Chapter Six: Autumn Leaves


Eagle had looked at him. He bent his head, glanced at the other side of the room, glanced at his glass, at the window, and back again. Now Eagle was speaking with that horrid little Joly fellow, the scrawny fellow in the greatcoat, the one who was so impossibly thin and small and wretched. Joly. Eagle loved him. Eagle had said so, once.

Grantaire—Jeremie, he reminded himself—hated that wretched little fellow. Joly was always with Eagle, every possible moment of the day, as far as he could see, and always smiling at him in that wretched ingratiating manner, always calling him L'aigle and getting called belle in return.

In the back of his mind, he was sure belle wasn't the right word. The pretty seamstresses who lived up and down the streets of the grey parts of Paris and scraped together a living by making their fingers bleed with pinpricks and rough cloth and hard work were called belle, but Joly ought to be jolie.

He laughed tiredly to himself and pushed his glass around on the table. Eagle hadn't come to talk to him to-day. Of course, it was quite stupid of Eagle to waste his own wasted time by getting in the way and expecting answers to drunken questions when he—Jeremie, he reminded himself again—only wanted to drink his wine. Still, it was—well, to get a companion—at any rate, he'd gotten to used to it. He didn't like it when Eagle forgot about him and went off somewhere with Joly. And they were going somewhere, too. They were taking that fool fellow Combeferre with them, too, if he had overheard them right. They were all three of them going off to some fine café together, and he, Jeremie, would be forgotten in his corner with his wine and brandy.

He hated Combeferre, too, because Combeferre patronised. Combeferre came about once a week to ease his conscience and asked after him, Jeremie, to do his duty towards the poor drunk worthless fellow in the corner. When Eagle came to his corner, Eagle had something to say. It often wasn't important, and it often didn't make any sense, but it wasn't what Combeferre said, so it was fine.

Eagle asked how was the wine to-day? Eagle asked had he been drunk all day long, or had he only just started? Eagle asked where was the best place to eat this week? Eagle asked what he recommended for hangovers. Eagle wanted to know what he thought of that pretty (ugly) serving-girl (grisette) over there, or wanted to groan over That Fine One's talking too loudly and too passionately.

Jeremie liked to call Enjolras That Fine One. He didn't like given names much, because they were always all wrong, so he made sure only to call people he disliked by their right names. Lesgles, then, was Eagle, and Enjolras was That Fine One, and the one waitress (was her right name Jeannette? he wondered) who always remembered to call him Jeremie was Bouche de Sourires, or Sourire for short.

He liked her. He frowned and nodded slowly to himself. She had short grey-streaked dirty-brown hair, and eyes like the sky on a grey, wet day, and she smiled sadly at him when he came in and called him Jeremie. He had kissed her once or twice, but he didn't like to, because it made her smiles even sadder than ever, and she was like his mother. His mother had eyes like that. She didn't say his name like his mother, though, because her voice was rough and quiet, strained and a little garbled, as though she were for-ever afflicted with drunkenness and a sore throat both at once. He liked that voice.

She wasn't beautiful like That Fine One, of course. He was truly fine, he was magnificent. He looked like something fresh and different from all the dark, grey, deformed stuff that always seemed to be surrounding Jeremie. There were only ugly things around him, himself and the café and the bad wine and wretched Joly and bloody Combeferre and starving people in the streets and orphan children who watched him when he staggered from place to place and hideous whores who curled their painted lips at him and tossed their mock-proud, made-up faces. That Fine One, that Enjolras, was soft and golden, moving through the dark, grey stuff slowly and bringing with him a queer little haze of light. He wore spectacles like Combeferre and his hands would often clench and unclench without his seeming to see it at all. He had a habit of moving them twitchingly on the table as he spoke. When he was pleased, his face didn't change, but Jeremie was able to tell anyway and knew that he would turn his hands a certain way, too. But he didn't do that often.

Drunk now, he, Jeremie, suggested to himself, leaning heavily on the table and picking up his glass. He didn't drink to forget anything, which was funny, because people always thought you did. He just drank. There wasn't anything to forget, after all. His mother had grey-sky eyes, but she was a plain woman who kissed him often and made sure her little boy was happy, and his father was a laughing, good-natured fellow who tried to teach his son without much luck and finally sent him to school in hopes of getting rid of him—no, his family had been fine. He'd got no brothers and sisters, got no tragic sweethearts. There was nothing behind him to be sorry for, except for drinking—and he wasn't sorry for that, he thought fiercely. He, Jeremie, drank because he liked it, because he liked the taste and the feeling and didn't mind the fool he made of himself or the mad things he said.

He wasn't drunk enough now, though, because he often got cheerful when he was properly drunk. He was a maudlin fool now, he thought, and began to laugh to himself low in his throat. He didn't like it at all. He didn't like roaring obscene things and tripping over his own feet (Eagle did that, too, but he couldn't help it, it was natural). And when he was sober, he was angry.

He was angry. He hated people. He hated their faces and the way they looked and they way they looked at him. He knew what he looked like. He was shabby and ugly and grey, like Sourire's eyes, like his mother's eyes, like the haziness that That Fine One cut through like a sun in the fog. When he was sober, he wasn't the same fellow, but he didn't change to everyone else. They always saw the same person. Perhaps they were entitled to. He didn't look for two people in each of them. There was only one Eagle he saw, only one Sourire, only one wretched Joly. So there was only one Grantaire—not Jeremie, he reminded himself. He was Grantaire to the People, not Jeremie, not his mother's little boy, not anyone's boy, just a man, an ordinary, rambling man. He wasn't too tall or too short, he wasn't scrawny like Joly or well-built like Bahorel, he had only a pale face with a dark beard, a bent back with a weaving way of walking that made him rather amusing to watch. So the People only saw that one same person all the time, just as he looked at them. That one same person was alternately fierce at no one and congenial to everyone. That one same person laughed drunkenly at a joke, whether it was Joly's or Eagle's or his own, and that one same person bitterly ranted about everything that was wrong, in Paris, in France, in the world, in the face of the fellow nearest him. That was Grantaire.

Jeremie was the boy in between, half-drunk and half-sober, wistful and hopeful and close to smiling but only in an unfocused, slurred way. And people didn't see Jeremie.

Well, perhaps Eagle did, he amended. Eagle sat with him whether he was Grantaire or Jeremie, and Eagle talked. Eagle had some kind of secret, but he only heard it when he was mostly drunk and he hadn't managed to remember it when he was sober yet, so he hadn't yet figured it out. It was some kind of secret that Eagle didn't want people to know, but like most men, his tongue loosened when he was drunk.

His, Jeremie's, didn't. He lied when he was drunk. He told stories about his father hating him or professed his love for girls who normally made him feel fierce and hard and bitter inside, made him angry. Jeremie didn't notice girls much unless they reminded him of something, like his mother or Sourire or Paris skies, but Grantaire hated or loved them, Grantaire loathed or lusted for them.

He didn't understand yet whether it was Grantaire or Jeremie who Eagle thought was his friend. Eagle liked everybody, of course, but he wasn't sure whether Eagle knew Jeremie. Because even when he was half-drunk, he remembered not to tell his secrets, he had never really been Jeremie for anyone, not for Eagle, not for Courfeyrac, not for any of his drinking partners or his enemies among the People. Only Sourire knew Jeremie.

He thought sometimes he would like to be Jeremie for That Fine One, to show him what he was like when he was not crudely deriding That Fine One's speeches and bellowing with drunken laughter at his castles in the sky. That Fine One might not hate Jeremie, for Jeremie was often an inoffensive boy—quite muddled, and he wouldn't deny it, and certainly always drunk, but never hateful or scornful, never very horrible. Jeremie was his mother's little boy, as much that as Grantaire wasn't. Perhaps That Fine One would think Jeremie was not so vile that he must be hated, the way Grantaire was.

He shook his head, and it made him dizzy. That Fine One was arrogant as the people he made speeches against, and he would not be friends ever with either Grantaire or Jeremie. It was simply the truth. It did not concern him. He had drunk a great deal more by now, and Grantaire was beginning to surface, slowly but surely, and he was beginning to feel amused by the very thought of That Fine One. Enjolras was just another pretty boy, another fool with mad dreams that were without foundation and would come to nothing.

He glanced around. The room was filling up. Besides Eagle and Joly and Combeferre working at their table, there was Feuilly, sitting alone and no doubt waiting for Bahorel, and Prouvaire asleep in his corner, and Enjolras would be in the other room ruminating on some impassioned speech or other. Courfeyrac was the only one absent, and he had promised everybody the night before that he would be. Something to do, he said. Someone to screw, he meant. That was Courfeyrac for you.

Oh, he loathed them, every single one of them. He couldn't leave them, so he hated them. Enjolras kept him there, kept him there, because he was like a God and like the sun and God damn him but he needed that sun, God, he didand the other People just circled around him laughing at him. Prouvaire winced away from him and nanced about with his poetry, and Feuilly curled his lip just like a high-minded whore showing his disgust for someone who was even lower than he was. Combeferre patronised and Joly cringed, Joly sulked, Joly watched Eagle like a jealous wife, like the wretched little prick he was. He hated Joly more than he had words. Bahorel was a big clumsy oaf, and Courfeyrac was fine, handsome, clever; Courfeyrac was everything he wasn't, and everyone loved Courfeyrac. There was only Eagle, he could only stand Eagle when Eagle was drunk and didn't mind sitting with him and talking about nothing over wine and absinthe. Some days he thought even Eagle was revolting and he hated him, hated him.

Oh, hell, what was he talking about? He hated them all. He hated them all.

He was staring into his glass, viciously, bitterly, drinking without thinking, which was odd because he liked the taste and usually he always tasted his wine—

"Grantaire, ami."

He looked up sharply. "Oh! It's you, bald Eagle."

"Yes, it's me. I just thought I ought to tell you that I'm going to be out and about with Joly and our fine 'Ferre to-night, and I won't have the time to take our usual bottle together, so I'd hoped you'd accept my apology ahead of time. Of course to-morrow you'll be here and I shall have no engagements, and then we can have our usual talk." Eagle grinned apologetically and shrugged his broad shoulders.

He, Grantaire, nodeed. "Yes, whatever you say, my hairless one. Be sure to wear your hat, or you'll risk embarrassing your companiots."

"I'll be sure to. Drink one of those bottles in my name. Goodnight."

And Eagle left, smiling and laughing and tripping and being caught by Combeferre and Joly and friendly remarks and chuckles. He, Grantaire, stared after him.

"Funny to get left behind," said a musing voice at his side. He started. Why were all these people talking to him, damn them? He didn't want to talk. He wanted to drink.

"What?"

"I like to be alone, of course. I enjoy it. But you're not that sort, I don't think. It must be rather bothersome to have them all walking off and knowing that you belong with them, standing straight, perhaps a little drunk because friends often are together, but standing straight, and among friends. Not that I'd know myself, mind, because I don't, I truly don't. I like to be alone, or with Feuilly, and I'm perfectly content. But you—"

He twisted himself about to see Bahorel, standing there beside him. Bahorel. Tall and rough Bahorel. The fellow had astonishing blue eyes, and a figure like a blacksmith's—he brawled and stirred up fights and seemed to breed destruction. What the devil was he doing, talking in that voice, in that manner, like Combeferre but more sensible, less condescending, quite natural. He was like an ordinary man. Not one of the People. Not like anybody else. He was acting like an ordinary man, and he, Grantaire, was astonished, and he didn't like it.

"Can't think what y'mean," he muttered, slurring his words and not noticing it.

"Bossuet's your friend, isn't he?" Bahorel shrugged. "But he's Joly's friend, too, that's the trouble, I suppose. Joly doesn't like you, and Bossuet's dearer to him than you and knows it, and he knows who's more important. It's not meant, I don't imagine, to insult you, but you're simply not the one he lives with and stays joined to. Well, not surprising. I'm just pointing it out."

"Go 'way."

"I meant to. Feuilly and I are going home to eat with his sister. I just thought I'd tell you it's a pity, and I'm sorry, in my own fashion, if you can believe it. I'd tell you to clean yourself up a bit and try to make us like you more, but I suppose that's impossible and you don't want to. I don't really want to tell you anything, anyway. At any rate, good luck. Maybe Courfeyrac will join you when he comes in." Bahorel shrugged again. "Perhaps not. Good-night."

He, Grantaire, stared after him stupidly. What the hell was going on? What the hell was going on?

Suddenly the effect of the wine and gin seemed lessened. He began to feel like Jeremie again. Jeremie was cringing, woefully, trying to understand why he was alone and nonplussed and felt so stupid and blank and unhappy. Jeremie was wincing and shaking his head.

"Bahorel?" he, Jeremie, muttered in confusion.

But Bahorel stood by the table with Feuilly, talking in that voice which sounded big and rough again. And Eagle was gone, with wretched Joly and Combeferre; and Prouvaire was asleep, and Courfeyrac hadn't come, and That Fine One was hidden in his back room.

He, Jeremie, could not help thinking of the dark, grey Paris skies, and of the dark, grey haze that wouldn't go away. He, Jeremie, could not help thinking about Eagle's missing, and what Eagle talked about, and about Sourire with her eyes like his mother's and the way she smiled sadly when he kissed her, as he had once or twice. He stared after Bahorel and wanted to understand, actually wanted, for a moment, to be sober, and then remembered that that would make him hate everything when what he wanted was to have an equity with it, and he was maudlin again and a sad, pathetic drunk, and everything was tattered and grey and rain-coloured.

How he hated them. How he wanted Eagle's talking and Eagle's secret that he still couldn't remember and That Fine One's eyes, though they looked at him coldly, wanted those eyes to be his very own, wanted to keep those eyes hidden away from the rest of the world because really he was just as greedy and jealous as wretched Joly.

He, Jeremie, clutched the table and tried to roar with drunken rage, but only made an inaudible scratch in his throat. He, Jeremie, went back to his bottle and glass, his absinthe and wine, and was glad that Bahorel had not stayed, was glad that Bossuet had not stayed, was glad he had been left behind. He staggered to his feet. He thought of the dark, grey, ugly haze.

He wanted to kiss Sourire.