© Gunnar Tómasson

28 January 2016

I. This we have to tell, for this is history

(Les Misérables, Book Twelve, Ch. VI)

1137823

In these hours of waiting what did they do?  This we have to tell, for this is history. While the men were making cartridges and the women lint, while a large pot, full of melted pewter and lead destined for the bullet mold was smoking over a hot stove, while the lookouts were watching the barricades with weapons in hand, while Enjolras, whom nothing could distract, was watching the lookouts, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, a few others besides, sought each other out and got together, as in the most peaceful days of their student conversations, and in a corner of this bistro turned into a pillbox, within two steps of the redoubt they had thrown up, their carbines primed and loaded resting on the backs of their chairs, these gallant young men, so near their last hour, began to recite a love poem. What poem?  Here it is: [English translation below*]

18536 = Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie,

22067 = Lorsque nous étions si jeunes tous deux.

20060 = Et que nous n’avions au coeur d’autre envie

16389 = Que d’être bien mis et d’être amoureux.

16669 = Lorsqu’en ajoutant votre âge à mon âge,

19767 = Nous ne comptions pas à deux quarante ans,

17075 = Et que, dans notre humble et petit ménage,

19714 = Tout, même l’hiver, nous était printemps?

16004 = Beaux jours!  Manuel était fier et sage,

16565 = Paris s’asseyait à de saints banquets,

16315 = Foy lançait la foudre, et votre corsage

14404 = Avait une épingle où je me piquais.

21940 = Tout vous contemplait.  Avocat sans causes,

15178 = Quand je vous menais au Prado dîner,

19952 = Vous étiez jolie au point que les roses

14717 = Me faisaient l’effet de se retourner.

13207 = Je les entendais dire:  Est-elle belle!

18731 = Comme elle sent bon!  quels cheveux à flots!

15531 = Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile;

16006 = Son bonnet charmant est à peine éclos.

\

20463 = J’errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple.

19195 = Les passants croyaient que l’amour charmé

17538 = Avait marié, dans notre heureux couple,

15508 = Le doux mois d’avril au beau mois de mai.

21687 = Nous vivions cachés, contents, porte close,

15454 = Dévorant l’amour, bon fruit défendu;

13985 = Ma bouche n’avait pas dit une chose

14735 = Que déja ton coeur avait répondu.

17073 = La Sorbonne était l’endroit bucolique

13888 = Où je t’adorais du soir au matin.

18853 = C’est ainsi qu’une âme amoureuse applique

12832 = La carte du Tendre au pays latin.

12374 = O place Maubert!  O place Dauphine!

17760 = Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier,

15225 = Tu tirais ton bas sur ta jambe fine,

15892 = Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier.

17688 = J’ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m’en reste

16065 = Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais;

14533 = Tu me démontrais la bonté céleste                                                                       

14238 = Avec une fleur que tu me donnais.

15746 = Je t’obéissais, tu m’étais soumise.

13243 = O grenier doré!  te lacer!  te voir!

13433 = Aller et venir dès l’aube en chemise,

20650 = Mirant ton front jeune à ton vieux miroir!

17582 = Et qui donc pourrait perdre la mémoire

15087 = De ces temps d’aurore et de firmament,

14466 = De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire,

14699 = Où l’amour bégaye un argot charmant?

16877 = Nos jardins étaient un pot de tulipe;

16922 = Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon;

12306 = Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe,                                     

13172 = Et je te donnais la tasse en japon.

21432 = Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire!

13915 = Ton manchon brûlé, ton boa perdu!

17521 = Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakspeare

22530 = Qu’un soir pour souper nous avons vendu!

13671 = J’étais mendiant, et toi charitable;

17467 = Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds.

15232 = Dante in-folio nous servait de table

17278 = Pour manger gaîment un cent de marrons.

17244 = Le première fois qu’en mon joyeux bouge

13613 = Je pris un baiser à ta lèvre en feu,

15375 = Quand tu t’en allas décoiffée et rouge,

17401 = Je restais tout pâle et je crus en Dieu!

19249 = Te rappeles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre,

17190 = Et tous ces fichus changés en chiffons?

21244 = Oh!  que de soupirs, de nos coeurs pleins d’ombre,                      

19465 = Se sont envolés dans les cieux profonds!

1137823

II. Victor Hugo – Shakespeare (1864)

(End of Chapter 1)

323517

  15595 = Let us return to Marine Terrace.

29701 = One morning at the end of November, two of the inhabitants of the place,

33986 = the father and the youngest of the sons, were seated in the lower parlour.

25810 = They were silent, like ship-wrecked ones who meditate.

17233 = Without, it rained; the wind blew.

20586 = The house was as if deafened by the outer roaring.

10983 = Both went on thinking,

18922 = absorbed perhaps by this coincidence between

18726 = a beginning of winter and the beginning of exile.

21682 = All at once the son raised his voice and asked the father, –

16935 = “What thinkest thou of this exile?”

9376 = “That it will be long.”
18003 = “How dost thou reckon to fill it up?”

9171 = The father answered, –

9786 = “I shall look on the ocean.”

25686 = There was a silence. The father resumed the conversation: –

2901 = “And you?”

5696 = “I,” said the son, –

  12739 = “I shall translate Shakespeare.”

323517 

I + II = 1137823 + 323517 = 1461340

As in a Summary of

Saga-Shakespeare Myth

  401006 = The “murder” of Snorri Sturluson

4627 = Francisco – “sicke-at-heart” Sentinel in Hamlet’s Opening scene

25920 = Platonic Great Year

5596 = Andlig spekðin – Spiritual wisdom

-6960 = Jarðlig skilning – Earthly understanding

1031151 = Omega Page of the First Folio (1623)

1461340

* The Love Song

Do you remember our sweet life

When were so young, we two,

And had in our hearts no other desire

Than to be well dressed and be in love.

When by adding your age to mine,

We couldn’t reach forty years between us,

And, in our humble little home,

Everything, even in winter, seemed spring?

Beautiful days!  Manuel was proud and wise,

Paris sat down to incredible banquets,

Foy was waxing eloquent, and your blouse

Had a pin that pricked me.

Everyone gazed at you.  A lawyer without a case,

When I took you to The Prado for dinner,

You were so pretty that the roses

Seemed to turn away.

I heard them say: Isn’t she beautiful!

How lovely she smells!  What flowing hair!

Under her cape she’s hiding wings;

Her charming hat has scarcely bloomed.

I wandered with you, squeezing your lissome arm.

People passing thought that charmed love

Had married in us, the happy couple,

The sweet month of April with the handsome month of May.

We lived hidden away, happy, the door closed,

Devouring love, good forbidden fruit;

My mouth had not said one thing

When already your heart had answered.

The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot

Where I adored you from dusk to dawn.

That is how a loving soul applies

The map of Tenderness to the Quartier Latin.

O Place Maubert!  O Place Dauphine!

When, in the meager springlike room,

You drew your stocking up over your slim leg,

I saw a star in a garret nook.

I’ve read a lot of Plato, but remember nothing

Better than Malebranche and Lammenais;

You showed me celestial kindness

With the flower you gave me.

I obeyed you, you were in my power.

O gilded garret!  To lace you up!  To see you

Coming and going from daybreak in a chemise,

Gazing at your young forehead in your old mirror!

And who could ever lose the memory

Of those times of dawn and sky,

Of ribbons, of flowers, of muslin and watered silk,

When love stammers a charmed argot?

Our gardens were a pot of tulips;

You screened the window with your slip;

I would take the pipe clay bowl,

And I gave you the porcelain cup.

And those great calamities that made us laugh!

Your muff burnt, your boa lost!

And that beloved portrait of the divine Shakespeare

That we sold one evening for our supper!

I was a beggar, and you charitable;

I gave fleeting kisses to your cool round arms.

Dante in-folio was our table

For gaily consuming a hundred chestnuts.

The first time, in my joyful hovel,

I stole a kiss from your fiery lips,

When you went off disheveled and pink,

I stayed there pale and believed in God!

Do you remember our countless joys,

And all those shawls turned to rags?

Oh!  From our shadow-filled hearts what sighs

Flew off into the limitless skies!

***

Calculator for converting letters to cipher values is at:

http://www.light-of-truth.com/ciphersaga.htm