Chapter Three: The Knight of the Sun
Enjolras had always been a chemist's assistant.
He had wanted to, expected to, known he would have a job from the beginning, from the day he came to Paris. His uncle was an apothecary who did experiments in the rooms upstairs and irritated the family, and felt obligated to enlighten and instruct his young nephew on the rare occasions he visited. It was something Enjolras at least knew fairly well. It seemed common sense to do something he understood enough to do correctly.
No, said Enjolras one night, drawing circles on his clean, crisp, unmarked essay paper. No, it would be better to learn a new trade, to have many talents. I should work in a book store where I might find every new book as it is published and remember it, buy it, learn from it. I should work in a beggars' hospital, to learn how to heal a man and to aid my people. I should take instruction from a lawyer and better learn to argue for my people, to help them.
But somehow he never did. He continued to work with a chemist, feeling peculiarly content among the bottles and jars, quite used to the smell and not minding it at all.
Every now and then, to his irritation, Combeferre would take his hands and frown, wince, shake his head, look sad. Enjolras had poisoned his hands. They were always cold and the fingers were stiff and scarred, even slightly discoloured. He tired easily when writing, and his handwriting was not always clear enough to read. Sometimes he had to ask Combeferre to write out his essays for him legibly once he'd drafted them on paper, although it insulted his pride to a great degree and he had coldly requested Combeferre never tell anyone about it. Combeferre never seemed to mind, but he still looked pointedly sad in that exasperating way he had and went to work, coming back with the finished writings later on and smiling at Enjolras' quiet approval.
There was, however, one thing Enjolras which drew perfectly, and that was a circle, or a spiral. He was fascinated by the concept of a circle, of something that went on and on around itself forever, without ending; and equally so by the spiral, which went on and on downwards until it was too small to see going round. They were something he could not stop thinking about. They both seemed like metaphors, and for a long time he had always wondered where they came from. Had some scholar made them up, invented them, at the beginning of time, or were they copied out of nature? Were they God's or Man's? Were they the earth's or the sky's?
Once he began to think about it, he couldn't leave it alone. He drew them on his papers, on the inside covers of his books, on his walls--it would cost him a fortune in whitewash if his landlord ever found out, but he had always been firmly of the opinion that when he left his lodgings it would be because he had been thrown out, and therefore his landlord would not be calling him back--he drew them on the letters he used to send home, and on the slips of paper he used to mark chemicals and poisons and antidotes at the chemist's shop.
There. It all came back to the chemist's, in the end. Everything he thought about at some point spiralled back there, where it was dark and peculiar and silent, and reminded him of his uncle, who had died some years ago. The smell made him remember his aunt, who was small, a grey-brown colour all over, and sadly quiet, who smelled of his uncle's chemicals and seemed ashamed of it. The inside of the shop was his uncle's house, and he was himself, not a little boy fumbling with bottles any longer, but a tall, slender man in a leather apron, with gold spectacles and his pockets full of pens and labels, with his hair carefully tied back to keep stray bits from getting into things and his hands hard as stone.
He thought of it shortly as Combeferre touched his arm and said gently,--
"I don't know what got into Luc."
"He's a disagreeable little madman, that's what," said Enjolras irritably, shaking him off. "He makes me think of a dog, vicious thing."
"Surely he isn't that bad." Combeferre smiled. "Come now, I know you're tired. You really ought to--do something. Take a short holiday. It's permissible to do such a thing. I'm sure Joly would advise it."
"Joly." Enjolras snorted.
"You ought. You ought sleep, and rest, and get away from everything for a while, and get out of that damned dark place." Combeferre took his hand again, touching the five fingers one by one, although Enjolras could hardly feel it. "Richard."
"No. Absolutely not. Do you know what it would mean?"
"It would mean you were better off!" Combeferre suddenly cried, snatching the hand close.
"It would be to back down! I shall not back down, Combeferre. We shall not discuss this. I have no desire to lose respect for you, as I have for the others one by one. Let me go, and leave me be. Go console Feuilly." He turned away.
"You don't even speak like a real person any more. What's come over you? You're like--you're cold."
"Yes, I prefer to be."
Combeferre left.
Enjolras slowly eased himself into a chair and pulled a loose piece of paper out of his pocket, and began drawing circles with a piece of chalk. Around and around, tracing the same lines. Around, around, around... Imagine. (Around, around) "A holiday". A unexpected visit to some family in the country, a brief time in which to rest. (Around) For his health. (Around) Joly would advise. Oh. Joly.
He respected Joly far more than he showed anyone. Joly had accomplished what he had not. Joly was a doctor, knew how to make the body whole again. Enjolras, with all his poisons and his fine speeches and his brave words, had to this point only mastered the art of injuring it. If he had his revolution, if all his plans succeeded, if the world changed under his hands, he would perhaps learn how to heal a sick man, but now all he knew well was how to kill one who was healthy.
He had often imagined that Joly could save his hands. He was too proud to ask, but he played in his head a fantasy where Joly took his fingers and slowly made each one able to feel again, and soft, and coloured, and skilful, until he had finer hands than any man in France.
But this was merely a fantasy, he told himself sternly. Joly was a foolish young man absorbed with himself rather than the people who needed him. He was not exceptionally skilled or, indeed, exceptional in any respect. He was simply someone who meant to assist with Enjolras' revolution when he had nothing better to do after classes. Not true, part of him insisted. You are as much a cynic as Grantaire, as vicious a dog as Feuilly. He (they) did not come to you if he (they) did not intend to be part of what you planned. Why do you despise all men so?
Because they are pretentious fools who either think they know everything or are willing to pretend they do. Because the world is divided between those who have everything and are proud of it, and themselves, and the display of laughing cruelty and gross, revolting splendour and waste they put on for their friends, the men they want to impress who are just like them; and those who have nothing, and are ashamed to live.
Which of these two categories, then, does Joly fall into? asked the part of himself.
Joly is-- Enjolras faltered. Joly is one of those who supposes he knows everything, he finished lamely. He is one of those pretentious fools, with his stick and his umbrella and his big coat, like a bourgeois, like a fat, prosperous English gentleman. He is one of those.
Then you must hate him?
Damnation!
Enjolras stood up from the table and clenched his hands to his sides. He had chalked circles all over the wooden tabletop, from the far end to the part closest him, big ones and tiny ones, ones with spirals inside them and ones with spirals outside and some which intersected with other ones. His hands were mottled with white dust. When she saw it, Mère Houcheloup would look at him reproachfully and say things about how it was never like this when Père Houcheloup was alive.
He closed his eyes. Perhaps a holiday was a prospect he should pursue. It did no good to go on like this if he hurt his mind doing it. He must be well in order to make things succeed. An ill man with brain-fever could not hold a revolution.
But he was restless. He couldn't sit in a country-house visiting some old relative he'd forgotten about, listening to bourgeois talk and playing the docile youth. He wouldn't be able to bear the questions and the people calling him "Richard", when Combeferre was quite bad enough. He would arrange his breadcrumbs from tea into circles and think of his people whom he ought to be feeding, and he would have to listen to every person he met exclaiming over how cold his hands were until his mind became sick with it. It would not take him away from the things that were making him tired; it would place him closer to them and make him more distressed than ever. It would be exactly the opposite of a rest. It would be a torture. No, that he could not do.
At the same time, he thought wearily, as Combeferre had said, he truly could not stay here now. He must protect himself. He was burning a candle at both ends, he was going to bed late and getting up early, he was forgetting to eat but spending every day exerting himself. He should kill himself, perhaps, if he went on.
What he needed was someone to help him. Someone to send him off appropriately. Someone to arrange things so that he might go somewhere--safe. Only for a few days. Perhaps a week at the longest. Otherwise--he would never accomplish anything. He would go mad. He would become a lunatic and people would give him one of those cruel, memorable names they gave to such people. "Le Craie-Cercle", "Mort-mains". They would.
Enjolras breathed deeply and walked steadily to the door, opened it and put his head out.
"Combeferre!" he called sharply.
"Richard?"
"Has Joly come?"
"A moment ago."
"I wish to speak to him."
The small fellow disentangled himself from a group of friends and came over, smiling. "Bonsoir, Enjolras. Cold night, so you'll pardon my scarf and coat, but I know I shall be in bed by to-morrow. How are you?"
Enjolras looked at him critically. He was short, thin, with smoothed-back hair and blue eyes, wrapped in an enormous black overcoat that looked as though it might crush him, and with a thick woollen scarf about his neck. It looked quite uncomfortable. As Enjolras had supposed, he was carrying his stick and his umbrella; and also was wearing tall boots and gloves. Briefly, Enjolras wondered how he managed in the summer. Besides being uncomfortable, it must be swelteringly hot.
"Not well," said Joly cheerfully.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Evidently you are not well, since you didn't see fit to answer my question. That is done by men who are hesitant to say exactly how wretched they feel and hesitant also to pretend they are well when they assuredly are not."
"On the contrary, I was merely thinking over what I was going to ask you. Come here." Enjolras led him to the chalked table. "Sit down. I wish to discuss something quite serious with you."
"Yes, of course. --What's been done to the table?" he asked, looking astonished.
"No matter. Listen, Joly."
"Yes, I am. What is it?"
Enjolras paused, began, stopped, and finally said, in a determined voice, "Yes. Joly, I wish you to send me away."
"What?" Joly leaned forward carefully in his bulky coat, evidently trying to understand exactly what Enjolras was asking. "You want me--?"
"To require me to leave Paris for a few days. I'm quite close to becoming ill, but I haven't the ability to force myself to change my habits without someone forcing me first. I shan't stop overworking myself unless you tell me to."
"Oh!" His expression cleared. "I understand. That's no trouble. I require, then, that you take a long week-end, at very least, in the country, with my second cousins' family. They already take boarders for a moderate price, and there's a lake, and very nice grounds."
"Must I be with people?"
"They're young. They have no children yet. Besides, Andre--the husband--owes me thirty francs from cards, and he'll be glad to rid himself of the debt."
"They'll ask me questions," said Enjolras, a touch plaintively.
"I'll ensure they do not. I'll tell them you are unwell and subject to nervous breakdowns, and need lots of rest and solitude. You need expect their presence only at breakfast and dinner."
"And I shall be alone the rest of them time?"
"Certainly."
"Thank heavens. Merci, Joly. I shall be in your debt."
Joly sat back, looking thoughtful. "It's no trouble, I'm sure."
"You must understand that I do not want anyone to know. Do not tell the Others, particularly not Combeferre, no matter how much he asks you."
"I shan't."
"Very well."
There was a pause. Then Joly stood, with difficulty, and made for the door. "Well, then, I'll go write to Andre. I hope the time away makes you well."
"Thank you."
For a long time after Joly left, Enjolras sat at the table, tracing the chalk circles and quietly, guiltily rejoicing that he was going to leave them soon. He had got a splinter in one of his cold, poisoned fingers, and he could not feel it.
