‘Well, that’s different. All the same, you’d better go to the inn and hire an extra horse. The lad in charge will see you through the lanes.’
He followed this advice and turned back. Half an hour later he drove briskly past the same spot with a sturdy additional horse. A stable-boy acting as postillion was seated on the shaft of the gig.
But more time had been lost and it was now quite dark. The going in the lanes was very bad. The gig lurched from one rut to the next, but he said to the boy: ‘Keep up a trot and you’ll get a double tip.’
Then, at a particularly heavy lurch, the cross-tree broke.
‘I don’t see how we can go on,’ the lad said. ‘I’ve nothing to harness my horse to. These lanes are terrible after dark. If you’ll come back to Tinques for the night, Monsieur, we can be at Arras first thing in the morning.’
His reply was: ‘Have you a hank of cord and a knife?’
‘Yes.’
He cut a branch from the hedge and improvised a cross-tree. Another twenty minutes had been wasted, but they went on at a good pace.
The plain was misty with banks of fog drifting like smoke over the hilltops and whitish gleams amid the cloud. A wind from the sea set up a distant rumbling like the sound of someone moving furniture, a sense of awe filled the air, all life seemed to shiver in the darkness of the growing night.
The cold pierced through him. He had eaten nothing since the night before. And now he recalled another night-time journey, across the great plain on the outskirts of Digne. Eight years ago, and it might have been yesterday.
A distant church clock sounded and he asked:
‘What time is it?’
‘Seven, Monsieur. We shall be in Arras at eight, only three leagues more.’
Then for the first time, finding it strange that the thought had not already occurred to him, he reflected that perhaps all the effort he was making was useless. He did not even know what time the case was to be heard. He should at least have ascertained this. It was surely ridiculous to be rushing as he did without knowing whether he would get there in time. He began to make calculations. An assize court ordinarily began the day’s session at nine in the morning. This case would certainly not occupy it for long. The theft of the apples was a very small matter. Then there was the question of identity, a few depositions to be heard, little or nothing for the advocates to say. By the time he arrived it would surely be all over!
The boy whipped up the horses. They had crossed the river and left Mont-Saint-Eloy behind.
The night was darker still.
VI
The testing of Sister Simplice
At that moment Fantine was in ecstasy.
She had passed a very restless night, coughing incessantly with a high fever; and she had had bad dreams. When the doctor called in the morning she was delirious. He had seemed much perturbed and had recommended that Monsieur Madeleine should be informed directly he returned.
Throughout the morning Fantine had been apathetic, saying very little and crumpling the bedclothes in her hand while under her breath she murmured figures which seemed to be calculations of distance. Her eyes were hollow and vacant, almost lifeless, but at moments they would light up and shine like stars. It would seem that as darkness approaches a light from Heaven shines for those who are about to leave the brightness of earth.
Each time Sister Simplice asked her how she felt she replied: ‘Quite well. I long to see Monsieur Madeleine.’
When, a few months previously, Fantine had put aside the last shreds of her modesty, her shame, and her happiness, she had been the shadow of her former self; but now she was its ghost. Physical deterioration had completed the work of spiritual sickness. The woman of twenty-five had a wrinkled forehead and flaccid cheeks, pinched nostrils and loosened teeth, a sallow face, a bony neck and wasted limbs, and there were grey threads mingled with her fair hair. Disease is a great simulator of age.
The doctor came again at midday, gave certain instructions, asked if Monsieur Madeleine had visited her, and shook his head.
Monsieur Madeleine was in the habit of calling at three o’clock, and since punctuality is a part of kindness he was always punctual. By half past two Fantine was beginning to grow agitated. In the next twenty minutes she asked a dozen times to be told the time.
Three o’clock sounded and at the third stroke she sat upright, although ordinarily she had scarcely the strength to move. Her yellowed, wasted hands were tightly clasped and the sister heard her utter a sigh that was like the lifting of a great weight. She sat looking towards the door.
But no one entered. The door did not open.
She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, with her eyes fixed on the door, motionless, as though holding her breath. The sister was afraid to speak. The church clock struck the quarter and she sank back against the pillows. She said nothing but again began crumpling the sheet in her hands.
Half an hour passed, an hour, and no one came. Each time the clock struck Fantine sat up and looked towards the door, and then sank back again.
What was in her mind was plain enough, but she spoke no person’s name, uttered no word of complaint or reproach. There was only her heartrending cough. It was as though a great shadow now oppressed her. Her cheeks had a livid pallor, her lips were blue. But at moments she smiled.
Five o’clock struck, and then the sister heard a very low and gentle murmur from her lips. ‘But since I shall be going tomorrow, it is wrong of him not to come today.’
Sister Simplice was herself surprised that Monsieur Madeleine should be so late.
Fantine lay gazing at the sky from her bed. She seemed to be trying to remember something, and suddenly she began to sing in a voice no louder than a breath. She sang an old cradle-song with which she used to lull her baby daughter to sleep and which she had never once recalled in the five years since they had been separated. It was a song of gaiety and happiness, of loss and grieving, and she sang it so movingly as to cause even a hospital nurse to weep. Sister Simplice, hardened as she was to the cruelty of life, felt the tears rise in her eyes.
The clock struck six but Fantine did not seem to hear it. She seemed to be taking no more notice of her surroundings.
Sister Simplice sent a serving-girl round to the factory to ask if the mayor had returned and if he would soon be coming to the infirmary. The girl was back in a few minutes. Fantine continued to lie motionless, seemingly absorbed in the thoughts running through her mind.
The girl whispered to Sister Simplice that Monsieur le maire had driven off before six that morning, despite the cold, in a light carriage drawn by a white horse. He had gone quite alone, no one knew where. There were people who said that he had been seen on the road to Arras, and others claimed to have passed him on the Paris road. His manner when he left had been as kindly as usual. He had simply told the old woman not to expect him back that night.
While the two women were thus conversing in undertones with their backs turned towards her, Fantine, with the sudden feverish vitality which in certain illnesses lends an appearance of health to the enfeeblement of death, had risen to her knees on the bed and, supporting herself with her clenched fists on the mattress, was listening with her head thrust through the gap in the curtains. Suddenly she cried:
‘You’re talking about Monsieur Madeleine! Why are you whispering? What is he doing? Why hasn’t he come?’
Her voice was so hoarse and rough that it might have been that of a man. The startled women swung round.
‘Answer me!’ cried Fantine.
The girl stammered: ‘The concierge says he can’t come today.’
‘Lie down, my child,’ said the sister. ‘You must keep calm.’
Without obeying, Fantine said loudly, in a voice that was at once imperious and heartrending:
‘He can’t come? Why not? You know the reason. You were talking about it. I want to know.’
The girl whispered to the nun, ‘Say he’s at a Council meeting.’
&
nbsp; Sister Simplice blushed faintly; she was being urged to tell a lie. On the other hand, she felt that to tell the truth would be to deal Fantine a blow which might have serious consequences in her present state. But her hesitation was soon over. Gazing gravely and compassionately at Fantine she said:
‘The mayor has gone out of town.’
Fantine started up with shining eyes and sat back on her heels. There was a look of indescribable happiness on her ravaged face.
‘He’s gone out of town?’ she cried. ‘He’s gone for Cosette!’
She raised her arms above her head, her expression radiant and her lips moving in a silent prayer. After a little pause she said:
‘I’ll lie down again. I’ll do whatever I’m told. I behaved badly just now, I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I know it’s wrong to raise one’s voice, I hope you will forgive me. I’m happy now. God is kind to me and Monsieur Madeleine is kind. He has gone to Montfermeil to fetch my little Cosette.’
She lay back, helped the sister to rearrange the pillows and kissed the small silver cross hanging from her neck which the sister had given her.
‘You must rest, dear child,’ Sister Simplice said. ‘You mustn’t talk any more.’
Fantine reached out hot hands whose feverish dampness caused the sister a pang.
‘He’s gone in the direction of Paris, but he won’t need to go as far as that, Montfermeil is a little to the left before you get to Paris. When I asked him about Cosette yesterday he said, “Soon, soon”– do you remember? He wants to give me a surprise. He made me sign a letter for the Thénardiers. They’ll have to give her up, won’t they, now that they’ve been paid? People aren’t allowed to keep a child when everything’s been paid. Please, sister, don’t try to stop me talking, I’m so happy, I feel so well, I shall see Cosette again. I’m even hungry. It’s five years since I saw her. Oh, you don’t know the hold a child can have on you! She’ll be so angelic, you’ll see. She had tiny pink fingers, she’s going to have pretty hands, but of course then they were only baby hands. She’s seven now, quite a big girl, almost grown up. I call her Cosette, her real name is Euphrasie. You know, this morning I was looking at the dust on the mantelshelf and somehow I had the idea that I should soon be seeing her again. It’s wrong to go for years without seeing one’s child. We have to remember that life doesn’t last for ever. Oh, and it’s so good of Monsieur Madeleine to have gone for her! The weather’s very cold, isn’t it? I hope at least he has a good warm overcoat. And they’ll be here tomorrow, won’t they? Tomorrow is the great day. You must remind me to put on my lace bonnet. It’s a long way to Montfermeil. I came the whole way on foot, and it was hard. But the coaches go very fast. They’ll be here tomorrow. How far is it to Montfermeil?’
The sister, who had no notion of distance, replied: ‘I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow.’
‘And I shall see Cosette! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Oh, dear sister, I’m not ill any more. I’m beside myself with happiness. I could dance, if you asked me to.’
Anyone who had seen her a quarter of an hour earlier might well have been dumbfounded. Her face was flushed and glowing, her voice light and natural. From time to time she murmured to herself. A mother’s rejoicing is near to that of a child.
‘Well,’ the sister said, ‘now that you’re happy you must be obedient and not talk any more.’
Fantine said softly, ‘Yes, I must be good now that I’m getting my baby back,’ and then lay motionless and silent, only gazing about her with wide, ecstatic eyes. The sister drew the bed-curtains, hoping that she would fall asleep.
The doctor called again between seven and eight, and hearing no sound tip-toed to the bedside; but when he drew back the curtains he saw by the night-light that she was gazing calmly up at him.
‘They’ll make up a little bed for her beside mine, won’t they?’ she said. ‘As you see, there’s just room.’
He thought she was delirious and taking Sister Simplice aside listened while she told him what she knew of the facts, namely that Monsieur Madeleine was to be away for a day or two, and that she had not thought it necessary to undeceive the patient, who assumed that he had gone to Montfermeil – and indeed it was possible that he had. The doctor nodded and went back to the bed.
‘ I can say good morning to her when she wakes up,’ said Fantine. ‘And at night I’ll hear her breathing, the sweet lamb, and that will be a delight to me, because I don’t sleep very well myself.’
‘Give me your hand,’ the doctor said.
She held it out and suddenly laughed. ‘But of course! You don’t know. I’m better, doctor. I’m going to get well. Cosette will be here tomorrow.’
The doctor found to his surprise that her condition had indeed improved. The tension was less and the pulse stronger. A surge of renewed life seemed to have revived her exhausted body.
‘Didn’t the sister tell you?’ she said. ‘The mayor himself has gone to fetch my little girl.’
He counselled silence and freedom from all disturbance, and prescribed quinine and a soothing potion in case she should become feverish again during the night. As he was leaving he said to Sister Simplice:
‘There’s a real improvement. If by great good fortune the mayor really does bring the child back – well, who can say? One hears of astonishing cases. Great happiness can sometimes work miracles. This is an organic disease and far advanced, but these things are wrapped in mystery. Perhaps we shall save her after all.’
VII
The traveller arrives and provides for his return
It was nearly eight when the gig passed under the gateway of the Hôtel de la Poste in Arras. The traveller got out, replying absently to the greetings of the inn servants; he sent away the extra horse and himself led the white horse round to the stable. Then he pushed open the door of a billiard-room on the ground floor and sat down at a small drinking-table. He had taken fourteen hours over a journey that he had hoped to make in six; but he could say in fairness to himself that the fault was not his, and in his heart he was not displeased.
The landlady entered.
‘Will Monsieur be stopping the night? Will he require dinner?’
He shook his head.
‘But the ostler says that your horse is tired out. It needs at least two days’ rest.’
He considered. ‘This is a posting-inn, I believe. There’s a post office?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
She took him to the office, where he learned that there was a place vacant on the mail leaving that night for Montreuil-sur-mer, the seat beside the mail-man. He reserved it and paid. The clerk warned him that it would leave punctually at one o’clock in the morning.
He left the inn and walked into the town. He did not know Arras and the streets were dark; nevertheless, he seemed reluctant to ask the way. He crossed the little river Crinchon and found himself in a maze of narrow streets. A man came by with a lantern, and after hesitating he approached him, but only after first looking round as though to ensure that his question would not be overheard.
‘Monsieur, can you tell me the way to the Palais de Justice?’
‘You are new to the town, Monsieur?’ said the gentleman, who was elderly. ‘I can take you there because, as it happens, that is where I am going myself – or lather to the Prefecture. The law-courts are at present under repair and the Prefecture is being used instead.’
‘Is that where the assizes are held?’
‘Yes. Before the Revolution the present Prefecture was the Bishop’s Palace. Monsieur de Conzie, who was bishop in eighty-two, had a large hall built on to it. That is where cases are provisionally being heard.’ As they walked along together, he added, ‘Have you come to attend a trial? In that case you may be too late. As a rule the court rises at six.’
But when they reached the town square they found that the lights were still burning behind four tall windows in a large, gloomy building.
‘You’re in luck, Monsieur,’ the gentleman said. ‘Those are the windows of
the assize court. They must be holding a late session, evidently some case has taken longer than was expected. Would it be the case you are interested in? A criminal trial, perhaps? Are you a witness?’
‘No,’ said the stranger, ‘I have not come about any particular case, simply to speak to one of the attorneys.’
‘Well, then,’ said the gentleman, ‘there is the door. You’ll find a doorkeeper. You have only to go up the main stairway.’
A few minutes later Madeleine found himself in a crowded room where a number of persons in legal attire were clustered in separate groups, talking in low voices.
The sight of these groups of black-robed gentlemen murmuring together on the threshold of a court of law is always a chilling one. Little charity or compassion emerges from their talk, which is principally concerned with guessing which way the verdict will go. They are like clusters of buzzing insects absorbed in the construction of dark edifices of their own.
The room, which was spacious and lighted only with a single lamp, had been an antechamber in the days of the bishopric and was now being put to a similar use. Wide double doors, at that moment closed, separated it from the Great Hall where the assize court was in session.
The place was so dark that Madeleine did not hesitate to address the first lawyer he encountered.
‘How is the case going, Monsieur?’ he asked.
‘It’s over.’
‘Over!’
The tone of his voice caused the lawyer to look at him.
‘Excuse me, Monsieur – are you a relative?’
‘No. I know no one here. And there was a conviction?’
‘Naturally. Nothing else was possible.’
‘What was the sentence?’
‘Hard labour for life.’
Madeleine’s next words were spoken in a voice so low that they could scarcely be heard.
‘And the question of identity –?’
‘Identity?’ said the lawyer. ‘But there was no question of identity. The case was perfectly straightforward. The woman had killed her child. The infanticide was proved, but the jury ruled out premeditation. She was condemned to life-imprisonment.’
Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774) Page 28