CHAPTER I.
BLOTTING, BLABBING.
What are the convulsions of a city compared with the convulsions of asoul? Man is even a greater profundity than the people. Jean Valjean atthis very moment was suffering from a frightful internal earthquake,and all the gulfs were reopened within him. He too was quivering,like Paris, on the threshold of a formidable and obscure revolution.A few hours had sufficed to cover his destiny and his conscience withshadows, and of him, as of Paris, it might be said, "The two principlesare face to face." The white angel and the black angel are about towrestle with each other on the brink of the abyss; which will hurl theother down?
On the evening of that same day, Jean Valjean, accompanied by Cosetteand Toussaint, proceeded to the Rue de l'Homme Armé, where a tremendousincident was fated to take place. Cosette had not left the Rue Plumetwithout an attempt at resistance, and for the first time since theyhad lived together, the will of Cosette and the will of Jean Valjeanhad shown themselves distinct, and had contradicted each other, thoughthey did not come into collision. There was objection on one side andinflexibility on the other: for the abrupt counsel, "Remove!" thrownto Jean Valjean by a stranger, had alarmed him to such a point asto render him absolute. He fancied himself tracked and pursued, andCosette was compelled to yield. The pair reached the Rue de l'HommeArmé without exchanging a syllable, for each was so deep in personalthought, while Jean Valjean was so anxious that he did not noticeCosette's sadness, and Cosette was so sad that she did not notice JeanValjean's anxiety. Jean Valjean had brought Toussaint with him, whichhe had never done in his previous absences, but he foresaw that hemight possibly never return to the Rue Plumet, and he could neitherleave Toussaint behind him nor tell her his secret. Moreover, he felther to be devoted and sure; the treachery of a servant to a masterbegins with curiosity, and Toussaint, as if predestined to be JeanValjean's servant, was not curious. She was wont to say through herstammering in her patois of a Barneville peasant, "I am so, I do mywork, and the rest does not concern me." In his departure from the RuePlumet, which was almost a flight, Jean Valjean took away with himnothing but the fragrant little portmanteau, christened by Cosette the"inseparable." Packed trunks would have required porters, and portersare witnesses; a hackney-coach had been called to the gate in the Ruede Babylone and they went away in it. It was with great difficultythat Toussaint obtained permission to pack up a little stock of linenand clothes, and a few toilet articles; Cosette herself only took herdesk and blotting-book. Jean Valjean, in order to heighten the solitudeand mystery of this disappearance, had so arranged as to leave the RuePlumet at nightfall, which had given Cosette the time to write her noteto Marius. They reached the Rue de l'Homme Armé when it was quite dark,and went to bed in perfect silence.
The apartments in this street were situated on a second floor in aback-yard, and consisted of two bed-rooms, a dining-room, and a kitchenadjoining, with a closet in which was a flock-bed, that fell to thelot of Toussaint. The dining-room was at the same time ante-room andseparated the two bed-rooms, and the apartments were provided with thenecessary articles of furniture. Human nature is so constituted thatmen become reassured almost as absurdly as they are alarmed; hence JeanValjean had scarce reached the Rue de l'Homme Armé ere his anxietycleared away and was gradually dissipated. There are calming placeswhich act to some extent mechanically on the mind, and when a street isobscure the inhabitants are peaceful. Jean Valjean felt a contagioustranquillity in this lane of old Paris, which is so narrow that it isbarred against vehicles by a cross-beam, which is dumb and deaf amidthe noisy town, full of twilight in broad daylight, and, so to speak,incapable of feeling emotions between its two rows of tall centenaryhouses, which are silent like old folks are. There is in this street astagnant oblivion, and Jean Valjean breathed again in it, for how wasit possible that he could be found there? His first care was to placethe "inseparable" by his side; he slept soundly, and night counsels,we might add, night appeases. The next morning he woke up almost gay.He considered the dining-room charming, though it was hideous, for itwas furnished with an old round table, a low side-board surmountedby a mirror, a rickety easy-chair, and a few chairs encumbered withToussaint's parcels. In one of these parcels Jean Valjean's NationalGuard uniform could be seen through an opening.
As for Cosette, she ordered Toussaint to bring a basin of broth toher bed-room, and did not make her appearance till evening. At aboutfive o'clock, Toussaint, who went about very busy with getting thingsto rights, placed a cold fowl on the dinner-table, which Cosetteconsented to look at, through deference for her father. This done,Cosette protesting a persistent headache, said good-night to JeanValjean, and shut herself up in her bed-room. Jean Valjean ate a wingof the fowl with appetite, and with his elbows on the table, andgradually growing reassured, regained possession of his serenity. Whilehe was eating this modest dinner, he vaguely heard twice or thricestammering Toussaint say to him, "There is a disturbance, sir, andpeople are fighting in Paris." But, absorbed in a multitude of internalcombinations, he had paid no attention to her; truth to tell, he hadnot heard her. He rose and began walking from the door to the window,and from the window to the door with calmness. Cosette, his solepreoccupation, reverted to his mind, not that he was alarmed by thisheadache, a slight nervous attack, a girl's pouting, a momentary cloud,which would disappear in a day or two, but he thought of the future,and, as usual, thought of it gently. After all, he saw no obstacle tohis happy life resuming its course: at certain hours everything seemsimpossible, at others everything appears easy, and Jean Valjean was inone of those good hours. They usually arrive after bad hours, as daydoes after night, through that law of succession and contrast which isthe basis of our nature, and which superficial minds call antithesis.In this peaceful street where he had sought shelter, Jean Valjeanfreed himself from all that had troubled him for some time past, andfrom the very fact that he had seen so much darkness he was beginningto perceive a little azure. To have left the Rue Plumet without anycomplication or incident was a good step gained, and perhaps it wouldbe wise to leave the country, were it only for a few months, and goto London. Well, they would go; what did he care whether he were inEngland or France, provided that he had Cosette by his side? Cosettewas his nation, Cosette sufficed for his happiness, and the idea thathe perhaps did not suffice for Cosette's happiness, that idea which hadformerly been his fever and sleeplessness, did not even present itselfto his mind. All his past sorrows had collapsed, and he was in thecentre of optimism. Cosette, being by his side, seemed to be his, andthis is an optical effect which everybody has experienced. He arrangedin his mind, and with all possible facility, the departure for Englandwith Cosette, and he saw his felicity reconstructed, no matter where,in the perspectives of his reverie.
While slowly walking up and down, his eye suddenly fell on somethingstrange. He noticed, facing him in the inclined mirror over theside-board, and read distinctly:--
"MY WELL-BELOVED,--Alas! my father insists on our going away at once.We shall be this evening at No. 7, Rue de l'Homme Armé, and within aweek in London. COSETTE."
"June 4."
Jean Valjean stopped with haggard gaze. Cosette, on arriving, had laidher blotting-book on the side-board facing the mirror, and, immersedin her painful thoughts, had forgotten it, without even noticing thatshe had left it open at the very page on which she had dried the fewlines she had written and intrusted to the young workman passing alongthe Rue Plumet. The writing was imprinted on the blotting-paper and themirror reflected the writing. The result was what is called in geometrya symmetric image, so that the writing reversed on the blotting-paperwas placed straight in the mirror, and offered its natural direction,and Jean Valjean had before his eyes the letter written on the previousevening by Cosette to Marius. It was simple and crushing. Jean Valjeanwalked up to the mirror and read the lines again, but did not believein them. They produced on him the effect of appearing in a flash oflightning: it was an hallucination; it was impossible; it was not.Gradually h
is perception became more precise, he looked at Cosette'sblotting-book, and the feeling of the real fact returned to him. Hetook up the blotting-book, saying, "It comes from that." He feverishlyexamined the lines imprinted on the blotting-paper, but as they ranbackward he could see no meaning in the strange scrawl. Then he saidto himself, "Why, it means nothing; there is nothing written there."And he drew a long breath with inexpressible relief. Who has not feltsuch wild delight in horrible moments? The soul does not surrender todespair till it has exhausted every illusion.
He held the book in his hand and gazed at it, stupidly happy, almostready to laugh at the hallucination of which he had been the dupe. Allat once his eyes fell again on the mirror, and he saw the vision again;the lines stood on it with inexorable clearness. This time it was nomirage, it was palpable, it was the writing turned straight in themirror, and he comprehended the fact. Jean Valjean tottered, let theblotting-book slip from his grasp, and fell into the old easy-chair bythe side of the side-board with hanging head and glassy, wandering eye.He said to himself that it was evident that the light of this worldwas eclipsed, and that Cosette had written that to somebody. Then heheard his soul, which had become terrible again, utter a hoarse roarin the darkness. Just attempt to take from the lion the dog he has inhis cage! Strange, and sad to say, at that moment Marius had not yetreceived Cosette's letter, and accident had treacherously carried itto Jean Valjean before delivering it to Marius. Jean Valjean up tothat day had never been conquered by a trial; he had been subjected tofrightful assaults, not a blow of evil fortune had been spared him,and the ferocity of fate, armed with all social revenge and contempt,had taken him for its victim and furiously attacked him. He hadaccepted, when it was necessary, every extremity; he had surrenderedhis reacquired inviolability as man, given up his liberty, risked hishead, lost everything and suffered everything, and he had remaineddisinterested and stoical to such an extent that at times he seemedto be oblivious of self, like a martyr. His conscience, hardened toall possible assaults of adversity, might seem quite impregnable; butany one who had now gazed into his heart would have been compelled toallow that it was growing weak. In truth, of all the tortures he hadundergone in this long trial to which fate subjected him, this was themost formidable, and never had such a vise held him before. He feltthe mysterious agitation of all his latent sensibilities, he felt thetwitching of an unknown fibre. Alas! the supreme trial, we may say thesole trial, is the loss of the being whom we love.
Poor old Jean Valjean did not assuredly love Cosette otherwise than asa father; but, as we have already remarked, the very widowhood of hislife had introduced all the forms of love into this paternity: he lovedCosette as his daughter, loved her as his mother, and loved her as hissister, and, as he had never had a mistress or a wife, that feelingtoo, the most clinging of all, was mingled with the others, vague,ignorant, pure with the purity of blindness unconscious, heavenly,angelic, and divine, less as a feeling than an instinct, less as aninstinct than an attraction, imperceptible, invisible, but real; andlove, properly so called, was in his enormous tenderness for Cosetteas the vein of gold is in the mountain, dark and virginal. Our readersmust study for a moment this state of the heart; no marriage waspossible between them, not even that of souls, and yet it is certainthat their destinies were wedded. Excepting Cosette, that is to say,excepting a childhood, Jean Valjean, during the whole of his life,had known nothing about things that may be loved. Those passions andloves which succeed each other had not produced in him those successivestages of green, light green, or dark green, which may be noticed onleaves that survive the winter, and in men who pass their fiftiethyear. In fine, as we have more than once urged, all this internalfusion, all this ensemble, whose resultant was a lofty virtue, ended bymaking Jean Valjean a father to Cosette,--a strange father, forged outof the grandsire, the son, the brother, and the husband, which were inJean Valjean; a father in whom there was even a mother; a father wholoved Cosette and adored her, and who had this child for his light, hisabode, his family, his country, and his paradise. Hence, when he sawthat it was decidedly ended, that she was escaping from him, slippingthrough his fingers, concealing herself, that she was a cloud, that shewas water; when he had before his eyes this crushing evidence: "Anotheris the object of her heart, another is the wish of her life, she hasa lover, I am only the father, I no longer exist;" when he could nolonger doubt, when he said to himself, "She is leaving me," the sorrowhe experienced went beyond the limits of the possible. To have done allthat he had done to attain this, and to be nothing! Then, as we havejust stated, he had a quivering of revolt from head to foot; he felteven in the roots of his hair the immense reawaking of selfishness, andthe "I" yelled in the depths of this man's soul.
There are such things as internal earthquakes; the penetration ofa desperate certainty into a man is not effected without removingand breaking certain profound elements which are at times the manhimself. Grief, when it attains that pitch, is a frantic flight ofall the forces of the conscience, and such crises are fatal. Fewamong us emerge from them equal to ourselves and firm in our duty;for when the limit of suffering is exceeded, the most imperturbablevirtue is disconcerted. Jean Valjean took up the blotting-book andconvinced himself afresh; he bent down as if petrified, and with fixedeye, over the undeniable lines, and such a cloud collected withinhim that it might be believed that the whole interior of his soulwas in a state of collapse. He examined this revelation through theexaggerations of reverie with an apparent and startling calmness, forit is a formidable thing when a man's calmness attains the coldnessof a statue. He measured the frightful step which his destiny hadtaken without any suspicion on his part, he recalled his fears of thepast summer, so madly dissipated, he recognized the precipice; it wasstill the same, but Jean Valjean was no longer at the top but at thebottom. It was an extraordinary and crushing fact that he had fallenwithout perceiving it, the whole light of his life had fled while hestill fancied he could see the sun. His instinct did not hesitate; hebrought together certain circumstances, certain dates, certain blushes,and certain palenesses of Cosette, and said to himself, "It is he!"The divination of despair is a species of mysterious bow which nevermisses its mark, and with its first shaft it hit Marius. He did notknow the name, but at once found the man; he perceived distinctly atthe bottom of the implacable evocation of memory the unknown prowlerof the Luxembourg, that villanous seeker of amourettes, that romanticidler, that imbecile, that coward,--for it is cowardice to exchangeloving glances with girls who have by their side a father who lovesthem. After feeling quite certain that this young man was at the bottomof the situation, and that all this came from him, Jean Valjean, theregenerated man, the man who had toiled so heavily in his soul, theman who had made so many efforts to resolve his whole life, his wholemisery, and his whole misfortune into love, looked into himself and sawthere a spectre--hatred.
Great griefs contain exhaustion, and discourage us with life; the maninto whom they enter feels something retire from him. In youth theirvisit is mournful, at a later date it is sinister. Alas! when the bloodis hot, when the hair is black, when the head is upright on the bodylike the flame on the candle, when the heart, full of a yearning love,still has palpitations which may be given to it in return, when aman has time to recover from the wound, when all women are there, andall the smiles, and all the future, and the whole horizon, when thestrength of life is complete,--if despair be a frightful thing undersuch circumstances, what is it then in old age, when years are growingmore and more livid, at that twilight hour when the stars of the tombare beginning to become visible? While Jean Valjean was thinking,Toussaint came in; he rose and asked her,--
"Do you know whereabout it is?"
Toussaint, in her stupefaction, could only answer,--
"I beg your pardon, sir."
Jean Valjean continued,--
"Did you not say just now that they were fighting?"
"Oh yes, sir," Toussaint replied; "over at St. Merry."
There are some mechanical movements
which come to us, without ourcognizance, from our deepest thoughts. It was doubtless under theimpulse of a movement of this nature, of which he was scarce conscious,that Jean Valjean found himself five minutes later in the street. Hewas bareheaded, and sat down on the bench before his house, seeminglylistening.
Night had set in.