Les Miserables (4 page)

Weeks passed. I was content. In the mornings I taught Cosette how to read. In the afternoons she played with her doll. I loved to watch her.

We couldn't risk going out during the day. So we took our walks in the evenings.

I still dressed like a poor man. And that's what people thought I was. They didn't know I had my money sewn into the lining of my coat. I could get to it whenever I needed it.

Each evening I gave a coin to a beggar sitting by a church. One evening something happened that changed our lives.

The beggar sat on the sidewalk as usual. I dropped a coin into his open palm. He
looked up for a moment. Then quickly bowed his head.

In that moment, I thought I saw the face of a man I never wanted to see again—Javert! But surely the streetlamp was playing tricks with my eyes.

At home, I couldn't get the beggar out of my mind. I needed to speak to him. That way I would know for sure if it was Javert.

The next evening when I gave my coin, I spoke.

“Good evening, old man,” I said, dropping a coin into his palm.

“Thank you, thank you, kind sir,” he replied.

The old beggar's face stared up at me. It wasn't Javert after all. My eyes
had
been playing tricks on me.

A few nights later I heard the front door open. It was usually locked at that time. I sent Cosette to her room and told her to be quiet.

A man was climbing the stairs. I blew out my candle and sat on a chair, silent. The man stopped outside my door. I held my breath.

He had a candle. A gleam of light shone under my door. The man walked down the hall and closed a door. I threw myself on my bed and didn't shut my eyes all night.

At daybreak, the same door opened. I kneeled to peer through my keyhole. I couldn't see the man's face. His outline told me all I needed to know. It was Javert!

At dusk that same day, Cosette and I left our apartment. The moon was full.

We ran down a street. Then turned to run back up it. In this way, I hoped Javert would lose our trail.

Cosette stayed close. She didn't ask questions. I didn't know where I was going. I was trusting God as Cosette was trusting me.

Were we being followed? I didn't know. Did Javert know that I was Jean Valjean? I didn't know that either. I only knew I didn't want to stay around to find out.

We passed a church. Its bell chimed eleven o'clock. We passed a police station. Three men stood outside. As we passed, one went inside.

We ducked down a side street and hid in a doorway. The man who had gone inside came out with a fourth man. The moon lit their faces. The new man was Javert!

We left the doorway and ran to a small bridge. By now Cosette was tired. I carried her across and then looked back. The four men were hurrying across the bridge!

We ran down a lane between stone walls. After only a few yards, the lane forked. I chose the right fork because it led away from the city.

I could hear Javert and his men running behind us.

Suddenly the lane ended with a stone wall! We couldn't go forward and we couldn't go back. And Javert's men were closing in on us! There was only one way to go—up.

I had been a strong climber in prison. I escaped three times by climbing stone walls with only my bare hands and feet. But Cosette couldn't climb the wall by herself. And I wouldn't make it up the wall with her on my back.

“I'm frightened, Father,” she said. “Who's that coming?”

I put Cosette down.

“It's Madame Thénardier,” I lied. I wanted Cosette to do as I told her.

“Don't talk,” I said. “Leave everything to me. If you make a sound, she'll hear you. She wants you back.”

To climb the wall with Cosette, I needed a rope. But where could I get one quickly? Then I remembered. The streetlamp! Each streetlamp in Paris was raised and lowered by a rope. Without another word, I raced to the streetlamp at the end of the alley, took the coil of rope, and hurried back to Cosette.

There was no time to lose. I took off my scarf and looped one end under Cosette's arms. I tied the other end to my rope. Then I took off my shoes and socks and threw them over the wall. I was on top of the wall in half a minute.

Cosette stared up at me, amazed. She was frozen into silence by the thought of Madame Thénardier.

I pulled Cosette to the top and put her on my back. I held both her hands in one of mine. Then I crawled on my stomach along the top of the wall.

We came to the roof of a small building. I slid onto the roof without letting go of the wall. Javert was running down the lane, shouting, “Search the dead end! He won't escape me this time!”

The police raced to the end of the lane. I let go and coasted down the roof with Cosette still on my back. A tree stopped us from dropping to the ground.

We climbed down. We were in the garden of a convent. An old gardener was bent over his roses.

“Here's a hundred francs,” I said. “Please let us stay the night.”

The moonlight shone on my face.

“Why, it's you, Monsieur Madeleine!” exclaimed the gardener. “Don't you remember me?”

It was Fauchelevent! The man I had rescued from under the horsecart years before.

Meeting Marius

I had saved Fauchelevent once. Now he saved me. He said I was his brother. The nuns gave me a job as his helper.

Javert spent months looking for me. But he never searched the convent. In time, he gave up looking.

Cosette joined the convent school and lived with the other girls. I visited her each day. We spent many peaceful years together this way.

I would have been happy if Cosette had wanted to become a nun. I was safe in the convent and could live out my life in peace behind its walls.

But Cosette needed to see the outside world. When she finished school, we moved back into the city.

I bought a house near a public garden. Every day we walked along the same path. Every day we sat on the same bench.

One day I noticed a young man in the garden. He was handsome, with black hair. His clothes were shabby. I guessed he was a student.

From then on, he was
always
in the garden when we were. We passed one another each day but never spoke.

The next year, the young man began to change. He dressed better. He sat on a bench closer to ours. He gazed shyly at Cosette.

When I saw Cosette return his gaze, I was upset. She was interested in him also!

I wanted my life with Cosette to go on forever. She was the only happiness I had ever known. I moved us to a new house. The walks in the garden stopped.

Cosette never said a word about the move. She missed our walks. And, I knew, she missed the young man. There was a kind of sadness in her now. Our life together was not as it once was.

But one day things changed. The young man, who had been out of our lives for months, came back.

I was standing outside the church one winter morning. A girl handed me a note from her father, “P. Fabantou.”

Fabantou was an actor out of work. He asked me for money. He also asked me to come to his home. He wanted me to see how far he'd fallen.

I knew the address. It was the same building Cosette and I had lived in years ago! I said I would be there that afternoon.

I was nervous. Cosette and I had run from that old building with Javert on our heels. I never wanted to see that place again. But I had given my word.

The building was in even worse shape than before. It was hard to believe that people could live in it. But the streets of Paris are full of people without homes. Many of them would think it was a palace.

I tapped on Fabantou's door. It was opened by a small, bony man. He had the sharp stare of a weasel. Where had I seen his face before?

“Please come in, my dear sir!” he said, bowing low. “Please enter, with your charming young lady.”

Cosette and I entered.

I found out later that Marius, the young
man from the garden, lived next door. At that moment, he was peering at us through a hole in the wall. He knew things about Fabantou that I was yet to learn.

No doubt Marius was shocked to see us. But here we were—the old gentleman and the girl he lost months ago. There she was before his eyes!

The room was like a cave—dark and cold. A window was broken and an icy breeze blew in. There was no fire in the fireplace.

Fabantou's wife was in bed with a cold. A girl sat on the floor by the bed. Her wrist was bleeding. It was wrapped in a piece of torn shirt.

These were truly
les misérables
—the outcasts, the underdogs. They were as I had been during my prison days. We were people that life destroyed.

“Here are blankets and woolen stockings,”
I said. I put a bundle on the table.

Fabantou asked me how he had signed his letter.

“It was signed ‘Fabantou, the dramatic artist,'” I replied.

Only later did I learn that this wicked man used many different names. He wrote letters asking for money. He had a different story to go with each name.

“You see how we live, monsieur,” said Fabantou. He swept an arm around the room as he spoke.

“The only rag of clothing I own is this torn shirt of my wife's. I can't go out to look for work because I have no coat. I owe a whole year's rent. Sixty francs! And it's due tomorrow!”

I pulled off my brown overcoat and laid it across the back of a broken chair. I gave him five francs.

“That's all the money I have on me,” I said. “But I will be back at six with sixty francs for your rent.”

Cosette and I left. We did not know that Marius ran after us. Our buggy had taken off before he reached the street.

Marius didn't have money for a buggy. He stood in the street and watched the girl he loved get away once more.

And Fabantou? I didn't know it then. Fabantou was setting a trap for me. I would walk freely into that trap, but barely escape with my life.

Trapped!

I was back at six o'clock with the money. Cosette was safe at home.

Fabantou greeted me wearing my overcoat and smiling meekly. I put eighty francs on the table.

“For your rent and other immediate needs, Monsieur Fabantou,” I said. “We will talk about what else you need.”

“May God reward you, most generous sir,” said Fabantou. He snatched the money off the table.

I sat down. “How is the hurt child?” I asked.

“Not well,” replied Fabantou. “She's in great pain. Her sister took her to the hospital.”

“Madame Fabantou seems much better,” I said, looking her way.

She was standing at the door with her arms crossed. She looked as if she would not let me leave if I wanted to.

“Oh, she's very sick,” said Fabantou. “But you'd never know it. She's so brave. She's more than a woman—she's an ox.”

Madame Fabantou was pleased by her husband's words.

“You always say the nicest things to me, Monsieur Jondrette.” She smiled a shy smile.

“Jondrette?” I said. “I thought your name was Fabantou.”

“It's both,” said Fabantou, quickly. “Jondrette is my stage name.”

I was beginning to see that things were not as they seemed. Then I noticed two men in the shadows.

“Who are those men?” I asked.

“Pay no attention to them,” said Fabantou. “They're just neighbors.”

“As I was about to say, my most noble patron,” continued Fabantou. “I have a picture for sale.”

There was a sound at the door. Two more men came into the room. They sat on the bed. The men's faces were covered in soot.

“Don't worry about them,” said Fabantou. “They're furnacemen. They have dirty faces because they do dirty work. As I was saying, I want to show you a valuable picture.”

Fabantou turned around a picture that
had been facing the wall. Light from the candle shone on it.

“What on earth is it?” I asked.

The men were watching me. I was uneasy.

“This is a masterpiece, my dear sir,” replied Fabantou. “I cherish this picture as much as my own daughters. But sad to say, I am forced to sell it. What do you think it's worth?”