gentle, and which was composed of the bitter honey of wicked women,
"why don't you take your doll?"
Cosette ventured to crawl out of her hole.
"My little Cosette," her mistress continued fawningly, "this gentleman
gives you the doll; so take it, for it is yours."
Cosette gazed at the wonderful doll with a sort of terror; her face was
still bathed in tears, but her eyes were beginning to fill, like the
sky at dawn, with strange rays of joy. What she felt at this moment was
something like what she would have felt had some one suddenly said to
her, "Little girl, you are Queen of France."
It seemed to her that if she touched this doll thunder would issue from
it; and this was true to a certain point, for she said to herself that
her mistress would scold and beat her. Still, the attraction gained the
victory; she at length crawled up to the doll and murmured timidly as
she turned to the landlady,--
"May I, Madame?"
No expression could render this air, which was at once despairing,
terrified, and ravished.
"Of course," said her mistress, "since this gentleman gives it to you."
"Is it true, sir?" Cosette continued. "Is the lady really mine?"
The stranger's eyes were full of tears, and he seemed to have reached
that point of emotion when a man does not speak in order that he may
not weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the "lady's" little hand in
hers. Cosette quickly drew back her hand as if the lady's burned her,
and looked down at the brick floor. We are compelled to add that at
this moment she put her tongue out to an enormous length; all at once
she turned and passionately seized the doll.
"I will call her Catherine," she said.
It was a strange sight when Cosette's rags met and held the doll's
ribbons and fresh muslins.
"May I put her in a chair, Madame?" she continued.
"Yes, my child," her mistress answered.
It was now the turn of Éponine and Azelma to look enviously at Cosette.
She placed Catherine in a chair, and then sat down on the ground before
her, motionless, without saying a word, and in a contemplative attitude.
"Play, Cosette," the stranger said.
"Oh, I am playing!" the child answered.
This unknown man, this stranger who had the air of a visitor sent
by Providence to Cosette, was at the moment the person whom Madame
Thénardier hated most in the world; still, she must put a constraint
on herself. This emotion was more than she could endure, accustomed to
dissimulation though she was by the copy which she had to take of her
husband in all his actions. She hastened to send her children to bed,
and then asked the yellow man's leave to send off Cosette, "who had
been very tired during the day," she added with a maternal air. Cosette
went off to bed carrying Catherine in her arms. The landlady went from
time to time to the other end of the room, where her husband was, in
order to relieve her mind. She exchanged with him a few sentences,
which were the more furious because she dared not utter them aloud.
"Old ass! what has he got in his noddle to come and disturb us in this
way; to wish that little monster to play; to give her dolls,--dolls
worth forty francs, to a wretch whom I would gladly sell for forty
sous? A little more, and he would call her 'Your Majesty,' like the
Duchesse de Berry. Can he be in his senses? The mysterious old fellow
must be cracked!"
"Why so? It is very simple," Thénardier replied. "Suppose it amuses
him? It amuses you that the little one should work; it amuses him to
see her play. He has a right, for a traveller can do as he likes so
long as he pays. If this old man is a philanthropist, how does it
concern you? If he is an ass, it is no business of yours. Why do you
interfere, so long as he has money?"
This was the language of a master and the reasoning of a landlord,
neither of which admitted a reply.
The man was resting his elbow on the table, and had resumed his
thoughtful attitude; the other travellers, pedlers, and carriers had
gone away or left off singing. They regarded him from a distance with
a sort of respectful fear; this poorly-clad individual, who drew
hind-wheels from his pocket with such ease and lavished gigantic dolls
on ragged girls, was assuredly a magnificent and formidable man.
Several hours passed, midnight mass was finished, the matin bell had
been rung, the drinkers had gone away, the pot-house was closed, the
fire was out in the tap-room, but the stranger still remained at the
same spot and in the same posture. From time to time he changed the
elbow on which he was leaning, that was all; but he had not uttered a
syllable since Cosette went off to bed. The Thénardiers alone remained
in the room, through politeness and curiosity.
"Is he going to pass the night like that?" the landlady pouted. When it
struck two, she declared herself conquered, and said to her husband, "I
am off to bed; you can do as you like." The husband sat down at a table
in a corner, lit a candle, and began reading the _Courrier Français._ A
good hour passed, during which the worthy host read the paper through
thrice from the date of the number to the imprint, but the stranger did
not stir. Thénardier moved, coughed, spat, and made his chair creak,
but the man made no movement. "Can he be asleep?" Thénardier thought.
The man was not asleep, but no movement aroused him. At length the
landlord doffed his cap, walked up gently, and ventured to say,--
"Do you not wish to repose, sir?"
"To sleep" would have appeared to him excessive and familiar, while
"repose" hinted at luxury, and was respectful. Such words have the
mysterious and admirable quality of swelling the bill on the next
morning: a room in which you sleep costs twenty sous; one in which you
repose costs twenty francs.
"Why, you are right," said the stranger; "where is your stable?"
"I will show you the way, sir," Thénardier replied with a smile.
He took the candle; the man fetched his stick and bundle, and
Thénardier led him to a room on the first floor, which was most
luxurious, with its mahogany furniture, and the bed with its red cotton
curtains.
"What is this?" the traveller asked.
"Our own wedding bed-room," the landlord replied; "my wife and I occupy
another, and this room is only entered three or four times a year."
"I should have preferred the stable," the man said roughly. Thénardier
pretended not to hear this disagreeable reflection, but lit two new wax
candles standing on the mantel-piece. A rather large fire was flashing
in the grate. Upon the mantel-piece was also a woman's head-dress, made
of silver tissue and orange-flowers, under a glass shade.
"And what is this?" the stranger continued.
"That, sir," Thénardier said, "is my wife's wedding bonnet."
The traveller looked at the object in a way that seemed to say,--"Then
there was a moment when this monster was a virgin."
This was a falsehood of Thénardier's. When he hired the house to
convert it into a public, he found this room thus furnished, and
bought the lot, thinking that it would cast a graceful shadow over his
"spouse," and that his house would derive from it what the English
call respectability. When the traveller turned round, Thénardier had
disappeared, without saying good-evening, as he did not wish to treat
with disrespectful cordiality a man whom he intended to flay royally
the next morning. The landlord went to his room, where his wife was in
bed, but not asleep. So soon as she heard her husband's footstep, she
said to him,--
"You know that I mean to turn Cosette out to-morrow?" Thénardier coldly
answered,--
"How you go on!"
They exchanged no more words, and a few minutes after the candle was
extinguished. For his part, the stranger had placed his stick and
bundle in a corner. When the landlord had withdrawn, he sat down in an
easy-chair and remained thoughtful for a time; then he took off his
shoes, seized one of the candlesticks, and left the room, looking about
him as if in search of something. He went along a passage and reached
the staircase; here he heard a very gentle sound, like the breathing
of a child. He followed this sound, and reached a triangular closet
under the stairs, or, to speak more correctly, formed by the stairs
themselves. Here, among old hampers and potsherds, in dust and cobwebs,
there was a bed, if we may apply the term to a paillasse so rotten as
to show the straw, and a blanket so torn as to show the mattress. There
were no sheets, and all this lay on the ground; in this bed Cosette
was sleeping. The man walked up and gazed at her. Cosette was fast
asleep and had all her clothes on; in winter she did not undress, that
she might be less cold. She was holding to her bosom the doll, whose
large open eyes glistened in the darkness; from time to time she
gave a heavy sigh, as if about to awake, and pressed the doll almost
convulsively in her arms. There was nothing by her bed-side but one of
her wooden shoes. Through an open door close by a large dark room could
be seen, through which the stranger entered. At the end, two little
white beds, belonging to Éponine and Azelma, were visible through a
glass door. Behind this a wicker curtainless cradle was half hidden, in
which slept the little boy who had been crying all the evening.
The stranger conjectured that this room communicated with that of
the Thénardiers. He was about to return, when his eye fell on the
chimney,--one of those vast inn chimneys, in which there is always so
little fire when there is a frost, and which are so cold to look at. In
this chimney there was no fire, not even ashes; but what there was in
it attracted the travellers attention. He saw two little child's shoes
of coquettish shape and unequal size; and the traveller recollected
the graceful and immemorial custom of children who place their shoe
in the chimney on Christmas night, in order to obtain some glittering
present from their good fairy in the darkness. Éponine and Azelma had
not failed in this observance. The traveller bent down; the fairy,
that is, the mother, had already paid her visit, and in each shoe a
handsome ten-sou piece could be seen shining. The man rose and was
going away, when he observed another object in the darkest corner of
the hearth; he looked at it, and recognized a hideous wooden shoe, half
broken and covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's; with the
touching confidence of children who may be disappointed, but are never
discouraged, she had also placed her shoe in the chimney. Hope in a
child that has never known aught but despair is a sublime and affecting
thing. There was nothing in this shoe; but the stranger felt in his
pocket and laid a louis d'or in it; then he crept noiselessly back to
his bed-room.
CHAPTER IX.
THÉNARDIER AT WORK.
The next morning, almost two hours before daybreak, Thénardier was
seated, pen in hand, at a table in the tap-room, and making out the
bill of the yellow-coated traveller. His wife, standing behind him,
was watching him; they did not exchange a syllable; on one side there
was a profound meditation, on the other that profound admiration with
which people watch a marvel of the human mind expanding. A noise could
be heard in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. At the end
of a quarter of an hour and some erasures, Thénardier produced this
masterpiece,--
"THE GENT IN NO. 1.
Supper.... 3 francs.
Bed....... 10 "
Candles... 5 "
Fire...... 4 "
Service... 1 "
__
Total 23 francs."
Service was written _serviss._
"Twenty-three francs!" the wife exclaimed, with an admiration mingled
with some hesitation.
Like all great artists, Thénardier was not satisfied, and said, "Pooh!"
It was the accent of Castlereagh drawing up the little bill for France
to pay at the Congress of Vienna.
"Monsieur Thénardier, you are right; he certainly owes it," the wife
muttered, thinking of the doll given to Cosette in the presence of her
children: "it is fair, but it is too much; he will not pay it."
Thénardier gave his cold laugh, and said, "He will pay it!"
This laugh was the supreme signification of certainty and authority;
what was said in this way must be. The wife made no objection, but
began arranging the tables, while her husband walked up and down the
room; a moment after he added,--
"Why, I owe fifteen hundred francs."
He sat down in the ingle-nook, meditating with his feet in the warm
ashes.
"By the bye," the wife continued, "you don't forget that I mean to
bundle out Cosette to-day? The monster! she eats my heart with her
doll; I would sooner marry Louis XVIII. than keep her a day longer in
the house."
Thénardier lit his pipe, and said between two puffs,--"You will hand
the man the bill."
Then he went out, and had scarce left the room ere the traveller
entered; Thénardier at once appeared behind and stood in the half-open
door, only visible to his wife. The yellow man carried his stick and
bundle in his hand.
"Up so soon?" the landlady said. "Are you going to leave us already,
sir?"
While speaking this, she turned the bill in her hands with an
embarrassed air and made folds in it with her nails; her harsh face had
an unusual look of timidity and scruple. It seemed to her difficult
to present such a bill to a man who looked so thoroughly poor. The
traveller seemed absent and preoccupied, as he replied,--
"Yes, Madame, I am going."
"Then you had no business to transact at Montfermeil, sir?" she
continued.
"No; I am merely passing through, that is all. What do I owe you,
Madame?"
The landlady, without replying, handed him the folded paper; he opened
and looked at it, but his attention was visibly elsewhere.
"Do you do a good business here?" he asked.
"Tolerably well, sir," the landlady answered, stupefied at not seeing
any other explosion; then she went on with an elegiac and lamentable
accent,--
"Oh, sir, times are very bad! And then there are So few respectable
people in these parts. It is lucky we have now and then generous and
rich travellers like yourself, sir, for the expenses are so high. Why,
that little girl costs us our eyes out of our head."
"What little girl?"
"Why, you know, Cosette, the Lark, as they call her hereabout."
"Oh!" said the man.
She continued,--
"What asses these peasants are with these nick-names! She looks more
like a bat than a lark. You see, sir, we don't ask for charity, but we
can't give it; our earnings are small and our expenses great,--the
license, the door and window tax, and so on! You know, sir, that the
Government claims a terrible deal of money. And then I have my own
daughters, and do not care to support another person's child."
The man replied, in a voice which he strove to render careless, and in
which there was a tremor,--
"And suppose you were freed of her?"
"Of whom,--of Cosette?"
The landlady's red and violent face was illumined by a hideous grin.
"Ah, sir, my good sir; take her, keep her, carry her off, sugar her,
stuff her with truffles, eat her, drink her, and may all the Saints in
Paradise bless you!"
"It is settled."
"You really will take her away at once?"
"At once. Call her."
"Cosette!" the landlady shouted.
"In the mean while," the man continued, "I will pay my score. How much
is it?"
He took a glance at the bill, and could not restrain a start of
surprise. Twenty-three francs! He looked at the landlady and repeated,
"Twenty-three francs?" There was in his pronunciation of the two words
the accent which separates the point of exclamation from the point
of interrogation. Madame Thénardier had had time to prepare for the
collision, and hence answered with assurance,--
"Yes, sir, twenty-three francs."
The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table.
"Go and fetch the girl," he said.
At this moment Thénardier walked into the middle of the room and said,--
"The gentleman owes twenty-six sous."
"Twenty-six sous!" the wife exclaimed.
"Twenty sous for the bed-room," Thénardier continued coldly, "and
six for the supper. As for the girl, I must talk a little with the
gentleman first. Leave us, wife."
The landlady had one of those bedazzlements which unforeseen flashes of
talent produced; she felt that the great actor had come on the stage,
made no answer, and went out. So soon as they were alone Thénardier
offered the traveller a chair. He sat down; Thénardier remained
standing, and his face assumed a singular expression of kindliness and
simplicity.
"I must tell you," he said, "sir, that I adore the child."
The stranger looked at him fixedly.
"What child?"
Thénardier continued,--
"How strange it is, but you grow attached to them. What is the meaning
of all that money? Put it back in your pocket; I adore the child."
"What child?" the stranger asked.
"Why, our little Cosette! Don't you wish to take her from us? Well, I
speak frankly, and as true as you are an honest man, I cannot consent.
I should miss the child, for I have known her since she was a baby: it
is true that she costs us money, that she has her faults, that we are
not rich, and that I paid more than upwards of four hundred francs for
medicines alone in one of her illnesses. She has neither father nor
mother, and I brought her up; and I have bread both for her and for me.
Look you, I am fond of the child; affection grows on you; I am a good
foolish fellow, and don't reason; I love the girl, and though my wife
is quick, she loves her too. She is like our own child, and I want to
hear her prattle in the house."
The stranger still looked at him fixedly, as he continued,--
"Excuse me, sir, but a child can't be given like that to the first
passer-by. You will allow that I am right? I don't say that you are
not rich and look like a very worthy man, and that it may be for her
welfare; but I am bound to know. You understand that supposing I let
her go and sacrificed myself, I should like to know where she is
going, and not lose her out of sight; I should wish to know where she
is, and go and see her now and then, to convince the child that her
foster-father is watching over her. In short, there are some things
which are not possible; I don't even know your name. I ought at least
to see some scrap of paper, a passport, and so on."
The stranger, without ceasing to fix on him that look which pierces to
the bottom of the conscience, said in a grave, firm voice,--
"Monsieur Thénardier, a man does not require a passport to go four
leagues from Paris; and if I take Cosette away, I take her away, that
is all. You will not know my name, my residence, or where she is; and
it is my intention that she shall never see you again. I break the
string which she has round her foot, and away she flies. Does that
suit you? Yes or no!"
In the same way as demons and genii recognize, by certain signs, the
presence of a superior deity, Thénardier understood that he had to do
with a very strong man. It was a sort of intuition, and he comprehended
with his distinct and sagacious promptitude. On the previous evening,
while drinking, smoking, and singing, he had constantly looked
at the stranger, watching him like a cat and studying him like a
mathematician. He had both watched him on his own account, through
pleasure and instinct, and played the spy on him as if paid to do
so. Not a gesture or movement of the yellow-coated man escaped him,
and even before the stranger so clearly manifested his interest in
Cosette, Thénardier divined it. He surprised the profound glances of
this old man which constantly reverted to the child. Why this interest?
Who was this man? Why was his attire so wretched when his purse was
so full? These questions he asked himself and could not answer, and
they irritated him; he reflected on them the whole night. He could
not be Cosette's father. Was he her grandfather? Then, why did he not
make himself known at once? When a man has a claim, he proves it,
and this man evidently had no claim on Cosette. In that case, what
was it? Thénardier lost himself in suppositions; he caught a gleam
of everything and saw nothing. However this might be, on beginning
the conversation, feeling sure that there was a secret in all this,
and that the man was interested in remaining in the shadow, he felt
himself strong; but on hearing the stranger's firm and distinct answer,
when he saw that this mysterious person was simply mysterious, he
felt himself weak. He had not expected anything of this sort, and it
routed his conjectures. He rallied his ideas, and weighed all this in a
second. Thénardier was one of those men who judge of a situation at a
glance, and considered that it was the moment to advance straight and
rapidly. He behaved like great captains at that decisive instant which
they alone can recognize, and suddenly unmasked his battery.
"Sir," he said, "I want one thousand five hundred francs."
The stranger drew from his side-pocket an old black leathern portfolio,
and took from it three bank-notes which he laid on the table; then he
placed his large thumb on the notes, and said to the landlord,--
"Bring Cosette here."
While this was taking place, what was Cosette about? On waking, she
ran to her sabot and found the gold coin in it; it was not a napoleon,
but one of those new twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on which
the Prussian queue was substituted for the crown of laurels. Cosette
was dazzled, and her destiny was beginning to intoxicate her; she knew
not what a gold piece was, she had never seen one, and she hurriedly
hid it in her pocket, as if she had stolen it. She felt it was really
hers; she guessed whence the gift came, but she experienced a feeling
of joy full of fear. She was happy, but she was more stupefied; these
magnificent things did not seem to her real,--the doll frightened
her, the gold coin frightened her, and she trembled vaguely at this
magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her; on the contrary,
he reassured her since the previous evening. Through her amazement and
her sleep, she thought in her little childish mind of this man, who
looked so old and poor and sad, and who was so rich and good. Ever
since she met him in the wood all had changed for her, as it were.
Cosette, less happy than the meanest swallow, had never yet known what
it is to take refuge in the shadow and beneath the wing of her mother;
for five years, that is to say, so far back as her thoughts went, the
poor child had trembled and shuddered. She had always been exposed in
her nudity to the bleak blast of misfortune, and she felt as if she
were clothed; formerly her soul was cold, now it was warm. Cosette
no longer felt afraid of her mistress, for she was no longer alone;
she had some one by her side. She had set about her daily work very
quickly, and the louis, which she had in the same pocket from which the
fifteen-sous piece fell on the previous night, caused her thoughts to
stray. She did not dare touch it, but she looked at it for five minutes
at a time. While sweeping the stairs, she stood motionless, forgetting
her broom and the whole world, engaged in watching this star sparkle in
her pocket. It was during one of these contemplations that her mistress
came to her; by her husband's order she had come to fetch the child,
and, extraordinary to say, did not strike her, or even abuse her.
"Cosette," she said almost gently, "come directly."
A moment after, Cosette entered the tap-room. The stranger took his
bundle and untied it; it contained a complete mourning dress for a
child of seven years of age.
"My dear," the man said, "take these and go and dress yourself quickly."
Day was breaking, when those inhabitants of Montfermeil who were
beginning to open their doors saw a poorly-clad man and a girl, holding
a large doll, going along the Paris road toward Livry. It was our man
and Cosette. No one knew the man, and few recognized Cosette in her
new dress. Cosette was going away. With whom, she was ignorant. Where
to, she did not know. All she understood was that she was leaving
Thénardier's pot-house behind her; no one thought of saying good-by
to her, or she to any one. She left the house, hated and hating. Poor
gentle being, whose heart up to this hour had only been compressed!
Cosette walked gravely, opening her large eyes and looking at the sky;
she had placed her louis in the pocket of her new apron, and from time
to time stooped down and looked at it, and then at her companion.
CHAPTER X.
THÉNARDIER HAS ONE REGRET.
Madame Thénardier, according to her habit, had left her husband to
act, and anticipated grand results. When the man and Cosette had left,
Thénardier let a good quarter of an hour elapse, then took her on one
side and showed her the fifteen hundred francs.
"Is that all?" she said.
It was the first time since her marriage that she ventured to criticise
an act of her master. The blow went home.
"You are right," he said; "I am an imbecile! Give me my hat." He thrust
the three notes into his pocket and went out; but he made a mistake
and first turned to the right. Some neighbors of whom he inquired
put him on the right track, and he walked along at a great rate, and
soliloquizing.
"The man is evidently a millionnaire dressed in yellow, and I am a
blockhead. He gave first twenty sous, then five francs, then fifty
francs, then fifteen hundred francs, and all with the same facility. He
would have given fifteen thousand francs! But I shall overtake him."
And then, the bundle of clothes prepared beforehand was singular, and
there was a mystery behind it. Now mysteries must not be let go when
you hold them, for the secrets of the rich are sponges full of gold,
if you know how to squeeze them. All these thoughts whirled about his
brain. "I am an ass!" he said. On leaving Montfermeil and reaching
the angle formed by the Livry road, you can see it running for a long
distance before you upon the plateau. On getting to this point he
calculated that he should see the man and child, and looked as far as
he could, but saw nothing. He inquired again, and passers-by told him
that the man and the child he was looking for had gone in the direction
of Gagny wood. He followed them; for, though they had the start of him,
a child walks slowly. He went fast, and then, again, the country was
familiar to him. All at once he stopped and smote his forehead, like a
man who has forgotten the essential thing and is ready to retrace his
steps.
"I ought to have brought my gun," he said to himself. Thénardier was
one of those double natures, that pass at times among us without our
knowledge, and disappear unknown, because destiny has only shown us one
side of them: it is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged.
In an ordinary situation Thénardier had everything necessary to make
him--we do not say to be--what is conventionally termed an honest
tradesman or a worthy citizen. At the same time, certain circumstances
being given, certain shocks stirring up his nature from the bottom, he
had everything required to make him a villain. He was a shop-keeper
in whom there was a monster. Satan must at times crouch in a corner
of the lair in which Thénardier lived, and dream before this hideous
masterpiece. After a moment's hesitation he thought,--
"Nonsense! they would have time to escape."
And he continued his walk, going rapidly ahead and almost with an
air of certainty, displaying the sagacity of a fox scenting a flock
of partridges. In fact, when he had passed the ponds and cut across
the wide turfed glade which covers the old water-way of the Abbey
de Chelles, he noticed under a shrub a hat, on which he built many
conjectures. The shrub was low, and Thénardier saw that the man and
Cosette were sitting under it. The child could not be seen, but the
doll's head was visible. Thénardier was not mistaken; the man had sat
down there to let the child rest a little, and the tavern-keeper dodged
round the shrub and suddenly appeared before those whom he was seeking.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, panting, "but here are your fifteen hundred
francs."
The man raised his eyes.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Thénardier answered respectfully,--
"It means, sir, that I am going to take Cosette back!"
The child started, and clung to the man. The latter answered, looking
fixedly at Thénardier and leaving a space between each word,--
"You--take--Cosette--back?"
"Yes, sir, I do: and I must tell you that I have reflected. The truth
is, that I have no right to give her to you. Look you, I am an honest
man: the little one does not belong to me, but to her mother, who
intrusted her to me, and I can only give her back to her mother. You
will say to me, 'Her mother is dead.' Good. In that case, I can only
surrender Cosette to a person who brings me a written authority from
her mother. That is clear enough."
The man, without answering, felt in his pocket, and Thénardier saw the
portfolio with the bank-notes reappear. He gave a start of joy.
"Good," he thought; "I have him, he is going to bribe me."
Before opening the portfolio the traveller looked around him; the place
was utterly deserted, and there was not a soul in the wood or the
valley. The man opened the pocket-book and took out, not the handful of
bank-notes which Thénardier anticipated, but a simple sheet of paper,
which he opened and handed to the landlord, saying,--
"You are right: read."
Thénardier took the paper and read:--
"M. sur M., March 25, 1823.
"MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER,--You will hand over Cosette to
the bearer, who will pay up all little matters.
Yours respectfully,
FANTINE."
"Do you know the signature?" the man continued.
It was really Fantine's, and Thénardier recognized it, and had no
reply. He felt a double annoyance--first, at having to renounce the
bribery which he expected; and secondly, that of being beaten. The man
added,--
"You can keep that paper as your discharge."
Thénardier folded it up neatly, and growled,--
"The signature is tolerably well imitated. Well, be it so."
Then he attempted a desperate effort.
"So far, so good, sir, since you are the bearer; but the expenses must
be paid, and there is a heavy sum owing me."
The man rose, and said, as he dusted his threadbare cuff, "Monsieur
Thénardier, in January the mother calculated that she owed you 120
francs; in February you sent in an account of 500 francs; you received
300 at the end of that month, and 300 more early in March. Since then
nine months have elapsed at the agreed-on price of fifteen francs,
which makes 135 francs. You had received 100 francs too much, so this
leaves 35 francs owing you, and I have just given you 1500."
Thénardier felt just like the wolf when it is caught by the leg in a
steel trap.
"Who in the fiend's name is this man?" he thought.
He behaved like the wolf: he shook himself: impudence had carried him
through before now.
"Monsieur, I don't know your name," he said boldly, and, putting off
his respectful manner, "if you do not give me 3000 francs I shall take
Cosette back."
The stranger said quietly, "Come, Cosette." He took the child by his
left hand, and with the right picked up his stick. Thénardier noticed
the hugeness of the stick and the solitude of the spot; the man buried
himself in the wood, leaving the landlord motionless and confounded.
As he walked away Thénardier regarded his broad shoulders and enormous
fists, then his eye fell on his own thin arms. "I must have been a
fool," he said, "not to bring my gun, as I was going to the chase."
Still the tavern-keeper did not give in. "I will know where he goes,"
he said, and began following them at a distance. Two things remained
in his hands,--irony in the shape of the scrap of paper signed
"Fantine," and a consolation in the 1500 francs. The man led Cosette in
the direction of Bondy; he walked slowly, with drooping head and in a
pensive attitude. Winter had rendered the wood transparent, and hence
Thénardier did not lose sight of them, while keeping some distance
off. From time to time the man turned round and looked to see whether
he were followed, and suddenly perceived Thénardier. He drew Cosette
into a clump of trees, in which they both disappeared. "Confusion!"
said Thénardier, as he doubled his pace. The closeness of the trees
compelled him to draw nearer to them, and when the man was at the
thickest part he turned round and saw Thénardier, although the latter
tried to conceal himself in the branches. The man gave him a restless
glance, then tossed his head and continued his walk. Thénardier
followed him; but after going some two hundred yards the man turned and
looked at him so menacingly that the landlord thought it "useless" to
go any farther, and turned back.
CHAPTER XI
NO. 9430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY.
Jean Valjean was not dead.
When he fell into the sea, or rather when he threw himself into it,
he was, as we have seen, without irons. He swam in the trough of the
sea alongside a vessel at anchor, to which a skiff was made fast. He
managed to conceal himself in this skiff until evening. When night
came he entered the water again and reached the shore at a short
distance from Cape Brun. There, as he had no lack of money, he was able
to provide himself with clothes. An inn in the suburbs of Balaguier
was then the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a profitable line
of business. Then, Jean Valjean, like all these unhappy runaways who
try to guard against the law and chance meetings, followed a track
both obscure and winding. He found his first shelter at Pradeux
near Beausset. From there he journeyed toward Grand-Villard, near
Briançon, in the Upper Alps,--a groping and restless flight, a
mole-track with unknown branches. Later, some trace of his passage
could be found at l'Ain, in the district of Civrieux, in the Pyrenees
at Accons, at a place called Grange-de-Doumecq, near the hamlet of
Chavailles and in the suburbs of Périgueux, at Brienne, in the Canton
of Chapelle-Gonaguet. He reached Paris. We have just seen him at
Montfermeil.
His first care, on reaching Paris, had been to buy mourning robes for a
little girl of seven or eight years, then to find a lodging-place. That
done, he made his appearance at Montfermeil.
It will be remembered that once before at the time of his former escape
he had made there a mysterious journey of which justice had had some
information.
However, he was thought to be dead, and this thickened the obscurity
which surrounded him. While in Paris there fell into his hands a
journal which recorded the fact. He felt reassured, and almost as much
at peace as if he really were dead.
On the very evening of the day on which Jean Valjean saved Cosette
from the clutches of Thénardier he came back to Paris. He re-entered
the city at nightfall with the child, through the Barrière Monceaux.
There he jumped into a cab which brought him to the esplanade of the
Observatory. Here he got out, paid the driver, took Cosette by the
hand, and they both took their course in the dark night through the
deserted streets near the Oursine and the Glacière toward the Boulevard
de l'Hôpital.
The day had been strange and full of emotions for Cosette. They
had dined behind hedges on bread and cheese bought at unfrequented
cook-shops; they had frequently changed carriages, and made part of
the journey on foot. She did not complain, but she was tired, and
Jean Valjean felt it by his hand, on which she hung more and more as
she walked. He took her on his back; Cosette, without letting go of
Catherine, laid her head on his shoulder and fell asleep.
BOOK IV.
THE GORBEAU TENEMENT.
CHAPTER I.
MASTER GORBEAU.
Forty years ago the solitary walker who ventured into the lost
districts of the Salpêtrière, and went up the boulevard as far as
the Barrière d'Italie, reached a quarter where it might be said that
Paris disappeared. It was not solitude, for there were passers-by; it
was not the country, for there were houses and streets; it was not a
town, for the streets had ruts as large as those in the high-roads,
and grass grew in them; and it was not a village, for the houses were
too lofty. What was it then? It was an inhabited place where there was
nobody, a deserted spot where there was somebody; it was a boulevard
of the great city, a street of Paris, more ferocious at night than a
forest, more gloomy by day than a cemetery. It was the old quarter
of the Marché-aux-Chevaux. The rambler, if he risked himself beyond
the tottering walls of the market, if he even consented to pass the
Rue du Petit-Banquier, reached the corner of the Rue des Vignes St.
Marcel, a but little known latitude, after leaving on his right a
garden protected by high walls; next a field in which stood tan-mills
resembling gigantic beaver-dams; next an enclosure encumbered with
planks, tree-stumps, sawdust, and chips, on the top of which a large
dog barked; then a long low wall, all in ruins, with a small, decrepit
back gate, covered with moss, which burst into flower in spring; and
lastly, in the most desolate spot, a hideous and decrepit building, on
which could be read in large letters, "Stick no Bills." Here, close to
a foundry, and between two garden walls, could be seen, at the time
of which we write, a poor house, which, at the first glance, seemed
small as a cottage, but was in reality large as a cathedral. It turned
its gable end to the public thoroughfare, and hence came its apparent
smallness; nearly the whole house was concealed, and only a door and a
window could be perceived.
This house was only one story high. On examining it, the first fact
that struck you was that the door could never have been other than
that of a low lodging-house, while the window, had it been carved in
stone instead of made of stucco, might have belonged to a mansion.
The door was nothing but a collection of worm-eaten planks, clumsily
held together by roughly-planed cross-beams. It opened immediately
on a steep staircase, muddy, dirty, and dusty, of the same width
as itself, which could be seen from the street mounting steep as a
ladder, and disappearing in the gloom between two walls. The top of
the clumsy opening in which the door stood was masked by a thin deal
plank, in which a triangular hole had been cut. On the inside of the
door a brush dipped in ink had clumsily traced No. 52, while over
the skylight the same brush had painted No. 50; so people hesitated.
Dust-colored rags hung like a drapery over the triangular skylight.
The window was wide, tolerably lofty, filled with large panes of
glass, and protected by Venetian shutters; but these panes had various
wounds, at once concealed and betrayed by an ingenious bandage of
paper, and the Venetian shutters, broken and hanging from their hinges,
threatened passers-by more than they protected the inhabitants. The
horizontal screen-boards were wanting here and there, and these places
had been filled up with boards nailed on perpendicularly; so that
the affair began by being a Venetian screen, and ended by being a
shutter. This door, which had an unclean look, and this window, which
looked honest, though fallen in the world, produced the effect of two
beggars walking side by side with two different faces under the same
rags, the one having always been a mendicant, while the other had once
been a gentleman. The staircase led to a very large building, which
resembled a shed which had been converted into a house. This building
had, as its intestinal tube, a long passage, upon which opened, right
and left, compartments of various dimensions, habitable at a pinch,
and more like booths than cells. These rooms looked out on the dreary
landscape around. The whole was dark, wearisome, dull, melancholy, and
sepulchral, and traversed, according as the cracks were in the roof
or the door, by cold sunbeams or sharp draughts. An interesting and
picturesque peculiarity of houses of this description is the enormous
size of the cobwebs. To the left of the door, on the boulevard, and at
about six feet from the ground, a bricked-up window formed a square
hole filled by passing lads with stones. A portion of this building has
been recently demolished, but what still remains will allow an idea to
be formed of what it was. The whole affair is not more than a century
old; one hundred years are the youth of a church and the old age of a
human abode. It seems as if the house of man shares his brief tenure,
and the House of God His eternity. The postman called this house No.
50-52, but it was known in the quarter by the name of Maison Gorbeau.
Let us state whence this title came.
The collectors of things not generally known, who make anecdotal
herbals, and prick fugacious dates into their memory with a pin, know
that there were in Paris, about the year 1770, two advocates at the
Châtelet of the names of Corbeau and Renard,--two names foreseen by
Lafontaine. The opportunity was too good to be neglected, and ere long
the following parody, in rather halting verse, was in everybody's
mouth:--
"Maître Corbeau, sur un dossier perché,
Tenait dans son bec une saisie exécutoire;
Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché,
Lui fit à peu près cette histoire:
Eh, bonjour," etc.
The two honest lawyers, who were unable to hold their heads up under
the outbursts of laughter that followed them, resolved to get rid of
their names, and for that purpose appealed to the king. The petition
was handed to Louis XV. on the very day when the Papal Nuncio kneeling
on one side, and Cardinal de la Roche Aymon on the other, were drawing
the slippers on to the bare feet of Madame du Barry, who had just
left her couch. The king, who was laughing, continued to laugh, gayly
passed from the two bishops to the two lawyers, and forgave them their
names, or nearly so. By royal authority Master Corbeau was allowed
to add a tail to his initial letter and become Gorbeau; but Master
Renard was less fortunate,--he could only obtain leave to place a P
before his R, and call himself Prenard, so that the second name was
nearly as significant as the first. Now, according to local tradition,
Master Gorbeau had been owner of the building numbered 50-52, on the
Boulevard de l'Hôpital, and was even author of the grand window. From
this has this tumble-down place the name of Maison Gorbeau. Opposite
the house there stands, amid the boulevard trees, an elm which is
nearly three parts dead; a little farther on is the Rue de la Barrière
des Gobelins,--a street at that time without houses, unpaved, planted
with badly-growing trees, and which ran straight down to the city
walls. A copperas smell issues in puffs from the roof of an adjacent
manufactory. The barrier was close by, and in 1823 the city walls were
still in existence. The barrier itself cast a gloom over the mind, for
it was on the road to Bicêtre. Under the Empire and the Restoration men
condemned to death returned to Paris through it on the day of their
execution. Here was committed, about the year 1829, that mysterious
assassination called "the murder of the Barrière de Fontainebleau,"--a
frightful problem which has never been elucidated, a mournful enigma
which has never been solved. A few steps farther on you come to the
fatal Rue Croulebarbe, in which Ulbach stabbed the woman who looked
after the Ivry goats, to the sound of thunder, as in a melodrama. A few
more steps and you reach the abominable pollard-elms of the Barrière
St. Jacques, that philanthropic expedient concealing the scaffold,
the paltry, disgraceful Place de Grève of a shop-keeping society,
which has recoiled before the penalty of death, though not daring to
abolish it with grandeur or keep it up with authority. Thirty-seven
years ago, and leaving aside this place St. Jacques, which was, as
it were, predestined, and has always been horrible, the gloomiest
point perhaps of all this gloomy boulevard was that where No. 50-52
stood. Tradespeople did not begin to brood there till five-and-twenty
years later. The place was morose, for you felt yourself between La
Salpêtrière, whose dome was just visible, and Bicêtre, whose barrier
you could touch; that is to say, between male and female mania. As far
as the eye could reach, nothing was visible save the slaughter-houses,
the city wall, and a few rare frontages of foundries, resembling
barracks or monasteries. Everywhere were sheds and rubbish, old walls
black as coffins, new walls white as winding-sheets; everywhere
parallel rows of trees, buildings standing in rows, long odd lines, and
the gloomy sadness of right angles. There was not a diversity of the
soil, not a single architectural whim; the _ensemble_ was freezing,
regular, and hideous. Nothing makes the heart so heavy as symmetry,
because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is the basis of mourning, a
yawning despair. It is possible to imagine something more horrible than
an Inferno in which people suffer; it is one in which they are ennuyés.
If such an Inferno existed, this section of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital
might be its avenue.
At nightfall, at the moment when light disappears, and before all in
winter, at the hour when the evening breeze is tearing from the elms
their last rusty leaves, when the darkness is profound and starless,
and when the moon and the wind make rents in the clouds, this boulevard
became really terrifying. The black outlines were lost in the gloom,
and the passer-by could not refrain from thinking of the countless
gallows traditions of the spot. This solitude, in which so many crimes
had been committed, had something awful about it; traps could almost
be foreseen in the darkness, all the confused shapes of the darkness
appeared suspicious, and the long, hollow squares noticed between the
trees seemed graves. By day it was ugly, in the evening lugubrious,
and at night sinister. In the summer twilight a few old women might
be seen sitting under the elms upon raw, rotted benches; these worthy
old ladies had a partiality for begging. Even at the time of which we
write, however, this quarter, which looked more superannuated than
ancient, was striving to transform itself, and any one who wished to
see it was obliged to make haste, for each day some detail disappeared
from the _ensemble._ For the last twenty years the Orleans railway
station has been by the side of the old faubourg, and has worked it
up; for wherever a station is built on the skirt of a capital it is
the death of a suburb and the birth of a town. Round these centres of
popular movement, at the rolling of these mighty machines, under the
breath of these monstrous horses of civilization which devour coal and
snort fire, the earth trembles, and opens to swallow up the old abodes
of men and bring forth new ones; the old houses crumble away, and new
ones rise in their place.
From the day when the Orleans railway station invaded the territory
of the Salpêtrière, the old narrow streets that border the Jardin des
Plantes have been shaken down, traversed as they are three or four
times a day by those currents of diligences, hackney coaches, and
omnibuses, which, within a given time, drive back the houses on both
sides: for it is a curious though perfectly true fact that, just as
in large capitals the sun makes the fronts of houses grow and expand
to the south, the frequent passing of vehicles widens streets. The
symptoms of a new life are visible in the remotest corners of this
old provincial district; pavement is being laid down and is beginning
to extend to spots where there are as yet no wayfarers. One memorable
morning in July, 1845, the bitumen caldrons were suddenly seen smoking
there, and on that day it may be said that civilization reached the Rue
de l'Oursine, and that Paris entered the Faubourg St. Marceau.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEST OF AN OWL AND A LINNET.
Jean Valjean stopped before No. 50-52. Like the dull bird, he had
selected this deserted spot in which to build his nest. He felt in his
pocket, took out a latch-key, opened and carefully shut the door again,
and went upstairs, still carrying Cosette on his back. When he reached
the landing he took from his pocket a key, with which he opened another
door. The room he entered was a sort of spacious garret, furnished
with a mattress laid on the ground, a table, and a few chairs. There
was a burning stove in the corner, and the boulevard lamp faintly
illumined this poor interior. At the end of the room was a closet with
a poor bedstead, to which Jean Valjean carried the child and laid her
on it, without awaking her. He struck a light and lit a candle,--all
this had been prepared on the previous day,--and he then began gazing
at Cosette with a look full of ecstasy, in which the expression of
kindness and tenderness almost attained delirium. The little girl,
with that calm confidence which only appertains to extreme strength
and extreme weakness, had fallen asleep without knowing with whom she
was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was. Jean Valjean
bent down and kissed the child's hand. Nine months previously he had
kissed her mother's hand, who bad also just fallen asleep, and the same
painful, religious, poignant feeling filled his heart. He knelt down by
the side of Cosette's bed.
Long after daybreak the child was still asleep. A pale beam of the
December sun filtered through the window and made large strips of light
and shadow on the ceiling. Suddenly a heavily-laden wagon, passing
along the boulevard, shook the house like a blast of wind and made it
tremble from top to bottom.
"Yes, Madame," Cosette cried, waking with a start, "I am coming
directly."
And she jumped out of bed, her eyelids still half closed by the weight
of sleep, and stretched out her arms to a corner of the wall.
"Oh, goodness, my broom!" she said.
She opened her eyes thoroughly, and saw Jean Valjean's smiling face.
"Ah, it is true," the child said. "Good-morning, sir.
Children accept at once and familiarly joy and happiness, for they are
themselves by nature happiness and joy. Cosette saw Catherine at the
foot of her bed, caught her up, and while playing, asked Jean Valjean
a hundred questions,--"Where was she? Was Paris large? Was Madame
Thénardier a long way off, and would she never return?" etc. etc. etc.
All at once she exclaimed, "How pretty it is here!"
It was a frightful hole, but she felt herself free.
"Must I sweep?" she at length continued.
"Play," said Jean Valjean.
The day passed in this way; and Cosette, not feeling any anxiety at
understanding nothing, was inexpressibly happy between her doll and
this good man.
CHAPTER III.
TWO EVILS MAKE A GOOD.
The next morning at daybreak Jean Valjean was again standing by
Cosette's bedside; he was motionless and waiting for her to awake:
something new was entering his soul. Jean Valjean had never loved
anything. For twenty-five years he had been alone in the world, and
had never been father, lover, husband, or friend. At the galleys he
was wicked, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and ferocious,--the heart of
the old convict was full of virginities. His sister and his sister's
children had only left in him a vague and distant reminiscence, which
in the end entirely faded away: he had made every effort to find them
again, and, not being able to do so, forgot them,--human nature is thus
constituted. The other tender emotions of his youth, if he had any, had
fallen into an abyss. When he saw Cosette, when he carried her off,
he felt his heart stirred: all the passion and affection there was in
him was aroused and rushed toward this child. He went up to the bed on
which she slept, and he trembled with joy: he felt pangs like a mother,
and knew not what it was; for the great and strange emotion of a heart
which is preparing to love is a very obscure and sweet thing. Poor old
heart still young! But as he was fifty-five years of age and Cosette
eight, all the love he might have felt during life was melted into a
species of ineffable glow. This was the second white apparition he met:
the Bishop had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon, and
Cosette now produced that of love.
The first days passed in this bedazzlement. On her side Cosette became
unconsciously different, poor little creature! She was so little when
her mother left her that she did not remember; and like all children,
who resemble the young vine-twigs that cling to everything, she tried
to love, and had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,--the Thénardiers,
their children, and other children; she had loved the dog which died,
and after that nothing and nobody would have anything to do with her.
It is a sad thing to say, but at the age of eight she had a cold heart.
It was not her fault, it was not that she lacked the faculty of loving;
but it was, alas! the possibility. Hence, from the first day, all
that felt and thought within her began to love the good man; and she
experienced what she had never known before,--a feeling of expansion.
The man no longer even produced the effect upon her of being old or
poor; she found Jean Valjean handsome, in the same way as she found the
garret pretty. Such are the effects of dawn, childhood, youth, and joy.
The novelty of earth and life have something to do in it, and nothing
is so charming as the coloring reflection of happiness upon an attic;
in this way we have all a blue garret in our past. Nature had placed
a profound interval, of fifty years, between Jean Valjean and Cosette;
but destiny filled up this separation. Destiny suddenly united, and
affianced with its irresistible power, these two uprooted existences
so different in age, so similar in sorrow; and the one, in fact, was
the complement of the other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, in
the same way as Jean Valjean's sought a child, and to meet was to find
each other. At the mysterious moment when their two hands clasped they
were welded together; and when their two souls saw each other they
recognized that each was necessary to the other, and joined in a close
embrace. Taking the words in their most comprehensive and absolute
meaning, we may say that, separated from everything by the walls of
the tombs, Jean Valjean was the widower as Cosette was the orphan, and
this situation caused Jean Valjean to become in a celestial manner
Cosette's father. And, in truth, the mysterious impression produced
upon Cosette in the Chelles wood by Jean Valjean's hand grasping hers
in the darkness was not an illusion but a reality.
Jean Valjean had selected his asylum well, and in a security which
might appear perfect. The room he occupied with Cosette was the one
whose window looked out on the boulevard, and as it was the only one of
the sort in the house, he had not to fear the curiosity of neighbors,
either in front or on his side. The ground-floor of No. 50-52, a sort
of rickety pentice, was employed as a tool-house by nursery-gardeners,
and had no communication with the first floor. The latter, as we have
said, contained several rooms, and a few garrets, one of which alone
was occupied by the old woman who looked after Jean Valjean. It was
this old woman who was known as the chief lodger, and who in reality
performed the duties of porter, that let him the room on Christmas
day. He had represented himself as an annuitant ruined by the Spanish
bonds, who meant to live there with his little daughter. He paid six
months' rent in advance, and requested the old woman to furnish the
room in the way we have seen; and it was this woman who lit the stove
and prepared everything on the evening of their arrival. Weeks passed
away, and these two beings led a happy life in this wretched garret.
With the dawn Cosette began laughing, chattering, and singing; for
children, like the birds, have their matin song. Sometimes it happened
that Jean Valjean took her little red chilblained hand and kissed it;
the poor child, accustomed to be beaten, did not know what this meant,
and went away quite ashamed. At times she became serious, and looked
at her little black frock. Cosette was no longer dressed in rags, but
in mourning; she had left wretchedness, and was entering life. Jean
Valjean set to work teaching her to read. Occasionally he thought that
it was with the idea of doing evil that he learned to read at the
galleys, and this idea had turned to teaching a child to read. Then
the old galley-slave smiled the pensive smile of the angels. He felt
in it a premeditation of heaven, and he lost himself in a reverie, for
good thoughts have their depths as well as wicked. Teaching Cosette
to read, and letting her play, almost constituted Jean Valjean's
entire life; and then, he spoke to her about her mother, and made her
play. She called him "father," and knew him by no other name. He spent
hours in watching her dress and undress her doll, and listening to
her prattle. From this moment life appeared to him full of interest;
men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached any one in
his thoughts, and perceived no reason why he should not live to a
great age, now that this child loved him. He saw a future illumined by
Cosette, as by a delicious light; and as the best men are not exempt
from a selfish thought, he said to himself at times joyfully that she
would be ugly.
Although it is only a personal opinion, we fancy that at the point
which Jean Valjean had reached when he began to love Cosette, he
required this fresh impulse to continue in the right path. He had just
seen, under new aspects, the wickedness of men and the wretchedness of
society; but the aspects were incomplete, and only fatally showed him
one side of the truth,--the fate of woman comprised in Fantine, and
public authority personified in Javert; he had returned to the galleys,
but this time for acting justly; he had drunk the new cup of bitterness
to the dregs; disgust and weariness seized upon him; the very
recollection of the Bishop was approaching an eclipse, and though it
would have perhaps reappeared afterwards luminous and triumphant, still
this holy recollection was beginning to fade. Who knows whether Jean
Valjean was not on the eve of growing discouraged and relapsing? But
he loved and became strong again. Alas! he was no less tottering than
Cosette; he protected her and she strengthened him; through him, she
was able to advance in her life; through her, he could continue in the
path of virtue. Oh unfathomable and divine mystery of the equilibrium
of destiny!
CHAPTER IV.
THE REMARKS OF THE CHIEF LODGER.
Jean Valjean was so prudent as never to go out by day; every evening
he walked out for an hour or two, sometimes alone, but generally with
Cosette in the most retired streets, and entering the churches at
nightfall. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained with the
old woman; but it was her delight to go out with him. She preferred
an hour with him to the ravishing _têtes-à-têtes_ with Catherine. He
walked along holding her by the hand, and talking pleasantly with her,
for Cosette's temper turned to be extremely gay.
The old woman cleaned, cooked, and bought food for them; they lived
quietly, always having a little fire, but as if they were very poor.
Jean Valjean had made no change in the furniture since the first
day, except that he had a wooden door put up in place of the glass
door in Cosette's sleeping closet. He still wore his yellow coat,
black breeches, and old hat, and in the streets he was taken for a
poor man. It happened at times that charitable women turned and gave
him a sou, which Jean Valjean accepted with a deep bow. It happened
at times also that he met some wretch asking for charity; in such a
case he looked behind him to see that no one was watching, furtively
approached the beggar, gave him money,--now and then silver,--and
hurried away. This entailed inconveniences, for people began to know
him in the district under the name of the alms-giving beggar. The old
chief lodger, a spiteful creature, full of envy and uncharitableness
toward her neighbors, watched him closely, though he did not suspect
it. She was rather deaf, which rendered her prone to gossip, and there
remained to her from the past two teeth, one atop and one at bottom,
which she constantly rattled against each other. She questioned
Cosette, who, knowing nothing, could say nothing except that she came
from Montfermeil. One day this spy saw Jean Valjean go into one of the
uninhabited rooms in a way that seemed to her peculiar. She followed
him with the stealthy step of an old cat, and was able to watch him,
herself unseen, through the crack of the door, to which Jean Valjean
turned his back, doubtless as a greater precaution. She saw him take
out of his pocket a pair of scissors, needle, and thread, and then
begin ripping up the lining of his coat, and pull out a piece of yellow
paper, which he unfolded. The old woman recognized with horror that
it was a thousand-franc note, the second or third she had seen in her
life, and she fled in terror. A moment after Jean Valjean addressed
her, and requested her to change the note for him, adding that it was
his half-year's dividend, which he had received on the previous day.
"When?" the old woman thought; "he did not go out till six in the
evening, and the Bank is certainly not open at that hour." The old
woman went to change the note and made her conjectures; the amount
of money being considerably multiplied, afforded a grand topic of
conversation for the gossips of the Rue des Vignes St. Marcel.
A few days after it happened that Jean Valjean, in his shirt-sleeves,
was chopping wood in the passage, and the old woman was in his room
cleaning up. She was alone, for Cosette was admiring the wood-chopping.
She saw the coat hanging on a nail, and investigated it. The lining had
been sewn up again, but the good woman felt it carefully, and fancied
she could notice folds of paper between the cloth and the lining. More
bank-notes, of course! She also noticed that there were all sorts of
things in the pockets; not only the needles, scissors, and thread
she had seen, but a large portfolio, a big clasp knife, and, most
suspicious fact of all, several different colored wigs. Each pocket of
this coat seemed to be a species of safeguard against unexpected events.
The inhabitants of the house thus reached the last days of winter.
CHAPTER V.
NOISE MADE BY A FALLING FIVE-FRANC PIECE.
There was near S. Médard's church a poor man who usually sat on the
edge of a condemned well, to whom Jean Valjean liked to give alms. He
never passed him without giving him a trifle, and at times spoke to
him. The persons who envied this beggar said that he belonged to the
police, and he was an ex-beadle seventy-five years of age, who was
constantly telling his beads. One evening when Jean Valjean passed
alone, he perceived the beggar at his usual place under the lamp which
had just been lit. The man, according to his habit, seemed to be
praying, and was crouched. Jean Valjean went up to him and placed his
usual charity in his hand, and the beggar suddenly raised his eyes,
looked fixedly at Jean Valjean, and then let his head hang again. This
movement was like a flash, but Jean Valjean gave a start; he fancied
that he had seen by the flickering light of the lamp not the placid and
devout face of the old beadle, but a terrifying and familiar face. He
had such a feeling as he would have had had he suddenly found himself
face to face with a tiger in the darkness. He recoiled, terrified
and petrified, not daring to breathe, remain, or fly, staring at the
beggar, who had let his head fall, and did not appear to know that
he was there. At this strange moment, an instinct, perhaps that of
self-preservation, urged Valjean not to utter a syllable. The beggar
was of the same height, wore the same rags, and looked as he did every
day. "Stuff!" said Valjean, "I am mad; dreaming; it is impossible!"
And he went home sorely troubled in mind. He hardly dared confess to
himself that the face which he fancied he had seen was Javert's. At
night, on reflecting, he regretted that he had not spoken to the man
and made him raise his head a second time. The next evening he returned
and found the beggar at his seat. "Good day, my man," Jean Valjean
said resolutely, as he gave him a sou. The beggar raised his head and
replied in a complaining voice, "Thank you, my good gentleman." It was
certainly the old beadle. Jean Valjean felt fully reassured, and began
laughing. "How on earth could I have thought that it was Javert? Am I
getting blind?" and he thought no more of it.
A few days later, at about eight in the evening, he was giving Cosette
a spelling lesson, when he heard the house door open and then close
again. This appeared to him singular, for the old woman, who alone
lived in the house beside himself, always went to bed at nightfall to
save candle. Jean Valjean made Cosette a sign to be silent, for he
heard some one coming upstairs. After all it might be the old woman,
who felt unwell, and had been to the chemist's. Jean Valjean listened;
the footstep was heavy and sounded like a man's; but the old woman
wore thick shoes, and nothing so closely resembles a man's footstep as
an old woman's. For all that, though, Jean Valjean blew out his candle.
He had sent Cosette to bed, saying in a whisper, "Make no noise," and
while he was kissing her forehead the footsteps stopped. Jean Valjean
remained silently in his chair, with his back turned to the door, and
holding his breath in the darkness. After a long interval, hearing
nothing more, he turned noiselessly, and, on looking at his door, saw
a light through the key-hole, which formed a sort of sinister star
in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was evidently some
one there holding a candle in his hand and listening. A few minutes
passed, and then the light went away: still he did not hear the sound
of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the man who came to listen
had taken off his shoes. Jean Valjean threw himself full-dressed on
his bed, and could not close his eyes all night. At daybreak, when he
was just yielding to fatigue, he was aroused by the creaking of a door
which opened into a room at the end of the passage, and then heard
the same footstep which had ascended the stairs the previous evening
drawing nearer. He put his eye to the key-hole, which was rather large,
in the hope of seeing the man who had listened at his door over-night.
It was really a man, who this time passed Jean Valjean's door without
stopping. The passage was still too dark for him to distinguish his
face; but when the man reached the staircase a ray of light from
outside fell upon him, and Jean Valjean saw his back perfectly. He was
a tall man, dressed in a long coat, with a cudgel under his arm; and
he was very like Javert. Valjean might have tried to see him on the
boulevard through his window; but for that purpose he must have opened
it, and that he dared not do. It was plain that this man came in with a
key and was quite at home. Who gave him this key? What did it mean? At
seven o'clock, when the old woman came to clean up, Jean Valjean gave
her a piercing glance, but did not question her. The good woman was as
calm as usual, and while sweeping she said to him,--
"I suppose you heard some one come in last night, sir?"
At that age, and on that boulevard, eight in the evening is the
blackest night.
"Yes, I remember," he said, with the most natural accent. "Who was it?"
"A new lodger in the house."
"What is his name?"
"I forget. Dumont or Daumont,--something like that."
"And what may he be?"
The old woman looked at him with her little ferret eyes, and answered,--
"He lives on his property, like yourself."
Perhaps she meant nothing, but Jean Valjean fancied that he could
detect a meaning. When the old woman had gone off he made a rouleau
of some hundred francs which he had in a chest of drawers and put it
in his pocket. Whatever precautions he took to keep the money from
rattling, a five-franc piece fell from his hand and rolled noisily on
the floor. At nightfall he went down and looked attentively all along
the boulevard: he saw nobody, and it seemed utterly deserted. It is
true that some one might have been concealed behind the trees. He went
up again, and said to Cosette, "Come!" He took her hand and both left
the house together.
BOOK V.
FOR A STILL HUNT A DUMB PACK.
CHAPTER I.
STRATEGIC ZIGZAGS.
An observation is necessary here about the present pages and others
which will follow. It is now many years that the author of this
work--forced, he regrets to say, to allude to himself--has been absent
from Paris, and since he left that city it has been transformed, and a
new city has sprung up, which is to some extent unknown to him. He need
not say that he is fond of Paris, for it is his mental birth-place.
Owing to demolitions and rebuilding, the Paris of his youth, the
Paris which he religiously carried away in his memory, is at this
hour a Paris of the past. Permit him, then, to speak of that Paris
as if it still existed. It is possible that at the present day there
is neither street nor house at the spot where the author purposes to
lead the reader, saying, "In such a street there is such a house." If
the readers like to take the trouble they can verify. As for him, he
does not know new Paris, and writes with old Paris before his eyes
in an illusion which is precious to him. It is sweet to him to fancy
that something still remains of what he saw when he was in his own
country, and that all has not faded away. So long as you move about
in your native land you imagine that these streets are matters of
indifference to you, that these roofs and doors are as nothing, that
these walls are strange to you, that these trees are no better than the
first tree you come across, that these houses which you do not enter
are useless to you, and that the pavement on which you walk is made
of stones and nothing more. At a later date, when you are no longer
there, you perceive that these streets are dear to you, that you miss
these roofs, windows, and doors, that the walls are necessary to you,
that you love the trees, that these houses, which you did not enter,
you entered daily, and that you have left some of your feelings, your
blood, and your heart, on these paving-stones. All these spots which
you no longer see, which perhaps you may never see again, and of which
you have retained the image, assume a melancholy charm, return to you
with the sadness of an apparition, make the sacred land visible to you,
and are, so to speak, the very form of France: and you love and evoke
them such as they are, such as they were, obstinately refusing to make
any change in them; for you cling to the face of your country as to the
countenance of your mother. Let us be permitted, then, to speak of the
past at present: we will beg our readers to bear this in mind, and will
continue our narrative.
Jean Valjean at once left the boulevard and entered the streets, making
as many turnings as he could, and at times retracing his steps to
make sure that he was not followed. This manœuvre is peculiar to the
tracked deer, and on ground where traces are left it possesses the
advantage of deceiving huntsmen and dogs; in venery it is called a
"false reimbushment." The moon was at its full, and Jean Valjean was
not sorry for it, for as the luminary was still close to the horizon
it formed large patches of light and shade in the streets. Valjean was
able to slip along the houses and walls on the dark side and watch the
bright side; perhaps he did not reflect sufficiently that the dark side
escaped his notice. Still, in all the deserted lanes which border the
Rue de Poliveau he felt certain that no one was following him. Cosette
walked on without asking questions; the sufferings of the first six
years of her life had introduced something passive into her nature.
Moreover--and this is a remark to which we shall have to revert more
than once--she was accustomed to the singularities of her companion,
and the strange mutations of fate. And then she felt in safety as she
was with him. Jean Valjean did not know any more than Cosette whither
he was going; he trusted to God, as she trusted to him. He fancied
that he also held some one greater than himself by the hand, and felt
an invisible being guiding him. However, he had no settled idea, plan,
or scheme; he was not absolutely certain that it was Javert; and then
again it might be Javert ignorant that he was Jean Valjean. Was he not
disguised? Was he not supposed to be dead? Still, during the last few
days several things had occurred which were becoming singular, and he
wanted nothing more. He was resolved not to return to No. 50-52, and,
like the animal driven from its lair, he sought a hole in which to hide
himself until he could find a lodging. Jean Valjean described several
labyrinths in the Quartier Mouffetard, which was as fast asleep as if
it were still under mediæval discipline and the yoke of the Curfew, and
combined several streets into a clever strategic system. There were
lodging-houses where he now was, but he did not enter them, as he did
not find anything to suit him, and he did not suppose for a moment that
if persons were on his trail they had lost it again.
As the clock of St. Étienne du Mont struck eleven he passed the
police office at No. 14, in the Rue de Pontoise. A few minutes after,
the instinct to which we have referred made him look round, and he
distinctly saw, by the office lamp which betrayed them, three men, who
were following him rather closely, pass in turn under this lamp on the
dark side of the street. One of these men turned into the office, and
another, who was in front, appeared to him decidedly suspicious.
"Come, child," he said to Cosette; and he hastened out of the Rue de
Pontoise. He made a circuit, skirted the Passage des Patriarches, which
was closed at that hour, and eventually turned into the Rue des Postes.
There is an open space here, where the Rollin College now stands, and
into which the Rue Neuve St. Geneviève runs.
We need hardly say that the Rue Neuve St. Geneviève is an old street,
and that a post-chaise does not pass along the Rue des Postes once in
ten years. This street was inhabited by potters in the 13th century,
and its real name is Rue des Pots.
The moon threw a bright light upon this open space, and Jean Valjean
hid himself in a doorway, calculating that if the men were still
following him he could not fail to have a good look at them as they
crossed the open space. In fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the
men appeared. There were now four of them, all tall, dressed in long
brown coats and round hats, and holding large sticks in their hands.
They were no less alarming through their stature and huge fists, than
through their sinister movements in the darkness; they looked like
four spectres disguised as citizens. They stopped in the centre of the
square, and formed a group as if consulting, and apparently undecided.
The leader turned and pointed with his right hand in the direction
Jean Valjean had taken, while another seemed to be pointing with some
degree of obstinacy in the opposite direction. At the moment when the
first man turned the moon lit up his face brilliantly, and Jean Valjean
recognized Javert perfectly.
CHAPTER II.
IT IS FORTUNATE THAT THE BRIDGE OF AUSTERLITZ WILL CARRY WAGONS.
Uncertainty ceased for Jean Valjean; but fortunately it still lasted
with the men. He took advantage of their hesitation, for it was time
lost by them and gained by him. He left the gateway in which he was
concealed, and pushed on along the Rue des Postes toward the region of
the Jardin des Plantes. As Cosette was beginning to feel tired, he took
her in his arms and carried her. No one was passing, and the lamps had
not been lit, on account of the moon. He doubled his pace, and in a few
strides reached the Goblet pottery, on the front of which the moonshine
made the old inscription distinctly visible:--
"Du Goblet fils c'est içi la fabrique:
Venez choisir des cruches et des brocs:
Des pots à fleurs, des tuyaux, de la brique,
À tout venant le Cœur vend des carreaux."
He left behind him the Rue de la Clef, skirted the Jardin des Plantes,
and reached the quay. Here he turned; the quay was deserted, the
streets were deserted. There was no one behind him, and he breathed
again. He reached the Austerlitz bridge, where a toll still existed at
the time, and he handed the tollman a sou.
"It is two sous," said the man; "you are carrying a child who can walk,
so you must pay for two."
He paid, though greatly vexed that his passing had given rise to any
remark. A heavy wain was passing the river at the same time as himself,
and also proceeding to the right bank. This was useful for him, as he
could cross the whole of the bridge in its shadow. On reaching the
arches of the bridge, Cosette, whose feet were numbed, asked to be
put down; he did so, and took her by the hand again. After crossing
the bridge, he saw a little to his right building-yards, towards
which he proceeded. In order to reach them he must cross an open
brilliantly-lighted space; but he did not hesitate. His pursuers were
evidently thrown out, and Jean Valjean believed himself out of danger;
he might be looked for, but he was not followed. A little street, the
Rue du Chemin Vert St. Antoine, ran between two timber-yards; it was
narrow, dark, and seemed expressly made for him, but before entering
it he looked back. From the spot where he was he could see the whole
length of the bridge of Austerlitz; four shadows had just come upon it,
and were walking towards the right bank. The four shadows were the four
men.
Jean Valjean gave a start like a recaptured animal. One hope was left
him,--it was that the four men had not been upon the bridge at the
moment when he crossed the large illumined space with Cosette. In that
case, by entering the little street before him, he might escape, if he
could reach the timber-yards, kitchen-gardens, fields, and land not yet
built on. He fancied that he could trust to this little silent street,
and entered it.
CHAPTER III.
CONSULT THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727.
After going three hundred yards he came to a spot where the road
formed two forks, and Jean Valjean had before him, as it were, the two
branches of a Y. Which should he choose? He did not hesitate, but took
the right one, because the other ran towards the faubourg, that is to
say, inhabited parts, while the right branch went in the direction of
the country, or deserted parts. Still they did not walk very rapidly,
for Cosette checked Jean Valjean's pace, and hence he began carrying
her again, and Cosette laid her head on his shoulder and did not say
a word. At times he looked back, while careful to keep on the dark
side of the street. The first twice or thrice that he turned he saw
nothing, the silence was profound, and he continued his walk with a
little more confidence. All at once, on turning suddenly, he fancied
that he saw something moving on the dark part of the street which
he had just passed. He rushed forward rather than walked, hoping to
find some side lane by which he could escape, and once again break
his trail. He reached a wall, which, however, did not render further
progress impossible, for it was a wall skirting a cross-lane, into
which the street Jean Valjean had entered ran. Here he must make his
mind up again whether to turn to the right or left. He looked to the
right; the lane ran for some distance between buildings, which were
barns or sheds, and then stopped. The end of the blind alley, a high
white wall, was distinctly visible. He looked to the left; on this side
the lane was open, and at a distance of about two hundred yards fell
into a street, of which it was an affluent. On that side safety lay. At
the moment when Jean Valjean turned to his left in order to reach this
street, he saw at the angle formed by the street and the lane a species
of black and motionless statue; it was evidently a man posted there to
prevent him from passing. Jean Valjean fell back.
The part of Paris where Jean Valjean now was, situated between the
Faubourg St. Antoine and la Rapée, was one of those which have
been utterly transformed by those recent works which some call
disfigurements, others beautifying. The fields, the timber-yards, and
old buildings have been removed, and there are now brand-new wide
streets, arenas, circuses, hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison,
Mazas,--progress as we see with its corrective. Half a century back,
in that popular language all made up of traditions which insists on
calling the Institute "les Quatre Nations," and the Opéra Comique
"Feydeau," the precise spot where Jean Valjean now stood was called "le
Petit Picpus." The Porte St. Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barrière des
Sergents, the Porcherons, the Galiote, the Celestins, the Capucins,
the Mail, the Bourbe, the tree of Cracow, Little Poland, and Little
Picpus, are names of old Paris swimming on the surface of the new. The
memory of the people floats on the flotsam of the past. Little Picpus,
which by the way scarce existed, and was never more than the outline
of a quarter, had almost the monastic look of a Spanish town. The
streets were scarce paved, and hardly any houses lined them; excepting
two or three streets, to which we are about to refer, all was wall and
solitude. There was not a shop or a vehicle, scarce a candle lighted in
the windows, and every light was put out by ten o'clock. The quarter
consisted of gardens, convents, timber-yards, and kitchen-grounds, and
there were a few low houses with walls as lofty as themselves. Such
was the quarter in the last century; the Revolution fiercely assailed
it, and the Republican board of works demolished and made gaps in it:
rubbish was allowed to be shot there. Thirty years ago this quarter was
disappearing under the erasure of new buildings, and now it is entirely
obliterated.
Little Picpus, of which no modern map retains a trace, is very clearly
indicated in the plan of 1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry,
Rue St. Jacques, opposite the Rue du Plâtre; and at Lyons by Jean
Girin, Rue Mercière. Little Picpus had what we have just called a Y
of streets formed by the Rue du Chemin Vert St. Antoine dividing into
two branches, the left-hand one taking the name of the Petite Rue
Picpus, and the right-hand that of Rue Polonceau. The two branches of
the Y were joined at their summit by a sort of cross-bar called Rue
Droit-mur. Any one who, coming from the Seine, reached the end of
Rue Polonceau, had on his left Rue Droit-mur, turning sharply at a
right angle, in front of him the wall of that street, and on his right
a truncated prolongation of the Rue Droit-mur called the Cul-de-sac
Genrot.
It was here that Jean Valjean was; as we said, on perceiving the
black shadow standing on watch at the corner of the Rue Droit-mur and
the Petite Rue Picpus, he fell back, for this phantom was doubtless
watching for him. What was to be done? He had no time to retrograde,
for what he had seen moving in the shadow a few moments previously
in his rear was of course Javert and his squad. Javert was probably
already at the beginning of the street at the end of which Jean
Valjean was. Javert, according to appearances, was acquainted with
this labyrinth, and had taken his precautions by sending one of his
men to guard the outlet. These conjectures, which so closely resembled
certainty, whirled suddenly in Jean Valjean's troubled brain like a
handful of dust raised by an unexpected puff of wind. He examined the
blind alley; that was barred. He examined the Rue Picpus, a sentry
was there, and he saw his black shadow distinctly thrown on the white
moonlit pavement. To advance was falling into this man's clutches; to
fall back was throwing himself into Javert's arms. Jean Valjean felt
himself caught in a net which was being slowly hauled in, and looked up
to Heaven in despair.
CHAPTER IV.
ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE.
In order to understand the following, the reader must form an exact
idea of the Droit-mur lane, and in particular of the angle which the
visitor left on his left when he turned out of the Rue Polonceau
into this lane. The lane was almost entirely bordered on the right
by poor-looking houses, on the left by single slim-looking edifices,
composed of several _corps de logis_, which gradually rose from
one floor to two as they approached Little Rue Picpus so that this
building, which was very lofty on that side, was very low on the side
of Rue Polonceau, where, at the corner to which we have alluded, it
sank so low as to be only a wall. This wall did not run parallel with
the lane, but formed a very deep cant, concealed by its corners from
any observers in Rue Polonceau and Rue Droit-mur. From this cant the
wall extended along Rue Polonceau up to a house bearing the No. 49,
and in Rue Droit-mur, where it was much shorter, up to the frowning
building to which we have referred, whose gable it intersected, thus
forming a new re-entering angle in the street. This gable had a gloomy
appearance, for only one window was visible, or, to speak more
correctly, two shutters covered with sheet zinc and always closed.
The description of the locality which we are now giving is strictly
correct, and will doubtless arouse a very precise souvenir in the mind
of the old inhabitants of the quarter.
The cant in the wall was entirely occupied by a thing that resembled
a colossal and wretched gateway; it was a vast collection of
perpendicular planks, the top ones wider than those below, and fastened
together by long cross-strips of iron. By the side of this gate was a
porte-cochère of ordinary dimensions, which had apparently been made
in the wall about fifty years previously. A linden-tree displayed its
branches above the cant, and the wall was covered with ivy on the side
of the Rue Polonceau.
In Jean Valjean's desperate situation this gloomy building had an
uninhabited and solitary look about it which tempted him. He hurriedly
examined it, and said to himself that if he could only enter it he
might perhaps be saved. In the centre of the frontage of this building,
turned to the Rue Droit-mur, there were old leaden drain-pipes at
all the windows of the different floors. The various branches which
led to a central pipe formed a species of tree on the façade; these
ramifications with their hundred elbows imitated those old vine
branches which cling to the front of old farm-houses. This singular
espalier of lead and iron branches was the first thing that caught
Jean Valjean's attention. He put Cosette down with her back against a
post, bidding her be silent, and hurried to the spot where the main
pipe reached the ground. Perhaps there might be a way to scale it and
enter the house; but the pipe was worn out, and scarce held in its
cramps. Besides, all the windows of this silent house were defended by
thick iron bars, even the garrets. And then the moon shone full on this
front, and the man watching at the end of the street would see Jean
Valjean climb up; and then what was he to do with Cosette? How was he
to hoist her up a three-storied house? He gave up all idea of climbing
by the pipe, and crawled along the wall to re-enter Rue Polonceau. When
he reached the cant where he had left Cosette he noticed that no one
could see him there. As we stated, he was safe from all eyes, no matter
on what side; moreover, he was in the shadow, and then, lastly, there
were two gates, which might perhaps be forced. The wall over which
he saw the linden-tree and the ivy evidently belonged to a garden in
which he could at least conceal himself, though there was no foliage
on the trees, and pass the rest of the night. Time was slipping away,
and he must set to work at once. He felt the porte-cochère, and at
once perceived that it was fastened up inside and out, and then went
to the other great gate with more hope. It was frightfully decrepit,
its very size rendered it less solid, the planks were rotten, and the
iron bands, of which there were only three, were rusty. It seemed
possible to break through this affair. On examining this gate, however,
he saw that it was not a gate; it had no hinges, lock, or partition in
the centre; the iron bands crossed it from side to side without any
solution of continuity. Through the cracks of the planks he caught
a glimpse of coarsely-mortared rag-stone, which passers-by might
have seen ten years back. He was forced to confess to himself with
consternation that this fancied gate was simply a make-believe; it was
easy to pull down a plank, but he would find himself face to face with
a wall.
CHAPTER V.
A THING IMPOSSIBLE IN GASLIGHT.
At this moment a hollow, cadenced sound began to grow audible a short
distance off, and Jean Valjean ventured to take a peep round the corner
of the street. Seven or eight soldiers were entering the street. He
could see their bayonets gleaming, and they were coming toward him.
These soldiers, at the head of whom he distinguished Javert's tall
form, advanced slowly and cautiously, and frequently halted; it was
plain that they were exploring all the corners and all the doors and
lanes. It was--and here conjecture could not be wrong--some patrol
which Javert had met and requested to assist him. Judging from the pace
at which they marched, and the halts they made, they would require
about a quarter of an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean was.
It was a frightful thought; a few moments separated Jean Valjean from
the awful precipice which yawned before him for the third time. And the
galleys were now not merely the galleys, but Cosette lost forever; that
is to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb.
There was only one thing possible. Jean Valjean had one peculiarity,
that he might be said to carry two wallets; in one he had the thoughts
of a saint, in the other the formidable talents of a convict, and he
felt in one or the other as opportunity offered. Among other resources,
owing to his numerous escapes from the Toulon galleys, he had become a
perfect master in the incredible art of raising himself without ladder
or cramping irons, and by his mere muscular strength, and holding
on by his shoulders and knees, in the right angle of a wall, to the
sixth floor if necessary,--an art which rendered so terrible and so
celebrated that corner of the yard in the Paris Conciergerie by which
the condemned convict Battemolle escaped twenty years ago. Jean Valjean
measured the height of the wall above which he saw the linden-tree,
and found that it was about eighteen feet. The lower part of the angle
which it made with the gable end of the large building was filled up
with a triangular mass of masonry, very common in Parisian corners.
This mass was about five feet high, and the space to be cleared from
the top of it was not more than fourteen; but the difficulty was
Cosette, for she could not climb a wall. Abandon her? Jean Valjean did
not think of it, but carrying her was impossible; a man requires his
whole strength to carry out such an ascent, and the slightest burden
would displace his centre of gravity and hurl him down. He required a
rope, but he had none. Where was he to find a rope at midnight in the
Rue Polonceau? Assuredly at this moment if Jean Valjean had possessed a
kingdom he would have given it for a rope. All extreme situations have
their flashes, which at one moment blind, at another illumine us. Jean
Valjean's desperate glance fell on the lamp-post in the blind alley.
In those days there were no gaslights in the streets of Paris; at
nightfall lamps were lit at regular distances, which were pulled up and
down by a rope that crossed the street and fitted into a groove in a
post. The end of the rope was kept in an iron box under the lantern, of
which the lamp-lighter had the key, and the rope itself was protected
by a metal case. Jean Valjean leaped across the street, burnt the lock
of the box with the point of his knife, and a moment later was again
by Cosette's side holding a rope. Such gloomy finders of expedients
when struggling with fatality set rapidly to work. We have mentioned
that the lamps were not lit on this night; the one in the blind alley
therefore was naturally extinguished, and any one might have passed
close without noticing that it was no longer in its place.
The hour, the place, the darkness, Jean Valjean's preoccupation, his
singular gestures, his coming and going, were all beginning to alarm
Cosette. Any other child would have begun crying kindly long before;
but she confined herself to pulling the skirt of his coat. The noise of
the approaching patrol constantly became more distinct.
"Father," she whispered, "I am frightened; who is coming?"
"Silence," the unhappy man replied; "it is Madame Thénardier."
The child trembled, and he added,--
"Do not say a word, but leave me to act: if you cry out or sob she
will catch you and take you back again."
Then, without hurry, but without doing anything twice over, with a firm
and sharp precision, which was the more remarkable at such a moment,
when the patrol and Javert might be instantly expected, he undid his
cravat, fastened it under Cosette's armpits, while careful not to hurt
her, fastened the rope to the cravat, took the other end in his teeth,
took off his shoes and stockings, which he threw over the wall, and
began raising himself in the corner of the wall with as much certainty
as if he had cramping irons under his heels and elbows. Half a minute
had not elapsed ere he was astride the coping. Cosette looked at him
in stupor, without saying a word; for Jean Valjean's mention of the
landlady's name had frozen her. All at once she heard Jean Valjean say
to her in a very low voice,--
"Lean against the wall."
She obeyed.
"You must not say a word, or feel frightened," he continued.
And she felt herself lifted from the ground, but before she had time
to look round she found herself on the top of the wall. Jean Valjean
placed her on his back, took her two little hands in his left hand, and
crawled along the wall till he reached the cant. As he had suspected,
there was a building here, whose roof began at the top of the bastard
gate and descended in a gentle slope nearly to the ground, grazing the
linden-tree. This was a fortunate circumstance, for the wall was much
higher on this side than on that of the street, and Jean Valjean could
scarce see the ground, so far was it beneath him. He had just reached
the sloping roof, and had not yet loosed his hold of the coping, when
a violent uproar announced the arrival of the patrol, and he heard
Javert's thundering voice,--
"Search the blind alley; all the streets are guarded, and I will wager
that he is in it."
The soldiers rushed forward into the alley Genrot. Jean Valjean slipped
down the roof, still supporting Cosette, reached the linden-tree, and
leaped on the ground. Either through terror or courage the child had
not said a word; her hands were only slightly grazed.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA.
Jean Valjean found himself in a large garden of most singular
appearance, one of those gloomy gardens that appear made to be looked
at in winter, and by night. This garden was of an oblong shape, with
a walk of tall poplars at the end, tall shrubs in the corner, and an
unshadowed space, in the centre of which an isolated tree could be
distinguished. There were also a few stunted fruit-trees bristling
like brambles, vegetable plots, a melon-bed, whose frames glistened
in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and there were stone benches
that seemed black with moss; the walks were bordered with small
gloomy-looking and upright shrubs; grass covered one half of the walks,
and a green mould the other half.
Jean Valjean had by his side the building by help of whose roof he
had descended, a pile of fagots, and behind the latter, close to the
wall, a stone statue whose mutilated face was merely a shapeless mask
appearing indistinctly in the darkness. The building was a species of
ruin, containing several dismantled rooms, of which one was apparently
employed as a shed. The large edifice of the Rue Droit-mur had two
façades looking into this garden at right angles, and these façades
were even more melancholy than those outside. All the windows were
barred, and not a single light could be seen, while at the upper window
there were scuttles as in prisons. One of these frontages threw its
shadow upon the other, which fell back on the garden like an immense
black cloth. No other house could be noticed, and the end of the garden
was lost in mist and night. Still, walls could be indistinctly noticed
intersecting each other, as if there were other gardens beyond, and
the low roofs in the Rue Polonceau. Nothing more stern and solitary
than this garden could well be imagined; there was no one in it, as was
natural at such an hour, but it did not look as if the spot were made
for any one to walk in even in bright daylight.
Jean Valjean's first care was to put on his shoes and stockings again,
and then enter the shed with Cosette. A man who is escaping never
considers himself sufficiently concealed, and the child, who was still
thinking of Madame Thénardier, shared his instinct for concealment.
Cosette trembled and clung close to him: for she could hear the
tumultuous noise of the patrol searching the street and lane, the blows
of musket-butts against the stones, Javert's appeals to the men whom
he had posted, and his oaths, mingled with words which could not be
distinguished. At the expiration of a quarter of an hour this species
of stormy grumbling appeared to be retiring, and Jean Valjean could
scarce breathe. He had gently laid his hand on Cosette's mouth. The
solitude in which he found himself was so strangely calm, however, that
the furious uproar so close at hand did not even cast the shadow of a
trouble over it. All at once in the midst of this profound calm a new
sound burst forth,--a heavenly, divine, ineffable sound, as ravishing
as the other had been horrible. It was a hymn, that issued from the
darkness, a dazzling blending of prayer and harmony in the dark and
fearful silence of the night: female voices, but composed at once of
the pure accent of virgins and the simple voices of children,--such
voices as do not belong to earth, and resemble those which the new-born
still hear, and the dying begin to hear. This chant came from the
gloomy building that commanded the garden, and at the moment when the
noise of the demons was retiring it seemed like a choir of angels
approaching in the dark. Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both man
and child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that they must fall on
their knees. The voices had this strangeness about them, that they
did not prevent the edifice from appearing deserted; it seemed like
a supernatural chant in an uninhabited house. While the voices sang,
Jean Valjean thought of nothing else; he no longer saw the night, but
an azure sky. He fancied that the wings which we all of us have within
us were expanding in him. The singing ceased; it had probably lasted
some time, but Jean Valjean could not have said how long, for hours of
ecstasy never occupy more than a minute. All had become silent again:
there was no sound in the garden, no sound in the street; that which
threatened, that which reassured, all had vanished. The wind shook
on the coping of the wall some dry grass, which produced a soft and
melancholy sound.
CHAPTER VII.
CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA.
The night breeze had risen, which proved that it must be between one
and two in the morning. Cosette said nothing, and as she was leaning
her head against him, Jean Valjean fancied that she was asleep. He bent
down and looked at her: her eyes were wide open, and she had a pensive
look which hurt Jean Valjean. She was still trembling.
"Do you feel inclined to sleep?" he asked her.
"I am very cold," she answered; a moment after she continued,--
"Is she still there?"
"Who?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Madame Thénardier."
Jean had forgotten the way he had employed to keep Cosette silent.
"Ah," he said, "she is gone, and you have nothing to fear."
The child sighed, as if a weight had been taken off her chest.
The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, and the wind grew more
cutting every moment. He took off his coat and wrapped Cosette up in it.
"Are you less cold now?" he said.
"Oh yes, father."
"Well, wait for me a minute."
He left the ruin and began walking along the large building in search
of some better shelter. He came to doors, but they were closed, and
there were bars on all the ground-floor windows. After passing the
inner angle of the edifice he noticed that he had come to some arched
windows, and perceived a faint light. He raised himself on tip-toe and
looked through one of the windows; they all belonged to a large hall
paved with stones, in which nothing could be distinguished but a little
light and great shadows. The light came from a night-lamp burning in
the corner. This hall was deserted and nothing was stirring in it; and
yet, after a long look, he fancied that he could see on the ground
something that seemed to be covered with a pall and resembled a human
form. It was stretched out flat, with its face against the stones, its
arms forming a cross, and motionless as death. From a species of snake
which dragged along the pavement, it looked as if this sinister form
had the rope round its neck. The whole hall was bathed in that mist of
badly-lighted places which intensifies the horror.
Jean Valjean often said afterwards that, although he had witnessed
many mournful sights in his life, he had never seen one more chilling
or terrifying than this enigmatical figure performing some strange
mystery at this gloomy spot, and thus caught sight of through the
darkness. It was frightful to suppose that it might be dead, and more
frightful still to think that it might possibly be still alive. He
had the courage to place his face to the pane, and watch whether the
figure would stir; but though he remained for a time which appeared to
him very long, the outstretched form made no movement. All at once he
felt himself assailed by an indescribable horror, and he ran off toward
the shed without daring to look back; he fancied that if he turned his
head he should see the figure walking after him and waving its arms.
When he reached the ruin he was panting, his knees gave way, and the
perspiration was running down his back. Where was he? Who could have
imagined anything like this species of sepulchre in the heart of Paris?
What was the strange house? An edifice full of nocturnal mystery,
calling souls in the darkness, the voice of angels, and when they
arrive, suddenly offering them this frightful vision; promising to open
the bright gate of heaven, and, instead, opening the horrible gate of
the tomb! And it was really a mansion, a house which had its number in
a street. It was not a dream; but he was obliged to touch the stones in
order to believe it. Cold, anxiety, apprehension, and the emotion of
the night brought on him a real fever, and all his ideas were confused
in his brain. He approached Cosette. She slept.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ENIGMA INCREASES.
The child had rested her head on a stone and fallen asleep. Jean
Valjean sat down by her side and began gazing at her; gradually, as he
looked, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind.
He clearly perceived this truth, the basis of his future life, that,
so long as she was there, so long as he had her by his side, he would
require nothing except for her, nor fear anything save on her account.
He did not even feel the cold particularly; for, though he had taken
off his coat, it was to cover her. Still, through the reverie into
which he had fallen he had heard for some time past a singular noise,
like a bell being rung, and it was in the garden. It could be heard
distinctly, though faintly, and resembled those cattle-bells which
produce a gentle melody at night in the grazing fields. This noise made
Jean Valjean turn, and he saw that there was some one in the garden. A
being looking like a man was walking among the melon-frames, rising,
stooping, and stopping with regular movements, as if he was dragging
or stretching out something on the ground. This man was apparently
lame. Jean Valjean gave the continual, trembling start of the unhappy;
everything is hostile and suspicious to them; they distrust the day
because it allows them to be seen, and night because it helps in
surprising them. Just now he shuddered because the garden was deserted,
and now he shuddered because there was some one in it. He fell back
from chimerical into real terror; he said to himself that Javert and
the police had probably not gone away, that they had, in any case,
left watchmen in the street; and that if this man discovered him he
would give an alarm and hand him over to the police. He gently raised
the still sleeping Cosette in his arms, and carried her behind a mass
of old furniture in the most remote part of the shed; Cosette did not
stir. From this spot he observed the movements of the being in the
melon-ground; the strange thing was that the noise of the bell followed
this man's every movement. When he approached the sound approached;
when he went away the sound went away. If he made a sudden movement
a little peal followed the movement, and when he stopped the noise
ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was fastened to this man; but
in that case what could be the meaning of it? Who was the man to whom
a bell was fastened as if he were a ram or an ox? While asking himself
these questions he touched Cosette's hands; they were chilled.
"Oh, Heaven!" he said.
And he asked in a whisper,--"Cosette!"
She did not open her eyes. He shook her sharply, but she did not awake.
"Can she be dead?" he said to himself; and he rose shivering from head
to foot.
The most frightful thoughts crossed his mind pell-mell. There are
moments when hideous suppositions assail us like a band of furies and
violently force the bolts of our brain. When it is a question about
people whom we love, our prudence invents all sorts of follies. He
remembered that sleep in the open air on a cold night might be mortal.
Cosette was lying stretched out motionless at his feet. He listened for
her breath; she was breathing, but so faintly that it seemed as if the
respiration would cease at any moment. How was he to warm her? How was
he to wake her? All that did not refer to this slipped from his mind,
and he rushed wildly from the shed. It was absolutely necessary that
Cosette should be in bed before a fire within a quarter of an hour.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MAN WITH THE BELL.
Jean Valjean walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden,
and while doing so took from his pocket the rouleau of silver. This man
was looking down, and did not see him coming, and in a few strides Jean
Valjean was by his side, and addressed him with the cry, "One hundred
francs."
The man started and raised his eyes.
"One hundred francs to be gained," Jean Valjean continued, "if you will
find me a shelter for this night."
The moon fully lit up Jean Valjean's alarmed face.
"Why, it is you, Father Madeleine!" the man said.
The name uttered thus in the darkness at this strange spot, by this
strange man, made Jean Valjean recoil, for he expected everything save
that. The man who addressed him was a stooping, lame old man, dressed
nearly like a peasant, and wearing on his left leg a leathern knee-cap,
from which hung a rather large bell. It was impossible to distinguish
his face, which was in the shadow; still the man had doffed his bonnet,
and said all in a tremor,--
"Oh, Lord, how did you get here, Father Madeleine? Which way did you
come in? Why, you must have fallen from heaven. Well, if ever you do
fall, it will be from there. And then, what a state you are in! You
have no cravat, no hat, and no coat! Do you know that you would have
frightened anybody who did not know you? No coat! Oh, my goodness, are
the saints going mad at present? But how _did_ you get in here?"
One word did not wait for the next, the old man spoke with a rustic
volubility in which there was nothing alarming; and it was all said
with a mixture of stupefaction and simple kindness.
"Who are you, and what is this house?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Oh, Lord, that is too strong!" the old man exclaimed. "Why, did you
not get me the situation, and in this house too? What, don't you
recognize me?"
"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how is it that you know me?"
"You saved my life," the man said.
He turned; a moonbeam played on his face, and Jean Valjean recognized
old Fauchelevent.
"Ah!" he said, "it is you? Oh, now I recognize you."
"That is lucky," the old man said reproachfully.
"And what are you doing here?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Why, I am covering my melons!"
Old Fauchelevent really held in his hand at the moment when Jean
Valjean accosted him a piece of matting, which he was engaged in
spreading over the melon-frame. He had laid a good many pieces during
the hour he had been in the garden, and it was this operation that
produced the peculiar movements which Jean Valjean had noticed from the
shed. He continued,--
"I said to myself, there is a bright moon and it is going to freeze, so
I had better put these great-coats on my melons." And he added, as he
looked at Jean Valjean with a grin, "You should have done the same. But
how have you got here?"
Jean Valjean, feeling himself known by this man, at least under
the name of Madeleine, only advanced cautiously. He multiplied his
questions, and curiously enough they changed parts,--he, the intruder,
became the questioner.
"And what is that bell you have on your knee?"
"That?" Fauchelevent said; "it is that they may avoid me."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Old Fauchelevent gave an inimitable wink.
"Oh, Lord, they are only women in this house, and lots of girls. It
seems that I should be dangerous to meet, and so the bell warns them;
when I come they go."
"What is this house?"
"Oh, nonsense, you know."
"Indeed I do not."
"Why, you got me the gardener's place here."
"Answer me as if I knew nothing."
"Well, it is the Convent of the Little Picpus, then."
Jean Valjean's recollections returned to him. Chance, that is to say,
Providence, had brought him to the very convent in the Quartier St.
Antoine where Fauchelevent after his accident had been engaged on his
recommendation two years back. He repeated, as if speaking to himself,--
"'Little Picpus'!"
"But come, tell me," Fauchelevent continued, "how the deuce did you get
in here, Father Madeleine? For though you are a saint, you are a man,
and no men are admitted here."
"Why, you are!"
"Well, only I."
"And yet," Jean Valjean continued, "I must remain."
"Oh, Lord!" Fauchelevent exclaimed.
Jean Valjean walked up to the gardener and said in a grave voice,--
"Fauchelevent, I saved your life."
"I was the first to remember it," Fauchelevent answered.
"Well, you can do for me to-day what I did for you formerly."
Fauchelevent took Jean Valjean's muscular hands in his old wrinkled and
trembling hands, and for some seconds seemed as if unable to speak; at
length he exclaimed,--