Les Misérables
the spring to create the rose?
Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they
were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points
which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he
did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette
was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment
did he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He
had everything; what more could he desire? All,—is not that enough?
Jean Valjean’s personal affairs did not concern him.
And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast,
convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch: “I am
nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in
existence.”
Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had
passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished.
Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to
Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her
lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took her
flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her
hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean.
In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a
certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we
have just pointed out, he felt a _quid divinum_ in that man. But do
what he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly
forced to fall back upon this: the man was a convict; that is to say, a
being who has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower
than the very lowest rung. After the very last of men comes the
convict. The convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the
living. The law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of
which it can deprive a man.
Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system, though
he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the
subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all
progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that
which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law
and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to
dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by
the word _vindicte_. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of
the written law should be followed by eternal suffering, and he
accepted, as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still
stood at this point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since
his nature was good, and, at bottom, wholly formed of latent progress.
In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and
repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict. That word was for
him like the sound of the trump on the Day of Judgment; and, after
having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture
had been to turn away his head. _Vade retro_.
Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact, while
interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said:
“You are confessing me,” had not, nevertheless, put to him two or three
decisive questions.
It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that
he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic? The barricade? Javert?
Who knows where these revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did
not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius,
after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him
back?
Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to
stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have
asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way to
these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister
situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side
of our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light
might have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean,
and who knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as
far as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not
have lingered behind it on the brow of that angel? The spattering of a
lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture
where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the
reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve
the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius
had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses
rather than to gain further light.
In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes to Jean
Valjean.
That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he
dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate
the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened
forever by it.
In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth, come
into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending perplexity to
Marius.
He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable
questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable
and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too
good, too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had
led him to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be
touched. He had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely
rejected Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that
is what he should have done, and have freed his house from that man.
He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind of emotions
which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased
with himself.
What was he to do now? Jean Valjean’s visits were profoundly repugnant
to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the
man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down, he did
not wish to penetrate deeply; he did not wish to sound himself. He had
promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise; Jean
Valjean held his promise; one must keep one’s word even to a convict,
above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette. In short,
he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him.
Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing
from one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound
trouble.
It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love is
a talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it.
However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as
candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing; he talked of her
childhood and her youth, and he became more and more convinced that
that convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a
man can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and
had surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected
that lily.
BOOK EIGHTH—FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT
CHAPTER I—THE LOWER CHAMBER
On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the
carriage gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received
him. Basque was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he
had received his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a
servant: “You will watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives.”
Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to
approach him:
“Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires
to go upstairs or to remain below?”
“I will remain below,” replied Jean Valjean.
Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the
waiting-room and said:
“I will go and inform Madame.”
The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the
ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the
street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated
window.
This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the
feather-duster, the pope’s head brush, and the broom. The dust rested
tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A
fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented
with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room,
which was small and low-ceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty
bottles piled up in one corner.
The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off
in large flakes. At one end there was a chimney-piece painted in black
with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there; which indicated that
Jean Valjean’s reply: “I will remain below,” had been foreseen.
Two armchairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between
the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread
than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet.
The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight
falling through the window.
Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He
threw himself into one of the armchairs.
Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimney-piece and retired.
Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast,
perceived neither Basque nor the candle.
All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing
beside him.
He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there.
He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he
was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her
soul.
“Well,” exclaimed Cosette, “father, I knew that you were peculiar, but
I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that
you wish me to receive you here.”
“Yes, it is my wish.”
“I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a
scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father.”
And she offered him her cheek.
Jean Valjean remained motionless.
“You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind,
I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is.”
And she presented her other cheek.
Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to
the pavement.
“This is becoming serious,” said Cosette. “What have I done to you? I
declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with
us.”
“I have dined.”
“That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you.
Grandfathers are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me
to the drawing-room. Immediately.”
“Impossible.”
Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to
questioning.
“But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to
see me. It’s horrible here.”
“Thou knowest . . .”
Jean Valjean caught himself up.
“You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks.”
Cosette struck her tiny hands together.
“Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of
this?”
Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he
occasionally had recourse:
“You wished to be Madame. You are so.”
“Not for you, father.”
“Do not call me father.”
“What?”
“Call me ‘Monsieur Jean.’ ‘Jean,’ if you like.”
“You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? ‘Monsieur Jean’?
What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren’t they? what has
taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won’t live with us! And