CHAPTER III.
A TEMPEST IN A BRAIN.
The reader has, of course, guessed that M. Madeleine is Jean Valjean.We have already looked into the depths of this conscience, and themoment has arrived to look into them again. We do not do this withoutemotion or tremor, for there is nothing more terrifying than thisspecies of contemplation. The mental eye can nowhere find greaterbrilliancy or greater darkness than within man; it cannot dwellon anything which is more formidable, complicated, mysterious, orinfinite. There is a spectacle grander than the sea, and that is thesky; there is a spectacle grander than the sky, and it is the interiorof the soul. To write the poem of the human conscience, were thesubject only one man, and he the lowest of men, would be to resolveall epic poems into one supreme and final epic. Conscience is thechaos of chimeras, envies, and attempts, the furnace of dreams, thelurking-place of ideas we are ashamed of; it is the pandemonium ofsophistry, the battlefield of the passions. At certain hours lookthrough the livid face of a reflecting man, look into his soul, peerinto the darkness. Beneath the external silence, combats of giants aregoing on there, such as we read of in Homer; _m?l?es_ of dragons andhydras and clouds of phantoms, such as we find in Milton; and visionaryspirals, as in Dante. A sombre thing is the infinitude which every manbears within him, and by which he desperately measures the volitionsof his brain and the actions of his life. Alighieri one day came to agloomy gate, before which he hesitated; we have one before us, on thethreshold of which we also hesitate, but we will enter.
We have but little to add to what the reader already knows as havinghappened to Jean Valjean since his adventure with Little Gervais.From this moment, as we have seen, he became another man, and hemade himself what the Bishop wished to make him. It was more than atransformation, it was a transfiguration. He succeeded in disappearing,sold the Bishop's plate, only keeping the candlesticks as a souvenir,passed through France, reached M----, had the idea we have described,accomplished what we have narrated, managed to make himself unseizableand inaccessible, and henceforth settled at M----, happy at feeling hisconscience saddened by the past, and the first half of his existencecontradicted by the last half; he lived peacefully, reassured andtrusting, and having but two thoughts,--to hide his name and sanctifyhis life; escape from men and return to God. These two thoughts were soclosely blended in his mind, that they only formed one; they were bothequally absorbing and imperious, and governed his slightest actions.Usually they agreed to regulate the conduct of his life; they turnedhim toward the shadow; they rendered him beneficent and simple, andthey counselled him the same things. At times, however, there was aconflict between them, and in such cases the man whom the whole townof M---- called Monsieur Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice thefirst to the second,--his security to his virtue. Hence, despite allhis caution and prudence, he had kept the Bishop's candlesticks, wornmourning for him, questioned all the little Savoyards who passedthrough the town, inquired after the family at Faverolles, and savedthe life of old Fauchelevent, in spite of the alarming insinuations ofJavert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, that he thought, afterthe example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, that hisfirst duty was not toward himself.
Still, we are bound to say, nothing like the present had beforeoccurred; never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whosesufferings we are describing, entered upon so serious a struggle. Hecomprehended confusedly, but deeply, from the first words which Javertuttered on entering his study. At the moment when the name which hehad buried so deeply was so strangely pronounced, he was struck withstupor, and, as it were, intoxicated by the sinister peculiarity of hisdestiny. And through this stupor he felt that quivering which precedesgreat storms; he bowed like an oak at the approach of a storm, like asoldier before a coming assault. He felt the shadows full of thunderand lightning collecting over his head: while listening to Javert hehad a thought of running off, denouncing himself, taking Champmathieuout of prison, and taking his place. This was painful, like an incisionin the flesh; but it passed away, and he said to himself, "We willsee!" he repressed this first generous movement, and recoiled beforehis heroism.
It would doubtless be grand if, after the Bishop's holy remarks,after so many years of repentance and self-denial, in the midst of apenitence so admirably commenced, this man, even in the presence ofsuch a terrible conjuncture, had not failed for a moment, but continuedto march at the same pace toward this open abyss, at the bottom ofwhich heaven was: this would be grand, but it did not take place. Weare bound to describe all the things that took place in this mind, andcannot say that this was one of them. What carried him away first wasthe instinct of self-preservation. He hastily collected his ideas,stifled his emotion, deferred any resolution with the firmness ofterror, deadened himself against what he had to do, and resumed hiscalmness as a gladiator puts up his buckler. For the remainder of theday he was in the same state,--a hurricane within, a deep tranquillityoutside,--and he only took what may be called "conservative measures."All was still confused and jumbled in his brain; the trouble in it wasso great that he did not see distinctly the outline of any idea, andhe could have said nothing about himself, save that he had received aheavy blow. He went as usual to Fantine's bed of pain, and prolongedhis visit, with a kindly instinct, saying to himself that he mustact thus, and recommend her to the sisters in the event of his beingobliged to go away. He felt vaguely that he must perhaps go to Arras;and, though not the least in the world decided about the journey,he said to himself that, safe from suspicion as he was, there wouldbe no harm in being witness of what might take place, and he hiredScaufflaire's tilbury, in order to be ready for any event.
He dined with considerable appetite, and, on returning to his bed-room,reflected. He examined his situation, and found it extraordinary,--soextraordinary that, in the midst of his reverie, through some almostinexplicable impulse of anxiety, he rose from his chair and boltedhis door. He was afraid lest something might enter, and he barricadedhimself against the possible. A moment after, he blew out his light,for it annoyed him, and he fancied that he might be overseen. By whom?Alas! what he wanted to keep out had entered; what he wished to blindwas looking at him. It was his conscience, that is to say, God. Still,at the first moment, he deceived himself; he had a feeling of securityand solitude. When he put in the bolt, he thought himself impregnable;when the candle was out, he felt himself invisible. He then regainedhis self-possession; and he put his elbows on the table, leaned hishead on his hand, and began dreaming in the darkness.
"Where am I? Am I not dreaming? What was I told? Is it really truethat I saw that Javert, and that he spoke to me so? Who can thisChampmathieu be? It seems he resembles me. Is it possible? When I thinkthat I was so tranquil yesterday, and so far from suspecting anything!What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What will be the result ofthis event? What am I to do?"
Such was the trouble he was in that his brain had not the strength toretain ideas. They passed like waves, and he clutched his forehead withboth hands to stop them. From this tumult which overthrew his wits andreason, and from which he sought to draw an evidence and a resolution,nothing issued but agony. His head was burning; and he went by thewindow and threw it wide open. There were no stars in the heavens, andhe went back to the table and sat down by it. The first hour passedaway thus, but gradually vague features began to shape themselves, andbecome fixed in his thoughts, and he could observe with the precisionof reality some details of the situation, if not its entirety. He beganby noticing that however critical and extraordinary his situation mightbe, he was utterly the master of it, and his stupor was only augmented.
Independently of the stern and religious object he proposed to himselfin his actions, all that he had done up to this day was only a holehe dug in which to bury his name. What he had always most feared, inhis hours of reflection as in his sleepless nights, was ever to hear_that_ name pronounced. He said to himself that this would be to himthe end of everything; that on the day when that name re-appeared, itwould cau
se his new life to fade away, and possibly the new soul he hadwithin him. He shuddered at the mere thought that this could happen.Assuredly if any one had told him at such moments that the hour wouldarrive in which this name would echo in his ear, when the hideousname of Jean Valjean would suddenly emerge from the night and risebefore him, when this formidable light which dissipated the mysterywith which he surrounded himself would suddenly shine above his head,and that the name would no longer menace him; that the light wouldproduce only a denser gloom; that this rent veil would increase themystery; that the earthquake would consolidate his edifice; that thisprodigious incident would have no other result, if he thought proper,but to render his existence clearer and yet more impenetrable, and thatfrom his confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good andworthy M. Madeleine would come forth more honored, more peaceful, andmore respected than ever,--if any one had told him this, he would haveshaken his head, and considered such talk insane. And yet all thishad really happened, and this heap of impossibilities was a fact, andHeaven had permitted all these wild things to become real.
His reverie continued to grow clearer, and each moment he comprehendedhis position better. It seemed to him that he had just awakened froma dream, and that he was descending an incline in the middle of thenight, shuddering and recoiling in vain from the brink of an abyss.He distinctly saw in the shadows an unknown man, a stranger, whomdestiny took for him, and thrust into the gulf in his place. In orderthat the gulf should close, either he or another must fall in. He hadno necessity to do anything, the clearness became complete, and heconfessed to himself--that his place was vacant at the galleys; that,whatever he might do, it constantly expected him, that the robberyof Little Gervais led him back to it, that this vacant place wouldwait for him and attract him until he filled it, and that this wasinevitable and fatal. And then he said to himself that at this momenthe had a substitute,--that it seemed a man of the name of Champmathieuhad this ill-luck; and that, in future, himself at the bagne in theperson of this Champmathieu, and present in society under the name ofM. Madeleine, would have nothing more to fear, provided that he didnot prevent justice from laying over the head of this Champmathieu thestone of infamy which, like the tombstone, falls once and is neverraised again.
All this was so violent and so strange, that he suddenly felt withinhim that species of indescribable movement which no man experiencesmore than twice or thrice in his life,--a sort of convulsion of theconscience, which disturbs everything doubtful in the heart, whichis composed of irony, joy, and despair, and what might be called aninternal burst of laughter. He suddenly relit his candle.
"Well, what am I afraid of?" he said to himself; "what reason haveI to have such thoughts? I am saved, and all is settled. There wasonly one open door through which my past could burst in upon my life:and that door is now walled up forever. That Javert, who has so longannoyed me, the formidable instinct which seemed to have scented me,and by Heavens! had scented me, the frightful dog ever making a pointat me, is routed, engaged elsewhere, and absolutely thrown out! He ishenceforth satisfied, he will leave me at peace, for he has got hisJean Valjean! It is possible that he may wish to leave the town too.And all this has taken place without my interference, and so, what isthere so unlucky in it all? On my word, any people who saw me wouldbelieve that a catastrophe had befallen me. After all, if some peopleare rendered unhappy, it is no fault of mine. Providence has done itall, and apparently decrees it. Have I the right to derange what Hearranges? What is it that I am going to interfere in? It does notconcern me. What! I am not satisfied? Why! what else can I want? I haveattained the object to which I have been aspiring for so many years,the dream of my nights, the matter of my prayers,--security. It isHeaven that wills it, and I have done nothing contrary to God's desire.And why has Heaven decreed it? That I may continue what I have begun;that I may do good; that I may one day be a grand and encouragingexample; that it may be said that there is after all a little happinessattaching to the penance I have undergone. I really cannot understandwhy I was so afraid just now about visiting that worthy Cur?, tellingall to him as to a confessor, and asking his advice, for this iscertainly what he would have advised me. It is settled; I will letmatters take their course, and leave the decision to Heaven."
He spoke this in the depths of his conscience, while leaning over whatmight be called his own abyss. He got up from his chair and walkedabout the room. "Come," he said, "I will think no more of it; I havemade up my mind;" but he felt no joy. It is no more possible to preventthought from reverting to an idea than the sea from returning to theshore. With the sailor this is called the tide, with the culprit itis called remorse; God heaves the soul like the ocean. After a fewmoments, whatever he might do, he resumed the gloomy dialogue in whichit was he who spoke and he who listened, saying what he wished to besilent about, listening to what he did not desire to hear, and yieldingto that mysterious power which said to him "Think," as it did, twothousand years ago, to another condemned man, "Go on."
Before going further, and in order to be fully understood, let us dwellon a necessary observation. It is certain that men talk to themselves;and there is not a thinking being who has not realized the fact. It isonly in this sense that the words frequently employed in this chapter,_he said, he exclaimed,_ must be understood; men talk to themselves,speak to themselves, cry out within themselves, but the externalsilence is not interrupted. There is a grand tumult; everything speaksto us, excepting the mouth. The realities of the soul, for all thatthey are not visible and palpable, are not the less realities. He askedhimself then, what he had arrived at, and cross-questioned himselfabout the resolution he had formed. He confessed to himself that all hehad arranged in his mind was monstrous, and that leaving "God to act"was simply horrible. To allow this mistake of destiny and of men to beaccomplished, not to prevent it, to lend himself to it, do nothing,in short, was to do everything; it was the last stage of hypocriticalindignity! It was a low, cowardly, cunning, abject, hideous crime. Forthe first time during eight years this hapless man had the taste of abad thought and a bad action, and he spat it out in disgust.
He continued to cross-question himself. He asked himself what he hadmeant by the words, "my object is attained"? He allowed that his lifehad an object, but what was its nature?--Conceal his name! deceivethe police. Was it for so paltry a thing that he had done all that hehad effected? Had he not another object which was the great and trueone,--to save not his person, but his soul; to become once again honestand good? To be a just man! was it not that he craved solely, and thatthe Bishop had ordered him? Close the door on his past? But, greatHeaven, he opened it again by committing an infamous action. He wasbecoming a robber once more, and the most odious of robbers! He wasrobbing another man of his existence, his livelihood, his peace, andhis place in the sunshine. He was becoming an assassin, he was killing,morally killing, a wretched man; he was inflicting on him the frightfulliving death, the open-air death, which is called the galleys. On theother hand, if he gave himself up, freed this man who was sufferingfrom so grievous an error, resumed his name, became through duty theconvict Jean Valjean, that would be really completing his resurrection,and eternally closing the hell from which he was emerging! Fallingback into it apparently would be leaving it in reality! He must dothis: he would have done nothing unless he did this; all his lifewould be useless, all his penitence wasted. He felt that the Bishopwas here, that he was the more present because he was dead, that theBishop was steadfastly looking at him, and that henceforth Madeleinethe Mayor would be an abomination to him, and Jean Valjean the convictadmirable and pure in his sight. Men saw his mask, but the Bishop sawhis face; men saw his life, but the Bishop saw his conscience. He mustconsequently go to Arras, deliver the false Jean Valjean, and denouncethe true one. Alas! this was the greatest of sacrifices, the mostpoignant of victories, the last step to take; but he must take it.Frightful destiny his! he could not obtain sanctity in the sight ofHeaven unless he returned to infamy in the sight of man.
"Well," he said, "I will make up my mind to this. I will do my duty andsave this man."
He uttered those words aloud without noticing he had raised his voice.He fetched his books, verified and put them in order. He threw into thefire a number of claims he had upon embarrassed tradesmen, and wrotea letter, which he addressed "To M. Lafitte, banker, Rue d'Artois,Paris." He then took from his desk a pocket-book, which contained afew bank-notes and the passport he had employed just previously to goto the elections. Any one who had seen him while he was accomplishingthese various acts, with which such grave meditation was mingled,would not have suspected what was taking place in him. At moments hislips moved, at others he raised his head and looked at a part of thewall, as if there were something there which he desired to clear up orquestion.
When the letter to M. Lafitte was finished, he put it into hisportfolio, and began his walk once more. His reverie had not deviated;he continued to see his duty clearly written in luminous letterswhich flashed before his eyes, and moved about with his glance, Nameyourself, denounce yourself! He could also see the two ideas whichhad hitherto been the double rule of his life--to hide his name andsanctify his life--moving before him as it were in a tangible shape.For the first time they seemed to him absolutely distinct, and he sawthe difference that separated them. He recognized that one of theseideas was necessarily good, while the other might become bad; that theformer was self-sacrifice, the latter selfishness; that one said, "Myneighbor," the other "Myself;" that one came from the light and theother from darkness. They strove with each other, and he could see themdoing so. While he was thinking, they had grown before his mental eye,and they had now colossal forms, and he fancied he could see a god anda giant wrestling within him, in the infinitude to which we just nowalluded, and in the midst of obscurity and flashes of light. It was ahorrible sight, but it seemed to him as if the good thought gained thevictory. He felt that he was approaching the second decisive moment ofhis life; that the Bishop marked the first phase of his new life, andthat this Champmathieu marked the second; after the great crisis camethe great trial.
The fever, appeased for a moment, gradually returned, however. Athousand thoughts crossed his mind, but they continued to strengthenhim in his resolution. At one moment he said to himself that heperhaps regarded the matter too seriously; that, after all, thisChampmathieu did not concern him, and in any case was a thief. Heanswered himself: If this man has really stolen apples, he will havea month's imprisonment, but that is a long way from the galleys. Andthen, again, is it proved that he has committed a robbery? The name ofJean Valjean is crushing him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do notpublic prosecutors habitually act in this way? A man is believed to bea thief because he is known to be a convict. At another moment the ideaoccurred to him that, when he had denounced himself, the heroism of hisdeed might perhaps be taken into consideration, as well as his life ofhonesty during the last seven years, and the good he had done the town,and that he would be pardoned. But this supposition soon vanished,and he smiled bitterly at the thought that the robbery of the 40 sousfrom Gervais rendered him a relapsed convict; that this affair wouldcertainly be brought forward, and, by the precise terms of the law,sentence him to the galleys for life.
He turned away from all illusions, detached himself more and morefrom earth, and sought consolation and strength elsewhere. He said tohimself that he must do his duty: that, perhaps, he would not be morewretched after doing it than he would have been had he eluded it: that,if he let matters take their course and remained at M----, his goodname, good deeds, charity, wealth, popularity, and virtue would betainted by a crime; and what flavor would all these sacred things have,when attached to this hideous thought; while, if he accomplished hissacrifice, he would mingle a heavenly idea with the galleys, the chain,the green cap, the unrelaxing toil, and the pitiless shame. At lasthe said to himself that it was a necessity, that his destiny was thusshaped, that he had no power to derange the arrangements of Heaven, andthat in any case he must choose either external virtue and internalabomination, or holiness within and infamy outside him. His couragedid not fail him in revolving so many mournful ideas, but his braingrew weary. He began thinking involuntarily of other and indifferentmatters. His arteries beat violently in his temples, and he was stillwalking up and down; midnight struck, first from the parish church,and then from the Town Hall: he counted the twelve strokes of the twoclocks, and compared the sound of the two bells. They reminded him thata few days before he had seen an old bell at a marine store, on whichwas engraved the name Antoine Albier, Romainville.
As he felt cold, he lit a fire, but did not dream of closing thewindow. Then he fell back into his stupor, obliged to make a mightyeffort to remember what he had been thinking of before midnight struck.At last he succeeded.
"Ah, yes," he said to himself, "I had formed the resolution to denouncemyself."
And then he suddenly began thinking of Fantine.
"Stay," he said; "and that poor woman!"
Here a fresh crisis broke out: Fantine, suddenly appearing in the midstof his reverie, was like a ray of unexpected light. He fancied that allchanged around him, and exclaimed,--
"Wait a minute! Hitherto, I have thought of myself and consulted my ownconvenience. Whether it suits me to be silent or denounce myself--hidemy person or save my soul--be a contemptible and respected Magistrate,or an infamous and venerable convict--it is always self, nought butself. Good heavens! all this is egotism; under different shapes, 't istrue, but still egotism. Suppose I were to think a little about others!It is the first duty of a Christian to think of his neighbor. Well, letme examine: when I am effaced and forgotten, what will become of allthis? If I denounce myself, that Champmathieu will be set at liberty.I shall be sent back to the galleys, and what then? What will occurhere? Here are a town, factories, a trade, work-people, men, women,old grandfathers, children, and poor people: I have created all this.I keep it all alive: wherever there is a chimney smoking, I placedthe brand in the fire and the meat in the pot: I have produced easycircumstances, circulation, and credit. Before I came there was nothingof all this; I revived, animated, fertilized, stimulated, and enrichedthe whole district. When I am gone the soul will be gone; if I withdrawall will die; and then, this woman, who has suffered so greatly, whohas so much merit in her fall, and whose misfortune I unwittinglycaused, and the child which I intended to go and fetch, and restore tothe mother--Do not I also owe something to this woman in reparation ofthe wrong which I have done her? If I disappear, what will happen? Themother dies, and the child will become what it can. This will happen ifI denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? Come, let me see."
After asking himself this question, he hesitated, and trembledslightly; but this emotion lasted but a short time, and he answeredhimself calmly:--
"Well, this man will go to the galleys, it is true, but, hang it all!he has stolen. Although I may say to myself that he has not stolen, hehas done so! I remain here and continue my operations: in ten yearsI shall have gained ten millions. I spread them over the country.I keep nothing for myself; but what do I care? I am not doing thisfor myself. The prosperity of all is increased; trades are revived,factories and forges are multiplied, and thousands of families arehappy; the district is populated; villages spring up where there areonly farms, and farms where there is nothing; wretchedness disappears,and with it debauchery, prostitution, robbery, murder, all the vices,all the crimes--and this poor mother brings up her child. Why, I wasmad, absurd, when I talked about denouncing myself, and I must guardagainst precipitation. What! because it pleases me to play the grandand the generous--it is pure melodrama after all--because I onlythought of myself, and in order to save from a perhaps exaggeratedthough substantially just punishment a stranger, a thief, and anapparent scoundrel--a whole department must perish, a poor woman diein the hospital, and a poor child starve in the streets, like dogs!Why, it is abominable! without the mother seeing her child again, orthe child knowing her mother! and all this on behalf of an old scamp
ofan apple-stealer, who has assuredly deserved the galleys for somethingelse, if not for that. These are fine scruples that save a culpritand sacrifice the innocent; that save an old vagabond who has notmany years to live, and will not be more unhappy at the galleys thanin his hovel, and destroy an entire population,--mothers, wives, andchildren. That poor little Cosette, who has only me in the world, andis doubtless at this moment shivering with cold in the den of thoseTh?nardiers. There is another pair of wretches. And I would fail inmy duties to all these poor creatures, and commit such a folly as todenounce myself! Let us put things at the worst: suppose that I amcommitting a bad action in this, and that my conscience reproaches mewith it some day; there will be devotion and virtue in accepting, forthe good of my neighbor, these reproaches, which only weigh on me, andthis bad action, which only compromises my own soul."
He got up and began walking up and down again: this time he seemed tobe satisfied with himself. Diamonds are only found in the darkness ofthe earth; truths are only found in the depths of thought. It seemedto him that after descending into these depths, after groping forsome time in the densest of this darkness, he had found one of thesediamonds, one of these truths, which he held in his hand and whichdazzled his eyes when he looked at it.
"Yes," he thought, "I am on the right track and hold the solutionof the problem. A man must in the end hold on to something, and mymind is made up. I will let matters take their course, so no morevacillation or backsliding. It is for the interest of all, not ofmyself. I am Madeleine, and remain Madeleine, and woe to the man whois Jean Valjean. I am no longer he. I do not know that man, and if anyone happen to be Jean Valjean at this moment, he must look out forhimself, for it does not concern me. It is a fatal name that floats inthe night, and if it stop and settle on a head, all the worse for thathead."
He looked into the small looking-glass over the mantel-piece, and saidto himself,--
"How greatly has forming a resolution relieved me! I am quite adifferent man at present."
He walked a little way and then stopped short. "Come," he said, "I mustnot hesitate before any of the consequences of the resolution I haveformed. There are threads which still attach me to Jean Valjean whichmust be broken. There are in this very room objects which would accuseme,--dumb things which would serve as witnesses, and they must alldisappear."
He took his purse from his pocket, and drew a small key out of it.He put this key in a lock, the hole of which could scarcely be seen,for it was hidden in the darkest part of the design on the paper thatcovered the walls. A sort of false cupboard made between the corner ofthe wall and the mantel-piece was visible. In this hiding-place therewere only a few rags,--a blue blouse, worn trousers, an old knapsack,and a large thorn-stick shod with iron at both ends. Any one who sawJean Valjean pass through D---- in October, 1815, would easily haverecognized all these wretched articles. He had preserved them, as hehad done the candlesticks, that they might constantly remind him of hisstarting-point; still he hid what came from the galleys, and displayedthe candlesticks which came from the Bishop. He took a furtive glanceat the door, as if afraid that it might open in spite of the bolt; andthen with a rapid movement he made but one armful of the things he hadso religiously and perilously kept for so many years, and threw themall--rags, stick, and knapsack--into the fire. He closed the cupboard,and, redoubling his precautions, which were now useless since it wasempty, dragged a heavy piece of furniture in front of it. In a fewseconds, the room and opposite wall were lit up with a large red andflickering glow; all was burning, and the thorn-stick crackled andthrew out sparks into the middle of the room. From the knapsack, as itburned with all the rags it contained, fell something that glistened inthe ashes. On stooping it could be easily recognized as a coin; it wasdoubtless the little Savoyard's two-franc piece. He did not look at thefire, and continued his walk backwards and forwards. All at once hiseye fell on the two candlesticks which the fire-light caused to shinevaguely on the mantel-piece.
"Stay," he thought, "all Jean Valjean is in them, and they must bedestroyed too."
He seized the candlesticks--there was a fire large enough to destroytheir shape, and convert them into unrecognizable ingots. He leanedover the hearth and wanned his hands for a moment; it was a greatcomfort to him.
He stirred up the ashes with one of the candlesticks, and in a momentthey were both in the fire. All at once he fancied he heard a voice crywithin him, "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" His hair stood erect, and hebecame like a man who is listening to a terrible thing.
"Yes, that is right; finish!" the voice said: "complete what you areabout; destroy those candlesticks, annihilate that reminiscence! forgetthe Bishop! forget everything! rain that Champmathieu; that is right.Applaud yourself; come, all is settled and resolved on. This old man,who does not know what they want with him, who is perhaps innocent,whose whole misfortune your name causes, on whom your name weighs likea crime, is going to be taken for you, sentenced, and will end hisdays in abjectness and horror. That is excellent! Be an honest manyourself; remain Mayor, honorable and honored, enrich the town, assistthe indigent, bring up orphans, live happy, virtuous, and applauded;and during this time, while you are here in joy and light, there willbe somebody who wears your red jacket, bears your name in ignominy,and drags along your chain at the galleys. Yes, that is excellentlyarranged. Oh, you scoundrel!"
The perspiration beaded on his forehead, and he fixed his haggard eyeupon the candlesticks. The voice within him, however, had not ended yet.
"Jean Valjean! there will be around you many voices making a greatnoise, speaking very loud and blessing you, and one which no one willhear, and which will curse you in the darkness. Well, listen, infamousman! all these blessings will fall back on the ground before reachingHeaven, and the curse alone will ascend to God!"
This voice, at first very faint, and which spoke from the obscurestnook of his conscience, had gradually become sonorous and formidable,and he now heard it in his ear. He fancied that it was not his ownvoice, and he seemed to hear the last words so distinctly that helooked round the room with a species of terror.
"Is there any one here?" he asked, in a loud voice and wildly.
Then he continued with a laugh, which seemed almost idiotic,--
"What a fool I am! there can be nobody."
There was somebody, but not of those whom the human eye can see. Heplaced the candlesticks on the mantel-piece, and then resumed thatmelancholy, mournful walk, which aroused the sleeper underneath him.This walking relieved him, and at the same time intoxicated him. Itappears sometimes as if on supreme occasions people move about toask advice of everything they pass. At the end of a few moments heno longer knew what result to arrive at. He now recoiled with equalhorror from the two resolutions he had formed in turn; the two ideasthat counselled him seemed each as desperate as the other. What afatality that this Champmathieu should be taken for him! He was hurleddown precisely by the means which Providence at first seemed to haveemployed to strengthen his position.
There was a moment during which he regarded his future. Denouncehimself! great Heavens! give himself up! He thought with immensedespair of all that he must give up, of all that he must resume. Hewould be forced to bid adieu to this good, pure, radiant life,--to therespect of all classes,--to honor, to liberty! He would no longer walkabout the fields, he would no longer hear the birds sing in May, orgive alms to the little children! He would no longer feel the sweetnessof glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him! He would leave thislittle house, which he had built, and his little bed-room. All appearedcharming to him at this moment. He would no longer read those books orwrite at the little deal table; his old servant would no longer bringup his coffee in the morning. Great God! instead of all this, therewould be the gang, the red jacket, the chain on his foot, fatigue, thedungeon, the camp-bed, and all the horrors he knew! At his age, afterall he had borne! It would be different were he still young. But to beold, coarsely addressed by anybody, searched by the jailer, and receiveblows from the k
eeper's stick! to thrust his naked feet into iron-shodshoes! to offer his leg morning and night to the man who examines thefetters! to endure the curiosity of strangers who would be told, "Thatis the famous Jean Valjean, who was Mayor of M----!" at night, whenpouring with perspiration, and crushed by fatigue, with a green capon his head, to go up two by two, under the sergeants whip, the sideladder of the hulks! Oh, what misery! Destiny, then, can be as wickedas an intelligent being and prove as monstrous as the human heart!
And whatever he might do, he ever fell back into this crushing dilemma,which was the basis of his reverie,--remain in paradise, and becomea demon there; or re-enter hell, and become an angel? What shouldhe do? Great God! what should he do? The trouble, from which he hadescaped with such difficulty, was again let loose on him, and histhoughts became composed once more. They assumed something stupefiedand mechanical, which is peculiar to despair. The name of Romainvilleincessantly returned to his mind, with two lines of a song which hehad formerly heard. He remembered that Romainville is a little wood,near Paris, where lovers go to pick lilac in April. He tottered bothexternally and internally; he walked like a little child allowed togo alone. At certain moments, he struggled against his lassitude,and tried to recapture his intelligence; he tried to set himself,for the last time, the problem over which he had fallen in a stateof exhaustion,--must he denounce himself, or must he be silent? Hecould not succeed in seeing anything distinct, the vague outlines ofall the reasonings sketched in by his reverie were dissipated in turnlike smoke. Still, he felt that, however he resolved, and without anypossibility of escape, something belonging to him was about to die;that he entered a sepulchre, whether on his right hand or his left, andthat either his happiness or his virtue would be borne to the grave.
Alas! all his irresolution had seized him again, and he was no furtheradvanced than at the beginning. Thus the wretched soul writhed inagony! Eighteen hundred years before this unhappy man, the mysteriousbeing in whom are embodied all the sanctities and sufferings ofhumanity had also, while the olive-trees shuddered in the fierce windof the infinite, long put away with his hand the awful cup whichappeared to him, dripping with shadow and overflowing with darkness inthe starry depths.