Les Misérables
gulf might close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or
that other man, should fall into it: he had only let things take their
course.
The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: That
his place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was still
awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to
it; that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he
filled it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to
himself, “that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared
that a certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards
himself, being present in the galleys in the person of that
Champmathieu, present in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had
nothing more to fear, provided that he did not prevent men from sealing
over the head of that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the
stone of the sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again.”
All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place
in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two or
three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the
conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart,
which is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be
called an outburst of inward laughter.
He hastily relighted his candle.
“Well, what then?” he said to himself; “what am I afraid of? What is
there in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I had
but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life,
and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been
annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have
divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me
everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is
thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the
trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has
his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to
leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from
me, and I count for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in
this? Upon my honor, people would think, to see me, that some
catastrophe had happened to me! After all, if it does bring harm to
some one, that is not my fault in the least: it is Providence which has
done it all; it is because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the
right to disarrange what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should
I meddle? It does not concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what
more do I want? The goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the
dream of my nights, the object of my prayers to Heaven,—security,—I
have now attained; it is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the
will of God, and why does God will it? In order that I may continue
what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may one day be a grand
and encouraging example, that it may be said at last, that a little
happiness has been attached to the penance which I have undergone, and
to that virtue to which I have returned. Really, I do not understand
why I was afraid, a little while ago, to enter the house of that good
curé, and to ask his advice; this is evidently what he would have said
to me: It is settled; let things take their course; let the good God do
as he likes!”
Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience,
bending over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair,
and began to pace the room: “Come,” said he, “let us think no more
about it; my resolve is taken!” but he felt no joy.
Quite the reverse.
One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can
the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the
guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the
ocean.
After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the
gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened,
saying that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to
that which he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that
mysterious power which said to him: “Think!” as it said to another
condemned man, two thousand years ago, “March on!”
Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully
understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation.
It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no living
being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never a
more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience
within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in
this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, _he
said, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one’s self,
talks to one’s self, exclaims to one’s self without breaking the
external silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks
except the mouth. The realities of the soul are nonetheless realities
because they are not visible and palpable.
So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that
“settled resolve.” He confessed to himself that all that he had just
arranged in his mind was monstrous, that “to let things take their
course, to let the good God do as he liked,” was simply horrible; to
allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder
it, to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short,
was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last
degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime!
For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the
bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action.
He spit it out with disgust.
He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had
meant by this, “My object is attained!” He declared to himself that his
life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? To
deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all
that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the
true one—to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and
good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that
alone, which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon
him—to shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great
God! he was re-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was
becoming a thief once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was
robbing another of his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the
sunshine. He was becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally
murdering, a wretched man. He was inflicting on him that frightful
living death, that death beneath the open sky, which is called the
galleys. On the other hand, to surrender himself to save that man,
struck down with so melancholy an error, to resume his own name, to
become once more, out of duty, the convict Jean Valjean, that was, in
truth, to achieve his resurrection, and to close forever that hell
whence he had just emerged; to fall back there in appearance was to
escape from it in reality. This must be done! He had done nothing if he
did not do all this; his whole life was useless; all his penitence was
wasted. There was no longer any need of saying, “What is the use?” He
felt that the Bishop was there, that the Bishop was present all the
more because he was dead, that the Bishop was gazing fixedly at him,
that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his virtues, would be
abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean would be pure and
admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but that the Bishop
saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishop beheld his
conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and
denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of sacrifices, the
most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but it must be done.
Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he
returned to infamy in the eyes of men.
“Well,” said he, “let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let us
save this man.” He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that
he was speaking aloud.
He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung in
the fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassed
tradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it might
have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment,
_To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d’Artois, Paris_. He drew from his
secretary a pocket-book which contained several bank-notes and the
passport of which he had made use that same year when he went to the
elections.
Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts,
into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no
suspicion of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his
lips move; at other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon
some point of the wall, as though there existed at that point something
which he wished to elucidate or interrogate.
When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into his
pocket, together with the pocket-book, and began his walk once more.
His reverie had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his
duty clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes
and changed its place as he altered the direction of his glance:—
_“Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself!”_
In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in
visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formed the
double rule of his soul,—the concealment of his name, the
sanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him as
absolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated
them. He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily,
good, while the other might become bad; that the first was
self-devotion, and that the other was personality; that the one said,
_my neighbour_, and that the other said, _myself_; that one emanated
from the light, and the other from darkness.
They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as he
meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now
attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within
himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the
midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending.
He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good thought
was getting the upper hand.
He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of his
conscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked the first
phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After
the grand crisis, the grand test.
But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession of
him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued to
fortify him in his resolution.
One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter
too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and
that he had actually been guilty of theft.
He answered himself: “If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples,
that means a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the
galleys. And who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of
Jean Valjean overwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not
the attorneys for the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is
supposed to be a thief because he is known to be a convict.”
In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when he