Particolored-arts - It's A Work In Progress

Joly/Grantaire/Courfeyrac

They all decided Grantaire should go do the two year art studies around the world. They wrote each other, called each other, but it was never the same as when they were together. Once he had returned home things were different, Courf and Joly had grown closer obviously and it felt like he didn’t have a place anymore with them, Was this really the end?

-Vaarsuvius, how'd ye ever learn so much aboot how folks fall in love? Ye don't seem the type, really. -Only through empirical experience did I arrive at such knowledge. It took my mate and me many years to acknowledge our feelings for one other. Our wedding was the finest day of my long life.

I’ve been Compromised by the latest OOTS update so here, have some newlyweds.

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

Stranger: tell me a story

You: once upon a time, there was a little boy who was born in a prison

Stranger: mmmhhmm go on

You: he grew up an outcast, rejected by everyone around him

You: the people who raised him taught him about the law, and how it was very important to follow the law and never ever break it

You: so when he grew up, he decided that there were two kinds of people that other people didn't like: criminals, and policemen

Stranger: ooooh ooh

You: and he decided to be a policeman because he wanted to follow the law

You: one day a convict broke parole, and the policeman chased him across the country

Stranger: omg then what:o

You: the convict took a new name, and the policeman tried as hard as he could - he searched everywhere - but he could not find the convict

You: seventeen years later, a revolution was brewing

You: the policeman went undercover to see if he could spy on the revolutionaries, but he got caught

Stranger: :O

You: the leader of the revolutionaries was going to kill him, but then a man stepped up and offered to do it himself

You: it was the convict from seventeen years ago

Stranger: WHAT

You: the convict took him into an alley, and took out a knife

You: and he cut the policeman's bonds, and told him that he was free to go

You: the policeman couldn't believe it. a convict is a convict is a convict, a bad person, who can never change. but this convict had showed him kindness

Stranger: :OOO

You: the policeman went about his duty, and when the revolution had been successfully squashed, he ran into the convict again. the convict had an injured man with him

You: the policeman told him that he was going to take him to jail, but the convict pleaded a few hours' time, so he could get the injured man back to his family

You: and against every instinct, the policeman let him go

You: he could not believe what he had done. on the one hand, he had broken the law that he had sworn to uphold. on the other hand, he had helped a good man do a good deed.

Stranger: wooooah

You: he wanted to go back and arrest the convict. but again: on the one hand, if he did so, he would be upholding the law, and on the other hand, he would be arresting a good man.

You: his entire world had been turned upside down

You: he realized that if a convict could be a good person, then there had probably been hundreds of good people he had unknowingly put in jail. his whole life had been a lie.

Stranger: omg

You: so he did the only thing he could do

You: or at least, the only thing he thought possible

You: he committed suicide

Stranger: WHAT?

You: that's right. he wrote a letter to the prefect of police, pointing out various corruptions in the system, and he went to a bridge overlooking the most dangerous part of the river, and, placing his hat on the edge of the bridge, he jumped

Stranger: did you just randomly make this up?

Stranger: thats some george orwell shit

You: no, actually. it's victor hugo

Stranger: ...

You: les misérables.

Stranger: fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

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 three: “enjolras and his lieutenants” – or, oh gawd the secondhand embarrassment is awful.

part one | part two

prologue: a short interlude in which grantaire interacts with other people and there is minimal drama.

from “marius, while seeking a girl in a bonnet encounters a man in a cap” :

Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. Of course he did not see the one he sought. -- “But this is the place, all the same, where all lost women are found,” grumbled Grantaire in an aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home on foot, alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, stunned by the noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing creatures on their way home from the feast, which passed close to him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in the acrid scent of the walnut-trees, along the road, in order to refresh his head.

i need to stop calling grantaire “honey,” but somehow that is just the automatic response that pops into my head at these things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

look at this, though. grantaire’s second appearance in a scene (if barely described) is -- wait for it -- another one where enjolras doesn’t enter into the equation. in fact it’s one of courfeyrac’s attempts to cheer marius up.

R is being a bit of a pill here, in that he’s niggling at marius to find a new girl to moon over when clearly marius wants to Not Do That, but -- look at the wording. it’s an aside, and a short one at that. he’s not directing the comment directly at marius, who no doubt would be morbidly offended by it. he’s not being obtrusive or annoying, just making a small remark. and that’s all of the description hugo deigns to give us about it.

it’s a ball at sceaux -- sceaux being about 10 km south by southwest from the center of paris. there’s a little chateau there, a park, gardens, it’s very pretty. an event there would likely be one of several society events the likes of which courfeyrac, as a former de courfeyrac and therefore extremely bourgeois, probably gets invitations to on a regular basis.

only it’s not only courfeyrac who brings marius along, it’s also bossuet (who he first met; who is unluckily poor nine days out of ten) and grantaire (who we hadn’t seen marius interact with at all before; who is if not bad company then disreputable company).

i hate to keep hammering at the point, except that i don’t.

my garbage nerd son has good friends. and they enjoy his company enough that they don’t drag him along to parties complaining, he willingly goes with them from the get-go. it’s marius who acts like the old “hit the ball drag fred” golf joke.

grantaire isn’t a burden on his friends. he loves them.

... okay. now that a small cute thing is out of the way, on to the main event.

lots of screaming ahead, folks.

“That arranges everything,” said Courfeyrac.

“No.”

“What else is there?”

“A very important thing.”

“What is that?” asked Courfeyrac.

“The Barriere du Maine,” replied Enjolras.

Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he resumed: --

“At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with firmness. They meet at Richefeu’s. They are to be found there between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow.

so it looks like the barrière du maine is right up grantaire’s alley, from the very first mention of it. marble-workers ( “what fine marble!” ), painters, sculptors. these are people that grantaire probably knows very well.

but the rest of enjolras’ description is what, on the second read-through, made me thump my computer and say aloud, in probably too loud of a voice, “really, hugo??”

an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off. thinking of something else. pass their time playing dominoes. those ashes must be fanned into a glow.

does that sound ........... like anybody else we know, enjolras?

That Right Thar Sounds Like A Meta Fer Somethin’ If’n Ya Ask Me!

For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us.

RE -- REALLY? YOU WERE GOING TO ASK MARIUS??

IT’S EIGHTEEN THIRTY-TWO, ENJOLRAS. THE LAST TIME MARIUS CAME TO THE BACK ROOM OF THE MUSAIN WAS IN EIGHTEEN TWENTY-EIGHT WHEN COMBEFERRE HANDED HIS ASS TO HIM, ENJOLRAS. IT’S BEEN FOUR YEARS.

enjolras is sharp as a tack in terms of politics, in terms of persuasion, in terms of battle tactics. but the guy’s a little blunter in terms of interpersonal relationships. i love him. i do. i promise. he is also a nerd ( as exhibited by his wonderful off-the-cuff straight-faced pun earlier in this passage, “joly will go to dupuytren's clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school” ), and i love him for it.

but -- in keeping with other facets of his characterization ( “silence in the presence of jean-jacques! i admire that man. he denied his own children, yes, but he adopted the people” ) -- enjolras really doesn’t have much of a clue about what makes normal human people tick.

enjo is just as contradictory and human as grantaire, and this scene is one place we really see it.

the artists at the barrière du maine need their passion for revolution to be stoked. well. so does the one right in your backyard, enjolras.

we know from the prose intro that grantaire doesn’t believe. but has enjolras ever tried to convert him? or did he just hear grantaire going off on a tangent about the hopelessness of the world, and never even bother?

this might come back to bite him ...

I need some one for the Barriere du Maine. I have no one.”

“What about me?” said Grantaire. “Here am I.”

“You?”

“I.”

grantaire -- who it is implied never does anything like this -- has just volunteered for a mission.

notice here that enjolras tutoies grantaire in the original french -- he addresses him informally. this might be important later, especially because hugo being hugo, pronoun usage can be a major plot point.

“You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold in the name of principle!”

“Why not?”

BECAUSE YOU NEVER WANTED TO BEFORE.

why does he want to do it now? we’re never given an answer. all we’re given is an outsider’s view -- or enjolras’ view -- of the conversation. nothing internal on grantaire’s sudden wish to be useful. (though knowing hugo, and knowing me, that would just result in more screaming.)

“Are you good for anything?”

in the original french, the question is, “est-ce que tu peux être bon à quelque chose ?”

literally: can you be good for something?

this is a sarcastic, rhetorical question. enjolras isn’t actually looking for an answer.

“I have a vague ambition in that direction,” said Grantaire.

but grantaire answers it earnestly, as though enjolras were looking for an answer. he’s frank with enjolras: he has a vague ambition towards being good for something -- i.e., the revolution -- i.e., enjolras. he wants to be good for enjolras. (“good,” as in “useful” : he wants to be as pylades to him.)

given enjolras’ utter bewilderment just before this, this is probably the first time grantaire has voiced anything of the sort. this is, and i cannot stress it enough, an abnormal occurrence.

“You do not believe in everything.”

“I believe in you.”

WELL FUCK ME SIDEWAYS I GUESS !!!!!

enjolras tutoies grantaire, presumably out of that mild disdain mentioned from earlier chapters. “tu ne crois à rien.” -> you believe in nothing.

grantaire tutoies him back. “je crois à toi.” -> i believe in you.

note here, he says “je crois à toi,” not “je crois en toi.”

from l’académie française :

“Croire à quelqu’un signifie tenir pour certaine son existence, admettre son pouvoir : Il croit aux revenants. Il ne croit ni à Dieu ni à Diable.”

to hold someone’s existence for certain, to admit their power.

that is what he thinks of enjolras. and he uses tutoiement to do it.

if he had vouvoied enjolras (addressed him formally), i’m not gonna lie, i probably would have started shrieking, and not in a good way. but what it looks like here is grantaire addressing enjolras with the familiarity of a friend, when it’s just been made clear a handful of lines ago that they are not friends, they are just people who have friends in common.

(or if you want to get really pedantic and symbolic, i can draw attention to the fact that the french use tutoiement for God as well as their friends and family. probably for similar reasons, on a theological level, but i digress. point being that this implies grantaire believes in enjolras the exact same way that someone else would believe in a deity.)

look at this. look at this. grantaire is being utterly transparent about his feelings. he’s not diving off into an extended ramble, he’s not orating to all and sundry. he says four little words that mean everything, and he leaves it at that.

grantaire’s dialogue so far in this scene has been short, concise, one sentence at a time. sometimes even one word at a time. he’s really not trying to yank enjolras’ chain here. at least --

“Grantaire will you do me a service?”

“Anything. I'll black your boots.”

-- until this happens.

i have a suspicion that the joke, “i’ll black your boots,” with its possibly sexual undertones if you’ve got a dirty enough mind, is a hasty retreat from the earnestness of “anything.” grantaire has not yet understood that he is in love with enjolras. (that won’t come until literally his dying breath.) but he does now understand that whatever he feels for enjolras is very strong, and he’s a little afraid of the implication.

“Well, don’t meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe.”

“You are an ingrate, Enjolras.”

enjolras soundly refuses grantaire’s offer, tacking on a sentence implying that the only reason grantaire offered at all is because he’s drunk off his gourd. and grantaire replies -- immediately -- that enjolras is ungrateful for rejecting him.

this is a once in a lifetime offer. take it while it’s still on the table, buddy.

(oh, grantaire. the reverse also applies ...)

“You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You capable of it!”

“I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing the Place Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue d’Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vielles Tuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following the Chaussee du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu’s. I am capable of that.

i’ve mentioned before in part one that this mini monologue works to show us how familiar grantaire is with the city on foot. he can map out a route verbally on request. whether he’s been cogitating over it from the first mention enjolras made of richefeu’s, or whether he’s just speaking off-the-cuff in the moment, the point is he knows paris (or at least that section of paris) like the back of his hand.

My shoes are capable of that.”

i love you.

“Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu’s?”

“Not much. We only address each other as thou.”

grantaire tutoies the richefeu gang. that sounds pretty dang useful to me!

but also ...

... okay. time for a digression about translations, and translations of tutoiement and vouvoiement specifically.

anyone who’s heard me rant about this before (and i know some of y’all have) can skip to the next quoted section. i’m just flogging a dead horse at this point.

but ... hapgood. hapgood. you’re my favorite translator for les mis. but if you’re gonna use the thou/you archaic english in/formal dichotomy, to show the tu/vous french in/formal dichotomy, then you have to be internally consistent.

enjolras and grantaire are addressing each other as “tu” the entire time. not “vous.” therefore, the dialogue should go something like this:

thou dost believe in nothing. / i believe in thee.

grantaire, wilt thou do me a service? / anything. i’ll black thy boots.

well, do not meddle in our affairs. sleep thyself sober from thine absinthe. / thou art an ingrate, enjolras.

sound clunky and awkward? well, yeah, to our modern ears, because english dropped the in/formal dichotomy pretty suddenly in the 17th century, and the “thou” form was solidified as an archaic form of speech in samuel johnson’s a grammar of the english tongue.

modern english doesn’t have a cultural understanding of the in/formal second person pronoun connotations the same way that french does. that’s a difference that translators have to juggle, and some of them struggle with it. i get it. i’ve tried my hand at translating passages from les mis before, i’ve torn my hair out over it with the valjean & javert barricade scene, i get it. but ...

consistency is all i ask!

“What will you say to them?”

“I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles.”

“You?”

“I. But I don’t receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year Two by heart. ‘The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins.’

oh, honey.

he’s memorized so many other things. quoted ecclesiastes, quoted horace, pulled dates and figures out of his hat extemporaneously. and among all the myriad things he has memorized, he took the time to learn by heart the republican tracts that all of his friends espouse.

Do you take me for a brute?

i don’t think you want the answer to that :(

I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in hand.”

and i bet you can, at that, if worked into enough of a passion about it.

grantaire talks about what he’s passionate about. he talks about the suffering of the world, the repetition of history, the inextricable link between vice and virtue. he cares about that.

he cares about enjolras. and, if drunk enough, i would be willing to bet good money that given a sympathetic audience (sans the man himself), grantaire could orate for hours about the pure and perfect halo of enjolras’ golden hair, that symbol of his angelic nature upon the earth, that ferocious righteous cherubim of ezekiel.

but he doesn’t care about the revolution in and of itself. nobody has fanned those ashes into a glow. grantaire could quote as much as he liked about the rights of man, but what audience would agree with a speaker who doesn’t even believe what he himself is saying?

“Be serious,” said Enjolras.

“I am wild,” replied Grantaire.

and here’s the big quote. the one everyone trots out.

it’s a good quote. it’s ... it’s a damn good quote.

it’s even better when you look at the original french.

“sois sérieux.” “je suis farouche.”

from larousse dictionary :

“Se dit d’un animal sauvage qui fuit à l’approche de l’homme. Qui évite les contacts sociaux et dont l’abord est difficile. Qui exprime avec force, vigueur, la violence de quelqu’un ; âpre, véhément.”

said of a savage animal that flees at the approach of a human. someone who avoids social contact and whose social manner is difficult. someone who expresses violence forcefully and vigorously upon someone ; harsh or fierce, vehement.

to be farouche is not just to be wild. it is to be feral.

Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who has taken a resolution.

“Grantaire,” he said gravely, “I consent to try you. You shall go to the Barriere du Maine.”

enjolras has listened to grantaire. he has paid attention to the words that grantaire says, maybe even for the first time ever. he has considered their meaning.

and the result is that he agrees to take a chance on him.

this is monumental! enjolras has bent a little! grantaire argued his case and he won!

this is a victory!

but a small one. enjolras has given grantaire the chance to do something for his cause. it’s what grantaire does with the opportunity that matters the most.

Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat.

“Red,” said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras.

robespierre red. grantaire has ... a robespierre red waistcoat.

i don’t even know what to say to that. i’ve been trying to think, all day, to come up with a coherent response to the fact that grantaire owns a red robespierre waistcoat. but i got nothing. just inarticulate screaming.

Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast.

And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear: --

“Be easy.”

He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed.

oh god. ooooh god. this is fine.

i wonder what everyone else was thinking when they saw that. i know i would have bluescreened.

and we’ve got a little time skip here. a quarter hour after grantaire leaves (in his red robespierre waistcoat), the café musain is empty, and enjolras is reflecting on the revolution, and his friends’ good work, and on his friends’ excellent qualities. it’s a really endearing little section. enjolras isn’t just the metaphorical personification of revolution, he’s human, too. while he doesn’t have hobbies like grantaire does (his hobby is REVOLUTION), he displays the same fiercely devoted love for his friends.

All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort. This was well. This made him think of Grantaire.

aw, crap.

“Hold,” said he to himself, “the Barriere du Maine will not take me far out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu’s? Let us have a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on.”

oh no.

does anybody else hear the jaws theme in the background right now, or is it just me?

One o’clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras reached the Richefeu smoking-room.

He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, men, and smoke.

A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary.

google earth to the rescue. it would take about 35-40 minutes on foot, provided a lack of traffic jams, to walk from the musain to richefeu’s. 30 at a brisk pace.

so let’s call it 45 minutes total between grantaire’s departure and enjolras’ arrival.

given that it is one o’clock when enjolras arrives at richefeu’s, and it is twelve-fifteen when grantaire departs the musain, and it takes grantaire the same length of time to traverse the city that enjolras does --

(ooooh, math in les mis. hugo would be hissing like a cat confronted with water right now. TOO BAD, BUDDY.)

-- grantaire has been at richefeu’s for fifteen minutes tops when enjolras arrives to check on him.

Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Anne table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard: --

oh no. oh no. noooo. the build-up is terrible. it’s. aw, man. it’s a train wreck coming but you just can’t look away.

“Double-six.”

“Fours.”

“The pig! I have no more.”

“You are dead. A two.”

“Six.”

“Three.”

“One.”

“It’s my move.”

“Four points.”

“Not much.”

“It’s your turn.”

“I have made an enormous mistake.”

“You are doing well.”

“Fifteen.”

“Seven more.”

“That makes me twenty-two.” [Thoughtfully, “Twenty-two!”]

“You weren’t expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed.”

“A two again.”

“One.”

“One! Well, five.”

“I haven’t any.”

“It was your play, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“Blank.”

“What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two.”

“One.”

“Neither five nor one. That's bad for you.”

“Domino.”

“Plague take it!”

PLAGUE TAKE IT, INDEED!

i’ve seen other metas on tumblr about this, about how they want enjolras’ reaction to what he sees. what is enjolras thinking, upon seeing this? does he approach grantaire? does he scold him there, at richefeu’s? does he wait until later, when the company gathers again at the musain, to give him the dressing-down (no innuendoes implied) that he deserves? or does he never mention it at all?

i thoroughly agree with them. i want to resurrect ole vicky and shake him by the shoulders until his teeth rattle and ask him “is that it? how can that be it?? you could write fifty pages about the bishop of digne but you couldn’t spare even one more page on this???”

(that’s not the only thing i want to yell at him about, but that’s neither here nor there.)

we don’t get a follow-up to this scene. the next time that grantaire appears, it is june fifth, and he is crashing joly and bossuet’s brunch date. from then on we’re in full pre-barricade mode.

and the other side to the coin: what on earth is grantaire doing? the other meta writers are pretty vocal about this side of it too.

we’ve got a few options here.

grantaire has already convinced the entire room to join the cause, and then decided to play a game of dominoes after his work is done (unlikely)

grantaire has decided actively to break his promise to try to convince the artists to join the cause, and has decided to faff about and play dominoes instead (unlikely)

grantaire has plum forgotten his promise to enjolras and is just doing what he always does at richefeu’s, which is playing dominoes with a casual acquaintance, no malice intended (likely)

grantaire is in the process of working his way up to a one-on-one conversation about revolution, which is better started with a game of dominoes than with trying to command the attention of the entire room (likely)

grantaire is doing what he always does at richefeu’s, and is trying to think of ways to bring up revolution and therefore fulfill his promise to enjolras, but is stymied for some reason (likely)

that’s really the issue with this scene ending so abruptly. there are multiple possibilities, all of them with different connotations. and with the end of the scene, we get enjolras’ implied exit. certainly we get the reader’s exit.

i personally like the last one. grantaire simply isn’t passionate about the revolutionary cause: he’s passionate about enjolras. but while passion for an individual man can be enough to galvanize people who already have something at stake or who already believe in the cause, it isn’t enough to galvanize people who currently don’t care much one way or another.

there are plenty of watsonian explanations for why grantaire is playing dominoes right now, and there are innumerable ways that fans can extend the scene. but the scene’s quick termination at this particular point has a specific doylist implication here, as far as i can tell.

it doesn’t actually matter why grantaire is playing dominoes right now.

because the fact is that in this particular moment (the moment which enjolras sees: the moment which matters), grantaire is not doing what he promised to do.

enjolras listened to grantaire, and allowed him the opportunity to participate, probably for the very first time in all the time he’s known the man.

and grantaire, for all intents and purposes, has squandered that opportunity.

this scene gets no follow-up because, for all intents and purposes, enjolras now has concrete proof that grantaire isn’t worth a second chance.

oh God it hurts.

North Rose Window, Notre Dame

have a Flash Bastard as an apology I'm so RRY 

first doodle with my new tablet stylus, courtesy of @whosamawhatsit!

Modern AU JolyxGrantaire.

He wanted to stay in bed that day that’s all Grantaire wanted to do but, Joly made him get up and go to work. Honestly he didn’t expect to see his fiance at work that day especially when his fiance’s body was covered in blood and not moving. 

Joly: Please, Grantaire goddammit get up. Move! *He held onto Grantaire’s hand tightly running his hand threw hair.* I love you.

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 six: “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

one | two | three | four | five || read the whole series on ao3

and so we’ve come to the end.

basing our analysis off hapgood as always; and since it’s so short, we’re doing the whole chapter, found here.

At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trap-door, the last one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, Enjolras.

i’m going to try to distract myself for a second and delay the inevitable by pointing out an interesting translation. the phrase “in utter confusion” in hapgood’s translation, is originally “pêle-mêle” in french.

it’s pretty much the frenchified version of pell-mell. helter-skelter. it’s an informal term that, for me at least, makes me think of being a child, running down a hill and slipping about halfway, and then tumbling down to the end, bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

hugo used this term in the chapter prior, “foot to foot,” which can also be translated as “inch by inch,” in which the national guard and soldiers finally break into the corinthe itself. it’s a really jarring word, standing out in the middle of the slaughter, like a relic of happier times in the middle of an apocalypse.

it feels like maybe the word enjolras’ mind scrambles to use to describe what he sees. the battle before this was something he could understand; his friends were still alive; they still had hope. but this is beyond chaos. maybe pell-mell is the only way to describe it.

especially when the chapter just before that one, “the heroes,” is the one where all his friends whom he loved have perished before his eyes.

enjolras alone is bruised and battered and out of breath but still intact.

Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an empty space around him.

my ferocious golden son. here he is reminding me of the poem “invictus” by william ernest henley.

In the fell clutch of circumstance        I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance        My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears        Looms but the Horror of the shade,  And yet the menace of the years        Finds and shall find me unafraid.

he has only a stump of a pistol in his hand. no ammunition. no blade. nothing but the broken barrel of a carbine and his own two hands, and his dignity. yet these men somehow are still afraid of him.

with good reason. after all the brutality of the last two chapters alone, never mind everything that happened beforehand, enjolras is still standing, still unblemished by the fight. it seems like nothing on earth can break him.

(at least externally.)

A cry arose:

“He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down on the spot.”

“Shoot me,” said Enjolras.

And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he offered his breast.

“shoot me,” he says. and he throws away his last weapon, and folds his arms, and stands there waiting for the end.

he has broken, even if he doesn’t look like it. he knows -- he has to know -- that the events of june fifth and sixth will be etched in history the same way that the three glorious days in 1830 were, at best.

fire and smoke in the air, blood in the streets. young men die, and nothing much changes.

(it will change. it will. but oh, golden boy, that’s decades in the future, and the twentieth century will not be happy. i don’t know that any century on this flawed earth will ever be happy.)

(it’s been over 150 years since its publication, and this book is still needed.)

enjolras, the angel, has had his wings violently ripped from him, and now he has crashed to the earth. 

The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of war: “There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo.” A National Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: “It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower.”

apollo?

no.

enjolras is icarus.

Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and silently made ready their guns.

Then a sergeant shouted:

“Take aim!”

An officer intervened.

“Wait.”

And addressing Enjolras:

“Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?”

“No.”

“Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?”

“Yes.”

no blindfold. he faces his death with his eyes open.

i’m so sad. it’s a tired, gentle, proud sort of sad. but i’m so sad for my golden boy.

he is only twenty-six years old. i’m younger than him as i write this, but only by a year and a handful of months. and i’m sure that once i turn twenty-seven -- twenty-eight -- twenty nine, and so on every year for the rest of my life, i’ll just be sadder.

look at this. he has an entire life ahead of him, or he did. if he did survive the barricade now through some miracle, what would be left for him? all the rest of his friends have died. and should he fight in 1848, they will succeed, but the aftermath will be even messier -- and it’ll fall apart before his eyes.

i draw attention back to “a group which barely missed becoming historic,” or rather, the wording there.

before he has even begun to introduce us to these bright young men, hugo has told us that they are going to die, and die in obscurity.

the friends of the abc are not the main characters of les misérables. but their trajectory follows that of romeo and juliet, at least in terms of narrative construction.

here are these bright young souls. they are doomed to die, because the world around them is unjust and unkind. now: watch how they live, and watch how they die, and mourn, and learn.

Grantaire had waked up a few moments before.

Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair and leaning on the table.

He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of “dead drunk.” The hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, he had been left in possession of it.

oh no. oh God.

i’ve been trying to wrap myself in coherent pedantry, but ... i can’t. not anymore.

this whole time -- this entire friggin’ time -- grantaire has been seated at his small table by the open window. and someone, or multiple someones, during the construction of the barricade thought two things: that table is too small to use, and, let him sleep.

also, hugo pointedly using the term “dead drunk” is just a personal fuck you, to me, from across 150 years in the time-space continuum. yeah, i see you, buddy. and i am gonna knock your teeth out. just you wait.

He was still in the same posture, with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, surrounded by glasses, beer-jugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the grape-shot which had made its way through the window into the room where he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to the cannonade, now and then, by a snore.

NO. NOOO. NOOOOOOOO.

mabeuf’s awe-inspiring, terrible death. nothing. the first firefight in which bahorel died. nothing. the end of jean prouvaire’s rhyme. nothing. the flash and bang of éponine saving marius’ life and ending her own. nothing. the report of the rifle which fired over javert’s head as he walked away, bewildered at not having died when he so thoroughly expected to. nothing. the last bloody assault where the rest of them died, one after the other, barely a breath between them. nothing.

grantaire slept the sleep of rip van winkle.

He seemed to be waiting there for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking.

STOP THIS.

Many corpses were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death.

I DON’T WANT THIS.

Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the crumbling of all things was his lullaby.

GOD, NO, STOP.

The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood.

God, i can’t imagine what he’s thinking right now. looking around, seeing the utter destruction of this wine shop -- which he discovered, which he loved, he’s the one who first introduced his friends to the corinthe -- which was, this time only yesterday, empty except for the goings-on of matelote and gibelotte, and the cheerfulness of his friends.

all destroyed.

national guards, soldiers, twelve total in the company, wounded, bloodied, savage, armed.

and enjolras, unarmed, his arms folded across his chest, severe dignity on his beautiful face.

grantaire woke, he stood, he stretched out his arms, he rubbed his eyes, he stared at the wreckage before him, he yawned, and he knew that the rebels had lost.

A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity of realities.

STOP. NOOO.

I’M SO SAD.

WE HAVE GONE BEYOND MOM-FRIEND-SAD. WE ARE RAPIDLY REACHING ANGRY-SAD. YELLING-AT-THE-COMPUTER SAD.

( “you know, the titanic sinks at the end.” SHUT UP. SHUT UP!!! I’M HAVING EMOTIONS!!! )

Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: “Take aim!” when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them:

“Long live the Republic! I'm one of them.”

NOOOOOOOOOO. OH, MY DARLING BOY, NOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!

he is behind the same billiard table that enjolras is currently standing near, but i suppose on the opposite side of it. take that with all the symbolism you like. oh, man.

but -- look -- “i am one of them.”

zip back to “night begins to descend upon grantaire” for a hot second. during his blather while harassing matelote, grantaire says “comrades, we shall overthrow the government,” and despite his awful retort to courfeyrac’s attempt to get him to be quiet, he genuinely seems fired up. maybe he would have helped with the barricade. maybe if someone had woken him earlier, he could have helped. (or he could have died in the last assault like the rest of them.)

but it wasn’t until enjolras told him to go sleep off his drunkenness that grantaire even started to entertain the idea of sleeping rather than participating in the émeute. and then it was only when enjolras harshly batted him down the second time, that grantaire actually did fall asleep.

now. would a drunk-off-his-gourd grantaire have been useful on the barricade? no. definitely not. but even after a five hour binge, it was two o’clock when the barricade started to be built. the death of mabeuf didn’t come until after night had actually fallen, and that would have been a whole five hours after the barricade’s construction. before the first assault came, someone could have woken him.

and he might just have helped. because as we have seen over and over and over, from his very first appearance, grantaire may not believe in causes but he does believe in his friends. and he loves his friends. i have no difficulty in hypothesizing that he would have more than willingly died for his friends.

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

TRANSFIGURED. JUST. JAB ME IN THE EYE WITH A SHARPENED STICK. THAT WOULD HURT LESS.

from “the solution of some questions connected with the municipal police” :

(clio are you seriously gonna --? YES I AM, WATCH ME, AND ONCE AGAIN, IT WILL MAKE PERFECT SENSE.)

She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had become beautiful once more.

emphasis mine.

h o oo o ooo ly God.

his friends are dead, and his beacon of light and faith is about to die. the wretched misery that seized fantine when she thought cosette would die is the exact same wretched misery that seizes grantaire now.

back to “orestes fasting and pylades drunk.”

He repeated: “Long live the Republic!” crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.

“Finish both of us at one blow,” said he.

noooOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if cosette dies: fantine has nothing to live for.

if his friends die: grantaire has nothing to live for.

i’m so upset.

And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him:

“Do you permit it?”

Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.

This smile was not ended when the report resounded.

“et, se tournant vers enjolras avec douceur, il lui dit : -- permets-tu?”

douceur again. gentleness, softness, sweetness.

grantaire isn’t described as physically reaching out to enjolras, but in spirit that is exactly what he is doing. just as he did when volunteering for the barrière du maine, though he failed in that attempt. only this time, there is nothing left to do; there is nowhere for them to go. how can he fail in death?

“enjolras lui serra la main en souriant.”

serrer la main means to shake hands. but in every other context, serrer is to to squeeze, to clamp, to tighten. to hold tightly and not let go.

after the barrière du maine, enjolras did not ever again try reaching out to grantaire; he did not consider him worthy of a second chance. he stood at a height, and saw the abyss, and turned away.

now he has been brought crashing down to earth in the worst possible way. and this time, when grantaire reaches up for him, he takes his hand.

after over four years of approach and harsh rebuttal -- after over four years of he is high above me and what on earth is he doing here -- they have just begun to understand each other.

maybe they even have something in common. maybe, together, they can learn that opposite doesn’t mean enemy. maybe, together, they can learn that skepticism and idealism can balance each other out.

but the only way that they can come to this meeting, that they begin to understand their equality -- the only way that they can even become friends, let alone more than that -- is the circumstance in which they die.

and before enjolras can even finish his smile, they are dead.

their beginning is, and can only be, their ending.

Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.

Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

OH FUCK THIS AND FUCK YOU PERSONALLY.

^ that was my initial reaction to this bit, and i am sticking with it.

because even in death, even though not a second earlier they had just come to the inklings of an understanding, grantaire is below enjolras.

oh, sure, they’re both martyrs of the revolution. but enjolras is st sebastian, pierced with bullets and still radiant and desperately beautiful; grantaire is an unrealized st paul.

... HA. you know, i made that comparison off the top of my head, but at least regarding grantaire it does work on a literary level.

paul and peter died at nero’s hands. and lactantius writes that nero “crucified peter, and slew paul”.

they both die by firing squad, but enjolras is still elevated, still standing upright for cripes’ sake, and grantaire is literally at his feet.

and the creme de la creme à la edgar, the reason i started this whole damn series:

grantaire dies by a lightning bolt.

a sudden realization of love.

enjolras begins to smile, and grantaire begins to realize his love, and they die. and that is the inevitable conclusion: death.

and i SCREAM BLUE BLOODY MURDER.

A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows.

this is where enjo’s defenestration in lm 2012 comes from! neat!

by which i mean, NOT NEAT AT ALL.

Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured.

The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives.

... and curtain.

orestes’ revenge rebounds upon him; he dies, and pylades exits the play, accepted at last.