#lm 3.8.10

[secretmellowblog]

I love how in a previous chapter Marius was like “I shouldn’t have stalked Ursule and her father, j shouldn’t have followed them home, that was a bad idea”

But the instant he sees him again he’s like “regret CANCELLED I’m stalking them again”

… Marius saw a cab for hire going past on the boulevard, empty. There was only one thing to do and that was to hop in this cab and follow the other one. This was safe, effective, and free of danger.

[infomercial voice] “want to reunite with the girl you’re obsessed with? Try Stalking her! It’s guaranteed Safe, Effective, and Free of Danger!”

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[dolphin1812]

This will likely be brief, as I found Marius a bit infuriating at the beginning of this chapter. I understand that he's happy to see Mlle Lanoire, but I hate how that manifests as anger at the Jondrettes for "monopolizing" her when he's not even there! He's just peering into their home! And she doesn't know him, nor he her!

I do think it's funny that he thinks M Leblanc is the main issue with their "relationship," though, when his odd behavior was his downfall last time (M Leblanc likely made the decision to move, of course, but probably on the assumption that Marius was a police spy, not out of targeted malice towards him).

I love this scene, though:

"Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him:—

“By the hour?”

Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destitute of buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom.

The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius, rubbing his forefinger gently with his thumb.

“What is it?” said Marius.

“Pay in advance,” said the coachman.

Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him.

“How much?” he demanded.

“Forty sous.”

“I will pay on my return.”

The driver’s only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whip up his horse."

Like with Valjean at the Thénardiers' inn, perceived class has a major impact on how people are treated - in this case, if Marius is accepted as a passenger. Without all of the expected clothing of his day (no cravat, no buttons, etc), he's judged as poor (which he is, but he also likely looks worse than usual because he was in such a hurry and may not have taken care of himself while missing Mlle Lanoire). Because of this assumption, he's expected to pay in advance, with the implication being that the driver suspects he can't pay at all. That Marius is confused about what this means suggests it hasn't happened to him before (or at least not often), which serves as a reminder of his bourgeois upbringing (when he would have had money to pay) and of his recent avoidance of carriages (mentioned in his issue with going to parties - he can only go when the weather permits because he can't afford a carriage and can't go with dusty shoes). It also highlights how class limits access to different amenities, as the issue isn't if Marius can't actually pay (he may have been able to get more money from his home afterward), but that the driver doesn't trust him because of his appearance.

And Panchaud returns us to Patron Minette at the end! It's not a good sign that Jondrette's involved with him, and Courfeyrac's recognition of Panchaud underscores Patron Minette's reach (and openness, too - the group must be confident if some of their members are recognizable to the public).

[cliozaur]

- There is a little change of focus, and instead of seeing the scene through Marius’ eyes, watching through the peephole, we now look at Marius and learn what is happening in his head. Well, actually, not much — at least, nothing sensible is happening there. He loses his composure when he sees Cosette, “a humming-bird in the midst of toads” — we have more animal imagery. Although I like that Cosette is likened to another little bird, I think it is unfair to call Éponine and Azelma “toads” (and for that matter “vile creatures in that monstrous lair”). It’s cruel, Marius! You were just about to help them. His head is almost empty, and he is not paying attention to Thénardier’s sinister scheming. Marius’ only dream is to resume stalking his “humming-bird” to her new house. What is even worse, when Marius finds out that he does not have enough money to chase the girl on a coach, he regrets that he had given money to Éponine: “He reflected bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five francs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl.” Oh, Marius, Marius, your good intentions proved to be so short-lived!

- I think that we can all agree that it is for everyone’s benefit that Marius couldn’t follow Cosette to her home. One of the reasons why it was good outcome is the fact that otherwise, he would not have witnessed “Jondrette” talking to a suspicious man (Hugo calls him one of those people “of suspicious monologues” – I wonder why). Luckily, Marius pulls himself together and recognizes that man (Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, one of Patron-Minette’s associates), “whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very dangerous nocturnal roamer.” Is there anyone in Paris, whom Courfeyrac doesn’t know! And Hugo provides some additional information about further legendary career of Panchaud in the Paris criminal world, and after reading it, I wish to know if Panchaud had a real-life prototype.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - Tariff of Licensed Cabs: Two Francs an Hour, LM 3.8.10 (Les Miserables 1925)

When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to cling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where she lived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously re-discovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat. As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point of opening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor was long, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had, no doubt, not yet regained his carriage; if, on turning round in the corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to escape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was he to do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriage might drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk and quitted his room. There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There was no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the boulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris. Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending the Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and there was no means of overtaking it; what! run after it? Impossible; and besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individual running at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father would recognize him.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 3.8.10 “Price Of Public Cabriolets: Two Francs An Hour”

The hall was long, the staircase narrow, Jondrette was a talker, Monsieur Leblanc had no doubt not yet stepped back up into his carriage; if he turned round in the hall, or on the stairs, or at the doorstop, and saw Marius in this house, obviously he would be alarmed and would find a way of escaping yet again and it would all be finished yet again.

....So what you’re saying is, Marius could have preempted the entire Gorbeau house sequence without calling upon the police if he had just let Valjean see him?

He doesn’t know yet at this point that Valjean is really in danger, he’s only been paying attention to Cosette, and the explicit plotting hasn’t happened in his hearing. But he knows this is all really dodgy, and he knows Valjean would vanish if he knew he were there.

And still all he cares about is getting back to stalking Cosette. The text says he would have give ten years of his life to hear his voice: there’s nothing constructive here, there’s no thinking ahead towards life and finding out whether a relationship is or isn’t feasible between them. It’s just: Cosette or Death, or, preferentially, both apparently.

MARIUS.

As he has no compassion for Valjean, he has even less for the Jondrettes. “He seemed to see a humming-bird among toads” is a reversal of Cosette being a toad among the Thenardiers when she was young. His momentary pity for Eponine is forgotten--the whole family is depraved and monstrous to him.

And his inability to follow Cosette home is the specific result of his having given Eponine his five francs. It feels like a fairy tale moment, a little slice of the gift of the magi.

That is to say, Providence.

Marius’s lacking the money means he hears the details of the Jondrettes’ plot, which means he sets his side of the whole Gorbeau plan in motion--flawed as his judgment there was. If he hadn’t taken pity on Eponine, he would have seen Cosette’s house, stared at it a while, and then walked home, and there’s a decent chance Valjean would have been killed tonight and no one would ever have known what became of him.

Then we get the odd detail that Courfeyrac’s knowledge of everyone in Paris stretches even to Patron-Minette associates, which is fascinating, and I’d love to see more of that in fic.

[the-wraxall-illustrations]

[dolphin1812]

"One might even, in that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served the unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in 1843, passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carved by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts at flight."

Is this foreshadowing