Les Misérables, v. 1

CHAPTER IV

AUTHORITY RESUMES ITS RIGHTS

Fantine had not seen Javert since the day when the Mayor tore her out of his clutches, and her sickly brain could form no other thought but that he had come to fetch her. She could not endure his frightful face: she felt herself dying. She buried her face in her hands, and cried with agony, —

"Monsieur Madeleine, save me!"

Jean Valjean – we will not call him otherwise in future – had risen, and said to Fantine in his gentlest, calmest voice, —

"Do not be alarmed: he has not come for you."

Then he turned to Javert and said, —

"I know what you want."

And Javert answered, —

"Come, make haste – "

There was something savage and frenzied in the accent that accompanied these words; no orthographer could write it down, for it was no longer human speech, but a roar. He did not behave as usual, he did not enter into the matter or display his warrant. To him Jean Valjean was a sort of mysterious combatant, a dark wrestler with whom he had been struggling for five years, and had been unable to throw. This arrest was not a beginning but an end, and he confined himself to saying, "Come, make haste." While speaking thus, he did not advance: he merely darted at Jean Valjean the look which he threw out as a grapple, and with which he violently drew wretches to him. It was this look which Fantine had felt pierce to her marrow two months before. On hearing Javert's roar, Fantine opened her eyes again; but the Mayor was present, so what had she to fear? Javert walked into the middle of the room and cried, —

"Well, are you coming?"

The unhappy girl looked around her. No one was present but the nun and the Mayor; to whom, then, could this humiliating remark be addressed? Only to herself. She shuddered. Then she saw an extraordinary thing, – so extraordinary that nothing like it had ever appeared in the darkest delirium of fever. She saw the policeman Javert seize the Mayor by the collar, and she saw the Mayor bow his head. It seemed to her as if the end of the world had arrived.

"Monsieur le Maire!" Fantine screamed.

Javert burst into a laugh, – that frightful laugh which showed all his teeth.

"There is no Monsieur le Maire here."

Jean Valjean did not attempt to remove the hand that grasped his collar; he said, —

"Javert – "

Javert interrupted him: "Call me Monsieur the Inspector."

"I should like to say a word to you in private, sir," Jean Valjean continued.

"Speak up," Javert answered; "people talk aloud to me."

Jean Valjean went on in a low voice, —

"It is a request I have to make of you."

"I tell you to speak up."

"But it must only be heard by yourself – "

"What do I care for that? I am not listening!"

Jean Valjean turned to him and said rapidly, and in a very low voice, —

"Grant me three days, – three days to go and fetch this unhappy woman's child! I will pay whatever you ask, and you can accompany me if you like."

"You must be joking," Javert cried. "Why, I did not think you such a fool! You ask three days of me that you may bolt! You say that it is to fetch this girl's brat! Ah, ah, that is rich, very rich!"

Fantine had a tremor.

"My child!" she exclaimed, – "to go and fetch my child? Then she is not here! Sister, answer me, – where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur Madeleine, M. le Maire!"

Javert stamped his foot.

"There's the other beginning now; will you be quiet, wench? A devil's own country, where galley-slaves are magistrates, and street-walkers are nursed like countesses. Well, well, it will be altered now, and it's time for it."

He looked fixedly at Fantine, and added, as he took a fresh hold of Jean Valjean's cravat, shirt, and coat-collar, —

"I tell you there is no M. Madeleine and no Monsieur le Maire; but there is a robber, a brigand, a convict of the name of Jean Valjean, and I've got him, – that's what there is!"

Fantine rose, supporting herself on her stiffened arms and hands; she looked at Jean Valjean; she looked at Javert; she looked at the nun; she opened her mouth as if to speak, but there was a rattle in her throat, her teeth chattered, she stretched out her arms, convulsively opening her hands, clutching like a drowning man, and then suddenly fell back on the pillow. Her head struck against the bed-head, and fell back on her breast with gaping mouth and open eyes. She was dead. Jean Valjean laid his hand on that one of Javert's which held him, opened it as if it had been a child's hand, and then said to Javert, —

"You have killed this woman."

"Enough of this!" Javert shouted furiously. "I am not here to listen to abuse, so you can save your breath. There is a guard down below, so come quickly, or I shall handcuff you."

There was in the corner of the room an old iron bedstead in a bad condition, which the sisters used as a sofa when they were sitting up at night. Jean Valjean went to this bed, tore off in a twinkling the head piece, – an easy thing for muscles like his, – seized the supporting bar, and looked at Javert. Javert recoiled to the door. Jean Valjean, with the iron bar in his hand, walked slowly up to Fantine's bed; when he reached it, he turned and said to Javert in a scarcely audible voice, —

"I would advise you not to disturb me just at present."

One thing is certain, – Javert trembled. He thought of going to fetch the guard, but Jean Valjean might take advantage of the moment to escape. He therefore remained, clutched his stick by the small end, and leaned against the door-post, without taking his eyes off Jean Valjean. The latter rested his elbow on the bedstead, and his forehead on his hand, and began contemplating Fantine, who lay motionless before him. He remained thus, absorbed and silent, and evidently not thinking of anything else in the world. On his face and in his attitude there was only an indescribable pity. After a few minutes passed in this reverie, he stooped over Fantine and spoke to her in a low voice. What did he say to her? What could this outcast man say to this dead woman? No one on earth heard the words, but did that dead woman hear them? There are touching illusions, which are perhaps sublime realities. One thing is indubitable, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of what took place, has frequently declared that at the moment when Jean Valjean whispered in Fantine's ear, she distinctly saw an ineffable smile playing round her pale lips and in her vague eyeballs, which were full of the amazement of the tomb. Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in his hands, and laid it on the pillow, as a mother might have done to a child. Then he tied the strings of her nightgown, and thrust her hair under her cap. When this was done, he closed her eyes. Fantine's face at this moment seemed strangely illumined, for death is the entrance into brilliant light. Fantine's hand was hanging out of bed; Jean Valjean knelt down by this hand, gently raised and kissed it. Then he rose and turned to Javert, —

"Now I am at your service."

CHAPTER V

A VERY PROPER TOMB

Javert placed Jean Valjean in the town jail. The arrest of M. Madeleine produced an extraordinary commotion in M – , but it is sad to have to say that nearly everybody abandoned him on hearing that he was a galley-slave. In less than two hours all the good he had done was forgotten, and he was only a galley-slave. It is but fair to say, though, that they did not yet know the details of the affair at Arras. The whole day through, conversations like the following could be heard in all parts of the town: —

"Don't you know? he is a liberated convict. – Who is? – The Mayor. – Nonsense. M. Madeleine? – Yes. – Really? – His name is not Madeleine, but some hideous thing like Béjean, Bojean, Boujean. – Oh, my goodness – he has been arrested, and will remain in the town jail till he is removed. – Removed! where to? – He will be tried at the assizes for a highway robbery which he formerly committed. – Well, do you know, I always suspected that man, for he was too kind, too perfect, too devout. He refused the cross, and gave sous to all the little scamps he met. I always thought that there was some black story behind."

The "drawing-rooms" greatly improved the occasion. An old lady, who subscribed to the Drapeau Blanc, made this remark, whose depth it is almost impossible to fathom, —

"Well, I do not feel sorry at it, for it will be a lesson to the Buonapartists."

It is thus that the phantom which called itself M. Madeleine faded away at M – ; only three or four persons in the whole town remained faithful to his memory, and his old servant was one of them. On the evening of the same day this worthy old woman was sitting in her lodge, still greatly startled and indulging in sad thoughts. The factory had been closed all day, the gates were bolted, and the street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns, who were watching by Fantine's body. Toward the hour when M. Madeleine was wont to come in, the worthy portress rose mechanically, took the key of M. Madeleine's bed-room from a drawer, and the candlestick which he used at night to go up-stairs; then she hung the key on the nail from which he usually took it, and placed the candlestick by its side, as if she expected him. Then she sat down again and began thinking. The poor old woman had done all this unconsciously. She did not break off her reverie for two or three hours, and then exclaimed: "Only think of that! I have hung his key on the nail!"

At this moment the window of the lodge was opened, a hand was passed through the opening, which seized the key and lit the candle by hers. The portress raised her eyes, and stood with gaping mouth, but she repressed the cry which was in her throat; for she recognized this hand, this arm, this coat-sleeve, as belonging to M. Madeleine. It was some minutes ere she could speak, for she "was struck," as she said afterwards when describing the adventure.