BOOK VI
JAVERT
CHAPTER I
THE COMMENCEMENT OF REPOSE
M. Madeleine had Fantine conveyed to the infirmary he had established in his own house, and intrusted her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A violent fever had broken out; she spent a part of the night in raving and talking aloud, but at length fell asleep. On the morrow, at about mid-day, Fantine woke, and hearing a breathing close to her bed, she drew the curtain aside, and noticed M. Madeleine gazing at something above her head. His glance was full of pity and agony, and supplicated: she followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix nailed to the wall. M. Madeleine was now transfigured in Fantine's eyes, and seemed to her surrounded by light. He was absorbed in a species of prayer, and she looked at him for some time without daring to interrupt him, but at length said, timidly, —
"What are you doing there?"
M. Madeleine had been standing at this spot for an hour, waiting till Fantine should wake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and answered, —
"How are you?"
"Very comfortable; I have slept, and fancy I am better. It will be nothing."
He continued answering the question she had asked him first, and as if he had only just heard it, —
"I was praying to the martyr up there;" and he mentally added, "for the martyr down here."
M. Madeleine had spent the night and morning in making inquiries, and had learned everything; he knew all the poignant details of Fantine's history. He continued, —
"You have suffered deeply, poor mother. Oh! do not complain, for you have at present the dowry of the elect: it is in this way that human beings become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know what to do otherwise. The hell you have now left is the ante-room to heaven, and you were obliged to begin with that."
He breathed a deep sigh, but she smiled upon him with the sublime smile in which two teeth were wanting. Javert had written a letter during the past night, and posted it himself the next morning. It was for Paris, and the address was: "Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary to the Prefect of Police." As a rumor had spread about the affair in the police office, the lady-manager of the post, and some other persons who saw the letter before it was sent off and recognized Javert's handwriting, supposed that he was sending in his resignation. M. Madeleine hastened to write to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them over 120 francs, and he sent them 300, bidding them pay themselves out of the amount, and bring the child at once to M – , where a sick mother was awaiting it. This dazzled Thénardier. "Hang it all!" he said to his wife, "we must not let the brat go, for the lark will become a milch cow for us. I see it all; some fellow has fallen in love with the mother." He replied by sending a bill for 500 and odd francs very well drawn up. In this bill two undeniable amounts figure, one from a physician, the other from an apothecary, who had attended Éponine and Azelma in a long illness. Cosette, as we said, had not been ill, and hence it was merely a little substitution of names. At the bottom of the bill Thénardier gave credit for 300 francs received on account. M. Madeleine at once sent 300 francs more, and wrote, "Make haste and bring Cosette."
"Christi!" said Thénardier, "we must not let the child go."
In the mean while Fantine did not recover, and still remained in the infirmary. The sisters had at first received and nursed "this girl" with some repugnance; any one who has seen the bas-relief at Rheims will remember the pouting lower lip of the wise virgins looking at the foolish virgins. This ancient contempt of Vestals for Ambubaïæ is one of the deepest instincts of the feminine dignity, and the sisters had experienced it, with the increased dislike which religion adds. But in a few days Fantine disarmed them; she had all sorts of humble and gentle words, and the mother within her was touching. One day the sisters heard her say in the paroxysm of fever, "I have been a sinner, but when I have my child by my side, that will show that God has forgiven me. While I was living badly, I should not have liked to have Cosette with me, for I could not have endured her sad and astonished eyes. And yet it was for her sake that I did wrong, and for that reason God pardons me. I shall feel the blessing of Heaven when Cosette is here; I shall look at her, and it will do me good to see the innocent creature. She knows nothing, as she is an angel. My sisters, at her age the wings have not yet dropped off."
M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and every time she asked him, "Shall I see my Cosette soon?"
He would answer, —
"To-morrow, perhaps; she may arrive at any moment, for I am expecting her."
And the mother's pale face would grow radiant.
"Oh!" she said, "how happy I shall be!"
We have said that she did not improve; on the contrary, her condition seemed to grow worse week by week. The handful of snow placed between her naked shoulder-blades produced a sudden check of perspiration, which caused the illness that had smouldered in her for years suddenly to break out. Larmier's fine method for studying and healing diseases of the lungs was just beginning to be employed; the physician placed the stethoscope to Fantine's chest, and shook his head. M. Madeleine said to him, —
"Well?"
"Has she not a child that she wishes to see?" asked the doctor.
"Yes."
"Well, make haste to send for her."
Madeleine gave a start, and Fantine asked him, —
"What did the doctor say to you?"
M. Madeleine forced a smile.
"He said that your child must come at once, for that would cure you."
"Oh," she replied, "he is right; but what do those Thénardiers mean by keeping my Cosette? Oh, she will come, and then I shall see happiness close to me."
Thénardier, however, would not let the child go, and alleged a hundred poor excuses. Cosette was ailing, and it would be dangerous for her to travel in winter; and then there were some small debts still to pay, which he was collecting, &c.
"I will send some one to fetch Cosette," said Father Madeleine; "if necessary, I will go myself."
He wrote to Fantine's dictation the following letter, which she signed.
"M. THÉNARDIER, – " You will hand over Cosette to the bearer, who will pay up all little matters. "Yours, FANTINE."
About this time a great incident happened. However cleverly we may have carved the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny ever reappears in it.
CHAPTER II
HOW "JEAN" MAY BECOME "CHAMP."
One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, engaged in settling some pressing mayoralty matters, in case he decided on the journey to Montfermeil, when he was told that Inspector Javert wished to speak with him. On hearing this name pronounced, M. Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression. Since the guard-room adventure Javert had avoided him more than ever, and M. Madeleine had not seen him again.
"Show him in," he said.
Javert entered. M. Madeleine remained at his table near the fire-place with a pen in his hand and his eyes fixed on a bundle of papers, which he ran through and annotated. He did not put himself out of the way for Javert, for he could not refrain from thinking of poor Fantine. Javert bowed respectfully to the Mayor, who had his back turned to him; the Mayor did not look at him, but continued to make his notes. Javert walked a little way into the study, and then halted without a word. A physiognomist familiar with Javert's nature, and who had studied for any length of time this savage in the service of civilization, – this strange composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the corporal, this spy incapable of falsehood, this virgin detective, – a physiognomist aware of his secret and old aversion to M. Madeleine, and his conflict with him about Fantine, and who regarded Javert at this moment, would have asked himself, What has happened? It was evident to any one who knew this upright, clear, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious conscience, that Javert had just emerged from some great internal struggle. Javert had nothing in his mind which he did not also have in his face, and, like all violent men, he was subject to sudden changes. Never had his face been stranger or more surprising. On entering, he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor suspicion; he had halted a few yards behind the Mayor's chair, and was now standing there in an almost military attitude, with the simple cold rudeness of a man who has never been gentle and has ever been patient. He was waiting, without saying a word, without making a movement, in a true humility and tranquil resignation, till the Mayor might think proper to turn round, – calm, serious, hat in hand, and with an expression which was half-way between the private before his officer and the culprit before the judge. All the feelings as well as all the resolutions he might be supposed to possess had disappeared: there was nothing but a gloomy sadness on this face, which was impenetrable and simple as granite. His whole person displayed humiliation and firmness, and a sort of courageous despondency. At length the Mayor laid down his pen and half turned round.
"Well, what is the matter, Javert?"
Javert remained silent for a moment, as if reflecting, and then raised his voice with a sad solemnity, which, however, did not exclude simplicity.
"A culpable deed has been committed, sir."
"What deed?"
"An inferior agent of authority has failed in his respect to a magistrate in the gravest matter. I have come, as is my duty, to bring the fact to your knowledge."
"Who is this agent?" M. Madeleine asked
"Myself."
"And who is the magistrate who has cause to complain of the agent?"
"You, Monsieur le Maire."
M. Madeleine sat up, and Javert continued with a stern air and still looking down, —
"Monsieur le Maire, I have come to request that you will procure my dismissal from the service."
M. Madeleine in his stupefaction opened his mouth, but Javert interrupted him, —
"You will say that I could have sent in my resignation, but that is not enough. Such a course is honorable, but I have done wrong, and deserve punishment. I must be dismissed."
And after a pause he added, —
"Monsieur le Maire, you were severe to me the other day unjustly, be so to-day justly."
"What is the meaning of all this nonsense?" M. Madeleine exclaimed. "What is the culpable act you have committed? What have you done to me? You accuse yourself, you wish to be removed – "
"Dismissed," said Javert.
"Very good, dismissed. I do not understand it."
"You shall do so, sir."
Javert heaved a deep sigh, and continued still coldly and sadly, —
"Six weeks ago, M. le Maire, after the scene about that girl, I was furious, and denounced you."
"Denounced me?"
"To the Prefect of Police at Paris."
M. Madeleine, who did not laugh much oftener than Javert, burst into a laugh.
"As a Mayor who had encroached on the police?"
"As an ex-galley slave."
The Mayor turned livid, but Javert, who had not raised his eyes, continued, —
"I thought you were so, and have had these notions for a long time. A resemblance, information you sought at Faverolles, the strength of your loins, the adventures with old Fauchelevent, your skill in firing, your leg which halts a little – and so on. It was very absurd, but I took you for a man of the name of Jean Valjean."
"What name did you say?"
"Jean Valjean; he is a convict I saw twenty years ago when I was assistant keeper at the Toulon bagne. On leaving the galley, this Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop, and then committed a highway robbery on a little Savoyard. For eight years he has been out of the way and could not be found, and I imagined – in a word, I did as I said. Passion decided me, and I denounced you to the Prefect."
M. Madeleine, who had taken up the charge-book again, said with a careless accent, —
"And what was the answer you received?"
"That I was mad!"
"Well?"
"They were right."
"It is fortunate that you allow it."
"I must do so, for the real Jean Valjean has been found."
The book M. Madeleine was holding fell from his grasp, he raised his head, looked searchingly at Javert, said with an indescribable accent, —
"Ah!"
Javert continued, —
"The facts are these, M. le Maire. It seems that there was over at Ailly le Haut Clocher, an old fellow who was called Father Champmathieu. He was very wretched, and no attention was paid to him, for no one knows how such people live. This autumn Father Champmathieu was arrested for stealing cider apples: there was a robbery, a wall climbed over, and branches broken. This Champmathieu was arrested with the branch still in his hand, and was locked up. Up to this point it is only a matter for a police court, but here Providence interposes. As the lock-up was under repair, the magistrates ordered that Champmathieu should be taken to the departmental prison at Arras. In this prison there is an ex-convict of the name of Brevet, under imprisonment for some offence, and he has been made room-turnkey for his good behavior. Champmathieu no sooner arrived than Brevet cries out, "Why, I know this man: he is an ex-convict. Look at me, old fellow: you are Jean Valjean." "What do you mean?" says Champmathieu, affecting surprise. "Don't play the humbug with me," says Brevet; "you are Jean Valjean. You were at the Toulon bagne twenty years ago, and I was there too." Champmathieu denied identity, and, as you may suppose, the affair was thoroughly investigated, with the following result. This Champmathieu about thirty years ago was a journeyman wood-cutter at several places, especially at Faverolles, where his trail is lost. A long time after he is found again in Auvergne, and then in Paris, where he says he was a blacksmith, and had a daughter a washer-woman, – though there is no evidence of this, – and lastly, he turned up in these parts. Now, before being sent to the galleys, what was Jean Valjean? A wood-cutter. Where? At Faverolles. And here is another fact: this Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's family name Mathieu. What is more natural to suppose than that on leaving the bagne he assumed his mother's name as a disguise, and called himself Jean Mathieu? He went to Auvergne, where Jean is pronounced Chan, and thus he was transformed into Champmathieu. You are following me, I suppose? Inquiries have been made at Faverolles, but Jean Valjean's family is no longer there, and no one knows where it has gone. As you are aware, in those places families frequently disappear in such a way; these people, if they are not mud, are dust. And then, again, as the beginning of this story dates back thirty years, there is no one in Faverolles who knew Jean Valjean: and beside Brevet, there are only two convicts who remember him. These two were brought from the bagne and confronted with the pretended Champmathieu, and they did not hesitate for a moment. The same age, – fifty-four, – the same height, the same look, the same man, in short. It was at this very moment that I sent my denunciation to Paris, and the answer I received was that I had lost my senses, for Jean Valjean was in the hands of justice at Arras. You can conceive that this surprised me, as I fancied that I held my Jean Valjean here. I wrote to the magistrates, who sent for me, and Champmathieu was brought in."
"Well?" M. Madeleine interrupted him.
Javert answered with his incorruptible and sad face, —
"Monsieur le Maire, truth is truth: I am sorry, but that man is Jean Valjean: I recognized him too."
M. Madeleine said in a very low voice, —
"Are you sure?"
Javert burst into that sorrowful laugh which escapes from a profound conviction, —
"Oh! certain."
He stood for a moment pensive, mechanically taking pinches of saw-dust out of the sprinkler in the inkstand, and added, —
"And now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I cannot understand how I could have believed anything else. I ask your pardon, M. le Maire."
While addressing these supplicating words to the person who six weeks previously had humiliated him so deeply and bidden him leave the room, this haughty man was unconsciously full of dignity and simplicity. M. Madeleine merely answered his entreaty with the hurried question, —
"And what does this man say?"
"Well, Monsieur le Maire, it is an ugly business, for if he is Jean Valjean, he is an escaped convict. Scaling a wall, breaking a branch, and stealing apples is a peccadillo with a child, an offence in a man, but a crime in a convict. It is no longer a matter for the police courts, but for the assizes; it is no longer imprisonment for a few days, but the galleys for life. And there is the matter with the Savoyard, which, I trust, will be brought up again. There is enough to settle a man, is there not? But Jean Valjean is artful, and in that I recognize him too. Any other man would find it warm; he would struggle, cry out, refuse to be Jean Valjean, and so on. He pretends though not to understand, and says, "I am Champmathieu, and I shall stick to it." He has a look of amazement, and plays the brute-beast, which is better. Oh! he is a clever scoundrel! But no matter, the proofs are ready to hand; he has been recognized by four persons, and the old scoundrel will be found guilty. He is to be tried at Arras assizes, and I have been summoned as a witness."
M. Madeleine had turned round to his desk again, taken up his papers, and was quietly turning over the leaves, and busily reading and writing in turn. He now said to the Inspector, —
"Enough, Javert; after all, these details interest me but very slightly; we are losing our time, and have a deal of work before us. Javert, you will go at one to Mother Busaupied, who sells vegetables at the corner of the Rue St. Saulve, and tell her to take out a summons against Pierre the carter; he is a brutal fellow, who almost drove over this woman and her child, and he must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcillay in the Rue Champigny; he complains that there is a gutter next door which leaks, and is shaking the foundation of his house. But I am giving you a deal to do, and I think you said you were going away. Did you not state you were going to Arras on this matter in a week or ten days?"
"Sooner than that, sir."
"On what day, then?"
"I fancied I told you that the trial comes off to-morrow, and that I should start by to-night's coach."
"And how long will the trial last?"
"A day at the most, and sentence will be passed to-morrow night at the latest. But I shall not wait for that, but return so soon as I have given my evidence."
"Very good," said M. Madeleine; and he dismissed Javert with a wave of his hand. But he did not go.
"I beg your pardon, M. le Maire," he said.
"What's the matter now?" M. Madeleine asked.
"I have one thing to remind you of, sir."
"What is it?"
"That I must be discharged."
M. Madeleine rose.
"Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you; you exaggerate your fault, and besides, it is another insult which concerns me. Javert, you are worthy of rising, not of sinking, and I insist on your keeping your situation."
Javert looked at M. Madeleine with his bright eyes, in which it seemed as if his unenlightened but rigid and chaste conscience could be seen, and he said quietly, —
"M. le Maire, I cannot allow it."
"I repeat," M. Madeleine replied, "that the affair concerns myself."
But Javert, only attending to his own thoughts, continued, —
"As for exaggerating, I am not doing so, for this is how I reason. I suspected you unjustly; that is nothing: it is the duty of men like myself to suspect, though there is an abuse in suspecting those above us. But, without proofs, in a moment of passion and for the purpose of revenge, I denounced you, a respectable man, a mayor and a magistrate; this is serious, very serious, – I, an agent of the authority, insulted that authority in your person. Had any of my subordinates done what I have done, I should have declared him unworthy of the service and discharged him. Stay, Monsieur le Maire, one word more. I have often been severe in my life to others, for it was just, and I was doing my duty, and if I were not severe to myself now, all the justice I have done would become injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No. What! I have been only good to punish others and not myself? Why, I should be a scoundrel, and the people who call me that rogue of a Javert, would be in the right! M. le Maire, I do not wish you to treat me with kindness, for your kindness caused me sufficient ill-blood when dealt to others, and I want none for myself. The kindness that consists in defending the street-walker against the gentleman, the police agent against the Mayor, the lower classes against the higher, is what I call bad kindness, and it is such kindness that disorganizes society. Good Lord! it is easy enough to be good, but the difficulty is to be just. Come! if you had been what I believed you, I should not have been kind to you, as you would have seen. M. le Maire, I am bound to treat myself as I would treat another man; when I repressed malefactors, when I was severe with scamps, I often said to myself, "If you ever catch yourself tripping, look out," I have tripped, I have committed a fault, and all the worse for me. I have strong arms and will turn laborer. M. le Maire, the good of the service requires an example. I simply demand the discharge of Inspector Javert."
All this was said with a humble, proud, despairing, and convinced accent, which gave a peculiar grandeur to this strangely honest man.
"We will see," said M. Madeleine, and he offered him his hand; but Javert fell back, and said sternly, —
"Pardon me, sir, but that must not be; a mayor ought not to give his hand to a spy."
He added between his teeth, —
"Yes, a spy; from the moment when I misused my authority, I have been only a spy."
Then he bowed deeply and walked to the door. When he reached it he turned round and said, with eyes still bent on the ground, —
"M. le Maire, I will continue on duty till my place is filled up."
He went out. M. Madeleine thoughtfully listened to his firm, sure step as he walked along the paved passage.