Les Misérables
A moment later, the carriage, which had descended by the inclined plane
of the watering-place, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back
seat, and Javert seated himself on the front seat beside Jean Valjean.
The door slammed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ascending the
quays in the direction of the Bastille.
They quitted the quays and entered the streets. The coachman, a black
form on his box, whipped up his thin horses. A glacial silence reigned
in the carriage. Marius, motionless, with his body resting in the
corner, and his head drooping on his breast, his arms hanging, his legs
stiff, seemed to be awaiting only a coffin; Jean Valjean seemed made of
shadow, and Javert of stone, and in that vehicle full of night, whose
interior, every time that it passed in front of a street lantern,
appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of
lightning, chance had united and seemed to be bringing face to face the
three forms of tragic immobility, the corpse, the spectre, and the
statue.
CHAPTER X—RETURN OF THE SON WHO WAS PRODIGAL OF HIS LIFE
At every jolt over the pavement, a drop of blood trickled from Marius’
hair.
Night had fully closed in when the carriage arrived at No. 6, Rue des
Filles-du-Calvaire.
Javert was the first to alight; he made sure with one glance of the
number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten
iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr
confronting each other, he gave a violent peal. The gate opened a
little way and Javert gave it a push. The porter half made his
appearance yawning, vaguely awake, and with a candle in his hand.
Everyone in the house was asleep. People go to bed betimes in the
Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old
quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as
children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily
under their coverlet.
In the meantime Jean Valjean and the coachman had taken Marius out of
the carriage, Jean Valjean supporting him under the armpits, and the
coachman under the knees.
As they thus bore Marius, Jean Valjean slipped his hand under the
latter’s clothes, which were broadly rent, felt his breast, and assured
himself that his heart was still beating. It was even beating a little
less feebly, as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a
certain fresh access of life.
Javert addressed the porter in a tone befitting the government, and the
presence of the porter of a factious person.
“Some person whose name is Gillenormand?”
“Here. What do you want with him?”
“His son is brought back.”
“His son?” said the porter stupidly.
“He is dead.”
Jean Valjean, who, soiled and tattered, stood behind Javert, and whom
the porter was surveying with some horror, made a sign to him with his
head that this was not so.
The porter did not appear to understand either Javert’s words or Jean
Valjean’s sign.
Javert continued:
“He went to the barricade, and here he is.”
“To the barricade?” ejaculated the porter.
“He has got himself killed. Go waken his father.”
The porter did not stir.
“Go along with you!” repeated Javert.
And he added:
“There will be a funeral here to-morrow.”
For Javert, the usual incidents of the public highway were
categorically classed, which is the beginning of foresight and
surveillance, and each contingency had its own compartment; all
possible facts were arranged in drawers, as it were, whence they
emerged on occasion, in variable quantities; in the street, uproar,
revolt, carnival, and funeral.
The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette;
Nicolette roused great-aunt Gillenormand.
As for the grandfather, they let him sleep on, thinking that he would
hear about the matter early enough in any case.
Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other
parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old
sofa in M. Gillenormand’s antechamber; and while Basque went in search
of a physician, and while Nicolette opened the linen-presses, Jean
Valjean felt Javert touch him on the shoulder. He understood and
descended the stairs, having behind him the step of Javert who was
following him.
The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their
arrival, in terrified somnolence.
They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box.
“Inspector Javert,” said Jean, “grant me yet another favor.”
“What is it?” demanded Javert roughly.
“Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like
with me.”
Javert remained silent for a few moments, with his chin drawn back into
the collar of his great-coat, then he lowered the glass and front:
“Driver,” said he, “Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7.”
CHAPTER XI—CONCUSSION IN THE ABSOLUTE
They did not open their lips again during the whole space of their
ride.
What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun; to warn
Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some
other useful information, to take, if he could, certain final measures.
As for himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over; he
had been seized by Javert and had not resisted; any other man than
himself in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts
connected with the rope which Thénardier had given him, and of the bars
of the first cell that he should enter; but, let us impress it upon the
reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound
hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against
himself.
Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may
contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean
Valjean.
At the entrance to the Rue de l’Homme Armé, the carriage halted, the
way being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and
Jean Valjean alighted.
The coachman humbly represented to “monsieur l’Inspecteur,” that the
Utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the
assassinated man, and with mire from the assassin. That is the way he
understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same
time, drawing his certificate book from his pocket, he begged the
inspector to have the goodness to write him “a bit of an attestation.”
Javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him, and
said:
“How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive?”
“It comes to seven hours and a quarter,” replied the man, “and my
velvet was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector.”
Javert drew four napoleons from his pocket and dismissed the carriage.
Jean Valjean fancied that it was Javert’s intention to conduct him on
foot to the post of the Blancs-Manteaux or to the post of the Archives,
both of which are close at hand.
They entered the street. It was deserted as usual. Javert followed Jean
Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened.
“It is well,” said Javert. “Go upstairs.”
He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an
effort in speaking in this manner:
“I will wait for you here.”
Jean Valjean looked at Javert. This mode of procedure was but little in
accord with Javert’s habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised
that Javert should now have a sort of haughty confidence in him, the
confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of
its claws, seeing that Jean Valjean had made up his mind to surrender
himself and to make an end of it. He pushed open the door, entered the
house, called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord
from his couch: “It is I!” and ascended the stairs.
On arriving at the first floor, he paused. All sorrowful roads have
their stations. The window on the landing-place, which was a
sash-window, was open. As in many ancient houses, the staircase got its
light from without and had a view on the street. The street-lantern,
situated directly opposite, cast some light on the stairs, and thus
effected some economy in illumination.
Jean Valjean, either for the sake of getting the air, or mechanically,
thrust his head out of this window. He leaned out over the street. It
is short, and the lantern lighted it from end to end. Jean Valjean was
overwhelmed with amazement; there was no longer any one there.
Javert had taken his departure.
CHAPTER XII—THE GRANDFATHER
Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the drawing-room, as he
still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been
placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened
thither. Aunt Gillenormand had risen.
Aunt Gillenormand went and came, in affright, wringing her hands and
incapable of doing anything but saying: “Heavens! is it possible?” At
times she added: “Everything will be covered with blood.” When her
first horror had passed off, a certain philosophy of the situation
penetrated her mind, and took form in the exclamation: “It was bound to
end in this way!” She did not go so far as: “I told you so!” which is
customary on this sort of occasion. At the physician’s orders, a camp
bed had been prepared beside the sofa. The doctor examined Marius, and
after having found that his pulse was still beating, that the wounded
man had no very deep wound on his breast, and that the blood on the
corners of his lips proceeded from his nostrils, he had him placed flat
on the bed, without a pillow, with his head on the same level as his
body, and even a trifle lower, and with his bust bare in order to
facilitate respiration. Mademoiselle Gillenormand, on perceiving that
they were undressing Marius, withdrew. She set herself to telling her
beads in her own chamber.
The trunk had not suffered any internal injury; a bullet, deadened by
the pocket-book, had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a
hideous laceration, which was of no great depth, and consequently, not
dangerous. The long, underground journey had completed the dislocation
of the broken collar-bone, and the disorder there was serious. The arms
had been slashed with sabre cuts. Not a single scar disfigured his
face; but his head was fairly covered with cuts; what would be the
result of these wounds on the head? Would they stop short at the hairy
cuticle, or would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be
decided. A grave symptom was that they had caused a swoon, and that
people do not always recover from such swoons. Moreover, the wounded
man had been exhausted by hemorrhage. From the waist down, the
barricade had protected the lower part of the body from injury.
Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages; Nicolette
sewed them, Basque rolled them. As lint was lacking, the doctor, for
the time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside
the bed, three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical
instruments lay spread out. The doctor bathed Marius’ face and hair
with cold water. A full pail was reddened in an instant. The porter,
candle in hand, lighted them.
The doctor seemed to be pondering sadly. From time to time, he made a
negative sign with his head, as though replying to some question which
he had inwardly addressed to himself.
A bad sign for the sick man are these mysterious dialogues of the
doctor with himself.
At the moment when the doctor was wiping Marius’ face, and lightly
touching his still closed eyes with his finger, a door opened at the
end of the drawing-room, and a long, pallid figure made its appearance.
This was the grandfather.
The revolt had, for the past two days, deeply agitated, enraged and