clayforthedevil | Truth or Something Like It

By all means, truth.

"What would be the most ridiculous way you can imagine us being remembered?"

"The most ridiculous? That's a difficult question. Ridiculousness comes in near-infinite varieties. I need only look at my friends to see examples." This, with a pointed look at Bahorel's clothes. "And it is not easy to judge which form of ridiculousness is the greatest. But in my view, the most ridiculous way would be a false way--if someone knew our names and the basic facts of our lives, but missed or misconstrued certain key details."

Combeferre is curious. "Why do you ask?"

" Why, you seem to be ahead of me. I'm asking out of turn, but tell the truth then, have you already encountered Hugo's little folio on our era?"

Combeferre blinks. "No, I haven't. Hugo? Victor Hugo? What on earth did he write about us?"

Combeferre isn't particularly fond of Hugo's work, despite Prouvaire's defenses of him. But he will concede that it has some merit.

"Ah." Bahorel grins, and pulls a book--now his own copy, sections carefully marked off with thread-- off a nearby shelf. "What indeed! He writes of our dear Musain, and the Corinthe; a few passing debates... and oh yes, the Barricade. Most of it quite fair for a man who was quite under the Bourbon umbrella when we left Paris; though as to that, you know, he's eager to insist we had nothing against our royal pear. But as to how we're remembered..." He holds up the book with a sarcastic smile. "What did you say would be the most ridiculous way to be remembered? Bossuet tells me the barricade, at least, is surprisingly accurate, and I recall some of the earlier scenes myself. But I do warn you, Hugo has his fixations. They're not all easily overlooked."

Combeferre takes the book.

"What, about us in particular? And how can he say we had nothing against Louis-Philippe? We revolted against him--well, not only him, not him personally, but the injustices of his government, and of the society that produced him." Louis-Philippe was not a cruel man, nor a wicked one. But tyranny was tyranny, and ignorance was ignorance.

The book is enormous. Combeferre is used to medical tomes, large and bulky, but for a work of fiction, this is far more verbose than the usual. "Hugo never did stint himself with words," he said, feeling the weight of the book in his hands.

It opens, easily, to the marked off portion entitled Les Amis de L'ABC. And then he reads the list of names, so familiar and so dear, and his heart can't help quicken.

Until he gets to Enjolras's description, and stops short. "My God," Combeferre says, in disgust. "I suppose it was very important to inform posterity of Hugo's opinion on Enjolras's face and form, was it?"

Edited Date: 2015-01-19 06:41 am (UTC)

"I revolted against him personally." Bahorel says half to himself while Combeferre opens the book. "Insulting enough for a man to be tyrant without him pretending to be my loving uncle while he does --" and there's the expression. " I see you found it. Yes, somehow it was essential that generations unborn know the tint of his eyelids."

Combeferre's own lip curls in disgust as he finishes reading the paragraph on Enjolras. He is not happy with Hugo's description of his friend. The parts that are not wholly superficial are, Combeferre feels, rather one-sided.

Next comes his own description, which he finds excessively flattering, and also rather strange--an angel with the wings of a swan? Was Hugo drunk?

At Courfeyrac's description, Combeferre takes a moment to look up this "Tholomyès" character, and then clenches his jaw. "How dare Hugo compare Courfeyrac to this Tholomyès," Combeferre says aloud. "I know he's only doing it to contrast them, but nevertheless--this other fellow isn't even superficially similar! He isn't even witty."

The others aren't so bad. Bahorel's is verging on inspired, actually. Combeferre looks around Bahorel's rooms, which had struck him as extremely red when he walked in. Now he sees the wall paintings, most of which are either unintelligible or obscene-masquerading-as-classical. Combeferre looks at Bahorel. "Your work?" He gestures at a particularly well-endowed satyr.

He turns back to the book, and then arrives at Grantaire's description. "Well," he says, looking at Bahorel again. "Has Grantaire seen this?"

He knows Enjolras hasn't, or else Enjolras would have told Combeferre, as Combeferre will tell him. But Combeferre already knows that when he does, he will also suggest that Enjolras need not read this book himself.

"No, telling Grantaire, much like that particular square of paint, is Bossuet's work; by his choice, I hasten to point out. I gather he's spoken to Joly on the matter too, but Joly's shown no interest in actually reading the book." He smiles fondly. " I believe he's currently lost interest in anything written before the discovery of space travel; I don't think he's missing much on this particular novel, do you?"

He sprawls out to reach a bottle of wine and a couple of drinking glasses. "Oh, it's well written-- Hugo always had a fine sense of the language-- but even so, and even aside from personal offense, you can see some problems with it already, I'm sure."

"Yes, it is well written." An understatement. The prose is beautiful, sometimes stunning.

"I--I would want to read the whole thing," says Combeferre, surprising himself as he says it. But it's true. "The book is so sprawling, so ambitious. I can tell as much even from the little I've looked at. It would be worth seeing how much it encompasses." A Bishop in Digne, a convict named Valjean, Fantine the hapless grisette, Marius Pontmercy, and, strewn somewhere in the middle, the Amis de l'ABC.

"As you say--some problems. Hugo's politics evidently changed, if he could write about us with such obvious sympathy. But you can still see some of the old sensibility there, can you not? I haven't yet read the part where he talks of Louis-Philippe, of course, but that attitude, that sense of--of class allegiance--seems present elsewhere in the book as well."

So Bossuet is to blame for the satyr, hmmm? Combeferre shakes his head. "And I don't envy Bossuet that conversation with Grantaire."

" Ha, no. But he absolutely insisted on taking the job, not that I argued much." He frowns slightly. "Our Eagle was rather strongly affected by news of the book; and not just in the way of artistic appreciation or political outrage." That had been...strange, seeing Bossuet so rattled by something so abstract.

"Part of it was, and you may laugh, an outraged sense of decency. You may laugh- but I must say he had a certain point. Be careful if you mean to read the whole thing, Combeferre. It's not just us on the page. Old Monsieur Fauchelevent's life is there in some detail, besides Marius; and Marius' fiancee, and I've met the young lady, and I do not think she'd appreciate being so exposed. I'm not one to brag of delicate sensibilities, but be careful-- know that you're peeking in windows before you go."

As an afterthought, he adds " The spy from the barricades, Javert, he's in there too. His story is not entirely correct, as far as I can tell; but then I don't know everything that might be missing, nor do I care to ask the man about it."

"Decency, Bahorel?"

Bahorel talking of decency makes Combeferre laugh, but it also makes him frown, and pause.

"I may still mean to read it," he says, slowly. "Surely--it is a fictional account, even if reliable in spots--and any peeking in windows has already been done by Hugo, who has told the world what he's seen. And...is this work renowned? Influential? If so, then there's nothing private about this account anymore. It has become a social force, and its subjects regain no privacy by anyone declining to read it." Or so Combeferre thinks for the moment. He intends to mull it over some more before reading the whole book.

"And if there's information on the spy in there, well, we may need to know it." The spy may be a neutralized force in Milliways, or he may not. Combeferre isn't certain.

" Influential-- in its time. Which is 1862, long after most of those named have died, or moved on in life. I'm not saying don't. But we're on the page in moments we chose to be in the public eye; Mlle-still-Fauchelevent may well decide to contribute to memoir, but she hasn't yet. Know that you will meet people who don't expect you to know these things." He snorts. "Including the spy; but I have no hesitation in returning him the favor he tried to pay us. I do expect you to read that; but remember it may not be accurate."

He smiles a little. "Indeed, remember it may not be a memoir at all."

Combeferre nods. "I'll keep that in mind, of course, should I read it." It's a responsibility, possessing information that others believe to be private.

Then he frowns. "What do you mean, it may not be a memoir? Do you mean Hugo may have deliberately altered the story, rather than writing about anyone's memories?"

"Ha, I am sure Hugo edited a bit; any historian does. But I mean that the Hugo writing these memoirs may not be quite the Hugo of our world, in the way that Enjolras and Courfeyrac are not quite from our barricade...and then perhaps more." He thinks a moment. "Did you ever see Father Christmas, while he was here?"

Combeferre flinches. He'd forgotten, briefly, that Enjolras and Courfeyrac were from an 1832 barricade slightly divergent from his own, and that it had diverged thanks to their own efforts and Bossuet's. Not truly forgotten, of course, but it had slipped from the forefront of his mind.

It's eerie to think of. Combeferre doesn't especially enjoy eeriness.

"An alternative Hugo--from a time that no longer exists, because we changed it?" (Does that mean that Enjolras and Courfeyrac, in some theoretical way, no longer exist, since they're from a future whose past was changed?)

"No, I didn't see Father Christmas," Combeferre continues. Though he was both surprised and intrigued to learn of the old legend's existence.

"I saw him; he was built on a plumper model than the one we knew, but it was definitely him, magic and all. Now, allow that-- whatever the history behind his legend in our world-- he was not a real person, and certainly not prone to flight and reindeer and a magic bag of endless gifts. To us he was a story; yet he was here, and real."

"Are you saying...that this is a place where legends become real? Or that there are other worlds, where our legends are real, and they become our legends because...because of what? Travel between worlds?"

Combeferre is guessing now. It's fairly clear that Bahorel is driving at something. But Combeferre's not quite sure what yet.

Bahorel grins and leans forward. "Travel between worlds we know to be true, now-- at least for people. Could ideas travel too? Could every story have a true version somewhere-- like Father Christmas, wherever he normally resides-- and whispers of it bleed to other worlds?"

"It's not just him, of course; many of us seem to have stories of each other in some form, more or less --and sometimes much less--true." He stretches out a hand enough to swat at Combeferre's leg. "Come,then,you're the scientist; what do you think is happening?"

"Could ideas travel? Meaning--do ideas have physical substance of a kind, perhaps of...aether?" That sounds rather doubtful, almost medieval, but aether isn't the only option. Energy, perhaps. Electricity or magnetism. Combeferre has not read nearly enough about the physics of the future.

"You are implying, if I understand you right, that the Victor Hugo who wrote Les Misérables is a Victor Hugo in a different world, a world in which you and I are like Father Christmas--ideas that have bled through."

Combeferre is captivated by this.

"As for what I think is happening--I think it must be that there are worlds in which there are--copies of us, or versions of us. Enjolras and Courfeyrac are proof of that. They continue to exist despite us having altered their past. They did not wink out of existence. Yet we exist too, you and I, sharing their past up to 1830, and then diverging afterwards. So..." Combeferre takes a breath. Speaking of any version of Enjolras or Courfeyrac winking out of existence is--a shock. Even in the hypothetical. Still, he presses on. "It seems to me that--perhaps our alterations in 1830 created a new world? So there are two worlds with different versions of us, one that the Enjolras and Courfeyrac here in Milliways hail from, and one that we hail from."

Combeferre looks at the ceiling, and then at Bahorel, knowing how mad he sounds. "And if there are two worlds, two sets of us--might not there be many worlds, many sets of everyone, including Victor Hugo? Though the question of how ideas travel from one to the other, well, that's not something I have any theory on just yet."

Prouvaire would, Combeferre knows with a sudden stab of pain. Prouvaire would have theories, or rather, he would have fancies. About poets, and mystics, and how they perceive dimensions beyond the ordinary.

He does not say as much to Bahorel.