged in opening the package, unfolding theclothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and thelittle injured girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, he soughtto catch her words. He knew her eyes, her brow, her beauty, her form,her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fanciedthat he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was notabsolutely sure of the fact. He would have given ten years of his lifeto hear it, in order that he might bear away in his soul a little ofthat music. But everything was drowned in the lamentable exclamationsand trumpet bursts of Jondrette. This added a touch of genuine wrathto Marius' ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believethat it really was that divine creature whom he saw in the midst ofthose vile creatures in that monstrous lair. It seemed to him that hebeheld a humming-bird in the midst of toads.

  When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, tocling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where shelived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculouslyre-discovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat.As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point ofopening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor waslong, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had,no doubt, not yet regained his carriage; if, on turning round in thecorridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius,in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means toescape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was heto do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriagemight drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk andquitted his room.

  There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There wasno one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached theboulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue duPetit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris.

  Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle ofthe boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descendingthe Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and therewas no means of overtaking it; what! run after it? Impossible; andbesides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individualrunning at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father wouldrecognize him. At that moment, wonderful and unprecedented good luck,Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There was butone thing to be done, to jump into this cab and follow the fiacre. Thatwas sure, efficacious, and free from danger.

  Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him:--

  "By the hour?"

  Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destituteof buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom.

  The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius, rubbinghis forefinger gently with his thumb.

  "What is it?" said Marius.

  "Pay in advance," said the coachman.

  Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him.

  "How much?" he demanded.

  "Forty sous."

  "I will pay on my return."

  The driver's only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whipup his horse.

  Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewildered air. For thelack of four and twenty sous, he was losing his joy, his happiness,his love! He had seen, and he was becoming blind again. He reflectedbitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the fivefrancs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl.If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved, he would havebeen born again, he would have emerged from the limbo and darkness, hewould have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from his widowedstate; he might have re-knotted the black thread of his destiny to thatbeautiful golden thread, which had just floated before his eyes andhad broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to his hovel indespair.

  He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return inthe evening, and that all he had to do was to set about the matter moreskilfully, so that he might follow him on that occasion; but, in hiscontemplation, it is doubtful whether he had heard this.

  As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he perceived, on theother side of the boulevard, near the deserted wall skirting the Rue Dela Barrière-des-Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped in the "philanthropist's"great-coat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of disquietingaspect who have been dubbed by common consent, _prowlers of thebarriers_; people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, whopresent the air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in thedaytime, which suggests the supposition that they work by night.

  These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in thesnow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policemanwould surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed.

  Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain fromsaying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrettewas talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, aliasBigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a verydangerous nocturnal roamer. This man's name the reader has learned inthe preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille,figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a notorious rascal.He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he exists in the stateof tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was at the head ofa school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, atnightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in whispers, he wasdiscussed at La Force in the Fosse-aux-Lions. One might even, inthat prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served theunprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in 1843,passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carvedby his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts atflight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on him, but he had notas yet made a serious beginning.