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Updated: May 5, 2025
The child, diverted by the arrival of the strangers, had fallen to contemplating "the young lady," and had ceased to sob. "Cry! bawl!" said Jondrette to her in a low voice. At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the talent of a juggler. The little girl gave vent to loud shrieks.
Jondrette repeated two or three distinct times, with all manner of varying inflections of the whining and supplicating order: "There is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for that purpose."
Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes of the Salpetriere covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil, Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf, in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and pistol in hand.
It was no longer snowing; the moon disengaged itself more and more clearly from the mist, and its light, mingled with the white reflection of the snow which had fallen, communicated to the chamber a sort of twilight aspect. There was a light in the Jondrette den. Marius saw the hole in the wall shining with a reddish glow which seemed bloody to him.
And he flung a thousand franc note at Thenardier. "Ah! Jondrette Thenardier, vile rascal! Let this serve you as a lesson, you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of here! Waterloo protects you." "Waterloo!" growled Thenardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along with the thousand. "Yes, assassin!
"He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his dinner hour." "You are sure?" "Sure." "All the same," said Jondrette, "there's no harm in going to see whether he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there." Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed. Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the crack of his door.
The day was declining; the snow, which had ceased for a moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the very corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, which was deserted, as usual, and did not follow Jondrette into it.
Don't trouble yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is worth?" "Well," said M. Leblanc, looking Jondrette full in the eye, and with the manner of a man who is on his guard, "it is some signboard for a tavern, and is worth about three francs." Jondrette replied sweetly:
"'Tis done." The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not now hear its departure. Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself. Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc.
After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done a moment before: "And shall I tell you another thing?" "What is it?" she asked. He answered in a low, curt voice: "My fortune is made." The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: "Is the person who is addressing me on the point of going mad?"
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