The Stone-Breaker
Feuilly went through into the back room, closing the door silently behind him and then wiping the knob off with his worn handkerchief. Enjolras and Combeferre were still standing together, discussing something, but Feuilly noticed at once that they were discussing it very loudly and heatedly. Enjolras looked furious, and Combeferre very determined. Neither of them saw him, as he had taken great care they should not, and he wiped his hands a few times with the handkerchief as he stood watching them.
Finally he smiled, a tired, bland smile, and said,--
"Bonsoir, Enjolras. Bonsoir, Combeferre."
They turned quickly.
"Bonsoir, Feuilly," said Combeferre pleasantly, straightening his jacket and his cuffs. Enjolras massaged his forehead with one hand, and sighed with a kind of patient suffering.
"I've been helping a group of workers build a new shop in the Rue St. Denis, and I've had time to talk to them."
At once Enjolras stood up straight, watching Feuilly with decided interest, his dark eyes on Feuilly's face. "Have you?" he said calmly. "And?"
"They understand what they're wanted for, and they're entirely willing. They'll gladly set to finding weapons and powder, and most of them know how to make balls. From the work we did to-day, at any rate--we went eight hours only stopping once, and it's heavy work, moving stone--and the pay we got for it--twenty sous for each man--you can see why they hate it and why they want to change." He paused to look at Enjolras calculatingly. Enjolras was a peculiar fellow. He was one of the same rich men that he wrote tracts against, and as proud and pretentious as any member of the nobility. He was a--a thing. One of those. An enigma, Bahorel might say. At first, Feuilly never quite known whether he ought to be proud of Enjolras for fighting in the name of the poor or ashamed of him for the same reason, but in the end he had always decided that he didn't feel anything about Enjolras. All he wanted was to have some of the things Enjolras talked about, like freedom, and security, and food. He shrugged. "They'll be with us. They'll be faithful."
Enjolras nodded. "Thank you."
"Dismissed now, am I, sir?" Feuilly was a little surprised later at how cruel his voice sounded. It had come over him suddenly, without warning, but he looked at Enjolras and thought of his telling all those men who came to listen to him talk about how he was their equal, how every man was their equal, how the whole world was composed purely of equals; but of course Enjolras didn't include women or bourgeoisie or nobles or his parents among those equals. Feuilly didn't care for bourgeoisie or nobles either, but he didn't pretend that he believed everyone was the same and then cast people out of his imaginary equality. And Feuilly had always minded anything to do with parents.
If one were lucky enough to have them, one didn't throw them away. No. Despite nothing. He had a sister, a tiny little sister, who thought he was her father, because he had told her so a long time ago without thinking, because she wanted to know why she didn't have one, but she had never forgotten. He could see the way she looked at him, the poor silly, stupid little girl, could see how much she loved him; and he thought of her real parents, his parents, who were dead (and he didn't even know, truly, whether it were because they had been crushed under the wheels of some rich man's careless carriage or had starved to death or had killed themselves or had been eaten up from the inside by worms, like some gamines' parents). He thought of every man's parents. He thought of Enjolras speaking scathingly of his father, pityingly of his mother. He thought of Enjolras saying he was not their child. He thought of Enjolras pretending he was not their son, and it filled him with anger. It made him despise Enjolras more than Enjolras had ever despised M. Enjolras.
Often he could keep it down or hide it, this dislike, just as he hid his dislike of flippant Courfeyrac, pathetic, girlish Jean, self-absorbed Joly; but every now and then it surged up in him, filled his mouth and made everything taste bad, and he, truthfully, never tried to stop it when it became like that.
"I beg your pardon?" Enjolras inquired coldly.
"I have offended Monsieur?"
"Listen, Feuilly. I won't have that sort of talk. What's come over you?"
"Nothing." Feuilly shrugged carelessly. "But you're a hypocrite."
"I?" For a moment Enjolras looked as though he might be angry, and Feuilly wanted it, but he simply shook his head and said in a dismissive voice, "You're mad, or you're drunk."
"What kind of man do you think you are? What do you think you are?" Feuilly was twisting his handkerchief, now, but not with anxiety. He bent it and pulled it with all the thoughtfulness--at least in his hands--of a man with a chain link puzzle, trying to make four separate rings out a tangle of iron. The handkerchief was grey now, although he had a vague impression at times that it might have been blue at some point, and it was one of his father's. It did not make him feel any less angry to pull on it. On the contrary, it brought up the hate against Enjolras stronger than before. "Tell me, tell me. What kind of man do you imagine yourself to be? Are you a God? Are you a saviour? Tell me, Enjolras, are you a benevolent father? Are you to preserve Paris like a kind man adopting deformed children from the plank for foundlings at a Cathedral?"
"I am a man," Enjolras said. "I am no better than any other man. I am no different from any other man."
"Liar," Feuilly interjected, so viciously and suddenly and--childishly (for 'liar' is always a childish insult)--that Enjolras stared at him.
"Don't speak to me like Grantaire, Feuilly. I shan't listen to you any more than I would listen to him."
"Don't speak to me as though I were Grantaire. I shan't respect you any more than he does."
Combeferre shook his head behind them, and said softly, "Gentlemen--brothers. Please, enough of this. I know you're tired, Richard--" Combeferre was the only one who, as far as Feuilly was concerned, was pretentious enough to call them by their first names, as though he really thought they were brothers "--and, Luc, I know all you've seen to-day is suffering, and of course it makes you angry. But we can do something about it if we depend upon one another. We cannot fight among ourselves. There, now. It's all right. We'll talk," he said, addressing Enjolras. "We hadn't quite finished anyway when Luc came in. Come with me." He drew Enjolras aside by his sleeve, clearly offering Feuilly the chance to go back through of the door and leave them, which would, of course, be the proper thing to do, and an appropriate kind of unspoken apology, too.
For a moment, Feuilly was determined not to; but then he turned disgustedly and left, closing the door behind him with his handkerchief. Bahorel had just come into the caf�, looking as formidable and rough as always. He had dark wild eyes and a mad, untidy beard and hair, and his clothes were always rumpled, and not a few people crossed away from him on the street or avoided him in a crowd, but Feuilly loved him fiercely.
"Bonsoir!" he called quietly across the room, and Bahorel, noting him, came over.
"How might you be to-day, then?" Bahorel asked, pleasantly enough.
Feuilly sat wearily. "Decent."
"But you're not," said Bahorel, sprawling lazily beside him. He always did that. Even when he sat down, he looked either dangerous or stupid. He struck people as simple and quite probably cruel, being so big. It was something people did, Feuilly had realised long ago. They took men as they appeared. Bahorel could not look gentle, he did not speak gently; he got drunk sometimes and raged, and started brawls; but afterwards, when he was sober, he sat by himself with his arms folded, at a caf� or in a library, and, as the other patrons glanced at him nervously, he stared at the opposite wall pensively, seeming lost in thought. He was always repenting silently. He didn't forgive himself well. Feuilly knew it. Feuilly had always known it. But Bahorel could not give someone his apologies, he could not be a perfect gentleman. He could only be rough, wild Bahorel, the trouble-maker.
Feuilly knew that he loved music. Feuilly knew that he memorised songs and plays and long passages out of books, but he never recited them to anyone. Feuilly knew.
He knew Bahorel far better than Bahorel did, just as Bahorel knew him better than he did. They understood one another too well. That was what had made it so easy to come together when they were thrown in together. Bahorel knew what made him angry, why it made him angry. Bahorel took the handkerchief away from him with a soft, persistent tugging, and calmed him with nothing more than a word, even when he wanted to be angry.
He had never kissed Bahorel, because Bahorel would not let him. Feuilly knew it was because Bahorel still tried to pretend to himself that he didn't love Feuilly in return, because it comforted him to pretend that the only times he did something he knew he shouldn't was when he chose them for himself. Feuilly didn't mind. He knew, defiantly, that he had more respect for Bahorel than Courfeyrac had for any of the pathetic women he took to bed constantly.
"No, no, I suppose I'm not," he said in answer to Bahorel's statement, spoken plainly but entirely correct.
"Well, why not?"
Feuilly noticed that Bahorel was curling the handkerchief around his fingers absently. "I hate Enjolras."
"Oh! That. Well, I'll knock him down for you if you want, but it's your fault you're an Ami in the first place, so if you really mind, you'll have to do something about it yourself."
"No, don't knock him down. I dare say he deserves it for being a pretentious bastard, but it's no use. Sometimes I think I ought to leave. I can't stand any of them. But if I left, I'd be doing nothing for everyone else. For anybody. For Gregor or any of the men I was working with to-day. For her. You know."
"Right, right. I know. Look, I can't--"
"I know that." Feuilly lay a hand on Bahorel's sleeve. "I know that. But what in hell am I doing here? I can't imagine some days. I think of how much I hate him, how much she needs me. It stops making sense. I think, why do I do anything? This is a wretched way of living, being poor. I hate it. I hate being pitiable, I hate struggling, I hate worrying, I hate being afraid, I hate being laughed at, I hate knowing what everyone thinks of me. Sometimes I even hate hating him. Shall I just throw myself under somebody's fiacre and be done with it? Shall I?"
"Shut up. You're being melodramatic. You sound like Helena. You won't be throwing yourself anywhere."
"Voice of reason." Feuilly sighed and laughed at once.
"You're going to have supper. You've worked all day, haven't you? Supper."
"All right."
"If you'd so desire, we'll order and wrap it up and take it and eat with her, so that she's not alone at your place for as long."
"Perhaps that's better. Prouvaire's here."
"Oh, the petit po�t. Hmm, I suppose we will take it back, then. Come, let's get Louison to provide for us."
Feuilly smiled tiredly as Bahorel stood and barged into the kitchen to find the waitress. He had dropped the handkerchief on the floor, and Feuilly bent to pick it up.
On to Chapter Three.
Back to Chapter One.