Chapter III

~Musain Café~

Jean Maximilien Lamarque was a good man. He was a commander in the army during the Napoleonic war and later became a member of the French Parliament. But when king, King Lewis Philippe, was once again seated on the thrown of France, Lamarque continued to fight for freedom. He declared that the new monarchy did not give the people rights, freedom, or liberty. He fought for liberty and he fought for the people. "The People's Man," he was called amongst the citizens of France. They loved him, adored him, and the followed him. He was their hero, their savior, and their only hope.

Yet, in the May of 1832, at the age of sixty-one, the good man fell ill. Fatally ill with the dreaded intestinal disease of Cholera. He was very sick, suffering and anguishing in hospitals, where the doctors could not save him. The date was now June 1, 1832.

Grantaire sat alone at his usual table in the corner of the Café Musain. He leaned heavily upon the wooden table, his shoulders resting upon the surface, his head resting in on hand, and the other hand tightly gripping his bottle. He was still tired, lightheaded, and nauseated from hangover, yet he was already drinking again. He had endured a hard night last night. Whenever Grantaire was in hardship, or pain, or grief, he turned to alcohol.

"Grantaire, put the bottle down," he heard Enjolras's voice order before he was even aware that the man had entered the room. Passing by Grantaire's table without a glance at him, Enjolras went on, "You should have no excuse to be getting drunk this early in the morning. Put the bottle down." Keeping his back turned to Grantaire, Enjolras went to his usual table, spread his maps, books, notes, and papers across the table, and immediately began to study them.

"I'm not drunk," Grantaire protested, speaking to Enjolras's back.

"You will be if you don't put that bottle down," Enjolras spoke, without so much as glancing over his shoulder to look upon who he was talking to.

"Not if I do not drink a lot."

"Grantaire, you always drink a lot. You are always drunk," Enjolras snapped in scorn and in disdain. "Yet, you are too foolish and too cowardly to put that bottle down!" He finally turned around to look at Grantaire, and an expression of even greater disgust came upon his face. "Grantaire, what happened to you?" He was not concerned, only angry. "Were you fighting again, last night?"

Grantaire's face was swollen, blackened, and bruised, particularly around his left eye and the left side of his face. He had been fighting again. Grantaire shrugged and took a long drink from his bottle, before muttering, "Why does it matter?"

He heard Enjolras scoffed in disgust, and when he glanced up at him, Enjolras was glaring at him and shaking his head in disgrace. Enjolras did not have to say a word, but Grantaire knew what he was thinking: Grantaire is a disgrace. He is a fool and a coward. All he is good for his drinking, gambling, hurting women, and fighting with men.

Trying to justify himself, Grantaire spoke out, "you cannot blame me, Enjolras. The man hit me first."

"Is that so?" Enjolras muttered doubtfully, obviously unimpressed and unconvinced for Grantaire's story. "And why is that, drunkard? What did you do to him?"

Grantaire frowned in disappointment and in sadness. "I beat him in a game of card, that's all. Then, he did not want to pay me."

Enjolras scolded at Grantaire, made a sound of scorn, and turned away, as if this was an answer that he had been expecting. His back turned to him again, he said, "Of course, Grantaire. Gambling. That and drinking seem to be two of the only things that you believe in."

But Grantaire shook his head. "I do not believe in either of those things."

Enjolras looked at him doubtfully. "No? Wine, it seems, is your god."

Grantaire shook his head again. "I do not believe in gambling or in drinking, because they can betray you, just like everything else in this world."

Enjolras frowned at him in hatred. "Then, you do not believe in anything."

Grantaire hesitated a moment before he said quietly, "I believe in you."

As Grantaire had expected, Enjolras reacted the same way as he had when Grantaire had proclaimed these words the first time. Disbelief, scorn, and ridicule. "If that was true, Grantaire," said Enjolras, "you might have, at least, tried to listen to me. You might not have abandoned the Revolution, and the people, and the battle for freedom. You might have been willing to die for the cause that the rest of us are ready to give our lives for." With that he turned his back on Grantaire and did not look at him again. He did not see the pain in Grantaire's eyes.

By the time the sun had set, the Friends of the ABC had gathered in this café, and everybody was preparing for the Revolution. Enjolras was discussing plans for the uprising with Combeferre, studying maps and books, and Joly was standing close by, enjoying a cigar but listening all the same. Courfeyrac, Feuilly, and Jehan were hurrying around Paris and bringing all of the guns and weapons that they had managed to collect over the last several years into the café. Bahorel and Bossuet were in the café handing out pamphlets and talking to the people, trying to rally them and encourage them. All final preparations were being made. The people had remained silent long enough, and now they were ready to cry out. They were ready to rise. Their souls smoldered with a flame of defiance, and now, they only awaited the spark that would turn this candle into a roaring fire.

Of all of the Friends of the ABC, only two of them were not helping to prepare. Marius Pontmercy was not at the café. No body had seen him since the rally earlier that day, and he had not appeared at the meeting that night. No body knew where he was. Grantaire was sitting in his usual corner of the café, drinking from a large wine bottle, and talking to several women, at once, ignoring the progress that was happening in the café around him. He was already becoming intoxicated and getting close to drunk.

Star and moon were already high in the dark sky of the night, when the final member of the Friends of the ABC stumbled through the doors of the café. Enjolras raised his head and looked across the room. "Marius, you're late," he said. His voice was firm, but unlike she he spoke to Grantaire, it was also concerned. Enjolras and Marius were friends. They cared about each other.

Joly, who was standing nearly by and had been listening to Enjolras, suddenly turned his eyes, saw Marius, and exclaimed with laughter, "Marius, what's wrong!? You look as if you have seen a ghost!" Indeed, Marius's face was white, his eyes wide, and his expression vacant and preoccupied, as if he was seeing things that others could not.

Grantaire looked over his shoulder to see what was going on. He saw Enjolras looking at Marius with concern, Joly looking at him with amusement, and Marius coming into the room with an entranced expression on his face. At once, Grantaire knew that something new had happened to him.

Grantaire and Marius were great friends. If there was any link at all between Grantaire and Enjolras, it was Marius. Marius was brave, strong, loyal, and ready to fight like Enjolras, but he was also playful, easy going, and less passionate like Grantaire. He believed in the Revolution, but his heart beat for other worldly matters, as well, rather than for France alone.

Grantaire, turning his back to the women and forgetting about them entirely, strode across the room toward Marius, threw and arm around him, led him over to a table, and pushed him down into a chair. "What is it, Marius?" he asked grinning. "Here…" He took an empty mug off of an empty stop, poured some wine from his bottle into it, and placed it upon the table in front of Marius. Then he sat down in a chair across from Marius, and continued to drink from his bottle. "Have a drink, and tell us what is going on."

Marius, still looking as if he were in some trance, a shimmering light in his eyes, a wide smile on his lips, a illuminated glow upon his face, he took the mug into his hands, looked almost dreamily down into it, but did not drink from it. His mind was clearly in some place far away. Then, at last, smiling widely, he looked up at his friends, first at Grantaire and then at Joly, and he said, "A ghost you say?" He laughed and shook his head, still smiling. "Perhaps, you are right. It was… There was… She was…"

"She?" Grantaire exclaimed, at once. He leaned in closer over the table, suddenly very intrigued and interested. A grin spreading across his lips as he met Marius's eyes, and he said, "You mean to say that there is a girl?"

Marius smiled at him before dropping his eyes to look down at the mug in his hands. He was still smiling, joy radiated out from his entire being like rays of light, and the sweet intoxication of love burst out of his smile. It was clear to anyone who looked upon him that his mind was completely and utterly absorbed, captured, and possessed by one thought. The world was gone, and only she was there for him to see. "Yes," Marius finally said in a whisper. "Like a ghost… One minutes she was there and… and the next she was gone."

Grantaire immediately burst out laughing, and Marius looked suddenly up at him, still smiling, but looking also nervous of how his friends were going to react. "Marius!" Grantaire cried, smiling, laughing, and shaking his head. "Hey, boys," he called merrily out to the others, seizing the attention of all of the students in the room. "Marius has done it, at last! Marius is finally in love!"

At this declaration, all of the boys turned their heads in interest or in surprise, including Enjolras, but only in surprise and in doubt. While Combeferre remained by Enjolras's side, all of the other students in the room, Bahorel, Bossuet, and Jean, came closer to listen. Marius laughed softly and happily, and looked back down at his mug again, gazing within it as if he could see the face of the girl in the surface of his red wine.

Grantaire laughed and turned back to look at Marius, grinning and smirking. Lowering his voice, he said excitedly and playfully, "So, Marius, my friend. I am agog, and I am aghast! Tell me all about it. Who is this girl? Is she pretty? What does she look like? Do I know her? I might have been with her once or twice. What's her name?"

During most of these questions, Marius only smiled and laughed, but when Grantaire asked, "What's her name?" Marius's face fell slightly, and he looked away again. He sighed and said in a soft voice so that only Grantaire could hear him, "I do not know her name."

"What!?" Grantaire cried out, laughing and smiling again. Marius looked up at him, but when he saw Grantaire smiling, he smiled, as well. Grantaire shook his head still grinning. "Marius, my friend, you are like no other boy in Paris! Twice in one night, you have astounded me!" Grantaire, still laughing, suddenly stood up from his chair, and shouted across the room to Enjolras, who had turned his back on Marius and on the others, who found him amusing, and Enjolras had resumed studying his maps. "Look here, Enjolras!" Grantaire cried, causing the chief to look irately over his shoulder at the drunken man. "You talk of battles, and bloodshed, and death, and Revolution! And here Marius comes like Don Juan, entranced, intoxicated, and in love!" He laughed loudly and cried, "This is better than an opera!"

When Enjolras learned that Marius was, indeed, in love, in disappointment and in shame, he had turned his back on him, and ignored everything that was happening behind him. But now, he had let this go far enough. This was absurd! Grantaire was right. They were on the brink of Revolution, and Marius, Grantaire, and even the other boys were more concerned with foolish, thoughtless, love affairs than the battle that lied ahead. Now, it was time for Enjolras to put an end to all of this foolishness.

He suddenly turned away from his maps, strode boldly across the room, and sat down at the table between Marius and Grantaire. Ignoring Grantaire, he looked around at the faces of all of his followers, the Friends of the ABC, and speaking with the tremor of a hymn and a voice like a fierce warrior but also a majestic angel, he said:

"It is time for us all to decide who we are. My brothers, who are we? For so long we have talked of rebellion, we have made plans, we have rallied the people, we have prepared to fight, we have awaited the time of the storm to come. Now, it is here. And what will we do? We call ourselves the Friends of the ABC, the fighters of freedom, the children of the Revolution, but is this who we really are? What we do tonight will decide who we truly are. Now, that the time has come, do we live up to the names that we have made for ourselves? Do we pursue freedom? Do we fight?" His voice darkened and became cold as he said, "Or have we only been playing a game all of this time? Do we back down? Do we turn away and flee in the face of death? Do we show the world that, in truth we are no more than rich young students, ignorant fools, fantasizing children, and selfish cowards?"

When Enjolras said "selfish cowards," just for a moment, Grantaire saw Enjolras look at him.

"Come now, my friends!" Enjolras cried out, and his voice suddenly ignited like a flame blazing with passion, excitement, courage, strength, and hope. "It is time! Let us live up to what we have called ourselves to do, let us do what we have been ready to do, let us fight for freedom, and let us set France free, or let us die trying to do it! Let us show the world who we really are!

"The time is near! So near, in fact, that it is stirring the blood in the veins of the people, singing in their hearts like the beat of the drum, burning in their souls like fire, the flame of rebellion and the flame of hope! The colors of the word are changing day by day! I tell you, my friends, the streets of Paris will run red with the blood of angry men, of the people, and the blood of the martyrs! The sky will be black in smoke as the earth cries with the sounds of our guns! Our banner will fly red above it all! And at last, the black of the night will end, and the sun will rise over a new world of hope and freedom!"

With this, courage, hope, and passion in his heart, Enjolras rose to his feet. But then Marius, as if he had not heard Enjolras's words, at all, smiled at Enjolras and said, "You were not there, Enjolras. You did not see her. Had you been there, you might have understood what it is like to have your entire world changed in only one moment, one… one burst of light! At this one moment, my whole world changed!" Now, Marius was gazing across the room and speaking quietly as if to himself. "Everything that I thought I knew suddenly changed, and I was… I was a different man…"

Enjolras looked down at Marius, in utter confusion, disbelief, shame, and disgust. It was to Enjolras, as if this man, whom he thought that he could trust, had suddenly turned on him, betrayed him, betrayed the Revolution, and betrayed the Friends of the ABC for something as foolish as love. "Marius!" Enjolras suddenly cried out in anger, in fury, and in outrage. "Marius, look at me!"

Marius, as if suddenly awake from a dream, jumped and looked abruptly at Enjolras with fright.

"We are on the brink of a war, Marius!" Enjolras thundered. "We are ready to give everything, our homes, our fortune, our freedom, and our lives for freedom and for the Revolution! We are ready to go to war! We are ready to die, Marius! Who cares about your lonely soul!? We fight for a purpose beyond all of us! Our little lives do not count, at all!"

This took Marius greatly aback, he recoiled away from Enjolras, and he dropped his eyes, looking shamefully at the floor.

"Now," Enjolras cried, once more, "my brothers, who are we? Are we truly who we stay that we are? Who will stand with me? Who will fight with me!?" At once, Combeferre stood by. Just after him stood Feuilly, Bahorel, Jehan, Bossuet, and Joly. Then, at last, Marius stood, as well. Perhaps, he loved this girl. But he also loved his friends. He would not betray them.

Grantaire did not stand. But he gazed with wonder up at Enjolras, who stood before him, and he thought with admiration and with a hopeless longing, "Enjolras is such a great man. I wish, somehow, that I could be like him. I wish I could make him proud."

"Listen, everybody!"

Everybody turned to see Courfeyrac, who must have entered at sometime during Enjolras's speech, standing by the entrance of the room. Beside him stood the child Gavroche. A homeless child of the streets, but with a passionate nature and a fighting spirit, like Enjolras. The room fell silent, and all attention was on Courfeyrac. He looked down at Gavroche. The child drew in a deep breath and told everyone what he had come to say, "General Lamarque is dead."

General Lamarque is dead. The words hit everyone like a knife through the chest. Following this blow, came pain, shock, disbelief, denial, sorrow, and then grief. General Lamarque, the People's Man, the hope of the oppressed, was dead. For several long moments, the room was silent, as no one could feel anything save for hallow emptiness, deep sadness, and dark despair with in them. Then, as last, this feeling began to evolve into something new, something great, and something terrible. Anger, defiance, courage, passion, will, and hope, began to fill the pits of their souls that had been empty before. Then, at last, the fire burst forth and erupted. This, the death of the good General Lamarque, was the spark that was needed to set the fire ablaze.

"Lamarque is dead," Enjolras repeated quietly, still gazing emptily upon the child. Then, he suddenly turned to the other boys, and they could all see the fire burning, blazing, roaring, raging, in his eyes. "General Lamarque has died," he told them all in a loud voice that was filled with pain, grief, and sorrow, but also bravery, courage, strength, readiness, and hope. "The great man of the people is dead. But he will not die in vain. He will not go forgotten. His dreams will not go unheard. We will rise now, and fight in his name, in his memory, and in his spirit! This is it! The death of Lamarque! This is the sign that we have awaited for so long! On the day of his funeral, the people will honor his name with rebellion, courage, and hope in their hearts! They will rise! They will fight!

The time is here! Let us welcome it gladly with courage and joy! Let us take to the streets with no doubt in our hearts, no fear in out minds, no shame in our souls! Let us fight for France, for the people, and for freedom! The people are ready! They will come now! They will come when we call! They will come to fight!"

Later that night, when Grantaire was leaving the Musain Café, he heard the loud, drunken voices of several men laughing, and shouting, and mocking someone. Then, he heard a young girl crying out, and telling the men to leave her alone, to let her go. He turned his head, and saw four men standing around a young woman. One of them was holding her wrist, and she was trying to get away, but they were too strong.

When Grantaire saw this, a sudden and unexpected pain like the blade of a dagger hit him in his heart, as a memory that he tried so hard to forget became clear again in his mind. He immediately looked away from these people, and tried to force the images out of his mind. But even if he could not see them, he could still hear them shouting.

"Monsieur!" he then heard the girl crying. "Monsieur, please! Please, help me!" Fear and dread filled Grantaire's gut, and he involuntarily, as if some other force had compelled him to do so, looked over his shoulder back toward these people. It was as he had feared. The girl was crying out to him, asking him to help her. "Monsieur, please, help me!" she cried again. Her face was pale, terrified, young, and innocent. There were tears in her eyes and running down her beautiful face. "Please!" she begged him, pleaded in despair, cried for mercy. "Please, help me!"

Grantaire's first impulse was to run over to this woman, to help her, to save her, to fight off these men with his bare hands, to face them unafraid to accept the consequences that he might have to suffer for it. Grantaire almost did this. He had already begun to take a step toward her. Then, something stopped him. Something like an old enemy, an old fear, an old pain, an old nightmare that had resurface in his mind to hold him back. He did not move.

"Please!" the girl cried out one more time. Grantaire looked sadly at her for a moment longer, then he sighed and looked away. Without a word, he turned his back on her.

As he walked away, he heard a strong, bold, fearless voice cry out behind him, "All of you, release this woman, at once! Take your filthy hands off of this innocent child, you fools! You cowards!" Grantaire did not have to look back to know that it was Enjolras. Yes, Enjolras was a good man. A brave man. He would save the girl. But Grantaire would not do that anymore.

"Not this time," Grantaire whispered as he walked alone down the dark streets of Paris. "Not ever again."