





The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish
night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister
Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this
slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister
had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending
over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on
account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all
objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M.
Madeleine stood before her; he had just entered silently.

“Is it you, Mr. Mayor?” she exclaimed.

He replied in a low voice:—

“How is that poor woman?”


“Not so bad just now; but we have been very uneasy.”


She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill
the day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that
the mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared
not question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he
had not come from there.

“All that is good,” said he; “you were right not to undeceive her.”


“Yes,” responded the sister; “but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and
will not see her child. What shall we say to her?”


He reflected for a moment.

“God will inspire us,” said he.

“But we cannot tell a lie,” murmured the sister, half aloud.

It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M.
Madeleine’s face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it.

“Good God, sir!” she exclaimed; “what has happened to you? Your hair is
perfectly white!”


“White!” said he.

Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out
the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether
a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took
the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:—

“Well!”


He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on
something else.

The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a
glimpse in all this.

He inquired:—

“Can I see her?”


“Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?”
said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question.

“Of course; but it will take two or three days at least.”


“If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time,” went on the
sister, timidly, “she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had
returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when
the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just
come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie.”


M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his
calm gravity:—

“No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste.”


The nun did not appear to notice this word “perhaps,” which
communicated an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor’s
speech. She replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:—

“In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter.”


He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of
which might awaken the sick woman; then he entered Fantine’s chamber,
approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her
breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar
to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are
watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned
to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of
ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which
transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness; her
cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her
youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they
remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an
indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her
away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be
seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was an
invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather
something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of
dying.

The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and
seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time.
The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in
which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul.

M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing
in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months
before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her in
that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude—she
sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair
was gray and his was white.

The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his
finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom
he must enjoin to silence.

She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile:—

“And Cosette?”







She made no movement of either surprise or of joy; she was joy itself.
That simple question, “And Cosette?” was put with so profound a faith,
with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of disquiet and of
doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued:—

“I knew that you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I have seen
you for a long, long time. I have been following you with my eyes all
night long. You were in a glory, and you had around you all sorts of
celestial forms.”


He raised his glance to the crucifix.

“But,” she resumed, “tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place
her on my bed against the moment of my waking?”


He made some mechanical reply which he was never afterwards able to
recall.

Fortunately, the doctor had been warned, and he now made his
appearance. He came to the aid of M. Madeleine.

“Calm yourself, my child,” said the doctor; “your child is here.”


Fantine’s eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped
her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to
prayer in the way of violence and tenderness.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “bring her to me!”


Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little
child who is carried.

“Not yet,” said the doctor, “not just now. You still have some fever.
The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be
cured first.”


She interrupted him impetuously:—

“But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that
doctor is! The idea! I want to see my child!”


“You see,” said the doctor, “how excited you become. So long as you are
in this state I shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough
to see her; it is necessary that you should live for her. When you are
reasonable, I will bring her to you myself.”


The poor mother bowed her head.

“I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should
never have spoken as I have just done; so many misfortunes have
happened to me, that I sometimes do not know what I am saying. I
understand you; you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like,
but I swear to you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter.
I have been seeing her; I have not taken my eyes from her since
yesterday evening. Do you know? If she were brought to me now, I should
talk to her very gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I
should desire to see my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly
from Montfermeil? I am not angry. I know well that I am about to be
happy. All night long I have seen white things, and persons who smiled
at me. When Monsieur le Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I
have no longer any fever; I am well. I am perfectly conscious that
there is nothing the matter with me any more; but I am going to behave
as though I were ill, and not stir, to please these ladies here. When
it is seen that I am very calm, they will say, ‘She must have her
child.’”


M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards
him; she was making a visible effort to be calm and “very good,” as she
expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in
order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty
about bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she
could not refrain from questioning M. Madeleine.

“Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were
to go and get her for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the
journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten
me by this time, poor darling! Children have no memories. They are like
birds. A child sees one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, and
thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those
Thénardiers keep her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew
how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during
all the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I am happy. Oh,
how I should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le
Maire? Is not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in
that diligence! Could she not be brought for just one little instant?
She might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me; you are the
master; it could be so if you chose!”


He took her hand. “Cosette is beautiful,” he said, “Cosette is well.
You shall see her soon; but calm yourself; you are talking with too
much vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the
clothes, and that makes you cough.”


In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word.

Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too
passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of
inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things.

“Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure
parties in summer. Are the Thénardiers prosperous? There are not many
travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs is a sort of a
cook-shop.”


M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with
anxiety; it was evident that he had come to tell her things before
which his mind now hesitated. The doctor, having finished his visit,
retired. Sister Simplice remained alone with them.

But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:—

“I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!”


She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath,
and began to listen with rapture.

There was a child playing in the yard—the child of the portress or of
some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always
occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious
stage-setting of mournful scenes. The child—a little girl—was going and
coming, running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her
voice. Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was
this little girl whom Fantine heard singing.

“Oh!” she resumed, “it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice.”


The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine
listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M.
Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: “How wicked that doctor is not
to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance, that
he has.”


But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She
continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: “How
happy we are going to be! We shall have a little garden the very first
thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will play in the
garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell.
She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then
she will take her first communion. Ah! when will she take her first
communion?”


She began to reckon on her fingers.

“One, two, three, four—she is seven years old. In five years she will
have a white veil, and openwork stockings; she will look like a little
woman. O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I
think of my daughter’s first communion!”


She began to laugh.

He had released Fantine’s hand. He listened to her words as one listens
to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind
absorbed in reflection which had no bottom. All at once she ceased
speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine
had become terrible.

She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to
a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her
face, which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she
seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something
alarming at the other extremity of the room.

“Good God!” he exclaimed; “what ails you, Fantine?”


She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which
she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the
other made him a sign to look behind him.

He turned, and beheld Javert.






This is what had taken place.

The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted
the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set
out again by the mail-wagon, in which he had engaged his place. A
little before six o’clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M.,
and his first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to
enter the infirmary and see Fantine.

However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of
Assizes, when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock,
had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of M.
sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least
modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter,
and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu,
who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The district-attorney’s
persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one,
of the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the
defence had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in
establishing that, in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine,
that is to say, of the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had
been thoroughly altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now
only an innocent man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not
very fresh, unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the
President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence,
and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.

Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean;
and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine.

Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the
district-attorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred
“as to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M.”
This phrase, in which there was a great deal of _of_, is the
district-attorney’s, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his
report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off,
the President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all,
take its course. And then, when all was said, although the President
was a kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time,
a devoted and almost an ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to
hear the Mayor of M. sur M. say the _Emperor_, and not _Bonaparte_,
when alluding to the landing at Cannes.

The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The
district-attorney forwarded it to M. sur M. by a special messenger, at
full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert.

The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. immediately
after having given his deposition.

Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the
order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner.

The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in
two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order
of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words:
“Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor
of M. sur M., who, in this day’s session of the court, was recognized
as the liberated convict, Jean Valjean.”


Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the
moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have
divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air
the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray hair
was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted the
stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly
acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the
moment, would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under
his left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted
agitation.

Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or
in his uniform; methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of
his coat.

That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was
indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those
emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes.

He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring
post for a corporal and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the
courtyard, had had Fantine’s room pointed out to him by the portress,
who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men
inquiring for the mayor.

On arriving at Fantine’s chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed the
door open with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and
entered.

Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the half-open
door, his hat on his head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which
was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head
of his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen.

Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being
perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M.
Madeleine turn round.

The instant that Madeleine’s glance encountered Javert’s glance,
Javert, without stirring, without moving from his post, without
approaching him, became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible
as joy.

It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul.

The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all
that was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having
been stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in
some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a few
moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride
at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of
having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert’s content shone
forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread
that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied
face can afford were there.

Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly
to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his
presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light,
and truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him
and around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the
case judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the
stars; he was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its
thunders, he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the
absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed
in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty,
brilliant, he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of
a ferocious archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was
accomplishing caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible
in his clenched fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime,
vice, rebellion, perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he
smiled, and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint
Michael.

Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him.

Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things
which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when
hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human
conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues
which have one vice,—error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in
the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously
venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his
formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who
triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face,
wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the
good.






Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn
her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only
thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get her. She
could not endure that terrible face; she felt her life quitting her;
she hid her face in both hands, and shrieked in her anguish:—

“Monsieur Madeleine, save me!”


Jean Valjean—we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise—had risen.
He said to Fantine in the gentlest and calmest of voices:—

“Be at ease; it is not for you that he is come.”


Then he addressed Javert, and said:—

“I know what you want.”


Javert replied:—

“Be quick about it!”


There lay in the inflection of voice which accompanied these words
something indescribably fierce and frenzied. Javert did not say, “Be
quick about it!” he said “Bequiabouit.”


No orthography can do justice to the accent with which it was uttered:
it was no longer a human word: it was a roar.

He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the
matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean
was a sort of mysterious combatant, who was not to be laid hands upon,
a wrestler in the dark whom he had had in his grasp for the last five
years, without being able to throw him. This arrest was not a
beginning, but an end. He confined himself to saying, “Be quick about
it!”


As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step; he hurled at Jean
Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grappling-hook, and with
which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him.

It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very
marrow of her bones two months previously.

At Javert’s exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the
mayor was there; what had she to fear?

Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:—

“See here now! Art thou coming?”


The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the
nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of “thou” be
addressed? To her only. She shuddered.

Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented
that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest
deliriums of fever.

She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she
saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming
to an end.

Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar.

“Monsieur le Maire!” shrieked Fantine.

Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all
his gums.

“There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here!”


Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the
collar of his coat. He said:—

“Javert—”


Javert interrupted him: “Call me Mr. Inspector.”


“Monsieur,” said Jean Valjean, “I should like to say a word to you in
private.”


“Aloud! Say it aloud!” replied Javert; “people are in the habit of
talking aloud to me.”


Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone:—

“I have a request to make of you—”


“I tell you to speak loud.”


“But you alone should hear it—”


“What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen.”


Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low
voice:—

“Grant me three days’ grace! three days in which to go and fetch the
child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You
shall accompany me if you choose.”


“You are making sport of me!” cried Javert. “Come now, I did not think
you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run
away! You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature’s
child! Ah! Ah! That’s good! That’s really capital!”


Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling.

“My child!” she cried, “to go and fetch my child! She is not here,
then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur
Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire!”


Javert stamped his foot.

“And now there’s the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy?
It’s a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where
women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going
to change all that; it is high time!”


He stared intently at Fantine, and added, once more taking into his
grasp Jean Valjean’s cravat, shirt and collar:—

“I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine and that there is no
Monsieur le Maire. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean
Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That’s what there is!”


Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her
stiffened arms and on both hands: she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed
at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to
speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth
chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands
convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then
suddenly fell back on her pillow.

Her head struck the head-board of the bed and fell forwards on her
breast, with gaping mouth and staring, sightless eyes.

She was dead.

Jean Valjean laid his hand upon the detaining hand of Javert, and
opened it as he would have opened the hand of a baby; then he said to
Javert:—

“You have murdered that woman.”


“Let’s have an end of this!” shouted Javert, in a fury; “I am not here
to listen to argument. Let us economize all that; the guard is below;
march on instantly, or you’ll get the thumb-screws!”


In the corner of the room stood an old iron bedstead, which was in a
decidedly decrepit state, and which served the sisters as a camp-bed
when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this
bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the head-piece, which was already in a
dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the
principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated
towards the door. Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked
slowly up to Fantine’s couch. When he arrived there he turned and said
to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible:—

“I advise you not to disturb me at this moment.”


One thing is certain, and that is, that Javert trembled.

It did occur to him to summon the guard, but Jean Valjean might avail
himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped
his cane by the small end, and leaned against the door-post, without
removing his eyes from Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and
his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of
Fantine, which lay extended there. He remained thus, mute, absorbed,
evidently with no further thought of anything connected with this life.
Upon his face and in his attitude there was nothing but inexpressible
pity. After a few moments of this meditation he bent towards Fantine,
and spoke to her in a low voice.

What did he say to her? What could this man, who was reproved, say to
that woman, who was dead? What words were those? No one on earth heard
them. Did the dead woman hear them? There are some touching illusions
which are, perhaps, sublime realities. The point as to which there
exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the
incident, often said that at the moment that Jean Valjean whispered in
Fantine’s ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those
pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the
tomb.

Jean Valjean took Fantine’s head in both his hands, and arranged it on
the pillow as a mother might have done for her child; then he tied the
string of her chemise, and smoothed her hair back under her cap. That
done, he closed her eyes.

Fantine’s face seemed strangely illuminated at that moment.

Death, that signifies entrance into the great light.

Fantine’s hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt
down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it.

Then he rose, and turned to Javert.

“Now,” said he, “I am at your disposal.”







Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison.

The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an
extraordinary commotion in M. sur M. We are sorry that we cannot
conceal the fact, that at the single word, “He was a convict,” nearly
every one deserted him. In less than two hours all the good that he had
done had been forgotten, and he was nothing but a “convict from the
galleys.” It is just to add that the details of what had taken place at
Arras were not yet known. All day long conversations like the following
were to be heard in all quarters of the town:—

“You don’t know? He was a liberated convict!” “Who?” “The mayor.” “Bah!
M. Madeleine?” “Yes.” “Really?” “His name was not Madeleine at all; he
had a frightful name, Béjean, Bojean, Boujean.” “Ah! Good God!” “He has
been arrested.” “Arrested!” “In prison, in the city prison, while
waiting to be transferred.” “Until he is transferred!” “He is to be
transferred!” “Where is he to be taken?” “He will be tried at the
Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago.” “Well! I
suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. He
refused the cross; he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came
across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that.”


The “drawing-rooms” particularly abounded in remarks of this nature.

One old lady, a subscriber to the _Drapeau Blanc_, made the following
remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom:—

“I am not sorry. It will be a lesson to the Bonapartists!”


It was thus that the phantom which had been called M. Madeleine
vanished from M. sur M. Only three or four persons in all the town
remained faithful to his memory. The old portress who had served him
was among the number.

On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her
lodge, still in a thorough fright, and absorbed in sad reflections. The
factory had been closed all day, the carriage gate was bolted, the
street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns,
Sister Perpétue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body
of Fantine.

Towards the hour when M. Madeleine was accustomed to return home, the
good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of M.
Madeleine’s chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every
evening to go up to his quarters; then she hung the key on the nail
whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one
side, as though she was expecting him. Then she sat down again on her
chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old
woman had done all this without being conscious of it.

It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from
her reverie, and exclaimed, “Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his
key on the nail!”


At that moment the small window in the lodge opened, a hand passed
through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at
the candle which was burning there.

The portress raised her eyes, and stood there with gaping mouth, and a
shriek which she confined to her throat.

She knew that hand, that arm, the sleeve of that coat.

It was M. Madeleine.

It was several seconds before she could speak; she had a _seizure_, as
she said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards.

“Good God, Monsieur le Maire,” she cried at last, “I thought you were—”


She stopped; the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in
respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire
to her.

He finished her thought.

“In prison,” said he. “I was there; I broke a bar of one of the
windows; I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am
going up to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with
that poor woman, no doubt.”


The old woman obeyed in all haste.

He gave her no orders; he was quite sure that she would guard him
better than he should guard himself.

No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard
without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, a
pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been
searched, and his latch-key must have been taken from him. This point
was never explained.

He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the
top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door
with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by
feeling, then returned for his candle and re-entered his room.

It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window
could be seen from the street.

He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed
which had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder
of the night before last remained. The portress had “done up” his room;
only she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the
two iron ends of the cudgel and the forty-sou piece which had been
blackened by the fire.

He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote: “These are the two tips of
my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais,
which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes,” and he arranged this piece
of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were
the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he
pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the
strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks.
He betrayed neither haste nor agitation; and while he was wrapping up
the Bishop’s candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was
probably the prison-bread which he had carried with him in his flight.

This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room
when the authorities made an examination later on.

There came two taps at the door.

“Come in,” said he.

It was Sister Simplice.

She was pale; her eyes were red; the candle which she carried trembled
in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that
however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our
very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface. The emotions of
that day had turned the nun into a woman once more. She had wept, and
she was trembling.

Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he
handed to the nun, saying, “Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le
Curé.”


The paper was not folded. She cast a glance upon it.

“You can read it,” said he.

She read:—

“I beg Monsieur le Curé to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me.
He will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of
the funeral of the woman who died yesterday. The rest is for the poor.”


The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few
inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however:—

“Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor,
unhappy woman?”


“No,” said he; “I am pursued; it would only end in their arresting me
in that room, and that would disturb her.”


He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the
staircase. They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old
portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones:—

“My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has
entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not
even left the door.”


A man responded:—

“But there is a light in that room, nevertheless.”


They recognized Javert’s voice.

The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner
of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed
himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the
table.

The door opened.

Javert entered.

The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were
audible in the corridor.

The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying.

The candle was on the chimney-piece, and gave but very little light.

Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement.

It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his
element, the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority.
This was impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor
restriction. In his eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was
the chief of all; he was religious, superficial and correct on this
point as on all others. In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never
makes a mistake; a nun was a creature who never sins; they were souls
walled in from this world, with a single door which never opened except
to allow the truth to pass through.

On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire.

But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him
imperiously in the opposite direction. His second movement was to
remain and to venture on at least one question.

This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert
knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence.

“Sister,” said he, “are you alone in this room?”


A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though
she should faint.

The sister raised her eyes and answered:—

“Yes.”


“Then,” resumed Javert, “you will excuse me if I persist; it is my
duty; you have not seen a certain person—a man—this evening? He has
escaped; we are in search of him—that Jean Valjean; you have not seen
him?”


The sister replied:—

“No.”


She lied. She had lied twice in succession, one after the other,
without hesitation, promptly, as a person does when sacrificing
herself.

“Pardon me,” said Javert, and he retired with a deep bow.

O sainted maid! you left this world many years ago; you have rejoined
your sisters, the virgins, and your brothers, the angels, in the light;
may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise!

The sister’s affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did
not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been
extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table.

An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly
departing from M. sur M. in the direction of Paris. That man was Jean
Valjean. It has been established by the testimony of two or three
carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed
in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out.
But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days
before, leaving behind him nothing but his blouse. Perhaps that was the
one.

One last word about Fantine.

We all have a mother,—the earth. Fantine was given back to that mother.

The curé thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in
reserving as much money as possible from what Jean Valjean had left for
the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the
town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced
it to that strictly necessary form known as the pauper’s grave.

So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs
to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God
knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade,
among the first bones that came to hand; she was subjected to the
promiscuousness of ashes. She was thrown into the public grave. Her
grave resembled her bed.

[THE END OF VOLUME I “FANTINE”]

[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Two]

[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Two]




COSETTE




