Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Victor Hugo

  God was as visible in this as Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He uses what tool He pleases. He is not responsible to man. Do we know the ways of God? Jean Valjean had laboured upon Cosette. He had, to some extent, formed that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible; but the work admirable. God performs His miracles as seems good to Himself. He had constructed this enchanting Cosette, and he had employed Jean Valjean on the work. It had pleased Him to choose this strange co-worker. What reckoning have we to ask of Him? Is it the first time that the dunghill has aided the spring to make the rose?

  Marius made these answers to himself, and declared that they were good. On all the points which we have just indicated, he had not dared to press Jean Valjean, without avowing to himself that he dared not. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette. Cosette was resplendently pure. That was enough for him. What explanation did he need? Cosette was a light. Does light need to be explained? He had all; what could he desire? All, is not that enough? The personal affairs of Jean Valjean did not concern him. In bending over the fatal shade of this man, he clung to this solemn declaration of the miserable being: “I am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago, I did not know of her existence.”

  Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so, himself. Well, he was passing away. Whatever he might be, his part was finished. Henceforth Marius was to perform the functions of Providence for Cosette. Cosette had come forth to find in the azure her mate, her lover, her husband, her celestial male. In taking flight, Cosette winged and transfigured, left behind her on the ground, empty and hideous, her chrysalis, Jean Valjean.

  In whatever circle of ideas Marius turned, he always came back from it to a certain horror of Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we have just indicated, he felt a quid divinum in this man. But, whatever he did, and whatever mitigation he sought, he was always obliged to fall back upon this: he was a convict; that is, the creature who, on the social ladder, has no place, being below the lowest round. After the lowest of men, comes the convict.

  Marius, upon penal questions, although a democrat, still adhered to the inexorable system, and he had, in regard to those whom the law smites, all the ideas of the law. He had not yet, let us say, adopted all the ideas of progress. He had not yet come to distinguish between what is written by man and what is written by God, between law and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man assumes to dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He had not revolted from the word vengeance. He thought it natural that certain infractions of the written law should be followed by eternal penalties, and he accepted social damnation as growing out of civilisation. He was still at that point, infallibly to advance in time, his nature being good, and in reality entirely composed of latent progress.he

  Through the medium of these ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him deformed and repulsive. He was the outcast. He was the convict. This word was for him like a sound of the last trumpet; and, after having considered Jean Valjean long, his final action was to turn away his head. Vade retro.hf

  Marius, we must remember, and even insist upon it, though he had questioned Jean Valjean to such an extent, that Jean Valjean had said to him: You are confessing me, had not, however, put to him two or three decisive questions. Not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but he was afraid of them. The Jondrette garret? The barricade? Javert? Who knows where the revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did not seem the man to shrink, and who knows whether Marius, after having urged him on, would not have desired to restrain him? In certain supreme conjunctures, has it not happened to all of us, after having put a question, to stop our ears that we might not hear the response? We have this cowardice especially when we love. It is not prudent to question untoward situations to the last degree, especially when the indissoluble portion of our own life is fatally interwoven with them. From Jean Valjean’s despairing explanations, some appalling light might have sprung, and who knows but that hideous brilliancy might have been thrown even upon Cosette? Wrongly or rightly Marius had been afraid. He knew too much already. He sought rather to blind than to enlighten himself. In desperation, he carried off Cosette in his arms, closing his eyes upon Jean Valjean.

  What should be done now? Jean Valjean’s visits were very repugnant to him. Of what use was this man in his house? What should he do? Here he shook off his thoughts; he was unwilling to probe, he was unwilling to go deeper; he was unwilling to fathom himself. He had promised, he had allowed himself to be led into a promise; Jean Valjean had his promise; even to a convict, especially to a convict, a man should keep his word. Still, his first duty was towards Cosette. In short, a repulsion, which predominated over all else, possessed him.

  He put without apparent object, some questions to Cosette, who, as candid as a dove is white, suspected nothing; he talked with her of her childhood and her youth, and he convinced himself more and more that all a man can be that is good, paternal, and venerable, this convict had been to Cosette. All that Marius had dimly seen and conjectured was real. This darkly mysterious nettle had loved and protected this lily.

  BOOK EIGHT

  THE FINAL TWILIGHT

  1

  THE BASEMENT ROOM

  THE NEXT DAY, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the M. Gillenormand porte-cochère. Basque received him. Basque happened to be in the court yard very conveniently, and as if he had had orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant: “You will be on the watch for Monsieur So-and-so, when he comes.”

  Basque, without waiting for Jean Valjean to come up to him, addressed him as follows:

  “Monsieur the Baron told me to ask monsieur whether he desires to go upstairs or to remain below?”

  “To remain below,” answered Jean Valjean.

  Basque, who was moreover absolutely respectful, opened the door of the basement room and said: “I will inform madame.”

  The room which Jean Valjean entered was an arched and damp basement, used as a cellar when necessary, looking upon the street paved with red tiles, and dimly lighted by a window with an iron grating.

  The room was not of those which are harassed by the brush, the duster, and the broom. In it the dust was tranquil. There the persecution of the spiders had not been organised. A fine web, broadly spread out, very black, adorned with dead flies, ornamented one of the window-panes. The room, small and low, was furnished with a pile of empty bottles heaped up in one corner. The wall had been washed with a wash of yellow ochre, which was scaling off in large flakes. At the end was a wooden mantel, painted black, with a narrow shelf. A fire was kindled, which indicated that somebody had anticipated Jean Valjean’s answer: To remain below.

  Two arm-chairs were placed at the corners of the fireplace. Between the chairs was spread, in guise of a carpet, an old bed-side rug, showing more warp than wool.

  Suddenly he started up. Cosette was behind him.

  He had not seen her come in, but he had felt that she was coming.

  He turned. He gazed at her. She was adorably beautiful. But what he looked upon with that deep look, was not her beauty but her soul.

  “Ah, well!” exclaimed Cosette, “father, I knew that you were singular, but I should never have thought this. What an idea! Marius tells me that it is you who wish me to receive you here.”

  “Yes, it is I.”

  “I expected the answer. Well, I warn you that I am going to make a scene. Let us begin at the beginning. Father, kiss me.”

  And she offered her cheek.

  Jean Valjean remained motionless.

  “You do not stir. I see it. You act guilty. But it is all the same, I forgive you. Jesus Christ said: ‘Offer the other cheek.’ Here it is.”

  And she offered the other cheek.

  Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as if his feet were nailed to the floor.

  “This is getting serious,” said Cosette. “What have I done to you? I declare I am confounded. You owe me amends. You will dine with us.”

>   “I have dined.”

  “That is not true. I will have Monsieur Gillenormand scold you. Grandfathers are made to scold fathers. Come. Go up to the parlour with me. Immediately.”

  “Impossible.”

  Cosette here lost ground a little. She ceased to order and passed to questions.

  “But why not? and you choose the ugliest room in the house to see me in. It is horrible here.”

  “You know, madame, I am peculiar, I have my whims.”

  Cosette clapped her little hands together.

  “Madame! Still again! What does this mean?”

  Jean Valjean fixed upon her that distressing smile to which he sometimes had recourse:

  “You have wished to be madame. You are so.”

  “Not to you, father.”

  “Don’t call me father any more.”

  “What.”

  “Call me Monsieur Jean. Jean, if you will.”

  “You are no longer father? I am no longer Cosette? Monsieur Jean? What does this mean? but these are revolutions, these are! what then has happened? look me in the face now. And you will not live with us! And you will not have my room! What have I done to you? what have I done to you? Is there anything the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well then?”

  “All is as usual.”

  “Why do you change your name?”

  “You have certainly changed yours.”

  He smiled again with that same smile and added:

  “Since you are Madame Pontmercy I can surely be Monsieur Jean.”

  “I don’t understand anything about it. It is all nonsense; I shall ask my husband’s permission for you to be Monsieur Jean. I hope that he will not consent to it. You make me a great deal of trouble. You may have whims, but you must not grieve your darling Cosette. It is wrong. You have no right to be naughty, you are too good.”

  He made no answer.

  She seized both his hands hastily and, with an irresistible impulse, raising them towards her face, she pressed them against her neck under her chin, which is a deep token of affection.

  “Oh!” said she to him, “be good!”

  And she continued:

  “This is what I call being good: being nice, coming to stay here, there are birds here as well as in the Rue Plumet, living with us, leaving that hole in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé, not giving us riddles to guess, being like other people, dining with us, breakfasting with us, being my father.”

  He disengaged his hands.

  “You have no more need of a father, you have a husband.”

  Cosette could not contain herself.

  “I no more need of a father! To things like that which have no common sense, one really doesn’t know what to say!”

  “If Toussaint was here,” replied Jean Valjean, like one who is in search of authorities and who catches at every straw, “she would be the first to acknowledge that it is true that I always had my peculiar ways. There is nothing new in this. I have always liked my dark corner.”

  “But it is cold here. We can’t see clearly. It is horrid, too, to want to be Monsieur Jean. I don’t want you to talk so to me.”

  “Just now, on my way here,” answered Jean Valjean, “I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. At a cabinet maker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I should make myself a present of that piece of furniture. A very fine toilet table; in the present style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. A pretty large glass. There are drawers in it. It is handsome.”

  “Oh! the ugly bear!” replied Cosette.

  And with a bewitching sauciness, pressing her teeth together and separating her lips, she blew upon Jean Valjean. It was a Grace copying a kitten.

  “I am furious,” she said. “Since yesterday, you all make me rage. Everybody spites me. I don’t understand. You don’t defend me against Marius. Marius doesn’t uphold me against you, I am all alone. I arrange a room handsomely. If I could have put the good God into it, I would have done it. You leave me my room upon my hands. My tenant bankrupts me. I order Nicolette to have a nice little dinner. Nobody wants your dinner, madame. And my father Fauchelevent, wishes me to call him Monsieur Jean, and to receive him in a hideous, old, ugly, mouldy cellar, where the walls have a beard, and where there are empty bottles for vases, and spiders’ webs for curtains. You are singular, I admit, that is your way, but a truce is granted to people who get married. You should not have gone back to being singular immediately. So you are going to be well satisfied with your horrid Rue de l‘Homme Armé. I was very forlorn there, myself! What have you against me? You give me a great deal of trouble. Fie!”

  And, growing suddenly serious, she looked fixedly at Jean Valjean, and added:

  “So you don’t like it that I am happy?”

  Artlessness, unconsciously, sometimes penetrates very deep. This ques tion, simple to Cosette, was severe to Jean Valjean. Cosette wished to scratch; she tore.

  Jean Valjean grew pale. For a moment he did not answer, then, with an indescribable accent and talking to himself, he murmured:

  “Her happiness was the aim of my life. Now, God may beckon me away. Cosette, you are happy; my time is full.”

  “Ah, you have called me Cosette!” exclaimed she.

  And she sprang upon his neck.

  Jean Valjean, in desperation, clasped her to his breast wildly. It seemed to him almost as if he were taking her back.

  “Thank you, father!” said Cosette to him.

  The transport was becoming poignant to Jean Valjean. He gently put away Cosette’s arms, and took his hat.

  “Well?” said Cosette.

  Jean Valjean answered:

  “I will leave you, madame; they are waiting for you.”

  And, from the door, he added:

  “I called you Cosette. Tell your husband that that shall not happen again. Pardon me.”

  Jean Valjean went out, leaving Cosette astounded at that enigmatic farewell.

  2

  OTHER STEPS BACKWARD

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came.

  Cosette put no questions to him, was no longer astonished, no longer exclaimed that she was cold, no longer talked of the parlour, she avoided saying either father or Monsieur Jean. She let him speak as he would. She allowed herself to be called madame. Only she betrayed a certain diminution of joy. She would have been sad, if sadness had been possible for her.

  It is probable that she had had one of those conversations with Marius, in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not go very far beyond their love.

  The basement room had been cleaned up a little. Basque had suppressed the bottles, and Nicolette the spiders.

  Every succeeding morrow brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He came every day, not having the strength to take Marius’ words otherwise than literally. Marius made his arrangements, so as to be absent at the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house became accustomed to M. Fauchelevent’s new mode of life. Toussaint aided: “Monsieur always was just so,” she repeated. The grandfather issued this decree: “He is an original!” and all was said. Besides, at ninety, no further tie is possible; all is juxtaposition; a new-comer is an annoyance. There is no more room; all the habits are formed.

  Nobody caught a glimpse of the nether gloom. Who could have guessed such a thing, moreover? There are such marshes in India; the water seems strange, inexplicable, quivering when there is no wind; agitated where it should be calm. You see upon the surface this causeless boiling; you do not perceive the Hydra crawling at the bottom.

  Certain strange habits, coming at the time when others are gone, shrinking away while others make a display, wearing on all occasions what might be called a wall-coloured cloak, seeking the solitary path, preferring the deserted street, not mingling in conversations, avoiding gatherings and festivals, seeming well-off but living like a pauper, coming in by the side door, going up the back stairs
, all these insignificant peculiarities, wrinkles, air bubbles, fugitive folds on the surface, often come from a formidable deep.

  Several weeks passed thus. A new life gradually took possession of Cosette; the relations which marriage creates, the visits, the care of the house, the pleasures, those grand affairs. Cosette’s pleasures were not costly; they consisted in a single one: being with Marius. Going out with him, staying at home with him, this was the great occupation of her life. It was a joy to them for ever new, to go out arm in arm, in the face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding, in sight of everybody, all alone with each other. Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not agree with Nicolette, the wedding of two old maids being impossible, and went away. The grandfather was in good health; Marius argued a few cases now and then; Aunt Gillenormand peacefully led by the side of the new household, that lateral life which was enough for her. Jean Valjean came every day

  The disappearance of familiarity, the madame, the Monsieur Jean, all this made him different to Cosette. The care which he had taken to detach her from him, succeeded with her. She became more and more cheerful, and less and less affectionate. However, she still loved him very much, and he felt it. One day she suddenly said to him, “You were my father, you are no longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don’t like all that. If I did not know you were so good, I should be afraid of you.”

  He still lived in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé, unable to resolve to move further from the neighborhood in which Cosette dwelt.

  At first he stayed with Cosette only a few minutes, then went away.

  Little by little he got into the habit of making his visits longer. One would have said that he took advantage of the example of the days which were growing longer: he came earlier and went away later.

  One day Cosette inadvertently said to him: “Father.” A flash of joy illu minated Jean Valjean’s gloomy old face. He replied to her: “Say Jean.” “Ah! true,” she answered with a burst of laughter, “Monsieur Jean.” “That is right,” said he, and he turned away that she might not see him wipe his eyes.