#Lm 5.9.4

[gavroche-le-moineau]

Hugo til the very last: “Here a short digression becomes necessary.”

[cliozaur]

The previous chapter ended with a knock at Valjean’s door, and in this chapter, we discover it was Thénardier who played the role of deus ex machina, setting the next events in motion. This is the second instance where I do not entirely despise him (excluding the end of his story about slave-trading). He’s portrayed as both dangerous and good-for-nothing for the last time. He is adept at plotting, gathering additional information, and spying on people, but his efforts amount to nothing due to his inability to assess people accurately. So, it is very satisfying to witness his schemes come to naught and how his greed diminishes from 20,000 francs to 20 francs. Honestly, Marius, that would be more than enough for him!

I absolutely adore the last theatre metaphor in the Brick, and it is, of course, associated with crime! “This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which knavery plays in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into which roguery retreated. A tattered knave arrived at this dressing-room, deposited his thirty sous and selected, according to the part which he wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the stairs once more, the knave was a somebody.” The entire passage about the Changer is just beautiful! And this is the last goodbye to criminal world of Paris.

Coincidence (Hugo’s favourite tool) is another driving force in this chapter. It’s so amusing that Thénardier has pockets filled with pages containing information about Valjean from old newspapers (from 1823!). (He can certainly do his research. Well done!) But it makes me smile: this detail along with many others from previous chapters, suggests that it is actually Thénardier, not Javert, who has been obsessed with Valjean all along!

A funny detail from Thénardier’s rant about America: his story about the village consisting of just one huge house and its inhabitants protecting it from cannibals is in fact a terribly outdated description from Amerigo Vespucci. I would like to know why Hugo made this strange choice to present Thénardier’s image of America.

Poor Azelma.

Lastly, a comment on Marius: Evidently, he also conducted research (though not very thorough): it allowed him to learn about M. Madeleine and respect him for his achievements. However, he believes that Valjean robbed this respected man. So, in Marius’ eyes, Valjean was not only an ex-convict but also an unpunished robber and murderer. This does not justify Marius’ actions; it merely explains his attitude. Marius is Marius: as soon as he discovers the truth about Jean Valjean, he immediately begins to idolize him: “He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheard-of virtue, supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The convict was transfigured into Christ.” Cosette doesn’t grasp what is happening or what Marius is trying to convey to her, but she is content to visit “M. Jean,” whom Marius now calls her “father.” It implies that she remains unaware of what has transpired.

[dolphin1812]

I’ve never been so happy to see Thénardier, if only for a break from Valjean’s depression. I hate, though, that Marius still feels responsible for him. Similarly, a “short digression” was a joyful line to read, because I’d rather have a distracted Hugo right now. Unfortunately, the digression feels rather anti-Semitic, with how Hugo addresses this Jewish man as a “creature.”

(I do, though, like the line “If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris,” as it implies that Hugo’s knowledge in digressions is just common knowledge that some characters have the misfortune of not knowing. And it is! To a certain class. But sometimes, it’s just really specific trivia that he’s excited to share).

I won’t go into depth about what Thénardier shares, since we already know it and it’s mostly satisfying that Marius knows it now, too. The coat strip of all things being what solves the mystery is hilarious, though. 

It’s very satisfying to see Marius yell at Thénardier, but that satisfaction is marred by him giving him money to get rid of him. That money literally fueled the slave trade, a dark ending for a horrifying character.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.9.4 “Bottle of Ink that Only Manages to Whiten”

We’re deep into that long-standing compare-and-contrast between Valjean and Thenardier. They’re the two characters who are perfectly inscrutable in terms of class, and they’ve adapted to that liminal existence. Only, of course, they’re also complete opposites as people. Right now, we’re showcasing Marius’s total backwardness in which one of them he prefers to welcome into his home.

And then, there’s the Changer, who gave Thenardier his beat-up one-size-fits-no-one clothes, whose business is to “change a rascal into an honest man”--for a day. Valjean’s whole arc was about becoming an “honest man“--a complicated term, more likely to convey respectability (as it does here, albeit sarcastically) than literal truthfulness. Thenardier has become and “honest man” (sense one) for the day in order to get into Marius’s house (though that is absolutely not the reason Marius let him in), and Valjean made himself an “honest man” (sense two) in order to be kicked out of it.

The Changer feels like a metaphor but, I’m not confident I know what for. We go into a longish (casually antisemitic) digression about this guy and his business--why? It feels odd to introduce a new element of the underworld this late in the game, and so it feels significant. It’s not like there haven’t been no opportunities to bring him in sooner.

I get institutional vibes from the sizing of his clothes: it feels like the way institutions are built to contain everyone but actually suit nobody. And I certainly get even more of that Valjean-Thenardier contrast in the blatantness of how bad this outfit is: Valjean hid himself well (until he gave himself up), and Marius distrusts and reviles him; Thenardier hides himself badly (and is given up by his sheer incompetence), and Marius showers him in a small fortune.

...You know what, that absolutely tracks.

With Thenardier, Marius believes he holds all the cards and is in control, though he’s initially angry when he’s baffled by the disguise, and feels some humiliation that there’s any connection between his father and Thenardier. He likes being the one to rustle the disguise and shock the criminal with beneficence. He mistakes his mastery of the situation--and the intensity of his desire to discharge debt and free his father from humiliation (”debtor’s prison” is how he thinks of it)--for a feeling that nothing bad will come of giving Thenardier that money, which is horrifically false.

Whereas--Valjean married into Marius’s family without his knowledge, and Valjean had control of that confession conversation throughout, even when he acted like he didn’t. The conversation with Valjean humiliated Marius in a way that the conversation with Thenardier couldn’t. Up until the end of Thenardier’s revelations, Marius felt entitled to feel superior to both Valjean and Thenardier by virtue of class--but feeling superior to Thenardier involves a lot less distressing cognitive dissonance. Even when he believed himself superior to Valjean, I think he sensed some of the contractions in that position and hated it.

Not unlike Javert, with whom he really has a fair amount in common.

“Note, Monsieur le baron, that I am not talking here about deeds that are old, bygone, null and void, that can be cancelled out by statutory limitation in the eye of the law, and by repentance in the eye of God.”

Incredible: Thenardier’s sense of mercy-in-justice is vastly better than Marius’s, who did not for a moment think that Valjean’s criminal deeds could ever be old, bygone, null, or void.

Oh, this is fascinating though:

(Marius speaking) “In some sec­tion of the Pas-de-Calais, around 1822, there was a man who had had some old difficulty with justice, and who, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, had reformed and re-established himself.”

It’s not that Marius can’t imagine someone reforming--he even intensely admires Madeleine, though how heard as much as he did without hearing the rest baffles me. But something, maybe that humiliation I was talking about, maybe class prejudice (tbh probably both, they’re kinda the same thing), made him classify Valjean on the low-class criminal side, whereas the bourgeois and benevolent Madeleine having his little problem with justice feels to Marius like someone he can relate to. It’s a biting piece of observation that it was easier for Marius to imagine two separate people than it was to overlay his view of Valjean over his view of Madeleine.

The note pub­lished in the Moniteur was an official communication from the prefecture of police. Marius could not doubt.

lol. He’s still never met a cop he didn’t like.

Anyway, the chapter clears up everything, though I have absolutely no idea how either Marius or Thenardier got into possession of the facts they had and lacked possession of the facts they didn’t. Some parts of that may be me missing things, some parts of it are definitely that none of this quite makes sense. But still! Everything is cleared up, hurrah.

Except.

Thenardier goes away from this and becomes a slave trader.

Marius goes away from this still trusting cops and now with fresh reasons to call himself an “unnatural ingrate”--which he does, scathingly. He really hasn’t changed.

And he rambles about all of it to Cosette, but it doesn’t count, because he’s just rambling and she doesn’t understand a word of it.

It’s a strange tying together in how much still feels broken, even though in some sense we just fixed it all.

[gavroche-le-moineau]

“...if he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation—and without proof: 'Your wife is a bastard,' the only result would be to attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer.”

Hapgood's translation of "reins" as "loins" has continued to be funny for modern readers throughout the entire book.

As I discussed in a post much earlier in the brick, "les reins" are the kidneys, and refer to the corresponding area of the lower back which can also be true of the English word "loins" (Merriam Webster: 1a. the part of a human being or quadruped on each side of the spinal column between the hip bone and the false ribs) and this is the area the text is referring to. However, in both English and French, but more so English, the words have come to refer to the pelvic region in addition to the lumbar region, resulting in the hilarious mental image of Marius kicking Thénardier in the balls for calling Cosette a bastard.

[gavroche-le-moineau]

“With Marius’ money, Thénardier set up as a slave-dealer.” Wow what a final nail in the coffin of Thénardier Fucking Sucks

[cliozaur]

Marius each time (but especially in 5.9.4) when he encounters Thénardier.