Something prevented him. What was it? Could there be other things in life besides trials and sentences, authority and the police? Javert was in utter dismay. A condemned man to escape justice through his act! That these two men, the one meant to enforce, the other to submit to the law, should thus place themselves outside the law – was not this a dreadful thing? Jean Valjean, in defiance of society, would be free, and he, Javert, would continue to live at the government’s expense. His thoughts grew blacker and blacker.
The thought of the rebel taken to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire might have occurred to him, but it did not. The lesser fault was lost in the greater. In any case, he was probably dead. It was the thought of Jean Valjean that oppressed and dismayed him. All the principles on which his estimate of man had been based were overthrown. Valjean’s generosity towards himself amazed him. Behind Valjean loomed the figure of Monsieur Madeleine, and they merged into one, into a figure deserving of veneration. Something dreadful was forcing its way into Javert’s consciousness – admiration for a convicted felon. He shivered, but could not evade it. Try as he might, he had in his heart to admit the scoundrel’s greatness. It was abhorrent. A benevolent evil-doer, a man who returned good for evil, a man near to the angels – Javert was forced to admit that this monstrosity could exist. He did not accept the fact without a struggle. He did not for a moment deny that the law was the law. What more simple than to enforce it? But when he sought to raise his hand to lay it on Valjean’s shoulder an inner voice restrained him: ‘You will deliver up your deliverer? Then go and find Pontius Pilate’s bowl and wash your hands!’ He felt himself diminished beside Jean Valjean.
But his greatest anguish was the loss of certainty. He had been torn up by the roots. The code he lived by was in fragments in his hand. He was confronted by scruples that were utterly strange to him. He could no longer live by his lifelong principles; he had entered a new strange world of humanity, mercy, gratitude and justice other than that of the law. He contemplated with horror the rising of a new sun – an owl required to see with eagle’s eyes. He was forced to admit that kindness existed. The felon had been kind, and, a thing unheard of, so had he. Therefore he had failed himself. He felt himself to be a coward. Javert’s ideal was to be more than human; to be above reproach. And he had failed.
All kinds of new questions arose in his mind, and the answers appalled him. Had the man performed a duty in showing him mercy? No, he had done something more. And he, in returning mercy, had denied his duty. So it seemed that there was something other than duty? Here all balance left him, the whole structure of his life collapsed; what was high was no more deserving of honour than what was low. Although instinctively he held the Church in respect, he regarded it as no more than an august part of the social order; and order was his dogma, and had hitherto sufficed him. The police force had been his true religion. He had a superior officer, Monsieur Gisquet; he had given no thought to that higher superior, which is God.
Now he became conscious of God and was troubled in spirit, thrown into disarray by that unexpected presence. He did not know how to treat this superior, knowing that the subordinate must always give way, never disobey or dispute orders, and that, faced by a superior with whom he does not agree, he can only resign. But how resign from God?
What it all came down to was that he was guilty of an unpardonable infraction of the rules. He had let a felon go. He felt that his life was in ruins. Authority was dead within him, and he had no reason to go on living.
To feel emotion was terrible. To be carved in stone, the very figure of chastisement, and to discover suddenly under the granite of our face something contradictory that is almost a heart. To return good for a good that hitherto one had held to be evil; to be of ice, and melt; to see a pincer become a hand with fingers that parted. To let go! The man of action had lost his way. He was forced to admit that infallibility is not always infallible, that there may be error in dogma, that society is not perfect, that a flaw in the unalterable is possible, that judges are men and even the law may do wrong. What was happening to Javert resembled the de-railing of a train – the straight line of the soul broken by the presence of God. God, the inwardness of man, the true conscience as opposed to the false; the eternal, splendid presence. Did he understand or fully realize this? No; and faced by the incomprehensibility he felt that his head must explode.
He was not so much transformed as a victim of this miracle. He submitted in exasperation, feeling that henceforth his very breath must fail. He was not used to confronting the unknown. Until now what had been above him had been plain and simple, clearly defined and exact. Authority … Javert had been conscious of nothing unknowable. The unexpected, the glimpse of chaos, these belonged to some unknown, recalcitrant, miserable world. But now, recoiling, he was appalled by a new manifestation – an abyss above him. It meant that he was wholly at a loss. In what was he to believe?
The chink in society’s armour might be found by a wretched act of mercy. An honest servant of the law might find himself caught between two crimes, the crime of mercy and the crime of duty. Nothing any longer was certain in the duties laid upon him. It seemed that a one-time felon might rise again and in the end prove right. Was it conceivable? Were there then cases when the law, mumbling excuses, must bow to transfigured crime? Yes, there were! Javert saw, and not only could not deny it but himself shared in it. This was reality. It was abominable that true fact should wear so distorted a face. If facts did their duty they would simply reinforce the law. Facts were God-given. Did anarchy itself descend from Heaven?
So then – and in the extremity of his anguish everything that might have corrected this impression was lost, and society and human kind assumed a hideous aspect – then the settled verdict, the force of law, official wisdom, legal infallibility, all dogma on which social stability reposed, all was chaos; and he, Javert, the guardian of these things, was in utter disarray. Was this state of things to be borne? It was not. There were only two ways out. To go determinedly to Jean Valjean and return him to prison; or else …
Javert left the parapet and, now with his head held high, walked firmly to the police-post lighted by a lantern in the corner of the Place du Châtelet. He thrust open the door, showed the duty sergeant his card and sat down at a table on which were pens, inkstand and paper. It was something to be found in every police-post, fully equipped for the writing of reports. Javert settled down to write.
SOME NOTES FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE
First: I beg Monsieur le Préfet to consider this.
Second: Prisoners returning from interrogation are made to take off their shoes and wait with their bare feet on the tiles. Many are coughing when they go back to prison. This leads to hospital expenses.
Third: Surveillance is well performed, with relief agents at regular distances; but in all important cases there should be at least two agents within sight of one another, able to come to each other’s support.
Four: The special regulation at the Madelonnette prison, whereby prisoners are not allowed a chair even if they pay for it, is hard to justify.
Five: There are only two bars over the canteen counter at the Madelonnette, which enables the canteen-woman to touch the prisoners’ hands.
Six: The prisoners called ‘barkers’ who summon prisoners to the parlour charge two sous for calling a man’s name distinctly. This is robbery.
Seven: The prisoner who drops a thread in the weaving-room loses ten sous. This is an abuse on the part of the contractor, since the cloth is none the worse for it.
Eight: It is unsatisfactory that visitors to La Force should have to cross the Cour des Mômes to reach the Sainte-Marie-l’Égyptienne parlour.
Nine: Gendarmes in the courtyard of the Préfecture are often heard discussing Court proceedings. A gendarme should never repeat what he has heard in the course of his official duties.
Ten: Mme Henry is an excellent woman who keeps her canteen in good order. But it is wrong that a woman should be at the ent
rance to the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie.
Having methodically written these lines without omitting a comma, Javert signed as follows:
‘Javert, Inspector of the First Class, writing at the Place du Châtelet post.
‘7 June 1832, at about one o’clock in the morning.’
He blotted and folded the sheet of paper, and addressing it to the Administration, left it on the table. He went out, and the barred, glass-paned door closed behind him.
Crossing the Place du Châtelet, he returned automatically to the spot he had left a quarter of an hour before and stood leaning with his elbows on the parapet as though he had never left it. It was the sepulchral moment that succeeds midnight, with the stars hidden by cloud and not a light to be seen in the houses of the Cité, not a passer-by, only the faint, distant gleam of a street-lamp and the shadowy outlines of Notre-Dame and the Palais de Justice.
The place where Javert stood, we may recall, was where the river flows in a dangerous rapid. He looked down. There was a sound of running water, but the river itself was not to be seen. What lay below him was a void, so that he might have been standing at the edge of infinity. He stayed motionless for some minutes, staring into nothingness. Abruptly he took off his hat and laid it on the parapet. A moment later a tall, dark figure, which a passer-by might have taken for a ghost, stood upright on the parapet. It leaned forward and dropped into the darkness.
There was a splash, and that was all.
Book Five
Grandson and Grandfather
I
We again see the tree with a zinc plate
SOME TIME after the events we have described Boulatruelle had a severe shock.
Boulatruelle was the Montfermeil road-mender whom we met in an earlier part of this tale. He was a man of many troubles, whose stone-breaking caused vexation to travellers on the road. But he cherished a dream. He believed in the treasure buried in the woods of Montfermeil and hoped to find it. In the meantime he picked the pockets of passers-by when he could.
But for the present he was being prudent. He had had a narrow escape, having been rounded up in the Jondrette garret with the other gangsters. Drunkenness had saved him, since it could not be proved that he had been there with criminal intent, and so he had been granted an acquittal, based on his undeniably drunken state. He had then returned to the woods and the road from Gagny to Lagny where under administrative supervision and in a subdued manner, warmed only by his fondness for wine, he had continued to break stones.
The shock was as follows. One morning just before daybreak, going as usual to work but perhaps a little more awake than on most days, he had seen among the trees the back view of a stranger who did not appear wholly unfamiliar. Drinker though he was, Boulatruelle had an excellent memory, a necessary weapon for anyone somewhat at odds with the law.
‘Where the devil have I seen him?’ he wondered, but could find no answer to the question. He considered the matter. The man was not local. He must have come on foot, since no public conveyance passed at that hour. He could not have come from any great distance, since he had no bundle or haversack. Perhaps he had come from Paris. But what was he doing there? Boulatruelle thought of the hidden treasure. Ransacking his memory, he recalled a similar encounter some years before. He had bowed his head while thinking, which was natural but unwise. When he looked up the man was no longer to be seen.
‘By God I’ll find him,’ said Boulatruelle. ‘I’ll find out who he is and what he’s up to. Can’t have secrets in my woods.’ He took up his pick, which was very sharp. ‘Good for digging into the earth, or into a man.’
He set off in the general direction taken by the man. Before long he was helped by the growing daylight. Footprints here and there, crushed bushes and other indications, afforded him a rough trail, which, however, he lost. Pushing further into the wood, he climbed a small hillock and then had the idea of climbing a tree. Despite his age he was agile. There was a tall beech, and he climbed it as high as he could. From this eminence he saw the man, only to lose him again. The man had vanished into a clearing surrounded by tall trees. But Boulatruelle knew the clearing well because one of the trees was a chestnut that had been mended with a sheet of zinc nailed to the bark. Doubtless the heap of stones in the clearing is still there. There is nothing to equal the longevity of a heap of stones.
Boulatruelle almost fell out of the tree in his delight. He had run his man to earth, and doubtless the treasure as well. But to reach the clearing was not easy. Following the twisted paths, it took a quarter of an hour; but to go direct, forcing one’s way through the toughest undergrowth, took twice as long. Boulatruelle made a mistake. For once in his life he took the straight line.
It was a laborious business. When, breathless, he reached the clearing some half an hour later, he found no one there. Only the heap of stones was there; no one had taken that away. But the man himself had vanished, no one could say in what direction. Worse still, behind the heap of stones and near the tree with its zinc plate, was a pile of earth, an abandoned pick-axe, and a hole.
The hole was empty.
‘Scoundrel!’ cried Boulatruelle, flinging up his arms.
II
From street warfare to domestic conflict
Marius lay for a long time between life and death, in a state of fever and delirium, endlessly repeating the name of Cosette. The extent of some of his wounds was serious because of the risk of gangrene, and every change in the weather caused the doctor anxiety.
‘Above all,’ he said, ‘he must not be excited.’ Dressings were difficult, sticking-plaster being unknown at that time. Nicolette tore up countless sheets, ‘enough to cover the ceiling’. While the peril remained Monsieur Gillenormand, hovering distractedly at the bedside, was like Marius himself – neither dead nor alive.
Every day, and sometimes twice a day, a white-haired, well-dressed gentleman, according to the porter, came to ask for news of the sick man and brought with him a bundle of rags for bandages.
Finally, on 7 September, three months to the day after Marius had been brought to his grandfather’s house, the doctor announced that he was out of danger. But because of the damage to his shoulder-blade he had to spend a further two months resting on a chaise-longue. There are always injuries which refuse to heal and cause great vexation to the sufferers, but on the other hand his long illness and convalescence saved Marius from the authorities. In France there is no anger, not even official, that six months do not extinguish; and uprisings, in the present state of society, are so much the fault of everyone, that it is better for eyes to be closed. We may add that Gisquet’s inexcusable order, instructing doctors to denounce the wounded, outraged not only public opinion but that of the King himself, and this protected them. Apart from one or two who were captured in the fighting, they were not troubled; and so Marius was left in peace.
Monsieur Gillenormand at first went through every kind of torment, and then through every kind of rapture. It was with great difficulty that he was restrained from spending all his nights at the bedside. He insisted that his daughter should use the best linen in the house for the patient’s bandages; but Mlle Gillenormand, prudent woman, contrived to save the best without his knowing. He personally supervised all the dressings, from which Mlle Gillenormand modestly withdrew, and when rotted flesh had to be scraped away he exclaimed in pain. Nothing was more touching than to see him tender the patient a cup of tisane with his old, shaking hand. He overwhelmed the doctor with questions, which he endlessly repeated. And on the day when the doctor announced that the danger was past, such was his happiness that he tipped the porter three louis. That night in his bedroom he danced a gavotte, snapping his fingers and singing a little song. Then he knelt down at a chair, and Basque, peeping through the partly open door, was sure that he was praying. Until then he had never believed in God.
His state of rapture grew as the patient’s condition improved. He did absurd, extravagant things, such as running up and d
own stairs without knowing why. His neighbour, a pretty woman be it said, was astonished to receive a large bouquet from him, greatly to her husband’s annoyance. He even tried to take Nicolette on his knee. He addressed Marius as ‘Monsieur le Baron’ and cried, ‘Long live the Republic!’ He watched over the prodigal like a mother, no longer thinking of himself. Marius had become the master of the house, and he, surrendering, was his grandson’s grandson, the most venerable of children, such was his state of happiness. He was radiant and young, his white hair lending dignity to the warmth shining in his face.
As for Marius, during all his convalescence he had but one thought in mind, that of Cosette. When he ceased to be delirious he ceased to speak her name, but this was precisely because she meant so much to him. He did not know what had happened to her or to himself. Vague pictures lingered in his mind – Éponine, Gavroche, Mabeuf, the Thénardiers, and the friends who had been with him at the barricade. The appearance of Monsieur Fauchelevent in that sanguinary affair was a riddle to him. He did not know how he had come to be saved, and no one could tell him. All they could say was that he had been brought there in a fiacre. Past, present, and future, all were befogged in his mind. There was but one clear, fixed point: his resolve to find Cosette. In this he was unshakeable, regardless of what it might cost, or the demands he might have to make of his grandfather or of life.
He did not conceal the difficulties from himself. And we must stress one point: he was not won over or much moved by his grandfather’s kindness, for one thing because he did not know of it all, and also because, in the wandering thoughts of a sick man, he saw in this new phenomenon an attempt to bring him to heel. He remained cool, and his grandfather’s aged tenderness was wasted. He thought that all would be well while things remained as they were, but that any mention of Cosette would lead to a changed situation – the old quarrel revived. So he hardened his heart in advance. And with returning life his old grievances returned, so that the figure of Colonel Pontmercy came between him and his grandfather. He felt that he could not hope for kindness from one whose attitude to his father had been so harsh. With growing health he felt a kind of acrimony towards the old man, from which the latter suffered. Without giving any sign, Monsieur Gillenormand noted that Marius now never addressed him as ‘father’. He did not, it is true, say ‘Monsieur’, but found ways of avoiding either.
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