Brick Club 5.3.10, 5.3.11, 5.3.12
Javert, for someone who hasn’t even bothered to check a pulse, is very certain that Marius is dead or on death’s door, doubling down on this insistence very insensitively, “He has been to the barricade, and here he is…there will be a funeral here to-morrow.” Again, I will remind you, “a spy of the first quality, who had observed everything.” Are we sure?
Marius has made it over eight hours with his injuries all while being dragged roughly through the sewers. He’s definitely in danger of a fatal infection or twenty, but his wounds hardly seem deadly.
Awkward Carriage Ride 2: Electric Boogaloo. I honestly have no words for whatever face Javert is making. It’s his self-reflection mode kicking in.
Some gentle foreshadowing, “Suicide, that mysterious assault upon the unknown, which may contain, in a certain measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean Valjean.” Javert has not shown himself to be particularly religious in the book so far, certainly not on the level of Valjean, which is pretty sharply contrasted to his motivations in the musical. I don’t want to get too deep into breaking down his motivations and decisions here because there’s a good long chapter on that, but there are some questions raised here. How concerned is Javert for his ‘immortal soul?’ Does his need for repentance or absolution go so far that he believes he needs to sacrifice his soul to attain it? Or is he not thinking of more spiritual things at all and his main drive is purely an inability to reconcile conflicting social and moral views? In which case the question of his soul may not factor in at all. I’m not going to speculate because I’m sure it will all come up in 5.4.1, but this is a pretty pointed remark from Hugo.
Everyone is having deep thoughts and reflections and the fiacre driver is just like “my new velvet upholstery…”
I don’t know enough about medical care to say if anything is wrong here, but I bet something is, because I’ve been listening to Sawbones nonstop while reading this and if I’ve learned anything it’s that practicing internal medicine was functionally useless until the 1940s. Marius has a broken clavicule, which Wilbour and FMA tell me is the shoulder-blade, but Wraxall, Hapgood, Rose, Denny, and my knowledge of the word ‘clavicle’ insist is the collar-bone. I know the musical always likes to give Marius a crutch post-barricade and it’s a good storytelling shortcut, but maybe a sling and one of those around the head bandages would be more accurate. Not as good a prop to act with though so I understand.
If Marius had truly been bleeding for eight hours to the point where they’re packing his wounds to stop it just now, he’s certainly dead several times over. Also, no one has said a thing about cleaning anything and I’m shuddering.
Gillenormand takes this moment to make everything about him. Certainly, Marius must have gone to get himself killed to spite you personally out of anger, not because you offered so little support and love that he felt there was no possible future in which he could be happy. “He knew very well that he only had to come back,” why couldn’t he just swallow his pride, beliefs, and dignity and be exactly who you wanted him to be? Then he’d still be alive! My bullshit meter is overworked. “I spoke to him in my gruff voice, I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well it was for fun…you can’t defend yourself against these brats.” I’m seething. Did he know though? Can we please keep Marius and Cosette and their presumed children away from this man? Can we stop returning to him like he’s a touchstone to this story or to any character? Who is supposed to be depicted in this last illustration?
