Les Misérables, v. 1/5: Fantine

by Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE POLICE OFFICE.

  Javert broke through the circle and began walking with longstrides toward the police office, which is at the other end of themarket-place, dragging the wretched girl after him. She allowed him todo so mechanically, and neither he nor she said a word. The crowd ofspectators, in a paroxysm of delight, followed them with coarse jokes,for supreme misery is an occasion for obscenities. On reaching thepolice office, which was a low room, heated by a stove, and guarded bya sentry, and having a barred glass door opening on the street, Javertwalked in with Fantine, and shut the door after him, to the greatdisappointment of the curious, who stood on tip-toe, and stretched outtheir necks in front of the dirty window trying to see. Curiosity isgluttony, and seeing is devouring.

  On entering, Fantine crouched down motionless in a corner like afrightened dog. The sergeant on duty brought in a candle. Javert satdown at a table, took a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, andbegan writing. Women of this class are by the French laws left entirelyat the discretion of the police: they do what they like with them,punish them as they think proper, and confiscate the two sad thingswhich they call their trade and their liberty. Javert was stoical:his grave face displayed no emotion, and yet he was seriously anddeeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments in which he exercisedwithout control, but with all the scruples of a strict conscience, hisformidable discretionary power. At this instant he felt that his highstool was a tribunal, and himself the judge. He tried and he condemned:he summoned all the ideas he had in his mind round the great thing hewas doing. The more he examined the girl's deed, the more outragedhe felt: for it was evident that he had just seen a crime committed.He had seen in the street, society, represented by a householderand elector, insulted and attacked by a creature beyond the pale ofeverything. A prostitute had assaulted a citizen, and he, Javert, hadwitnessed it. He wrote on silently. When he had finished, he affixedhis signature, folded up the paper, and said to the sergeant as hehanded it to him: "Take these men and lead this girl to prison." Thenhe turned to Fantine, "You will have six months for it."

  The wretched girl started.

  "Six months, six months' imprisonment!" she cried; "six months! andonly earn seven sous a day! Why, what will become of Cosette, my child,my child! Why, I owe more than one hundred francs to Th?nardier, M.Inspector; do you know that?"

  She dragged herself across the floor, dirtied by the muddy boots of allthese men, without rising, with clasped hands and taking long strideswith her knees.

  "Monsieur Javert," she said, "I ask for mercy. I assure you that I wasnot in the wrong; if you had seen the beginning, you would say so; Iswear by our Saviour that I was not to blame. That gentleman, who wasa stranger to me, put snow down my back. Had he any right to do thatwhen I was passing gently, and doing nobody a harm? It sent me wild,for you must know I am not very well, and besides he had been abusingme--"You are ugly, you have no teeth." I am well aware that I have lostmy teeth. I did nothing, and said to myself, "This gentleman is amusinghimself." I was civil to him, and said nothing, and it was at thismoment he put the snow down my back. My good M. Javert, is there no onewho saw it to tell you that this is the truth? I was, perhaps, wrongto get into a passion, but at the moment, as you are aware, people arenot masters of themselves, and I am quick-tempered. And then, somethingso cold put down your back, at a moment when you are least expectingit! It was; wrong to destroy the gentleman's hat, but why has he goneaway? I would ask his pardon. Oh! I would willingly do so. Let me offthis time. M. Javert, perhaps you do not know that in prison you canonly earn seven sous a day; it is not the fault of Government, but youonly earn seven sous; and just fancy! I have one hundred francs to pay,or my child will be turned into the street. Oh! I cannot have her withme, for my mode of life is so bad! Oh, my Cosette, oh, my little angel,what ever will become of you, poor darling! I must tell you that theTh?nardiers are inn-keepers, peasants, and unreasonable; they insiston having their money. Oh, do not send me to prison! Look you, thelittle thing will be turned into the streets in the middle of winterto go where she likes, and you must take pity on that, my kind M.Javert. If she were older she could earn her living, but at her age itis impossible. I am not a bad woman at heart, it is not cowardice andgluttony that have made me what I am. If I drink brandy, it is throughwretchedness; I do not like it, but it makes me reckless. In happiertimes you need only have looked into my chest of drawers, and you wouldhave seen that I was not a disorderly woman, for I had linen, plenty oflinen. Take pity on me, M. Javert!"

  She spoke thus, crushed, shaken by sobs, blinded by tears, wringing herhands, interrupted by a sharp dry cough, and stammering softly, withdeath imprinted on her voice. Great sorrow is a divine and terribleray which transfigures the wretched, and at this moment Fantine becamelovely again. From time to time she stopped, and tenderly kissedthe skirt of the policeman's coat. She would have melted a heart ofgranite,--but a wooden heart cannot be moved.

  "Well," said Javert, "I have listened to you. Have you said all? Be offnow; you have six months. The Eternal Father in person could not alterit."

  On hearing this solemn phrase, she understood that sentence was passed;she fell all of a heap, murmuring, "Mercy!" But Javert turned hisback, and the soldiers seized her arm. Some minutes previously a manhad entered unnoticed; he had closed the door, leaned against it, andheard Fantine's desperate entreaties. At the moment when the soldierslaid hold of the unhappy girl, who would not rise, he emerged from thegloom, and said,--

  "Wait a minute, if you please."

  Javert raised his eyes, and recognized M. Madeleine; he took off hishat, and bowed with a sort of vexed awkwardness.

  "I beg your pardon, M. le Maire--"

  The words "M. le Maire" produced a strange effect on Fantine; shesprang up like a spectre emerging from the ground, thrust back thesoldiers, walked straight up to M. Madeleine before she could beprevented, and, looking at him wildly, she exclaimed,--

  "So you are the Mayor?"

  Then she burst into a laugh, and spat in his face. M. Madeleine wipedhis face, and said,--

  "Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty."

  Javert felt for a moment as if he were going mad; he experienced atthis instant the most violent emotions he had ever felt in his life,following each other in rapid succession, and almost mingled. To see agirl of the town spit in the Mayor's face was so monstrous a thing thathe would have regarded it as sacrilege even to believe it possible. Onthe other side, he confusedly made a hideous approximation in his mindbetween what this woman was and what this Mayor might be, and then hesaw with horror something perfectly simple in this prodigious assault.But when he saw this Mayor, this magistrate, calmly wipe his face, andsay, "Set this woman at liberty," he had a bedazzlement of stupor, soto speak; thought and language failed him equally, for he had passedthe limits of possible amazement. He remained dumb. His sentence hadproduced an equally strange effect on Fantine; she raised her bare arm,and clung to the chimney-key of the stove like a tottering person.She looked around, and began saying in a low voice, as if speaking toherself,--

  "At liberty! I am to be let go! I shall not be sent to prison for sixmonths! Who said that? It is impossible that any one said it. I musthave heard badly; it cannot be that monster of a Mayor. Was it you, mykind M. Javert, who said that I was to be set at liberty? Well, I willtell you all about it, and you will let me go. That monster of a Mayor,that old villain of a Mayor, is the cause of it all. Just imagine, M.Javert, he discharged me on account of a parcel of sluts gossipingin the shop. Was not that horrible,--to discharge a poor girl who isdoing her work fairly! After that I did not earn enough, and all thismisfortune came. In the first place, there is an improvement which thepolice gentry ought to make, and that is to prevent persons in prisoninjuring poor people. I will explain this to you; you earn twelve sousfor making a shirt, but it falls to seven, and then you can no longerlive, and are obliged to do what you can. As I had my little CosetteI was forced to become a bad
woman. You can now understand how it wasthat beggar of a Mayor who did all the mischief. My present offence isthat I trampled on the gentleman's hat before the officers' caf?, buthe had ruined my dress with snow; and our sort have only one silk dressfor night. Indeed, M. Javert, I never did any harm purposely, and I seeeverywhere much worse women than myself who are much more fortunate.Oh, Monsieur Javert, you said that I was to be set at liberty, did younot? Make inquiries, speak to my landlord; I pay my rent now, and youwill hear that I am honest. Oh, good gracious! I ask your pardon, butI have touched the damper of the stove without noticing it, and made asmoke."

  M. Madeleine listened to her with deep attention: while she wastalking, he took out his purse, but as he found it empty on opening it,he returned it to his pocket. He now said to Fantine,--

  "How much did you say that you owed?"

  Fantine, who was looking at Javert, turned round to him,--

  "Am I speaking to you?"

  Then she said to the soldiers,--

  "Tell me, men, did you see how I spat in his face? Ah, you old villainof a Mayor! you have come here to frighten me, but I am not afraid ofyou; I am only afraid of M. Javert, my kind Monsieur Javert."

  While saying this, she turned again to the Inspector,--

  "After all, people should be just. I can understand that you are ajust man, M. Javert; in fact, it is quite simple; a man who played atputting snow down a woman's back, made the officers laugh; they musthave some amusement, and we girls are sent into the world for them tomake fun of. And then you came up: you are compelled to restore order;you remove the woman who was in the wrong, but, on reflection, as youare kind-hearted, you order me to be set at liberty, for the sake of mylittle girl, for six months' imprisonment would prevent my supportingher. Only don't come here again, fagot! Oh, I will not come here again,M. Javert; they can do what they like to me in future, and I will notstir. Still I cried out to-night because it hurt me; I did not at allexpect that gentleman's snow; and then besides, as I told you; I am notvery well,--I cough, I have something like a ball in my stomach whichburns, and the doctor says: "Take care of yourself." Here, feel, giveme your hand; do not be frightened."

  She no longer cried, her voice was caressing; she laid Javert's largecoarse hand on her white, delicate throat, and looked up at himsmilingly. All at once she hurriedly repaired the disorder in herclothes, let the folds of her dress fall, which had been almost draggedup to her knee, and walked toward the door, saying to the soldiers witha friendly nod,--

  "My lads, M. Javert says I may go, so I will be off."

  She laid her hand on the hasp; one step further, and she would be inthe street. Up to this moment Javert had stood motionless, with hiseyes fixed on the ground, appearing in the centre of this scene likea statue waiting to be put up in its proper place. The sound of thehasp aroused him: he raised his head with an expression of sovereignauthority,--an expression the more frightful, the lower the man inpower stands; it is ferocity in the wild beast, atrocity in the nobody.

  "Sergeant," he shouted, "do you not see that the wench is bolting? Whotold you to let her go?"

  "I did," said Madeleine.

  Fantine, at the sound of Javert's voice, trembled, and let go the hasp,as a detected thief lets fall the stolen article. At Madeleine's voiceshe turned, and from this moment, without uttering a word, without evendaring to breathe freely, her eye wandered from Madeleine to Javert,and from Javert to Madeleine, according as each spoke. It was evidentthat Javert must have been "lifted off the hinges," as people say, whenhe ventured to address the sergeant as he had done, after the Mayor'srequest that Fantine should be set at liberty. Had he gone so far as toforget the Mayor's presence? Did he eventually declare to himself thatit was impossible for "an authority" to have given such an order, andthat the Mayor must certainly have said one thing for another withoutmeaning it? Or was it that, in the presence of all the enormitieshe had witnessed during the last two hours, he said to himself thathe must have recourse to a supreme resolution, that the little mustbecome great, the detective be transformed into the magistrate, andthat, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government,and society were personified in him, Javert? However this may be,when M. Madeleine said "I did," the Inspector of Police could be seento turn to the Mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, with a desperateglance, and an imperceptible tremor all over him, and--extraordinarycircumstance!--to say to him, with downcast eye, but in a fiercevoice,--

  "Monsieur le Maire, that cannot be."

  "Why so?"

  "This creature has insulted a gentleman."

  "Inspector Javert," M. Madeleine replied with a conciliating andcalm accent, "listen to me. You are an honest man, and I shall haveno difficulty in coming to an explanation with you. The truth is asfollows: I was crossing the market-place at the time you were leadingthis girl away; a crowd was still assembled; I inquired, and know all.The man was in the wrong, and, in common justice, ought to have beenarrested instead of her."

  Javert objected,--

  "The wretched creature has just insulted M. le Maire."

  "That concerns myself," M. Madeleine said; "my insult is, perhaps, myown, and I can do what I like with it."

  "I ask your pardon, sir; the insult does not belong to you, but to theJudicial Court."

  "Inspector Javert," Madeleine replied, "conscience is the highest ofall courts. I have heard the woman, and know what I am doing."

  "And I, Monsieur le Maire, do not know what I am seeing."

  "In that case, be content with obeying."

  "I obey my duty; my duty orders that this woman should go to prison forsix months."

  M. Madeleine answered gently,--

  "Listen to this carefully; she will not go for a single day."

  On hearing these decided words, Javert ventured to look fixedly at theMayor, and said to him, though still with a respectful accent,--

  "I bitterly regret being compelled to resist you. Monsieur le Maire, itis the first time in my life, but you will deign to let me observe thatI am within the limits of my authority. As you wish it, sir, I willconfine myself to the affair with the gentleman. I was present; thisgirl attacked M. Bamatabois, who is an elector and owner of that finethree-storied house, built of hewn stone, which forms the corner of theEsplanade. Well, there are things in this world! However this may be,M. le Maire, this is a matter of the street police which concerns me,and I intend to punish the woman Fantine."

  M. Madeleine upon this folded his arms, and said in a stern voice,which no one in the town had ever heard before,--

  "The affair to which you allude belongs to the Borough police; andby the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of theCriminal Code, I try it. I order that this woman be set at liberty."

  Javert tried a final effort.

  "But, Monsieur le Maire--"

  "I call your attention to article eighty-one of the law of Dec. 13th,1799, upon arbitrary detention."

  "Permit me, sir--"

  "Not a word!"

  "Still--"

  "Leave the room!" said M. Madeleine.

  Javert received the blow right in his chest like a Russian soldier; hebowed down to the ground to the Mayor, and went out. Fantine stood upagainst the door, and watched him pass by her in stupor. She too wassuffering from a strange perturbation: for she had seen herself, soto speak, contended for by two opposite powers. She had seen two menstruggling in her presence, who held in their hands her liberty, herlife, her soul, her child. One of these men dragged her towards thegloom, the other restored her to the light. In this struggle, which shegazed at through the exaggeration of terror, the two men seemed to hergiants,--one spoke like a demon, the other like her good angel. Theangel had vanquished the demon, and the thing which made her shudderfrom head to foot was that this angel, this liberator, was the veryman whom she abhorred, the Mayor whom she had so long regarded as thecause of all her woes; and at the very moment when she had insultedhim in such a hideous way, he saved her. Could she be mistaken?
Mustshe change her whole soul? She did not know, but she trembled; shelistened wildly, she looked on with terror, and at every word that M.Madeleine said, she felt the darkness of hatred fade away in her heart,and something glowing and ineffable spring up in its place, which wascomposed of joy, confidence, and love. When Javert had left the room,M. Madeleine turned to her, and said in a slow voice, like a seriousman who is making an effort to restrain his tears,--

  "I have heard your story. I knew nothing about what you have said, butI believe, I feel, that it is true. I was even ignorant that you hadleft the factory, but why did you not apply to me? This is what I willdo for you; I will pay your debts and send for your child, or you cango to it. You can live here, in Paris, or wherever you please, and Iwill provide for your child and yourself. I will give you all the moneyyou require, and you will become respectable again in becoming happy;and I will say more than that: if all be as you say, and I do not doubtit, you have never ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God!Poor woman!"

  This was more than poor Fantine could endure. To have her Cosette! toleave this infamous life! to live free, rich, happy, and respectablewith Cosette! to see all these realities of Paradise suddenly burstinto flower, in the midst of her wretchedness! She looked as if stunnedat the person who was speaking, and could only sob two or three times:"Oh, oh, oh!" Her legs gave way, she fell on her knees before M.Madeleine, and before he could prevent it, he felt her seize his handand press her lips to it.

  Then she fainted.

  BOOK VI.

  JAVERT.