Work Text:
Combeferre heard the voice while he was lingering outside the medical school hall, two hours before registration ended.
He didn’t catch the sound of the words, but rather the sound of the accent. He had never listened to a voice without trying to understand its words, but this was instinctive. A week of smooth, mumbled Parisian sounds had settled into his shoulders like a sodden coat. They all spoke like they knew they were saying something that was perhaps not right, but absolutely correct.
His landlord had oiled away the syllables between numbers so that Combeferre had first thought that rent was half what he expected; then, when it came time to pay, he found that it was four times as much. Whether he'd been confused or swindled, he wasn't sure. The Parisian accent rendered it all the same.
This voice rose through the grey river of Parisian voices like a series of lazy bubbles breaking on the surface. It was the Midi, maybe Gascony, that had wandered into the north and seemed surprised that the warm air hadn't come with it. The voice was asking a question. The inflection said: This or that? I'm not sure. What do you think?
Then the voice was silenced by another: Paris responded, but not as itself. It took the same syllables and dragged them through the dirt, mocking the slowness, the clarity. Not even a satire. More of a farce.
Combeferre found the speakers across the street; it was a cluster of law students, dressed in shapely coats and tailored trousers. Combeferre listened for the Midi, but he'd gone silent. The Parisians were laughing, repeating a cadence they'd found particularly funny.
The group broke away, jeering down the street. One man was left. He didn't move for a long moment. When the group was turning the corner, too far away to really hear him, the man turned to see their retreating backs and shouted:
"Putain de cacou!"
It was vulgarity, beautifully delivered. Le cacou, the old southern word for a blowhard, a pretender, a fool who appeared tall only because he crushed spring shoots underfoot before they could surpass him. Combeferre found himself repeating the phrase, the sounds he'd been trying to quash for the last few days.
The sound found the other man across the street, like drawn to like. He spotted Combeferre and called, "Another joker?"
Heat crossed his neck. He tried to remember what he sounded like. He called back, "A fellow countryman."
"Oh!" said the man. "Where from?"
"Languedoc."
"Lovely place!" said the man. "I visited- This is nonsense."
He clamped the brim of his hat between his fingers and darted between piles of horse manure on the street. He seemed to expect that carriages would give him time to cross; Combeferre had observed that Parisian horse-drivers almost sped up when they saw a daring pedestrian, even though a crash would ruin man, horse, and carriage. Spite was a powerful argument, left unchecked. This was a punishment to the pedestrian for breaking the flow of traffic, and if it took the traffic down with it, so be it.
But the man threw a half-apology over his shoulder and stopped before Combeferre, breathing heavily. He had a thick tome under his arm, which looked brand-new.
"Languedoc," said the man. "I visited once, looked for gold pebbles in the river and found leeches instead. But that was appropriate, leeching the boy who tried to leech the river. Myself, Gascony."
"I can hear it."
Pleased, the man straightened his waistcoats: the outer one of pale yellow silk, the inner one of deep violet. Combeferre rested his hand on his stomach to hide the mismatched coat buttons.
He maybe younger than Combeferre, but perhaps it was just the nature of his face, which was round and open. This man seemed to be lingering not in immaturity, but in youth. The student-dandy manner of dress destroyed signs of age rather than accentuating youthfulness. Swelling the chest, broadening the shoulders, shaping the hair into dimensions that indicated an overgrown garden. But this man had no age to hide, no loss to disguise. The well-tailored angles of his lapels, the neat ratios of his torso, the smooth curls under his hat: they all verged on costume instead of habiliment.
"Are you a medical student?” asked the man. “Inscription day?"
"My first," said Combeferre.
"We're alike again," said the man, "Well, not exactly, I'm-"
"A law student."
He looked slightly less pleased to be placed as a law student than as a Gasconard. "I'm that obvious?"
“Well,” said Combeferre, “I imagine that’s the Code under your arm.”
The man touched the book’s spine and winced. “Not popular reading for the medical students, then.”
He was too pleased with mankind to be a medical student. But he was too displeased with it to be a law student. Combeferre, who tried to be pleased but was more often displeased, said, "Consider it a compliment, being one rather than the other."
The man frowned a little, seeming to sense a feeling, but not its cause. His quiet was broken by another argot curse when the bell struck through the street. "Am I keeping you from your future?" He nodded to the door, where a few stragglers were entering the hall. "I was on my way to register, as well. You must go become a medical student, if you're to become a medical student."
Combeferre considered lying, saying that he'd already registered, and wishing this man a pleasant day. But the rhythm of the conditional - to become, you must become - disarmed him. "To be frank, I'm not sure what kind of future I have," said Combeferre. "I'm in a difficult situation."
The man's eyebrows were immediate in their concern. "Not a situation."
"I have all my papers," said Combeferre. "But the guarantor for my room… I arrived with someone in mind, an old colleague of my father's, but evidently, he left the city years ago." Or died. That wasn't an appropriate thing to mention on first acquaintance. He carried on. "I should've sought him out the first day I got here, but it took me days to find a room, and-"
"Oh, if it's just a guarantor, I'm your man."
Combeferre eyed him. "You?"
"Lower your standards!" said the man. "All you need is someone to say where you're living and that you won't burn a building down after a late night. Now, I admit, I am only speculating on that last part, but I'm willing to take the chance. No one actually knows their guarantor; I saw a student hiring a clerk to speak on his behalf just this morning."
It was bureaucracy just insipid enough to be believable. Combeferre had gotten his bachelor's degree after a final exam that lasted a mere twenty minutes, just because the examiner wanted to go home early. "If it’s a matter of hiring, I’ll pay you for your trouble.”
"If we must be so gauche as to bring debt into the business - will you return the favor? My guarantor is a friend of my father's, who unfortunately is still very much in the city. I would give a dozen hotel rooms to avoid him.”
There were not many in line; most seemed to be stragglers who had forgotten something or another, and were sheepishly waiting to see if their forgetfulness would be overlooked.
Many, like Combeferre, were dressed well but poorly, with documents in hand. But there was an equal number of men who looked nothing like threadbare students; men in short work-jackets, men in stained aprons, men with traces of theatrical greasepaint on their faces. They did not imply familiarity with the men they accompanied, and yet, they were here to speak on their behalf.
“Quelle démocratie!” whispered the other man. “The nineteenth century’s Third Estate.”
For a moment, Combeferre wondered if it was a test on this man’s part: one of those liberal ambiguities meant to tease a revealing response out of someone. “Democratic” was a compliment in one man’s mouth and an insult in another’s. Whichever way Combeferre took it would reveal his own assumptions. He could not upset this man, who was doing him this favor for free.
Combeferre had formulated something noncommittal, but first checked the man’s expression, and realized that he had been cynical. This man was smiling, not in amusement, but in delight. He was happy with what he saw.
“I celebrate it,” said Combeferre. “If only all men were enfolded in that honorable title.”
“Next!” called the registrar, an old gentleman who wore ink-stained sleeve covers and spectacles that could use a cleaning.
Courfeyrac and Combeferre both said good afternoon at the same moment, their accents keeping them in time down to the syllable. The registrar smiled, dipped his pen, and returned the greeting with just a hint of the same accent. “Who is the guarantor presenting the student?”
The other man raised his hand and half-waved. “Courfeyrac,” he said.
“Who are you acting for as guarantor today, sir?” asked the registrar.
Courfeyrac looked at Combeferre. They had not introduced themselves.
Combeferre mouthed his name, and the other man made a few false starts into saying it, but didn’t seem to trust himself.
“You may tell him your name, sir,” said the registrar.
Combeferre whispered it and Courfeyrac repeated it with a, “And a very good name it is, too.”
“Documents, please,” said the registrar. Combeferre held them out, but the registrar put up a hand. “Your guarantor must present them, sir. A little technicality.”
Combeferre passed the papers to Courfeyrac, who laid each on the table. “Let’s see, we have… A birth certificate, ah, it’s nearly your birthday! I’ll have to take you for dinner. And here’s a certificate from the lycée, assuredly well-earned. And a bachelor of sciences, too. Just imagine, already an eligible bachelor, and I have to train for over a year to reach the same title! What’s this? Oh, this looks to be courses, how miserable.”
The registrar seemed quite willing to let Courfeyrac prattle on as long as he produced the proper documents. Each was listed in the logbook, and the registrar found a set of class tickets for admittance to each lecture. “Now I’ll need payment.”
“Of course,” said Combeferre, while Courfeyrac said, “Shall I manage that, too?”
“No, sir,” said the registrar. “That obligation rests with the student.”
“I dislike that,” said Courfeyrac. “A man cannot speak to his life, but he can speak to his debt?”
“I suppose so,” said the registrar. “It’s not my area.”
“Well, whose area is it?” said Courfeyrac. “I would like to propose reforms.”
Combeferre placed fifty francs, carefully counted, in the registrar’s hand. “Perhaps reforms should come after enrollment?”
The registrar gave Combeferre a look of gratitude and filed the money away. “And, finally, the guarantor must answer for the student’s circumstance of tenancy. Where does the guarantor reside?”
“Hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques,” said Courfeyrac.
“And where is the young man staying?"
“Oh,” said Courfeyrac. “Where’s he staying?”
“I’ll give you a moment,” said the registrar.
Combeferre spoke into Courfeyrac's ear: "Rue de Corneille."
"Eugh," said Courfeyrac.
"It was all I could find," said Combeferre.
Courfeyrac told the registrar: "He's at Hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques.”
Combeferre grabbed Courfeyrac’s arm while the registrar bent his head to inscribe the address. “What are you doing?”
"I have, in my brief time here, crawled the Latin Quarter," said Courfeyrac, patting Combeferre’s hand, "and you can smell the Rue de Corneille from Rue Saint-Jacques, not to mention hear it. It's no place for the rare breed of man who actually comes to Paris to study. It’s crawling with poorly disguised spies and the food is an abomination. You'll stay with me."
"No.”
"And why not?" asked Courfeyrac. "I'm a lovely host. I'll buy another mattress, you'll be very comfortable."
The registrar slid Combeferre's documents across the table, and set out a stack of class tickets with his name embossed across the front. “Pleased to have you with us, monsieur. Opening remarks tomorrow morning, bring you cards with you if you want admission, and the second inscription is due three months hence. Notices will be sent to your given address. Any questions?”
His lips pressed together, Combeferre shook his head.
On the steps outside, he put his documents in his coat pocket, the one which didn’t have a hole in the lining, and said, “I’d appreciate it if you would forward my letters. You’re very generous, but I can’t stay with you.”
“You’re not damned to my realm forever. Call it temporary, if you like. In a month, some breeds of student will realize how little interest they have in even pretending to aspiration, or they'll scurry off to live with friends or mistresses, and you'll have a bounty of options. You might find a bargain, a pension of your own. I can help you look, if you like.”
He had not dreamed of a pension when he arrived, or even one of the smaller boarding houses. The student hotels were only just within his budget. He’d imagined his future very carefully for the past five years: a year of plain study, then the concours to become an externe, then the concours to become an interne. With the internship: room and board at a hospital, free of charge, for four years. Nothing special, he assumed, but a room of his own, with no one knocking about in the rooms above, below, around him. Something near silence when he slept.
"This is too much."
"It is just enough," said Courfeyrac, "to repay you for the old music of the Midi."
The registration lines at the Panthéon were a much more sober affair. The pairs of men were generally matched in social degree; even if they were complete strangers to each other, they looked like they were of a kind. Combeferre continued to keep his hands clasped against his stomach. Courfeyrac either didn’t know or didn’t care (no, it might be “and,” not “either”) that his guarantor was in tatters. When they finally presented themselves to the register, Courfeyrac looked at Combeferre with the glee of a child telling a lie.
This law school register was all in black and well-creased, with cunning gray temples. “May I help you, sir?” he asked Combeferre.
“I’m here to act as guarantor for a student, Courfeyrac.”
“Are you?” asked the man. He was Parisian in the extreme, breaking words into half-syllables. “What is your mode of occupation?”
“I’m a medical student.”
“M-hm. May I see some form of identification?”
Courfeyrac’s expression had shifted from joy, to disgust, to indignity, to mild pleasure when Combeferre passed his fresh documentation across the desk. The guarantor raised each paper to his face, rather than bending over to read. “Everything is in order,” he said. “Except- It appears that a Monsieur Courfeyrac is acting as your guarantor. Surely, I need not explain why this is unacceptable.”
Combeferre felt pinned like a specimen to a taxidermist’s case.
“Oh, that!” said Courfeyrac. “Would you believe it? That’s another fellow. I’m de Courfeyrac.”
“Is that so?” said the registrar. “I am amazed.”
“So was I,” said Courfeyrac, “and the marvelous thing is, we’re at the same hotel. He lives next door to me. A medical student, I think. Can you imagine the pain over our mail?”
“I cannot,” said the registrar. “Even your guarantor confused you upon introduction.”
“Well, he lives across the way,” said Courfeyrac. “Always confusing us, it’s quite insulting to plain Courfeyrac, because he’s the better dresser and keeps respectable hours.”
The registrar passed Combeferre’s documents back with only a bit of disgust showing. “Will the guarantor present the student’s documentation?”
Courfeyrac opened his book to the table of contents, picking through an assortment of papers until he found the right ones. “You’ll note the particle throughout,” said Courfeyrac. “In case you were curious.”
While the registrar scrutinized each, Combeferre murmured, “Should I note your particle, as well?”
“Death first,” said Courfeyrac.
The registrar accepted Courfeyrac’s money as he might accept a dead bird brought by a cat. “I assume the address is the same as listed,” he said. “Monsieur Combeferre, Monsieur Courfeyrac, and Monsieur de Courfeyrac all lodge at the Hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques?”
“You catch on quickly,” said Courfeyrac.
The registrar returned Courfeyrac’s papers and lecture tickets. He did not tell Courfeyrac which days was his opening day, and did not ask if Courfeyrac had any questions.
Courfeyrac stepped a few paces away to let the next student approach the counter while he struggled to put all his papers back into his book.
“Why did you bring a copy of the Code?” asked Combeferre.
“I thought they might want proof of a legal library,” said Courfeyrac, folding his birth certificate in half using his free hand and his teeth.
“Your legal library is a single copy of the Code?”
“No, this is de Courfeyrac’s library. My legal library is seditious, salacious, and extremely tasteful. I learn more about justice from Nodier than I ever will from the Code. If I want the imperial opinion, I’ll read La Napoléone.”
Combeferre broke into several loud coughs to hide his smile. “Perhaps you’ll let me borrow it.”
“I insist! It is a shame about Nodier, though,” said Courfeyrac. Blessedly, he seemed to be cued by Combeferre’s cough. Now was not the place to express the shame of Nodier, and there could only be one meaning: the downfall of Napoleon’s bane, the librarian happy to support the monarchy so long as he got to collect his rare books.
“Comfortable chambers are a terrible prison,” said Combeferre.
Courfeyrac made an attempt at a laugh, one of those little sounds to break tension. Then something caught his ear; he cocked his head, and Combeferre copied him. They heard the same slow sounds they’d been voicing all day:
“I don’t understand. If signature is as binding as flesh and blood in trial, why is it not the same here?”
The student who had been the next in line was alone, but held a half-sheet of torn paper as though it was a decree from the supreme being. Like Combeferre, his clothes were not neat, and like Courfeyrac, he was youthful. But his unironed coat was made of good fabric, and he was young in a way that a freshly-lit fire was young. He was, simply put, impressive.
The registrar did not agree. “I repeat: policy dictates that guarantors must represent the tenant in person.”
“And I repeat, he was called away. He has a family he must support. Would you rather I kept him here for my sake?”
“I would rather you had a reliable guarantor.”
The young man drew himself up. Combeferre knew that motion, because he’d heard of it in dozens of stories or even seen it once or twice, himself. That was the last motion a man made before he refused to accept something forced upon him. That was the moment before he got a bullet in his head.
Courfeyrac had already taken a step towards the man, then stopped, looking at Combeferre.
“I answer for him,” said Combeferre, approaching the desk.
The man did not seem to notice someone else had entered the conversation until the registrar addressed Combeferre, dryly: “A guarantor cannot claim more than one tenant.”
"Then I answer for him," said Courfeyrac.
The man stepped sideways to let them both at the counter. He seemed dazed, as though pulled from a dream and not sure how to make sense of the world he hadn’t imagined.
"Please, sir," said the registrar. "That's quite enough."
"But I do," said Courfeyrac. "I am delighted to affirm the quality of my dear friend…" Courfeyrac tilted his head sideways to see the birth certificate. "Enjolras. Enjolras! Enjolras, enjôler, enjeura. Occitan?"
"Yes," said Enjolras. "And you?"
The registrar seemed dismayed that they were putting so little effort into their charade. "And does the young gentleman know his attempted guarantor's names, too?"
Courfeyrac was clearly trying to edge his own certificate out of the Code, enough that his name showed, but Enjolras was looking at his face as if to try to read it from his expression.
Courfeyrac set his hand on his chest and drummed his fingers twice.
It was not a bad start, Combeferre thought, but it wouldn't have worked if he was tasked with guessing. Courfeyrac had not quite landed his hand on his heart. Combeferre would've guessed le sternum or la clavicule before he reached le coeur. He tried to think of a better one, but his alternative was not, strictly speaking, an improvement. But Enjolras and Courfeyrac were both frozen, in place and in thought.
Besides, Courfeyrac had already conjugated someone’s name. One could only sink so low in a given conversation. There was no harm in beating a shovel on the bedrock.
"Don't pretend to have forgotten your old friend," said Combeferre. "He takes no prisoners, the coup-de-Gascony."
With frankly alarming speed, Courfeyrac responded, "And my steely-eyed guarantor, who makes us wonder - there is gold found in Languedoc, but combien de fèrre?"
Enjolras looked at each of them in turn.
"Courfeyrac," he said, softly, "and Combeferre."
“My apologies, sir,” said the registrar to Courfeyrac. “How shameful to be wrongfully named twice in one day.”
“Oh, it’s a small matter, a particle,” said Courfeyrac, patting Enjolras forgivingly on the shoulder. “Not much bigger than a particule.”
“That is more than enough wordplay,” said the registrar. “And it does not change the fact that a law student cannot act as guarantor for another law student.”
"I disagree wholeheartedly on both counts!” said Courfeyrac. “Do you approve of our man, Combeferre?”
"Certainly."
"If I am approved in light of his approval," said Courfeyrac, "it stands to reason that my approval bears the associated weight! Qui agit per alium agit per se!"
Enjolras said, "Qui facit, facit per se."
"Facit," Courfeyrac agreed.
“A pretty saying,” said the registrar. “Not an argument.”
Enjolras took the Code from under Courfeyrac’s arm. The spine sighed as it was opened for the first time in its life. Enjolras flipped through several sections as though he knew them by touch, rather than page number, until he found what he was looking for. He presented it to Courfeyrac.
“Right!” said Courfeyrac. “If I must speak the truth through Buonaparte’s words, so be it.”
Enjolras looked up from the page very suddenly, first at Courfeyrac, then at Combeferre. His expression was intensity without meaning: he could be feeling anything, but what ever it was, it was very strong. Combeferre met him with an equal measure of dispassion, hoping to smother whatever fire had been lit, at least until this fiasco was over.
Courfeyrac had realized his stumble, and carried on with too much gusto: “Article 1984: Procuration or commission is an act by which one person gives to another the power to do something for the constituent party, and in his name. The contract is not binding without acceptance on the part of the agent. Article 1985: The procuration may be given either by a public act, or by writing under private signature, even by letter. It may also be given verbally.”
He looked up at Combeferre. “Do you contract me to act as an agent of your authority as guarantor.”
“I do,” said Combeferre.
“Splendid, I agree.” He looked back down at the book. “Article 1991: The agent is bound to accomplish the commission as far as he is charged therewith. He is in like manner bound to finish the thing begun, at the death of the principal… Well, we needn’t worry about that, though I promise to guarantee ‘til death do us part.” He closed the book, bringing it down on the desk with a punctuating thump. “It is a simple question, sir: do you recognize our right, or am I going to have to read you more articles?”
It was a threat, not a bluff. The registrar knew it.
"Where is the young man staying?" he asked
"Nowhere," said Enjolras. "I arrived this morning."
“The young man’s guarantor must speak for him,” said the registrar, smiling unpleasantly.
Courfeyrac raised his eyebrows at Combeferre; Combeferre nodded.
Courfeyrac said to the registrar, "Mark him down for the Hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques.”
“Where is that?” asked Enjolras.
The registrar’s handwriting spattered furiously across his logbook. “The abode of Mssrs. Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras.” Courfeyrac did not correct the dropped particle.
They went for lunch together. Courfeyrac refused payment from Enjolras, saying that the only rent required was to help him chip in on something for Combeferre’s birthday. “He’s a medical student, you see,” said Courfeyrac. “They blow all their money on corpses and specimens, I don’t trust him to indulge in the essential frivolities.”
“Have you been friends for long?” asked Enjolras
“We met today,” said Combeferre.
“So, as long as you’ve been friends with us,” said Courfeyrac.
Combeferre was grateful to Courfeyrac, not just for his hospitality, but for his bold overstatement. That was wrong, though, it wasn’t overstatement when he said it. Combeferre was Courfeyrac’s friend now, and so was Enjolras, simply because Courfeyrac had said it was so. People slipped in and out of one’s life, in Combefere’s experience, because there was nothing to anchor them together. Mankind was tethered, but men were not. Courfeyrac dropped one word, friend, and it took root.
Combeferre couldn’t place Enjolras’s accent. He’d asked Enjolras where he was born, and Enjolras had said, “Lo Miègjorn.” He’d asked Enjolras where he called home, and Enjolras had said, “France.”
Over the last of the coffee, Enjolras complimented Courfeyrac on his argument.
“Apart from all the mistakes, I agree,” said Courfeyrac. “If I can only escape my own first impressions, I might have some promise.”
“There was no reason to amend what you said,” said Combeferre. “Facit, agit. They act in much the same way.”
“He was incorrect,” said Enjolras.
“A misquote is not always a mistake,” said Combeferre. “Faciō: to do, to act, to construct. It describes the moment of completion. If one has done a single thing through another, one has done it himself. Qui facit per alium facit per se: He who has completed an act through another has completed an act through himself.
“Agō: to behave, to treat, to conduct, to extend, to aim at. To embody. It is a mode of being, not a completion. He who extends himself to another extends himself to himself. He who has been unto another man has been unto himself.
“Qui agit per alium agit per se– this man, too, is an Alexander.”
Enjolras smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”