by Victor Hugo
Jean Valjean reached the outlet.
There he stopped.
It was indeed the outlet, but it did not let him out.
The arch was closed by a strong grating, and the grating which, according to all appearance, rarely turned upon its rusty hinges, was held in its stone frame by a stout lock which, red with rust, seemed an enormous brick. He could see the keyhole, and the strong bolt deeply plunged into the iron staple. The lock was plainly a double-lock. It was one of those fortress locks of which the old Paris was so lavish.
Beyond the grating, the open air, the river, the daylight, the quai, very narrow, but sufficient to get away. The distant quai, Paris, that gulf in which one is so easily lost, the wide horizon, liberty. He distinguished at his right, below him, the Pont d‘Iéna, and at his left, above, the Pont des Invalides; the spot would have been propitious for awaiting night and escaping. It was one of the most solitary points in Paris; the embankment which fronts on the Gros Cail lou. The flies came in and went out through the bars of the grating.
It might have been half-past eight o‘clock in the evening. The day was declining.
Jean Valjean laid Marius along the wall on the dry part of the floor, then walked to the grating and clenched the bars with both hands; the shaking was frenzied, the shock nothing. The grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after another, hoping to be able to tear out the least solid one, and to make a lever of it to lift the door or break the lock. Not a bar yielded. A tiger’s teeth are not more solid in their sockets. No lever; no possible purchase. The obstacle was invincible. No means of opening the door.
Must he then perish there? What should he do? what would become of them? go back; recommence the terrible road which he had already traversed; he had not the strength. Besides, how cross that quagmire again, from which he had escaped only by a miracle? And after the quagmire, was there not that police patrol from which, certainly, one would not escape twice? And then where should he go? what direction take? to follow the descent was not to reach the goal. Should he come to another outlet, he would find it obstructed by a door or a grating. All the outlets were undoubtedly closed in this way. Chance had unsealed the grating by which they had entered, but evidently all the other mouths of the sewer were fastened. He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison.
It was over. All that Jean Valjean had done was useless. God was denying him.
They were both caught in the gloomy and immense web of death, and Jean Valjean felt running over those black threads trembling in the darkness, the appalling spider.gs
He turned his back to the grating, and dropped upon the pavement, rather prostrated than sitting, beside the yet motionless Marius, and his head sank between his knees. No exit.This was the last drop of anguish.gt
Of whom did he think in this overwhelming dejection? Neither of himself nor of Marius. He thought of Cosette.
8
THE TORN COAT-TAIL
IN THE MIDST of this annihilation, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a voice which spoke low, said to him:
“Go halves.”
Somebody in that darkness? Nothing is so like a dream as despair, Jean Valjean thought he was dreaming. He had heard no steps. Was it possible? he raised his eyes.
A man was before him.
This man was dressed in a smock; he was barefooted; he held his shoes in his left hand; he had evidently taken them off to be able to reach Jean Valjean without being heard.
Jean Valjean had not a moment’s hesitation. Unforeseen as was the encounter, this man was known to him. This man was Thénardier.
Although wakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed to be on the alert and on the watch for unexpected blows which he must quickly parry, instantly regained possession of all his presence of mind. Besides, the condition of affairs could not be worse, a certain degree of distress is no longer capable of crescendo, and Thénardier himself could not add to the blackness of this night.
There was a moment of delay.
Thénardier, lifting his right hand to the height of his forehead, shaded his eyes with it, then brought his brows together while he winked his eyes, which, with a slight pursing of the mouth, characterises the sagacious attention of a man who is seeking to recognise another. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, we have just said, turned his back to the light, and was moreover so disfigured, so muddy and so blood-stained, that in full noon he would have been unrecognisable. On the other hand, with the light from the grating shining in his face, a cellar light, it is true, livid, but precise in its lividness, Thénardier, as the energetic, trite metaphor expresses it, struck Jean Valjean at once. This inequality of conditions was enough to insure Jean Valjean some advantage in this mysterious duel which was about to open between the two conditions and the two men. The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thénardier unmasked.
Jean Valjean perceived immediately that Thénardier did not recognise him.
They gazed at each other for a moment in this penumbra, as if they were taking each other’s measure. Thénardier was first to break the silence.
“How are you going to manage to get out?”
Jean Valjean did not answer.
Thénardier continued:
“Impossible to pick the lock. Still you must get away from here.”
“That is true,” said Jean Valjean.
“Well, go halves.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have killed the man; very well. Me, I have the key.”
Thénardier pointed to Marius. He went on:
“I don’t know you, but I would like to help you. You must be a friend.”
Jean Valjean began to understand. Thenardier took him for an assassin.
Thénardier resumed:
“Listen, comrade. You haven’t killed that man without looking to what he had in his pockets. Give me my half. I will open the door for you.”
And, drawing a big key half out from under his smock, which was full of holes, he added:
“Would you like to see what freedom looks like?gu There it is.”
Jean Valjean “remained stupid,” the expression is the elder Corneille‘s, so far as to doubt whether what he saw was real. It was Providence appearing in a guise of horror, and the good angel springing out of the ground under the form of Thénardier.
Thénardier plunged his fist into a huge pocket hidden under his smock, pulled out a rope, and handed it to Jean Valjean.
“Here,” said he, “I’ll give you the rope to boot.”
“A rope, what for?”
“You want a stone too, but you’ll find one outside. There is a heap of rubbish there.”
“A stone, what for?”
“Fool, as you are going to throw the stiff into the river, you want a stone and a rope; without them it would float on the water.”
Jean Valjean took the rope. Everybody has accepted things thus mechanically.
Thénardier snapped his fingers as over the arrival of a sudden idea:
“Ah now, comrade, how did you manage to get out of the quagmire yonder? I haven’t dared to risk myself there. Peugh! you don’t smell good.”
After a pause, he added:
“I ask you questions, but you are right in not answering them. That is an apprenticeship for the examining judge’s cursed quarter of an hour. And then by not speaking at all, you run no risk of speaking too loud. It is all the same, because I don’t see your face, and because I don’t know your name, you would do wrong to suppose that I don’t know who you are and what you want. Understood. You have smashed this gentleman a little; now you want to stow him somewhere. You need the river, the great hide-folly. I am going to get you out of the scrape. To help a good fellow in trouble, that’s what I like.”gv
While approving Jean Valjean for keeping silence, he was evidently seeking to make him speak. He pushed his shoulders, so as to endeavour to see his profile, and exclaimed, without however rising above a moderate tone:
“Speaking of the quagmire, you are a proud animal. Why didn’t you throw the man in there?”
Jean Valjean preserved silence.
Thénardier resumed, raising the rag which served him as a cravat up to his Adam’s apple, a gesture which completes the air of sagacity of a serious man:
“Indeed, perhaps you have acted prudently. The workmen when they come to-morrow to stop the hole, would certainly have found the dummy forgotten there, and they would have been able, thread by thread, straw by straw, to find the trace, and to get to you. Something has passed through the sewer? Who? Where did he come out? Did anybody see him come out? The police has plenty of brains. The sewer is treacherous and informs against you. Such a discovery is a rarity, it attracts attention, few people use the sewer in their business while the river is at everybody’s service. The river is the true grave. At the month’s end, they fish you up the man at the nets of Saint Cloud. Well, what does that amount to? It is a carcass, indeed! Who killed this man? Paris. And justice don’t even inquire into it. You have done right.”
The more loquacious Thénardier was, the more dumb was Jean Valjean. Thénardier pushed his shoulder anew.
“Now, let us finish the business. Let us divide. You have seen my key, show me your money.”
Thénardier was haggard, savage, shady, a little threatening, nevertheless friendly.
There was one strange circumstance; Thénardier’s manner was not natural; he did not appear entirely at his ease; while he did not affect an air of mystery, he talked low; from time to time he laid his finger on his mouth, and muttered: “Hush!” It was difficult to guess why. There was nobody there but them. Jean Valjean thought that perhaps some other bandits were hidden in some recess not far off, and that Thénardier did not care to share with them.
Thénardier resumed:
“Let us finish. How much did the stiff have in his deeps?”
Jean Valjean felt in his pockets.
It was, as will be remembered, his custom always to have money about him. The gloomy life of expedients to which he was condemned, made this a law to him. This time, however, he was caught unprepared. On putting on his National Guard’s uniform, the evening before, he had forgotten, gloomily absorbed as he was, to take his pocket-book with him. He had only some coins in his waistcoat pocket. He turned out his pocket, all soaked with filth, and displayed upon the curb of the sewer a louis d‘or, two five-franc coins, and five or six big sous.
Thénardier thrust out his under lip with a significant twist of the neck.
“You didn’t kill him very dear,” said he.
He began to handle, in all familiarity, the pockets of Jean Valjean and Marius. Jean Valjean, principally concerned in keeping his back to the light, did not interfere with him. While he was feeling of Marius’ coat, Thénardier, with the dexterity of a juggler, found means, without attracting Jean Valjean’s attention, to tear off a strip, which he hid under his smock, probably thinking that this scrap of cloth might assist him afterwards to identify the assassinated man and the assassin. He found, however, nothing more than the thirty francs.
“It is true,” said he, “both together, you have no more than that.”
And, forgetting his words, go halves, he took the whole.
He hesitated a little before the big sous. Upon reflection, he took them also, mumbling:
“No matter! this is sticking people too cheap.”
This said, he took the key from under his smock anew.
“Now, friend, you must go out. This is like the fair, you pay on going out. You have paid, go out.”
And he began to laugh.
That he had, in extending to an unknown man the help of this key, and in causing another man than himself to go out by this door, the pure and disinterested intention of saving an assassin, is something which it is permissible to doubt.
Thénardier helped Jean Valjean to replace Marius upon his shoulders; then he went towards the grating upon the points of his bare feet, beckoning to Jean Valjean to follow him, he looked outside, laid his finger on his mouth, and stood a few seconds as if in suspense; the inspection over, he put the key into the lock. The bolt slid and the door turned. There was neither snapping nor grinding. It was done very quietly. It was plain that this grating and its hinges, oiled with care, were opened oftener than would have been guessed. This quiet was ominous; you felt in it the furtive goings and comings, the silent entrances and exits of the men of the night, and the wolf-like tread of crime. The sewer was evidently in complicity with some mysterious band. This taciturn grating harboured fugitives from justice.gw
Thénardier half opened the door, left just enough room for Jean Valjean, closed the grating again, turned the key twice in the lock, and plunged back into the darkness, without making more noise than a breath. He seemed to walk with the velvet paws of a tiger. A moment afterwards, this hideous providence had entered again into the invisible.
Jean Valjean found himself outside.
9
MARIUS SEEMS TO BE DEAD TO ONE WHO IS A GOOD JUDGE
HE LET Marius slide down upon the quai.
They were outside!
The miasmas, the darkness, the horror were behind him. The balmy air, pure, living, joyful, freely respirable, flowed around him. Everywhere about him silence, but the charming silence of a sunset in a clear sky. Twilight had fallen; night was coming, the great liberator, the friend of all those who need a mantle of darkness to escape from an anguish. The sky extended on every side like an enormous calm. The river came to his feet with the sound of a kiss. He heard the airy dialogues of the nests bidding each other good night in the elms of the Champs-Elysées. A few stars, faintly piercing the pale blue of the zenith, and visible to reverie alone, produced their imperceptible little resplendencies in the immensity. Evening was unfolding over Jean Valjean’s head all the caresses of the infinite.
It was the undecided and exquisite hour which says neither yes nor no. There was already night enough for one to be lost in it at a little distance, and still day enough for one to be recognised near at hand.
Jean Valjean was for a few seconds irresistibly overcome by all this august and caressing serenity; there are such moments of forgetfulness; suffering refuses to harass the wretched; all is eclipsed in thought; peace covers the dreamer like a night; and, under the twilight which is flinging forth its rays, and in imitation of the sky which is lighting up, the soul becomes starry. Jean Valjean could not but gaze at that vast clear shadow which was above him; pensive, in the majestic silence of the eternal heavens, he took a bath of ecstasy and prayer. Then, hastily, as if a feeling of duty came back to him, he bent over Marius, and, dipping up some water in the hollow of his hand, he threw a few drops gently into his face. Marius’ eyelids did not part; but his half-open mouth breathed.
Jean Valjean was plunging his hand into the river again, when suddenly he felt an indescribable uneasiness, such as we feel when we have somebody behind us, without seeing him.
We have already referred elsewhere to this impression, with which everybody is acquainted.
He turned round.
As just a few minutes earlier, somebody was indeed behind him.
A man of tall stature, wrapped in a long overcoat, with folded arms, and holding in his right hand a club, the leaden knob of which could be seen, stood erect a few steps in the rear of Jean Valjean, who was stooping over Marius.
It was, with the aid of the shadow, a sort of apparition. A simple-minded man would have been afraid on account of the twilight, and a reflective man on account of the club.
Jean Valjean recognised Javert.
The reader has doubtless guessed that Thénardier’s pursuer was none other than Javert. Javert, after his unhoped-for departure from the barricade, had gone to the prefecture of police, had given an account verbally to the prefect in person in a short audience, had then immediately returned to his duty, which implied—the note found upon him will be remembered—a certain surveillance of the shore on the ri
ght bank near the Champs- Elysées, which for some time had attracted the attention of the police. There he had seen Thénardier, and had followed him. The rest is known.
It is understood also that the opening of that grating so obligingly before Jean Valjean was a piece of shrewdness on the part of Thénardier. Thénardier felt that Javert was still there; the man who is watched has a scent which does not deceive him; a bone must be thrown to this hound. An assassin, what a godsend! It was the scapegoat, which must never be refused. Thénardier, by putting Jean Valjean out in his place, gave a victim to the police, threw them off his own track, caused himself to be forgotten in a larger matter, rewarded Javert for his delay, which always flatters a spy, gained thirty francs, and counted surely, as for himself, upon escaping by the aid of this diversion.
Jean Valjean had passed from one shoal to another.
These two encounters, blow on blow, to fall from Thénardier upon Javert, it was hard.
Javert did not recognise Jean Valjean, who, as we have said, no longer resembled himself. He did not unfold his arms, he secured his club in his grasp by an imperceptible movement, and said in a clipped, calm voice:
“Who are you?”
“I.”
“What you?”
“Jean Valjean.”
Javert put the club between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined his body, laid his two powerful hands upon Jean Valjean’s shoulders, which they clamped like two vices, examined him, and recognised him. Their faces almost touched. Javert’s look was terrible.