Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  The water reached his armpits and he felt himself sinking; it was all he could do to move. His own sturdiness that kept him upright was also an obstacle. Still carrying Marius, and by the use of unbelievable strength, he pressed on, sinking ever deeper. Only his head was now above water, and his two arms carrying Marius. In old paintings of the flood there is one of a mother carrying her child in this fashion.

  He went on, tilting his face upwards so that he could continue to breathe. Anyone seeing him at that moment might have thought him a mask floating in the darkness. Dimly above him he could see the livid face of Marius. He made a last desperate effort, thrusting a foot forward, and it rested upon something solid – only just in time. He straightened and thrust with a kind of fury on this support, feeling that he had found the first step of a stairway back to life.

  In fact this foothold, reached at the supreme moment, was the other end of the floor, which had sagged under the weight of water but without breaking. Well-built floors have this solidity; the floor still existed, and, climbing its further slope, Valjean was saved.

  Emerging from the water, he stumbled on a stone and fell on his knees. This he thought proper, and he stayed in this posture for some time, his spirit absorbed in the thought of God. Then he stood upright, shivering and foul, bowed beneath his burden, dripping with mire; but with his soul filled with a strange lightness.

  VII

  Sometimes we fail with sucess in sight

  He went on again. If he had not left his life in that pit, he seemed certainly to have left his strength there. The final effort had exhausted him. His weariness was now such that at every few paces he had to pause for breath. Once he had to sit down while he altered Marius’s position, and he thought that he would never get up again. But if his strength was flagging his will was not, and he rose.

  He went on despairingly, but almost quickly, and covered a hundred paces without looking up, almost without breathing, until suddenly he bumped into the wall. He had reached a turning without seeing it. Looking up, he saw in the far distance a light, and this was no cavern light, but the clear white light of day.

  He saw the way of escape, and his feelings were those of a damned soul seeing the way out of Hell. He was no longer conscious of fatigue or of the weight of Marius; his muscles were revived, and he ran rather than walked. As he drew near to it he saw the outlet more plainly. It was a pointed arch, less high than the ceiling, which was growing gradually lower, and less wide than the passageway, which was narrowing. The tunnel ended in a bottleneck, logical enough in a prison but not in a sewer, and something which has now been corrected.

  But when he reached it, Valjean stopped short, It was an outlet, but it offered no way out. The arch was closed with a stout grille, fastened with a huge, rusty lock. He could see the keyhole and the bolt securely in place – clearly it was double-locked. It was one of those prison locks that were common in Paris at that time. And beyond the grille was open air, daylight, the river and a strip of bank, very narrow but sufficient to escape by. All Paris, all liberty, lay beyond it; to the right, downstream, the Pont d’Iéna, to the left the Pont des Invalides. One of the most deserted spots in Paris, a good place to escape from after dark. Flies came and went through the grille.

  The time was perhaps half past eight in the evening, and dusk was falling. Valjean set Marius down by the wall, where the floor was dry; then, going to the grille, he seized it with both hands. But his frantic shaking had no effect. He tried one bar after another hoping to find one less solid that might be used as a lever, or to break the lock. But no bar shifted. He had no lever, no possible purchase, no way of opening the gate.

  Was this to be the end of it? He had not the strength to turn back, and could not, in any case, have struggled again through the pit from which he had so miraculously emerged. And could he hope to escape the police patrol for a second time? In any event, where was he to go? Another outlet might be similarly obstructed. Probably all outlets were closed in this way. By chance he had entered by one that was not, and in so doing had escaped into a prison. It was the end. All his efforts had been futile. God had rejected him.

  Both men were caught in the great, grim cobweb of death, and Valjean felt the running feet of the deadly spider. He turned his back to the grille and sank on to the floor beside the motionless form of Marius, crouched rather than seated, his head sunk between his knees. There was no way out. It was the last extreme of anguish. Of whom did he think in that moment? Not of himself or of Marius. He thought of Cosette.

  VIII

  A fragment of torn clothing

  While he was in this state of despair a hand was laid on his shoulder and a low voice said:

  ‘We’ll go halves.’

  Valjean thought he was dreaming. He had not heard a sound. He looked up and saw a man standing beside him.

  The man was clad in a smock. His feet were bare and he carried his shoes in his hand, having removed them so that he might approach Valjean in silence. Valjean did not hesitate. Unexpected though this meeting was, he knew the man instantly. It was Thénardier.

  Despite his astonishment, Valjean was too accustomed to sudden emergencies, too weary and alert, to lose his self-possession. In any event his situation could not be made worse by the presence of Thénardier. There was a brief pause. Thénardier raised a hand to his forehead, knitting his brow and pursing his lips in the manner of a man seeking to recognize another. He failed to do so. Jean Valjean had his back to the light, and was anyway so begrimed and bloodstained that even in the brightest light he would have been unrecognizable. Thénardier, on the other hand, his face illumined by the light from the grille, faint though it was, was immediately known to Valjean, and this gave the latter a certain advantage in the dialogue that was to take place between them.

  Valjean saw at once that Thénardier did not know him. The two men contemplated one another in the dim light, each taking the measure of the other. It was Thénardier who broke the silence.

  ‘How are you going to get out?’

  Valjean made no reply. Thénardier went on:

  ‘No way of unlocking the door. But you’ve got to get away from here.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So we’ll go halves.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve killed a man. All right. I have a key.’ Thénardier pointed at Marius and went on: ‘I don’t know you but I’m ready to help you. You must be a friend.’

  Valjean began to understand. Thénardier supposed him to be a murderer.

  ‘Listen, comrade,’ Thénardier went on. ‘You won’t have killed that man without looking to see what he has in his pocket. Give me half and I’ll unlock the door.’ He produced a large key from under his smock. ‘Want to see what a master key looks like? Here it is.’

  Valjean ‘stayed stupid’, in Corneille’s phrase, to the point of scarcely believing his ears. Providence had come to his rescue in a horrid guise, sending a good angel in the shape of Thénardier.

  Thénardier fished in a large pocket concealed under his smock and brought out a length of rope which he offered to Valjean.

  ‘I’ll give you this as well.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘And you’ll need a stone. But you’ll find plenty of those outside.’

  ‘What am I to do with it?’

  ‘Fool. You’ll have to chuck the body in the river, and if it isn’t tied to a stone it’ll float.’

  Valjean took the rope. We are all subject to such mechanical gestures. Thénardier snapped his fingers as a thought occurred to him.

  ‘Come to that, how did you manage to get through the pit down there? I wouldn’t have risked it. You smell foul.’

  After a pause he went on:

  ‘I keep asking questions and you’re right not to answer. It’s a preparation for the nasty quarter of an hour in court. And by not talking you don’t risk talking too loud. Anyway, just because I can’t see your face and don’t know your name, that isn’t to s
ay I don’t know what you are and what you want. I know, all right. You’ve done that cove in, and now you’ve got to get rid of him. Well, I’ll help you. Helping a good man in trouble, that’s my line.’

  While professing to approve of Valjean’s silence, he was evidently trying to get him to talk. He nudged his shoulder, seeking to see his profile, and exclaimed without raising his voice;

  ‘Talking of that pit, you’re a fine fool, aren’t you? Why didn’t you leave him there?’

  Valjean remained silent. Thénardier tightened the rag that served him as a neck-tie, putting a finishing touch to his appearance of a capable, reliable man. He went on:

  ‘Well, perhaps you were right. The workmen will be along tomorrow to fill in the pit. They’d find him, and bit by bit, one way or another, it would have been traced to you. Somebody must have come through the sewer. Who was it, and how did he get out? The police have their wits about them. The sewer would give you away. A discovery like that’s uncommon, it attracts notice; not many people use the sewer for their business, while the river belongs to everyone. The river’s the real drain. In a month’s time your man is fished out at Saint-Cloud. So what does that prove? Nothing. A lump of carcass. And who killed him? Paris. No need for any inquiry. You were right.’

  The more loquacious Thénardier became the more silent was Valjean. Thénardier again shook his shoulder.

  ‘Well, now, let’s settle up. I’ve shown you my key, let’s see your money.’

  Thénardier was haggard, wild, shabby, slightly threatening but friendly. And his manner was strangely equivocal. He did not seem quite at his ease, talking furtively in a low voice, and now and then putting a finger to his lips. It was hard to guess why. There were only the two of them. Valjean reflected that there might be other footpads hidden somewhere near, and that Thénardier did not want to share with them.

  ‘Let’s have it,’ he said. ‘How much did the chap have on him?’

  Valjean searched his pockets. We may recall that he always carried money on him from the necessity of the hazardous life he lived. But this time he was caught short. In his preoccupation when he had donned his National Guard uniform the previous evening he had forgotten to take his wallet. He had only a little change in his waistcoat pocket, a mere thirty francs. He turned the muddy garment inside out and spread them on the floor – a louis d’or, two five-franc pieces and five or six sous.

  ‘You didn’t kill for much,’ said Thénardier.

  He began familiarly to pat Valjean’s pockets and those of Marius, and Valjean, anxious to keep his back to the light, did not stop him. While searching Marius, Thénardier, with a pickpocket’s adroitness, managed to tear off a fragment of material which he hid in his smock without Valjean’s noticing; probably he thought that this would later help him to identify the murdered man and his murderer. But he found no more money.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘That’s all there is.’

  Forgetting what he had said about sharing, he took the lot. He hesitated over the sous, but on consideration took those as well.

  ‘It’s helping a cove on the cheap,’ he said.

  He again produced the key.

  ‘Well, pal, you’d better go out It’s like a fair, you pay when you leave. You’ve paid.’ And he laughed. In helping an unknown man to escape, was he disinterestedly concerned to save a murderer? We may doubt it.

  After helping Valjean to lift Marius on to his shoulders he crept to the grille on his bare feet and peered out with a finger to his lips. Then he put the key in the lock. The bolt slid back and the gate opened without a sound; evidently the hinges were carefully oiled and it was used more often than one might think, presumably by some criminal gang, for which the sewer was a place of refuge.

  Thénardier opened the gate just enough to allow Valjean to pass through, closed it after him, turned the key in the lock and then vanished into the darkness, as silently as if he walked on tiger’s paws. An instant later the sinister agent of providence was invisible.

  And Valjean was outside.

  IX

  Marius appears to be dead

  He laid Marius on the bank. He was outside!

  The darkness, stench, and horror were all behind him. He was bathed in pure, fresh air and surrounded by silence, the delicious silence of sunset in a clear sky. It was dusk; night was falling, the great liberator, the friend of all those needing darkness to escape from distress. The sky offered a prospect of immense calm; the river lapped at his feet with the sound of a kiss. There was a goodnight murmur from the nests in the trees on the Champs-Élysées and a few stars faintly showed in the deepening blue of the sky. The evening bestowed on Jean Valjean all the tenderness of infinity, in that enchanting hour which says neither no nor yes, dark enough for distance to be lost, but light enough for nearness to be seen.

  For some moments he was overwhelmed by this serenity, and forgetful of what had passed, all suffering lost in this drowsy glow of dark and light, where his spirit soared. He could not refrain from contemplating the huge chiaroscuro above him, and the majestic silence of the eternal sky moved him to ecstasy and prayer. Then, recalled to a sense of duty, he bent over Marius and sprinkled a few drops of water on his face from the hollow of his hand. Marius’s eyelids did not move, but his open mouth still breathed.

  Valjean was again about to dip his hand in the water when he had that familiar sense of someone behind him. He looked sharply round and found this to be the case. A tall man in a long coat, with folded arms and a cudgel in his right hand, was standing a few paces away. In the half-darkness it seemed a spectral figure; but Valjean recognized Javert.

  The reader has doubtless guessed that the pursuer of Thénardier was Javert. After his unhoped-for escape from the rebel stronghold the inspector had gone to the Préfecture de Police, where he had reported to the prefect in person. He had then immediately returned to his duties, which entailed keeping watch on the right bank near the Champs-Élysées, a spot which for some time had been attracting the notice of the police. Seeing Thénardier, he had followed him. The rest we know.

  We may also gather that the gate so obligingly opened for Valjean was a stratagem on the part of Thénardier. With the instinct of a hunted man, Thénardier had sensed that Javert was still there and he wanted to distract him. What could be better than to supply him with a murderer? Producing Valjean in his place, Thénardier would send the police off on another trail: Javert would be rewarded for his patience, and he himself, besides gaining thirty francs, would have a better chance of getting away.

  Valjean had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire. The two encounters, first with Thénardier and then Javert, caused him a severe shock.

  Javert did not recognize Valjean, who, as we have said, looked quite unlike himself. Without unfolding his arms, but securely gripping his cudgel, he asked calmly:

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Myself.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Jean Valjean.’

  Javert put the cudgel between his teeth and leaning forward clapped his hands on Valjean’s shoulders, seizing them in a vice-like grip. Staring hard, he recognized him. Their faces were nearly touching. Javert’s gaze was terrible. Jean Valjean stayed unresisting, like a lion consenting to the clutch of a lynx.

  ‘Inspector Javert,’ he said, ‘you have got me. In any case, since this morning I have considered myself your prisoner. I did not give you my address in order to escape from you. But grant me one thing.’

  Javert did not seem to hear. He was gazing intently at Valjean with an expression of wild surmise. Finally, releasing him, he took his cudgel again in his hand, and, as though in a dream, murmured:

  ‘What are you doing here? Who is this man?’

  ‘It is about him I wished to speak,’ said Valjean. ‘You may do what you like with me, but help me first to take him home. That is all I ask.’

  Javert’s face twitched, as always happened when someone thought him capable of making a concessi
on. But he did not refuse. Bending down, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, soaked it in water, and bathed Marius’s blood-stained forehead.

  ‘He was at the barricade,’ he muttered; ‘the one called Marius.’ First-class agent that he was, he had taken note of everything, even when he thought himself on the verge of death. He took Marius’s wrist, feeling for his pulse.

  ‘He’s wounded,’ said Valjean.

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Javert.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘You brought him here from the barricade?’ asked Javert. His state of preoccupation must have been great indeed for him not to have dwelt on that disquieting rescue, or even to have noted Valjean’s failure to reply.

  Jean Valjean, for his part, seemed to have only one thought in mind.

  ‘He lives in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire,’ he said, ‘with a relative whose name I forget.’ He felt in Marius’s jacket, found the wallet, opened it at the written page and handed it to Javert.

  There was still just light enough to read by, and Javert, in any case, had the eyes of a cat. He studied the words and grunted. ‘Gillenormand, 6 Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire.’ Then he shouted: ‘Coachman!’

  We may recall the fiacre which was waiting ‘just in case’. In a very short time it had come down the ramp and Marius had been placed on the back seat, while Javert and Valjean sat in front. The fiacre drove off rapidly along the quay in the direction of the Bastille.

  Leaving the quay it entered the streets, the coachman whipping up his horses. There was stony silence in the fiacre. Marius was prostrate in a corner, head drooping, arms and legs limp, as though he had only a coffin to look forward to. Valjean was a figure of shadow and Javert like a figure carved in stone. The dark interior of the fiacre, when it passed under a street lamp, was momentarily lighted and the three tragic figures were thrown into relief – the seeming corpse, the spectre, and the statue.