Hylas and the Nymphs
A week or so later, Jean Prouvaire sat by himself in the caf� Musain. He had chosen not to go into the back room, where Enjolras was speaking very privately with Combeferre, and as it was rather early, he had the place to himself. He sat against the table, with one hand against his face as though he were holding himself up with it, and had been gradually falling asleep the last thirty minutes. He kept trying to write poetry in his head, and always just as he was composing some grand sentiment, he slowly closed his eyes and suddenly started upright again some five minutes later, shaking himself in order to wake himself up. Eventually, he was going to give up, and either fall asleep entirely or go into the back room and see if Combeferre would listen to him.
People, he gathered, did not really like to listen to him. He had at first thought that the Others were part of a brotherhood, and that they all respected each other very much and wanted to share everything, despite--or perhaps because of--their diverse talents. Then it came to him, as he watched them and spoke with them, that it wasn't that way at all. Moments like the one last week, Bahorel's birthday, when they'd all sat together smiling, were really very rare, and almost amazing.
Enjolras and Grantaire both seemed to despise everyone else, except that Enjolras liked Combeferre in a reserved, polite sort of way, and Grantaire often pretended to like Bossuet because he didn't mind getting drunk and having very serious discussions about trivial things. Bahorel grew easily impatient with all of them, and only really seemed to get on with Feuilly; and Courfeyrac, though he held his arms wide and clapped everyone on the back and always knew what questions to ask to show he was paying attention, obviously could not bear Joly or--or him, himself, Prouvaire. And Jean knew that he was terrified to death of Courfeyrac and Bahorel, and fancied that Feuilly was disgusted by him. Joly wouldn't speak to Grantaire in any event and mainly stayed with Bossuet, and Bossuet had a peculiar way of avoiding Enjolras. The only person whom no one seemed to mind was Combeferre, who wandered among them like a diplomat from a foreign country, conducting affairs and delivering messages and letting everyone know what was going on; but then, even, Grantaire wouldn't speak to him.
It was very strange, Jean thought at first, as he watched them. How did they expect to accomplish things if they were so secretly wrapped up in dissent? If we, he asked himself, don't trust one another, how are we ever to make Enjolras' speeches come true? We can't, can we? But we still meet almost every day, certainly every week. We still speak with one another and spend plenty of time in each other's company. We pretend to be a band of brothers. We look like one. I don't understand quite how it works, except that we do need one another, no matter what we really think. The truth doesn't work, but being united for a cause does. In a way, perhaps, it's a miracle. It's proof that even with adversity we can build things if we need to. We're opposites, we're men who normally would never speak to each other, never know one another, but for Enjolras and his dreams, which we want to make our dreams too, we're willing to make something out of our nothing.
And that, then, seemed like a proper explanation, a philosophical one, and Jean was momentarily satisfied with it; but it didn't change the fact that he didn't think that anyone really wanted to listen to his ideas for poetry. Combeferre listened because he was kind. No one else would, except perhaps Grantaire when he was feeling mellow. Jean spread his thoughts out on papers on the table, and dreamt of being famous someday, invented little interviews between newspaper reporters and himself, wrote the reviews of his volumes in his head, and honestly believed it could happen. Then, he told himself, quiet little Jean would be known all over France, and with his influence he would change things. He devoted himself to writing because he intended to solve all the world's problems eventually through it.
But then he fell asleep again, curled in his chair.
A few moments later, he shook himself back awake, and noticed that there was a girl sitting across from him.
She was little and delicate-looking, with bright eyes and a little mouth, and she had tiny brown curls all poking out around her face from inside her bonnet. To Jean, she resembled a nymph, and he started writing poems in his head again. Perhaps she was a fille de joie, he thought curiously, because most women wouldn't come unescorted into a caf�, particularly not ones who looked so young, particularly not ones with such beautiful eyes and such pink cheeks. She must be, then. But she was watching him.
Jean blushed and looked at his hands.
"Monsieur?"
He started. She spoke in a harsh, unpleasant voice that was very loud, and it hadn't seemed as though someone as small as she was could possibly have such a big, raucous voice. When he looked at her, she seemed on the verge of breaking. She couldn't possibly speak so-- He bit his lip.
"Mademoiselle? You spoke to me?"
"'Course I spoke to you, little thing. Are you a man or a girl? I can't half tell. If you're a man, though--"
"Who are you?" he asked breathlessly.
"Sophia," she answered, matter-of-factly. She stood and crossed to him. "Out there, you know, there's a hundred men in Paris would want me, but it's cold, and I'll not wait out for them."
"Oh?" said Jean, feeling a sudden inexplicable horror.
"No, but I am looking for a man. A man with a warm place to have a good time." She grinned--her tiny, beautiful face turned horrible and her mouth was full of broken-up teeth. Jean squirmed. She was like a fairy, but a dreadful, evil kind of fairy. She even had a gentle, delicate name; but she still grinned and looked at him and put her hand on his thigh and spoke, in that harsh voice, that voice that sounded of crashing things and broken things and drunken laughing. "I expect that's you, Monsieur. It's always the little ones that really want to have a go of it. The little ones are always fierce." Then she sat on his knee, pressing herself up against him, and his feeling of horror got bigger as a new feeling, of disgust, came on. And in the middle of that mixture, there was something else, there was fear. God, he was frightened of her, the pale, tiny, beautiful thing-- "What do you say? You say it'd be a good way to pass one of these cold spring evenings?"
"Mademoiselle, I--I never--" Even then, he still thought it important that she know he only loved.
"Oh, come now, Monsieur. Just the perfect time for it. Perfect day. You're the only man in Paris Sophia picked." She began to touch him, and Jean shrank back. He never let anyone touch him, never, not even Combeferre in his most friendly manner, not even when he was a little drunk; and now this horrible--this thing was touching him all over, and it frightened him, made his throat grow tight, made him want to be ill.
Suddenly he couldn't bear it any longer. He stood roughly, knocking her back, trembling. "No! Don't--don't you touch me, you--God--no, don't dare--"
She pouted and got up, her eyes smiling. At that moment, she looked like a poor, torn angel in a low-cut dress (for her shawl had come undone), and so beautiful, so perfect, so tragic, and Jean was more afraid of her than he had been before. "Now, there, Monsieur, see what you've done, knocking me about. But I'll forgive you quick enough. Do you want to rent a room, or risk me past your concierge?"
"I shan't do a thing. Get away from me. Don't dare touch me again," he said softly. He had always secretly been like this, been able to defend himself, but sometimes he forgot it under the dreamy ideas of being the poet laureate of les Amis, when being their pretend-pet and imagining that they all were fond of him because he was harmless and loved them unconditionally. He had a temper, once, but he was always pretending it didn't exist. She--she--had brought it up with her disgusting fawning and touching and smiling, and her voice.
She seemed to realise, now, that she couldn't get Jean to have her, because she recoiled slightly and shrugged, and laughed. "Well, then, I'll risk the cold world outside. I've no shortage of admirers, Monsieur. I pity you." Then she tossed her head, let her bonnet-strings swish coyly, and went out, leaving Jean to hold on to the table and shake.
He wasn't sure if he was shaking because he was angry or because he was still frightened, but he couldn't stop for several moments. He thought of her disgusting little hands on him, and how repulsive it was, how much he hated that, and he had to pass his hands over his eyes and take deep breaths before he could sit again.
What was that? he whispered to himself, when he finally got hold of himself and sat quietly, elbows on the table. What have I done? Who was she? Oh, I haven't been angry in years--what was that? She was like Ophelia; she was like Aphrodite; she was like Daphne; she looked like Echo. How could she have been--like that? Why wouldn't she leave me alone? Oh, God (he shuddered) I've never seen anything like that before. She was like a child, but-- Children don't bare their breasts. Oh, God.
He stared hard at the table and then stood, uncomfortably. He wanted to find someone he knew, someone he trusted, someone he didn't mind standing close to him, and he couldn't think of anyone. It was that difficulty of les Amis being false fast friends. He didn't want any of them, but he had spent so long in their company, with more than enough of them about all the time, that he didn't have any other friends. He didn't meet other fellows. Now there wasn't anyone he could think of to seek out, and he really did want someone, terribly, someone he trusted. He didn't trust any of them.
The door to the caf� opened, and Feuilly came in, taking the cap off his head and sighing, brushing dust from his hair.
"Damnation."
"Bonsoir, Feuilly," said Jean in a tiny, sad voice.
"What's the matter with you to-day?" Feuilly asked sharply, shaking his head.
"I don't know. I'm tired."
"Fancy, you, tired! Silly boy. I've just got out of work, and we've been moving stone all day long." Feuilly smiled in a way that was not quite kind, but almost seemed fond, and Jean recognised at once that of course it was one of those les Amis looks of made-up friendliness. "That's tiring."
"I'm sorry. What are you moving the stone for?"
"New shop in the Rue St. Denis that they're building. I've got myself on as a worker because people don't want pretty things at the moment, and I've nothing to live on."
"They aren't buying your fans?" asked Jean softly.
"Not now. And it's spring, too, but there you are."
"I suppose so."
"Is Enjolras in the back?"
"Yes. With Combeferre; or he was an hour ago."
"Very well, then. I want to speak with him."
"Better luck with your work."
"Thanks," Feuilly said shortly, and went back.
Jean sat again. No, indeed, then, there was no one to talk to, and the matter already seemed trivial. Things always seemed to end up that way. He had no one to tell the important things to. That was why he was writing poetry. He had for-ever got his memoirs with him, and he made up long fantasies of their being discovered after he'd died, and published in volumes; he imagined being remembered, like the journals of famous men who had died years ago, and he waited almost eagerly for it. Someday...
He sat back in his chair, the way he had been before, and concentrated hard. He was spreading the story out on paper in his mind, telling about the little sylphlike thing who turned out to be loud and coarse, writing it like a myth, narrating it like a tragedy, until, once again, he fell asleep.
His hand fell from his face to his knee, and lay, half-open, with the fingers a bit curled; and that was how Louison found him when she went to shake him lightly awake for dinner.
On to Chapter Two.
Back to the Prologue.