Emmie, 20s, she/her Latina + Scandinavian, Christian A Collection of Myriad Interests; mostly Newsies, Les Mis, LOTR, HTTYD, Star Wars, PHM, and every animal ever :)
Wow we have reached a new book already. The book title - Virtue in Adversity - and the chapter title - Marius in Penury - really says it all, huh?
Marius is broker than if Charles Schwab went bankrupt
Using his clothes and his watch for food was nothing. There was much worse he had to stomach.
And then we get a very list that has terrible things like these:
days without bread, nights without sleep, no candle in the evening, no fire in the hearth
And then the funniest juxtaposition:
an old hat that makes young girls laugh, a door found locked at night because the rent has not been paid
Yeah an old, laughable hat is as bad as no food or shelter, you are so right Marius. (I wonder where he would go when he was locked out?)
His pride really is up there with his physical needs though. Over half the list is about that:
the insolence of the doorman and the eating-house keeper, the sneering of neighbours, humiliations, dignity trampled underfoot, having to accept any kind of work, demoralization, bitterness, despondency.
At this point Marius, you should have just borrowed from Courfeyrac. Maybe your pride wouldn't have been trampled into the gutters near as bad.
...he experienced the unjust disgrace and agonizing shame of poverty. Awesome and terrible test from which the weak emerge degenerate, the strong emerge sublime. Crucible into which fate casts a man whenever it wants a villain or a demigod.
Guys did you know if you become poor, you will either become degenerate or sublime, a villain or a demigod? I know what I'm going to do this week.
He was still in mourning for his father when that revolution we have spoken of occurred within him. From then on he adhered to wearing only black. But his black clothes did not adhere to him.
HA. Sorry for laughing, Marius, it's not at you, it's at the fantastic word play.
Courfeyrac, for whom he had himself done a few good turns, gave him an old coat. For thirty sous Marius got it turned by some porter or other, which made it a new coat. But this coat was green. So Marius went out only after nightfall. This made his coat black. Wanting to be dressed always in mourning, he clothed himself in darkness.
HAHAHA okay now I'm absolutely laughing at Marius. Emo kids wish they could be this dedicated.
‘If you weren’t a fool, you’d know it was impossible to be both a baron and a lawyer.’
I mean. He did. Is there a secret meaning here. He literally just qualified, Gill.
Anyway, I wonder how the whole learning two languages thing is going.
The most recent time I saw this painting I immediately thought of Marius and his green coat. I hadn't even noticed this coat was green the previous times.
Except Marius is way too sad and pathetic to be this striking man.
during my dissertation proposal hearing one of my advisors said "I think you might have been too harsh in your criticism of this theory" and I genuinely, innocently asked "what makes you say that?" and he said "well on page 27 you used the phrase 'should be consigned wholesale to the dustbin of history'" and I was like oh. yeah I guess I did that. fair
Right off the bat, regarding this new character's appearance, though I'm doubtful, I'd be remiss not to at least mention the soldier's knapsack this guy has.
The whole Napoleon thing was over by 1814, and Georges wife died in 1815. We know he ended up tending flowers in Vernon, but who is to say he didn't do some depressed wandering after giving up his kid for a few months or something afterwards before settling down? Hence, soldier's knapsack(I'm reaching here, I don't know why Hugo wouldn't make a direct call-back to an earlier volume if this is the same guy, rather than introduce him as an entirely new character in volume 3. But you know. I gotta point it out just in case)
(also the knapsack is described as "new", so probably not even more so)
That aside, got to love that one of the first things I learn about this guy is that he has chest hair.
The landlord whispered a word in the kitchen lad’s ear and the youngster went running off in the direction of the town hall.
The traveller had seen nothing of all this.
The town hall our stranger had visited, huh?
Once again he enquired, ‘Will dinner be ready soon?’
‘Shortly,’ said the host.
The child returned. He brought back the piece of paper. The host unfolded it eagerly, like someone expecting a reply. He appeared to read with close attention, then nodded, and remained thoughtful for a moment. Eventually he took a step towards the traveller, who looked deep in somewhat troubled thought.
‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I can’t give you a room.’
Uh oh.
‘What! Are you afraid I won’t pay? Do you want me to pay in advance? I have money, I tell you.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘What then?’
‘You have money—’
‘Yes,’ said the man.
‘But I,’ said the host, ‘have no room.’
Oh that's bull you had a room two seconds ago. Did the note from the town hall contain a room reservation reminder?
The man answered calmly [props to him, if I was as tired as he described I'd wanna argue claim], ‘Put me in the stable.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘The horses take up all the space.’
‘Very well,’ replied the man, ‘a corner in the loft then. A bale of hay. We’ll see about it after dinner.’
‘I can’t serve you dinner.’
That's a human being, what do you mean you can't serve him dinner. Did the paper call dibs on that, too? This is stupid. Like even if whatever it said made you think housing him is a bad idea, not even a meal???
Well, we have a name. Jean Valjean. Which. It's kind of a silly name imo. But still. That is no reason to deny a man a meal (but of course we don't get to read what the note said)
Fishmonger don't you dare tattle on this guy.
Fishmonger more like fishmongrel.
(I don't know if I'm supposed to be rooting for this guy but he's being painted in an awfully pathetic and sad light. I think I'm supposed to sympathize with him and root for him. It's working, anyway.)
KIDS ARE EVEN STONING HIM?
He passed in front of the prison. At the door there was an iron chain hanging down, attached to a bell. He rang the bell.
A grille opened.
‘Turnkey,’ he said, respectfully removing his cap, ‘would you kindly let me in and give me a lodging for the night?’
A voice replied, ‘A prison’s not a hotel. Get yourself arrested. Then you’ll be let in.’
This is so sad what the heck
‘Bah! Impossible. There’s no fair today, and it’s not market day. Have you been to Labarre?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
The traveller replied with confusion, ‘I don’t know, he had no room for me.’
‘Have you been to what’s-his-name in Rue de Chaffaut?’
The stranger’s confusion increased. He stammered, ‘He had no room for me either.’
Wait, did he really take them at face value?? Believed their excuses?? That's even more sad. B( Myriel come save this man
‘I’ve knocked at every door.’
‘Well?’
‘I’ve been turned away everywhere.’
The ‘good lady’ touched the man’s arm and pointed out to him on the far side of the square a small, low-roofed house that stood beside the episcopal palace.
‘You’ve knocked at every door?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you knocked at that one?’
‘No.’
‘Knock there.’
I bet you thought this was going to be today's letters chapter, huh? I decided to read a Myriel chapter first, because I thought I would have less to say and maybe wouldn't even need to make a post about it, so I could read without worry while I did my morning routine.
As it turns out I have things to say so I had to come back and revisit it to make this. Oh well. Let's dig in.
Every man, even the best of men, has within him a thoughtless callousness reserved for animals.
When I read this I was like, Hugo, are you projecting?
And then a fly that had gotten into my house at some point decided to rouse itself as though it knew it needed to be an object lesson and went zipping by. Now, I have rather sensitive ears. The sound of flies grates on my nerves. They ignite within me the same sort of feeling one gets when they are already running late for something, have spilled their morning drink, and then their shirt snags on a door handle.
While I try to avoid killing insects if I can help it these days due to a culmination of some odd experiences or other I won't attempt to explain, I wasn't always that way. I still don't like creepy crawlies for the most part. I have my roommate, or whatever I ought to call him, get them out of the house if possible because I don't enjoy going near them.
I don't stop my cat from trying to kill them. She is actually still actively trying to get the fly. She stopped for a while when it hid, but it's been flying around again and she's back at it. She's really bad at catching bugs because her vision in one eye is not great and it kind of throws off her depth perception, I think, but you know, she gets her occasional victories. Maybe that's because it's more of a circle of life thing. It's not like I'm going to go out and stop every frog out there from eating insects. Where was I going with this?
Right. There are plenty of people out there who have a special compassion for animals in general, but that doesn't always extend in the same way towards bugs. And I'm not saying there aren't people out there who extend the same compassion to bugs, there certainly are, I just think it's not as common.
Now I don't think Hugo was probably thinking about bugs specifically when he wrote this, though he does include these examples-
All of a sudden he paused and gazed at something on the ground. It was a horrible large, black, hairy spider. His sister heard him say, ‘Poor creature! It’s not to blame!’
One day he sprained his ankle trying not to step on an ant.
-presumably to show just how far that compassion extends in Myriel's case, because I imagine at that time in history there was a lot less knowledge about the intelligence and feelings of animals, and so a lot less people cared. Heck, there are plenty of people today that think of animals as stupid beings that don't think or feel anything. We are still discovering all the time that tons of animals are far more intelligent than originally thought by most.
I feel like I lost my train of thought here enough that I no longer know how to wrap this thought up so.
I guess I'll just say...
you felt that you had before you one of those strong, proven, forgiving souls whose magnanimity is so great it cannot be other than gentle.
Was not all here, in fact – what more could anyone wish for? A little garden in which to stroll and boundless space for dreaming. At his feet, what a man may grow and pick, and above his head, what he may study and meditate on: a few flowers in the ground and all the stars in the firmament.
An allusion to Juvenal’s Satire III, lines 164–5: ‘Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat res angusta domi’ (‘It is not easy for those to rise whose straitened circumstances stand in the way of their merits’).
The chapter title specifically seems to be the "straitened circumstances" part. So Marius is in narrow straits, if the title is about him. Maybe regarding the absolute dunking on he received last chapter? That is, the wounded pride is limiting his ability to rise above and grow to his full potential right now...
Let's find out.
Marius was downcast. He had only just fashioned a faith for himself. Must he then reject it already? He assured himself he need not. He told himself he did not want to doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of himself. . . . However much he might have wanted to stay where he was and stand by the position he held, he was irresistibly compelled to keep going, to advance, to question, to think, to go further.
Well at least it didn't shut him down to it entirely.
He was in accord with neither his grandfather nor his friends, being seen as headstrong by the former and reactionary by the latter, and he realized he was doubly isolated, from old and young alike. He stopped going to the Café Musain.
Oof. Yeah. Well. I can't say I also probably wouldn't have stopped going for at least a while... Gotta recover from that one. I'd probably think they hate me and think I'm stupid. Hopefully they, you know, visit him and treat him in a friendly way so that idea (or at least the thought that they hate him) can be disproven.
Alright, Courfeyrac offering to lend him money is a nice sign. A reassurance, even if Marius rejects the offer. (Also, I guess financial difficulties must be what the title is about.)
‘I know a clothes-dealer who will take your frock-coat and a pair of trousers.’
‘Very well.’
‘You’ll then have only one pair of trousers, a waistcoat, a hat and a coat.’
‘And my boots.’
‘What! You won’t go barefoot? What luxury!’
‘It’ll be enough.’
HAHA Maybe I'm just not reading it right but Marius' response comes across so serious and dry. Like he can't tell that Courfeyrac is being kind of silly here. It's also reminding me of when Bossuet joked that Marius was living in luxury because he could afford the "rent" of living in a cab.
‘I know a watch-maker who’ll buy your watch.’
‘That’s good.’
‘No, it’s not good. What will you do after that?’
‘Whatever I have to. As long as it’s honest.’
‘Do you know English?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know German?’
‘No.’
‘Too bad.’
‘Why?’
‘Because one of my friends in the book trade is publishing some sort of encyclopaedia for which you might have been able to translate articles from English or German. It’s badly paid but it’s a living.’
‘I’ll learn English and German.’
‘And in the meantime?’
‘In the meantime I’ll live on my clothes and my watch.’
Marius is really living one minute at a time, huh. He would not survive without Courfeyrac. Mom friend Courfeyrac over here. This is them:
Also, casually, "I'll learn them"??? People were built different back then, dang.
The clothes-dealer was sent for. He bought the garments for twenty francs. They went to the watch-maker’s. He bought the watch for forty-five francs.
‘That’s not bad,’ Marius said to Courfeyrac on their way back to the hotel, ‘with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty.’
‘And the hotel bill?’ said Courfeyrac.
‘Oh, I was forgetting about that,’ said Marius.
This kid has a brain cell working like the bouncing DVD logo.
Man, Marius really refuses to accept anything from anyone money wise. Dude has 3 francs left and returns the money his aunt sent him. He could always borrow and then return once he's got the money, but nope. No borrowing from his aunt, no borrowing from his friend, no borrowing, period.
Marius moved out of the Hôtel de la Porte St-Jacques, not wanting to run into debt there.
And moved where????????
Where is he going to live with three francs
Granted I don't really know what three francs is the equivalent of, but obviously not much.
Courfeyrac better check on this guy regularly or he'll find him dead on the streets, good grief.
Sometimes you'll see a character that's not canonically aromantic but when you see them shipped with another character you think "ok this feels like aro erasure"
Imagine you invite your roommate to hang out with you and your lefty anarchist friends and everyone’s having a great time until roommate starts talking how cool Bill Clinton was and how awesome the American military industrial complex is and how great it is that the American military is present in every country and now you’re the guy who brought the neoliberal to the anarchist meeting and also this guy has never once paid you rent.
Similar thing happened to my good pal Courfeyrac Les Misérables
NOOO LEAVE HIM ALONE HE'S BRAND NEW IT'S HIS FIRST ATTEMPT AT CHOOSING HIS OWN POLITICAL OPINIONS ALL HE KNOWS IS HIS GRANDFATHER'S BOURGEOIS IDEALS AND CONDEMNATIONS AND THE PAST POLITICS OF THE FATHER WHO LOVED HIM WHO HE NEVER COULD MEET. IT'S A FAITH TO HIM A FAITH THAT BRINGS HIM CLOSER TO HIS FATHER, HE WAS THROWN INTO A WASP NEST OF WITS HE IS DOUBLY ISOLATED FROM THE OLD AND YOUNG WE MAY PLANT THE SEED BUT ALL HE MAY KNOW IS THE HOLE UNTIL IT GERMS— oh shit he isn't coming back
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