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"Monsieur Fabantou," he said, "these five francs are all that I have about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this evening, it is this evening that you must pay, is it not?" Jondrette's face lighted up with a strange expression. He replied vivaciously: "Yes, respected sir. At eight o'clock, I must be at my landlord's."
Marius thought that it would be wise to profit by Jondrette's absence to return home; moreover, it was growing late; every evening, Ma'am Bougon when she set out for her dish-washing in town, had a habit of locking the door, which was always closed at dusk. Marius had given his key to the inspector of police; it was important, therefore, that he should make haste.
He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette's garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice: his drunkenness had been his salvation. The authorities had never been able to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a man who had been robbed.
"Listen " he said to her. She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes. "Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better." "Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his daughter!" "Yes." "Dost thou know their address?" "No." "Find it for me." The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. "Is that what you want?" she demanded. "Yes."
"What time is it?" "Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago." "The devil!" ejaculated Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here." A whispering ensued. Jondrette's voice became audible again: "Has old Bougon left?" "Yes," said the mother. "Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor's room?"
He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post near the little peep-hole in the partition wall. Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds.
Coming!" said she. "One has no time for anything in this hovel!" She hummed: Vous me quittez pour aller a la gloire; Mon triste coeur suivra partout. She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door behind her. A moment more, and Marius heard the sound of the two young girls' bare feet in the corridor, and Jondrette's voice shouting to them: "Pay strict heed!
This man's air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than Jondrette's; the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the wolf. "What do you want?" he said to Marius, without adding "monsieur." "Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?" "He is absent. I am here in his stead." "The matter is very private." "Then speak." "And great haste is required." "Then speak quick."
It seemed to him that the mysterious words of these men, so strangely hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear some relation to Jondrette's abominable projects. That must be the affair. He directed his course towards the faubourg Saint-Marceau and asked at the first shop he came to where he could find a commissary of police.
As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's eye was fixed on the door. Marius' eager attention was transferred from one to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself: "Is this man an idiot?"
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