Les Misérables
The old man’s head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times;
the folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the
weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened
it.
The good women of the quarter said: “He is an innocent.” The children
followed him and laughed.
BOOK NINTH—SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER I—PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY
It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How
all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false
object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty!
Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame
Marius.
Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage, had put no questions
to M. Fauchelevent, and, since that time, he had feared to put any to
Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed
himself to be drawn. He had often said to himself that he had done
wrong in making that concession to despair. He had confined himself to
gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him,
as much as possible, from Cosette’s mind. He had, in a manner, always
placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this
way, she would not perceive nor think of the latter. It was more than
effacement, it was an eclipse.
Marius did what he considered necessary and just. He thought that he
had serious reasons which the reader has already seen, and others which
will be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without
harshness, but without weakness.
Chance having ordained that he should encounter, in a case which he had
argued, a former employee of the Laffitte establishment, he had
acquired mysterious information, without seeking it, which he had not
been able, it is true, to probe, out of respect for the secret which he
had promised to guard, and out of consideration for Jean Valjean’s
perilous position. He believed at that moment that he had a grave duty
to perform: the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some
one whom he sought with all possible discretion. In the meanwhile, he
abstained from touching that money.
As for Cosette, she had not been initiated into any of these secrets;
but it would be harsh to condemn her also.
There existed between Marius and her an all-powerful magnetism, which
caused her to do, instinctively and almost mechanically, what Marius
wished. She was conscious of Marius’ will in the direction of “Monsieur
Jean,” she conformed to it. Her husband had not been obliged to say
anything to her; she yielded to the vague but clear pressure of his
tacit intentions, and obeyed blindly. Her obedience in this instance
consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to
make any effort to accomplish this. Without her knowing why herself,
and without his having any cause to accuse her of it, her soul had
become so wholly her husband’s that that which was shrouded in gloom in
Marius’ mind became overcast in hers.
Let us not go too far, however; in what concerns Jean Valjean, this
forgetfulness and obliteration were merely superficial. She was rather
heedless than forgetful. At bottom, she was sincerely attached to the
man whom she had so long called her father; but she loved her husband
still more dearly. This was what had somewhat disturbed the balance of
her heart, which leaned to one side only.
It sometimes happened that Cosette spoke of Jean Valjean and expressed
her surprise. Then Marius calmed her: “He is absent, I think. Did not
he say that he was setting out on a journey?”—“That is true,” thought
Cosette. “He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for
so long.” Two or three times she despatched Nicolette to inquire in the
Rue de l’Homme Armé whether M. Jean had returned from his journey. Jean
Valjean caused the answer “no” to be given.
Cosette asked nothing more, since she had but one need on earth,
Marius.
Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also been
absent. They had been to Vernon. Marius had taken Cosette to his
father’s grave.
Marius gradually won Cosette away from Jean Valjean. Cosette allowed
it.
Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the
ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach
as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have
elsewhere said, “looks before her.” Nature divides living beings into
those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are
departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving
towards the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old,
and involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first
insensible, increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The
boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It
is no fault of theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid
lights, love. Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of
each other, but there is no longer a close connection. Young people
feel the cooling off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not
blame these poor children.
CHAPTER II—LAST FLICKERINGS OF A LAMP WITHOUT OIL
One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the
street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where
Gavroche had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the
6th of June; he remained there a few moments, then went upstairs again.
This was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he
did not leave his apartment. On the day after that, he did not leave
his bed.
His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or
potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and
exclaimed:
“But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!”
“Certainly I did,” replied Jean Valjean.
“The plate is quite full.”
“Look at the water jug. It is empty.”
“That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have
eaten.”
“Well,” said Jean Valjean, “what if I felt hungry only for water?”
“That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it
is called fever.”
“I will eat to-morrow.”
“Or at Trinity day. Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say: ‘I will eat
to-morrow’? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it! My
lady-finger potatoes were so good!”
Jean Valjean took the old woman’s hand:
“I promise you that I will eat them,” he said, in his benevolent voice.
“I am not pleased with you,” replied the portress.
Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman. There
are streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to
which no one ever comes. He was in one of those streets and one of
those houses.
While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few
sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite
his bed. That gibbet is always good to look at.
A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He
still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband:—“The good man
upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last
long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won’t get it out of my
head that his daughter has made a bad marriage.”
The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty:
“If he’s rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go
without. If he has no doctor he will die.”
“And if he has one?”
“He will die,” said the porter.
The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her
pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she
grumbled:
“It’s a shame. Such a neat old man! He’s as white as a chicken.”
She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of
the street; she took it upon herself to request him to come upstairs.
“It’s on the second floor,” said she. “You have only to enter. As the
good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked.”
The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him.
When he came down again the portress interrogated him:
“Well, doctor?”
“Your sick man is very ill indeed.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost
some person who is dear to him. People die of that.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me that he was in good health.”
“Shall you come again, doctor?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor. “But some one else besides must come.”
CHAPTER III—A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT’S
CART
One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his
elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath
was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was
weaker than he had ever been before. Then, no doubt under the pressure
of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into
a sitting posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman’s
clothes. As he no longer went out, he had returned to them and
preferred them. He was obliged to pause many times while dressing
himself; merely putting his arms through his waistcoat made the
perspiration trickle from his forehead.
Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in
order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible.
He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette’s outfit.
He spread it out on his bed.
The Bishop’s candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece. He
took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks.
Then, although it was still broad daylight,—it was summer,—he lighted
them. In the same way candles are to be seen lighted in broad daylight
in chambers where there is a corpse.
Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another
exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary
fatigue which expends the strength only to renew it; it was the remnant
of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away
drop by drop in overwhelming efforts and which will never be renewed.
The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of
that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he
had read Cosette’s reversed writing on the blotting book. He caught
sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself. He was
eighty years old; before Marius’ marriage, he would have hardly been
taken for fifty; that year had counted for thirty. What he bore on his
brow was no longer the wrinkles of age, it was the mysterious mark of
death. The hollowing of that pitiless nail could be felt there. His
cheeks were pendulous; the skin of his face had the color which would
lead one to think that it already had earth upon it; the corners of his
mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He
gazed into space with an air of reproach; one would have said that he
was one of those grand tragic beings who have cause to complain of some
one.
He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow
no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on
the soul like a clot of despair.
Night had come. He laboriously dragged a table and the old armchair to
the fireside, and placed upon the table a pen, some ink and some paper.
That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he
was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully
towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught.
As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the point