Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (35 page)

He returned to Fantine’s bed again, and she continued:

“Then you see, in the morning, when she wakes, I can say good morning to the poor kitten; and at night, when I am awake, I can hear her sleep. Her little breathing is so sweet it will do me good.”

“Give me your hand,” said the doctor.

She reached out her hand, and exclaimed with a laugh:

“Oh, stop! Indeed, it is true you don’t know! but I am cured. Cosette is coming to-morrow.”

The doctor was surprised. She was better. Her languor was less. Her pulse was stronger. A sort of new life was all at once reanimating this poor exhausted being.

“Doctor,” she continued, “has the sister told you that Monsieur the Mayor has gone for the little thing?”

The doctor recommended silence, and that she should avoid all painful emotion. He prescribed an infusion of pure quinine, and, in case the fever should return in the night, a soothing potion. As he was going away he said to the sister: “She is better. If by good fortune the mayor should really come back to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are such astonishing crises; we have seen great joy instantly cure diseases; I am well aware that this is an organic disease, and far advanced, but this is all such a mystery! We shall save her perhaps!”

IT WAS NEARLY eight o‘clock in the evening when the carriole which we left on the road drove into the yard of the Hotel de la Poste at Arras. The man whom we have followed thus far, got out, answered the hospitalities of the inn’s people with an absent-minded air, sent back the extra horse, and took the little white one to the stable himself; then he opened the door of a billiard-room on the first floor, took a seat, and leaned his elbows on the table. He had spent fourteen hours in this trip, which he expected to make in six. He did himself the justice to feel that it was not his fault, but at bottom he was not sorry for it.

The landlady entered.

“Will monsieur have a bed? will monsieur have supper?”

He shook his head.

“The stable-boy says that monsieur’s horse is very tired!”

Here he broke silence.

“Is not the horse able to start again to-morrow morning?”

“Oh; monsieur! he needs at least two days’ rest.”

He asked:

“Is not the Post Office here?”

“Yes, sir.”

The hostess led him to the Post Office; he showed his passport and inquired if there were an opportunity to return that very night to M—sur M—by the mail coach; only one seat was vacant, that by the side of the driver; he retained it and paid for it. “Monsieur,” said the booking clerk, “don’t fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o‘clock in the morning.”

This done, he left the hotel and began to walk in the city.

He was not acquainted with Arras, the streets were dark, and he went haphazard. Nevertheless he seemed to refrain obstinately from asking his way. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a labyrinth of narrow streets, where he was soon lost. A citizen came along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he determined to speak to this man, but not until he had looked before and behind, as if he were afraid that somebody might overhear the question he was about to ask.

“Monsieur,” said he, “the court house, if you please?”

“You are not a resident of the city, monsieur,” answered the citizen, who was an old man, “well, follow me, I am going right by the court house, that is to say, the city hall. For they are repairing the court house just now, and the courts are holding the sessions at the city hall, temporarily.”

“Is it there,” asked he, “that the court sessions are held?”

“Certainly, monsieur; you see, what is the city hall to-day was the bishop’s palace before the revolution. Monsieur de Conzié, who was bishop in ‘eighty-two, had a large hall built. The court is held in that hall.”

As they walked along, the citizen said to him:

“If monsieur wishes to see a trial, he is rather late. Ordinarily the sessions close at six o‘clock.”

However, when they reached the great square, the citizen showed him four long lighted windows on the front of a vast dark building.

“Faith, monsieur, you are in time, you are fortunate. Do you see those four windows? that is the court. There is a light there. Then they have not finished. The case must have been prolonged and they are having an evening session. Are you interested in this case? Is it a criminal trial? Are you a witness?”

He answered:

“I have no business; I only wish to speak to a lawyer.”

“That’s another thing,” said the citizen. “Stop, monsieur, here is the door. The doorkeeper is up there. You have only to go up the grand stairway.”

He followed the citizen’s instructions, and in a few minutes found himself in a hall where there were many people, and scattered groups of lawyers in their robes whispering here and there.

This hall, which, though spacious, was lighted by a single lamp, was an ancient hall of the Episcopal palace, and served as a waiting-room. A double folding door, which was now closed, separated it from the large room in which the court was in session.

The darkness was such that he felt no fear in addressing the first lawyer whom he met.

“Monsieur,” said he, “how are they getting along?”

“It is finished,” said the lawyer.

“Finished!”

The word was repeated in such a tone that the lawyer turned around.

“Pardon me, monsieur, you are a relative, perhaps?”

“No. I know no one here. And was there a sentence?”

“Of course. It was hardly possible for it to be otherwise.”

“To hard labour?”

“For life.”

He continued in a voice so weak that it could hardly be heard:

“The identity was established, then?”

“What identity?” responded the lawyer. “There was no identity to be established. It was a simple affair. This woman had killed her child, the infanticide was proven, the jury were not satisfied that there was any premeditation; she was sentenced for life.”

“It is a woman, then?” said he.

“Certainly. The Limousin girl. What else are you speaking of?”

“Nothing, but if it is finished, why is the hall still lighted up?”

“That is for the other case, which commenced nearly two hours ago.”

“What other case?”

“Oh! that is a clear one also. It is a sort of a thief, a second offender, a galley slave; a case of robbery. I forget his name. He looks like a bandit. Were it for nothing but having such a face, I would send him to the galleys.”

“Monsieur,” asked he, “is there any means of getting into the hall?”

“I think not, really. There is a great crowd. However, they are taking a recess. Some people have come out, and when the session is resumed, you can try.”

“How do you get in?”

“Through that wide door.”

The lawyer left him. In a few moments, he had undergone, almost at the same time, almost together, all possible emotions. The words of this indifferent man had alternately pierced his heart like icicles and like flames of fire. When he learned that it was not concluded, he drew breath; but he could not have told whether what he felt was satisfaction or pain.

He approached several groups and listened to their talk. The calendar of the term being very heavy, the judge had set down two short, simple cases for that day. They had begun with the infanticide, and now were on the convict, the recidivist, the “habitual offender.” This man had stolen some apples, but that did not appear to be very well proven; what was proven, was that he had been in the galleys at Toulon. This was what ruined his case. The examination of the man had been finished, and the testimony of the witnesses had been taken; but there yet remained the argument of the counsel, and the summing up of his prosecuting attorney; it would hardly be finished before midnight. The man would probably be condemned; the prosecuting attorney was very good, and never failed with his prisoners; he was a fellow of talent, who wrote poetry.

An officer stood near the door which opened into the court-room. He asked this officer:

“Monsieur, will the door be opened soon?”

“It will not be opened,” said the officer.

“How! it will not be opened when the session is resumed? is there not a recess?”

“The session has just been resumed,” answered the officer, “but the door will not be opened again.”

“Why not?”

“Because the hall is full.”

“What! there are no more seats?”

“Not a single one. The door is closed. No one can enter.”

The officer added, after a silence: “There are indeed two or three places still behind Monsieur the Judge, but Monsieur the Judge admits none but public officials to them.”

So saying, the officer turned his back.

He retired with his head bowed down, crossed the ante-chamber, and walked slowly down the staircase, seeming to hesitate at every step. It is probable that he was holding counsel with himself. The violent combat that had been going on within him since the previous evening was not finished; and, every moment, he fell upon some new turn. When he reached the landing of the stairway, he leaned against the railing and folded his arms. Suddenly he opened his coat, drew out his pocket-book, took out a pencil, tore out a sheet, and wrote rapidly upon that sheet, by the glimmering light,
this line: Monsieur Madeleine, Mayor of M—sur M—,
then he went up the stairs again rapidly, passed through the crowd, walked straight to the officer, handed him the paper, and said to him with authority: “Take that to Monsieur the Judge.”

The officer took the paper, cast his eye upon it, and obeyed.

THE JUDGE OF THE ROYAL COURT of Douai, who was providing over this session at Arras, was familiar, as well as everybody else, with this name so profoundly and so universally honoured. When the officer quietly opening the door which led from the counsel chamber to the court room, bent behind the judge’s chair and handed him the paper, on which was written the line we have just read, adding:
“This gentleman desires to witness the trial,
the judge made a hasty movement of deference, seized a pen, wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper and handed it back to the officer, saying to him: ”Let him enter.”

The unhappy man, whose story we are telling, had remained near the door of the hall, in the same place and the same posture as when the officer left him. He heard, through his thoughts, some one saying to him: “Will monsieur do me the honour to follow me?” It was the same officer who had turned his back upon him the minute before, and who now bowed to the earth before him. The officer at the same time handed him the paper. He unfolded it, and, as he happened to be near the lamp, he could read:

“The Judge of the Circuit Court presents his respects to Monsieur Madeleine.”

He crushed the paper in his hands, as if those few words had left some strange and bitter taste behind.

He followed the officer.

In a few minutes he found himself alone in a kind of panelled cabinet, of a severe appearance, lighted by two wax candles placed upon a table covered with green cloth. The last words of the officer who had left him still rang in his ear: “Monsieur, you are now in the counsel chamber; you have but to turn the brass knob of that door and you will find yourself in the court-room, behind the judge’s chair.” These words were associated in his thoughts with a vague remembrance of the narrow corridors and dark stairways through which he had just passed.

The officer had left him alone. The decisive moment had arrived. He endeavoured to collect his thoughts, but did not succeed. At those hours especially when we have sorest need of grasping the poignant realities of life do the threads of thought snap off in the brain. He was in the very place where the judges deliberate and pass sentence. He beheld with a stupid tranquillity that silent and formidable room where so many existences had been terminated, where his own name would be heard so soon, and which his destiny was crossing at this moment. He looked at the walls, then he looked at himself, astonished that this could be this room, and that this could be he.

The handle of the door, round and of polished brass, shone out before him like an ominous star. He looked at it as a lamb might look at the eye of a tiger.

His eyes could not move from it.

From time to time, he took another step towards the door.

Had he listened, he would have heard, as a kind of confused murmur, the noise of the neighbouring hall; but he did not listen and he did not hear.

Suddenly, without himself knowing how, he found himself near the door, he seized the knob convulsively; the door opened.

He was in the court-room.

HE TOOK A STEP, closed the door behind him, mechanically, and remained standing, noting what he saw.

It was a large hall, dimly lighted, and noisy and silent by turns, where all the machinery of a criminal trial was exhibited, with its petty, yet solemn gravity, before the multitude.

At one end of the hall, that at which he found himself, heedless judges, in threadbare robes, were biting their finger-nails, or closing their eyelids; at the other end was a ragged rabble; there were lawyers in all sorts of attitudes; soldiers with honest and hard faces; old, stained wainscoting, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge, which was more nearly yellow than green; doors blackened by finger-marks; tavern lamps, giving more smoke than light, on nails in the panelling; candles, in brass candlesticks, on the tables; everywhere darkness, unsightliness, and gloom; and from all this there arose an austere and august impression; for men felt therein the presence of that great human thing which is called law, and that great divine thing which is called justice.