Javert’s entire personality was that of the man who watches from concealment. The mystical school of Joseph de Maistre, which at that time was enriching the extreme monarchist journals with a high-flown cosmogony, would certainly have regarded him as a symbol. Normally, one could never see his forehead, hidden by his hat, his eyes buried beneath his eyebrows, his chin sunk in his cravat, his hands drawn up within his sleeves or the stick which he carried beneath his cloak. But when the time was ripe all this would spring out of hiding as though from an ambush, the narrow, bony forehead, the baleful glare, the menacing chin, the big hands and threatening cudgel.
In his rare leisure moments he read books, although he hated reading; which is to say that he was not wholly illiterate. The fact was now and then apparent in his speech. As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself he allowed himself a pinch of snuff, his sole concession to human frailty.
It is small wonder that Javert was the terror of that class of people who are listed in the annual statistics of the Ministry of Justice as Gens sans aveu, persons without status. The mere mention of his name sufficed to scatter them; the sight of him petrified them. Such was this formidable man.
Javert had an eye constantly fixed on Monsieur Madeleine, an eye filled with suspicion and puzzlement. Madeleine had eventually become aware of this, but he seemed to regard it as a matter of no importance. He never questioned Javert, neither sought him out nor avoided him, and bore his heavy scrutiny without appearing to notice it, treating him, as he treated everyone, with an easy good-humour.
From certain words Javert had let fall it was evident that secretly, with the inquisitiveness of his kind which is as much a matter of instinct as of deliberate intent, he had studied all the traces of his earlier life which Monsieur Madeleine had left in other places. He seemed to know, and hinted as much, that someone had been making inquiries in another part of the country regarding a family that had disappeared. He was once heard to mutter to himself, ‘I think I’ve got him.’ But after that he was moodily silent. It seemed that the thread he had thought to grasp was broken.
For the rest, and the qualification is necessary for words that may otherwise bear too absolute a meaning, there can be nothing truly infallible in any human being, and instinct, of its nature, may be confused, misled, and perverted. Otherwise it would be superior to intelligence, and animals would be more enlightened than men.
Javert was plainly disconcerted by Monsieur Madeleine’s ease and tranquillity of manner, but an occasion arose when his own strange demeanour attracted the notice of Monsieur Madeleine. What happened was as follows.
VI
Père Fauchelevent
Passing one morning through one of the unpaved alleys of the town Madeleine heard sounds of disturbance and saw a group of people gathered not far away. He found, on going up to them, that an old man known as Père Fauchelevent had been trapped beneath his cart after the horse had fallen.
Fauchelevent was one of the few people who at that time were still unfriendly to Monsieur Madeleine. A former law-scrivener, comparatively educated for a countryman, his business had already been going downhill when Madeleine arrived in the district. He had watched the rise of the humble day-labourer while he, a craftsman, was on the road to ruin, and, consumed with jealousy, had done what he could to injure Madeleine whenever the chance arose. Eventually he had gone bankrupt and being an elderly man without wife or family, possessing nothing but a horse and cart, he had since then earned his living as a carrier.
The horse had broken both hind-legs and could not get up. Fauchelevent was caught between the wheels. The manner of the fall was such that the whole weight of the heavily loaded cart was on his chest. Attempts had been made to drag him clear, but without success. An ill-judged, clumsy movement, a sudden pull of the cart, might crush him. There was no way of releasing him except by lifting the cart from below. Javert, who was already on the spot, had sent for a jack.
The crowd drew back respectfully as Madeleine approached. He at once asked if a jack was available and was told that someone had gone for one to the nearest smithy, but that it would take a quarter of an hour to bring it.
‘A quarter of an hour!’ exclaimed Madeleine.
It had rained hard the day before; the ground was very soft and the cart was sinking deeper into the mud, pressing more heavily on the old man’s chest. In a matter of minutes his ribs might give way.
‘This can’t wait a quarter of an hour,’ said Madeleine, turning to the men standing round.
‘There’s nothing else to be done.’
‘But it’ll be too late. Don’t you see the cart’s sinking deeper?’
‘All the same –’
‘Look,’ said Madeleine. ‘There’s still room for a man to crawl under the cart and lift it on his back. In half a minute the old man can be pulled out. Is there anyone here with the muscle and the heart? I’m offering five louis d’or.’
No one moved.
‘Ten,’ said Madeleine.
The bystanders avoided his gaze. One of them muttered: ‘He’d have to be devilish strong. He’d risk being crushed himself.’
‘Come!’ said Madeleine. ‘Twenty.’
There was still no response.
‘It’s not that we don’t want to,’ a voice said.
Monsieur Madeleine turned and recognized Javert. He had not noticed him before.
‘It’s a question of strength,’ Javert went on. ‘You need to be tremendously strong to lift a load like that on your back.’ With his eyes fixed upon Madeleine he said slowly: ‘I have known only one man, Monsieur Madeleine, capable of doing what you ask.’ Madeleine started. Still with his eyes upon him, Javert added casually: ‘He was a convict.’
‘Ah,’ said Madeleine.
‘In Toulon prison.’
Madeleine turned pale.
Meanwhile the cart was sinking and Père Fauchelevant was gasping and crying: ‘I’m suffocating. My ribs are breaking. For God’s sake, do something!’
Madeleine looked about him. ‘Is there no one prepared to save this man’s life for twenty louis d’or?’
No one moved. Javert repeated: ‘I have known only one man capable of doing the work of a jack. The man I mentioned.’
‘It’s crushing me,’ the old man cried.
Madeleine hesitated for another instant, met the vulture gaze of Javert, looked round at the motionless bystanders, and smiled sadly. Without a word he went on his knees and before anyone could speak was under the cart.
There was a moment of hideous uncertainty and silence. Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrifying weight, was seen to make two fruitless efforts to bring his elbows and knees together. A voice cried, ‘Père Madeleine, come out of there!’ Old Fauchelevent himself cried: ‘Go away, Monsieur Madeleine! I’m done for. Let me be or you’ll be killed too.’ Madeleine said nothing.
The onlookers stood breathless. The cart wheels were still sinking and it was already almost impossible for Madeleine to extricate himself.
Then suddenly the cart with its load was seen to rise slowly upward, its wheels half emerging from the quagmire. Crying in a stifled voice, ‘Hurry up! Help me!’ Madeleine made his supreme effort.
There was a sudden rush. The gallantry of a single man had lent strength and courage to all. The cart was lifted by ten pairs of arms and old Fauchelevent was saved.
Madeleine got to his feet. He was white although his face was running with sweat. His clothes were torn and caked with mud. The old man clasped him round the knees invoking the name of God. His own expression was an indescribable mingling of distress and triumph, and he gazed calmly back at Javert, who was still fixedly regarding him.
VII
Fauchelevent becomes a gardener in Paris
Fauchelevent had broken a knee-cap in his fall. Monsieur Madeleine had him taken to the infirmary, served by two Sisters of Mercy, which he had set up in his factory for the benefit of his workers. On the following morn
ing the old man found a thousand-franc note on the bedside-table, with a note in Madeleine’s handwriting – ‘I am buying your horse and cart.’ The cart was damaged and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but with a permanently stiff knee. Acting on the advice of the sisters and the curé, Madeleine got him a job as gardener in a convent in the Saint-Antoine quarter of Paris.
Shortly after this Monsieur Madeleine was elected mayor, and when for the first time Javert saw him wearing the robes which vested him with full authority over the town, a tremor went through him like that of a hound which scents a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Thereafter he avoided him whenever possible, and when his duties obliged him to have direct dealings with the mayor he addressed him in terms of the utmost formality.
In addition to the outward signs we have described of the prosperity brought to the town by Père Madeleine, there was a further indication which was not the less significant for being invisible. It was a sure sign. When people are in trouble, because work is short and trade is bad, the tax-payer uses every device to resist and evade payment, and the State is put to considerable expense to collect its dues. When on the other hand a region is prosperous and work abundant, taxes are easily paid and the cost of collecting them is small. It may be said, indeed, that the cost of tax-collection affords an infallible index of the poverty or wealth of a community. During a period of seven years this charge on the authorities in the Mon-treuil-sur-mer district had fallen by three-quarters, a fact to which the Minister of Finance, Monsieur de Villèle, made frequent reference.
Such was the state of affairs when Fantine returned to the town. No one remembered her, but fortunately the doors of Madeleine’s factory were open. She found employment in the women’s workshop. The work was new to her and she was not very good at it. Nor was the pay large but it sufficed to solve her problem; it brought her a living.
VIII
Madame Victurnien spends thirty-five francs in the cause of morality
When Fantine found that she could make ends meet she had a moment of rejoicing. To be able to live by honest toil was like a blessing from Heaven. Her natural readiness to work was genuinely revived. She bought a mirror, gazed with pleasure at her youth, her beautiful hair and white teeth, forgot a great many things, dreamed only of Cosette and her plans for the future, and was almost happy. She rented a small room and furnished it on credit against her future earnings – a survival of her disorderly habits.
Not being able to claim that she was married, she was careful to say nothing about her daughter. At first, as we have seen, she was meticulous in her payments to the Thénardiers. Since she could only sign her name she had resort to a public letter-writer. She sent frequent letters, and the fact was noted. It was whispered in the women’s workshop that she ‘gave herself airs’.
No one is more avidly curious about other people’s doings than those persons whom they do not concern. Why is a certain gentleman only to be seen at dusk, and why is another always away on Thursdays? Why does so-and-so always go by the back streets? Why does a certain lady always dismiss her fiacre before reaching home, and why does she send out for note-paper when she has plenty already? And so on. There are people who are prepared to devote as much time and resources to the answering of these riddles as would suffice for a dozen good deeds; and quite gratuitously, with inquisitiveness its own reward. They will follow a person for days, keep watch at street corners and from doorways, at night, in cold and rain; they will bribe hall-porters, tip cab-drivers and lackeys, suborn chambermaids. And for what? For nothing. For the satisfaction of finding out, knowing and unravelling; from an itch to disclose. And it can happen that these broadcast secrets, mysteries exposed to the light of day, are the cause of disaster – duels, bankruptcies, ruined families, wrecked lives – to the delight of those who ‘got to the bottom of it’, from no personal interest, from instinct alone. It is a sad phenomenon.
There are persons whose malice is prompted by the sheer need to gossip. Their conversation – drawing-room chatter, antechamber asides – resembles a wide hearth of the kind that rapidly burns up logs. They need plenty of fuel, and their fuel is their neighbour.
So Fantine’s doings were observed; besides which, some of the women were jealous of her golden hair and white teeth.
It was noted by the women in the workshop that at times she turned her head to wipe away a tear. They were moments when she was suddenly reminded of her child, and perhaps also of the man she had loved; the breaking of links with the past is a painful thing.
It was discovered that she sent at least two letters a month, always to the same address, paying the postage in advance. The name of her correspondent was also discovered – Monsieur Thénardier, innkeeper at Montfermeil The letter-writer, an elderly man who could not keep his mouth shut when his stomach was filled, was plied with wine in an ale-house, and so it became known that Fantine had a child. ‘So that’s the kind of woman she is!’ A townswoman made the journey to Montfermeil, talked to Thénardier and on her return reported as follows: ‘It cost me thirty-five francs but now I know everything. I’ve seen the child.’
The lady in question was a Madame Victurnien, an inflexible guardian of public morals. She was fifty-six and bore a countenance of mingled age and ugliness, with a shaky voice and a lively mind. Strange though it may seem, she had once been young. In the year ’93 she had married a monk who had exchanged the tonsure for the red bonnet, going over from the Bernardins to the Jacobins. Dry, withered, acid, thorny, malicious, and venomous, she still lived on the memory of her departed monk, who had ruled her with a rod of iron. After the Restoration she had become a religious bigot, to the point that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She possessed a small property which she had ostentatiously bequeathed to a religious community, and she enjoyed the favour of the Bishop of Arras. This Madame Victurnien, then, went to Montfermeil and came back saying, ‘I have seen the child.’
This was the month when Thénardier, having already raised the price from seven francs to twelve, raised it again to fifteen.
Fantine’s case was hopeless. She could not leave the district because she owed money for her rent and furniture, a sum of about one hundred and fifty francs. She went and begged the workshop supervisor for money, who gave it to her but forthwith dismissed her; she had, in any case, been an indifferent worker. Overwhelmed by shame even more than by despair, she left the factory and took refuge in her room. Her fault was now known to everyone. She lacked the courage to plead her cause and did not venture to approach the mayor although she was advised to do so. The mayor, by way of the supervisor, had given her fifty francs because he was kind, and had sent her away because he was just. She accepted the verdict.
IX
Madame Victurnien’s success
So the monk’s widow had proved her worth.
As for Monsieur Madeleine, he knew nothing whatever about the matter. Life is made up of these confusions. On principle Madeleine almost never entered the women’s workshop, having placed at its head an elderly spinster recommended to him by the curé. He had every confidence in his supervisor, a thoroughly respectable, honest woman, firm but fair-minded, imbued with the charity which is ready to give but possessing less of the charity which understands and pardons. He trusted her in everything. The best of men are often obliged to delegate their authority; and it was in the full assurance that she was acting rightly that the supervisor had tried the case of Fantine, given judgement and pronounced sentence. The fifty francs came from a fund which Monsieur Madeleine had placed at her disposal for the relief of employees in difficulties, and for which she was not required to account in detail.
Fantine tried to find work as a servant, but no one would take her. She could not leave the town. The second-hand dealer who had supplied her furniture – and such furniture! – said to her, ‘If you do I’ll have you arrested as a thief.’ Her landlord, to whom she owed rent, said, ‘You’re young and pretty, you can pay.’ She divided the fifty francs between the
m, returned three-quarters of the furniture, keeping only the bare essentials, and found herself without work or status, possessing nothing but a bed and still owing about a hundred francs.
She did piecework stitching of shirts for the soldiers of the garrison, which brought her in twelve sous a day. Her child cost ten sous. This was when she began to fall behind in her payments to the Thénardiers.
Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774) Page 20
