JAVERT.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF REPOSE.
M. Madeleine had Fantine conveyed to the infirmary he had established in his own house, and intrusted her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A violent fever had broken out; she spent a part of the night in raving and talking aloud, but at length fell asleep. On the morrow, at about mid-day, Fantine woke, and hearing a breathing close to her bed, she drew the curtain aside, and noticed M. Madeleine gazing at something above her head. His glance was full of pity and agony, and supplicated: she followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix nailed to the wall. M. Madeleine was now transfigured in Fantine's eyes, and seemed to her surrounded by light. He was absorbed in a species of prayer, and she looked at him for some time without daring to interrupt him, but at length said, timidly,—
"What are you doing there?"
M. Madeleine had been standing at this spot for an hour, waiting till Fantine should wake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and answered,—
"How are you?"
"Very comfortable; I have slept, and fancy I am better. It will be nothing."
He continued answering the question she had asked him first, and as if he had only just heard it,—
"I was praying to the martyr up there;" and he mentally added, "for the martyr down here."
M. Madeleine had spent the night and morning in making inquiries, and had learned everything; he knew all the poignant details of Fantine's history. He continued,—
"You have suffered deeply, poor mother. Oh! do not complain, for you have at present the dowry of the elect: it is in this way that human beings become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know what to do otherwise. The hell you have now left is the ante-room to heaven, and you were obliged to begin with that."
He breathed a deep sigh, but she smiled upon him with the sublime smile in which two teeth were wanting. Javert had written a letter during the past night, and posted it himself the next morning. It was for Paris, and the address was: "Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary to the Prefect of Police." As a rumor had spread about the affair in the police office, the lady-manager of the post, and some other persons who saw the letter before it was sent off and recognized Javert's handwriting, supposed that he was sending in his resignation. M. Madeleine hastened to write to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them over 120 francs, and he sent them 300, bidding them pay themselves out of the amount, and bring the child at once to M——, where a sick mother was awaiting it. This dazzled Thénardier. "Hang it all!" he said to his wife, "we must not let the brat go, for the lark will become a milch cow for us. I see it all; some fellow has fallen in love with the mother." He replied by sending a bill for 500 and odd francs very well drawn up. In this bill two undeniable amounts figure, one from a physician, the other from an apothecary, who had attended Éponine and Azelma in a long illness. Cosette, as we said, had not been ill, and hence it was merely a little substitution of names. At the bottom of the bill Thénardier gave credit for 300 francs received on account. M. Madeleine at once sent 300 francs more, and wrote, "Make haste and bring Cosette."
"Christi!" said Thénardier, "we must not let the child go."
In the mean while Fantine did not recover, and still remained in the infirmary. The sisters had at first received and nursed "this girl" with some repugnance; any one who has seen the bas-relief at Rheims will remember the pouting lower lip of the wise virgins looking at the foolish virgins. This ancient contempt of Vestals for Ambubaïæ is one of the deepest instincts of the feminine dignity, and the sisters had experienced it, with the increased dislike which religion adds. But in a few days Fantine disarmed them; she had all sorts of humble and gentle words, and the mother within her was touching. One day the sisters heard her say in the paroxysm of fever, "I have been a sinner, but when I have my child by my side, that will show that God has forgiven me. While I was living badly, I should not have liked to have Cosette with me, for I could not have endured her sad and astonished eyes. And yet it was for her sake that I did wrong, and for that reason God pardons me. I shall feel the blessing of Heaven when Cosette is here; I shall look at her, and it will do me good to see the innocent creature. She knows nothing, as she is an angel. My sisters, at her age the wings have not yet dropped off."
M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and every time she asked him, "Shall I see my Cosette soon?"
He would answer,—
"To-morrow, perhaps; she may arrive at any moment, for I am expecting her."
And the mother's pale face would grow radiant.
"Oh!" she said, "how happy I shall be!"
We have said that she did not improve; on the contrary, her condition seemed to grow worse week by week. The handful of snow placed between her naked shoulder-blades produced a sudden check of perspiration, which caused the illness that had smouldered in her for years suddenly to break out. Larmier's fine method for studying and healing diseases of the lungs was just beginning to be employed; the physician placed the stethoscope to Fantine's chest, and shook his head. M. Madeleine said to him,—
"Well?"
"Has she not a child that she wishes to see?" asked the doctor.
"Yes."
"Well, make haste to send for her."
Madeleine gave a start, and Fantine asked him,—
"What did the doctor say to you?"
M. Madeleine forced a smile.
"He said that your child must come at once, for that would cure you."
"Oh," she replied, "he is right; but what do those Thénardiers mean by keeping my Cosette? Oh, she will come, and then I shall see happiness close to me."
Thénardier, however, would not let the child go, and alleged a hundred poor excuses. Cosette was ailing, and it would be dangerous for her to travel in winter; and then there were some small debts still to pay, which he was collecting, &c.
"I will send some one to fetch Cosette," said Father Madeleine; "if necessary, I will go myself."
He wrote to Fantine's dictation the following letter, which she signed.
"M. THÉNARDIER,—" You will hand over Cosette to the bearer, who will pay up all little matters. "Yours, FANTINE."
About this time a great incident happened. However cleverly we may have carved the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny ever reappears in it.
CHAPTER II.
HOW "JEAN" MAY BECOME "CHAMP."
One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, engaged in settling some pressing mayoralty matters, in case he decided on the journey to Montfermeil, when he was told that Inspector Javert wished to speak with him. On hearing this name pronounced, M. Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression. Since the guard-room adventure Javert had avoided him more than ever, and M. Madeleine had not seen him again.
"Show him in," he said.
Javert entered. M. Madeleine remained at his table near the fire-place with a pen in his hand and his eyes fixed on a bundle of papers, which he ran through and annotated. He did not put himself out of the way for Javert, for he could not refrain from thinking of poor Fantine. Javert bowed respectfully to the Mayor, who had his back turned to him; the Mayor did not look at him, but continued to make his notes. Javert walked a little way into the study, and then halted without a word. A physiognomist familiar with Javert's nature, and who had studied for any length of time this savage in the service of civilization,—this strange composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the corporal, this spy incapable of falsehood, this virgin detective,—a physiognomist aware of his secret and old aversion to M. Madeleine, and his conflict with him about Fantine, and who regarded Javert at this moment, would have asked himself, What has happened? It was evident to any one who knew this upright, clear, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious conscience, that Javert had just emerged from some great internal struggle. Javert had nothing in his mind which he did not also have in his face, and, like all violent men, he was subject to sudden changes. Never had his face been stranger or more surprising. On entering, he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor suspicion; he had halted a few yards behind the Mayor's chair, and was now standing there in an almost military attitude, with the simple cold rudeness of a man who has never been gentle and has ever been patient. He was waiting, without saying a word, without making a movement, in a true humility and tranquil resignation, till the Mayor might think proper to turn round,—calm, serious, hat in hand, and with an expression which was half-way between the private before his officer and the culprit before the judge. All the feelings as well as all the resolutions he might be supposed to possess had disappeared: there was nothing but a gloomy sadness on this face, which was impenetrable and simple as granite. His whole person displayed humiliation and firmness, and a sort of courageous despondency. At length the Mayor laid down his pen and half turned round.
"Well, what is the matter, Javert?"
Javert remained silent for a moment, as if reflecting, and then raised his voice with a sad solemnity, which, however, did not exclude simplicity.
"A culpable deed has been committed, sir."
"What deed?"
"An inferior agent of authority has failed in his respect to a magistrate in the gravest matter. I have come, as is my duty, to bring the fact to your knowledge."
"Who is this agent?" M. Madeleine asked
"Myself."
"And who is the magistrate who has cause to complain of the agent?"
"You, Monsieur le Maire."
M. Madeleine sat up, and Javert continued with a stern air and still looking down,—
"Monsieur le Maire, I have come to request that you will procure my dismissal from the service."
M. Madeleine in his stupefaction opened his mouth, but Javert interrupted him,—
"You will say that I could have sent in my resignation, but that is not enough. Such a course is honorable, but I have done wrong, and deserve punishment. I must be dismissed."
And after a pause he added,—
"Monsieur le Maire, you were severe to me the other day unjustly, be so to-day justly."
"What is the meaning of all this nonsense?" M. Madeleine exclaimed. "What is the culpable act you have committed? What have you done to me? You accuse yourself, you wish to be removed—"
"Dismissed," said Javert.
"Very good, dismissed. I do not understand it."
"You shall do so, sir."
Javert heaved a deep sigh, and continued still coldly and sadly,—
"Six weeks ago, M. le Maire, after the scene about that girl, I was furious, and denounced you."
"Denounced me?"
"To the Prefect of Police at Paris."
M. Madeleine, who did not laugh much oftener than Javert, burst into a laugh.
"As a Mayor who had encroached on the police?"
"As an ex-galley slave."
The Mayor turned livid, but Javert, who had not raised his eyes, continued,—
"I thought you were so, and have had these notions for a long time. A resemblance, information you sought at Faverolles, the strength of your loins, the adventures with old Fauchelevent, your skill in firing, your leg which halts a little—and so on. It was very absurd, but I took you for a man of the name of Jean Valjean."
"What name did you say?"
"Jean Valjean; he is a convict I saw twenty years ago when I was assistant keeper at the Toulon bagne. On leaving the galley, this Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop, and then committed a highway robbery on a little Savoyard. For eight years he has been out of the way and could not be found, and I imagined—in a word, I did as I said. Passion decided me, and I denounced you to the Prefect."
M. Madeleine, who had taken up the charge-book again, said with a careless accent,—
"And what was the answer you received?"
"That I was mad!"
"Well?"
"They were right."
"It is fortunate that you allow it."
"I must do so, for the real Jean Valjean has been found."
The book M. Madeleine was holding fell from his grasp, he raised his head, looked searchingly at Javert, said with an indescribable accent,—
"Ah!"
Javert continued,—
"The facts are these, M. le Maire. It seems that there was over at Ailly le Haut Clocher, an old fellow who was called Father Champmathieu. He was very wretched, and no attention was paid to him, for no one knows how such people live. This autumn Father Champmathieu was arrested for stealing cider apples: there was a robbery, a wall climbed over, and branches broken. This Champmathieu was arrested with the branch still in his hand, and was locked up. Up to this point it is only a matter for a police court, but here Providence interposes. As the lock-up was under repair, the magistrates ordered that Champmathieu should be taken to the departmental prison at Arras. In this prison there is an ex-convict of the name of Brevet, under imprisonment for some offence, and he has been made room-turnkey for his good behavior. Champmathieu no sooner arrived than Brevet cries out, "Why, I know this man: he is an ex-convict. Look at me, old fellow: you are Jean Valjean." "What do you mean?" says Champmathieu, affecting surprise. "Don't play the humbug with me," says Brevet; "you are Jean Valjean. You were at the Toulon bagne twenty years ago, and I was there too." Champmathieu denied identity, and, as you may suppose, the affair was thoroughly investigated, with the following result. This Champmathieu about thirty years ago was a journeyman wood-cutter at several places, especially at Faverolles, where his trail is lost. A long time after he is found again in Auvergne, and then in Paris, where he says he was a blacksmith, and had a daughter a washer-woman,—though there is no evidence of this,—and lastly, he turned up in these parts. Now, before being sent to the galleys, what was Jean Valjean? A wood-cutter. Where? At Faverolles. And here is another fact: this Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's family name Mathieu. What is more natural to suppose than that on leaving the bagne he assumed his mother's name as a disguise, and called himself Jean Mathieu? He went to Auvergne, where Jean is pronounced Chan, and thus he was transformed into Champmathieu. You are following me, I suppose? Inquiries have been made at Faverolles, but Jean Valjean's family is no longer there, and no one knows where it has gone. As you are aware, in those places families frequently disappear in such a way; these people, if they are not mud, are dust. And then, again, as the beginning of this story dates back thirty years, there is no one in Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean: and beside Brevet, there are only two convicts who remember him. These two were brought from the bagne and confronted with the pretended Champmathieu, and they did not hesitate for a moment. The same age,— fifty-four,—the same height, the same look, the same man, in short. It was at this very moment that I sent my denunciation to Paris, and the answer I received was that I had lost my senses, for Jean Valjean was in the hands of justice at Arras. You can conceive that this surprised me, as I fancied that I held my Jean Valjean here. I wrote to the magistrates, who sent for me, and Champmathieu was brought in."
"Well?" M. Madeleine interrupted him.
Javert answered with his incorruptible and sad face,—
"Monsieur le Maire, truth is truth: I am sorry, but that man is Jean Valjean: I recognized him too."
M. Madeleine said in a very low voice,—
"Are you sure?"
Javert burst into that sorrowful laugh which escapes from a profound conviction,—
"Oh! certain."
He stood for a moment pensive, mechanically taking pinches of saw-dust out of the sprinkler in the inkstand, and added,—
"And now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I cannot understand how I could have believed anything else. I ask your pardon, M. le Maire."
While addressing these supplicating words to the person who six weeks previously had humiliated him so deeply and bidden him leave the room, this haughty man was unconsciously full of dignity and simplicity. M. Madeleine merely answered his entreaty with the hurried question,—
"And what does this man say?"
"Well, Monsieur le Maire, it is an ugly business, for if he is Jean Valjean, he is an escaped convict. Scaling a wall, breaking a branch, and stealing apples is a peccadillo with a child, an offence in a man, but a crime in a convict. It is no longer a matter for the police courts, but for the assizes; it is no longer imprisonment for a few days, but the galleys for life. And there is the matter with the Savoyard, which, I trust, will be brought up again. There is enough to settle a man, is there not? But Jean Valjean is artful, and in that I recognize him too. Any other man would find it warm; he would struggle, cry out, refuse to be Jean Valjean, and so on. He pretends though not to understand, and says, "I am Champmathieu, and I shall stick to it." He has a look of amazement, and plays the brute-beast, which is better. Oh! he is a clever scoundrel! But no matter, the proofs are ready to hand; he has been recognized by four persons, and the old scoundrel will be found guilty. He is to be tried at Arras assizes, and I have been summoned as a witness."
M. Madeleine had turned round to his desk again, taken up his papers, and was quietly turning over the leaves, and busily reading and writing in turn. He now said to the Inspector,—
"Enough, Javert; after all, these details interest me but very slightly; we are losing our time, and have a deal of work before us. Javert, you will go at one to Mother Busaupied, who sells vegetables at the corner of the Rue St. Saulve, and tell her to take out a summons against Pierre the carter; he is a brutal fellow, who almost drove over this woman and her child, and he must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcillay in the Rue Champigny; he complains that there is a gutter next door which leaks, and is shaking the foundation of his house. But I am giving you a deal to do, and I think you said you were going away. Did you not state you were going to Arras on this matter in a week or ten days?"
"Sooner than that, sir."
"On what day, then?"
"I fancied I told you that the trial comes off to-morrow, and that I should start by to-night's coach."
"And how long will the trial last?"
"A day at the most, and sentence will be passed to-morrow night at the latest. But I shall not wait for that, but return so soon as I have given my evidence."
"Very good," said M. Madeleine; and he dismissed Javert with a wave of his hand. But he did not go.
"I beg your pardon, M. le Maire," he said.
"What's the matter now?" M. Madeleine asked.
"I have one thing to remind you of, sir."
"What is it?"
"That I must be discharged."
M. Madeleine rose.
"Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you; you exaggerate your fault, and besides, it is another insult which concerns me. Javert, you are worthy of rising, not of sinking, and I insist on your keeping your situation."
Javert looked at M. Madeleine with his bright eyes, in which it seemed as if his unenlightened but rigid and chaste conscience could be seen, and he said quietly,—
"M. le Maire, I cannot allow it."
"I repeat," M. Madeleine replied, "that the affair concerns myself."
But Javert, only attending to his own thoughts, continued,—
"As for exaggerating, I am not doing so, for this is how I reason. I suspected you unjustly; that is nothing: it is the duty of men like myself to suspect, though there is an abuse in suspecting those above us. But, without proofs, in a moment of passion and for the purpose of revenge, I denounced you, a respectable man, a mayor and a magistrate; this is serious, very serious,—I, an agent of the authority, insulted that authority in your person. Had any of my subordinates done what I have done, I should have declared him unworthy of the service and discharged him. Stay, Monsieur le Maire, one word more. I have often been severe in my life to others, for it was just, and I was doing my duty, and if I were not severe to myself now, all the justice I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No. What! I have been only good to punish others and not myself? Why, I should be a scoundrel, and the people who call me that rogue of a Javert, would be in the right! M. le Maire, I do not wish you to treat me with kindness, for your kindness caused me sufficient ill-blood when dealt to others, and I want none for myself. The kindness that consists in defending the street-walker against the gentleman, the police agent against the Mayor, the lower classes against the higher, is what I call bad kindness, and it is such kindness that disorganizes society. Good Lord! it is easy enough to be good, but the difficulty is to be just. Come! if you had been what I believed you, I should not have been kind to you, as you would have seen. M. le Maire, I am bound to treat myself as I would treat another man; when I repressed malefactors, when I was severe with scamps, I often said to myself, "If you ever catch yourself tripping, look out," I have tripped, I have committed a fault, and all the worse for me. I have strong arms and will turn laborer. M. le Maire, the good of the service requires an example. I simply demand the discharge of Inspector Javert."
All this was said with a humble, proud, despairing, and convinced accent, which gave a peculiar grandeur to this strangely honest man.
"We will see," said M. Madeleine, and he offered him his hand; but Javert fell back, and said sternly,—
"Pardon me, sir, but that must not be; a mayor ought not to give his hand to a spy."
He added between his teeth,—
"Yes, a spy; from the moment when I misused my authority, I have been only a spy."
Then he bowed deeply and walked to the door. When he reached it he turned round and said, with eyes still bent on the ground,—
"M. le Maire, I will continue on duty till my place is filled up."
He went out. M. Madeleine thoughtfully listened to his firm, sure step as he walked along the paved passage.
BOOK VII
THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR.
CHAPTER I.
SISTER SIMPLICE.
The incidents we are about to record were only partially known at M——, but the few which were known left such a memory in that town, that it would be a serious gap in this book if we did not tell them in their smallest details. In these details the reader will notice two or three improbable circumstances, which we retain through respect for truth. In the afternoon that followed Javert's visit, M. Madeleine went to see Fantine as usual; but before going to her, he asked for Sister Simplice. The two nuns who managed the infirmary, who were Lazarets, like all sisters of charity, were known by the names of Sisters Perpetua and Simplice. Sister Perpetua was an ordinary village girl, a clumsy sister of charity, who had entered the service of Heaven just as she would have taken a cook's place. This type is not rare, for the monastic orders gladly accept this clumsy peasant clay, which can be easily fashioned into a Capuchin friar or an Ursuline nun; and these rusticities are employed in the heavy work of devotion. The transition from a drover to a Carmelite is no hard task; the common substratum of village and cloister ignorance is a ready-made preparation, and at once places the countryman on a level with the monk. Widen the blouse a little and you have a gown. Sister Perpetua was a strong nun belonging to Marnies near Pantoise, who talked with a country accent, sang psalms to match, sugared the tisane according to the bigotry or hypocrisy of the patient, was rough with the sick, and harsh with the dying, almost throwing God in their faces, and storming their last moments with angry prayer. Withal she was bold, honest, and red-faced.
Sister Simplice was pale, and looked like a wax taper by the side of Sister Perpetua, who was a tallow candle in comparison. St. Vincent de Paul has divinely described the sister of charity in those admirable words in which so much liberty is blended with slavery: "They will have no other convent but the hospital, no other cell but a hired room, no chapel but the parish church, no cloister beyond the streets or the hospital wards, no walls but obedience, no grating but the fear of God, and no veil but modesty." Sister Simplice was the living ideal of this: no one could have told her age, for she had never been young, and seemed as if she would never grow old. She was a gentle, austere, well-nurtured, cold person—we dare not say a woman—who had never told a falsehood; she was so gentle that she appeared fragile, but she was more solid than granite. She touched the wretched with her delicate and pure fingers. There was, so to speak, silence in her language; she only said what was necessary, and possessed an intonation of voice which would at once have edified a confessional and delighted a drawing-room. This delicacy harmonized with the rough gown, for it formed in this rough contact a continual reminder of heaven. Let us dwell on one detail; never to have told a falsehood, never to have said, for any advantage or even indifferently, a thing which was not the truth, the holy truth, was the characteristic feature of Sister Simplice. She was almost celebrated in the congregation for this imperturbable veracity, and the Abbé Suard alludes to Sister Simplice in a letter to the deaf, mute Massieu. However sincere and pure we may be, we have all the brand of a little white lie on our candor, but she had not. Can there be such a thing as a white lie, an innocent lie? Lying is the absolute of evil. Lying a little is not possible; the man who lies tells the whole lie; lying is the face of the fiend, and Satan has two names,—he is called Satan and Lying. That is what she thought, and she practised as she thought. The result was the whiteness to which we have alluded, a whiteness which even covered with its radiance her lips and eyes, for her smile was white, her glance was white. There was not a spider's web nor a grain of dust on the window of this conscience; on entering the obedience of St. Vincent de Paul she took the name of Simplice through special choice. Simplice of Sicily, our readers will remember, is the saint who sooner let her bosom be plucked out than say she was a native of Segeste, as she was born at Syracuse, though the falsehood would have saved her. Such a patron saint suited this soul.
Simplice on entering the order had two faults, of which she had gradually corrected herself; she had a taste for dainties and was fond of receiving letters. Now she never read anything but a Prayer-book in large type and in Latin; though she did not understand the language, she understood the book. This pious woman felt an affection for Fantine, as she probably noticed the latent virtue in her, and nearly entirely devoted herself to nursing her. M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice on one side and recommended Fantine to her with a singular accent, which the sister remembered afterwards. On leaving the sister he went to Fantine. The patient daily awaited the appearance of M. Madeleine, as if he brought her warmth and light; she said to the sisters, "I only live when M. le Maire is here." This day she was very feverish, and so soon as she saw M. Madeleine she asked him,—
"Where is Cosette?"
He replied with a smile, "She will be here soon."
M. Madeleine behaved to Fantine as usual, except that he remained with her an hour instead of half an hour, to her great delight. He pressed everybody not to allow the patient to want for anything, and it was noticed at one moment that his face became very dark, but this was explained when it was learned that the physician had bent down to his ear and said, "She is rapidly sinking." Then he returned to the Mayoralty, and the office clerk saw him attentively examining a road-map of France which hung in his room, and write a few figures in pencil on a piece of paper.
CHAPTER II.
SCAUFFLAIRE'S PERSPICACITY.
From the Mayoralty M. Madeleine proceeded to the end of the town, to a Fleming called Master Scaufflaer, gallicized into Scaufflaire, who let out horses and gigs by the day. To reach his yard the nearest way was through an unfrequented street, in which stood the house of the parish priest. The Curé was said to be a worthy and respectable man, who gave good advice. At the moment when M. Madeleine came in front of his house there was only one person in the street, and he noticed the following circumstances: M. le Maire, after passing the house, stopped for a moment, then turned back and walked up to the Curé's door, which had an iron knocker. He quickly seized the knocker and lifted it; then he stopped again as if in deep thought, and, after a few seconds, instead of knocking, he softly let the knocker fall back in its place and continued his way with a haste which he had not displayed before.
M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home and engaged in mending a set of harness.
"Master Scaufflaire", he inquired, "have you a good horse?"
"M. le Maire," the Fleming replied, "all my horses are good. What do you mean by a good horse?"
"I mean a horse that can cover twenty leagues of ground in a day."
"Harnessed in a gig?"
"Yes."
"And how long will it rest after the journey?"
"It must be in a condition to start again the next morning if necessary."
"To return the same distance?"
"Yes."
"Hang it all! and it is twenty leagues?"
M. Madeleine took from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled the figures; they were "5, 6, 8 1/2."
"You see," he said, "total, nineteen and a half, or call them twenty leagues."
"M. le Maire," the Fleming continued, "I can suit you. My little white horse—you may have seen it pass sometimes—is an animal from the Bas Boulonnais, and full of fire. They tried at first to make a saddle-horse of it, but it reared and threw everybody that got on its back. It was supposed to be vicious, and they did not know what to do with it; I bought it and put it in a gig. That was just what it wanted; it is as gentle as a maid and goes like the wind. But you must not try to get on its back, for it has no notion of being a saddle-horse. Everybody has his ambition, and it appears as if the horse had said to itself,—Draw, yes; carry, no."
"And it will go the distance?"
"At a trot, and under eight hours, but on certain conditions."
"What are they?"
"In the first place, you will let it breathe for an hour half way; it will feed, and you must be present while it is doing so, to prevent the ostler stealing the oats, for I have noticed that at inns oats are more frequently drunk by the stable-boys than eaten by the horses."
"I will be there."
"In the next place, is the gig for yourself, sir?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to drive?"
"Yes."
"Well, you must travel alone and without luggage, in order not to overweight the horse."
"Agreed."
"I shall expect thirty francs a day, and the days of rest paid for as well,—not a farthing less; and you will pay for the horse's keep."
M. Madeleine took three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the table.
"There are two days in advance."
"In the fourth place, a cabriolet would be too heavy for such a journey, and tire the horse. You must oblige me by travelling in a little tilbury I have."
"I consent."
"It is light, but it is open."
"I do not care."
"Have you thought, sir, that it is now winter?"
M. Madeleine made no answer, and the Fleming continued,—
"That it is very cold?"
Monsieur Madeleine was still silent.
"That it may rain?"
The Mayor raised his head and said,—
"The tilbury and the horse will be before my door at half-past four to-morrow morning."
"Very good, sir," Scaufflaire answered; then scratching with his thumb-nail a stain in the wood of his table, he continued, with that careless air with which the Flemings so cleverly conceal their craft,—
"Good gracious! I have not thought of asking where you are going? Be kind enough to tell me, sir."
He had thought of nothing else since the beginning of the conversation, but somehow he had not dared to ask the question.
"Has your horse good legs?" said M. Madeleine.
"Yes, M. le Maire; you will hold it up a little in going down-hill. Are there many hills between here and the place you are going to?"
"Do not forget to be at my door at half-past four exactly," M. Madeleine answered, and went away.
The Fleming stood "like a fool," as he said himself a little while after. M. le Maire had been gone some two or three minutes when the door opened again; it was M. le Maire. He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air.
"M. Scaufflaire," he said, "at how much do you value the tilbury and horse you are going to let me, one with the other?"
"Do you wish to buy them of me, sir?"
"No, but I should like to guarantee them against any accident, and when I come back you can return me the amount. What is the estimated value?"
"Five hundred francs, M. le Maire."
"Here they are."
M. Madeleine laid a bank note on the table, then went out, and this time did not come back. Master Scaufflaire regretted frightfully that he had not said a thousand francs, though tilbury and horse, at a fair valuation, were worth just three hundred. The Fleming called his wife and told her what had occurred. "Where the deuce can the Mayor be going?" They held a council. "He is going to Paris," said the wife. "I don't believe it," said the husband. M. Madeleine had left on the table the paper on which he had written the figures; the Fleming took it up and examined it. "'5, 6, 8 1/2;' why, that must mean post stations." He turned to his wife: "I have found it out." "How?" "It is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from there to St. Pol, and eight and a half from St. Pol to Arras. He is going to Arras."
In the mean while the Mayor had returned home, and had taken the longest road, as if the gate of the priest's house were a temptation to him which he wished to avoid. He went up to his bed-room and locked himself in, which was not unusual, for he was fond of going to bed at an early hour. Still the factory portress, who was at the same time M. Madeleine's only servant, remarked that his candle was extinguished at a quarter-past eight, and mentioned the fact to the cashier when he came in, adding,—
"Can master be ill? I thought he looked very strange to-day." The cashier occupied a room exactly under M. Madeleine's; he paid no attention to the remarks of the portress, but went to bed and fell asleep. About midnight he woke with a start, for he heard in his sleep a noise above his head. He listened; it was a footfall coming and going, as if some one were walking about the room above him. He listened more attentively, and recognized M. Madeleine's step; and this seemed to him strange, for usually no sound could be heard from the Mayor's room till he rose. A moment later the cashier heard something like a wardrobe open and shut; a piece of furniture was moved, there was a silence, and the walking began again. The cashier sat up in bed, wide awake, looked out, and through his window noticed on a wall opposite, the red reflection of a lighted window; from the direction of the rays it could only be the window of M. Madeleine's bed-room. The reflection flickered as if it came from a fire rather than a candle, while the shadow of the framework could not be traced, which proved that the window was wide open, and this was a curious fact, considering the cold. The cashier fell asleep and woke again some two hours after; the same slow and regular footfall was still audible above his head. The reflection was still cast on the wall, but was now pale and quiet, as if it came from a lamp or a candle. The window was still open. This is what was occurring in M. Madeleine's bed-room.
CHAPTER III.
A TEMPEST IN A BRAIN.
The reader has, of course, guessed that M. Madeleine is Jean Valjean. We have already looked into the depths of this conscience, and the moment has arrived to look into them again. We do not do this without emotion or tremor, for there is nothing more terrifying than this species of contemplation. The mental eye can nowhere find greater brilliancy or greater darkness than within man; it cannot dwell on anything which is more formidable, complicated, mysterious, or infinite. There is a spectacle grander than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a spectacle grander than the sky, and it is the interior of the soul. To write the poem of the human conscience, were the subject only one man, and he the lowest of men, would be to resolve all epic poems into one supreme and final epic. Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, envies, and attempts, the furnace of dreams, the lurking-place of ideas we are ashamed of; it is the pandemonium of sophistry, the battlefield of the passions. At certain hours look through the livid face of a reflecting man, look into his soul, peer into the darkness. Beneath the external silence, combats of giants are going on there, such as we read of in Homer; mêlées of dragons and hydras and clouds of phantoms, such as we find in Milton; and visionary spirals, as in Dante. A sombre thing is the infinitude which every man bears within him, and by which he desperately measures the volitions of his brain and the actions of his life. Alighieri one day came to a gloomy gate, before which he hesitated; we have one before us, on the threshold of which we also hesitate, but we will enter.
We have but little to add to what the reader already knows as having happened to Jean Valjean since his adventure with Little Gervais. From this moment, as we have seen, he became another man, and he made himself what the Bishop wished to make him. It was more than a transformation, it was a transfiguration. He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop's plate, only keeping the candlesticks as a souvenir, passed through France, reached M——, had the idea we have described, accomplished what we have narrated, managed to make himself unseizable and inaccessible, and henceforth settled at M——, happy at feeling his conscience saddened by the past, and the first half of his existence contradicted by the last half; he lived peacefully, reassured and trusting, and having but two thoughts,—to hide his name and sanctify his life; escape from men and return to God. These two thoughts were so closely blended in his mind, that they only formed one; they were both equally absorbing and imperious, and governed his slightest actions. Usually they agreed to regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him toward the shadow; they rendered him beneficent and simple, and they counselled him the same things. At times, however, there was a conflict between them, and in such cases the man whom the whole town of M—— called Monsieur Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second,—his security to his virtue. Hence, despite all his caution and prudence, he had kept the Bishop's candlesticks, worn mourning for him, questioned all the little Savoyards who passed through the town, inquired after the family at Faverolles, and saved the life of old Fauchelevent, in spite of the alarming insinuations of Javert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, that he thought, after the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, that his first duty was not toward himself.
Still, we are bound to say, nothing like the present had before occurred; never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferings we are describing, entered upon so serious a struggle. He comprehended confusedly, but deeply, from the first words which Javert uttered on entering his study. At the moment when the name which he had buried so deeply was so strangely pronounced, he was struck with stupor, and, as it were, intoxicated by the sinister peculiarity of his destiny. And through this stupor he felt that quivering which precedes great storms; he bowed like an oak at the approach of a storm, like a soldier before a coming assault. He felt the shadows full of thunder and lightning collecting over his head: while listening to Javert he had a thought of running off, denouncing himself, taking Champmathieu out of prison, and taking his place. This was painful, like an incision in the flesh; but it passed away, and he said to himself, "We will see!" he repressed this first generous movement, and recoiled before his heroism.
It would doubtless be grand if, after the Bishop's holy remarks, after so many years of repentance and self-denial, in the midst of a penitence so admirably commenced, this man, even in the presence of such a terrible conjuncture, had not failed for a moment, but continued to march at the same pace toward this open abyss, at the bottom of which heaven was: this would be grand, but it did not take place. We are bound to describe all the things that took place in this mind, and cannot say that this was one of them. What carried him away first was the instinct of self-preservation. He hastily collected his ideas, stifled his emotion, deferred any resolution with the firmness of terror, deadened himself against what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a gladiator puts up his buckler. For the remainder of the day he was in the same state,—a hurricane within, a deep tranquillity outside,—and he only took what may be called "conservative measures." All was still confused and jumbled in his brain; the trouble in it was so great that he did not see distinctly the outline of any idea, and he could have said nothing about himself, save that he had received a heavy blow. He went as usual to Fantine's bed of pain, and prolonged his visit, with a kindly instinct, saying to himself that he must act thus, and recommend her to the sisters in the event of his being obliged to go away. He felt vaguely that he must perhaps go to Arras; and, though not the least in the world decided about the journey, he said to himself that, safe from suspicion as he was, there would be no harm in being witness of what might take place, and he hired Scaufflaire's tilbury, in order to be ready for any event.
He dined with considerable appetite, and, on returning to his bed-room, reflected. He examined his situation, and found it extraordinary,—so extraordinary that, in the midst of his reverie, through some almost inexplicable impulse of anxiety, he rose from his chair and bolted his door. He was afraid lest something might enter, and he barricaded himself against the possible. A moment after, he blew out his light, for it annoyed him, and he fancied that he might be overseen. By whom? Alas! what he wanted to keep out had entered; what he wished to blind was looking at him. It was his conscience, that is to say, God. Still, at the first moment, he deceived himself; he had a feeling of security and solitude. When he put in the bolt, he thought himself impregnable; when the candle was out, he felt himself invisible. He then regained his self-possession; and he put his elbows on the table, leaned his head on his hand, and began dreaming in the darkness.
"Where am I? Am I not dreaming? What was I told? Is it really true that I saw that Javert, and that he spoke to me so? Who can this Champmathieu be? It seems he resembles me. Is it possible? When I think that I was so tranquil yesterday, and so far from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What will be the result of this event? What am I to do?"
Such was the trouble he was in that his brain had not the strength to retain ideas. They passed like waves, and he clutched his forehead with both hands to stop them. From this tumult which overthrew his wits and reason, and from which he sought to draw an evidence and a resolution, nothing issued but agony. His head was burning; and he went by the window and threw it wide open. There were no stars in the heavens, and he went back to the table and sat down by it. The first hour passed away thus, but gradually vague features began to shape themselves, and become fixed in his thoughts, and he could observe with the precision of reality some details of the situation, if not its entirety. He began by noticing that however critical and extraordinary his situation might be, he was utterly the master of it, and his stupor was only augmented.
Independently of the stern and religious object he proposed to himself in his actions, all that he had done up to this day was only a hole he dug in which to bury his name. What he had always most feared, in his hours of reflection as in his sleepless nights, was ever to hear that name pronounced. He said to himself that this would be to him the end of everything; that on the day when that name re-appeared, it would cause his new life to fade away, and possibly the new soul he had within him. He shuddered at the mere thought that this could happen. Assuredly if any one had told him at such moments that the hour would arrive in which this name would echo in his ear, when the hideous name of Jean Valjean would suddenly emerge from the night and rise before him, when this formidable light which dissipated the mystery with which he surrounded himself would suddenly shine above his head, and that the name would no longer menace him; that the light would produce only a denser gloom; that this rent veil would increase the mystery; that the earthquake would consolidate his edifice; that this prodigious incident would have no other result, if he thought proper, but to render his existence clearer and yet more impenetrable, and that from his confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy M. Madeleine would come forth more honored, more peaceful, and more respected than ever,—if any one had told him this, he would have shaken his head, and considered such talk insane. And yet all this had really happened, and this heap of impossibilities was a fact, and Heaven had permitted all these wild things to become real.
His reverie continued to grow clearer, and each moment he comprehended his position better. It seemed to him that he had just awakened from a dream, and that he was descending an incline in the middle of the night, shuddering and recoiling in vain from the brink of an abyss. He distinctly saw in the shadows an unknown man, a stranger, whom destiny took for him, and thrust into the gulf in his place. In order that the gulf should close, either he or another must fall in. He had no necessity to do anything, the clearness became complete, and he confessed to himself—that his place was vacant at the galleys; that, whatever he might do, it constantly expected him, that the robbery of Little Gervais led him back to it, that this vacant place would wait for him and attract him until he filled it, and that this was inevitable and fatal. And then he said to himself that at this moment he had a substitute,—that it seemed a man of the name of Champmathieu had this ill-luck; and that, in future, himself at the bagne in the person of this Champmathieu, and present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, would have nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent justice from laying over the head of this Champmathieu the stone of infamy which, like the tombstone, falls once and is never raised again.
All this was so violent and so strange, that he suddenly felt within him that species of indescribable movement which no man experiences more than twice or thrice in his life,—a sort of convulsion of the conscience, which disturbs everything doubtful in the heart, which is composed of irony, joy, and despair, and what might be called an internal burst of laughter. He suddenly relit his candle.
"Well, what am I afraid of?" he said to himself; "what reason have I to have such thoughts? I am saved, and all is settled. There was only one open door through which my past could burst in upon my life: and that door is now walled up forever. That Javert, who has so long annoyed me, the formidable instinct which seemed to have scented me, and by Heavens! had scented me, the frightful dog ever making a point at me, is routed, engaged elsewhere, and absolutely thrown out! He is henceforth satisfied, he will leave me at peace, for he has got his Jean Valjean! It is possible that he may wish to leave the town too. And all this has taken place without my interference, and so, what is there so unlucky in it all? On my word, any people who saw me would believe that a catastrophe had befallen me. After all, if some people are rendered unhappy, it is no fault of mine. Providence has done it all, and apparently decrees it. Have I the right to derange what He arranges? What is it that I am going to interfere in? It does not concern me. What! I am not satisfied? Why! what else can I want? I have attained the object to which I have been aspiring for so many years, the dream of my nights, the matter of my prayers,—security. It is Heaven that wills it, and I have done nothing contrary to God's desire. And why has Heaven decreed it? That I may continue what I have begun; that I may do good; that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example; that it may be said that there is after all a little happiness attaching to the penance I have undergone. I really cannot understand why I was so afraid just now about visiting that worthy Curé, telling all to him as to a confessor, and asking his advice, for this is certainly what he would have advised me. It is settled; I will let matters take their course, and leave the decision to Heaven."
He spoke this in the depths of his conscience, while leaning over what might be called his own abyss. He got up from his chair and walked about the room. "Come," he said, "I will think no more of it; I have made up my mind;" but he felt no joy. It is no more possible to prevent thought from reverting to an idea than the sea from returning to the shore. With the sailor this is called the tide, with the culprit it is called remorse; God heaves the soul like the ocean. After a few moments, whatever he might do, he resumed the gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying what he wished to be silent about, listening to what he did not desire to hear, and yielding to that mysterious power which said to him "Think," as it did, two thousand years ago, to another condemned man, "Go on."
Before going further, and in order to be fully understood, let us dwell on a necessary observation. It is certain that men talk to themselves; and there is not a thinking being who has not realized the fact. It is only in this sense that the words frequently employed in this chapter, he said, he exclaimed, must be understood; men talk to themselves, speak to themselves, cry out within themselves, but the external silence is not interrupted. There is a grand tumult; everything speaks to us, excepting the mouth. The realities of the soul, for all that they are not visible and palpable, are not the less realities. He asked himself then, what he had arrived at, and cross-questioned himself about the resolution he had formed. He confessed to himself that all he had arranged in his mind was monstrous, and that leaving "God to act" was simply horrible. To allow this mistake of destiny and of men to be accomplished, not to prevent it, to lend himself to it, do nothing, in short, was to do everything; it was the last stage of hypocritical indignity! It was a low, cowardly, cunning, abject, hideous crime. For the first time during eight years this hapless man had the taste of a bad thought and a bad action, and he spat it out in disgust.
He continued to cross-question himself. He asked himself what he had meant by the words, "my object is attained"? He allowed that his life had an object, but what was its nature?—Conceal his name! deceive the police. Was it for so paltry a thing that he had done all that he had effected? Had he not another object which was the great and true one,—to save not his person, but his soul; to become once again honest and good? To be a just man! was it not that he craved solely, and that the Bishop had ordered him? Close the door on his past? But, great Heaven, he opened it again by committing an infamous action. He was becoming a robber once more, and the most odious of robbers! He was robbing another man of his existence, his livelihood, his peace, and his place in the sunshine. He was becoming an assassin, he was killing, morally killing, a wretched man; he was inflicting on him the frightful living death, the open-air death, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, if he gave himself up, freed this man who was suffering from so grievous an error, resumed his name, became through duty the convict Jean Valjean, that would be really completing his resurrection, and eternally closing the hell from which he was emerging! Falling back into it apparently would be leaving it in reality! He must do this: he would have done nothing unless he did this; all his life would be useless, all his penitence wasted. He felt that the Bishop was here, that he was the more present because he was dead, that the Bishop was steadfastly looking at him, and that henceforth Madeleine the Mayor would be an abomination to him, and Jean Valjean the convict admirable and pure in his sight. Men saw his mask, but the Bishop saw his face; men saw his life, but the Bishop saw his conscience. He must consequently go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and denounce the true one. Alas! this was the greatest of sacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but he must take it. Frightful destiny his! he could not obtain sanctity in the sight of Heaven unless he returned to infamy in the sight of man.
"Well," he said, "I will make up my mind to this. I will do my duty and save this man."
He uttered those words aloud without noticing he had raised his voice. He fetched his books, verified and put them in order. He threw into the fire a number of claims he had upon embarrassed tradesmen, and wrote a letter, which he addressed "To M. Lafitte, banker, Rue d'Artois, Paris." He then took from his desk a pocket-book, which contained a few bank-notes and the passport he had employed just previously to go to the elections. Any one who had seen him while he was accomplishing these various acts, with which such grave meditation was mingled, would not have suspected what was taking place in him. At moments his lips moved, at others he raised his head and looked at a part of the wall, as if there were something there which he desired to clear up or question.
When the letter to M. Lafitte was finished, he put it into his portfolio, and began his walk once more. His reverie had not deviated; he continued to see his duty clearly written in luminous letters which flashed before his eyes, and moved about with his glance, Name yourself, denounce yourself! He could also see the two ideas which had hitherto been the double rule of his life—to hide his name and sanctify his life—moving before him as it were in a tangible shape. For the first time they seemed to him absolutely distinct, and he saw the difference that separated them. He recognized that one of these ideas was necessarily good, while the other might become bad; that the former was self-sacrifice, the latter selfishness; that one said, "My neighbor," the other "Myself;" that one came from the light and the other from darkness. They strove with each other, and he could see them doing so. While he was thinking, they had grown before his mental eye, and they had now colossal forms, and he fancied he could see a god and a giant wrestling within him, in the infinitude to which we just now alluded, and in the midst of obscurity and flashes of light. It was a horrible sight, but it seemed to him as if the good thought gained the victory. He felt that he was approaching the second decisive moment of his life; that the Bishop marked the first phase of his new life, and that this Champmathieu marked the second; after the great crisis came the great trial.
The fever, appeased for a moment, gradually returned, however. A thousand thoughts crossed his mind, but they continued to strengthen him in his resolution. At one moment he said to himself that he perhaps regarded the matter too seriously; that, after all, this Champmathieu did not concern him, and in any case was a thief. He answered himself: If this man has really stolen apples, he will have a month's imprisonment, but that is a long way from the galleys. And then, again, is it proved that he has committed a robbery? The name of Jean Valjean is crushing him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not public prosecutors habitually act in this way? A man is believed to be a thief because he is known to be a convict. At another moment the idea occurred to him that, when he had denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might perhaps be taken into consideration, as well as his life of honesty during the last seven years, and the good he had done the town, and that he would be pardoned. But this supposition soon vanished, and he smiled bitterly at the thought that the robbery of the 40 sous from Gervais rendered him a relapsed convict; that this affair would certainly be brought forward, and, by the precise terms of the law, sentence him to the galleys for life.
He turned away from all illusions, detached himself more and more from earth, and sought consolation and strength elsewhere. He said to himself that he must do his duty: that, perhaps, he would not be more wretched after doing it than he would have been had he eluded it: that, if he let matters take their course and remained at M——, his good name, good deeds, charity, wealth, popularity, and virtue would be tainted by a crime; and what flavor would all these sacred things have, when attached to this hideous thought; while, if he accomplished his sacrifice, he would mingle a heavenly idea with the galleys, the chain, the green cap, the unrelaxing toil, and the pitiless shame. At last he said to himself that it was a necessity, that his destiny was thus shaped, that he had no power to derange the arrangements of Heaven, and that in any case he must choose either external virtue and internal abomination, or holiness within and infamy outside him. His courage did not fail him in revolving so many mournful ideas, but his brain grew weary. He began thinking involuntarily of other and indifferent matters. His arteries beat violently in his temples, and he was still walking up and down; midnight struck, first from the parish church, and then from the Town Hall: he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the sound of the two bells. They reminded him that a few days before he had seen an old bell at a marine store, on which was engraved the name Antoine Albier, Romainville.
As he felt cold, he lit a fire, but did not dream of closing the window. Then he fell back into his stupor, obliged to make a mighty effort to remember what he had been thinking of before midnight struck. At last he succeeded.
"Ah, yes," he said to himself, "I had formed the resolution to denounce myself."
And then he suddenly began thinking of Fantine.
"Stay," he said; "and that poor woman!"
Here a fresh crisis broke out: Fantine, suddenly appearing in the midst of his reverie, was like a ray of unexpected light. He fancied that all changed around him, and exclaimed,—
"Wait a minute! Hitherto, I have thought of myself and consulted my own convenience. Whether it suits me to be silent or denounce myself—hide my person or save my soul—be a contemptible and respected Magistrate, or an infamous and venerable convict—it is always self, nought but self. Good heavens! all this is egotism; under different shapes, 't is true, but still egotism. Suppose I were to think a little about others! It is the first duty of a Christian to think of his neighbor. Well, let me examine: when I am effaced and forgotten, what will become of all this? If I denounce myself, that Champmathieu will be set at liberty. I shall be sent back to the galleys, and what then? What will occur here? Here are a town, factories, a trade, work-people, men, women, old grandfathers, children, and poor people: I have created all this. I keep it all alive: wherever there is a chimney smoking, I placed the brand in the fire and the meat in the pot: I have produced easy circumstances, circulation, and credit. Before I came there was nothing of all this; I revived, animated, fertilized, stimulated, and enriched the whole district. When I am gone the soul will be gone; if I withdraw all will die; and then, this woman, who has suffered so greatly, who has so much merit in her fall, and whose misfortune I unwittingly caused, and the child which I intended to go and fetch, and restore to the mother—Do not I also owe something to this woman in reparation of the wrong which I have done her? If I disappear, what will happen? The mother dies, and the child will become what it can. This will happen if I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? Come, let me see."
After asking himself this question, he hesitated, and trembled slightly; but this emotion lasted but a short time, and he answered himself calmly:—
"Well, this man will go to the galleys, it is true, but, hang it all! he has stolen. Although I may say to myself that he has not stolen, he has done so! I remain here and continue my operations: in ten years I shall have gained ten millions. I spread them over the country. I keep nothing for myself; but what do I care? I am not doing this for myself. The prosperity of all is increased; trades are revived, factories and forges are multiplied, and thousands of families are happy; the district is populated; villages spring up where there are only farms, and farms where there is nothing; wretchedness disappears, and with it debauchery, prostitution, robbery, murder, all the vices, all the crimes—and this poor mother brings up her child. Why, I was mad, absurd, when I talked about denouncing myself, and I must guard against precipitation. What! because it pleases me to play the grand and the generous—it is pure melodrama after all—because I only thought of myself, and in order to save from a perhaps exaggerated though substantially just punishment a stranger, a thief, and an apparent scoundrel—a whole department must perish, a poor woman die in the hospital, and a poor child starve in the streets, like dogs! Why, it is abominable! without the mother seeing her child again, or the child knowing her mother! and all this on behalf of an old scamp of an apple-stealer, who has assuredly deserved the galleys for something else, if not for that. These are fine scruples that save a culprit and sacrifice the innocent; that save an old vagabond who has not many years to live, and will not be more unhappy at the galleys than in his hovel, and destroy an entire population,—mothers, wives, and children. That poor little Cosette, who has only me in the world, and is doubtless at this moment shivering with cold in the den of those Thénardiers. There is another pair of wretches. And I would fail in my duties to all these poor creatures, and commit such a folly as to denounce myself! Let us put things at the worst: suppose that I am committing a bad action in this, and that my conscience reproaches me with it some day; there will be devotion and virtue in accepting, for the good of my neighbor, these reproaches, which only weigh on me, and this bad action, which only compromises my own soul."
He got up and began walking up and down again: this time he seemed to be satisfied with himself. Diamonds are only found in the darkness of the earth; truths are only found in the depths of thought. It seemed to him that after descending into these depths, after groping for some time in the densest of this darkness, he had found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, which he held in his hand and which dazzled his eyes when he looked at it.
"Yes," he thought, "I am on the right track and hold the solution of the problem. A man must in the end hold on to something, and my mind is made up. I will let matters take their course, so no more vacillation or backsliding. It is for the interest of all, not of myself. I am Madeleine, and remain Madeleine, and woe to the man who is Jean Valjean. I am no longer he. I do not know that man, and if any one happen to be Jean Valjean at this moment, he must look out for himself, for it does not concern me. It is a fatal name that floats in the night, and if it stop and settle on a head, all the worse for that head."
He looked into the small looking-glass over the mantel-piece, and said to himself,—
"How greatly has forming a resolution relieved me! I am quite a different man at present."
He walked a little way and then stopped short. "Come," he said, "I must not hesitate before any of the consequences of the resolution I have formed. There are threads which still attach me to Jean Valjean which must be broken. There are in this very room objects which would accuse me,—dumb things which would serve as witnesses, and they must all disappear."
He took his purse from his pocket, and drew a small key out of it. He put this key in a lock, the hole of which could scarcely be seen, for it was hidden in the darkest part of the design on the paper that covered the walls. A sort of false cupboard made between the corner of the wall and the mantel-piece was visible. In this hiding-place there were only a few rags,—a blue blouse, worn trousers, an old knapsack, and a large thorn-stick shod with iron at both ends. Any one who saw Jean Valjean pass through D—— in October, 1815, would easily have recognized all these wretched articles. He had preserved them, as he had done the candlesticks, that they might constantly remind him of his starting-point; still he hid what came from the galleys, and displayed the candlesticks which came from the Bishop. He took a furtive glance at the door, as if afraid that it might open in spite of the bolt; and then with a rapid movement he made but one armful of the things he had so religiously and perilously kept for so many years, and threw them all—rags, stick, and knapsack—into the fire. He closed the cupboard, and, redoubling his precautions, which were now useless since it was empty, dragged a heavy piece of furniture in front of it. In a few seconds, the room and opposite wall were lit up with a large red and flickering glow; all was burning, and the thorn-stick crackled and threw out sparks into the middle of the room. From the knapsack, as it burned with all the rags it contained, fell something that glistened in the ashes. On stooping it could be easily recognized as a coin; it was doubtless the little Savoyard's two-franc piece. He did not look at the fire, and continued his walk backwards and forwards. All at once his eye fell on the two candlesticks which the fire-light caused to shine vaguely on the mantel-piece.
"Stay," he thought, "all Jean Valjean is in them, and they must be destroyed too."
He seized the candlesticks—there was a fire large enough to destroy their shape, and convert them into unrecognizable ingots. He leaned over the hearth and wanned his hands for a moment; it was a great comfort to him.
He stirred up the ashes with one of the candlesticks, and in a moment they were both in the fire. All at once he fancied he heard a voice cry within him, "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" His hair stood erect, and he became like a man who is listening to a terrible thing.
"Yes, that is right; finish!" the voice said: "complete what you are about; destroy those candlesticks, annihilate that reminiscence! forget the Bishop! forget everything! rain that Champmathieu; that is right. Applaud yourself; come, all is settled and resolved on. This old man, who does not know what they want with him, who is perhaps innocent, whose whole misfortune your name causes, on whom your name weighs like a crime, is going to be taken for you, sentenced, and will end his days in abjectness and horror. That is excellent! Be an honest man yourself; remain Mayor, honorable and honored, enrich the town, assist the indigent, bring up orphans, live happy, virtuous, and applauded; and during this time, while you are here in joy and light, there will be somebody who wears your red jacket, bears your name in ignominy, and drags along your chain at the galleys. Yes, that is excellently arranged. Oh, you scoundrel!"
The perspiration beaded on his forehead, and he fixed his haggard eye upon the candlesticks. The voice within him, however, had not ended yet.
"Jean Valjean! there will be around you many voices making a great noise, speaking very loud and blessing you, and one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the darkness. Well, listen, infamous man! all these blessings will fall back on the ground before reaching Heaven, and the curse alone will ascend to God!"
This voice, at first very faint, and which spoke from the obscurest nook of his conscience, had gradually become sonorous and formidable, and he now heard it in his ear. He fancied that it was not his own voice, and he seemed to hear the last words so distinctly that he looked round the room with a species of terror.
"Is there any one here?" he asked, in a loud voice and wildly.
Then he continued with a laugh, which seemed almost idiotic,—
"What a fool I am! there can be nobody."
There was somebody, but not of those whom the human eye can see. He placed the candlesticks on the mantel-piece, and then resumed that melancholy, mournful walk, which aroused the sleeper underneath him. This walking relieved him, and at the same time intoxicated him. It appears sometimes as if on supreme occasions people move about to ask advice of everything they pass. At the end of a few moments he no longer knew what result to arrive at. He now recoiled with equal horror from the two resolutions he had formed in turn; the two ideas that counselled him seemed each as desperate as the other. What a fatality that this Champmathieu should be taken for him! He was hurled down precisely by the means which Providence at first seemed to have employed to strengthen his position.
There was a moment during which he regarded his future. Denounce himself! great Heavens! give himself up! He thought with immense despair of all that he must give up, of all that he must resume. He would be forced to bid adieu to this good, pure, radiant life,—to the respect of all classes,—to honor, to liberty! He would no longer walk about the fields, he would no longer hear the birds sing in May, or give alms to the little children! He would no longer feel the sweetness of glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him! He would leave this little house, which he had built, and his little bed-room. All appeared charming to him at this moment. He would no longer read those books or write at the little deal table; his old servant would no longer bring up his coffee in the morning. Great God! instead of all this, there would be the gang, the red jacket, the chain on his foot, fatigue, the dungeon, the camp-bed, and all the horrors he knew! At his age, after all he had borne! It would be different were he still young. But to be old, coarsely addressed by anybody, searched by the jailer, and receive blows from the keeper's stick! to thrust his naked feet into iron-shod shoes! to offer his leg morning and night to the man who examines the fetters! to endure the curiosity of strangers who would be told, "That is the famous Jean Valjean, who was Mayor of M——!" at night, when pouring with perspiration, and crushed by fatigue, with a green cap on his head, to go up two by two, under the sergeants whip, the side ladder of the hulks! Oh, what misery! Destiny, then, can be as wicked as an intelligent being and prove as monstrous as the human heart!