BOOK SECOND.--EPONINE



CHAPTER I THE LARK'S MEADOW





Marius had witnessed the unexpectedtermination of the ambush upon whose track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, bearing off his prisoners in three hackney-coaches, than Marius also glided out of the house. It was only nine o'clock in the evening. Marius betook himself to Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac was no longer the imperturbable inhabitant of the Latin Quarter, he had gone to live in the Rue de la Verrerie "for political reasons"; this quarter was one where, at that epoch, insurrection liked to install itself. Marius said to Courfeyrac: "I have come to sleep with you." Courfeyrac dragged a mattress off his bed, which was furnished with two, spread it out on the floor, and said: "There."



At seven o'clock on the following morning, Marius returned to the hovel, paid the quarter's rent which he owed to Ma'am Bougon, had his books, his bed, his table, his commode, and his two chairs loaded on a hand-cart and went off without leaving his address, so that when Javert returned in the course of the morning, for the purpose of questioning Marius as to the events of the preceding evening, he found only Ma'am Bougon, who answered: "Moved away!"



Ma'am Bougon was convinced that Marius was to some extent an accomplice of the robbers who had been seized the night before. "Who would ever have said it?" she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, "a young man like that, who had the air of a girl!"



Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence. The first was, that he now had a horror of that house, where he had beheld, so close at hand, and in its most repulsive and most ferocious development, a social deformity which is, perhaps, even more terrible than the wicked rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish to figure in the lawsuit which would insue in all probability, and be brought in to testify against Thenardier.



Javert thought that the young man, whose name he had forgotten, was afraid, and had fled, or perhaps, had not even returned home at the time of the ambush; he made some efforts to find him, however, but without success.



A month passed, then another. Marius was still with Courfeyrac. He had learned from a young licentiate in law, an habitual frequenter of the courts, that Thenardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, Marius had five francs handed in to the clerk's office of La Force for Thenardier.



As Marius had no longer any money, he borrowed the five francs from Courfeyrac. It was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac who lent and to Thenardier who received them. "To whom can they go?" thought Courfeyrac. "Whence can this come to me?" Thenardier asked himself.



Moreover, Marius was heart-broken. Everything had plunged through a trap-door once more. He no longer saw anything before him; his life was again buried in mystery where he wandered fumblingly. He had for a moment beheld very close at hand, in that obscurity, he young girl whom he loved, the old man who seemed to be her father, those unknown beings, who were his only interest and his only hope in this world; and, at the very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them, a gust had swept all these shadows away. Not a spark of certainty and truth had been emitted even in the most terrible of collisions. No conjecture was possible. He no longer knew even the name that he thought he knew. It certainly was not Ursule. And the Lark was a nickname. And what was he to think of the old man? Was he actually in hiding from the police? The white-haired workman whom Marius had encountered in the vicinity of the Invalides recurred to his mind. It now seemed probable that that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he disguised himself? That man had his heroic and his equivocal sides. Why had he not called for help? Why had he fled? Was he, or was he not, the father of the young girl? Was he, in short, the man whom Thenardier thought that he recognized? Thenardier might have been mistaken. These formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted nothing from the angelic charms of the young girl of the Luxembourg. Heart-rending distress; Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which burns us lights us also a little, and casts some useful gleams without. But Marius no longer even heard these mute counsels of passion. He never said to himself: "What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call Ursule was evidently somewhere; nothing warned Marius in what direction he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog. To see her once again; he still aspired to this, but he no longer expected it.



To crown all, his poverty had returned. He felt that icy breath close to him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before this, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than discontinued work; it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy to get rid of, and difficult to take up again.



A certain amount of dreaming is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects the over-harsh contours of pure thought,fills in gaps here and there, binds together and rounds off the angles of the ideas. But too much dreaming sinks and drowns. Woe to the brain-worker who allows himself to fall entirely from thought into revery! He thinks that he can re-ascend with equal ease, and he tells himself that, after all, it is the same thing. Error!



Thought is the toil of the intelligence, revery its voluptuousness. To replace thought with revery is to confound a poison with a food.



Marius had begun in that way, as the reader will remember. assion had supervened and had finished the work of precipitating him into chimaeras without object or bottom. One no longer emerges from one's self except for the purpose of going off to dream. Idle production. Tumultuous and stagnant gulf. And, in proportion as labor diminishes, needs increase. This is a law. Man, in a state of revery, is generally prodigal and slack; the unstrung mind cannot hold life within close bounds.



There is, in that mode of life, good mingled with evil, for if enervation is baleful, generosity is good and healthful. But the poor man who is generous and noble, and who does not work, is lost. Resources are exhausted, needs crop up.



Fatal declivity down which the most honest and the firmest as well as the most feeble and most vicious are drawn, and which ends in one of two holds, suicide or crime.



By dint of going outdoors to think, the day comes when one goes out to throw one's self in the water.



Excess of revery breeds men like Escousse and Lebras.



Marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace, with his eyes fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being kindles in the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared, the more it beams; the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon; the star of the inner night. She--that was Marius' whole thought. He meditated of nothing else; he was confusedly conscious that his old coat was becoming an impossible coat, and that his new coat was growing old, that his shirts were wearing out, that his hat was wearing out, that his boots were giving out, and he said to himself: "If I could but see her once again before I die!"



ne sweet idea alone was left to him, that she had loved him, that her glance had told him so, that she did not know his name, but that she did know his soul, and that, wherever she was, however mysterious the place, she still loved him perhaps. Who knows whether she were not thinking of him as he was thinking of her? Sometimes, in those inexplicable hours such as are experienced by every heart that loves, though he had no reasons for anything but sadness and yet felt an obscure quiver of joy, he said to himself: "It is her thoughts that are coming to me!" Then he added: "Perhaps my thoughts reach her also."



This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, into his soul. From time to time, especially at that evening hour which is the most depressing to even the dreamy, he allowed the purest, the most impersonal, the most ideal of the reveries which filled his brain, to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else. He called this "writing to her."



It must not be supposed that his reason was deranged. Quite the contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clear-sightedness and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and soared on high.



In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and every moment he was discovering the foundation of life, of humanity, and of destiny. Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed the things of this world and the heart of man under this double light has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true.



The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity.



However, day followed day, and nothing new presented itself. It merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which still remained to be traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant. He thought that he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss.



"What!" he repeated to himself, "shall I not see her again before then!"



When you have ascended the Rue Saint-Jacques, left the barrier on one side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance, you reach the Rue de la Sante, then the Glaciere, and, a little while before arriving at the little river of the Gobelins, you come to a sort of field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the boulevards of Paris, where Ruysdeel would be tempted to sit down.



There is something indescribable there which exhales grace, a green meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines, from which flutter rags drying in the wind, and an old market-gardener's house, built in the time of Louis XIII., with its great roof oddly pierced with dormer windows, dilapidated palisades, a little water amid poplar-trees, women, voices, laughter; on the horizon the Pantheon, the pole of the Deaf-Mutes, the Val-de-Grace, black, quat, fantastic, amusing, magnificent, and in the background, the severe square crests of the towers of Notre Dame.



As the place is worth looking at, no one goes thither. Hardly one cart or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour.



It chanced that Marius' solitary strolls led him to this plot of ground, near the water. That day, there was a rarity on the boulevard, a passer-by. Marius, vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of the place, asked this passer-by:--"What is the name of this spot?"



The person replied: "It is the Lark's meadow."



And he added: "It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry."



But after the word "Lark" Marius heard nothing more. These sudden congealments in the state of revery, which a single word suffices to evoke, do occur. The entire thought is abruptly condensed around an idea, and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else.



The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of Marius' melancholy.--"Stop," said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor peculiar to these mysterious asides, "this is her meadow. I shall know where she lives now."



It was absurd, but irresistible.



And every day he returned to that meadow of the Lark.







一　百　灵　场



马吕斯曾把沙威引向那次谋害案的现场，并目击了出人意料的结局。但是，正当沙威把他那群俘虏押送到三辆马车里还不曾离开那座破房子时，马吕斯便已从屋子里溜走了。当时还只是夜间九点钟。马吕斯去古费拉克住的地方。古费拉克已不是拉丁区固定的居民，为了一些"政治理由"，他早就搬到玻璃厂街去住了，这一地区，当时是那些容易发生暴动的地段之一。马吕斯对古费拉克说："我到你这儿来过夜。"古费拉克把他床上的两条褥子抽出了一条，摊在地上说："请便。"



第二天早上七点，马吕斯又回到那破房子，向布贡妈付了房租，结清帐目，找人来把他的书籍、床、桌子、抽斗柜和两把椅子装上一辆手推车，便离开了那里，也没有留下新地址，因此，当沙威早晨跑来向马吕斯询问有关昨晚那件事时，他只听到布贡妈回答了一声："搬走了！"



布贡妈深信马吕斯免不了是昨晚被捕那些匪徒的同伙。她常和左近那些看门的妇人嚷着说："谁能料到？一个小伙子，看上去，你还以为是个姑娘呢！"



马吕斯匆匆搬走，有两个原因。首先，他在那所房子里已见到社会上的一种丑恶面貌：一种比有钱的坏种更为丑恶的穷坏种的面貌，把它那最使人难堪、最粗暴的全部发展过程那么近的呈现在他的眼前，他现在对这地方已有了强烈的反感。其次，他不愿被别人牵着走，在那必然会跟着来的任何控诉书上去出面揭发德纳第。



沙威猜想这年轻人由于害怕而逃避了，或是甚至在那谋害行为进展时，他也可能并没有回家，沙威曾想方设法要把他找出来，但没能做到。



一个月过去了，接着又是一个月。马吕斯始终住在古费拉克那里。他从一个经常在法院接待室里走动的实习律师嘴里听到说德纳第已下了监狱。每星期一，马吕斯送五个法郎到拉弗尔斯监狱的管理处，托人转给德纳第。



马吕斯没有钱，便向古费拉克借那五个法郎。向人借钱，这还是他有生以来的第一次。这五个到时必付的法郎，对出钱的古费拉克和收钱的德纳第两方面都成了哑谜。古费拉克常想道："这究竟是给谁的呢？"德纳第也常在问自己："这究竟是从什么地方来的？"



马吕斯心中也苦闷万分。一切又重新堕入五里雾中了。他眼前又成了一片漆黑，他的日子又重陷在那种摸不着边的疑团中。他心爱的那个年轻姑娘，仿佛是她父亲的那个老人，这两个在这世上唯一使他关心、唯一使他的希望有所寄托而又不相识的人，曾从黑暗中、在咫尺之间偶然在他眼前再现了一下，正当他自以为已把他们抓住时，一阵风却又把这两个人影吹散了。没有一点真情实况的火星从那次最惊心动魄的冲突中迸射出来。没有可能作任何猜测。连他自以为知道了的那个名字也落了空。玉秀儿肯定不是她的名字。而百灵鸟又只是一个别名。对那老人，又应当怎样去看呢？难道他真的不敢在警察跟前露面吗？马吕斯又回想起从前在残废军人院左近遇见的白发工人。现在看来，那工人和白先生很可能是同一个人。那么，他要经常改变装束吗？这人，有他英勇可敬的一面，也有他暧昧可疑的一面。他为什么不喊救命？他又为什么要溜走？他究竟是不是那姑娘的父亲？最后，难道他果真就是德纳第自以为认出的那个人吗？德纳第认错了吧？疑问丛生，无从解答。所有这一切，确也丝毫无损于卢森堡公园中那个年轻姑娘所具有的那种天仙似的魅力。令人心碎的苦恼，马吕斯满腔热爱，却又极目苍茫。他被推着，他被拉着，结果动弹不得。一切又全幻灭了，只剩下一片痴情。便连痴情的那种刺激本能和启人急智的力量他也失去了。在一般情况下，在我们心里燃烧着的那种火焰也稍稍能照亮我们的眼睛，向体外多少发射出一点能起作用的微光。马吕斯，却连恋情的那种悄悄的建议也全听不见了。他从来不作这样的打算：假使我到那个地方去看看呢？假使我这样去试试呢？他已不能再称为玉秀儿的她当然总还活在某个地方，却没有任何事物提醒马吕斯应当朝哪个方向去寻找。他现在的生活可以简括为这么一句话：自信心已完全丧失在一种穿不透的阴霾中了。他始终抱着和她再次相见的心愿，可是他已不再存这种希望。



最不幸的是贫困又来临了。他感到这股冷气已紧紧靠在他身边，紧靠在他背后。在那些苦恼的时日里，长期以来，他早已中断了他的工作，而中断工作正是最危险不过的，这是一种习惯的消逝。容易丢弃而难于抓回的习惯。



一定程度的梦想，正如适量的镇静剂，是好的。它可以使在工作中发烧、甚至发高烧的神智得到安息，并从精神上产生一种柔和清凉的气息来修整纯思想的粗糙形象，填补这儿那儿的漏洞和罅隙，连缀段落，并打磨想象的棱角。但过分的梦想能使人灭顶下沉。于精神工作的人而让自己完全从思想掉入梦想，必遭不幸！他自以为进得去便随时出得来，并认为这两者之间没有什么区别。他想错了！



思想是智慧的活动，梦想是妄念的活动。以梦想代思想，便是把毒物和食物混为一谈。



我们记得，马吕斯便是从这儿开始的。狂热的恋情忽然出现，并把他推到了种种无目的和无基础的幻想中。他出门仅仅为了去胡思乱想。缓慢的渍染。喧闹而淤止的深渊。并且，随着工作的减少，需要增加了。这是一条规律。处于梦想状态中的人自然是不节约、不振作的，弛懈的精神经受不住紧张的生活。在这种生活方式中，有坏处也有好处，因为慵懒固然有害，慷慨却是健康和善良的。但是不工作的人，穷而慷慨高尚，那是不可救药的。财源涸竭，费用急增。



这是一条导向绝境的下坡路，在这方面，最诚实和最稳定的人也能跟最软弱和最邪恶的人一样往下滑，一直滑到两个深坑中的一个里去：自杀或是犯罪。



经常出门去胡思乱想的人总有一天会出门去跳水。



过分的梦想能使我们变成艾斯库斯或利勃拉①这类人。



①艾斯库斯（Escousse）和利勃拉（Libras），当时两个年轻诗人，七月革命时曾参加巷战；一八三二年他们在一出戏剧失败后自杀。



马吕斯眼望着那个望不见的意中人，脚却在这条下坡路上一步一步慢慢地往下滑。我们刚才描写的这种情况，看来好象奇怪，其实是真实的。那个不在眼前的人的形象在心里的黑暗处发出光辉，它越消逝，便越明亮，愁苦阴沉的灵魂老看见这一点光明出现在天边，这是内心的沉沉黑夜中的一点星光。她，已经成了马吕斯整个心灵的寄托处。他不再思考旁的事情了，他昏昏沉沉地感到他那身旧衣服已不可能再穿了，新的那身也变旧了，他的衬衣破烂了，帽子破烂了，靴子破烂了，就是说，他的生命也破烂了。他常暗自想道："只要我能在死去以前再见她一面！"



给他留下的唯一甘美的念头，便是她曾爱过他，她的眼睛已向他表达了这一心事，她不认识他，却了解他的心，也许现在在她所在的地方，不管这地方是多么神秘，她仍爱着他呢。谁知道她不也在想念他，正如他想念她呢？每一颗恋爱的心都有这么一种无可言喻的时刻，在只有理由感受痛苦的情况下，却又会隐隐感到一种喜悦心情的惊扰。他心里有时想道："这是因为她的思想向我飞来了！"随后他又加上一句："我的思想应当也能飞向她那里。"



这种幻想，这种使他过后频频点头的幻想，果然在他的心灵里倾注了一种类似希望的光辉。他断断续续地，尤其是在那种易使苦苦思索的人感到怅惘的夜晚，拿起一叠白纸，专把爱情灌注在他脑子里的一些最纯洁、最空泛、最超绝的梦想随笔写了上去。他称这为"和她通信"。



不应当认为他的理智是混乱的。正相反。他失去了从事工作和朝着一个固定目标稳步前进的能力，但是他比任何时候都来得通达和正直。马吕斯常以冷静、现实、不无奇特的目光对待他眼前的事物，形形色色的事和形形色色的人，他对一切，常以诚实的沮丧心情和天真的无私态度作出了中肯的评价。他的判断，几乎摆脱了希望，是高超出众的。



在这样的精神状态中，任何事物都逃不过他，骗不了他，他随时在发现人生、人类和命运的底蕴。这是一个由上帝赋予的具有经得住爱情和苦难的灵魂，它即使在煎熬中也仍然是快乐的！凡是不曾在这双重的光里观察过世事和人心的人，都可以说是什么也没有看真切，什么也看不懂的。



在恋爱和痛苦中的心灵是处在卓绝的状态中。



总之，一天接着一天过去了，却一点也没有新的发现。他只觉得剩下来要他去度过的凄凉时日随时都在缩短。他仿佛已清清楚楚地望见那无底深渊边上的陡壁。



"怎么！"他常这样想，"难道在这以前，我就不会再遇见她了！"



人们顺着圣雅克街往上走，走过便门，再朝左沿着从前的那条内马路往前走一段，便到了健康街，接着便是冰窖，在离哥白兰小河不远的地方，人们会见到一块空地，在围绕巴黎的那种漫长而单调的环城马路的一带，是唯一可以吸引鲁伊斯达尔①坐下来的场所。



①鲁伊斯达尔（RuysdaeHl，1629?682），荷兰风景画家。



那地方散发着一种无以名之的淡远的情趣，一片青草地，上面有几根拉紧的绳索，迎风晾着一些旧衣破布，蔬菜地边有所路易十三时代的古老庄屋，庞大的屋顶上开着光怪陆离的顶楼窗，倾斜破烂的木栅栏，白杨树丛中有个小池塘，几个妇女，笑声，谈话声，朝远处看，能望见先贤祠、盲哑院的树、军医学院，黑黝黝，矮墩墩，怪模怪样，有趣，美不胜收，在更远处，有圣母院钟塔的严峻的方顶。由于这地方很值得一看，便谁也不来看这地方。一刻钟里难得有一辆小车和一个车夫走过。



一次，马吕斯独自闲逛，偶然走到这地方的小池边。这天，路上恰巧有个难逢难遇的过路人。马吕斯多少有点被这里近似蛮荒的趣味所感动，他问那过路人："这地方叫什么名字？"



过路人回答："百灵场。"



他接着又说了一句："乌尔巴克杀害伊夫里的那个牧羊姑娘，正在这地方。"



但是"百灵"这两个字一出口，马吕斯便什么也听不见了。在神魂颠倒的情况下，一两个字足使那种急速凝固状态出现。全部思想突然紧紧围绕着一个念头，再不能察觉任何其他事物了。百灵鸟，在马吕斯愁肠深处早已代替了玉秀儿的名字。他在那种迷了心窍的痴情中，傻头傻脑地对自己说："嘿！这是她的场子。我一定能在这地方找到她的住处。"



这是荒唐的想法，然而却不可抗拒。



从此他天天必去百灵场。
关键字:Les Miserables,悲惨世界4Saint Denis
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