milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Bahorel had begun the night with a drink, and gone over to a table in a far corner, with a good view of the room, to sketch the Bar and her surroundings in their altered state.

That had been some time ago.

His table is currently covered and spilling over in pages spliced together and folded into each other, sketches of landscapes and buildings twisting across them in a style that's rather more shadowed and symbolic than representative. At some point, he thought to ask for ink, though he hasn't really noticed-- and if Madame Bar's her usual self again, he hasn't noticed that either.

Possibly startleable , if you catch him before his pencils run out.

((OOC: here for an hour or so maybe, or until storms sideline me again!))

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Marius hasn't spoken to Bahorel since arriving-- not by design, he simply hasn't happened across him. But here he is! Marius begins to approach, but he knows the look of a man at work, and so slows his pace and then stops before he quite reaches the table.

He bends over and picks up one of the sketches that has fallen to the ground.

Bahorel is never quite that tuned out of the world in public; someone walking up that close gets him on alert, and he's pretty well pulled back into himself by the time Marius stands up with the paper.

Bahorel grins at him. "Ah, our newly arrived newlywed!"

He doesn't pull his papers back, because he's not concerned with them getting messed up, but he does kick out a chair in Marius' direction. "And yet here you are, wandering into dangerous company. --What do you want to drink? I've gone dry, myself. Where are those rats?"

Hi, Marius!

That's enough to get him looking quite bashful as he sits down into the (sort of) offered chair. But it's an improvement over the rather shell-shocked look that any friends who ran across him after he first arrived received.

"I don't need anything, thank you..." He offers the paper back. "How-- how do you do? Are you working on something in particular?"

Bahorel looks at the paper as if he were meeting a total stranger. What is that--? Oh, some of the earlier visitors to the Bar. He waves it away. "--Oh, keep it, burn it, whatever you like. No, no, nothing. It passes the time." He grabs the far edge of the spliced-together paper, gives it another brief glance, and pulls it half-closed with no care for creasing or wrinkles. "--There's very little in my particular line to do here, after all. Have you managed to find yourself occupied all this while?"

He says that in the way he says nearly everything, but if Marius is going to be embarassed, he'll have to blush at the back of Bahorel's head; one of the rats has come into view, and Bahorel is waving it over.

"Oh--" He has no idea what to do with the paper-- he's not really expected to burn it, is he?-- so he just sets it down.

"Well, I-- I have spent time with my wife." (It surely goes without saying there is absolutely no trace of innuendo in this at all.) "And the library is very remarkable."

No, no innuendo at all. How is this a married man?

"Ah, it's a fine place! --And I know you've been making plans with old friends, which I approve entirely." That's said with real sincerity, and gratitude under the rather trivial phrasing though he won't elaborate on it more. This is still a public space, after all, and there is some very unwelcome company about the place.

And some that's just complicated. "And how's your new father been?"

"Oh-- yes. If you-- that is, if there's anything you'd like me to-- any message you'd like me to relay, I would be very happy to do it."

At the mention of Valjean, his gaze flicks down to the table. "He is very well-- much recovered. We hope to return to Paris any day now."

"Ah, it's good of you to offer." It is. "But I gather you've been given those messages already. What I had to send--that was done in other ways." He's not going to mention the whole bit with Enjolras and Valjean trading bodies yet. Marius still looks overwhelmed by the sheer existence of Milliways. (But when does Marius not look overwhelmed? A curious question.)

"But your good father--ah." Bahorel laughs,because Valjean is ridiculous. "--Keep an eye on him. I've had some conversation with him; a good man, an excellent sort! But with very odd ideas about what's necessary and good for a man to do, very odd ideas. And this is me saying it! Watch him, he's careless of himself." And again, this is Bahorel saying it. "--And watch the other one too. I don't know what he's said to you, but he still holds the most orthodox, the most lawful of courses." That, too, is said lightly, but Bahorel catches Marius' eye as he talks, looking to see if Marius understands.

Marius nods along to all of this.

"I will. I intend to-- to do right by him, from this time forward. And as for--" Bahorel seems wary of saying his name, so Marius will follow his lead. "I tried to thank him for the good he did, but he would have none of it. Besides that, he has said nothing to me, but-- I will be cautious."

"He's a spy" Bahorel says, not in any especial whisper. It's not as though it's a secret. "He's threatened the lives of men we know, men of our beliefs, for being of our beliefs, many times. What he thinks of your family, I do not know; but what he thinks of our friends, that is definite. --You will tell Madame Pontmercy, too." It's stated as an assumption, not a command--but it's an assumption Bahorel knows may be untrue, which is why he's mentioning it.

Javert's status is a spy is not a shock, of course, but he does look a little surprised at the mention of Cosette. "What has it to do with her?"

"What? Why, everything. As all you do has to do with her, now; you agreed to that when you became her husband. What did you think you agreed to ? The law makes her yours, as much as your own hand or neck. You risk her, as you risk your own neck." " He raises a hand, palm out. "Don't think I mean dissuade you! You know I think the matter well worth any danger. But I'd not see any man--or woman-- put their head on the block not thinking of the blade above them. So think! The risks you take now you take with her. Does she consent, does she understand?"

...Does Marius? He was at the barricade, he fought with them--but he'd not truly been with them in the years up to it.

"But do you not think--" Marius pauses, frowns, searches for the right words. "Surely it is safer for her to know as little as she can. Should questions be asked-- should Javert inquire-- she will be able to say quite truthfully she knows nothing of it."

He understands-- he thinks he understands-- the danger to himself. He was not involved, but he saw very clearly what he bloody outcome could be. Whether he is underestimating that day-to-day risk-- well, he does not think he is.

Bahorel, on the other hand, knows that he is.

"She will know nothing of it; very well. None of the details; she doesn't need to know that. But that you mean to run the risk of arrest? Of trial, and prison? The risk is there. Even a suspicion!--You are bourgeois, you are wealthy; the laws are different for you than for some of us; perhaps you trust to that. I do not say there is nothing to it." There's a lot to it. That's part of the problem.

"But I have seen men of your own standing arrested for less than you mean to do; and if they spend only a month, two months in jail--why, a wealthy man's family does not starve; but think what it means to your wife, forever. She will be your wife, married to a man who was arrested; any blame or doubt cast on you will fall on her, and it will fall on her harder, for women are charged with the souls of their men, and so made to carry their sins, be they real or only in the eyes of others. Call it unfair, it is unfair; but it is so! Think--when she waits for you to come home and sees the police instead, when all doors close to her for your actions, when she stands alone in the eyes of the world while you sit in prison-- will it hurt her less, that she did not know? Will you sit in your silence, and say to yourself 'My wife is alone, she is mocked by all,I give her no comfort, but at least she never had a chance to prepare, and had no choice in the matter', and feel better for it, than if you give her full warning?"

It's really not a rhetorical question.

Well.

Well, when he puts it like that.

"Then you think-- you think I-- should not--?" Even he knows Bahorel too well to think that that's really what he's saying, but he's not quite sure what else to make of it.

"I? I think you should talk to your wife. Give her the choice. You're right that you needn't give her all the details; even among those of us sworn to the cause, those are kept secret often enough, for the very reason you've already named. But let her know, let her choose to walk with you in this. Tell her what you mean to risk, and tell her why."

He frowns. "--I think she would not say no. A woman is quite as capable as a man of understanding sacrifice and risk for others--more capable!, for what else do they undertake in being mothers? But for all it would cost us and our cause-- and it might cost much, indeed--if she did not agree to join you in this, I would not have you do it." Others might; but Bahorel has had time to consider it, long before the matter of the Pontmercys, and he knows his own answer.

"Of all causes, the republic can't be built on drafted labor; it cannot be settled on the backs of hostages, chained to the wheel with ignorance. It is worth giving everything--but it all must be given freely."

He laughs a little, without turning in any way less serious. "I do not go so far as Combeferre--the good may well not be innocent, for who can ever be innocent who lives in the world? But the free! The free must not, cannot, make ourselves tyrants. Or we lose all we mean to do, whatever the laws may come to say."

His frown only deepens as Bahorel speaks, but it seems to be an expression of consideration, not disagreement, for at last he says: "Yes. Yes, you..."

He frowns again, down at the table, passes a hand over his forehead. "I will speak to her."

Bahorel grins."That hardly seems like it should be a great burden. Surely you enjoy talking to her, at least--and listening to, I should hope. It's much too early for you to be repenting each other's company, you know!"

"Of course not!" he cries-- and realizes, a moment too late, that it's a joke. Right. "I simply must consider... what to say, and how to say it."

After another moment, he adds, "She is the kindest, cleverest woman in the world. I know she will understand."

Bahorel laughs, and reaches over to thump Marius on the shoulder in approval. "I'm glad you know it! I'm sure you're right. She's a bright young soul. She sings nothing but your praises, you know. Churches wish for bells that ring so true."

Marius ducks his head, starting to blush. "I would not dream of doing anything to cause her pain."

"Ah, of course not. You would not think of it--And yet you turn to the most shameful of professions, letting yourself be called a lawyer!" Bahorel swoons dramatically. He is very good at it.

He's also laughing. It's a joke, Marius, it's okay. (It's not okay, but it is a joke.) "--Whatever put that idea into your head, anyway? Surely you don't need the income."

"Well-- well, that wasn't entirely certain, at first," Marius says, with a touch of that bourgeois awkwardness that comes with discussing money. "But now... no, I suppose I don't. But I do not think Cosette would like to have me underfoot all day."

Bahorel laughs. " Even newlyweds need amoment to themselves, then?-- Oh, I know, I know, you must find a Respectable occupation." The capitalization is definitely audible. " But you have the money, and the time, to find something that you want to do. Why sentence yourself to the law, so young?" Tragic, Marius. Tragic.

"You are the second person to say so," Marius says, frowning still. "I had not thought of it."