Jean Victor Marie Moreau

“ I fancied the Hyena-swine looked dejected, so too did the Leopard-man. Moreau stopped, facing this creature, who cringed towards him with the memory and dread of infinite torment.
“Who is he?” repeated Moreau, in a voice of thunder.
“Evil is he who breaks the Law,” chanted the Sayer of the Law. ”

“ And so on for another long series, mostly quite incomprehensible gibberish to me about Him, whoever he might be. I could have fancied it was a dream, but never before have I heard chanting in a dream.
“His is the lightning flash,” we sang. “His is the deep, salt sea.”
A horrible fancy came into my head that Moreau, after animalising these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself. However, I was too keenly aware of white teeth and strong claws about me to stop my chanting on that account.
“His are the stars in the sky.” ”

“ Moreau looked into the eyes of the Leopard-man, and seemed to be dragging the very soul out of the creature.
“Who breaks the Law—” said Moreau, taking his eyes off his victim, and turning towards us (it seemed to me there was a touch of exultation in his voice) .
“Goes back to the House of Pain,” they all clamoured,—“goes back to the House of Pain, O Master!”
“Back to the House of Pain,—back to the House of Pain,” gabbled the Ape-man, as though the idea was sweet to him.
“Do you hear?” said Moreau, turning back to the criminal, “my friend—Hullo!” ”

“ Up the beach were M'ling, Montgomery's attendant, and one of the white-swathed brutes from the boat. Farther up, in the shadow of the trees, I saw my little Ape-man, and behind him some other dim figures.
“Who are these creatures?” said I, pointing to them and raising my voice more and more that it might reach them. “They were men, men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial taint,—men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear.
“You who listen,” I cried, pointing now to Moreau and shouting past him to the Beast Men,—“You who listen! ”

“ First to arrive was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast a shadow and tossed the dust with his hoofs. After him from the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the Law,—“His is the Hand that wounds ”

“ Do you not see these men still fear you, go in dread of you? Why, then, do you fear them? You are many—”
“For God's sake,” cried Montgomery, “stop that, Prendick!”
“Prendick!” cried Moreau.
They both shouted together, as if to drown my voice; and behind them lowered the staring faces of the Beast Men, wondering, their deformed hands hanging down, their shoulders hunched up. ”

“ The whole circle of threescore monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver. The two figures collided. I saw Moreau reeling back from the Leopard-man’s blow. There was a furious yelling and howling all about us. Every one was moving rapidly. For a moment I thought it was a general revolt. The furious face of the Leopard-man flashed by mine, with M’ling close in pursuit. I saw the yellow eyes of the Hyena-swine blazing with excitement, his attitude as if he were half resolved to attack me. The Satyr, too, glared at me over the Hyena-swine’s hunched shoulders. ”

“ I tried the other arm and sat up. The muffled figure in front ran in great striding leaps along the beach, and Moreau followed her. She turned her head and saw him, then doubling abruptly made for the bushes. She gained upon him at every stride. I saw her plunge into them, and Moreau, running slantingly to intercept her, fired and missed as she disappeared. Then he too vanished in the green confusion. I stared after them, and then the pain in my arm flamed up, and with a groan I staggered to my feet. Montgomery appeared in the doorway, dressed, and with his revolver in his hand. ”

“ Immediately there was a crashing through the yellow canes, and a sound of voices from the dense green jungle that marked the morass through which I had run on the previous day. Then at three or four points on the edge of the sulphurous area appeared the grotesque forms of the Beast People hurrying towards us. I could not help a creeping horror, as I perceived first one and then another trot out from the trees or reeds and come shambling along over the hot dust. But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough ”

“ The knot of Beast Men, still wondering, stood back among the trees. I passed them as serenely as possible. One started to follow me, but retreated again when Montgomery cracked his whip. The rest stood silent—watching. They may once have been animals; but I never before saw an animal trying to think.
XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.
“AND now, Prendick, I will explain,” said Doctor Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. “I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to oblige you. ”

“ He lost the track, however, on the stony ground beyond the stream where I had seen the Beast Man drinking, and went wandering aimlessly westward shouting Moreau’s name. Then M’ling had come to him carrying a light hatchet. M’ling had seen nothing of the puma affair; had been felling wood, and heard him calling. They went on shouting together. Two Beast Men came crouching and peering at them through the undergrowth, with gestures and a furtive carriage that alarmed Montgomery by their strangeness. He hailed them, and they fled guiltily. ”

“ MONTMOGERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one o’clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables, a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come.
“Moreau!” said I. “I know that name.”
“The devil you do!” said he. “What an ass I was to mention it to you! I might have thought. ”

“ Then came Moreau in a cluster of the Beast People, his wide-brimmed straw hat blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank white hair streaming out. The Hyena-swine ran beside me, keeping pace with me and glancing furtively at me out of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and shouting behind us.
The Leopard-man went bursting his way through the long canes, which sprang back as he passed, and rattled in M’ling’s face. We others in the rear found a trampled path for us when we reached the brake. ”

“ Mery was the only man who kept his heart. He was born in the island of Martinique, 13th January, 1750. When he was only three years old he lost his father, and his mother would not let him go to France to be educated. His grandfather was a judge or magistrate, and young Moreau de St. Mery was when a boy always interceding for some unfortunate prisoner. At his grandfather's death he inherited a sum of money, destined to defray the cost of his legal education in France, but he used the money to pay the old man's debts. At the age of nineteen he came to Paris, and studied hard. ”

“ In the undergrowth at the back of the enclosure, when I went out in the evening. The head was completely wrung off.”
He gave a long, low whistle.
“And what is more, I have an idea which of your brutes did the thing. It’s only a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit I saw one of your monsters drinking in the stream.”
“Sucking his drink?”
“Yes.”
“‘Not to suck your drink; that is the Law.’ Much the brutes care for the Law, eh? when Moreau’s not about!”
“It was the brute who chased me.”
“Of course,” said Montgomery; “it’s just the way with carnivores. After a kill, they drink. ”

“ It’s all very well for you, Prendick. Poor old Moreau! We can’t leave him here to have his bones picked. As it is—And besides, what will become of the decent part of the Beast Folk?”
“Well,” said I, “that will do to-morrow. I’ve been thinking we might make the brushwood into a pyre and burn his body—and those other things. Then what will happen with the Beast Folk?”
“I don’t know. I suppose those that were made of beasts of prey will make silly asses of themselves sooner or later. We can’t massacre the lot—can we? I suppose that’s what your humanity would suggest? But they’ll change. ”

“ I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything. I had even a certain wish to encounter Moreau face to face; and as I had waded into the water, I remembered that if I were too hard pressed at least one path of escape from torment still lay open to me,—they could not very well prevent my drowning myself. ”

“ The question shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky; and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid realisation of my own danger.
XI. THE HUNTING OF THE MAN.
IT came before my mind with an unreasonable hope of escape that the outer door of my room was still open to me. I was convinced now, absolutely assured, that Moreau had been vivisecting a human being. All the time since I had heard his name, I had been trying to link in my mind in some way the grotesque animalism of the islanders with his abominations ”

“ Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to permit of recognition at close quarters.
For several seconds, Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by that august and caressing serenity; such moments of oblivion do come to men; suffering refrains from harassing the unhappy wretch; everything is eclipsed in the thoughts; peace broods over the dreamer like night; and, beneath the twilight which beams and in imitation of the sky which is illuminated, the soul becomes studded with stars. ”

“ The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each other good-night in the elms of the Champs Élysées was audible. A few stars, faintly studding the pale blue of the zenith, formed in the immensity little imperceptible flashes. Night unfolded over Jean Valjean's head all the sweetness of infinitude. It was the undecided and exquisite hour which says neither yes nor no. There was already sufficient night for a man to lose himself in it a short distance off, and yet sufficient daylight to recognize any one close by. ”

“ He was also one of the founders of the Typographical Printing Company, has been a director since its organization, and in 1877 was its president. In politics Mr. Murray is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion a Roman catholic. He was married on the 25th of May, 1868, to Amelia Moreau, daughter of Michael Moreau, of Montreal, a descendant of an old French family, by whom he has a family of three daughters and two sons. ”

“ What a frightful light might issue from Jean Valjean's desperate explanations, and who knows whether that hideous brightness might not have been reflected on Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal gleam might not have remained on that angel's brow? Fatality knows such complications, in which innocence itself is branded with crime by the fatal law of coloring reflections, and the purest faces may retain forever the impression of a horrible vicinity. Whether rightly or wrongly, Marius was terrified, for he already knew too much, and he tried rather to deafen than to enlighten himself. ”

“ Jean Valjean had left the city, and in a twinkling, the time required to lift a trap and let it fall again, he had passed from broad daylight to complete darkness, from midday to midnight, from noise to silence, from the uproar of thunder to the stagnation of the tomb, and, by an incident far more prodigious even than that of the Rue Polonceau, from the extremest peril to the most absolute security. A sudden fall into a cellar, disappearance in the oubliette of Paris, leaving this street where death was all around for this species of sepulchre in which was life,—it was a strange moment. ”

“ When a being who is dear to us is about to die, we regard him with a gaze which grapples him, and would like to retain him. Cosette and Marius stood before him hand in hand, dumb through agony, not knowing what to say to death, despairing and trembling. With each moment Jean Valjean declined and approached nearer to the dark horizon. ”

“ I had before received from your office and that of State, all the printed publications on the subject of the batture, that is to say, the opinion of the Philadelphia lawyers and of G. Livingston himself, the publications of Derbigny, Thierry, Poydras, and the pièces probantes. I had been very anxious to get Moreau's memoire, which is only in manuscript, having heard it was the best of all. After waiting long and in vain for it, I was informed by my counsel that they were ruled to plead, and must be furnished with the grounds of defence. ”

“ Jean Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a little girl once more, she could run and almost play; she took off her hat, laid it on Jean Valjean’s knees, and gathered bunches of flowers. She gazed at the butterflies on the flowers, but did not catch them; gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who cherishes within her breast a trembling and fragile ideal has mercy on the wing of a butterfly. ”