Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (29 page)

This was more than poor Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! to leave this infamous life! to live free, rich, happy, honest, with Cosette! to see suddenly spring up in the midst of her misery all these realities of paradise! She looked as if she were stupefied at the man who was speaking to her, and could only pour out two or three sobs: “Oh! oh! oh!” Her limbs gave way, she threw herself on her knees before Monsieur Madeleine, and, before he could prevent it, he felt that she had seized his hand and carried it to her lips.

Then she fainted.

MONSIEUR MADELEINE had Fantine taken to the infirmary, which was in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A violent fever came on, and she passed a part of the night in delirious ravings. Finally, she fell asleep.

Towards noon the following day, Fantine awoke. She heard a breathing near her bed, drew aside the curtain, and saw Monsieur Madeleine standing gazing at something above his head. His look was full of compassionate and supplicating agony. She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed upon a crucifix nailed against the wall.

From that moment Monsieur Madeleine was transfigured in the eyes of Fantine; he seemed to her clothed with light. He was absorbed in a kind of prayer. She gazed at him for a long while without daring to interrupt him; at last she said timidly:

“What are you doing?”

Monsieur Madeleine had been in that place for an hour waiting for Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and said:

“How do you feel?”

“Very well. I have slept,” she said. “I think I am getting better—this will be nothing.”

Then he said, answering the question she had first asked him, as if she had just asked it:

“I was praying to the martyr who is on high.”

And in his thought he added: “For the martyr who is here below.”

Monsieur Madeleine had passed the night and morning in informing himself about Fantine. He knew all now, he had learned, even in all its poignant details, the history of Fantine.

He went on:

“You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that.”

He sighed deeply; but she smiled with this sublime smile from which two teeth were gone.

That same night, Javert wrote a letter. Next morning he carried this letter himself to the post-office of M—sur M—. It was directed to Paris and bore this address: “To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur the Prefect of Police.”

Because the matter at the police station had become known, the post-mistress and some others who saw the letter before it was sent and who recognized Javert’s handwriting in the address, thought he was sending in his resignation.

Monsieur Madeleine wrote immediately to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them a hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves out of it, and bring the child at once to M—sur M—, where her mother, who was sick, wanted her.

This astonished Thénardier.

“The Devil!” he said to his wife, “we won’t let go of the child. It may be that this lark will become a milk cow. Some silly fellow must have been smitten by the mother.”

He replied by a bill of five hundred and some odd francs carefully drawn up. In this bill figured two incontestable items for upwards of three hundred francs, one of a physician and the other of an apothecary who had attended and supplied Eponine and Azelma during two long illnesses. Cosette, as we have said, had not been ill. This was only a slight substitution of names. Thénardier wrote at the bottom of the bill:
“Received on account three hundred francs.”

Monsieur Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote: “Make haste to bring Cosette.”

“Christy!” said Thénardier, “we won’t let go of the girl.”

Meanwhile Fantine had not recovered. She still remained in the infirmary.

It was not without some repugnance, at first, that the sisters received and cared for “this girl.” He who has seen the bas-reliefs at Rheims will recall the distension of the lower lip of the wise virgins beholding the foolish virgins. This ancient contempt of vestals for less fortunate women is one of the deepest instincts of womanly dignity; the sisters had experienced it with the intensification of Religion. But in a few days Fantine had disarmed them. The motherly tenderness within her, with her soft and touching words, moved them. One day the sisters heard her say in her delirium: “I have been a sinner, but when I shall have my child with me, that will mean that God has pardoned me. While I was bad I would not have had my Cosette with me; I could not have borne her sad and surprised looks. It was for her I sinned, and that is why God forgives me. I shall feel this benediction when Cosette comes. I shall gaze upon her; the sight of her innocence will do me good. She knows nothing of it all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At her age the wings have not yet fallen.”

Monsieur Madeleine came to see her twice a day, and at each visit she asked him:

“Shall I see my Cosette soon?”

He answered:

“Perhaps to-morrow. I expect her every moment.”

And the mother’s pale face would brighten.

“Ah!” she would say, “how happy I shall be.”

We have just said she did not recover: on the contrary, her condition seemed to become worse from week to week. That handful of snow applied to the naked skin between her shoulder-blades, had caused a sudden check of perspiration, in consequence of which the disease, which had been forming for some years, at last attacked her violently. They were just at that time beginning in the diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases to follow the fine theory of Laënnec. The doctor sounded her lungs and shook his head.

Monsieur Madeleine said to him:

“Well?”

“Has she not a child she is anxious to see?” said the doctor.

“Yes.”

“Well then, make haste to bring her.”

Monsieur Madeleine gave a shudder.

Fantine asked him: “What did the doctor say?”

Monsieur Madeleine tried to smile.

“He told us to bring your child at once. That will restore your health.”

“Oh!” she cried, “he is right. But what is the matter with these Thenardiers that they keep my Cosette from me? Oh! She is coming! Here at last I see happiness near me.”

The Thénardiers, however, did not “let go of the child;” they gave a hundred bad reasons. Cosette was too delicate to travel in the winter time, and then there were a number of little petty debts, of which they were collecting the bills, etc., etc.

“I will send somebody for Cosette,” said Monsieur Madeleine, “if necessary, I will go myself.”

He wrote at Fantine’s dictation this letter, which she signed. “Monsieur Thénardier:

At this juncture a serious incident intervened. In vain we chisel, as best we can, the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny reappears continually.

ONE MORNING Monsieur Madeleine was in his office arranging for some pressing business of the mayoralty, in case he should decide to go to Montfermeil himself, when he was informed that Javert, the inspector of police, wished to speak with him. On hearing this name spoken, Monsieur Madeleine could not repress a disagreeable impression. Since the affair of the Bureau of Police, Javert had more than ever avoided him, and Monsieur Madeleine had not seen him at all.

“Let him come in,” said he.

Javert entered.

Monsieur Madeleine remained seated near the fire, looking over a bundle of papers upon which he was making notes, and which contained the reports of the police patrol. He did not disturb himself at all for Javert: he could not but think of poor Fantine, and it was fitting that he should receive him very coldly.

Javert respectfully saluted the mayor, who had his back towards him. The mayor did not look up, but continued to make notes on the papers.

Javert advanced a few steps, and paused without breaking silence.

A physiognomist, had he been familiar with Javert’s face, had he made a study for years of this savage in the service of civilisation, this odd mixture of the Roman, Spartan, monk and corporal, this spy, incapable of a lie, this virgin detective—a physiognomist, had he known his secret and inveterate aversion for Monsieur Madeleine, his contest with the mayor on the subject of Fantine, and had he seen Javert at that moment, would have said: “What has happened to him?”
^al

It was evident to any one who had known this conscientious, straightforward, transparent, sincere, upright, austere, fierce man, that Javert had suffered some great interior commotion. There was nothing in his mind that was not depicted on his face. He was, like all violent people, subject to sudden changes. Never had his face been stranger or more startling. On entering, he had bowed before Monsieur Madeleine with a look in which was neither rancour, anger, nor defiance; he paused some steps behind the mayor’s chair, and was now standing in a soldierly attitude with the natural, cold harshness of a man who was never kind, but has always been patient; he waited without speaking a word or making a motion, in genuine humility and tranquil resignation, until it should please Monsieur the Mayor to turn towards him, calm, serious, hat in hand, and eyes cast down with an expression between that of a soldier before his officer and a prisoner before his judge. All the feeling as well as all the remembrances which we should have expected him to have, disappeared. Nothing was left upon this face, simple and impenetrable as granite, except a gloomy sadness. His whole person expressed abasement and firmness, an indescribably courageous dejection.

At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned partly round:

“Well, what is it? What is the matter Javert?”

Javert remained silent a moment as if collecting himself; then raised his voice with a sad solemnity which did not, however, exclude simplicity: “There has been a criminal act committed, Monsieur Mayor.”

“What act?”

“An inferior agent of the government has been wanting in respect to a magistrate, in the gravest manner. I come, as is my duty, to bring the fact to your knowledge.”

“Who is this agent?” asked Monsieur Madeleine.

“I,” said Javert.

“You?”

“I.”

“And who is the magistrate who has to complain of this agent?”

“You, Monsieur Mayor.”

Monsieur Madeleine straightened himself in his chair. Javert continued, with serious looks and eyes still cast down.

“Monsieur Mayor, I come to ask you to be so kind as to make charges and procure my dismissal.”

Monsieur Madeleine, amazed, opened his mouth. Javert interrupted him:

“You will say that I might tender my resignation, but that is not enough. To resign is honourable; I have done wrong. I ought to be punished. I must be dismissed.”

And after a pause he added:

“Monsieur Mayor, you were severe to me the other day, unjustly. Be justly so to-day.”

“Ah, indeed! why? What is all this nonsense? What does it all mean? What is the criminal act committed by you against me? What have you done to me? How have you wronged me? You accuse yourself: do you wish to be relieved?”

“Dismissed,” said Javert.

“Dismissed it is then. It is very strange. I do not understand you.”

“You will understand, Monsieur Mayor,” Javert sighed deeply, and continued sadly and coldly:

“Monsieur Mayor, six weeks ago, after that scene about that girl, I was enraged and I denounced you.”

“Denounced me?”

“To the Prefecture of Police at Paris.”

Monsieur Madeleine, who did not laugh much oftener than Javert, began to laugh:

“As a mayor having encroached upon the police?”

“As a former convict.”

The mayor became livid.

Javert, who had not raised his eyes, continued:

“I believed it. For a long while I had had suspicions. A resemblance, information you obtained at Faverolles, your immense strength; the affair of old Fauchelevent; your skill as a marksman; your leg which drags a little—and in fact I don’t know what other trivial details; but at last I took you for a man named Jean Valjean.”

“Named what? What name did you say?”

“Jean Valjean. He was a convict I saw twenty years ago, when I was adjutant of the galley guard at Toulon. After leaving the galleys this Valjean, it appears, robbed a bishop’s palace, then he committed another robbery with weapons in his hands, in a highway, on a little chimneysweep. For eight years his whereabouts have been unknown, and search has been made for him. I fancied—in short, I have done this thing. Anger determined me, and I denounced you to the prefect.”

M. Madeleine, who had taken up the file of papers again, a few moments before, said with a tone of perfect indifference: “And what answer did you get?”

“That I was crazy.”

“Well!”

“Well; they were right.”

“It is fortunate that you admit it!”

“It must be so, for the real Jean Valjean has been found.”

The paper that M. Madeleine held fell from his hand; he raised his head, looked steadily at Javert, and said in an inexpressible tone:

“Ah!”

Javert continued:

“I will tell you how it is, Monsieur Mayor. There was, it appears, in the country, near Ailly-le-Haut Clocher, a simple sort of fellow who was called Old Champmathieu. He was very poor. Nobody paid any attention to him. Such folks live, one hardly knows how. Finally, this last fall, Old Champmathieu was arrested for stealing cider apples from—, but that is of no consequence. There was a theft, a wall scaled, branches of trees broken. Our Champmathieu was arrested; he had even then a branch of an apple-tree in his hand. The rogue was caged. So far, it was nothing more than a penitentiary matter. But here comes in the hand of Providence. The jail being in a bad condition, the police justice thought it best to take him to Arras, where the prison of the department is. In this prison at Arras there was a former convict named Brevet, who is there for some trifle, and who, for his good conduct, has been made turnkey. No sooner was Champmathieu set down, than Brevet cried out: ‘Ha, ha! I know that man. He is a
fagot.’
^am