X
The prodigal returns to life
At every lurch a drop of blood fell from Marius’s hair. It was quite dark when they reached 6 Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Javert got out first, and raising the heavy iron knocker, moulded in the ancient design of goat and satyr, knocked loudly. The door opened to disclose a yawning porter with a candle. Everyone was asleep. They retire early in the Marais, particularly in times of upheaval. That respectable old quarter, terrified of revolution, takes refuge in slumber like a child hiding its head under the sheets.
Jean Valjean and the coachman brought Marius from the fiacre, Valjean carrying him under the armpits and the coachman carrying him by the legs. As they did so Valjean thrust a hand under his torn clothes to feel his chest and make sure that his heart was still beating. It was in fact beating a little less feebly, as though the jolting of the fiacre had restored to it some degree of life.
Javert questioned the porter in a brisk, official tone.
‘Anyone live here called Gillenormand?’
‘Yes. What do you want of him?’
‘We’re bringing back his son.’
‘His son?’ exclaimed the porter in amazement.
‘He’s dead.’
Valjean, at whom the porter had been staring with horror as he stood, ragged and covered in mud in the background, shook his head. The porter seemed to understand neither of them.
‘He was at the barricade,’ said Javert, ‘and here he is.’
‘At the barricade!’
‘He got himself killed. Go and wake his father.’ The porter did not stir. ‘Go on,’ said Javert, and added: ‘He’ll be buried tomorrow.’
For Javert, the common incidents of the town were strictly classified, this being the basis of foresight and alertness, and every contingency had its place. Possible facts were, so to speak, in drawers from which they could be brought out as the case required, in varying quantities. Happenings in the street came under the headings of commotion, upheaval, carnival, funeral.
The porter awakened Basque. Basque awakened Nicolette, who awakened Aunt Gillenormand. They let the old man sleep on, thinking that he would know soon enough.
Marius was taken up to the first floor, without anyone in other parts of the house knowing what went on, and laid on an old settee in Monsieur Gillenormand’s sitting-room. While Basque went in search of a doctor and Nicolette ransacked the linen cupboard, Valjean felt Javert’s hand on his arm. He understood and went downstairs, with Javert close behind him. The porter watched them go as he had watched them arrive, with startled drowsiness. They got back into the fiacre, and the driver climbed on to his seat.
‘Inspector,’ said Valjean, ‘grant me one last favour.’
‘What is it?’ Javert asked harshly.
‘Let me go home for a minute. After that you can do what you like with me.’
Javert was silent for some moments, his chin sunk in the collar of his greatcoat. Then he pulled down the window in front of him.
‘Drive to No. 7 Rue de l’Homme-Armé,’ he said.
XI
Collapse of the absolute
Neither spoke a word during the journey.
What did Jean Valjean wish to do? He wished to finish what he had begun: to tell Cosette the news of Marius, give her perhaps some other useful information and, if possible, make certain final arrangements. Where he personally was concerned, all was over. He had been taken by Javert and had made no resistance. Another man in his place might have thought of the rope Thénardier had given him and the bars of the first prison cell he would enter; but since his encounter with the bishop there was in Valjean a profound religious abhorrence of any act of violence, even against himself. Suicide, that mysterious plunge into the unknown, which might entail some degree of death of the soul, was impossible for Jean Valjean.
At the entrance to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé, the fiacre stopped, since the street was too narrow to admit vehicles. Javert and Valjean got out. The coachman respectfully pointed out to Monsieur l’Inspecteur that the velvet upholstery of his cab was stained by the blood of the murdered man and the mud of his murderer, which is what he understood them to be. Bringing a notebook out of his pocket he requested the inspector to write a few words to this effect. Javert thrust the book aside.
‘How much does it come to, including the time of waiting and the distance travelled?’
‘I waited seven hours and a quarter,’ the coachman replied, ‘and my upholstery is new. It comes to eighty francs, Monsieur.’
Javert got four napoleons out of his pocket and dismissed him.
Valjean thought that Javert intended to escort him on foot to either the Blancs-Manteaux or the Archives police post, both of which were near at hand. They walked along the street which, as usual, was deserted. Valjean knocked on the door of No. 7 and it was opened.
‘Go up,’ said Javert. He had a strange expression, as though it cost him an effort to speak. I’ll wait for you here.’
Valjean looked at him. This was little in accordance with his usual habits. But Javert now had an air of lofty confidence, that of a cat that allows a mouse a moment’s respite; and since Valjean had resolved to give himself up and be done with it, this did not greatly surprise him. He entered the house, called ‘It’s me’ to the porter, who had pulled the cord from his bed, and went upstairs.
On the first floor he paused. All Calvaries had their stations. The sash window was open. As in many old houses the staircase looked on to the street and was lighted at night by the street lamp immediately outside. Perhaps automatically, or simply to draw breath, Valjean thrust out his head. He looked down into the street, which was short and lighted from end to end by its single lamp. He gave a start of amazement. There was no one there.
Javert had gone.
XII
The grandfather
Basque and the porter had carried Marius, lying motionless on the settee, into the salon. The doctor had arrived and Aunt Gillenormand had got up. Aunt Gillenormand paced to and fro wringing her hands, incapable of doing more than say, ‘Heavens, is it possible!’ After the first shock she took a more philosophical view, to the point of saying, ‘It was bound to end like this.’ But she did not go so far as to say, ‘I told you so’, as is customary on these occasions.
At the doctor’s orders a camp-bed was set up beside the settee. The doctor found that Marius’s pulse was still beating, that he had no deep wound in his chest and that the blood at the corner of his lips came from the nasal cavity. He had him laid flat on the bed, without a pillow, his torso bare and his head on the same level as his body, to facilitate breathing. Seeing that he was to be undressed, Mlle Gillenormand withdrew and went to tell her beads in her own room.
There was no sign of internal injury. A bullet, diverted by his wallet, had inflicted an ugly gash along the ribs but had not gone deep, so that this was not dangerous. The long underground journey had completed the dislocation of the shattered shoulder-blade, and this was more serious. The arms had been slashed, but there was no injury to the face. The head, on the other hand, was covered with cuts, and it remained to be seen how deep they went, and whether they had penetrated the skull. What was serious was that they had caused unconsciousness of a kind from which one does not always recover. The haemorrhage had exhausted the patient; but there was no injury to the lower part of the body, which had been protected by the barricade.
Basque and Nicolette tore up rags for bandages. Lacking lint, the doctor temporarily staunched the wounds with wadding. Three candles burned on the bedside table, on which his instruments were spread. He washed Marius’s face and hair with cold water, which rapidly turned red in the bowl.
The doctor looked despondent, now and then shaking his head as though in answer to himself. A doctor’s voiceless dialogue is a bad omen for the patient. Suddenly, as he was gently touching the closed lids, the door of the room opened and a long, pale face appeared. It was the grandfather.
The fighting had greatly
agitated and angered Monsieur Gillenormand. He had not been able to sleep the previous night, and had been in a fever all day. That night he had gone to bed early, ordering every door in the house to be locked, and had quickly fallen asleep. But old men sleep lightly. His bedroom was next to the salon, and despite all precautions the noise had awakened him. Seeing light under his door, he had got out of bed.
He stood in the doorway with a hand on the door-handle, his head thrust forward, his body covered by a white bedgown that hung straight down without folds like a shroud, so that he looked like a ghost peering into a tomb. He saw the bed and the wax-white young man, eyes closed and mouth open, lips colourless, bared to the waist and covered with bright red scars.
He shook from head to foot with the tremor that afflicts old bones; his eyes, yellowed with age, had a glassy look, while his whole face took on the sharp contours of a skull. His arms sank to his sides as though a spring had been broken, and his stupefaction was manifest in the way he spread out his old, shaking fingers. His knees thrust forward, disclosing through the opening of his garment his skinny legs. He muttered:
‘Marius!’
‘He has just been brought here, Monsieur,’ said Basque. ‘He was on the barricade, and …’
‘He’s dead!’ cried the old man in a terrible voice. ‘The brigand!’
A sort of sepulchral transformation caused him to straighten up like a young man. ‘You’re the doctor?’ he went on. ‘Tell me one thing. Is he truly dead?’
The doctor, filled with anxiety, said nothing. Monsieur Gillenormand wrung his hands and burst into dreadful laughter.
‘Dead! Dead on the barricade, in hatred of me! He did this against me, the bloodthirsty ruffian, and this is how he comes back to me. Misery of my life, he’s dead!’
He went to the window, flung it wide as though he were stifling, and talked into the night:
‘Gashed, slashed and done for, that’s what he is now! He knew I was waiting for him, that his room was kept in readiness and his boyhood picture at my bedside. He knew he had only to return and I would be waiting at the fireside half mad with longing. You knew it. You had only to say, “Here I am,” and you would be master of the house and I would obey you in all things, your old fool of a grandfather. You knew it and you said, “No, he’s a royalist, I won’t go.” You went to the barricade instead and got yourself killed from sheer perversity. That is what is infamous! Well, sleep in peace. That is my word to you.’
The doctor, feeling that he had two patients to worry about, went to Monsieur Gillenormand and took his arm. The old man turned, and gazing at him with eyes that seemed to have grown larger, said quietly:
‘Thank you, but I am calm, I am a man. I saw the death of Louis XVI, I can confront events. What is terrible is the thought that it is your newspapers that make all the trouble. Scribbles, orators, tribunes, debates, the rights of man, the freedom of the press – that’s what your children are brought up on. Oh, Marius, it’s abominable! Dead before me! The barricades! Doctor, you live in this quarter, I believe. Yes, I know you. I see you pass by in your cabriolet. I tell you, you are wrong to think that I am angry. To rage against death is folly. This was a child I brought up. I was old already, and he was small. He played in the Tuileries, and to save him from the keeper’s wrath I filled in the holes that he dug with his spade. One day he cried, “Down with Louis XVIII” and off he went. It is not my fault. He was pink and fair-haired. His mother is dead. Have you noticed that all small children are fair? Why is that? He was the son of one of the brigands of the Loire, but children are not responsible for their father’s crimes. I remember when he was so high. He could not pronounce the letter “d”. He talked like a little bird. I remember people turning to look at him, he was so beautiful, pretty as a picture. I talked sternly to him and flourished my stick, but he knew that it was only a joke. When he came to my room in the morning I might be grumpy, but it was as though the sun had come in. There is no defence against those little creatures. They take you and hold you and never let you go. The truth is that there was no one more lovely than that child. You talk of your Lafayettes, your revolutionaries – they kill me. It can’t go on like this.’
He moved towards the still motionless Marius, to whom the doctor had returned, and again wrung his hands. His old lips moved mechanically, emitting disjointed words – ‘Heartless! The rebel! The scoundrel!’ – words loaded with reproach. By degrees coherence returned to him, but it seemed that he had scarcely strength to utter the words he spoke, so low and distant was his voice.
‘It makes no difference, I too shall die. To think that in all Paris there was no wench to make that wretched boy happy! A young fool who went and fought instead of enjoying life. And for what? For a republic, instead of dancing, as a young man should do. What use is it to be twenty years old? A republic, what imbecility! Woe to the mothers who make pretty boys. So he’s dead. Two funerals to go through the door of this house. So he did it for the glory of General Lamarque, that ranting swashbuckler – he got himself killed for the sake of a dead man. At twenty. It’s enough to drive one mad. And never looking round to see what he was leaving behind. So now the old men have to the alone. Well, so much the better, it’s what I hoped for, it will finish me off. I’m too old – a hundred, a thousand years old – I should have been dead long ago. This settles it. What good does it do to make him breathe ammonia and those other things you’re trying on him? You’re wasting your time, you fool of a doctor. He’s well and truly dead. I should know, being dead myself. He hasn’t done it by halves. Oh, this is a disgusting time, and that’s what I think of you all, your ideas, your systems, your masters, your oracles, your learned doctors, your rascally writers and threadbare philosophers – and all the revolutions which for sixty years have startled the crows in the Tuileries! And since without pity you got yourself killed I shall not grieve for your death – do you hear me, murderer?’
At this moment Marius’s eyes slowly opened and his gaze, in drowsy astonishment, rested upon Monsieur Gillenormand.
‘Marius!’ the old man cried. ‘Marius, my child, my beloved son! You’re living after all!’
And he fell fainting to the floor.
Book Four
Javert in Disarray
JAVERT HAD walked slowly away from the Rue de l’Homme-Armé, walking for the first time in his life with his head bowed and, also for the first time, with his hands behind his back. Until then Javert had adopted of Napoleon’s two attitudes only the one expressive of determination, arms folded over the chest; the attitude of indecision, hands behind the back, was unknown to him. Now a change had come over him; his whole person bore the imprint of uncertainty.
Walking through the silent streets, he took the shortest way to the Seine, finally arriving near the police-post in the Place du Châtelet, by the Pont Notre-Dame. Between the Pont Notre-Dame and the Pont-au-Change, on the one hand, and the Quai de la Mégisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs, the Seine forms a sort of pool traversed by a swift current. It is a place feared by boatmen. Nothing is more dangerous than that current, aggravated in those days by the piles of the bridges, which have since been done away with. The current speeds up formidably, swelling in waves which seem to be trying to sweep the bridges away. A man falling into the river at this point, even a strong swimmer, does not emerge.
Javert leaned with his elbows on the parapet, his chin resting on his hands. Something new, a revolution, a disaster, had occurred to him, and he had to think it over. He was suffering deeply. For some hours past he had ceased to be the simple creature he had been; his blinkered, one-track mind had been disturbed. There was a flaw in the crystal. He felt that his sense of duty was impaired, and he could not hide this from himself. When he had so unexpectedly encountered Jean Valjean on the edge of the river his feelings had been partly those of a wolf catching its prey and partly those of a dog finding its master.
He could see two ways ahead of him, and this appalled him, because hitherto he had never seen mor
e than one straight line. And the paths led in opposite directions. One ruled out the other. Which was the true one?
To owe his life to a man wanted by the law and to pay the debt in equal terms; to have accepted the words, ‘You may go,’ and now to say, ‘Go free,’ this was to sacrifice duty to personal motive, while at the same time feeling that the personal motive had a wider and perhaps higher application; it was to betray society while keeping faith with his own conscience. That this dilemma should have come upon him was what so overwhelmed him. He was amazed that Valjean should have shown him mercy, and that he should have shown Valjean mercy in return.
And now what was he to do? It would be bad to arrest Valjean, bad also to let him go. In the first case an officer of the law would be sinking to the level of a criminal, and in the second the criminal would be rising above the law. There are occasions when we find ourselves with an abyss on either side, and this was one of them.
His trouble was that he was forced to reflect – the very strength of his feelings made this unavoidable. Reflection was something to which he was unused, and he found it singularly painful. There is in it always an element of conflict, and this irritated him. Reflection, on any subject outside the narrow circle of his duties, had always been to him a useless and wearisome procedure; but now, after today’s happenings, it was torture. Yet he was obliged to study his shaken conscience and account for himself to himself.
What he had done made him shudder. Against all regulations, all social and legal organization, against the whole code he, Javert, had taken it upon himself to let a prisoner go. He had substituted private considerations for those of the community: was it not inexcusable? He trembled when he thought of this. What to do? Only one proper course lay open to him – to hurry back to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé and seize Valjean. He knew it well, but he could not do it.
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