Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette

by Victor Hugo

  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 manwas looking down, and did not see him coming, and in a few strides JeanValjean was by his side, and addressed him with the cry, "One hundredfrancs."

  The man started and raised his eyes.

  "One hundred francs to be gained," Jean Valjean continued, "if you willfind 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 thisstrange man, made Jean Valjean recoil, for he expected everything savethat. The man who addressed him was a stooping, lame old man, dressednearly like a peasant, and wearing on his left leg a leathern knee-cap,from which hung a rather large bell. It was impossible to distinguishhis 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 youcome in? Why, you must have fallen from heaven. Well, if ever you dofall, it will be from there. And then, what a state you are in! Youhave no cravat, no hat, and no coat! Do you know that you would havefrightened anybody who did not know you? No coat! Oh, my goodness, arethe 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 rusticvolubility in which there was nothing alarming; and it was all saidwith 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 younot get me the situation, and in this house too? What, don't yourecognize 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 recognizedold 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 JeanValjean accosted him a piece of matting, which he was engaged inspreading over the melon-frame. He had laid a good many pieces duringthe hour he had been in the garden, and it was this operation thatproduced the peculiar movements which Jean Valjean had noticed from theshed. He continued,--

  "I said to myself, there is a bright moon and it is going to freeze, soI had better put these great-coats on my melons." And he added, as helooked at Jean Valjean with a grin, "You should have done the same. Buthow have you got here?"

  Jean Valjean, feeling himself known by this man, at least underthe name of Madeleine, only advanced cautiously. He multiplied hisquestions, 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. Itseems 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 hisrecommendation two years back. He repeated, as if speaking to himself,--

  "'Little Picpus'!"

  "But come, tell me," Fauchelevent continued, "how the deuce did you getin 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 andtrembling hands, and for some seconds seemed as if unable to speak; atlength he exclaimed,--

  "Oh, it would be a blessing from Heaven if I could repay you a slightportion! Save your life! M. Madeleine, you can dispose of an old manas you please."

  An admirable joy had transfigured the aged gardener, and his faceseemed radiant.

  "What do you wish me to do?" he continued.

  "I will explain. Have you a room?"

  "I have a cottage behind the ruins of the old convent, in a cornerwhich no one visits, with three rooms."

  "Good," said Jean Valjean; "now I will ask two things of you."

  "What are they, M. le Maire?"

  "First, that you will tell nobody what you know about me; and secondly,that you will not try to learn anything further."

  "As you please. I know that you can do nothing but what is honest, andthat you have ever been a man after God's heart. And then, again, itwas you who got me this situation, and I am at your service."

  "Enough; now come with me, and we will go and fetch the child."

  "Ah," said Fauchelevent,"there is a child!"

  He did not add a word, but followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows itsmaster. In less than half an hour, Cosette, who had become rosy againby the heat of a good fire, was asleep in the old gardener's bed. JeanValjean had put on his cravat and coat again; the hat thrown overthe wall had been found and picked up, and Fauchelevent took off hisknee-cap and bell, which now adorned the wall by the side of a door.The two men were seated near the fire at a table on which Faucheleventhad placed a lump of cheese, biscuits, a bottle of wine, and twoglasses, and the old man said to Jean Valjean as he laid his hand onhis knee,--

  "Ah, Father Madeleine! you did not recognize me at once; you savepeople's lives and forget them afterwards! Oh, that is wrong, for theyremember you; you are an ungrateful man."