Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean

by Victor Hugo

  BOOK IV.

  JAVERT DERAILED.

  Javert retired slowly from the Rue de l'Homme Armé. He walked withdrooping head for the first time in his life, and equally for thefirst time in his life with his hands behind his back. Up to that dayJavert had only assumed, of Napoleon's two attitudes, the one whichexpresses resolution, the arms folded on the chest; the one indicatinguncertainty, the arms behind the back, was unknown to him. Now a changehad taken place, and his whole person, slow and sombre, was stampedwith anxiety. He buried himself in the silent streets, but followed acertain direction. He went by the shortest road to the Seine, reachedthe Quai des Ormes, walked along it, passed the Grêve, and stopped, alittle distance from the Place du Châtelet, at the corner of the PontNôtre Dame. The Seine makes there, between that bridge and the Pontau Change on one side, and the Quai de la Mégisserie and the Quai auxFleurs on the other, a species of square hike traversed by a rapid.This point of the Seine is feared by sailors; nothing can be moredangerous than this rapid, at that period contracted and irrigatedby the piles of the mill bridge, since demolished. The two bridges,so close to each other, heighten the danger, for the water hurriesformidably through the arches. It rolls in broad, terrible waves, itincreases, and is heaped up; the flood strives to root out the pilesof the bridge with thick liquid cords. Men who fall in there do notreappear, and the best swimmers are drowned.

  Javert leaned his elbows on the parapet, his chin on his hand,and while his hands mechanically closed on his thick whiskers, hereflected. A novelty, a revolution, a catastrophe had just takenplace within him, and he must examine into it. Javert was sufferinghorribly, and for some hours past Javert had ceased to be simple.He was troubled; this brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lostits transparency, and there was a cloud in this crystal. Javert feltin his conscience duty doubled, and he could not hide the fact fromhimself. When he met Jean Valjean so unexpectedly on the Seine bank,he had something within him of the wolf that recaptures its prey andthe dog that finds its master again. He saw before him two roads, bothequally straight; but he saw two of them, and this terrified him, ashe had never known in his life but one straight line. And, poignantagony! these two roads were contrary, and one of these right linesexcluded the other. Which of the two was the true one? His situationwas indescribable; to owe his life to a malefactor, to accept this debtand repay him; to be, in spite of himself, on the same footing withan escaped convict, and requite one service with another service; tolet it be said to him, "Be off!" and to say in his turn, "Be free!"to sacrifice to personal motives duty, that general obligation,and to feel in these personal motives something general too, andperhaps superior; to betray society in order to remain faithful tohis conscience,--that all these absurdities should be realized, andaccumulated upon him, was what startled him. One thing had astonishedhim,--that Jean Valjean had shown him mercy; and one thing hadpetrified him,--that he, Javert, had shown mercy to Jean Valjean.

  Where was he? He sought and no longer found himself. What was he to donow? To give up Jean Valjean was bad, to leave Jean Valjean at libertywas bad. In the former case, the man of authority fell lower than theman of the galleys; in the second, a convict rose higher than the law,and set his foot upon it. In either case, dishonor for him, Javert.Whatever resolution he might form, there was a fall, for destiny hascertain extremities projecting over the impossible, beyond which lifeis only a precipice. Javert had reached one of these extremities: oneof his anxieties was to be constrained to think, and the very violenceof all these contradictory emotions compelled him to do so. Now,thought was an unusual thing for him, and singularly painful. There isalways in thought a certain amount of internal rebellion, and he wasirritated at having that within him. Thought, no matter on what subjectbeyond the narrow circle of his destiny, would have been to him in anycase useless and wearisome; but thinking about the day which had justpassed was a torture. And yet he must after such shocks look into hisconscience, and give himself an account of himself. What he had donecaused him to shudder; he, Javert, had thought fit to decide--againstall police regulations, against all social and judicial organization,and against the entire codes--a discharge: that had suited him. Hehad substituted his own affairs for public affairs; was not thatunjustifiable? Each time that he stood facing the nameless action whichhe had committed, he trembled from head to foot. What should he resolveon? Only one resource was left him,--to return at full speed to the Ruede l'Homme Armé and lock up Jean Valjean. It was clear that this waswhat he ought to do, but he could not do it. Something barred the wayon that side. What! is there anything in the world besides sentences,the police, and the authorities? Javert was overwhelmed.

  A sacred galley-slave! a convict impregnable by justice, and thatthrough the deed of Javert! Was it not frightful that Javert and JeanValjean, the man made to punish and the man made to endure,--that thesetwo men, who were both the property of the law, should have reached thepoint of placing themselves both above the law? What! such enormitiescould happen and no one be punished? Jean Valjean, stronger than thewhole social order, would be free, and he, Javert, would continue toeat the bread of the Government! His reverie gradually became terrible:he might through this reverie have reproached himself slightly onthe subject of the insurgent carried home to the Rue des Filles duCalvaire, but he did not think of it. The slighter fault was lost inthe greater; and besides, this insurgent was evidently a dead man,and, legally, death checks persecution. Jean Valjean,--that was theweight which he had on his mind. Jean Valjean disconcerted him. Allthe axioms which had been the support of his whole life crumbled awaybefore this man, and the generosity of Jean Valjean to him, Javert,overwhelmed him. Other facts which he remembered, and which he hadformerly treated as falsehoods and folly, now returned to his mind asrealities. M. Madeleine reappeared behind Jean Valjean, and the twofigures were blended into one, which was venerable. Javert felt thatsomething horrible, admiration for a convict, was entering his soul.Respect for a galley-slave, is it possible? He shuddered at it, andcould not escape from it, although he struggled. He was reduced toconfess in his soul the sublimity of this villain, and this was odious.A benevolent malefactor, a compassionate, gentle, helping, and mercifulconvict,--repaying good for evil, pardon for hatred, preferring pity tovengeance, ready to destroy himself sooner than his enemy, saving theman who had struck him, kneeling on the pinnacle of virtue, and nearerto the angels than to man. Javert was constrained to confess to himselfthat such a monster existed.

  This could not last. Assuredly--and we lay stress on the fact--hehad not yielded without resistance to this monster, to this infamousangel, to this hideous hero, at whom he felt almost as indignant asstupefied. Twenty times while in that hackney coach face to face withJean Valjean the legal tiger had roared within him. Twenty times hehad felt tempted to hurl himself on Jean Valjean, to seize and devourhim,--that is to say, arrest him. What more simple, in fact,--shout tothe nearest post before which he passed, "Here is a convict who hasbroken his ban!" and then go away, leave the condemned man there, beignorant of the rest, and interfere no further? This man is eternallythe prisoner of the law, and the law will do what it pleases with him.What was fairer? Javert had said all this to himself; he had wished togo further,--to act, apprehend the man,--and then, as now, had beenunable; and each time that his hand was convulsively raised to JeanValjean's collar, it fell back as if under an enormous weight, andhe heard in the bottom of his heart a voice, a strange voice, cryingto him, "That is well. Give up your saviour, then send for PontiusPilate's basin, and wash your hands in it!"

  Then his thoughts reverted to himself, and by the side of Jean Valjeanaggrandized he saw himself degraded. A convict was his benefactor, butwhy had he allowed that man to let him live? He had the right of beingkilled at that barricade, and should have employed that right. It wouldhave been better to call the other insurgents to his aid against JeanValjean, and have himself shot by force. His supreme agony was thedisappearance of certainty, and he felt himself uprooted. The code wasnow only a st
ump in his hand, and he had to deal with scruples of anunknown species. There was within him a sentimental revelation entirelydistinct from the legal affirmation, his sole measure hitherto, andit was not sufficient to remain in his old honesty. A whole orderof unexpected facts arose and subjugated him, an entire new worldappeared to his soul; benefits accepted and returned, devotion, mercy,indulgence, violence done by pity to austerity, no more definitivecondemnation, no more damnation, the possibility of a tear in the eyeof the law, and perhaps some justice according to God acting in aninverse ratio to justice according to man. He perceived in the darknessthe rising of an unknown moral sun, and he was horrified and dazzled.He was an owl forced to look like the eagle.

  He said to himself that it was true, then, that there were exceptions,that authority might be disconcerted, that the rule might fall shortin the presence of a fact, that everything was not contained in thetext of a code, that the unforeseen made itself obeyed, that the virtueof a convict might set a snare for the virtue of a functionary, thatthe monstrous might be divine, that destiny had such ambuscades; andhe thought with despair that he had himself not been protected from asurprise. He was compelled to recognize that goodness existed; thisgalley-slave had been good, and he, extraordinary to say, had been goodalso. Hence he was becoming depraved. He felt that he was a coward,and it horrified him. The ideal for Javert was not to be human, grand,or sublime; it was to be irreproachable,--and now he had broken down.How had he reached this stage? How had all this happened? He could nothave told himself. He took his head between his hands; but whateverhe might do, he could not succeed in explaining it. He certainly hadhad the intention of delivering Jean Valjean over to the law, of whichJean Valjean was the captive and of which he was the slave. He had notconfessed to himself for a single instant, while he held him, that hehad a thought of letting him go; it was to some extent unconsciouslythat his hand had opened and allowed him to escape.

  All sorts of enigmatic novelties passed before his eyes. He askedhimself questions and gave himself answers, and his answers terrifiedhim. He asked himself, "What has this convict, this desperate man, whomI followed to persecution, and who had me under his heel, and couldhave avenged himself, and ought to have acted so, both for his rancorand his security, done in leaving me my life and showing me mercy,--hisduty? No, something more. And what have I done in showing him mercy inmy turn,--my duty? No, something more. Is there, then, something morethan duty?" Here he was terrified, he was thrown off his balance,--oneof the scales fell into the abyss, the other ascended to heaven; andJavert felt no less horror at the one above than at the one below.Without being the least in the world what is termed a Voltairian,or philosopher, or incredulous man, respectful, on the contrary,instinctively to the Established Church, he only knew it as an augustfragment of the social _ensemble_; order was his dogma, and sufficientfor him. Since he had attained man's age and office, he had set nearlyall his religion in the police, being,--and we employ the words withoutthe slightest irony, and in their most serious acceptation,--being,as we have said, a spy, as another man is a priest He had a superior,M. Gisquet; but he had never thought up to this day of that othersuperior, God. He felt the presence of this new Chief unexpectedly,and was troubled by Him. He was thrown out of gear by this person; heknew not what to do with this Superior, for he was not ignorant thatthe subordinate is bound always to bow the head, that he must neitherdisobey, nor blame, nor discuss, and that when facing a superior whoastonishes him too much, the inferior has no other resource but hisresignation. But how could he manage to give in his resignation to God?

  However this might be, one fact to which he constantly returned, andwhich ruled everything else, was that he had just committed a frightfulinfraction of the law. He had closed his eyes to a relapsed convictwho had broken his ban; he had set a galley-slave at liberty. He hadstolen from the laws a man who belonged to them. He had done this, andno longer understood himself. He was not certain of being himself. Thevery reasons of his deed escaped him, and he only felt the dizzinessit produced. He had lived up to this moment in that blind faith whichengenders a dark probity; and this faith was leaving him, this probityhad failed him. All that he had believed was dissipated, and truthswhich he did not desire inexorably besieged him. He must henceforth beanother man, and he suffered the strange pain of a conscience suddenlyoperated on for cataract. He saw what it was repulsive to him tosee, and felt himself spent, useless, dislocated from his past life,discharged and dissolved. Authority was dead within him, and he nolonger had a reason for living. Terrible situation! to be moved. To bemade of granite, and doubt! To be the statue of punishment cast all ofone piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to perceive that youhave under your bronze bosom something absurd and disobedient, whichalmost resembles a heart! To have requited good for good, though youhave said to yourself up to this day that such good is evil! To be thewatch-dog, and fawn! To be ice, and melt! To be a pair of pincers, andbecome a hand! suddenly to feel your fingers opening! To lose yourhold. Oh, what a frightful thing! The man projectile, no longer knowinghis road, and recoiling! To be obliged to confess this: infallibilityis not infallible; there may be an error in the dogma; all is notsaid when a code has spoken, society is not perfect, authority iscomplicated with vacillation, a crack in the immutable is possible,judges are men, the law may be deceived, the courts may make a mistake!To see a flaw in the immense blue window-glass of the firmament.

  What was taking place in Javert was the Fampoux of a rectilinearconscience, the overthrow of a mind, the crushing of a probityirresistibly hurled in a straight line and breaking itself againstGod. It was certainly strange that the fireman of order, the engineerof authority, mounted on the blind iron horse, could be unsaddled bya beam of light! That the incommutable, the direct, the correct, thegeometrical, the passive, the perfect, could bend; that there shouldbe for the locomotive a road to Damascus! God, ever within man, andHimself the true conscience, refractory to the false conscience; thespark forbidden to expire, the ray ordered to remember the sun, themind enjoined to recognize the true absolute when it confronts itselfwith the fictitious absolute, a humanity that cannot be lost; the humanheart inadmissible,--did Javert comprehend this splendid phenomenon,the most glorious, perhaps, of our internal prodigies? Did he penetrateit? Did he explain it to himself? Evidently no. But under the pressureof this incomprehensible incontestability he felt his brain cracking.He was less transfigured than the victim of this prodigy: he endured itwith exasperation, and only saw in all this an immense difficulty ofliving. It seemed to him as if henceforth his breathing was eternallyimpeded. He was not accustomed to have anything unknown over his head;hitherto everything he had above him had been to his eye a clear,simple, limpid surface; there was nothing unknown or obscure,--nothingbut what was definite, co-ordinated, enchained, precise, exact,circumscribed, limited, and closed. Everything foreseen, authoritywas a flat surface; there was no fall in it or dizziness before it.Javert had never seen anything unknown except below him. Irregularity,unexpected things, the disorderly opening of the chaos, and a possiblefall over a precipice,--all this was the doing of the lower regions, ofthe rebels, the wicked and the wretched. How Javert threw himself back,and was suddenly startled by this extraordinary apparition,--a gulfabove him!

  What then! the world was dismantled from top to bottom and absolutelydisconcerted! In what could men trust, when what they felt convinced ofwas crumbling away! What! the flaw in the cuirass of society could beformed by a magnanimous scoundrel! What! an honest servant of the lawcould find himself caught between two crimes,--the crime of letting aman escape and the crime of arresting him! All was not certain, then,in the orders given by the State to the official! There could be blindalleys in duty! What then? all this was real! Was it true that anex-bandit, bowed under condemnations, could draw himself up, and endby being in the right? Was this credible? Were there, then, cases inwhich the law must retire before transfigured crime, and stammer itsapologies? Yes, it was so! and Javert saw it, and Javert touched
it!And not only could he not deny it, but he had a share in it. These wererealities, and it was abominable that real facts could attain such adeformity. If facts did their duty they would restrict themselves tobring proofs of the law, for facts are sent by God. Was, then, anarchyabout to descend from on high? Thus, both in the exaggeration of agonyand the optical illusion of consternation, everything which might haverestricted and corrected his impression faded away, and society, thehuman race, and the universe henceforth were contained for his eyesin a simple and hideous outline. Punishment, the thing tried, thestrength due to the legislature, the decrees of sovereign courts, themagistracy, the government, prevention and repression, official wisdom,legal infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas onwhich political and civil security, the sovereignty, justice, logicflowing from the code and public truth, were a heap of ruins, chaos. Hehimself, Javert, the watcher of order, incorruptibility in the serviceof the police, the trusty mastiff of society, conquered and hurled tothe ground; and on the summit of all this ruin stood a man in a greencap, and with a glory round his brow,--such was the state of overthrowhe had reached, such the frightful vision which he had in his mind. Wasthis endurable? No, it was a violent state, were there ever one, andthere were only two ways of escaping from it: one was to go resolutelyto Jean Valjean and restore to the dungeon the man of the galleys; theother--

  Javert left the parapet, and with head erect this time walked firmlytoward the guard-room indicated by a lantern at one of the cornersof the Place du Châtelet. On reaching it he saw through the window apoliceman, and went in. The police recognize each other merely by theway in which they push open the door of a guard-room. Javert mentionedhis name, showed his card to the sergeant, and sat down at the tableon which a candle was burning. There were also on the table a pen,a leaden inkstand, and paper, ready for contingent reports and therecords of the night patrols. This table, always completed by a strawchair, is an institution; it exists in all police offices; it is alwaysadorned with a boxwood saucer full of sawdust, and a box of red wafers,and it is the lower stage of the official style. It is here that theState literature commences. Javert took the pen and a sheet of paperand began writing. This is what he wrote:--

  "A FEW REMARKS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE.

  "1. I beg M. le Préfet to cast his eyes on this.

  "2. Prisoners when they return from examination at the magistrate'soffice take off their shoes and remain barefoot on the slabs while theyare being searched. Some cough on re-entering prison. This entailsinfirmary expenses.

  "3. Tracking is good, with relays of agents at regular distances; buton important occasions two agents at the least should not let eachother out of sight, because if for any reason one agent were to fail inhis duty, the other would watch him and take his place.

  "4. There is no explanation why the special rules of the prison of theMadelonnettes prohibit a prisoner from having a chair, even if he payfor it.

  "5. At the Madelonnettes there are only two gratings to the canteen,which allows the canteen woman to let the prisoners touch her hand.

  "6. The prisoners called 'barkers,' who call the other prisoners to thevisitors' room, demand two sous from each prisoner for crying his namedistinctly. This is a robbery.

  "7. Ten sous are kept back from the pay of a prisoner working in theweaving room for a running thread: this is an abuse on the part of themanager, as the cloth is not the less good.

  "8. It is annoying that visitors to La Force are obliged to passthrough the boys court in proceeding to the speaking-room of SainteMarie Égyptienne.

  "9. It is certain that gendarmes are daily heard repeating, in thecourt-yard of the Préfecture, the examination of prisoners by themagistrates. For a gendarme, who ought to be consecrated, to repeatwhat he has heard in the examination room is a serious breach of duty.

  "10. Madame Henry is an honest woman, her canteen is very clean; but itis wrong for a woman to hold the key of the secret cells. This is notworthy of the Conciergerie of a great civilization."

  Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct handwriting,not omitting to cross a _t_, and making the paper creak firmly beneathhis pen. Under the last line he signed,--

  "JAVERT, _Inspector of the first class._ "At the post of the Place du Châtelet, about one in the morning, June 7, 1832."

  Javert dried the ink on the paper, folded it like a letter, sealedit, wrote on the back, "Note for the Administration," left it on thetable, and quitted the guard-room. The glass door fell back afterhim. He again diagonally crossed the Place du Châtelet, reached thequay again, and went back with automatic precision to the same spotwhich he had left a quarter of an hour previously; he bent down andfound himself again in the same attitude on the same parapet slab;it seemed as if he had not stirred. The darkness was complete, forit was the sepulchral moment which follows midnight; a ceiling ofclouds hid the stars; the houses in the Cité did not display a singlelight, no one passed, all the streets and quays that could be seenwere deserted, and Nôtre Dame and the towers of the Palace of Justiceappeared lineaments of the night. A lamp reddened the edge of the quay,and the shadows of the bridges looked ghostly one behind the other.Rains had swelled the river. The spot where Javert was leaning was, itwill be remembered, precisely above the rapids of the Seine and thatformidable whirlpool which unrolls itself and rolls itself up againlike an endless screw. Javert stooped down and looked; all was dark,and nothing could be distinguished. A sound of spray was audible,but the river was invisible. At moments in this dizzy depth a flashappeared and undulated, for water has the power, even on the darkestnight, of obtaining light, no one knows whence, and changing itselfinto a lizard. The glimmer vanished and all became indistinct again.Immensity seemed open there, and what was beneath was not water, butthe gulf. The quay-wall, abrupt, confused, mingled with the vapor,hidden immediately, produced the effect of a precipice of infinitude.

  Nothing could be seen but the hostile coldness of the water, and thesickly smell of the damp stones could be felt. A ferocious breath rosefrom this abyss; and the swelling of the river, divined rather thanperceived, the tragic muttering of the water, the mournful immensityof the bridge arches, a possible fall into this gloomy vacuum,--allthis shadow was full of horror. Javert remained for some momentsmotionless, gazing at this opening of the darkness, and considered theinvisible with an intentness which resembled attention. All at once hetook off his hat and placed it on the brink of the quay. A moment aftera tall black figure, which any belated passer-by might have taken at adistance for a ghost, appeared standing on the parapet, stooped towardthe Seine, then drew itself up, and fell straight into the darkness.There was a dull plash, and the shadows alone were in the secret ofthis obscure form which had disappeared beneath the waters.

  BOOK V.

  GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER.

  CHAPTER I.