Les Misérables, v. 2/5: Cosette

by Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER I.

  HOW TO GET INTO A CONVENT.

  It was into this house that Jean Valjean had fallen from heaven, asFauchelevent said. He had climbed the garden-wall which formed theangle of the Rue Polonceau; the hymn of angels which he heard in themiddle of the night was the nuns chanting matins; the hall which he hadcaught a glimpse of in the darkness was the chapel; the phantom he hadseen stretched out on the ground was the phantom making reparation;and the bell which had so strangely surprised him was the gardener'sbell fastened to Fauchelevent's knee. So soon as Cosette was in bedJean Valjean and Fauchelevent supped on a glass of wine and a lump ofcheese before a good blazing log; then, as the only bed in the cottagewas occupied by Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. Beforeclosing his eyes Jean Valjean said, "I must stop here henceforth",and this remark trotted about Fauchelevent's head all night In fact,neither of them slept; Jean Valjean, feeling himself discovered andJavert on his track, understood that he and Cosette were lost if theyentered Paris. Since the new blast of wind had blown him into thisconvent Jean Valjean had but one thought, that of remaining in it.Now, for a wretch in his position, this convent was at once the mostdangerous and the safest place,--the most dangerous, because as no manwas allowed to enter it, if he were discovered it would be a crime, andJean Valjean would only take one step from the convent to the prison;the safest, because if he succeeded in remaining in it who would cometo seek him there? Inhabiting an impossible spot was salvation.

  On his side, Fauchelevent racked his brains. He began by declaringto himself that he understood nothing. How was M. Madeleine, inspite of all the surrounding walls, here? And convent walls cannotbe passed at a stride. How was he here with a child? People do notscale a perpendicular wall with a child in their arms. Who was thischild? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had been inthe convent he had received no news from M----, and did not know whathad occurred there. Father Madeleine had that look which discouragesquestioning, and moreover Fauchelevent said to himself, "A saint is notto be cross-questioned." It was only from a few words which escapedJean Valjean that the gardener fancied he could come to the conclusionthat M. Madeleine had probably been made bankrupt by the hard times,and was pursued by his creditors; or else he was compromised in apolitical affair and was in hiding, which idea did not displeaseFauchelevent, because, like most of the peasants in the north ofFrance, he was a stanch Bonapartist. M. Madeleine had chosen theconvent as his asylum, and it was simple that he should wish to remainthere. But the inexplicable thing, to which Fauchelevent constantlyrecurred and which addled his brains, was that M. Madeleine was here,and here with this child. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoketo them, and did not believe it. The gardener was stumbling amongconjectures and saw nothing clear but this,--"M. Madeleine saved mylife." This sole certainty was sufficient, and decided him; he said tohimself, "It is my turn now." He added in his conscience, "M. Madeleinedid not deliberate long when he had to get under the cart to save me,"and he decided upon saving M. Madeleine. He, however, asked himselfseveral questions, to which he gave divers answers. "After what he didfor me, should I save him, if he were a robber? All the same. If hewere an assassin, would I save him? All the same. Since he is a saint,shall I save him? All the same."

  What a problem it was, though, to enable him to remain in the convent!Still, Fauchelevent did not recoil before this almost chimericalattempt; this poor Picard peasant, who had no other ladder but hisdevotion, his good-will, and a small stock of old rustic craft,this time turned to a generous purpose, undertook to scale theimpossibilities of the convent, and the rough escarpments of the ruleof St. Benedict. Fauchelevent was an old man, who had been duringlife selfish, and who, at the end of his days, limping, infirm, andtaking no interest in the world, found it pleasant to be grateful, andseeing a virtuous action to be done, he flung himself upon it like aman who, on the point of death, lays his hand on a glass of good winewhich he had never tasted, and eagerly drinks it off. We may add, thatthe air which he had been breathing for some years in this conventhad destroyed his personality, and had eventually rendered some gooddeed a necessity for him. He, therefore, formed the resolution ofdevoting himself for M. Madeleine. We have just called him a "poorPicard peasant;" the qualification is correct but incomplete. At thepresent stage of our story a little physiological examination ofFather Fauchelevent becomes useful. He was a peasant, but he had beena notary, which added chicanery to his cunning and penetration to hissimplicity. Having, through various reasons, failed in his business, hedescended from a notary to be a carter and day-laborer; but in spiteof the oaths and lashes necessary for horses, as it seems, somethingof the notary had clung to him. He had some natural wit; he did notsay "I are" or "I has;" he could converse, which was a rare thing in avillage, and the other peasants used to say of him, "He talks exactlylike a gentleman in a hat." Fauchelevent in fact belonged to thatspecies which the impertinent and light vocabulary of the last centuryqualified as "a bit of a rustic and a bit of a townsman, pepper andsalt." Fauchelevent, though sorely tried, and much worn by fate, asort of poor old threadbare soul, was still a man to act on the firstimpulse, and spontaneously,--a precious quality which prevents a manfrom ever being wicked. His defects and vices, for he had such, wereon the surface, and altogether his physiognomy was one of those whichplease the observer. His old face had none of those ugly wrinkles onthe top of the forehead which signify wickedness or stupidity. Atdaybreak, after thinking enormously, Father Fauchelevent opened hiseyes and saw M. Madeleine sitting on his truss of straw, and looking atthe sleeping Cosette; Fauchelevent sat up too, and said,--

  "Now that you are here, how will you manage to get in?" This remarksummed up the situation, and aroused Jean Valjean from his reverie. Thetwo men held counsel.

  "In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you must begin by not settingfoot outside this cottage, neither you nor the little one. One step inthe garden, and we are done."

  "That is true."

  "Monsieur Madeleine," Fauchelevent continued, "you have arrived at avery lucky moment, I ought to say a very unhappy one, for one of ourladies is dangerously ill. In consequence of this, folk will not lookmuch this way. It seems that she is dying, and the forty hours' prayersare being said. The whole community is aroused, and that occupiesthem. The person who is on the point of going off is a saint. In fact,though, we are all saints here; the only difference between them and meis that they say 'our cell,' and I say 'my cottage.' There will be aservice for the dying, and then the service for the dead. For to-daywe shall be all quiet here; but I do not answer for to-morrow."

  "Still," Jean Valjean observed, "this cottage is retired; it is hiddenby a sort of ruin; there are trees, and it cannot be seen from theconvent."

  "And I may add that the nuns never approach it."

  "Well?" Jean Valjean asked.

  The interrogation that marked this "well" signified "I fancy that wecan remain concealed here," and it was to this interrogation thatFauchelevent replied:

  "There are the little ones."

  "What little ones?" Jean Valjean asked.

  As Fauchelevent opened his mouth to answer, a stroke rang out from abell.

  "The nun is dead," he said, "that is the knell."

  And he made Jean Valjean a sign to listen. A second stroke rang out.

  "It is the passing bell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will go on sominute after minute for twenty-four hours, till the body leaves thechurch. You see they play about; at recreations they need only lose aball, and in spite of the prohibition, they will come and look for ithere and ransack everything. Those cherubs are little devils."

  "Who?" Jean Valjean asked.

  "The little ones; I can tell you that you would soon be discovered.They would cry out, 'Why, it's a man!' But there is no danger to-day,for there will be no recreation. The day will be spent in prayer. Youhear the bell, as I told you, one stroke a minute;--it is the knell."

  "I understand, Father Fauchelevent, they are boarders." />
  And Jean Valjean thought to himself:

  "It is a chance for educating Cosette."

  Fauchelevent exclaimed,--

  "By Job, I should think they are boarders! They would sniff around you,and then run away. To be a man here is to have the plague, as you cansee; a bell is fastened to my paw as if I were a wild beast."

  Jean Valjean reflected more and more deeply. "This convent would saveus," he muttered, and then added aloud,--

  "Yes, the difficulty is to remain."

  "No," said Fauchelevent, "it is to go out."

  Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart.

  "Go out?"

  "Yes, Monsieur Madeleine, in order to come in, you must go out."

  And, after waiting till a knell had died out in air, Faucheleventcontinued,--

  "You must not be found here like that. Where do you come from? For me,you fall from heaven because I know you, but the nuns require thatpeople should come in by the front door."

  All at once a complicated ringing of another bell could be heard.

  "Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "the vocal mothers are being summoned toa Chapter,--a Chapter is always held when any one dies. She diedat daybreak, and they generally die at daybreak. But can't you goout by the way that you came in? Come,--I don't want to ask you aquestion,--but where did you come in?"

  Jean Valjean turned pale: the mere idea of going back to thatformidable street made him tremble. Come out of a forest full oftigers, and once out of it just imagine a friend advising you to goin again. Jean Valjean figured to himself the police still searchingin the quarter, the agents watching, vedettes everywhere, frightfulfists stretched out toward his collar, and Javert, perhaps, in a cornerlurking for his prey.

  "Impossible!" he said. "Suppose, Father Fauchelevent, that I reallyfell from above."

  "Why, I believe it," Fauchelevent continued; "you need not tell meso. Well, there is another peal; it is to tell the porter to go andwarn the municipal authorities that they should send and inform thephysician of the dead, so that he may come and see there is a deadwoman here. All that is the ceremony of dying. The good ladies are notvery fond of such visits, for a doctor believes in nothing; he raisesthe veil, and sometimes raises something else. What a hurry they havebeen in to warn the doctor this time! What is up, I wonder? Your littlegirl is still asleep; what is her name?"

  "Cosette."

  "Is she your daughter? I mean, are you her grandfather?"

  "Yes."

  "To get her out will be easy. I have my special door, which opens intothe yard; I knock, the porter opens. I have my basket on my back, withthe little girl in it, and go out. You will tell her to be very quiet,and she will be under the hood. I will leave her for the necessary timewith an old Mend of mine, a fruiteress in the Rue du Chemin Vert, whois deaf, and where there is a little bed. I will shout in her ear thatit is my niece, and bid her keep her for me till to-morrow; then thelittle one will come in with you, for I mean to bring you in again. Buthow will you manage to get out?"

  Jean Valjean shook his head.

  "The great point is that no one sees me, Father Fauchelevent. Findmeans to get me out in the same way as Cosette."

  Fauchelevent scratched the tip of his ear with the middle finger ofhis left hand, which was a sign of serious embarrassment. A third pealcaused a diversion.

  "That is the doctor going away," said Fauchelevent. "He has had a lookand said, 'She is dead, all right.' When the doctor has countersignedthe passport for Paradise, the undertakers send a coffin. If it is amother, the mothers put her in it; if a sister, the sisters; and afterthat, I nail up. That is part of my gardening, for a gardener is abit of a grave-digger. The coffin is placed in the vestry room whichcommunicates with the street, and which no man is allowed to enter butthe doctor, for I don't count the undertakers and myself as men. Itis in this room that I nail up the coffin; the undertakers fetch it,and then--Gee-up, driver--that's the way people go to heaven. A boxis brought, in which there is nothing, and it is carried off withsomething in it; and that's what a burial is. _De Profundis._"

  A horizontal sunbeam illumined the face of the sleeping Cosette, whoopened her lips and looked like an angel imbibing light. Jean Valjeanwas gazing at her again, and no longer listened to Fauchelevent. Not tobe heard is no reason why a man should hold his tongue, so the worthyold gardener quickly continued his chatter,--

  "The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery; people say that it isgoing to be shut up. It is an old cemetery, which has no uniform, andis going on half-pay; it is a pity, for it is convenient. I have afriend there, Father Mestrenne, the grave-digger. The nuns of thishouse possess the privilege of being carried to that cemetery atnightfall; they have a decree of the prefecture expressly for them. Butwhat events since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and FatherMadeleine--"

  "Is buried," Jean Valjean said, with a sad smile.

  Fauchelevent echoed the word.

  "Well, if you were here altogether it would be a real burial."

  A fourth peal rang out. Fauchelevent quickly took down his knee-cap andput it on.

  "This time it is for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. There, I havepricked myself with the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don'tstir, but wait for me. There is something up; if you are hungry, thereis bread, wine, and cheese."

  And he left the cottage, saying, "Coming, coming."

  Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as rapidly as hisleg would allow, while taking a side glance at his melon frames. Lessthan ten minutes after, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell routed all thenuns as he passed, tapped gently at a door, and a soft voice answered,"Forever, forever," that is to say, "Come in." It was the door of theparlor reserved expressly for the gardener, and adjoining the Chapterroom. The prioress, seated on the only chair in the room, was waitingfor Fauchelevent.