Les Misérables
While talking, the man contrived to tear and pull off behind, without
the assassin perceiving it, a bit of the assassinated man’s coat. A
document for conviction, you understand; a means of recovering the
trace of things and of bringing home the crime to the criminal. He put
this document for conviction in his pocket. After which he opened the
grating, made the man go out with his embarrassment on his back, closed
the grating again, and ran off, not caring to be mixed up with the
remainder of the adventure and above all, not wishing to be present
when the assassin threw the assassinated man into the river. Now you
comprehend. The man who was carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean; the
one who had the key is speaking to you at this moment; and the piece of
the coat . . .”
Thénardier completed his phrase by drawing from his pocket, and
holding, on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and
his two forefingers, a strip of torn black cloth, all covered with dark
spots.
Marius had sprung to his feet, pale, hardly able to draw his breath,
with his eyes riveted on the fragment of black cloth, and, without
uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he
retreated to the wall and fumbled with his right hand along the wall
for a key which was in the lock of a cupboard near the chimney.
He found the key, opened the cupboard, plunged his arm into it without
looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which
Thénardier still held outspread.
But Thénardier continued:
“Monsieur le Baron, I have the strongest of reasons for believing that
the assassinated young man was an opulent stranger lured into a trap by
Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money.”
“The young man was myself, and here is the coat!” cried Marius, and he
flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood.
Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thénardier, he crouched
down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered
skirt. The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat.
Thénardier was petrified.
This is what he thought: “I’m struck all of a heap.”
Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant.
He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thénardier,
presenting to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled with
bank-notes for five hundred and a thousand francs.
“You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain.
You came to accuse that man, you have only justified him; you wanted to
ruin him, you have only succeeded in glorifying him. And it is you who
are the thief! And it is you who are the assassin! I saw you,
Thénardier Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l’Hôpital. I know
enough about you to send you to the galleys and even further if I
choose. Here are a thousand francs, bully that you are!”
And he flung a thousand franc note at Thénardier.
“Ah! Jondrette Thénardier, vile rascal! Let this serve you as a lesson,
you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of
the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of
here! Waterloo protects you.”
“Waterloo!” growled Thénardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along
with the thousand.
“Yes, assassin! You there saved the life of a Colonel. . .”
“Of a General,” said Thénardier, elevating his head.
“Of a Colonel!” repeated Marius in a rage. “I wouldn’t give a ha’penny
for a general. And you come here to commit infamies! I tell you that
you have committed all crimes. Go! disappear! Only be happy, that is
all that I desire. Ah! monster! here are three thousand francs more.
Take them. You will depart to-morrow, for America, with your daughter;
for your wife is dead, you abominable liar. I shall watch over your
departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you
twenty thousand francs. Go get yourself hung elsewhere!”
“Monsieur le Baron!” replied Thénardier, bowing to the very earth,
“eternal gratitude.” And Thénardier left the room, understanding
nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks
of gold, and with that thunder which had burst forth over his head in
bank-bills.
Struck by lightning he was, but he was also content; and he would have
been greatly angered had he had a lightning rod to ward off such
lightning as that.
Let us finish with this man at once.
Two days after the events which we are at this moment narrating, he set
out, thanks to Marius’ care, for America under a false name, with his
daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand
francs.
The moral wretchedness of Thénardier, the bourgeois who had missed his
vocation, was irremediable. He was in America what he had been in
Europe. Contact with an evil man sometimes suffices to corrupt a good
action and to cause evil things to spring from it. With Marius’ money,
Thénardier set up as a slave-dealer.
As soon as Thénardier had left the house, Marius rushed to the garden,
where Cosette was still walking.
“Cosette! Cosette!” he cried. “Come! come quick! Let us go. Basque, a
carriage! Cosette, come. Ah! My God! It was he who saved my life! Let
us not lose a minute! Put on your shawl.”
Cosette thought him mad and obeyed.
He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its
throbbing. He paced back and forth with huge strides, he embraced
Cosette:
“Ah! Cosette! I am an unhappy wretch!” said he.
Marius was bewildered. He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of
some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheard-of virtue,
supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The
convict was transfigured into Christ.
Marius was dazzled by this prodigy. He did not know precisely what he
beheld, but it was grand.
In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door.
Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself.
“Driver,” said he, “Rue de l’Homme Armé, Number 7.”
The carriage drove off.
“Ah! what happiness!” ejaculated Cosette. “Rue de l’Homme Armé, I did
not dare to speak to you of that. We are going to see M. Jean.”
“Thy father! Cosette, thy father more than ever. Cosette, I guess it.
You told me that you had never received the letter that I sent you by
Gavroche. It must have fallen into his hands. Cosette, he went to the
barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he
saved others also; he saved Javert. He rescued me from that gulf to
give me to you. He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer.
Ah! I am a monster of ingratitude. Cosette, after having been your
providence, he became mine. Just imagine, there was a terrible quagmire
enough to drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire.
Cosette! he made me traverse it. I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I
heard nothing, I could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going
to bring him back, to take him with us, whether he is willing or not,
he shall never leave us again. If only he is at home! Provided only
that we can find him, I will pass the rest of my life in venerating
him. Yes, that is how it should be, do you see, Cosette? Gavroche must
have delivered my letter to him. All is explained. You understand.”
Cosette did not understand a word.
“You are right,” she said to him.
Meanwhile the carriage rolled on.
CHAPTER V—A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY
Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door.
“Come in,” he said feebly.
The door opened.
Cosette and Marius made their appearance.
Cosette rushed into the room.
Marius remained on the threshold, leaning against the jamb of the door.
“Cosette!” said Jean Valjean.
And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling,
haggard, livid, gloomy, an immense joy in his eyes.
Cosette, stifling with emotion, fell upon Jean Valjean’s breast.
“Father!” said she.
Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered:
“Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God!”
And, pressed close in Cosette’s arms, he exclaimed:
“It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then!”
Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears from flowing,
took a step forward and murmured between lips convulsively contracted
to repress his sobs:
“My father!”
“And you also, you pardon me!” Jean Valjean said to him.
Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added:
“Thanks.”
Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed.
“It embarrasses me,” said she.
And, seating herself on the old man’s knees, she put aside his white
locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow.
Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way.
Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her
caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius’ debt.
Jean Valjean stammered:
“How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again.
Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very moment when you entered, I was
saying to myself: ‘All is over. Here is her little gown, I am a
miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,’ and I was saying that
at the very moment when you were mounting the stairs. Was not I an
idiot? Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good
God. The good God says:
“‘You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid! No. No, things
will not go so. Come, there is a good man yonder who is in need of an
angel.’ And the angel comes, and one sees one’s Cosette again! and one
sees one’s little Cosette once more! Ah! I was very unhappy.”
For a moment he could not speak, then he went on:
“I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then. A heart
needs a bone to gnaw. But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the
way. I gave myself reasons: ‘They do not want you, keep in your own
course, one has not the right to cling eternally.’ Ah! God be praised,
I see her once more! Dost thou know, Cosette, thy husband is very
handsome? Ah! what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily. I
am fond of that pattern. It was thy husband who chose it, was it not?
And then, thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls. Let me call her
thou, Monsieur Pontmercy. It will not be for long.”
And Cosette began again:
“How wicked of you to have left us like that! Where did you go? Why
have you stayed away so long? Formerly your journeys only lasted three
or four days. I sent Nicolette, the answer always was: ‘He is absent.’
How long have you been back? Why did you not let us know? Do you know
that you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been
ill, and we have not known it! Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand
is!”
“So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!” repeated Jean
Valjean.
At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that
was swelling Marius’ heart found vent.
He burst forth:
“Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And
do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He
has done more—he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and
after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself?
He has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the
ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one:
Thanks! Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be
too little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that
cesspool,—all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried
me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and
accepted for himself. Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every
sanctity he possesses! Cosette, that man is an angel!”
“Hush! hush!” said Jean Valjean in a low voice. “Why tell all that?”