You wake up in the Boulevard Saint-Michel.
You wake up in the Fauborg Saint Antoine.
How I met Martin Enjolras was like this.
I didn't go back to the Musain, nor did I go to the Voltaire, nor to Richfeus, nor any of the other places I secretly haunt in the guise of a workman.
You wake up in the middle of the street. It is the same street, no matter what it is called. You wake up and you walk, at least-- you prowl, and they slink.
I have no precinct; Paris is my oyster, and I am it's prying claw.
There are a thousand alleys and streets and corridors in Paris, above and below the earth, a sort of great upper and lower intestine through which the decent, the innocent, and the moral enter, are chewed up in her massive jaws, pass along the great greenish-silver worm that is the Siene and are shat out again near Saint-Michel. The worst sort of filth crawl about underground, and one is content to allow them, as, at some point, as with one's bowels-- the offal will move.
The Gentleman's lavratory is called La Force; the Ladies', Les Maladonettes.
It was in my office as the porter of this lowest salon that I came upon Martin. There is a gate to the sewers along the Siene, near the Champs-Elysées. I woke up between this gate and the riverbank, perfectly still, watching and waiting, while all the good of Paris are asleep. My day of work does not end, for I only work at night.
The position of the sun is irrelevant. It is Night in Paris.
It is night and when I met Martin Enjolras the sun was threatening to rise over the river. From down there, below the bridges, sunken in, it looks like you are sitting under the horizon. It is a solitude in which you are not alone, for there are eyes beneath you and below you, and I am watching them all. That day there was noone at all, but Martin was in the river, swimming upstream through a current that ought to be able to carry off a horse. He cuts cleanly back and forth, beneath the shadow of the sun. There was no one else to watch, so I watched him. I was the only one watching this. He made each pass in exactly a minute, I counted.
You wake up at the Pont au Change.
Enjolras pulled himself out of the river without a glance at me until he had pulled on his shirt and trousers. Fastening his cuffs he looked at me, and behind his eyes was an answer for an accusation I haven't made yet. I barked at him, "What are you doing here?"
"Watching. And waiting."
"What for?"
Martin looked at me, and came closer, memorising me like I was him, like I was a suspect, a criminal, a file. He looked like a young girl with a man's jaw and the eyes of a bird of prey.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
I opened my mouth and shut it.
"My job." I said finally. We were the only ones here.
"Ah." He said, and asked me what time it was.
"Why?" I asked.
You wake up, and it is the middle of the night and the sun is shining directly in your eyes.
"It's four past six o clock."
"Because I am waiting for something." Said Martin.
"What on earth for?"
"Nothing on earth." He said, and looked up again. For a moment the sun turned the river gold and crimson, and then it was just crimson, a great pulsing vein of red, the lifeline of the city. I saw this for just a moment, and then it was just a river again, and then it was the same as it always seemed. Another hiding place for the rats and the scavengers.
"A trick of the light," murmured Martin, "and an opportunity is unhidden for a moment. Patience will let you see it, but you have to wait. A moment will come."
You wake up, and you can go to sleep again, or not.
His name was Martin Enjolras, and he was a law student at the University, and he said that he'd seen me at the café Musain, and he gave me his address.
"If you want to arrest me, Inspector, I can be found there." And he smiled, which was disconcerting, and he turned and walked back up towards the Champs-Elysées.
And that is how we met.