Chapter 4: A CAB RUNS IN ENGLISH AND BARKS IN SLANG

The following day was the 3d of June, 1832, a date which it is necessary to indicate on account of the grave events which at that epoch hung on the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged clouds. Marius, at nightfall, was pursuing the same road as on the preceding evening, with the same thoughts of delight in his heart, when he caught sight of Éponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days in succession—this was too much. He turned hastily aside, quitted the boulevard, changed his course and went to the Rue Plumet through the Rue Monsieur.

This caused Éponine to follow him to the Rue Plumet, a thing which she had not yet done. Up to that time, she had contented herself with watching him on his passage along the boulevard without ever seeking to encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted to address him.

So Éponine followed him, without his suspecting the fact. She saw him displace the bar and slip into the garden.

She approached the railing, felt of the bars one after the other, and readily recognized the one which Marius had moved.

She murmured in a low voice and in gloomy accents:—

“None of that, Lisette!”

She seated herself on the underpinning of the railing, close beside the bar, as though she were guarding it. It was precisely at the point where the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there, in which Éponine was entirely concealed.

She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without breathing, a prey to her thoughts.

Towards ten o’clock in the evening, one of the two or three persons who passed through the Rue Plumet, an old, belated bourgeois who was making haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute, as he skirted the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, heard a dull and threatening voice saying:—

“I’m no longer surprised that he comes here every evening.”

The passer-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace.

This passer-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, six men, who were marching separately and at some distance from each other, along the wall, and who might have been taken for a gray patrol, entered the Rue Plumet.

The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the others; a second later, all six were reunited.

These men began to talk in a low voice.

“This is the place,” said one of them.

“Is there a cab [dog] in the garden?” asked another.

“I don’t know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that we’ll make him eat.”

“Have you some putty to break the pane with?”

“Yes.”

“The railing is old,” interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a ventriloquist.

“So much the better,” said the second who had spoken. “It won’t screech under the saw, and it won’t be hard to cut.”

The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect the gate, as Éponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in succession, and shaking them cautiously.

Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, fell upon his arm; he felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push in the middle of his breast, and a hoarse voice said to him, but not loudly:—

“There’s a dog.”

At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him.

The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as ferocious beasts who are uneasy; their terrified air evokes terror.

He recoiled and stammered:—

“What jade is this?”

“Your daughter.”

It was, in fact, Éponine, who had addressed Thénardier.

At the apparition of Éponine, the other five, that is to say, Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night.

Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. Guelemer held one of those pairs of curved pincers which prowlers call fanchons.

“Ah, see here, what are you about there? What do you want with us? Are you crazy?” exclaimed Thénardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still speak low; “what have you come here to hinder our work for?”

Éponine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck.

“I am here, little father, because I am here. Isn’t a person allowed to sit on the stones nowadays? It’s you who ought not to be here. What have you come here for, since it’s a biscuit? I told Magnon so. There’s nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little father! It’s a long time since I’ve seen you! So you’re out?”

Thénardier tried to disentangle himself from Éponine’s arms, and grumbled:—

“That’s good. You’ve embraced me. Yes, I’m out. I’m not in. Now, get away with you.”

But Éponine did not release her hold, and redoubled her caresses.

“But how did you manage it, little pa? You must have been very clever to get out of that. Tell me about it! And my mother? Where is mother? Tell me about mamma.”

Thénardier replied:—

“She’s well. I don’t know, let me alone, and be off, I tell you.”

“I won’t go, so there now,” pouted Éponine like a spoiled child; “you send me off, and it’s four months since I saw you, and I’ve hardly had time to kiss you.”

And she caught her father round the neck again.

“Come, now, this is stupid!” said Babet.

“Make haste!” said Guelemer, “the cops may pass.”

The ventriloquist’s voice repeated his distich:—

“Nous n’ sommes pas le jour de l’an,
A bécoter papa, maman.”

“This isn’t New Year’s day
To peck at pa and ma.”

Éponine turned to the five ruffians.

“Why, it’s Monsieur Brujon. Good day, Monsieur Babet. Good day, Monsieur Claquesous. Don’t you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, Montparnasse?”

“Yes, they know you!” ejaculated Thénardier. “But good day, good evening, sheer off! leave us alone!”

“It’s the hour for foxes, not for chickens,” said Montparnasse.

“You see the job we have on hand here,” added Babet.

Éponine caught Montparnasse’s hand.

“Take care,” said he, “you’ll cut yourself, I’ve a knife open.”

“My little Montparnasse,” responded Éponine very gently, “you must have confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur Babet, Monsieur Guelemer, I’m the person who was charged to investigate this matter.”

It is remarkable that Éponine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue had become impossible to her since she had known Marius.

She pressed in her hand, small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton, Guelemer’s huge, coarse fingers, and continued:—

“You know well that I’m no fool. Ordinarily, I am believed. I have rendered you service on various occasions. Well, I have made inquiries; you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that there is nothing in this house.”