Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  Cosette clapped her hands together.

  ‘“Madame” and “vous”! Is this another whim? What in the world does it mean?’

  Valjean bestowed on her a heartrending smile.

  ‘You wanted to be “madame” and now you are.’

  ‘But not to you, father.’

  ‘You mustn’t call me “father” any more.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You must call me Monsieur Jean, or plain Jean, if you’d rather.’

  ‘You mean that you’re no longer my father? You’ll be telling me next that I’m not Cosette! What in the world does it mean? What has happened? You won’t live with us and you won’t even come up to my sitting-room! It’s like a revolution! But what have I done to you? What have I done wrong? There must be something.’

  ‘There’s nothing.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Everything is as it should be.’

  ‘Why have you changed your name?’

  ‘You’ve changed your own.’ He gave her the same smile. ‘Now that you’re Madame Pontmercy surely I can be Monsieur Jean.’

  ‘I simply don’t understand. I think it’s ridiculous. I shall ask my husband if you can be allowed to call yourself Monsieur Jean, and I hope he’ll say no. You’re upsetting me very much. It’s all very well to have whims, but they mustn’t hurt other people. You’ve no right to be cruel when you’re really so kind.’

  He made no reply. She seized his two hands and pressed them to her throat beneath her chin in a gesture of profound tenderness.

  ‘Please, please be kind!’ And she went on: ‘And by that I mean, be nice and come here to live with us, and then we can go for walks together – there are birds here just as there are in the Rue Plumet. Don’t set us guessing games but be like everyone else – live with us, have luncheon and dinner with us, be my father.’

  He released his hands.

  ‘You don’t need a Father any more. You have a husband.’

  ‘What a thing to say,’ Cosette exclaimed angrily. ‘I don’t need a father indeed! There’s no sense in it!’

  ‘If Toussaint were here,’ said Jean Valjean, as though he were groping for any support, ‘she’d be the first to agree that I’ve always had my peculiarities. There’s nothing new in this. I have always liked my shady nook.’

  ‘But it’s cold in here and one can’t see properly. And it’s abominable of you to want to be Monsieur Jean, and I don’t like you addressing me as vous.’

  ‘On my way here,’ said Valjean, ‘I saw a piece of furniture in a shop in the Rue Saint-Louis. It was something I’d buy for myself if I were a pretty woman – a very nice dressing-table in the modern style, what is called rosewood, I think, with an inlay and drawers and a big mirror. It was very pretty.’

  ‘You great bear!’ said Cosette; and with the utmost fondness, with closed teeth and parted lips, she made a face at Valjean. ‘I’m furious,’ she said. ‘Since yesterday you’ve all been making me cross. You won’t take my side against Marius, and Marius won’t take my side against you. I arrange a delightful room for you and it stays empty. I order a delicious dinner and you won’t eat it. And my father, who is Monsieur Fauchelevent, wants to be called Monsieur Jean and insists on seeing me in a horrible damp cellar full of spiders and empty bottles. I know you’re a peculiar person, but you should be indulgent to a newly married pair. You shouldn’t start being peculiar at the very beginning. And you think you’ll be happy in that horrible Rue de l’Homme-Armé, which I simply hated. What have you got against me? You’re hurting me very much!’ Then, becoming suddenly serious, she looked hard at him and asked: ‘Are you cross with me because I’m happy?’

  Unwitting innocence is sometimes more penetrating than cunning. The question, a simple one to Cosette, was a profound one to Jean Valjean. Thinking to administer a pinprick, she plucked at his heart. Valjean turned pale and for a moment said nothing. Then he murmured to himself:

  ‘Her happiness was the sole object of my life. God can now give me leave of absence … Cosette, you are happy, and so my work is done.’

  ‘You called me tu!’ cried Cosette, and flung her arms round his neck.

  He clasped her despairingly to his breast, and it was almost as though he had got her back again. The temptation was too great. Gently loosening her arms, he picked up his hat.

  ‘Well?’ said Cosette.

  ‘I am leaving you, Madame. You are wanted elsewhere.’ And from the doorway he said: ‘I addressed you as tu. Please accept my apologies and assure your husband that it will not occur again.’

  He went out, leaving her stupefied.

  II

  Further backslidings

  Jean Valjean returned at the same time on the following evening. On this occasion Cosette asked no questions and did not complain about the room. She avoided addressing him either as ‘father’ or as ‘Monsieur Jean’, and she submitted to being addressed as ‘Madame’. But she was less light-hearted than she had been. Indeed, she would have been sad, if sadness had been possible to her. Most probably she had had one of those conversations with Marius in which the man who is loved tells the beloved woman what he wants and she is content to obey. The curiosity of lovers does not extend far beyond their state of love.

  The downstairs room had been put somewhat to rights. Basque had removed the bottles and Nicolette had dealt with the spiders. Valjean called every evening at the same time. He came every day, lacking the strength to take Marius’s words otherwise than literally, and Marius arranged to be out when he came. The household accustomed itself to these novel proceedings on the part of Monsieur Fauchelevent, being encouraged to do so by Toussaint, who said, ‘Monsieur has always been like this.’ Monsieur Gillenormand summed the matter up by describing him as ‘an original’. Besides, new arrangements are not easily accepted when one is in one’s nineties; one has one’s habits, and newcomers are not welcome. Monsieur Gillenormand was not sorry to be rid of Monsieur Fauchelevent. ‘These originals are really quite common,’ he said. ‘They do the most extraordinary things for no reason at all. The Marquis de Canaples was even worse. He bought himself a palace and lived in the attic. Human beings are strange creatures.’

  No one knew of the sinister background, and how could anyone have guessed it? There are marshes in India which behave in an extraordinary fashion, the waters becoming turbulent when there is no wind to stir them. The troubled surface is all one sees, not the hydra lurking beneath. Many men possess a secret monster, a despair that haunts their nights. They live ordinary lives, coming and going like other men. No one suspects the existence of a sharp-toothed parasite gnawing at their vitals which kills them in the end. The man is like a stagnant but deep pond, only an occasional unaccountable ripple troubles the surface. A bubble rises and bursts, a small thing but terrible: it is the breathing of the monster in the depths. The strange behaviour of some men, their habit of arriving when others are leaving, of haunting unfrequented places, seeking solitude, coming in by the side door, living poorly when they have money to spare – all such idiosyncrasies are baffling.

  Several weeks went by in this fashion. By degrees Cosette grew accustomed to a new way of life, new acquaintances brought to her by marriage, visits, household responsibilities, important matters of this kind. But her real happiness was not expensive, consisting as it did of one thing only, to be alone with Marius. Whether she went out with him or stayed at home with him, this was her main preoccupation; and to walk out together, arm-in-arm in the sunshine, without concealment, openly facing the world in their own private solitude, this was a joy to both of them that never grew stale. Cosette had only one cause for vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, and finally when it became clear that the two old maids had nothing in common, she left. Monsieur Gillenormand was in good health; Marius did occasional legal work; Aunt Gillenormand settled down with the newly married couple to live the unobtrusive life that sufficed her. Jean Valjean paid his daily visit.

  The use
of vous and ‘Madame’, and the fact that he was now Monsieur Jean, made him a different person to Cosette. The means he had used to detach her from him had proved successful. She was increasingly light-hearted but less tender. And still he felt that she loved him dearly. On one occasion she said abruptly to him: ‘You used to be my father, but you aren’t any more; you used to be my uncle, but you aren’t any more; you used to be Monsieur Fauchelevent and now you’re just plain Jean. Who are you really? I don’t like this state of affairs. If I didn’t know how good you are I should be afraid of you.’

  He still lived in the Rue de l’Homme-Armé, being unable to bring himself to leave the quarter in which Cosette also lived. At first, when he came to see her, he stayed only a few minutes, but by degrees his visits grew longer. One day, she addressed him unthinkingly as ‘father’ and his sombre countenance was suddenly radiant. Then he said, ‘You must call me Jean …’ ‘Of course,’ she said, laughing, ‘Monsieur Jean …’ ‘That’s better,’ he said and turned away his head so that she should not see the tears in his eyes.

  III

  They remember the garden in the Rue Plumet

  That was the last time. From that moment all demonstrations of affection were banished between them – no more familiarities, no kiss of greeting, no use of that profoundly moving word, ‘father’. Of his own free will he had relinquished all his happiness, and this was his final torment, that having in a single day lost Cosette as a whole, he had to go on losing her in detail. But the eye accustoms itself to a cellar-light. All in all, his daily glimpse of Cosette sufficed him. Those visits were the mainstay of his life. He would sit looking at her in silence, or would talk of incidents in the past, her childhood days and her little friends in the convent.

  One afternoon (it was early in April, a warm day when the sun was bringing the world to life and there was a stir of awakening – budding leaves on the trees, primroses and dandelions beginning to show themselves in the grass of the garden outside their window) Marius said to Cosette, ‘We said we would go back to our garden in the Rue Plumet. We mustn’t be ungrateful,’ – and off they went like swallows flying into the spring. That garden in the Rue Plumet had been for them the beginning of everything; it had harboured the springtime of their love. Since Jean Valjean had acquired the lease it was now the property of Cosette. They went there and, being there, forgot all else. When Valjean called at his accustomed hour Basque told him that Madame had gone out with Monsieur and they had not yet returned. Valjean sat down and waited, but when after another hour she still had not come he bowed his head and went away.

  Cosette had so enjoyed their visit to the garden and reliving the past that the next day she could talk of nothing else. It did not occur to her that she had missed seeing Valjean.

  ‘How did you go there?’ Valjean asked her.

  ‘We walked.’

  ‘And how did you come back?’

  ‘In a fiacre.’

  For some time Valjean had been conscious of the rigidly economical fashion in which the young couple lived, and it perturbed him. He ventured upon a question.

  ‘Why don’t you have a carriage of your own? A coupé would cost you five hundred francs a month. You could easily afford it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cosette.

  ‘And then, Toussaint,’ Valjean continued. ‘She’s gone but you haven’t got anyone in her place. Why not?’

  ‘Nicolette is quite enough.’

  ‘But you ought to have your own maid.’

  ‘I’ve got Marius.’

  ‘And you ought to have a house of your own, with servants of your own and a carriage and a box at the opera. Nothing is too good for you. Why not take advantage of the fact that you’re rich? Wealth can be a great source of happiness.’

  Cosette made no reply.

  Jean Valjean’s visits did not grow shorter. On the contrary. When it is the heart that fails we do not pause on the downward path. In order to stay longer he talked about Marius, praising his many excellent qualities. It was a subject that never failed to enthral Cosette, and so time was forgotten, and he could allay the aching of his heart with more of her company. It happened more than once that Basque entered with the words, ‘Monsieur Gillenormand has sent me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is served.’

  On these occasions Valjean went thoughtfully home, wondering if there might be truth in the thought that had occurred to Marius, that he was a sort of chrysalis obstinately returning to visit its butterfly.

  One evening he stayed even later than usual, and the next day he found that there was no fire burning in the hearth. ‘Well, after all,’ he thought, ‘it’s April and the weather is no longer cold.’

  ‘Heavens, how cold it is in here,’ Cosette exclaimed when she entered.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Valjean.

  ‘Was it you who told Basque not to light the fire?’

  ‘Yes. It will soon be May.’

  ‘But we keep fires going until June, and in this cellar one wants one all the year round.’

  ‘I didn’t think a fire was necessary.’

  ‘Another of your absurd ideas,’ said Cosette.

  The next evening there was a fire, but the two armchairs had been placed at the other end of the room, near the door. ‘Now what does that mean?’ Valjean wondered, and he restored the chairs to their original place.

  But the lighting of the fire encouraged him, and that evening he stayed even longer than usual. When at length he rose to leave Cosette said:

  ‘My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He said, “Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres, twenty-seven thousand of yours and the three thousand my grandfather allows me” … “Yes,” I said, “that adds up to thirty” … “Would you be brave enough to live on the three thousand?” he asked. I said I was ready to live on nothing at all provided I was with him; and then I asked, “Why do you say that?” … “I just wanted to know,” he said.’

  Jean Valjean found nothing to say. Cosette had probably hoped for some sort of explanation, but he maintained a gloomy silence. He was so lost in thought that when he returned to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé he entered the house next door by mistake and did not realize what he had done until he had climbed two flights of stairs. His mind was filled with conjecture. It was evident that Marius had his doubts about the origin of those six hundred thousand francs and perhaps feared that they had come from some discreditable source – perhaps he had discovered that they had come from Valjean himself – and that he would sooner be poor with Cosette than live on tainted money.

  In general Valjean had a vague sense that he was being rebuffed, and on the following evening this was brought forcibly home to him. The two armchairs had vanished. There was not a chair in the room.

  ‘Why, what has happened?’ Cosette exclaimed when she came in. ‘Where have they got to?’

  ‘I told Basque he could take them away,’ Valjean replied, stammering slightly as he spoke.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I shall only be staying a few minutes this evening.’

  ‘Even so, there’s no reason why we should stand up.’

  ‘I think Basque needed the chairs for the salon.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because you’re expecting company, I suppose.’

  ‘Nobody’s coming.’

  Valjean could think of nothing else to say. Cosette shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘You told Basque to take the chairs away. And the other day you told him not to light the fire. You really are very peculiar.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ said Valjean. He did not say ‘Good-bye, Cosette’ but he had not the strength to say, ‘Good-bye, Madame’.

  He went off in despair, having now understood exactly what was happening, and the next evening he did not come at all.

  Cosette did not notice this until the hour was past, and when she remarked upon it her thoughts were quickly distracted by
a kiss from Marius.

  On the following evening Jean Valjean again did not come.

  Cosette was unperturbed. She slept soundly and scarcely gave the matter a thought until the next morning. She was so bathed in happiness! But then she sent Nicolette round to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé to inquire if ‘Monsieur Jean’ was well. Nicolette returned with the message that Monsieur Jean was quite well but was busy with his affairs. Madame would remember that he had sometimes had to go away for a few days. He would be doing so shortly, and would come to see her as soon as possible after he got back. In the meantime there was nothing to worry about.

  Nicolette, when she called upon Monsieur Jean, had repeated her mistress’s words, that ‘Madame wished to know why Monsieur Jean had not come to see her the previous evening.’

  ‘I have not been to see her for two evenings,’ Jean Valjean said gently.

  But Nicolette failed to notice this and did not report the remark to Cosette.

  IV

  Attraction and extinction

  During the late spring and early summer of 1833 persons in the streets of the Marais, shopkeepers and loiterers in house doorways, noticed an elderly man decently clad in black who at about the same time every evening, when it was beginning to grow dark, left the Rue de l’Homme-Armé and walked to the Rue Saint-Louis. Having reached it he proceeded very slowly, seeming to see and hear nothing, his head thrust forward and his eyes intent upon a single object, which was the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. As he approached this point his eyes brightened with a glow of inward happiness, his lips moved as though he were talking to some unseen person and he smiled uncertainly. It was as though, while longing to reach his objective, he dreaded the moment when he would do so. When he was within a few houses of it his pace slowed to the point that he seemed scarcely to be moving at all; the swaying of his head and the intentness of his gaze put one in mind of a compass-needle searching for the pole. But however slow his progress, he had to get there in the end. Having reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, he stopped and trembled, and peered timidly round the corner into the street with the tragic expression of one who gazes into a forbidden paradise. Then the tear which had been slowly gathering in his eye became large enough to fall and roll down his cheek, sometimes reaching his mouth so that he tasted its bitterness. He would stay there for some minutes like a figure carved in stone and then slowly return by the way he had come, with the light in his eyes growing dimmer as the distance lengthened.