#5.3.8

Thenardier babbling on, trying to squeeze water from the stone that is Jean Valjean reminded me of this unrivaled scene from the best show ever made Leverage. But, like, in reverse and Thenardier has a particular talent of speaking a lot of words without saying a single thing. Must be a Hugo character. This is kind of an immovable object versus an unstoppable force situation. Thenardier is the consummate con man but, as you know, you can’t con an honest man, and Valjean is the consummate honest man.

The running theme of light and shadow shows up again, “Jean Valjean, we have just said, turned his back to the light…The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thenardier unmasked.” Interestingly, it isn’t just that Valjean is now in the shadows, there’s also consistently someone else who is in the light, and usually not who we’d expect. Previously, it was the police Valjean encountered in the sewers, standing in a more illuminated area, here it’s Thenardier, though it’s a livid light, and later on it’s implied to be Javert, if just by his opposition to Valjean. There’s perhaps something here about good people or people with good intentions being forced into the shadows while their opponent parades freely in the light but it’s a thread that doesn’t really bear out for the rest of the book.

Something interesting is Thenardier saying, “The sewer is treacherous and informs against you” only for Hugo to assert a page later, “The sewer was evidently in complicity with some mysterious band.” It makes me wonder how facetious Thenardier is being—a decent question at any point, really—and what he might actually be communicating, intentionally and unintentionally, with his rambling. It could be nothing, but I’m always wary of offhandedly dismissing pointed commentary from characters. Also, ironically, it’s Thenardier that is informing against Valjean, using him as a distraction or scapegoat to throw Javert off his scent. Maybe it’s not the sewers, Thenardier, maybe it’s you.

This entire trek through and subsequent emergence from the sewers feels so liminal, “it was the undecided and exquisite hours which says neither yes nor no.” It’s like people from all corners of the story wandering above and below the fog of the city, bumping into each other at odd intervals. It’s like a Midsummer’s Night Dream except not as whimsical or at all pleasant.

“The reader has doubtless guessed that Thenardier’s pursuer was none other than Javert.” Yes, because who else would immediately return to duty just to coincidentally come across intel on someone he had previously caught, only to come across that other guy he had been previously chasing and the kid that originally led him to catch Thenardier. This breaks even the illusion of coy subtlety on Hugo’s part but that’s fine.

Just like Javert readily gave up his identity to the barricade, Valjean just as abruptly identifies himself to Javert. Remember, Javert is supposedly “a spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, heard everything, and recollected everything,” but forgive me for having doubts since it was sheer luck he even made it off the barricade alive with this information. But congrats, you remembered the name of a man who had already given you his name before in relation to a case and was also one of the chiefs of the barricade.

A man appears suddenly before Valjean and asks for “half shares.” Valjean recognizes him as Thenardier, but Thenardier doesn’t recognize him. Thenardier believes that Valjean has killed Marius and offers to get him out of the sewers and to give him a rope for half of whatever Valjean stold from Marius’s pockets. He commends Valjean for not leaving Marius’s body in the quicksand because there it would have been found by the workmen and could have been traced back to him. 

Valjean gives Thenardier everything in his pockets, which isn’t much. Then Thenardier searches Marius’s body himself, and even tears off a little piece of Marius’s coat to, perhaps, identify him later.

"Thénardier lui-même ne pouvait ajouter de la noirceur à cette nuit."

Beautifully phrased as that is, Thenardier definitely makes my reading experience more bleak. The guy's evil, and moreover, a petty jerk.

His demeanor towards JVJ made me think of the other interactions we've seen since Thenardier quit the inn. He abuses, dismisses and bosses around his wife and daughters; he ignores his son (even when said son just saved him); but he gets along alright with his gang, and acts courteously towards a stranger who appears to be in his line of business. It's sort of a six-of-one-half-dozen-of-another thing, but I wonder whether this difference stems from chauvinism (men are his equals, women and childen inferiors), power differentials (his relatives can't walk away, his peers can), perceived threat or usefulness (harder to explain dismissing Gavroche right after the escape), or simple expedience (helps those who might benefit him, doesn't bother otherwise). All of the above?

Third mention of the nets at St. Cloud. I'm trying to remember from Harsin whether those were even real, or just a popular belief. As hinted by Eponine and stated by her father, the alluded idea is that the unfortunates who end up in the Seine in Paris (murder victims and suicides) get fished out at St. Cloud.

3.7

So hope springs eternal and then is snapped shut by a grate. Poor Valjean. I admit seeing the great etc sent my mind straight into POTC and the opening of bars with leverage. Which Valjean cannot do as there is nothing to leverage with. :-(

Also we have regaining strength bit very poignant and accurate. To gain a second strength when you think something is almost over.

And the profound depression and thinking only of Cosette. Oh poor Man and poor girl.

3.8

"It was providence appearing in horrible guise, and his good angel springing from the earth in the form of Thenardier."

This is a interesting chapter. Painful in the sense of some of what Thenadier is saying (the comments on the river are chilling.) but also in how providence works in ways we don't suspect. Help doesn't always come in nice little boxes with bows that are pretty, sometimes it comes in grimy unloved boxes or in this case an utterly criminal box who only think of money.

We can't pick and choose but we can take what we get.

3.9

And sometimes what we get is tied into more danger. Out of the frying pan into the fire and all that.

How do you put a bludgeon between your teeth? What does it look like anyhow? I admit I assumed it was club shaped and a bit big to put between your teeth. *goes to google and discovers Bludgeon the transformer... and pictures of actual bludgeons* Okay that makes a bit more sense it does form a weirdly fierce image but also an odd one. and then

Javert "laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert's look was terrible. Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert's grasp, like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx." and I wonder why there's slash with these two. I don't ship it at all as the imagery is a bit violent for me to see it work (that and slashing isn't my thing... friendshipping yes slashing no.), but "their faces almost touched" and the whole inert thing... I can see why some minds can go interpreting things there... and reading on ( I am somewhat live brick!clubbing) my mind is being creeped out at how much it is seeing the slashy undertones... why brain are you going there?

"His chin being contracted, thrust his lips upwards towards his nose, a sign of savage revery." How do you do this with a bludgeon in your mouth? It ruins the image entirely! *spend the next couple minutes in front of the webcam with a pen in her mouth attempting to recreate this and bursting into giggles instead.*

Okay on a serious note... you can see the beginning of Javert's breaking from reality... the murmuring of the question etc.

And then he helps Valjean and Marius...

3.10

People go to bed betimes in the Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily under their coverlet.

The revolution to those who don't want to care is a bugaboo. Nice description Hugo. What we don't want to know about or acknowledge is something we avoid like a child avoiding monsters.. being proverbial ostriches sticking their heads in the sand.

And now Marius is home for varying definitions of home... and not yet dead despite Javert's pronunciations.

3.11

...any other man than himself in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts connected with the rope which Thenardier had given him, and of the bars of the first cell that he should enter; but, let us impress it upon the reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against himself.

Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean Valjean.

Strangely Hugo I never thought Valjean would commit suicide so thank you for telling me that he wasn't planning on it.

And now Valjean is home expecting to say his final goodbyes and tell Cosette of Marius's location and turn himself in.

Javert, who is acting abnormal, leaves thus ruining that plan.

What would've happened to Cosette if the plan had gone through though? I wonder if Valjean thought of that.