Grantaire - Blog Posts

les mis is really just the hunger games and everyone dies and the unlikely victor is marius

TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO BOOP

📷: @medium-observation

he koala

I tried to draw Grantaire after a long time… apparently he gets hairier

*random quote about staring at the sun*

good friends, good wine, and tragedy looming in the background : a grantaire playlist (listen on spotify)

don’t stop me now queen | best friend sofi tukker | thrift shop macklemore & ryan lewis | highway to hell ac/dc | chandelier sia | 6/10 dodie | scar missy higgins | southern nights glen campbell | just dance lady gaga | we are young fun. | commissioning a symphony in c cake | bottle it up sara bareilles | while my guitar gently weeps regina spektor | all the right moves onerepublic | never too late three days grace | the scientist coldplay

The Death of Grantaire and Enjolras Et, se tournant vers Enjolras avec douceur, il lui dit: – Permets-tu? Enjolras lui serra la main en souriant. Ce sourire n’était pas achevé que la détonation éclata. Enjolras, traversé de huit coups de feu, resta adossé au mur comme si les balles l’y eussent cloué. Seulement il pencha la tête. Grantaire, foudroyé, s’abattit à ses pieds. Enjolras by me and  Grantaire by @vanille-francaise

grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.

part six: “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

one | two | three | four | five || read the whole series on ao3

and so we’ve come to the end.

basing our analysis off hapgood as always; and since it’s so short, we’re doing the whole chapter, found here.

At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trap-door, the last one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, Enjolras.

i’m going to try to distract myself for a second and delay the inevitable by pointing out an interesting translation. the phrase “in utter confusion” in hapgood’s translation, is originally “pêle-mêle” in french.

it’s pretty much the frenchified version of pell-mell. helter-skelter. it’s an informal term that, for me at least, makes me think of being a child, running down a hill and slipping about halfway, and then tumbling down to the end, bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

hugo used this term in the chapter prior, “foot to foot,” which can also be translated as “inch by inch,” in which the national guard and soldiers finally break into the corinthe itself. it’s a really jarring word, standing out in the middle of the slaughter, like a relic of happier times in the middle of an apocalypse.

it feels like maybe the word enjolras’ mind scrambles to use to describe what he sees. the battle before this was something he could understand; his friends were still alive; they still had hope. but this is beyond chaos. maybe pell-mell is the only way to describe it.

especially when the chapter just before that one, “the heroes,” is the one where all his friends whom he loved have perished before his eyes.

enjolras alone is bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an empty space around him.

my ferocious golden son. here he is reminding me of the poem “invictus” by william ernest henley.

In the fell clutch of circumstance        I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance        My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears        Looms but the Horror of the shade,  And yet the menace of the years        Finds and shall find me unafraid.

he has only a stump of a pistol in his hand. no ammunition. no blade. nothing but the broken barrel of a carbine and his own two hands, and his dignity. yet these men somehow are still afraid of him.

with good reason. after all the brutality of the last two chapters alone, never mind everything that happened beforehand, enjolras is still standing, still unblemished by the fight. it seems like nothing on earth can break him.

(at least externally.)

A cry arose:

“He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down on the spot.”

“Shoot me,” said Enjolras.

And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he offered his breast.

“shoot me,” he says. and he throws away his last weapon, and folds his arms, and stands there waiting for the end.

he has broken, even if he doesn’t look like it. he knows -- he has to know -- that the events of june fifth and sixth will be etched in history the same way that the three glorious days in 1830 were, at best.

fire and smoke in the air, blood in the streets. young men die, and nothing much changes.

(it will change. it will. but oh, golden boy, that’s decades in the future, and the twentieth century will not be happy. i don’t know that any century on this flawed earth will ever be happy.)

(it’s been over 150 years since its publication, and this book is still needed.)

enjolras, the angel, has had his wings violently ripped from him, and now he has crashed to the earth. 

The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war: “There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo.” A National Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: “It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower.”

apollo?

no.

enjolras is icarus.

Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and silently made ready their guns.

Then a sergeant shouted:

“Take aim!”

An officer intervened.

“Wait.”

And addressing Enjolras:

“Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?”

“No.”

“Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?”

“Yes.”

no blindfold. he faces his death with his eyes open.

i’m so sad. it’s a tired, gentle, proud sort of sad. but i’m so sad for my golden boy.

he is only twenty-six years old. i’m younger than him as i write this, but only by a year and a handful of months. and i’m sure that once i turn twenty-seven -- twenty-eight -- twenty nine, and so on every year for the rest of my life, i’ll just be sadder.

look at this. he has an entire life ahead of him, or he did. if he did survive the barricade now through some miracle, what would be left for him? all the rest of his friends have died. and should he fight in 1848, they will succeed, but the aftermath will be even messier -- and it’ll fall apart before his eyes.

i draw attention back to “a group which barely missed becoming historic,” or rather, the wording there.

before he has even begun to introduce us to these bright young men, hugo has told us that they are going to die, and die in obscurity.

the friends of the abc are not the main characters of les misérables. but their trajectory follows that of romeo and juliet, at least in terms of narrative construction.

here are these bright young souls. they are doomed to die, because the world around them is unjust and unkind. now: watch how they live, and watch how they die, and mourn, and learn.

Grantaire had waked up a few moments before.

Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair and leaning on the table.

He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of “dead drunk.” The hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, he had been left in possession of it.

oh no. oh God.

i’ve been trying to wrap myself in coherent pedantry, but ... i can’t. not anymore.

this whole time -- this entire friggin’ time -- grantaire has been seated at his small table by the open window. and someone, or multiple someones, during the construction of the barricade thought two things: that table is too small to use, and, let him sleep.

also, hugo pointedly using the term “dead drunk” is just a personal fuck you, to me, from across 150 years in the time-space continuum. yeah, i see you, buddy. and i am gonna knock your teeth out. just you wait.

He was still in the same posture, with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, surrounded by glasses, beer-jugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the grape-shot which had made its way through the window into the room where he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to the cannonade, now and then, by a snore.

NO. NOOO. NOOOOOOOO.

mabeuf’s awe-inspiring, terrible death. nothing. the first firefight in which bahorel died. nothing. the end of jean prouvaire’s rhyme. nothing. the flash and bang of éponine saving marius’ life and ending her own. nothing. the report of the rifle which fired over javert’s head as he walked away, bewildered at not having died when he so thoroughly expected to. nothing. the last bloody assault where the rest of them died, one after the other, barely a breath between them. nothing.

grantaire slept the sleep of rip van winkle.

He seemed to be waiting there for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking.

STOP THIS.

Many corpses were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death.

I DON’T WANT THIS.

Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the crumbling of all things was his lullaby.

GOD, NO, STOP.

The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood.

God, i can’t imagine what he’s thinking right now. looking around, seeing the utter destruction of this wine shop -- which he discovered, which he loved, he’s the one who first introduced his friends to the corinthe -- which was, this time only yesterday, empty except for the goings-on of matelote and gibelotte, and the cheerfulness of his friends.

all destroyed.

national guards, soldiers, twelve total in the company, wounded, bloodied, savage, armed.

and enjolras, unarmed, his arms folded across his chest, severe dignity on his beautiful face.

grantaire woke, he stood, he stretched out his arms, he rubbed his eyes, he stared at the wreckage before him, he yawned, and he knew that the rebels had lost.

A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity of realities.

STOP. NOOO.

I’M SO SAD.

WE HAVE GONE BEYOND MOM-FRIEND-SAD. WE ARE RAPIDLY REACHING ANGRY-SAD. YELLING-AT-THE-COMPUTER SAD.

( “you know, the titanic sinks at the end.” SHUT UP. SHUT UP!!! I’M HAVING EMOTIONS!!! )

Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: “Take aim!” when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them:

“Long live the Republic! I'm one of them.”

NOOOOOOOOOO. OH, MY DARLING BOY, NOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!

he is behind the same billiard table that enjolras is currently standing near, but i suppose on the opposite side of it. take that with all the symbolism you like. oh, man.

but -- look -- “i am one of them.”

zip back to “night begins to descend upon grantaire” for a hot second. during his blather while harassing matelote, grantaire says “comrades, we shall overthrow the government,” and despite his awful retort to courfeyrac’s attempt to get him to be quiet, he genuinely seems fired up. maybe he would have helped with the barricade. maybe if someone had woken him earlier, he could have helped. (or he could have died in the last assault like the rest of them.)

but it wasn’t until enjolras told him to go sleep off his drunkenness that grantaire even started to entertain the idea of sleeping rather than participating in the émeute. and then it was only when enjolras harshly batted him down the second time, that grantaire actually did fall asleep.

now. would a drunk-off-his-gourd grantaire have been useful on the barricade? no. definitely not. but even after a five hour binge, it was two o’clock when the barricade started to be built. the death of mabeuf didn’t come until after night had actually fallen, and that would have been a whole five hours after the barricade’s construction. before the first assault came, someone could have woken him.

and he might just have helped. because as we have seen over and over and over, from his very first appearance, grantaire may not believe in causes but he does believe in his friends. and he loves his friends. i have no difficulty in hypothesizing that he would have more than willingly died for his friends.

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

TRANSFIGURED. JUST. JAB ME IN THE EYE WITH A SHARPENED STICK. THAT WOULD HURT LESS.

from “the solution of some questions connected with the municipal police” :

(clio are you seriously gonna --? YES I AM, WATCH ME, AND ONCE AGAIN, IT WILL MAKE PERFECT SENSE.)

She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had become beautiful once more.

emphasis mine.

h o oo o ooo ly God.

his friends are dead, and his beacon of light and faith is about to die. the wretched misery that seized fantine when she thought cosette would die is the exact same wretched misery that seizes grantaire now.

back to “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

He repeated: “Long live the Republic!” crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.

“Finish both of us at one blow,” said he.

noooOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if cosette dies: fantine has nothing to live for.

if his friends die: grantaire has nothing to live for.

i’m so upset.

And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him:

“Do you permit it?”

Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.

This smile was not ended when the report resounded.

“et, se tournant vers enjolras avec douceur, il lui dit : -- permets-tu?”

douceur again. gentleness, softness, sweetness.

grantaire isn’t described as physically reaching out to enjolras, but in spirit that is exactly what he is doing. just as he did when volunteering for the barrière du maine, though he failed in that attempt. only this time, there is nothing left to do; there is nowhere for them to go. how can he fail in death?

“enjolras lui serra la main en souriant.”

serrer la main means to shake hands. but in every other context, serrer is to to squeeze, to clamp, to tighten. to hold tightly and not let go.

after the barrière du maine, enjolras did not ever again try reaching out to grantaire; he did not consider him worthy of a second chance. he stood at a height, and saw the abyss, and turned away.

now he has been brought crashing down to earth in the worst possible way. and this time, when grantaire reaches up for him, he takes his hand.

after over four years of approach and harsh rebuttal -- after over four years of he is high above me and what on earth is he doing here -- they have just begun to understand each other.

maybe they even have something in common. maybe, together, they can learn that opposite doesn’t mean enemy. maybe, together, they can learn that skepticism and idealism can balance each other out.

but the only way that they can come to this meeting, that they begin to understand their equality -- the only way that they can even become friends, let alone more than that -- is the circumstance in which they die.

and before enjolras can even finish his smile, they are dead.

their beginning is, and can only be, their ending.

Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.

Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

OH FUCK THIS AND FUCK YOU PERSONALLY.

^ that was my initial reaction to this bit, and i am sticking with it.

because even in death, even though not a second earlier they had just come to the inklings of an understanding, grantaire is below enjolras.

oh, sure, they’re both martyrs of the revolution. but enjolras is st sebastian, pierced with bullets and still radiant and desperately beautiful; grantaire is an unrealized st paul.

... HA. you know, i made that comparison off the top of my head, but at least regarding grantaire it does work on a literary level.

paul and peter died at nero’s hands. and lactantius writes that nero “crucified peter, and slew paul”.

they both die by firing squad, but enjolras is still elevated, still standing upright for cripes’ sake, and grantaire is literally at his feet.

and the creme de la creme à la edgar, the reason i started this whole damn series:

grantaire dies by a lightning bolt.

a sudden realization of love.

enjolras begins to smile, and grantaire begins to realize his love, and they die. and that is the inevitable conclusion: death.

and i SCREAM BLUE BLOODY MURDER.

A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows.

this is where enjo’s defenestration in lm 2012 comes from! neat!

by which i mean, NOT NEAT AT ALL.

Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured.

The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives.

... and curtain.

orestes’ revenge rebounds upon him; he dies, and pylades exits the play, accepted at last.

im crying over javert getting stuck in the corner with grantaire he’s just like Why

il était profond bâtonniste.

Violin player Grantaire who always carries his violin around with him so whenever cosette and marius start making eyes at each other he can play bella notte from lady and the tramp

grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.

part five: “night begins to descend upon grantaire” – or, this is the part where i start the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.

part one | part two | part three | part four

the relevant section is very short. extremely short. upsettingly short.

but that doesn’t matter much, because as hugo tends to do, he makes his words count. every single thing matters.

and i have lots of screaming to do.

this chapter (hapgood translation found here) begins where the last one ends, with the rabble flinging itself into rue de la chanvrerie and building the barricade. for the revolutionaries, the world is about to be set on its correct axis; for everyone else, the world is turning upside down.

take a moment to reflect on mother hucheloup.

i’ve mentioned, with some analysis of fantine, that she is born of the mess and chaos post-‘93, and that she grows up during the napoleonic wars, and she sees the bourbon restoration; and that should she survive to 1832, she would be understandably hesitant about yet another set of barricades.

mother hucheloup is a widow. probably old enough to be these young men’s grandmother. she hasn’t just seen the napoleonic wars, she’s seen everything, and she was old enough to understand it as she saw it.

to her, young men building barricades means fire and smoke in the air, and blood in the streets. to her, young men building barricades means the world turns and people die and and nothing very much changes.

only here it is again, and this time right at her doorstep. literally.

Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story.

Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she cried in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her throat.

“The end of the world has come,” she muttered.

Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup’s fat, red, wrinkled neck, and said to Grantaire: “My dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman’s neck as an infinitely delicate thing.”

But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized her round her waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window.

one of these young fellows kisses her neck, which seems not only affectionate but familiar; joly’s probably done this before, considering he and bossuet appear to be regulars at the corinthe. mother hucheloup is frightened, and joly is trying to console her a little. but he is one of the revolutionaries; he’s one of the ones bringing this hell to her doorstep.

and another of these young fellows has a similar look on the whole thing as she does, except ... he is not just three sheets to the wind, he’s a whole damn laundromat caught in a tornado.

which does not help in the slightest.

especially since he has now grabbed matelote -- poor, sweet matelote, who was just helping with the barricade -- and decided to pour out another drunken blather, only this time directed at her.

“Matelote is homely!” he cried: “Matelote is of a dream of ugliness! Matelote is a chimaera. This is the secret of her birth: a Gothic Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has chromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian’s mistress, and she is a good girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains a hero.

........ you absolute goblin. you trash man. stop harassing her. if nothing else, at least let go of her.

the term “chimaera” in french can be a reference to the greek monster, the fire-breathing creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s head, and a serpent for a tail. but it can also mean something that you want but that is impossible to attain.

the term “gargoyle” is also ambiguous. technically, gargoyle is the blanket term for any grotesque carved on a building with a waterspout. and what is a grotesque?

a grotesque -- also called a chimera, would you look at that -- is any fantastical or mythical creature used for decorative purposes in architecture.

so the kings of notre dame cathedral, technically, are grotesques. nymphs, dryads, and caryatids carved upon buildings are grotesques. should a beautiful, severe, chaste carved marble cherubim be etched upon a building, he too would be a grotesque.

matelote is ugly; she is a dream of ugliness; she is desired but unreachable; she is the creation of an artist, a beloved but terrible fantastic creature, and love itself; she is like titian’s mistress with her brilliantly colored red hair.

she’s a good girl. she will fight well.

here’s the problem: grantaire isn’t really insulting her, i don’t think. but -- he grabbed her around the waist, and he’s emitting long loud peals of laughter, and he’s drunk off his gourd, and he’s standing in the open window.

and while i can dissect his meaning from a comfortable chair, and take several minutes to perform that dissection, matelote isn’t in that position. he’s just grabbed her and started talking. and she isn’t classically trained in art and architecture and mythology; she doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. all she knows is that he started out with “matelote is ugly!”

so on the one hand, i feel for him. he’s emotionally compromised. but on the other hand, and this is the bigass fiddler crab hand, i want to slap him and tell him to let go of her immediately.

As for Mother Hucheloup, she’s an old warrior. Look at her moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the banlieue.

stoooooooop.

Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid; however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me.

“we”!

“we”??

wait !! no !! stop !! stop the fucking narrative !!!! somebody do a record-scratch freeze frame here !!!!

pretend emperor kuzco has just pulled out a big red marker and circled grantaire’s face with bright red ink.

that’s me right now.

WHAT IS THIS “WE,” GRANTAIRE????

he doesn’t use “on,” the impersonal third person pronoun which can be used as a royal we. he uses “nous.” for the first time in over sixteen pages of blather and moroseness and snark, grantaire has aligned himself specifically with the revolution. as truly as science exists, they shall overthrow the government, and grantaire will be right there with them.

not that it matters to him, though. ‘course not.

Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow. Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the result is that I have never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild’s fortune! How much good he would do!

gaaaaaaaaah. i ... there’s not much to say here that i haven’t already said. BUT STILL. i’m so upset.

Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss of a lover.”

oh God, i’m cringing. this is so bad. please, honey, slap him. do a fantine and claw his face bloody. he needs to be snapped out of it.

“Hold your tongue, you cask!” said Courfeyrac.

Grantaire retorted: --

“I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!”

[52] Municipal officer of Toulouse.

-- and courfeyrac tries to snap him out of it! good man! but grantaire is not to be deterred. his bad mood is too big to be punctured so easily.

this is a direct parallel to the scene at the musain. bossuet reached out a hand to gesture for grantaire to calm down, and that only worked R up into a worse temper. courfeyrac tells him to hold his tongue, and he responds with a brash, harsh pronouncement.

this is how it goes in the original french:

tais-toi, futaille ! / je suis capitoul et maître ès jeux floraux !

shut up, wine barrel! / i am capitoul and master in the floral games!

okay. okay. this .... oh God. alright.

the specific reference to the capitouls, the magistrates in toulouse, is a big ole middle finger to courfeyrac and the rest of the barricade, first of all. because the revolution of 1789 apparently came down hard on those guys.

second of all. and this is worse, by far.

the floral games were poetry contests held in toulouse, barcelona, basque country, and a few other places. initially the contests in toulouse were held to celebrate the occitan language, to preserve the local cultural heritage of the occitan troubadours. among the winners over the years is one pierre de ronsard, one of the seminal poets of the sixteenth century.

pierre de ronsard’s final years were punctuated with the deaths of most of his closest friends.

Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with Cromwell.

drags hands across face.

of course he would have died with leonidas. of course he would have besieged drogheda with cromwell. of fucking course !!!

but that’s not the only thing to note here. the setting of this is something that hugo isn’t dwelling on, for all that he’ll go into rhapsodies over a convent or a sewer. but the staging is particularly pretty, and i think it matters.

it is about two o’clock. maybe two-thirty. the sky is pitch black; it’s still drizzling a bit, if not outright raining.

grantaire is at the open window on the first floor (to americans, the second floor) of the wine shop. hugo’s forgotten matelote at this point; she doesn’t enter into the rest of the chapter. so let’s say that when courfeyrac told grantaire to hold his tongue, grantaire released the poor girl and she could go back to barricade construction.

enjolras is standing at the peak of the barricade. they are some distance away from each other; but as hugo mentioned in the previous chapter, the whole street is only as wide as a gunshot.

(after i die, i’m gonna ask st. peter, “hey, where is victor hugo?” and he is going to point me in that direction and then i am going to use my spectral fist to smack ole victor in his spectral jaw. and i am going to say, “that’s for saying that the rue de la chanvrerie is as wide as a gunshot, you horrible person.” and he’s going to say, “really? that’s all?” and i am going to say “absolutely not but that’s what i’m starting with.”)

specifically, hugo says the street is as wide as “une portée de carabine.” a carbine is a long firearm, but shorter than a musket or a rifle, and it can be used to shoot either long-arm or short-arm ammunition. so, let’s say the carbine he’s speaking of is shooting pistol ammunition, for the sake of simplicity.

the street is only about as long as it takes to walk from the front door of a house to the edge of a driveway, and enjolras is at the halfway point.

so, as it were, they can see the whites of each other’s eyes.

it’s pitch black, it’s drizzling rain, they are equal to each other in elevation from the ground, they can see each others’ faces in the torchlight.

does this remind anyone else of cosette and marius singing to each other from opposite sides of the stage during “one day more,” or is it just me?

“Grantaire,” he shouted, “go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. Don’t disgrace the barricade!”

This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober.

NO!!!! NO!!!!!!!! DON’T DO THIS TO ME!!!!!!!!!

bossuet tries to calm grantaire down with a gesture -- courfeyrac tries to calm grantaire down with an affectionate “shut up!” -- it does not work.

bossuet tries to calm grantaire down with a kind but brusque command -- enjolras yells for grantaire to go elsewhere and sleep off his drunkenness -- and it works.

bossuet’s calming of grantaire resulted in grantaire turning mellow, humming, quiet and unobtrusive. enjolras’ calming of grantaire -- unintentional, as he seems fairly antagonistic at the moment -- produces a similar and yet completely dissimilar effect.

He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him: --

“Let me sleep here.”

“indescribable gentleness”.

grantaire has become quiet again. he is not mellow; to be mellow implies ease, calm, docility. grantaire is not at ease here. he is not calm. but he has become gentle, and the term for “gentleness” in french is “douceur,” which can also be translated as “softness,” and is transliterated as “sweetness.”

he speaks to enjolras with the soft, sweet gentleness of someone desperately in love. 

and he makes no more mention of revolution. instead he mirrors back enjolras’ command and turns it into a request.

he is happy to sleep off his drunkenness as enjolras desires. he just wants to be close to enjolras as he does so.

that gross sobbing that you hear in the background? that’s me.

“Go and sleep somewhere else,” cried Enjolras.

But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, replied: --

“Let me sleep here, -- until I die.”

ST O P THSI SSSSS

enjolras is so completely unaware of what has happened to grantaire. after the barrière du maine, i think it’s not only likely but probable that enjolras has decided to actively pay as little attention to grantaire as possible. i love my ferocious golden son. but once people transgress in his eyes, he writes them off ruthlessly the same way that javert does to criminals. and once he does so, he doesn’t consider them worth the effort of trying to bring them back into the fold.

grantaire wants to be near to enjolras. enjolras is just wondering what the hell he’s still doing here. and in fact --

Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes: --

“Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.”

N OO O OO O. GOD. NO!!! IT HURTS!!!!

-- this right here is why i cannot, i will not ship e/R as reciprocal. i’m so sorry. if you’ve come along this ride with me to dissect this ship and scream about its tragedy, that’s fine and dandy. but this is not a romeo and juliet tragedy where they are meant to be together, despite the fact that both pairs die too soon, and both pairs die together.

this is the tragedy of someone in the abyss in love with someone in the clouds, reaching up, stumbling and falling in the attempt. this is the tragedy of the clouds dissolving under the other person’s feet, so he crashes to the earth, bereft of everything he knew.

and this is the tragedy of that person in the abyss reaching up, and the person of the clouds finally reaching down, and before they can even begin to understand each other as equals, they die.

i cannot stress it enough. from the moment we first see them in 1828 until the moment just before his death in 1832, enjolras expresses no desire to understand grantaire. even during the barrière du maine sequence, when he heard and listened for the first time, he still never tried to understand why grantaire had suddenly expressed a desire to help.

and with this one horrible, damning sentence, enjolras tells us soundly that not only does he find grantaire incomprehensible, he doesn’t think him worth the effort of trying to comprehend.

these men are opposites. contrary to hugo’s introduction of them, they do need each other, enjolras just as much as grantaire. those ashes must be fanned into a glow. this is very important.

but enjolras doesn’t even try.

Grantaire replied in a grave tone: --

“You will see.”

AND YOU WILL!! YOU WILL!!!!! BUT ENJOLRAS DOESN’T BELIEVE HIM!!!!!!

enjolras, the believer, does not believe anything of grantaire.

He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an instant later he had fallen asleep.

oh Jesus Christ. why is that. that phrasing. “the second period of inebriety, into which enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him”. the .... the fuckening ..... sexual connotation .........

i can’t handle this.

the chapter ends here. the next mention of grantaire will be during “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

the other thing? the other awful thing? the worst thing, in fact?

this sleep is that stygian sleep, that sleep of the dead.

the next time grantaire wakes, everyone on this barricade will be dead except for enjolras.

courfeyrac, who took him to the ball at sceaux with marius and bossuet. dead.

bossuet, who calmed him down from his unhappy rants and expressed concern at his well-being. dead.

joly, who drank and teased and punned with him. dead.

bahorel, who strolled along the city with him and gave fashion and relationship advice. dead, and the first to die, at that.

jehan prouvaire, who knew just as much of the classics as he does. dead.

combeferre, who had just as much scathing wit and just as comprehensive an encyclopedic memory. dead.

feuilly, who was another fellow artist, if not by trade then by spirit. dead.

the only person still alive will be enjolras, whom he loves. enjolras, who stands before the firing squad, about to join the rest of them.

and we the readers, and enjolras as well, will be able to see just how much grantaire is capable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.

grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.

part four: “preliminary gayeties” – or, the gremlin is really starting to show, there, buddy.

part one | part two | part three

so as it turns out, the entire chapter -- all sixteen and a half pages, per my french version on kindle -- is chock full of interaction between the brunch trio, joly, bossuet, and grantaire. so we’re gonna do the whole thing, beginning to end.

over six pages’ worth of it is one single monologue by the man himself.

this .... this is gonna be a wild ride.

the hapgood english translation can be found here.

and off we go!

Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini. On the morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast. Joly, who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to share. Laigle’s coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed.

It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of Corinthe.

They ascended to the first floor.

Matelote and Gibelotte received them.

“Oysters, cheese, and ham,” said Laigle.

And they seated themselves at a table.

ok, first of all, breakfast of champions.

if this is your last proper breakfast before you die, might as well breakfast in style, right?

The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves.

Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table.

While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said: --

“I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie cheese. I enter.” It was Grantaire.

i like to annotate my kindle editions of books, rather than scribbling in print editions, because it makes me feel better for some reason. i went to look at the note i had for this section, and this is what my original reaction was:

“good morning garbage boy date crasher [kissing emoji]”

... well, that about covers it. might as well stop the rest of the meta here.

(i kid. the train wreck is just getting started.)

Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table.

At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the table.

That made three.

“Are you going to drink those two bottles?” Laigle inquired of Grantaire.

Grantaire replied: --

“All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous. Two bottles never yet astonished a man.”

H ... HONEY ......... IT’S NINE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING .............

if we didn’t fully comprehend how much of an alcoholic grantaire was before, now we see it in action, plain as ink. joly and bossuet share a single bottle of wine between them, but grantaire is known by the waitstaff to consume two bottles by himself in one sitting.

(and here we are again with the inconsistent thou/you usage, hapgood. these boys all tutoie each other. bossuet isn’t calling grantaire vous.)

The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down.

“So you have a hole in your stomach?” began Laigle again.

“You have one in your elbow,” said Grantaire.

GRANTAIRE ... I AM CONCERNED ... AND SO ARE YOUR FRIENDS!

it really tickles me pink that of the three of them, bossuet is the mom friend. he’s the one who first made friendly overtures to marius, he’s the one who calmed down grantaire from his tizzy in the musain, he’s the one who inquires after marius when seeing him behaving strangely (though courfeyrac’s the one who says essentially “don’t follow him you ninny can’t you see he’s busy”), and now he is the one who’s expressing if not concern then at least pointed observation about grantaire’s drinking habits.

grantaire responds to this pointed remark with a quick riposte about bossuet’s threadbare coat. he seems to be in less than a good mood.

(can’t imagine why ...)

And after having emptied his glass, he added: --

“Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old.”

“I should hope so,” retorted Laigle. “That’s why we get on well together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm. Old coats are just like old friends.”

“That's true,” ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, “an old goat is an old abi” (ami, friend).

“Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up,” said Grantaire.

i love this little passage, in part because of the pun (habit, coat, and abi/ami, friend), but mostly because of the comparison. old coats are just like old friends -- and we can see this in the way that these three fellas interact with each other. they get along. they don’t restrict each other, they are accustomed to each others’ idiosyncrasies, they move in concert, and their presence is warmth and comfort.

you know that picture of kermit the frog holding a photograph and there are little heart emojis all over the place? that’s me right now.

(i just ... wish ... that hapgood had chosen a different uh, translation for “s’écria joly entrant dans le dialogue” than the one she did. i would have. uh. said something else. “cried,” perhaps. ... oh no. oh god. not that. uh. “shouted”? yeah. shouted is better.)

“Grantaire,” demanded Laigle, “have you just come from the boulevard?”

“No.”

“We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I.”

“It’s a marvellous sight,” said Joly.

“How quiet this street is!” exclaimed Laigle. “Who would suspect that Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood! Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abbe Lebeuf. They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustines -- there was no end of them.”

“Don’t let’s talk of monks,” interrupted Grantaire, “it makes one want to scratch one’s self.”

i suspected there would be a pun here. and i did some digging. and i was sort of right.

“gratter”, to scratch, was slang for any number of things at the time, some of them quite inappropriate. but “se gratter” was slang for “rien recevoir,” or “se taper” -- receiving nothing -- specifically, receiving nothing to eat. this isn’t a pun exactly, but it is a euphemism: hapgood uses a literal translation where an ethnographic translation would make more sense.

in short: talking of monks makes grantaire cease to be hungry. even in the presence of oysters and brie.

my boy is really in a grumpy mood this morning.

Then he exclaimed: --

“Bouh! I’ve just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly. I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front of the big public library. That pile of oyster-shells which is called a library is disgusting even to think of. What paper! What ink! What scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal was it who said that man was a featherless biped?[51]

[51] Bipede sans plume: biped without feathers -- pen.

this is just a temper tantrum at the moment, even including the pun. he doesn’t have a goal to his ramble yet; he’s just begun; he isn’t yet trying to make a point. but hold on, because he’s about to swivel to an extremely specific target.

And then, I met a pretty girl of my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover; cats chase mice as well as birds.

grantaire knows this girl, but doesn’t provide her name. while he speaks of a specific grisette of his acquaintance, hugo uses this opportunity to speak of another young lady who was a grisette, worthy to be called floréal.

floréal: the eighth month of the french republican calendar: mid april to mid may: spring.

is there any other lady, a grisette in paris, young, beautiful, worthy to be called springtime itself, recently come into the acquaintance of a rich man, whom we know?

grantaire speaks of a girl that he knows. hugo speaks of fantine.

(clio, are you gonna bring up fantine in every single meta post you possibly can? YES, I AM. WATCH ME. AND IT WILL MAKE SENSE TOO, BY GOD.)

this girl (fantine) is delighted, enraptured, because a rich man has deigned to take a fancy to her. grantaire uses this verb, “deigns,” which is a direct cognate to the french -- and this verb is painfully accurate.

to deign: to do something that one considers to be beneath one’s dignity.

the rich man (tholomyès) has decided that even though he probably shouldn’t, and though he might think better of it later, for now he will pay attention to this pretty working-class girl.

notice that the banker is described as riddled with smallpox scars, and tholomyès is described as balding and toothless. the girls are poor, but physically speaking they are way out of these guys’ leagues.

grantaire laments: women seek protectors just as much as they seek lovers, and to a grisette, a rich man -- while ugly -- offers both societal and economic protection.

for the moment, anyway ...

Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she adjusted little brass rings in the eyelet-holes of corsets, what do you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress. This transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in high spirits. The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty to-day as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face. Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by caterpillars are visible.

two months ago the girl (fantine) earned her living through piecework. she had a modest little flat, she took joy in flowers, and she was content with her lot in life.

now here she is a bankeress.

there are metas on the barrière du maine ; there are metas on floréal. some people interpret the term “bankeress” as the girl having married the rich man, and some people interpret it as the girl having slept with him, and some interpret it as her simply having met with him and gone on a date or two.

i don’t think the girl is married to the banker. i think she’s agreed to become his mistress. why? because of the rest of what grantaire says.

now -- is it gross of grantaire to call her a jade (a promiscuous woman) because she agreed to align herself with a rich man? yeah. yeah it is. (i call him my garbage son for a reason.) but that is so very much not the point of this little story.

she is just as pretty today as she was yesterday, when she had not yet agreed. there was no physical transformation after the agreement. this, grantaire feels, is a bad thing.

why should there be transformation? hugo has already told us why, with fantine.

floréal (fantine) becomes the banker’s (tholomyès’) mistress. he spoils her with pretty dresses, with nights out at the theater and the opera, concerts, long walks in the gardens in the middle of the afternoon, picnics, luxurious food, maybe even a new expensive apartment near his. he calls on her at any time, he takes her dancing, he shows her off to his rich friends.

and she stops her piecework, because her lover is taking care of her now. and she becomes accustomed to a level of richesse and idleness that, perhaps, she had only ever seen before in shop windows or on passersby in the street.

and if (when) her lover grows tired of her, he leaves her no money. he takes back the apartment, leaving her to scramble for a new place to live, as she had vacated her old flat.

and her time, which first was taken up with work and then was taken up with him, is now a vast empty gulf.

so she must struggle to become accustomed to work again, to say nothing of finding new work after such a lapse.

and that’s the best case scenario for young ma’amzelle floréal. fantine was left with a child out of wedlock, in addition to the above.

is grantaire entirely cognizant of the tragedy that hovers, like an anvil, waiting to strike poor floréal to the earth? no, probably not, at least not all of it. but he is a former student, with access to some money, and so plenty of his classmates (if none of his friends; i hope to GOD none of his friends) have probably done the exact same thing that tholomyès did, that this banker is planning to do.

to quote the song “some girls” from the wonderful show once on this island:

some girls you marry. some you love.

grantaire may not be aware of all the implications, but he knows that this man is going to drop this girl in the dust, and she will be worse off for it.

Ah! there is no morality on earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats.

not much substance here. but we’ve got a weird translation error, a fun bit of argot, a strange but cool translation, and a damn good joke. so let’s concentrate on those for a second, because gawd this has been depressing so far and it’s gonna get depressing again in a minute.

first up: in french, it’s “le laurier, symbole de la guerre”. symbol of war, not air. how the hell do you get air out of war??

i went and found my print edition of hapgood to check to see if it was just a transcription typo from putting it online. nope. it’s a rulio trulio translation error. i ... i can’t see what else it could be.

next up: “l’olivier, ce bêta, symbole de la paix”. bêta in modern french means beta, as in the greek letter of the alphabet. but in old argot, it means crétin, niais. simpleton, thickhead, blockhead.

(the mental image of grantaire as lucy from peanuts just occurred to me. and you know what, i can easily imagine grantaire telling bossuet that he’s for sure gonna let him actually kick the football this time.)

then: “the apple-tree which came nearest rangling adam with its pips”. the french just has it as “the apple which failed to strangle adam”, so at first i thought “came nearest rangling” was another error. but oh man is it not, and oh man is it such a cool mental image.

“rangle” is a real english word! it is a falconry term for small bits of gravel, fed to hawks to aid in their digestion. so while grantaire refers to the apple as that which nearly killed adam (and thus humanity) but didn’t, hapgood refers to the apple as that which came closest to aiding in adam’s (and thus humanity’s) digestion. and wow isn’t that an interesting theological implication!

and last before crud gets real again: “le figuier, grand-père des jupons.” the fig, grandfather of petticoats or slips. i’m just ... kinda cackling over here.

i love my garbage son.

As for right, do you know what right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers: ‘The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.’ Rome said: ‘You shall not take Clusium.’ Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: ‘Vae victis!’ That is what right is. Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world! What eagles! It makes my flesh creep.”

this is pretty clear-cut; no need to go digging for references. grantaire translates himself for us.

two things here.

“vae victis!” -> “woe to the vanquished!”. this is a latin phrase which apparently implies that those who are conquered are entirely at the mercy of their conquerors, but should not expect to be given any quarter whatsoever.

“what eagles!” -> a blatant reference to napoleon, who as we know had some imperial tendencies himself.

history repeats itself, brutally.

He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice: --

JOLY DON’T FUCKING ENCOURAGE HIM.

“Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes the grisette is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other. So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality: drink. Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, drink.

brennus conquers rome, and let rome expect no mercy from brennus. the banker conquers the grisette, and let the grisette expect no mercy from the banker.

the microcosm of brutality is tholomyès’ conquest of fantine. the macrocosm is the whole of human history.

(and .. the word in french is “coq,” as in rooster. as in chicken. R isn’t deliberately being obscene here. the obscenity of human misery is bad enough.)

You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et caetera, et caetera. Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch, it won’t work. Quick, a revolution!

“another revolution?” he says, as if he didn’t know his friends were planning it. and yet the weariness is entirely justified, i think. it’s only two years ago that they had the three glorious days and upset charles x. can’t there be a little more peace and quiet before turning everything upside down again? and anyway, how much did that change things?

well, things did change a little. and with the june rebellion of 1832, things will change a little again. but ... yeah. sorry. not enough. not yet.

grantaire’s little conceit here of revolution by human hands being God’s way of fixing his machine is sad, but also feels familiar to me despite my not having read this passage since -- well, since summer of 2011 when i first cracked open the norman denny translation in my local library. (i know, i know, denny. scream in horror with me.)

i remember back in 2011-2012 on the les mis message boards there was a habit among some of the people there to refer to God as the watchmaker -- per the deist analogy about the universe being a made and abandoned watch on a beach. there’s a similar feeling here. grantaire might believe in a higher power, but he doesn’t think much of his handle on the goings-on down below.

The good God has his hands perpetually black with that cart-grease. If I were in his place, I’d be perfectly simple about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I’d lead the human race in a straightforward way, I’d weave matters mesh by mesh, without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, I would have no extraordinary repertory.

if he had made the world, there would be no need for revolutions.

... oh, honey.

What the rest of you call progress advances by means of two motors, men and events. But, sad to say, from time to time, the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary troupe suffices neither for event nor for men: among men geniuses are required, among events revolutions. Great accidents are the law; the order of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds actors needed for its performance.

enjolras, an actor, an extraordinary man, a genius needed for heaven’s performance of the great event: revolution.

and here we come to comets -- one of the most poetic things grantaire has said so far in the book.

At the moment when one expects it the least, God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star turns up, underlined by an enormous tail. And that causes the death of Caesar. Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with a comet. Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold a great man; ‘93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 at the head of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise your eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama. Good God, it is too much and not enough.

i feel like if i was familiar with natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812 then i would be able to add more cogent commentary at this point. as it is, all i can do is point to the onomatopoeia and the sudden descriptive nature of grantaire’s speech. he really is waxing a bit rhapsodic here.

“what a beautiful blue theatre all studded with unexpected flashes! boum! boum! extraordinary show!”

if grantaire could exist in the here and now, and see a production of the les mis musical, no doubt he would alternate between laughing and crying so much that one could hardly distinguish between the two actions.

it is too much and not enough.

These resources, gathered from exception, seem magnificence and poverty. My friends, Providence has come down to expedients. What does a revolution prove? That God is in a quandry. He effects a coup d’etat because he, God, has not been able to make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as to Jehovah’s fortune; and when I see so much distress in heaven and on earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness the Prince de Conde hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent in the zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, when I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up. He gives a revolution as a tradesman whose money-box is empty gives a ball.

OH GOD, NO, HE HURTS, AND IT HURTS ME TO SEE HIM HURT.

look at this pretty prose and the way it devolves. the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills. drops of dew, those mock pearls. humanity ripped apart and events patched up.

he sees the beauty of the physical world, and he sees the misery of humanity, and he thinks: how can god be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-kind, when this exists? and then he comes to the conclusion that god creates revolutions -- or hosts them, as a tradesman hosts a party -- with the same frantic half-hearted effort of someone trying to pretend everything is just fine, when everything very clearly is not.

God must not be judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive a poverty-stricken universe. Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am discontented.

:’(

Here it is the 4th of June, it is almost night; ever since this morning I have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, and I bet that it won’t come all day. This is the inexactness of an ill-paid clerk.

in french it’s the fifth of june ; i had hoped this was a typo on behalf of the online uploader, but nope, it’s another translation error ; my buddy R isn’t quite so far gone as to confuse the dates ...

but onto the meat of the sentence. “ever since this morning i have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, and i bet that it won’t come all day.”

red, a world about to dawn. black, the night that ends at last.

grantaire has been waiting for the new world to dawn. maybe he hasn’t been conscious of it, but that is, in his heart of hearts, what he wants -- as we’ve just seen. he is weary of, disgusted with, saddened by the misery of the world as it is now. he wants things to change.

but he has been waiting for the new world to dawn; and it has not dawned, and he bets that it won’t dawn all day.

this day: june fifth: the day the barricade rises.

this barricade will not end the night.

Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, everything goes awry; the universe is a tease. It’s like children, those who want them have none, and those who don’t want them have them. Total: I’m vexed.

and we have a brief savage jab from hugo at the thénardiers, who sell their children literally -- in multiple ways.

“je bisque.” -> “i am furious.”

WELL AFTER THIS WHOLE BIT, MEDITATING ON THE HORROR OF THE WORLD, WHO WOULDN’T BE?

Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration.

this bit puzzles me; it feels like a non sequitur at this point. but at the same time, grantaire has just finished his big argument. he isn’t trying to prove anything anymore. i kind of imagine him pausing (briefly) for breath, or for a top-up for his glass, and then focusing his attention on bossuet and starting off again.

if my garbage son did paragraph breaks, this would be one of them, i think.

he’s uh, saying that he doesn’t insult, but just before that he says that bossuet offends his sight. honey. no. that ... that counts as an insult.

reminds me of those “hey i’m not mean i’m just being honest” folks. makes me want to punch em in the throat.

hey, just being honest.

Ah! by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever, like a shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the loungers to the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewoman, or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to the Germanic confederation, and occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I have said a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people can habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points; respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen-roost!

hoo, there’s a lot to unpack there. okay.

grantaire doesn’t want to be a parisian. at this point in french history, uh, who does? but this is from the same guy who said, in the café musain four years ago (when he was young and unafraid) that paris carried the day, that “diogenes would have loved to be a rag-picker of the place maubert better than to be a philosopher at the piraeus.”

though four years ago, in 1828, the argument with charles x hadn’t happened yet; barricades were not looming again on the horizon. being a parisian was a little less stressful four years ago.

so he doesn’t want to be in paris anymore. he wants to be in constantinople, watching pretty virgin girls dancing. he wants to be in the north of france, maybe breeding dogs (the beauceron dog being a sort of floppy-eared german shepherd look-alike). he wants to be in venice, entertaining a salon of pretty girls and pretty boys, discussing the arts. he wants to be a german princeling, adding his rabble of foot-soldiers to a distant war and then spending his free time airing out his feet in his spacious backyard.

there’s enough variety in the examples he gives that there’s only one theme to be drawn from it that i can see -- he wants to be away from here, thinking about other things. possibly not even thinking at all.

then he comes back to islam and, er, is rather sacrilegious about it all. but then again, this is the same guy who said of the crucifix, “there is a gibbet which has been a success.” he doesn’t care what religion it is, he’s gonna treat it irreverently.

Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other’s profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of new-mown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a bric-a-brac merchant’s suggests a reflection to my mind; it is time to enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That’s what comes of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!”

grantaire had made his point, but now he finally comes to the real reason why he is upset. all of his friends, whom he loves dearly, are going to and get themselves killed -- when instead they could be looking at the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, or watching the beautiful blue theater’s flashes from a distance, and most importantly, being alive to see it.

he has studied history. he knows what comes next. he knows that they are all going to die. and he knows that they are giving their lives away to martyrdom gladly.

and he’s angry, and he’s bitter, and he’s sad.

And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which was well earned.

you said it, not me.

“A propos of revolution,” said Joly, “it is decidedly abberent that Barius is in lub.”

“Does any one know with whom?” demanded Laigle.

“Do.”

“No?”

“Do! I tell you.”

“Marius’ love affairs!” exclaimed Grantaire. “I can imagine it. Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbraeus Apollo. Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls possessed of senses. They lie among the stars.”

THE ..... MOST POETIC FUCKING THING ........

this is the other quote that people pull out for their e/R shippy stuff, and boy oh boy i cannot blame them. what a quote.

i do have to say that “ecstasies in which they forget to kiss” made me howl with laughter though, because that is exactly how marius and cosette spent their first few hours in close proximity. just staring into each other’s eyes, murmuring the occasional word, sitting on a bench, not even touching. priceless. they’re pining for each other even when they know their love is requited.

“i know just what it is like.” yeah, honey, i bet you do.

... oh no. i made myself sad about grantaire again. damn it.

Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second harangue,

NO --

when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the stairs.

-- thank gawd. someone interrupted him.

It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged, very small, yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air.

The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed himself to Laigle de Meaux.

“Are you Monsieur Bossuet?”

“That is my nickname,” replied Laigle. “What do you want with me?”

“This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me: ‘Do you know Mother Hucheloup?’ I said: ‘Yes, Rue Chanvrerie, the old man's widow;’ he said to me: ‘Go there. There you will find M. Bossuet. Tell him from me: “A B C”.’ It’s a joke that they're playing on you, isn’t it. He gave me ten sous.”

“Joly, lend me ten sous,” said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: “Grantaire, lend me ten sous.”

This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad.

“Thank you, sir,” said the urchin.

“What is your name?” inquired Laigle.

“Navet, Gavroche's friend.”

“Stay with us,” said Laigle.

“Breakfast with us,” said Grantaire.

The child replied: --

“I can’t, I belong in the procession, I’m the one to shout ‘Down with Polignac!’”

And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure.

I’M UHHH CRYING? I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH.

i don’t have anything witty to add. i just love my disaster brunch trio.

The child gone, Grantaire took the word: --

“That is the pure-bred gamin. There are a great many varieties of the gamin species. The notary’s gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter, the cook’s gamin is called a scullion, the baker’s gamin is called a mitron, the lackey’s gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the cabin-boy, the soldier’s gamin is called the drummer-boy, the painter’s gamin is called paint-grinder, the tradesman’s gamin is called an errand-boy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion, the kingly gamin is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino.”

In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection;

yeah, honestly, i’m with you there, bossuet. R is just nattering nonsense at this point. though, like his little tongue-twister in the musain speech, this bit is definitely more impressive in french than in english. for one thing, it rhymes a hell of a lot more.

he said half aloud: --

“A B C, that is to say: the burial of Lamarque.”

“The tall blonde,” remarked Grantaire, “is Enjolras, who is sending you a warning.”

“Shall we go?” ejaculated Bossuet.

CEASE THIS !!

“It’s raiding,” said Joly. “I have sworn to go through fire, but not through water. I don’t wand to ged a gold.”

“I shall stay here,” said Grantaire. “I prefer a breakfast to a hearse.”

“Conclusion: we remain,” said Laigle. “Well, then, let us drink. Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot.”

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. MY BOYS.

and i love. i love that hugo decided to remind us, over and over with the orthography of joly’s speech, that he has a head cold. head colds are like death warmed over, but gawd it’s adorable to hear joly speak with his nose stuffed up.

“Ah! the riot, I am with you!” cried Joly.

Laigle rubbed his hands.

“Now we’re going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter of fact, it does hurt the people along the seams.”

“I don’t think much of your revolution,” said Grantaire. “I don’t execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton night-cap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think that to-day, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre end against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven.”

WHY DID YOU ... SAY THAT ... TO THEIR FACES ...

puts head in hands.

this kind of talk is why enjolras was so surprised that you volunteered for the barrière du maine, honey.

(and i love bossuet’s turn of phrase there, about touching up the revolution of 1830. that’s just ... guh. he has such a way with words. i love him so much.)

The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of daylight. There was no one in the wine-shop, or in the street, every one having gone off “to watch events.”

“Is it mid-day or midnight?” cried Bossuet. “You can’t see your hand before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light.”

Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way.

as he .... has been doing the whole morning .......

but bossuet is trying to cheer him up. mom mode activated. God bless.

“Enjolras disdains me,” he muttered. “Enjolras said: ‘Joly is ill, Grantaire is drunk.’ It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! I won't go to his funeral.”

well .... he was right, wasn’t he? joly is ill, and grantaire is drunk. and bossuet is the mom friend, anyway. for all that he’s the unlucky one, he’s also the responsible one.

but the phrase “if he had come for me, i would have followed him” is all the more painful after the barrière du maine sequence. enjolras saw a singular moment of failure and decided not to give grantaire a second chance. he stands at a height -- grantaire stands at a depth -- and grantaire reaches up to him once, and falls, and enjolras walks away.

what if enjolras had ever tried to help him up? what would have happened then?

and oh God, the dramatic irony of “i won’t go to his funeral” is breathtaking.

This resolution once arrived at, Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire did not stir from the wine-shop. By two o'clock in the afternoon, the table at which they sat was covered with empty bottles. Two candles were burning on it, one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the other in the neck of a cracked carafe. Grantaire had seduced Joly and Bossuet to wine; Bossuet and Joly had conducted Grantaire back towards cheerfulness.

I’M NOT CRYING, YOU’RE CRYING.

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH.

As for Grantaire, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate inspirer of dreams, ever since mid-day.

oh PLEASE tell me they didn’t break out the absinthe.

Wine enjoys only a conventional popularity with serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter of inebriety, white magic and black magic; wine is only white magic. Grantaire was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible fit of drunkenness yawning before him, far from arresting him, attracted him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beerglass. The beer-glass is the abyss.

aw fuck. oh no. nooooo.

Having neither opium nor hashish on hand, and being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the most terrible of lethargies. It is of these three vapors, beer, brandy, and absinthe, that the lead of the soul is composed. They are three grooms; the celestial butterfly is drowned in them; and there are formed there in a membranous smoke, vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, three mute furies, Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the slumbering Psyche.

N O O OOOOOOOOOO STOP IT OH GOD.

NO THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE.

okay. OKAY. since it seems that victor hugo is intent on breaking into my house and smashing all of my dishes while maintaining perfect eye contact just to ruin my day, personally, let’s go through this psyche comparison.

psyche, a beautiful mortal but a mere mortal all the same, falls in love with cupid, a pure perfect god.

(already you can see why i am in a bad mood about this.)

the events of the marriage and the invisibility et cetera don’t really apply here, so we’ll skip past her accidentally waking cupid and most of her trials by aphrodite to win cupid back, and we’ll skip to her last trial.

psyche is tasked with retrieving a box of persephone’s beauty to give to aphrodite. psyche returns from the underworld with this box, but she is curious, so she opens the box and some stygian vapors emerge from it, which become a fugue, which bespell psyche into a death-like sleep.

Sound Familiar?

cupid wakes psyche from her death-like sleep, and they go to mount olympus, the home of the gods.

Sound Familiar??

and it is there, at the home of the gods, that psyche eats of ambrosia and becomes a goddess: becomes cupid’s equal at last.

I’m Going To Tear My Hair Out.

hugo has just spelled out “orestes fasting and pylades drunk” for us. whole friggin’ chapters ahead of time.

hey, sabrina, which dotted line do i sign on so that the dark lord satan will give me dread powers of awful necromancy or whatever? i want to resurrect victor hugo’s moldy corpse just so i can sock him in the jaw.

Grantaire had not yet reached that lamentable phase; far from it. He was tremendously gay, and Bossuet and Joly retorted. They clinked glasses.

i’ve always imagined joly of medium height and slim build, and bossuet of tall and lanky build, versus a shorter and stockier grantaire (who as we all know from part one, “a group which barely missed being historic”, is also fcking shredded on account of singlesticks). but joly and bossuet keep up with grantaire, even if they aren’t drinking quite as much as he is.

Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation of words and ideas, a peculiarity of gesture; he rested his left fist on his knee with dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand, he hurled solemn words at the big maid-servant Matelote: --

“Let the doors of the palace be thrown open! Let every one be a member of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup. Let us drink.”

And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added: --

“Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate thee!”

And Joly exclaimed: --

“Matelote and Gibelotte, dod’t gib Grantaire anything more to drink. He has already devoured, since this bording, in wild prodigality, two francs and ninety-five centibes.”

puts head in hands.

it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. y’all started at nine. it’s been a five hour solid drinking marathon and you’re only stopping him now?

And Grantaire began again: --

“Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?”

Bossuet, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity.

He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back in the falling rain, and gazing at his two friends.

i fcking LOVE that quote.

also, what an image. marry me, bossuet.

All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of “To arms!” He turned round and saw in the Rue Saint-Denis, at the end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing, gun in hand, and Gavroche with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword, Courfeyrac with his sword, and Jean Prouvaire with his blunderbuss, Combeferre with his gun, Bahorel with his gun, and the whole armed and stormy rabble which was following them.

i’m gonna be pedantic and nitpicky about the type of swords that feuilly and courfeyrac have, because i’m me and y’all know i like stabby things.

feuilly has “un sabre” -- a sabre. courfeyrac has “un épée” -- the generic french term for a sword.

sabres are one-handed, one-edged swords with a slight curve to them. similar to the cutlass or cavalry sword.

an épée in the english refers to a thin, whippy, rapier-type blade, similar to the fencing foil but longer and less flexible. however, this is the french term we’re speaking of and frankly courfeyrac is headed for combat -- so what he’s got is probably closer to an arming sword, a double-edged one-handed sword, than a fencing épée.

this is the part where i obnoxiously refer back to grantaire and singlesticks. if grantaire wasn’t drunk off his gourd right now, he could be very useful in combat. my garbage son knows how to scrap! and fighting dirty, fighting brutally, would be much more useful at a barricade than the refinement of fencing!

these are not schoolboys who’ve never held a gun. but all the same, they are not trained for combat. they need all the help they can get.

The Rue de la Chanvrerie was not more than a gunshot long.

WOW, THANKS FOR THAT.

Bossuet improvised a speaking-trumpet from his two hands placed around his mouth, and shouted: --

“Courfeyrac! Courfeyrac! Hohee!”

Courfeyrac heard the shout, caught sight of Bossuet, and advanced a few paces into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, shouting: “What do you want?” which crossed a “Where are you going?”

“To make a barricade,” replied Courfeyrac.

“Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here!”

“That’s true, Aigle,” said Courfeyrac.

And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into the Rue de la Chanvrerie.

AAAAAND SCENE!

good God, that was a lot.

the next chapter picks up right where this one leaves off. we are in pre-barricade mode: after this next chapter, we are in full barricade mode: and that’s curtain on the friends of the abc.

this is fine.

this is fine!

................. this is not fine.

grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.

part three: “enjolras and his lieutenants” – or, oh gawd the secondhand embarrassment is awful.

part one | part two

prologue: a short interlude in which grantaire interacts with other people and there is minimal drama.

from “marius, while seeking a girl in a bonnet encounters a man in a cap” :

Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. Of course he did not see the one he sought. -- “But this is the place, all the same, where all lost women are found,” grumbled Grantaire in an aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home on foot, alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, stunned by the noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing creatures on their way home from the feast, which passed close to him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in the acrid scent of the walnut-trees, along the road, in order to refresh his head.

i need to stop calling grantaire “honey,” but somehow that is just the automatic response that pops into my head at these things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

look at this, though. grantaire’s second appearance in a scene (if barely described) is -- wait for it -- another one where enjolras doesn’t enter into the equation. in fact it’s one of courfeyrac’s attempts to cheer marius up.

R is being a bit of a pill here, in that he’s niggling at marius to find a new girl to moon over when clearly marius wants to Not Do That, but -- look at the wording. it’s an aside, and a short one at that. he’s not directing the comment directly at marius, who no doubt would be morbidly offended by it. he’s not being obtrusive or annoying, just making a small remark. and that’s all of the description hugo deigns to give us about it.

it’s a ball at sceaux -- sceaux being about 10 km south by southwest from the center of paris. there’s a little chateau there, a park, gardens, it’s very pretty. an event there would likely be one of several society events the likes of which courfeyrac, as a former de courfeyrac and therefore extremely bourgeois, probably gets invitations to on a regular basis.

only it’s not only courfeyrac who brings marius along, it’s also bossuet (who he first met; who is unluckily poor nine days out of ten) and grantaire (who we hadn’t seen marius interact with at all before; who is if not bad company then disreputable company).

i hate to keep hammering at the point, except that i don’t.

my garbage nerd son has good friends. and they enjoy his company enough that they don’t drag him along to parties complaining, he willingly goes with them from the get-go. it’s marius who acts like the old “hit the ball drag fred” golf joke.

grantaire isn’t a burden on his friends. he loves them.

... okay. now that a small cute thing is out of the way, on to the main event.

lots of screaming ahead, folks.

“That arranges everything,” said Courfeyrac.

“No.”

“What else is there?”

“A very important thing.”

“What is that?” asked Courfeyrac.

“The Barriere du Maine,” replied Enjolras.

Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he resumed: --

“At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with firmness. They meet at Richefeu’s. They are to be found there between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow.

so it looks like the barrière du maine is right up grantaire’s alley, from the very first mention of it. marble-workers ( “what fine marble!” ), painters, sculptors. these are people that grantaire probably knows very well.

but the rest of enjolras’ description is what, on the second read-through, made me thump my computer and say aloud, in probably too loud of a voice, “really, hugo??”

an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. thinking of something else. pass their time playing dominoes. those ashes must be fanned into a glow.

does that sound ........... like anybody else we know, enjolras?

That Right Thar Sounds Like A Meta Fer Somethin’ If’n Ya Ask Me!

For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us.

RE -- REALLY? YOU WERE GOING TO ASK MARIUS??

IT’S EIGHTEEN THIRTY-TWO, ENJOLRAS. THE LAST TIME MARIUS CAME TO THE BACK ROOM OF THE MUSAIN WAS IN EIGHTEEN TWENTY-EIGHT WHEN COMBEFERRE HANDED HIS ASS TO HIM, ENJOLRAS. IT’S BEEN FOUR YEARS.

enjolras is sharp as a tack in terms of politics, in terms of persuasion, in terms of battle tactics. but the guy’s a little blunter in terms of interpersonal relationships. i love him. i do. i promise. he is also a nerd ( as exhibited by his wonderful off-the-cuff straight-faced pun earlier in this passage, “joly will go to dupuytren's clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school” ), and i love him for it.

but -- in keeping with other facets of his characterization ( “silence in the presence of jean-jacques! i admire that man. he denied his own children, yes, but he adopted the people” ) -- enjolras really doesn’t have much of a clue about what makes normal human people tick.

enjo is just as contradictory and human as grantaire, and this scene is one place we really see it.

the artists at the barrière du maine need their passion for revolution to be stoked. well. so does the one right in your backyard, enjolras.

we know from the prose intro that grantaire doesn’t believe. but has enjolras ever tried to convert him? or did he just hear grantaire going off on a tangent about the hopelessness of the world, and never even bother?

this might come back to bite him ...

I need some one for the Barriere du Maine. I have no one.”

“What about me?” said Grantaire. “Here am I.”

“You?”

“I.”

grantaire -- who it is implied never does anything like this -- has just volunteered for a mission.

notice here that enjolras tutoies grantaire in the original french -- he addresses him informally. this might be important later, especially because hugo being hugo, pronoun usage can be a major plot point.

“You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle!”

“Why not?”

BECAUSE YOU NEVER WANTED TO BEFORE.

why does he want to do it now? we’re never given an answer. all we’re given is an outsider’s view -- or enjolras’ view -- of the conversation. nothing internal on grantaire’s sudden wish to be useful. (though knowing hugo, and knowing me, that would just result in more screaming.)

“Are you good for anything?”

in the original french, the question is, “est-ce que tu peux être bon à quelque chose ?”

literally: can you be good for something?

this is a sarcastic, rhetorical question. enjolras isn’t actually looking for an answer.

“I have a vague ambition in that direction,” said Grantaire.

but grantaire answers it earnestly, as though enjolras were looking for an answer. he’s frank with enjolras: he has a vague ambition towards being good for something -- i.e., the revolution -- i.e., enjolras. he wants to be good for enjolras. (“good,” as in “useful” : he wants to be as pylades to him.)

given enjolras’ utter bewilderment just before this, this is probably the first time grantaire has voiced anything of the sort. this is, and i cannot stress it enough, an abnormal occurrence.

“You do not believe in everything.”

“I believe in you.”

WELL FUCK ME SIDEWAYS I GUESS !!!!!

enjolras tutoies grantaire, presumably out of that mild disdain mentioned from earlier chapters. “tu ne crois à rien.” -> you believe in nothing.

grantaire tutoies him back. “je crois à toi.” -> i believe in you.

note here, he says “je crois à toi,” not “je crois en toi.”

from l’académie française :

“Croire à quelqu’un signifie tenir pour certaine son existence, admettre son pouvoir : Il croit aux revenants. Il ne croit ni à Dieu ni à Diable.”

to hold someone’s existence for certain, to admit their power.

that is what he thinks of enjolras. and he uses tutoiement to do it.

if he had vouvoied enjolras (addressed him formally), i’m not gonna lie, i probably would have started shrieking, and not in a good way. but what it looks like here is grantaire addressing enjolras with the familiarity of a friend, when it’s just been made clear a handful of lines ago that they are not friends, they are just people who have friends in common.

(or if you want to get really pedantic and symbolic, i can draw attention to the fact that the french use tutoiement for God as well as their friends and family. probably for similar reasons, on a theological level, but i digress. point being that this implies grantaire believes in enjolras the exact same way that someone else would believe in a deity.)

look at this. look at this. grantaire is being utterly transparent about his feelings. he’s not diving off into an extended ramble, he’s not orating to all and sundry. he says four little words that mean everything, and he leaves it at that.

grantaire’s dialogue so far in this scene has been short, concise, one sentence at a time. sometimes even one word at a time. he’s really not trying to yank enjolras’ chain here. at least --

“Grantaire will you do me a service?”

“Anything. I'll black your boots.”

-- until this happens.

i have a suspicion that the joke, “i’ll black your boots,” with its possibly sexual undertones if you’ve got a dirty enough mind, is a hasty retreat from the earnestness of “anything.” grantaire has not yet understood that he is in love with enjolras. (that won’t come until literally his dying breath.) but he does now understand that whatever he feels for enjolras is very strong, and he’s a little afraid of the implication.

“Well, don’t meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe.”

“You are an ingrate, Enjolras.”

enjolras soundly refuses grantaire’s offer, tacking on a sentence implying that the only reason grantaire offered at all is because he’s drunk off his gourd. and grantaire replies -- immediately -- that enjolras is ungrateful for rejecting him.

this is a once in a lifetime offer. take it while it’s still on the table, buddy.

(oh, grantaire. the reverse also applies ...)

“You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You capable of it!”

“I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing the Place Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d’Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vielles Tuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following the Chaussee du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu’s. I am capable of that.

i’ve mentioned before in part one that this mini monologue works to show us how familiar grantaire is with the city on foot. he can map out a route verbally on request. whether he’s been cogitating over it from the first mention enjolras made of richefeu’s, or whether he’s just speaking off-the-cuff in the moment, the point is he knows paris (or at least that section of paris) like the back of his hand.

My shoes are capable of that.”

i love you.

“Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?”

“Not much. We only address each other as thou.”

grantaire tutoies the richefeu gang. that sounds pretty dang useful to me!

but also ...

... okay. time for a digression about translations, and translations of tutoiement and vouvoiement specifically.

anyone who’s heard me rant about this before (and i know some of y’all have) can skip to the next quoted section. i’m just flogging a dead horse at this point.

but ... hapgood. hapgood. you’re my favorite translator for les mis. but if you’re gonna use the thou/you archaic english in/formal dichotomy, to show the tu/vous french in/formal dichotomy, then you have to be internally consistent.

enjolras and grantaire are addressing each other as “tu” the entire time. not “vous.” therefore, the dialogue should go something like this:

thou dost believe in nothing. / i believe in thee.

grantaire, wilt thou do me a service? / anything. i’ll black thy boots.

well, do not meddle in our affairs. sleep thyself sober from thine absinthe. / thou art an ingrate, enjolras.

sound clunky and awkward? well, yeah, to our modern ears, because english dropped the in/formal dichotomy pretty suddenly in the 17th century, and the “thou” form was solidified as an archaic form of speech in samuel johnson’s a grammar of the english tongue.

modern english doesn’t have a cultural understanding of the in/formal second person pronoun connotations the same way that french does. that’s a difference that translators have to juggle, and some of them struggle with it. i get it. i’ve tried my hand at translating passages from les mis before, i’ve torn my hair out over it with the valjean & javert barricade scene, i get it. but ...

consistency is all i ask!

“What will you say to them?”

“I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.”

“You?”

“I. But I don’t receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. ‘The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.’

oh, honey.

he’s memorized so many other things. quoted ecclesiastes, quoted horace, pulled dates and figures out of his hat extemporaneously. and among all the myriad things he has memorized, he took the time to learn by heart the republican tracts that all of his friends espouse.

Do you take me for a brute?

i don’t think you want the answer to that :(

I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand.”

and i bet you can, at that, if worked into enough of a passion about it.

grantaire talks about what he’s passionate about. he talks about the suffering of the world, the repetition of history, the inextricable link between vice and virtue. he cares about that.

he cares about enjolras. and, if drunk enough, i would be willing to bet good money that given a sympathetic audience (sans the man himself), grantaire could orate for hours about the pure and perfect halo of enjolras’ golden hair, that symbol of his angelic nature upon the earth, that ferocious righteous cherubim of ezekiel.

but he doesn’t care about the revolution in and of itself. nobody has fanned those ashes into a glow. grantaire could quote as much as he liked about the rights of man, but what audience would agree with a speaker who doesn’t even believe what he himself is saying?

“Be serious,” said Enjolras.

“I am wild,” replied Grantaire.

and here’s the big quote. the one everyone trots out.

it’s a good quote. it’s ... it’s a damn good quote.

it’s even better when you look at the original french.

“sois sérieux.” “je suis farouche.”

from larousse dictionary :

“Se dit d’un animal sauvage qui fuit à l’approche de l’homme. Qui évite les contacts sociaux et dont l’abord est difficile. Qui exprime avec force, vigueur, la violence de quelqu’un ; âpre, véhément.”

said of a savage animal that flees at the approach of a human. someone who avoids social contact and whose social manner is difficult. someone who expresses violence forcefully and vigorously upon someone ; harsh or fierce, vehement.

to be farouche is not just to be wild. it is to be feral.

Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who has taken a resolution.

“Grantaire,” he said gravely, “I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barriere du Maine.”

enjolras has listened to grantaire. he has paid attention to the words that grantaire says, maybe even for the first time ever. he has considered their meaning.

and the result is that he agrees to take a chance on him.

this is monumental! enjolras has bent a little! grantaire argued his case and he won!

this is a victory!

but a small one. enjolras has given grantaire the chance to do something for his cause. it’s what grantaire does with the opportunity that matters the most.

Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat.

“Red,” said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras.

robespierre red. grantaire has ... a robespierre red waistcoat.

i don’t even know what to say to that. i’ve been trying to think, all day, to come up with a coherent response to the fact that grantaire owns a red robespierre waistcoat. but i got nothing. just inarticulate screaming.

Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast.

And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear: --

“Be easy.”

He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed.

oh god. ooooh god. this is fine.

i wonder what everyone else was thinking when they saw that. i know i would have bluescreened.

and we’ve got a little time skip here. a quarter hour after grantaire leaves (in his red robespierre waistcoat), the café musain is empty, and enjolras is reflecting on the revolution, and his friends’ good work, and on his friends’ excellent qualities. it’s a really endearing little section. enjolras isn’t just the metaphorical personification of revolution, he’s human, too. while he doesn’t have hobbies like grantaire does (his hobby is REVOLUTION), he displays the same fiercely devoted love for his friends.

All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort. This was well. This made him think of Grantaire.

aw, crap.

“Hold,” said he to himself, “the Barriere du Maine will not take me far out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu’s? Let us have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on.”

oh no.

does anybody else hear the jaws theme in the background right now, or is it just me?

One o’clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras reached the Richefeu smoking-room.

He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, men, and smoke.

A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary.

google earth to the rescue. it would take about 35-40 minutes on foot, provided a lack of traffic jams, to walk from the musain to richefeu’s. 30 at a brisk pace.

so let’s call it 45 minutes total between grantaire’s departure and enjolras’ arrival.

given that it is one o’clock when enjolras arrives at richefeu’s, and it is twelve-fifteen when grantaire departs the musain, and it takes grantaire the same length of time to traverse the city that enjolras does --

(ooooh, math in les mis. hugo would be hissing like a cat confronted with water right now. TOO BAD, BUDDY.)

-- grantaire has been at richefeu’s for fifteen minutes tops when enjolras arrives to check on him.

Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Anne table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard: --

oh no. oh no. noooo. the build-up is terrible. it’s. aw, man. it’s a train wreck coming but you just can’t look away.

“Double-six.”

“Fours.”

“The pig! I have no more.”

“You are dead. A two.”

“Six.”

“Three.”

“One.”

“It’s my move.”

“Four points.”

“Not much.”

“It’s your turn.”

“I have made an enormous mistake.”

“You are doing well.”

“Fifteen.”

“Seven more.”

“That makes me twenty-two.” [Thoughtfully, “Twenty-two!”]

“You weren’t expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed.”

“A two again.”

“One.”

“One! Well, five.”

“I haven’t any.”

“It was your play, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“Blank.”

“What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two.”

“One.”

“Neither five nor one. That's bad for you.”

“Domino.”

“Plague take it!”

PLAGUE TAKE IT, INDEED!

i’ve seen other metas on tumblr about this, about how they want enjolras’ reaction to what he sees. what is enjolras thinking, upon seeing this? does he approach grantaire? does he scold him there, at richefeu’s? does he wait until later, when the company gathers again at the musain, to give him the dressing-down (no innuendoes implied) that he deserves? or does he never mention it at all?

i thoroughly agree with them. i want to resurrect ole vicky and shake him by the shoulders until his teeth rattle and ask him “is that it? how can that be it?? you could write fifty pages about the bishop of digne but you couldn’t spare even one more page on this???”

(that’s not the only thing i want to yell at him about, but that’s neither here nor there.)

we don’t get a follow-up to this scene. the next time that grantaire appears, it is june fifth, and he is crashing joly and bossuet’s brunch date. from then on we’re in full pre-barricade mode.

and the other side to the coin: what on earth is grantaire doing? the other meta writers are pretty vocal about this side of it too.

we’ve got a few options here.

grantaire has already convinced the entire room to join the cause, and then decided to play a game of dominoes after his work is done (unlikely)

grantaire has decided actively to break his promise to try to convince the artists to join the cause, and has decided to faff about and play dominoes instead (unlikely)

grantaire has plum forgotten his promise to enjolras and is just doing what he always does at richefeu’s, which is playing dominoes with a casual acquaintance, no malice intended (likely)

grantaire is in the process of working his way up to a one-on-one conversation about revolution, which is better started with a game of dominoes than with trying to command the attention of the entire room (likely)

grantaire is doing what he always does at richefeu’s, and is trying to think of ways to bring up revolution and therefore fulfill his promise to enjolras, but is stymied for some reason (likely)

that’s really the issue with this scene ending so abruptly. there are multiple possibilities, all of them with different connotations. and with the end of the scene, we get enjolras’ implied exit. certainly we get the reader’s exit.

i personally like the last one. grantaire simply isn’t passionate about the revolutionary cause: he’s passionate about enjolras. but while passion for an individual man can be enough to galvanize people who already have something at stake or who already believe in the cause, it isn’t enough to galvanize people who currently don’t care much one way or another.

there are plenty of watsonian explanations for why grantaire is playing dominoes right now, and there are innumerable ways that fans can extend the scene. but the scene’s quick termination at this particular point has a specific doylist implication here, as far as i can tell.

it doesn’t actually matter why grantaire is playing dominoes right now.

because the fact is that in this particular moment (the moment which enjolras sees: the moment which matters), grantaire is not doing what he promised to do.

enjolras listened to grantaire, and allowed him the opportunity to participate, probably for the very first time in all the time he’s known the man.

and grantaire, for all intents and purposes, has squandered that opportunity.

this scene gets no follow-up because, for all intents and purposes, enjolras now has concrete proof that grantaire isn’t worth a second chance.

oh God it hurts.

Yes, I have the spleen, complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil!