From the Rue Plumet to the Quartier Saint-Denis — Les Misérables

The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie had produced on him the effect of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness offered him the key. He thrust aside the bar which had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said: I will go. Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed in his brain, incapable of accepting anything of fate after those two months of youth and love, he had but one desire remaining, to make a speedy end of all. He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed, as he had Javert's pistols with him. The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse vanished from his sight in the street.

He came out by the boulevard, crossed the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champs-Elysees, and reached the Rue de Rivoli. There the shops were open, the gas was burning, women were making purchases, people were eating ices and nibbling small cakes. He entered the Rue Saint-Honore. There the shops were closed, merchants chatted in front of half-open doors, the lanterns were lighted, the windows as usual. There was cavalry on the Place du Palais-Royal. As he left that palace behind, there were fewer lighted windows, no one chatting on the thresholds, the street grew sombre, and the crowd increased. No one could be seen to speak, and yet there arose a dull, deep murmur. Near a fountain, motionless gloomy groups stood like stones in running water. At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires the crowd no longer walked. It formed a resisting, almost impenetrable block. There were hardly any black coats now, but smock frocks, blouses, caps, cadaverous heads. Beyond that dense portion, not a single window held a candle. The lanterns resembled large red stars hanging to ropes, and shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider. Those streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns, moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and the army began.

Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been summoned, he must go. He traversed the throng, passed the bivouac, shunned the patrols, avoided the sentinels, and directed his course towards the Halles. After the zone of the crowd and the limits of the troops, he found himself in something startling. There was no longer a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light. Solitude, silence, night, a chill which seized hold upon one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar. Some one passed close to him at a run and vanished. He could not have told whether it was a man or a woman. He came in contact with an obstacle: an overturned wagon, pools, scattered paving-stones. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. He climbed over it. A little beyond, something white took on a form. It was two white horses, the horses of the omnibus harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying all day and had finally halted there, with the weary patience of brutes who no more understand the actions of men than man understands the actions of Providence. As he was approaching another street, a shot coming no one knows whence whistled close by him, and the bullet pierced a brass shaving-dish above a hairdresser's shop. This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered nothing more. The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward.