grantaire is in love with enjolras and enjolras is just wondering what this gremlin man is doing hanging around the friends of the abc so dang much and this upsets me greatly but not because i want them to kiss: an essay.
part five: “night begins to descend upon grantaire” – or, this is the part where i start the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
part one | part two | part three | part four
the relevant section is very short. extremely short. upsettingly short.
but that doesn’t matter much, because as hugo tends to do, he makes his words count. every single thing matters.
and i have lots of screaming to do.
this chapter (hapgood translation found here) begins where the last one ends, with the rabble flinging itself into rue de la chanvrerie and building the barricade. for the revolutionaries, the world is about to be set on its correct axis; for everyone else, the world is turning upside down.
take a moment to reflect on mother hucheloup.
i’ve mentioned, with some analysis of fantine, that she is born of the mess and chaos post-‘93, and that she grows up during the napoleonic wars, and she sees the bourbon restoration; and that should she survive to 1832, she would be understandably hesitant about yet another set of barricades.
mother hucheloup is a widow. probably old enough to be these young men’s grandmother. she hasn’t just seen the napoleonic wars, she’s seen everything, and she was old enough to understand it as she saw it.
to her, young men building barricades means fire and smoke in the air, and blood in the streets. to her, young men building barricades means the world turns and people die and and nothing very much changes.
only here it is again, and this time right at her doorstep. literally.
Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story.
Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she cried in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her throat.
“The end of the world has come,” she muttered.
Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup’s fat, red, wrinkled neck, and said to Grantaire: “My dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman’s neck as an infinitely delicate thing.”
But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized her round her waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window.
one of these young fellows kisses her neck, which seems not only affectionate but familiar; joly’s probably done this before, considering he and bossuet appear to be regulars at the corinthe. mother hucheloup is frightened, and joly is trying to console her a little. but he is one of the revolutionaries; he’s one of the ones bringing this hell to her doorstep.
and another of these young fellows has a similar look on the whole thing as she does, except ... he is not just three sheets to the wind, he’s a whole damn laundromat caught in a tornado.
which does not help in the slightest.
especially since he has now grabbed matelote -- poor, sweet matelote, who was just helping with the barricade -- and decided to pour out another drunken blather, only this time directed at her.
“Matelote is homely!” he cried: “Matelote is of a dream of ugliness! Matelote is a chimaera. This is the secret of her birth: a Gothic Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has chromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian’s mistress, and she is a good girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains a hero.
........ you absolute goblin. you trash man. stop harassing her. if nothing else, at least let go of her.
the term “chimaera” in french can be a reference to the greek monster, the fire-breathing creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s head, and a serpent for a tail. but it can also mean something that you want but that is impossible to attain.
the term “gargoyle” is also ambiguous. technically, gargoyle is the blanket term for any grotesque carved on a building with a waterspout. and what is a grotesque?
a grotesque -- also called a chimera, would you look at that -- is any fantastical or mythical creature used for decorative purposes in architecture.
so the kings of notre dame cathedral, technically, are grotesques. nymphs, dryads, and caryatids carved upon buildings are grotesques. should a beautiful, severe, chaste carved marble cherubim be etched upon a building, he too would be a grotesque.
matelote is ugly; she is a dream of ugliness; she is desired but unreachable; she is the creation of an artist, a beloved but terrible fantastic creature, and love itself; she is like titian’s mistress with her brilliantly colored red hair.
she’s a good girl. she will fight well.
here’s the problem: grantaire isn’t really insulting her, i don’t think. but -- he grabbed her around the waist, and he’s emitting long loud peals of laughter, and he’s drunk off his gourd, and he’s standing in the open window.
and while i can dissect his meaning from a comfortable chair, and take several minutes to perform that dissection, matelote isn’t in that position. he’s just grabbed her and started talking. and she isn’t classically trained in art and architecture and mythology; she doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. all she knows is that he started out with “matelote is ugly!”
so on the one hand, i feel for him. he’s emotionally compromised. but on the other hand, and this is the bigass fiddler crab hand, i want to slap him and tell him to let go of her immediately.
As for Mother Hucheloup, she’s an old warrior. Look at her moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the banlieue.
stoooooooop.
Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid; however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me.
“we”!
“we”??
wait !! no !! stop !! stop the fucking narrative !!!! somebody do a record-scratch freeze frame here !!!!
pretend emperor kuzco has just pulled out a big red marker and circled grantaire’s face with bright red ink.
that’s me right now.
WHAT IS THIS “WE,” GRANTAIRE????
he doesn’t use “on,” the impersonal third person pronoun which can be used as a royal we. he uses “nous.” for the first time in over sixteen pages of blather and moroseness and snark, grantaire has aligned himself specifically with the revolution. as truly as science exists, they shall overthrow the government, and grantaire will be right there with them.
not that it matters to him, though. ‘course not.
Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow. Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the result is that I have never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild’s fortune! How much good he would do!
gaaaaaaaaah. i ... there’s not much to say here that i haven’t already said. BUT STILL. i’m so upset.
Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss of a lover.”
oh God, i’m cringing. this is so bad. please, honey, slap him. do a fantine and claw his face bloody. he needs to be snapped out of it.
“Hold your tongue, you cask!” said Courfeyrac.
Grantaire retorted: --
“I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!”
[52] Municipal officer of Toulouse.
-- and courfeyrac tries to snap him out of it! good man! but grantaire is not to be deterred. his bad mood is too big to be punctured so easily.
this is a direct parallel to the scene at the musain. bossuet reached out a hand to gesture for grantaire to calm down, and that only worked R up into a worse temper. courfeyrac tells him to hold his tongue, and he responds with a brash, harsh pronouncement.
this is how it goes in the original french:
tais-toi, futaille ! / je suis capitoul et maître ès jeux floraux !
shut up, wine barrel! / i am capitoul and master in the floral games!
okay. okay. this .... oh God. alright.
the specific reference to the capitouls, the magistrates in toulouse, is a big ole middle finger to courfeyrac and the rest of the barricade, first of all. because the revolution of 1789 apparently came down hard on those guys.
second of all. and this is worse, by far.
the floral games were poetry contests held in toulouse, barcelona, basque country, and a few other places. initially the contests in toulouse were held to celebrate the occitan language, to preserve the local cultural heritage of the occitan troubadours. among the winners over the years is one pierre de ronsard, one of the seminal poets of the sixteenth century.
pierre de ronsard’s final years were punctuated with the deaths of most of his closest friends.
Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with Cromwell.
drags hands across face.
of course he would have died with leonidas. of course he would have besieged drogheda with cromwell. of fucking course !!!
but that’s not the only thing to note here. the setting of this is something that hugo isn’t dwelling on, for all that he’ll go into rhapsodies over a convent or a sewer. but the staging is particularly pretty, and i think it matters.
it is about two o’clock. maybe two-thirty. the sky is pitch black; it’s still drizzling a bit, if not outright raining.
grantaire is at the open window on the first floor (to americans, the second floor) of the wine shop. hugo’s forgotten matelote at this point; she doesn’t enter into the rest of the chapter. so let’s say that when courfeyrac told grantaire to hold his tongue, grantaire released the poor girl and she could go back to barricade construction.
enjolras is standing at the peak of the barricade. they are some distance away from each other; but as hugo mentioned in the previous chapter, the whole street is only as wide as a gunshot.
(after i die, i’m gonna ask st. peter, “hey, where is victor hugo?” and he is going to point me in that direction and then i am going to use my spectral fist to smack ole victor in his spectral jaw. and i am going to say, “that’s for saying that the rue de la chanvrerie is as wide as a gunshot, you horrible person.” and he’s going to say, “really? that’s all?” and i am going to say “absolutely not but that’s what i’m starting with.”)
specifically, hugo says the street is as wide as “une portée de carabine.” a carbine is a long firearm, but shorter than a musket or a rifle, and it can be used to shoot either long-arm or short-arm ammunition. so, let’s say the carbine he’s speaking of is shooting pistol ammunition, for the sake of simplicity.
the street is only about as long as it takes to walk from the front door of a house to the edge of a driveway, and enjolras is at the halfway point.
so, as it were, they can see the whites of each other’s eyes.
it’s pitch black, it’s drizzling rain, they are equal to each other in elevation from the ground, they can see each others’ faces in the torchlight.
does this remind anyone else of cosette and marius singing to each other from opposite sides of the stage during “one day more,” or is it just me?
“Grantaire,” he shouted, “go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. Don’t disgrace the barricade!”
This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober.
NO!!!! NO!!!!!!!! DON’T DO THIS TO ME!!!!!!!!!
bossuet tries to calm grantaire down with a gesture -- courfeyrac tries to calm grantaire down with an affectionate “shut up!” -- it does not work.
bossuet tries to calm grantaire down with a kind but brusque command -- enjolras yells for grantaire to go elsewhere and sleep off his drunkenness -- and it works.
bossuet’s calming of grantaire resulted in grantaire turning mellow, humming, quiet and unobtrusive. enjolras’ calming of grantaire -- unintentional, as he seems fairly antagonistic at the moment -- produces a similar and yet completely dissimilar effect.
He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him: --
“Let me sleep here.”
“indescribable gentleness”.
grantaire has become quiet again. he is not mellow; to be mellow implies ease, calm, docility. grantaire is not at ease here. he is not calm. but he has become gentle, and the term for “gentleness” in french is “douceur,” which can also be translated as “softness,” and is transliterated as “sweetness.”
he speaks to enjolras with the soft, sweet gentleness of someone desperately in love.
and he makes no more mention of revolution. instead he mirrors back enjolras’ command and turns it into a request.
he is happy to sleep off his drunkenness as enjolras desires. he just wants to be close to enjolras as he does so.
that gross sobbing that you hear in the background? that’s me.
“Go and sleep somewhere else,” cried Enjolras.
But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, replied: --
“Let me sleep here, -- until I die.”
ST O P THSI SSSSS
enjolras is so completely unaware of what has happened to grantaire. after the barrière du maine, i think it’s not only likely but probable that enjolras has decided to actively pay as little attention to grantaire as possible. i love my ferocious golden son. but once people transgress in his eyes, he writes them off ruthlessly the same way that javert does to criminals. and once he does so, he doesn’t consider them worth the effort of trying to bring them back into the fold.
grantaire wants to be near to enjolras. enjolras is just wondering what the hell he’s still doing here. and in fact --
Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes: --
“Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.”
N OO O OO O. GOD. NO!!! IT HURTS!!!!
-- this right here is why i cannot, i will not ship e/R as reciprocal. i’m so sorry. if you’ve come along this ride with me to dissect this ship and scream about its tragedy, that’s fine and dandy. but this is not a romeo and juliet tragedy where they are meant to be together, despite the fact that both pairs die too soon, and both pairs die together.
this is the tragedy of someone in the abyss in love with someone in the clouds, reaching up, stumbling and falling in the attempt. this is the tragedy of the clouds dissolving under the other person’s feet, so he crashes to the earth, bereft of everything he knew.
and this is the tragedy of that person in the abyss reaching up, and the person of the clouds finally reaching down, and before they can even begin to understand each other as equals, they die.
i cannot stress it enough. from the moment we first see them in 1828 until the moment just before his death in 1832, enjolras expresses no desire to understand grantaire. even during the barrière du maine sequence, when he heard and listened for the first time, he still never tried to understand why grantaire had suddenly expressed a desire to help.
and with this one horrible, damning sentence, enjolras tells us soundly that not only does he find grantaire incomprehensible, he doesn’t think him worth the effort of trying to comprehend.
these men are opposites. contrary to hugo’s introduction of them, they do need each other, enjolras just as much as grantaire. those ashes must be fanned into a glow. this is very important.
but enjolras doesn’t even try.
Grantaire replied in a grave tone: --
“You will see.”
AND YOU WILL!! YOU WILL!!!!! BUT ENJOLRAS DOESN’T BELIEVE HIM!!!!!!
enjolras, the believer, does not believe anything of grantaire.
He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an instant later he had fallen asleep.
oh Jesus Christ. why is that. that phrasing. “the second period of inebriety, into which enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him”. the .... the fuckening ..... sexual connotation .........
i can’t handle this.
the chapter ends here. the next mention of grantaire will be during “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”
the other thing? the other awful thing? the worst thing, in fact?
this sleep is that stygian sleep, that sleep of the dead.
the next time grantaire wakes, everyone on this barricade will be dead except for enjolras.
courfeyrac, who took him to the ball at sceaux with marius and bossuet. dead.
bossuet, who calmed him down from his unhappy rants and expressed concern at his well-being. dead.
joly, who drank and teased and punned with him. dead.
bahorel, who strolled along the city with him and gave fashion and relationship advice. dead, and the first to die, at that.
jehan prouvaire, who knew just as much of the classics as he does. dead.
combeferre, who had just as much scathing wit and just as comprehensive an encyclopedic memory. dead.
feuilly, who was another fellow artist, if not by trade then by spirit. dead.
the only person still alive will be enjolras, whom he loves. enjolras, who stands before the firing squad, about to join the rest of them.
and we the readers, and enjolras as well, will be able to see just how much grantaire is capable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.