Idiot, you’ll want to sling that stiff into the river, you’ll need a stone and a rope, otherwise it would float on the water. Ah, see here, comrade, how did you contrive to get out of that slough yonder? I haven’t dared to risk myself in it. Phew! you don’t smell good. I’m asking you questions, but you’re perfectly right not to answer. It’s an apprenticeship against that cursed quarter of an hour before the examining magistrate. And then, when you don’t talk at all, you run no risk of talking too loud. That’s no matter, as I can’t see your face and as I don’t know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don’t know who you are and what you want. I twig. You’ve broken up that gentleman a bit; now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great hider of folly, is what you want. I’ll get you out of your scrape. Helping a good fellow in a pinch is what suits me to a hair. Apropos of that quagmire, you’re a hearty animal. Why didn’t you toss the man in there? After all, you acted wisely. The workmen, when they come to-morrow to stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, and it might have been possible, thread by thread, straw by straw, to pick up the scent and reach you. Some one has passed through the sewer. Who? Where did he get out? Was he seen to come out? The police are full of cleverness. The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you. Such a find is a rarity, it attracts attention, very few people make use of the sewers for their affairs, while the river belongs to everybody. The river is the true grave. At the end of a month they fish up your man in the nets at Saint-Cloud. Well, what does one care for that? It’s carrion! Who killed that man? Paris. And justice makes no inquiries. You have done well. Now let’s settle this business. Let’s go shares. You have seen my key, show me your money. hush! Let’s settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags?


You knocked him over cheap,


That’s true, both of you together have no more than that. Never mind! You cut folks’ throats too cheap altogether. Now, my friend, you must leave. It’s like the fair here, you pay when you go out. You have paid, now clear out.


Who are you?


I.


Who is ‘I’?


Jean Valjean. Inspector Javert, you have me in your power. Moreover, I have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning. I did not give you my address with any intention of escaping from you. Take me. Only grant me one favor.


What are you doing here? And who is this man?


It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you. Dispose of me as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I ask of you.


This man was at the barricade. He is the one they called Marius.


He is wounded,


He is a dead man,


No. Not yet.


So you have brought him thither from the barricade?


He lives in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, with his grandfather. I do not recollect his name.


Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du Calvaire, No. 6. Coachman!


Some person whose name is Gillenormand?


Here. What do you want with him?


His son is brought back.


His son?


He is dead. He went to the barricade, and here he is.


To the barricade?


He has got himself killed. Go waken his father. Go along with you! There will be a funeral here to-morrow.


Inspector Javert, grant me yet another favor.


What is it?


Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like with me.


Driver. Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7.


How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive?


It comes to seven hours and a quarter, and my velvet was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector.


It is well. Go upstairs. I will wait for you here.


It is I!


Marius!


Sir. Monsieur has just been brought back. He went to the barricade, and....


He is dead! Ah! The rascal! Sir, you are the doctor. Begin by telling me one thing. He is dead, is he not? He is dead! He is dead! He is dead! He has got himself killed on the barricades! Out of hatred to me! He did that to spite me! Ah! You blood-drinker! This is the way he returns to me! Misery of my life, he is dead! Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces! Just look at that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I had had his room arranged, and that I had placed at the head of my bed his portrait taken when he was a little child! He knew well that he had only to come back, and that I had been recalling him for years, and that I remained by my fireside, with my hands on my knees, not knowing what to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew well, that you had but to return and to say: ‘It is I,’ and you would have been the master of the house, and that I should have obeyed you, and that you could have done whatever you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather! you knew that well, and you said: No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the barricades, and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed then and sleep tranquilly! he is dead, and this is my awakening. I thank you, sir. I am composed, I am a man, I witnessed the death of Louis XVI., I know how to bear events. One thing is terrible and that is to think that it is your newspapers which do all the mischief. You will have scribblers, chatterers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions, progress, enlightenment, the rights of man, the liberty of the press, and this is the way that your children will be brought home to you. Ah! Marius! It is abominable! Killed! Dead before me! A barricade! Ah, the scamp! Doctor, you live in this quarter, I believe? Oh! I know you well. I see your cabriolet pass my window. I am going to tell you. You are wrong to think that I am angry. One does not fly into a rage against a dead man. That would be stupid. This is a child whom I have reared. I was already old while he was very young. He played in the Tuileries garden with his little shovel and his little chair, and in order that the inspectors might not grumble, I stopped up the holes that he made in the earth with his shovel, with my cane. One day he exclaimed: Down with Louis XVIII.! and off he went. It was no fault of mine. He was all rosy and blond. His mother is dead. Have you ever noticed that all little children are blond? Why is it so? He is the son of one of those brigands of the Loire, but children are innocent of their fathers’ crimes. I remember when he was no higher than that. He could not manage to pronounce his Ds. He had a way of talking that was so sweet and indistinct that you would have thought it was a bird chirping. I remember that once, in front of the Hercules Farnese, people formed a circle to admire him and marvel at him, he was so handsome, was that child! He had a head such as you see in pictures. I talked in a deep voice, and I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well that it was only to make him laugh. In the morning, when he entered my room, I grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your Benjamin Constants, and your Tirecuir de Corcelles who have killed him? This cannot be allowed to pass in this fashion. Marius!


Ah! heartless lad! Ah! clubbist! Ah! wretch! Ah! Septembrist! It is all the same to me, I am going to die too, that I am. And to think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been delighted to make this wretch happy! A scamp who, instead of amusing himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down like a brute! And for whom? Why? For the Republic! Instead of going to dance at the Chaumière, as it is the duty of young folks to do! What’s the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged like this for the sake of General Lamarque’s handsome eyes! What had that General Lamarque done to you? A slasher! A chatter-box! To get oneself killed for a dead man! If that isn’t enough to drive any one mad! Just think of it! At twenty! And without so much as turning his head to see whether he was not leaving something behind him! That’s the way poor, good old fellows are forced to die alone, nowadays. Perish in your corner, owl! Well, after all, so much the better, that is what I was hoping for, this will kill me on the spot. I am too old, I am a hundred years old, I am a hundred thousand years old, I ought, by rights, to have been dead long ago. This blow puts an end to it. So all is over, what happiness! What is the good of making him inhale ammonia and all that parcel of drugs? You are wasting your trouble, you fool of a doctor! Come, he’s dead, completely dead. I know all about it, I am dead myself too. He hasn’t done things by half. Yes, this age is infamous, infamous and that’s what I think of you, of your ideas, of your systems, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your scape-graces of writers, of your rascally philosophers, and of all the revolutions which, for the last sixty years, have been frightening the flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting yourself killed like this, I shall not even grieve over your death, do you understand, you assassin? Marius! Marius! My little Marius! my child! my well-beloved son! You open your eyes, you gaze upon me, you are alive, thanks!


Go,


Be free


Here is a fugitive from justice, who has broken his ban! This man is yours!


It is well. Deliver up your savior. Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws.


What has that convict done, that desperate fellow, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has had me under his foot, and who could have avenged himself, and who owed it both to his rancor and to his safety, in leaving me my life, in showing mercy upon me? His duty? No. Something more. And I in showing mercy upon him in my turn—what have I done? My duty? No. Something more. So there is something beyond duty?


Was anarchy, then, on the point of now descending from on high?


Was this to be endured?


No.


In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Préfet to cast his eyes on this. Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. This entails hospital expenses. Thirdly: the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions, it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take his place. Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair, even by paying for it. Fifthly: in the Madelonettes there are only two bars to the canteen, so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand. Sixthly: the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous to call his name distinctly. This is a theft. Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the weaving shop; this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth is none the worse for it. Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be obliged to traverse the boys’ court in order to reach the parlor of Sainte-Marie-l’Égyptienne. Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination room is a grave disorder. Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat; but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a great civilization. JAVERT. Inspector of the 1st class. The Post of the Place du Châtelet. June 7th, 1832, about one o’clock in the morning.


Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder?


By the deuce. I’ll find him again. I’ll discover the parish of that parishioner. This prowler of Patron-Minette has a reason, and I’ll know it. People can’t have secrets in my forest if I don’t have a finger in the pie. There now, is something that will search the earth and a man.


Let’s take to the wolves’ Rue de Rivoli,


Thief!


Above all things, let the wounded man be subjected to no emotion.


as big as the ceiling,


Aïe! aïe!


Jeanne est née à Fougère “Amour, tu vis en elle; Vrai nid d’une bergère; Car c’est dans sa prunelle J’adore son jupon, Que tu mets ton carquois. Fripon. Narquois! “Moi, je la chante, et j’aime, Plus que Diane même, Jeanne et ses durs tetons Bretons.


M. le Baron. Long live the Republic! Is he no longer in danger?


The men of ’93 were giants,


Look here, my little Marius, if I were in your place, I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried sole is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is needed to put a sick man on his feet.


This leads me to say something to you.


What is it?


That I wish to marry.


Agreed,


How agreed?


Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl. Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l’Homme Armé, No. 7. Ah! There we have it! Ah! so you want her! Well, you shall have her. You’re caught. You had arranged your little plot, you had said to yourself:—‘I’m going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau, to that Dorante turned Géronte; he has indulged in his frivolities also, that he has, and he has had his love affairs, and his grisettes and his Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of the bread of spring; he certainly must remember it.’ Ah! you take the cockchafer by the horns. That’s good. I offer you a cutlet and you answer me: ‘By the way, I want to marry.’ There’s a transition for you! Ah! you reckoned on a bickering! You do not know that I am an old coward. What do you say to that? You are vexed? You did not expect to find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself, you are wasting the discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer, and that’s vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I’ll do whatever you wish, and that cuts you short, imbecile! Listen. I have made my inquiries, I’m cunning too; she is charming, she is discreet, it is not true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she’s a jewel, she adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her coffin would have accompanied mine. I have had an idea, ever since you have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is only in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of handsome young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What would your aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment, if there was any possibility of having a woman here. And then, what would the doctor have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it’s all right, let us say no more about it, all’s said, all’s done, it’s all settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceived that you did not love me. I said to myself: ‘Here now, I have my little Cosette right under my hand, I’m going to give her to him, he will be obliged to love me a little then, or he must tell the reason why.’ Ah! so you thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on a big voice, to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not a bit of it. Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Pray take the trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my well-beloved child.


Father!


Ah, so you love me! Come! his mouth is unstopped at last. He has said: ‘Father’ to me.


But, father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see her.


Agreed again, you shall see her to-morrow.


What?


Why not to-day?


Well, to-day then. Let it be to-day. You have called me ‘father’ three times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put into verse. This is the ending of the elegy of the ‘Jeune Malade’ by André Chénier, by André Chénier whose throat was cut by the ras . . . by the giants of ’93. Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable, who were heroes, pardi! found that André Chénier embarrassed them somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought André Chénier, in the interests of public safety, to be so good as to go....


By the hundred thousand Javottes of the devil, those ruffians did assassinate him!


Who, sir?


André Chénier!


Yes, sir,


I don’t know why it is, but I can’t help fancying that I’ve seen that face before.


Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm?


Well, he’s a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart like that. Monsieur Tranchelevent.... Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honor of asking you, on behalf of my grandson, Baron Marius Pontmercy, for the hand of Mademoiselle. That’s settled. Permission to adore each other!


Oh, heavens! I see you once again! it is thou! it is you! The idea of going and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not taken the time to dress myself, I must frighten people with my looks! What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. It is queer that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a very kindly air. Don’t disturb yourself, don’t rise on your elbow, you will injure yourself. Oh! how happy I am! So our unhappiness is over! I am quite foolish. I had things to say to you, and I no longer know in the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de l’Homme Armé. There is no garden. I made lint all the time; stay, sir, look, it is your fault, I have a callous on my fingers.


Angel!


Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at their ease. Call each other thou. Don’t stand on ceremony. Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior. I told you that this is what would happen to you. Look at the happiness of others. How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She’s a Greuze. So you are going to have that all to yourself, you scamp! Ah! my rogue, you are getting off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her. Come now! I am in love with you, mademoiselle. It’s perfectly simple. It is your right. You are in the right. Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding this will make! Our parish is Saint-Denis du Saint Sacrament, but I will get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul. The church is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit architecture is at Namur. It is called Saint-Loup. You must go there after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite of your mind, I think girls ought to marry; that is what they are made for. There is a certain Sainte-Catherine whom I should always like to see uncoiffed.62 It’s a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is chilly. The Bible says: Multiply. In order to save the people, Jeanne d’Arc is needed; but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining a spinster! I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin; but, sapristi, a handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy paws, laughing the while like the dawn,—that’s better than holding a candle at vespers, and chanting Turris Eburnea! Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes rêvasseries, Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries. By the way!


What is it, father?


Have not you an intimate friend?


Yes, Courfeyrac.


What has become of him?


He is dead.


That is good. She is exquisite, this darling. She’s a masterpiece, this Cosette! She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise. What eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is the folly of men and the wit of God. Adore each other. Only, what a misfortune! It has just occurred to me! More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity; so long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou! Your beautiful white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling him by the tail.


Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand francs.


What has Mademoiselle Euphrasie to do with the question?


I am she,


Six hundred thousand francs?


Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly,


This is a fine book,


Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!


This arranges things well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior? That devil of a Marius has ferreted out the nest of a millionaire grisette in his tree of dreams! Just trust to the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Cherubino works better than Rothschild.


Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs! Five hundred and eighty-four! one might as well say six hundred thousand!


The wonderful, beautiful girl! And she has so sweet and good an air! she is, without exception, the most charming girl that I have ever seen in my life. Later on, she’ll have virtues with an odor of violets. How graceful! one cannot live otherwise than nobly with such a creature. Marius, my boy, you are a Baron, you are rich, don’t go to pettifogging, I beg of you.


Do you understand anything about it?


No, but it seems to me that the good God is caring for us.


These fashions come up again, ancient things are the rage, and the young women of my old age dress like the old women of my childhood. Let us hear the confession of these dowagers, let us see what they have in their paunches.


The men of the revolution are so great, that they have the prestige of the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me an antique memory.


Moire antique! Thanks, Marius. That is precisely the idea of which I was in search. Love is all very well; but there must be something else to go with it. The useless must be mingled with happiness. Happiness is only the necessary. Season that enormously with the superfluous for me. A palace and her heart. Her heart and the Louvre. Her heart and the grand waterworks of Versailles. Give me my shepherdess and try to make her a duchess. Fetch me Phyllis crowned with corn-flowers, and add a hundred thousand francs income. Open for me a bucolic perspective as far as you can see, beneath a marble colonnade. I consent to the bucolic and also to the fairy spectacle of marble and gold. Dry happiness resembles dry bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the useless, the extravagant, excess, that which serves no purpose. I remember to have seen, in the Cathedral of Strasburg, a clock, as tall as a three-story house which marked the hours, which had the kindness to indicate the hour, but which had not the air of being made for that; and which, after having struck midday, or midnight,—midday, the hour of the sun, or midnight, the hour of love,—or any other hour that you like, gave you the moon and the stars, the earth and the sea, birds and fishes, Phœbus and Phœbe, and a host of things which emerged from a niche, and the twelve apostles, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and Éponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played on the trumpet to boot. Without reckoning delicious chimes which it sprinkled through the air, on every occasion, without any one’s knowing why. Is a petty bald clock-face which merely tells the hour equal to that? For my part, I am of the opinion of the big clock of Strasburg, and I prefer it to the cuckoo clock from the Black Forest. You are ignorant of the art of festivals. You do not know how to organize a day of enjoyment in this age. Your nineteenth century is weak. It lacks excess. It ignores the rich, it ignores the noble. In everything it is clean-shaven. Your third estate is insipid, colorless, odorless, and shapeless. The dreams of your bourgeois who set up, as they express it: a pretty boudoir freshly decorated, violet, ebony and calico. Make way! Make way! the Sieur Curmudgeon is marrying Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d’or has been stuck to a candle. There’s the epoch for you. My demand is that I may flee from it beyond the Sarmatians. Ah! in 1787, I predict that all was lost, from the day when I beheld the Duc de Rohan, Prince de Léon, Duc de Chabot, Duc de Montbazon, Marquis de Soubise, Vicomte de Thouars, peer of France, go to Longchamps in a tapecu! That has borne its fruits. In this century, men attend to business, they gamble on ’Change, they win money, they are stingy. People take care of their surfaces and varnish them; every one is dressed as though just out of a bandbox, washed, soaped, scraped, shaved, combed, waked, smoothed, rubbed, brushed, cleaned on the outside, irreproachable, polished as a pebble, discreet, neat, and at the same time, death of my life, in the depths of their consciences they have dung-heaps and cesspools that are enough to make a cow-herd who blows his nose in his fingers, recoil. I grant to this age the device: ‘Dirty Cleanliness.’ Don’t be vexed, Marius, give me permission to speak; I say no evil of the people as you see, I am always harping on your people, but do look favorably on my dealing a bit of a slap to the bourgeoisie. I belong to it. He who loves well lashes well. Thereupon, I say plainly, that nowadays people marry, but that they no longer know how to marry. Ah! it is true, I regret the grace of the ancient manners. I regret everything about them, their elegance, their chivalry, those courteous and delicate ways, that joyous luxury which every one possessed, music forming part of the wedding, a symphony above stairs, a beating of drums below stairs, the dances, the joyous faces round the table, the fine-spun gallant compliments, the songs, the fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil’s own row, the huge knots of ribbon. I regret the bride’s garter. The bride’s garter is cousin to the girdle of Venus. On what does the war of Troy turn? On Helen’s garter, parbleu! Why did they fight, why did Diomed the divine break over the head of Meriones that great brazen helmet of ten points? why did Achilles and Hector hew each other up with vast blows of their lances? Because Helen allowed Paris to take her garter. With Cosette’s garter, Homer would construct the Iliad. He would put in his poem, a loquacious old fellow, like me, and he would call him Nestor. My friends, in bygone days, in those amiable days of yore, people married wisely; they had a good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As soon as Cujas had taken his departure, Gamacho entered. But, in sooth! the stomach is an agreeable beast which demands its due, and which wants to have its wedding also. People supped well, and had at table a beautiful neighbor without a guimpe so that her throat was only moderately concealed. Oh! the large laughing mouths, and how gay we were in those days! youth was a bouquet; every young man terminated in a branch of lilacs or a tuft of roses; whether he was a shepherd or a warrior; and if, by chance, one was a captain of dragoons, one found means to call oneself Florian. People thought much of looking well. They embroidered and tinted themselves. A bourgeois had the air of a flower, a Marquis had the air of a precious stone. People had no straps to their boots, they had no boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering, dainty, coquettish, which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their sides. The humming-bird has beak and claws. That was the day of the Galland Indies. One of the sides of that century was delicate, the other was magnificent; and by the green cabbages! people amused themselves. To-day, people are serious. The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise is a prude; your century is unfortunate. People would drive away the Graces as being too low in the neck. Alas! beauty is concealed as though it were ugliness. Since the revolution, everything, including the ballet-dancers, has had its trousers; a mountebank dancer must be grave; your rigadoons are doctrinarian. It is necessary to be majestic. People would be greatly annoyed if they did not carry their chins in their cravats. The ideal of an urchin of twenty when he marries, is to resemble M. Royer-Collard. And do you know what one arrives at with that majesty? at being petty. Learn this: joy is not only joyous; it is great. But be in love gayly then, what the deuce! marry, when you marry, with fever and giddiness, and tumult, and the uproar of happiness! Be grave in church, well and good. But, as soon as the mass is finished, sarpejou! you must make a dream whirl around the bride. A marriage should be royal and chimerical; it should promenade its ceremony from the cathedral of Rheims to the pagoda of Chanteloup. I have a horror of a paltry wedding. Ventregoulette! be in Olympus for that one day, at least. Be one of the gods. Ah! people might be sylphs. Games and Laughter, argiraspides; they are stupids. My friends, every recently made bridegroom ought to be Prince Aldobrandini. Profit by that unique minute in life to soar away to the empyrean with the swans and the eagles, even if you do have to fall back on the morrow into the bourgeoisie of the frogs. Don’t economize on the nuptials, do not prune them of their splendors; don’t scrimp on the day when you beam. The wedding is not the housekeeping. Oh! if I were to carry out my fancy, it would be gallant, violins would be heard under the trees. Here is my programme: sky-blue and silver. I would mingle with the festival the rural divinities, I would convoke the Dryads and the Nereids. The nuptials of Amphitrite, a rosy cloud, nymphs with well dressed locks and entirely naked, an Academician offering quatrains to the goddess, a chariot drawn by marine monsters. Triton trottait devant, et tirait de sa conque Des sons si ravissants qu’il ravissait quiconque! —there’s a festive programme, there’s a good one, or else I know nothing of such matters, deuce take it!


My father has settled the question of the marriage without reference to me; I shall settle the question of the inheritance without consulting him. So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a beggar, let him be a beggar himself!


That will make me young again. It’s an old plan of mine. I have always entertained the idea of having a wedding in my chamber. It was with that stuff, that the bed of the Duchesse d’Anville at la Roche-Guyon was draped.


This is reversing things, to have the bride come to the house to do the courting like this.


Of course, you are acquainted with that street? You are acquainted with that street?


What street?


The Rue de la Chanvrerie.


I have no idea of the name of that street,


all those folks this time


The night was very dark.


That man was terrible.


Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime. Do you know what he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the cesspool,—more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his back! And with what object? With the sole object of saving the corpse. And that corpse I was. He said to himself: 'There may still be a glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent. What was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette’s six hundred thousand francs were mine…. There may still be a glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that miserable spark!


They are yours,


Well. I would give them all to find that man once more.


Shrove Tuesday! Mariage un Mardi gras N’aura point enfants ingrats. Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th! Do you want to delay, Marius?


No, certainly not!


Let us marry, then,


Father, I entreat you,


Why?


Because of the maskers.


Capital, let us go that way. These young folks are on the way to be married; they are about to enter the serious part of life. This will prepare them for seeing a bit of the masquerade.


There’s something behind that. Probably the ministry is about to undergo a change.


Paint me the mud.


Hullo! here’s a wedding.


A sham wedding. We are the genuine article.


Say, now.


What, daddy?


Do you see that old cove?


What old cove?


Yonder, in the first wedding-cart, on our side.


The one with his arm hung up in a black cravat?


Yes.


Well?


I’m sure that I know him.


Ah!


I’m willing that they should cut my throat, and I’m ready to swear that I never said either you, thou, or I, in my life, if I don’t know that Parisian.


Paris in Pantin to-day.


Can you see the bride if you stoop down?


No.


And the bridegroom?


There’s no bridegroom in that trap.


Bah!


Unless it’s the old fellow.


Try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low.


I can’t.


Never mind, that old cove who has something the matter with his paw I know, and that I’m positive.


And what good does it do to know him?


No one can tell. Sometimes it does!


I don’t care a hang for old fellows, that I don’t!


I know him.


Know him, if you want to.


How the devil does he come to be one of the wedding party?


We are in it, too.


Where does that wedding come from?


How should I know?


Listen.


Well, what?


There’s one thing you ought to do.


What’s that?


Get off of our trap and spin that wedding.


What for?


To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, trot, my girl, your legs are young.


I can’t quit the vehicle.


Why not?


I’m hired.


Ah, the devil!


I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture.


That’s true.


If I leave the cart, the first inspector who gets his eye on me will arrest me. You know that well enough.


Yes, I do.


I’m bought by the government for to-day.


All the same, that old fellow bothers me.


Do the old fellows bother you? But you’re not a young girl.


He’s in the first carriage.


Well?


In the bride’s trap.


What then?


So he is the father.


What concern is that of mine?


I tell you that he’s the father.


As if he were the only father.


Listen.


What?


I can’t go out otherwise than masked. Here I’m concealed, no one knows that I’m here. But to-morrow, there will be no more maskers. It’s Ash Wednesday. I run the risk of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my hole. But you are free.


Not particularly.


More than I am, at any rate.


Well, what of that?


You must try to find out where that wedding party went to.


Where it went?


Yes.


I know.


Where is it going then?


To the Cadran-Bleu.


In the first place, it’s not in that direction.


Well! to la Rapée.


Or elsewhere.


It’s free. Wedding parties are at liberty.


That’s not the point at all. I tell you that you must try to learn for me what that wedding is, who that old cove belongs to, and where that wedding pair lives.


I like that! that would be queer. It’s so easy to find out a wedding party that passed through the street on a Shrove Tuesday, a week afterwards. A pin in a hay-mow! It ain’t possible!


That don’t matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma.


Monsieur Fauchelevent, this is a fine day. I vote for the end of afflictions and sorrows. Henceforth, there must be no sadness anywhere. Pardieu, I decree joy! Evil has no right to exist. That there should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace to the azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man, who is good at bottom. All human miseries have for their capital and central government hell, otherwise, known as the Devil’s Tuileries. Good, here I am uttering demagogical words! As far as I am concerned, I have no longer any political opinions; let all men be rich, that is to say, mirthful, and I confine myself to that.


My children, here you are, Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne, with an income of thirty thousand livres.


So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou.


We will go back to take a look at our little garden in the Rue Plumet.


How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer!


Father, are you satisfied?


Yes. I am content!


Well, then, laugh.


Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?


Sir. I do, precisely. M. Fauchelevent told me to say to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was paining him somewhat, and that he could not dine with Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne. That he begged to be excused, that he would come to-morrow. He has just taken his departure.


Pardieu, this armchair is empty. Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. Fortunatus beside Fortunata. this armchair is empty. Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. Fortunatus beside Fortunata.


the health of the married pair. You shall not escape two sermons. This morning you had one from the curé, this evening you shall have one from your grandfather. Listen to me; I will give you a bit of advice: Adore each other. I do not make a pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, be happy. In all creation, only the turtledoves are wise. Philosophers say: ‘Moderate your joys.’ I say: ‘Give rein to your joys.’ Be as much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their philosophy down their gullets again. Can there be too many perfumes, too many open rose-buds, too many nightingales singing, too many green leaves, too much aurora in life? can people love each other too much? can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too pretty! Have a care, Nemorin, thou art too handsome! Fine stupidity, in sooth! Can people enchant each other too much, cajole each other too much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? Moderate your joys. Ah, indeed! Down with the philosophers! Wisdom consists in jubilation. Make merry, let us make merry. Are we happy because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harley de Sancy, or because it weighs six hundred carats? I know nothing about it, life is full of such problems; the important point is to possess the Sancy and happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling and quirking. Let us obey the sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love, says woman. Ah! ah! behold omnipotence—women. Ask that demagogue of a Marius if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a Cosette. And of his own free will, too, the coward! Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps his place but woman reigns. I am no longer Royalist except towards that royalty. What is Adam? The kingdom of Eve. No ’89 for Eve. There has been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lys, there has been the imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there has been the sceptre of Charlemagne, which was of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the Great, which was of gold,—the revolution twisted them between its thumb and forefinger, ha’penny straws; it is done with, it is broken, it lies on the earth, there is no longer any sceptre, but make me a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief, which smells of patchouli! I should like to see you do it. Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a gewgaw. Ah! you are the nineteenth century? Well, what then? And we have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you have effected much change in the universe, because your trip-gallant is called the cholera-morbus, and because your pourrée is called the cachuca. In fact, the women must always be loved. I defy you to escape from that. These friends are our angels. Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from which I defy you to escape; and, for my own part, I should be only too happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the coquette of the abyss, the Célimène of the ocean, rise in the infinite, calming all here below? The ocean is a rough Alcestis. Well, grumble as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast submits. We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene, a planet rises; flat on your face! Marius was fighting six months ago; to-day he is married. That is well. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist boldly for each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a nest for life. Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle when one is young! Don’t imagine that you have invented that. I, too, have had my dream, I, too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight soul. Love is a child six thousand years old. Love has the right to a long white beard. Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid. For sixty centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; man, who is still more cunning, took to loving woman. In this way he does more good than the devil does him harm. This craft was discovered in the days of the terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is perfectly new. Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to become Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with each other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be the smile of your husband; Marius, let your rain be your wife’s tears. And let it never rain in your household. You have filched the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not squander it, adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest. Believe what I say to you. It is good sense. And good sense cannot lie. Be a religion to each other. Each man has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte! the best way to adore God is to love one’s wife. I love thee! that’s my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventre-saint-gris! I don’t belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! I am old, they say; it’s astonishing how much I feel in the mood to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,—that intoxicates me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this: to idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dove-like, to be dainty, to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one’s image in one’s little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself; that is the aim of life. There, let not that displease you which we used to think in our day, when we were young folks. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces and what lovely lasses! I committed my ravages among them. Then love each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what use there would be in having any springtime; and for my own part, I should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers, the birds, and the pretty maidens. My children, receive an old man’s blessing.


Dame, sir, we all woke up late.


Is your master up?


How is Monsieur’s arm?


Better. Is your master up?


Which one? the old one or the new one?


Monsieur Pontmercy.


Monsieur le Baron,


Monsieur le Baron? I will go and see. I will tell him that M. Fauchelevent is here.


No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to speak to him in private, and mention no name.


Ah!


I wish to surprise him.


It is you, father! that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air! But you have come too early. It is only half past twelve. Cosette is asleep. Father. How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not? We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to do with the Rue de l’Homme Armé. We will have no more of it at all. How could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where one is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install yourself here. And this very day. Or you will have to deal with Cosette. She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have your own chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the trouble with the clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all ready, you have only to take possession of it.


Stretch out your arms to him.


A nightingale comes to the clump of acacias opposite your windows, every spring. In two months more you will have it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on your right. By night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle. Your chamber faces due South. Cosette will arrange your books for you, your Voyages of Captain Cook and the other,—Vancouver’s and all your affairs. I believe that there is a little valise to which you are attached, I have fixed upon a corner of honor for that. You have conquered my grandfather, you suit him. We will live together. Do you play whist? you will overwhelm my grandfather with delight if you play whist. It is you who shall take Cosette to walk on the days when I am at the courts, you shall give her your arm, you know, as you used to, in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, do you hear, father? Come, will you breakfast with us to-day?


Sir. I have something to say to you. I am an ex-convict.


There is nothing the matter with my hand. There has not been anything the matter with it. It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing.


What is the meaning of this?


The meaning of it is, that I have been in the galleys.


You are driving me mad!


Monsieur Pontmercy. I was nineteen years in the galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban.


Say all, say all! You are Cosette’s father!


It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir; although our oath to others may not be received in law . . . . . . You will believe me. I the father of Cosette! before God, no. Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself.


Who will prove that to me?


I. Since I tell you so.


I believe you,


What am I to Cosette? A passer-by. Ten years ago, I did not know that she was in existence. I love her, it is true. One loves a child whom one has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old, one feels oneself a grandfather towards all little children. You may, it seems to me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an orphan. Without either father or mother. She needed me. That is why I began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this duty towards Cosette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be called a good action; but if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. Register this attenuating circumstance. To-day, Cosette passes out of my life; our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for her. She is Madame Pontmercy. Her providence has changed. And Cosette gains by the change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not mention them to me, but I forestall your thought, they are a deposit. How did that deposit come into my hands? What does that matter? I restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me. I complete the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a reason for desiring that you should know who I am.


But why, do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?


My motive? From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said ‘I am a convict’? Well, yes! the motive is strange. It is out of honesty. Stay, the unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly solid. All life falls in ruin around one; one resists. Had I been able to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are diligences in the Rue Bouloy; you are happy; I am going. I have tried to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore my heart with it. Then I said: ‘I cannot live anywhere else than here.’ I must stay. Well, yes, you are right, I am a fool, why not simply remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is sincerely attached to me, she said to the armchair: ‘Stretch out your arms to him,’ your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me, I suit him, we shall live together, and take our meals in common, I shall give Cosette my arm . . . Madame Pontmercy, excuse me, it is a habit, we shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney-corner in winter, the same promenade in summer, that is joy, that is happiness, that is everything. We shall live as one family. One family! As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it was well, I said to myself: ‘Enter thou not.’ I could have lied, it is true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing; my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the night in trying to persuade myself to it; you questioned me, and what I have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do it; well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there are two things in which I have not succeeded; in breaking the thread that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only myself; I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have taken my mystery and have brought it to you. And I have disembowelled my secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to take. I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one’s way, that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must be content. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus I should have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ‘’ware,’ I should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said: ‘How horrible!’ I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one’s peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at midday, and my ‘good morning’ would have lied, and my ‘good night’ would have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be happy? I stand outside of life, sir. You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds oneself, one is firmly held. Do you see that fist? Don’t you think that it holds that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience is another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you; for it places you in a hell, where you feel God beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at peace with himself. Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then; it was a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be so if, through my fault, you had continued to esteem me; now that you despise me, I am so. I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever have anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again. I am a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is most improbable. But what would you have me do about it? it is the fact. I have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them. There are encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties. You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me in the course of my life. When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to make them slip over one’s own precipice without their perceiving it, one has not the right to let one’s red blouse drag upon them, one has no right to slyly encumber with one’s misery the happiness of others. It is hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark with one’s ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not take it. A name is an I. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous within the I, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep, to tear one’s skin from the flesh with one’s nails, to pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say. In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in order to live, I will not steal a name.


To live! You do not need that name in order to live?


Ah! I understand the matter. While, at present, I am relieved. I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why! And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers, in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are together, you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am there, we are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a voice shouting this name: ‘Jean Valjean!’ and behold, that terrible hand, the police, darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my mask! What do you say to that? You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; you have before you, sir, a wretched man.


My grandfather has friends. I will procure your pardon.


It is useless. I am believed to be dead, and that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon. Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience.


I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!


Cosette! . . .


I have caught you in the very act. Just now, I heard my father Fauchelevent through the door saying: ‘Conscience . . . doing my duty . . .’ That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right.


You are mistaken. Cosette, we are talking business. We are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand francs . . .


That is not it at all. I am coming. Does anybody want me here? There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am! There. I am going to install myself near you in an easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good.


We are talking business.


By the way. I have opened my window, a flock of pierrots has arrived in the garden,—Birds, not maskers. To-day is Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds.


I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave us alone for a moment. We are talking figures. That will bore you.


You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very dandified, monseigneur. No, it will not bore me.


I assure you that it will bore you.


No. Since it is you. I shall not understand you, but I shall listen to you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not need to understand the words that they utter. That we should be here together—that is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, bah!


You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible.


Impossible!


Yes.


Very good. I was going to tell you some news. I could have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent’s room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the chimney-sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint’s stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say: It is impossible. Then who will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius, let me stay here with you two.


I swear to you, that it is indispensable that we should be alone.


Well, am I anybody? In the first place, father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? who gave me such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly. As for you, I shall make a face at you. Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?


It is well,


Did you sleep badly?


No.


Are you sad?


Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I will not scold you. Smile. Now, defend me against my husband.


Cosette! . . .


Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before me. So you think me very silly. What you say is astonishing! business, placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius.


I love you!


I adore you! Now. I shall stay.


No, not that. We have to finish something.


Still no?


I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible.


Ah! you put on your man’s voice, sir. That is well, I go. You, father, have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be bored without me. I am going, it is well. I am very angry indeed.


Poor Cosette! when she finds out . . .


Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her. Is it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the whole world,—it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her: ‘He is a man who has been in the galleys.’ She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!


Oh! would that I could die!


Be at your ease. I will keep your secret for myself alone. It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not fear to set it very high.


I thank you, sir. All is nearly over. But one last thing remains for me . . .


What is it?


Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I ought not to see Cosette any more?


I think that would be better,


I shall never see her more. Stay, sir. If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood. You see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see her again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything, would be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I should like to see a little more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, I have nothing left but that. And then, we must be cautious. If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the afternoon, when night is beginning to fall.


You shall come every evening, and Cosette will be waiting for you.


You are kind, sir,


I am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in existence.


You are confessing me,


Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to go upstairs or to remain below?


I will remain below,


I will go and inform Madame.


Well, father, I knew that you were peculiar, but I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you wish me to receive you here.


Yes, it is my wish.


I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father. You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is. This is becoming serious. What have I done to you? I declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with us.


I have dined.


That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you. Grandfathers are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me to the drawing-room. Immediately.


Impossible.


But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to see me. It’s horrible here.


Thou knowest . . . You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks.


Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of this?


You wished to be Madame. You are so.


Not for you, father.


Do not call me father.


What?


Call me ‘Monsieur Jean.’ ‘Jean,’ if you like.


You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? ‘Monsieur Jean’? What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren’t they? what has taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won’t live with us! And you won’t have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything happened?


Nothing.


Well then?


Everything is as usual.


Why do you change your name?


You have changed yours, surely. Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean.


I don’t understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask permission of my husband for you to be ‘Monsieur Jean.’ I hope that he will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does have freaks, but one does not cause one’s little Cosette grief. That is wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good. Oh! be good! This is what I call being good: being nice and coming and living here,—there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,—living with us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l’Homme Armé, not giving us riddles to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us, breakfasting with us, being my father.


You no longer need a father, you have a husband.


I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to things like that, which are not common sense!


If Toussaint were here, she would be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black corner.


But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say ‘you’ to me.


Just now, as I was coming hither. I saw a piece of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker’s. If I were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is pretty.


Hou! the villainous bear! I am furious. Ever since yesterday, you have made me rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don’t understand. You do not defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my father Fauchelevent wants me to call him ‘Monsieur Jean,’ and to receive him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of spiders’ webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in your abominable Rue de l’Homme Armé. I was very desperate indeed there, that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of grief. Fi! Are you angry with me because I am happy?


Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over.


Ah, you have said thou to me! Thanks, father! Well?


I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you. I have said thou to you. Tell your husband that this shall not happen again. Pardon me.


Monsieur Jean.


Monsieur has always been like that,


He’s an original. Nothing is more common than those originals. They do all sorts of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de Canaples was still worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the garret. These are fantastic appearances that people affect.


father


You used to be my father, you are no longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don’t like all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of you.


Say Jean.


Ah! truly. Monsieur Jean.


That is right,


My father! father


We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful.


Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet returned,


their garden lived a whole day in her past


In what way did you go thither?


On foot.


And how did you return?


In a hackney carriage.


Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coupé would only cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich.


I don’t know,


It is like Toussaint. She is gone. You have not replaced her. Why?


Nicolette suffices.


But you ought to have a maid.


Have I not Marius?


You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage, a box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit by your riches? Wealth adds to happiness.


Hello! No fire. It is perfectly simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased.


Heavens! how cold it is here!


Why, no,


Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then?


Yes, since we are now in the month of May.


But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this cellar.


I thought that a fire was unnecessary.


That is exactly like one of your ideas!


What is the meaning of this?


My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday.


What was it?


Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres. Twenty-seven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me. father That makes thirty. Would you have the courage to live on the three thousand? Yes, on nothing. Provided that it was with you. Why do you say that to me? I wanted to know.


Ah, what’s this! no chairs! Where are the armchairs?


They are no longer here,


This is too much!


It was I who told Basque to remove them.


And your reason?


I have only a few minutes to stay to-day.


A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing.


I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room.


Why?


You have company this evening, no doubt.


We expect no one. To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put out. How odd you are!


Adieu!


Why. Monsieur Jean has not been here today.


Madame must remember that it was his custom to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry about him. They were not to think of him. It is two days since I have been there,


He is an innocent.


He is absent, I think. Did not he say that he was setting out on a journey?


That is true. He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so long.


But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!


Certainly I did,


The plate is quite full.


Look at the water jug. It is empty.


That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have eaten.


Well, what if I felt hungry only for water?


That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it is called fever.


I will eat to-morrow.


Or at Trinity day. Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say: ‘I will eat to-morrow’? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it! My lady-finger potatoes were so good!


I promise you that I will eat them,


I am not pleased with you,


The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won’t get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad marriage.


If he’s rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go without. If he has no doctor he will die.


And if he has one?


He will die,


It’s a shame. Such a neat old man! He’s as white as a chicken. It’s on the second floor. You have only to enter. As the good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked. Well, doctor?


Your sick man is very ill indeed.


What is the matter with him?


Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost some person who is dear to him. People die of that.


What did he say to you?


He told me that he was in good health.


Shall you come again, doctor?


Yes. But some one else besides must come.


Cosette, I bless thee. I am going to explain to thee. Thy husband was right in giving me to understand that I ought to go away; but there is a little error in what he believed, though he was in the right. He is excellent. Love him well even after I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, love my darling child well. Cosette, this paper will be found; this is what I wish to say to thee, thou wilt see the figures, if I have the strength to recall them, listen well, this money is really thine. Here is the whole matter: White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, black glass jewellery comes from Germany. Jet is the lightest, the most precious, the most costly. Imitations can be made in France as well as in Germany. What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a lamp burning spirits of wine to soften the wax. The wax was formerly made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I invented a way of making it with gum shellac and turpentine. It does not cost more than thirty sous, and is much better. Buckles are made with a violet glass which is stuck fast, by means of this wax, to a little framework of black iron. The glass must be violet for iron jewellery, and black for gold jewellery. Spain buys a great deal of it. It is the country of jet . . . Oh! all is over. I shall never see her more. She is a smile which passed over me. I am about to plunge into the night without even seeing her again. Oh! one minute, one instant, to hear her voice, to touch her dress, to gaze upon her, upon her, the angel! and then to die! It is nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her. She would smile on me, she would say a word to me, would that do any harm to any one? No, all is over, and forever. Here I am all alone. My God! My God! I shall never see her again!


The person who wrote the letter is in the antechamber.


Monsieur le Baron:—If the Supreme Being had given me the talents, I might have been baron Thénard, member of the Institute , but I am not. I only bear the same as him, happy if this memory recommends me to the eccellence of your kindnesses. The benefit with which you will honor me will be reciprocle. I am in possession of a secret concerning an individual. This individual concerns you. I hold the secret at your disposal desiring to have the honor to be huseful to you. I will furnish you with the simple means of driving from your honorabel family that individual who has no right there, madame la baronne being of lofty birth. The sanctuary of virtue cannot cohabit longer with crime without abdicating.


Show the man in,


Monsieur Thénard.


What do you want?


It seems to me impossible that I should not have already had the honor of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I think I actually did meet monsieur personally, several years ago, at the house of Madame la Princesse Bagration and in the drawing-rooms of his Lordship the Vicomte Dambray, peer of France.


I know neither Madame Bagration nor M. Dambray. I have never set foot in the house of either of them in my life.


Then it must have been at Chateaubriand’s that I have seen Monsieur! I know Chateaubriand very well. He is very affable. He sometimes says to me: ‘Thénard, my friend . . . won’t you drink a glass of wine with me?’


I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand. Let us cut it short. What do you want?


Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is composed of a single house, a large, square house of three stories, built of bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders are withdrawn, carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes; no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred inhabitants,—that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the country is dangerous; it is full of cannibals. Then why do people go there? because the country is marvellous; gold is found there.


What are you driving at?


At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages.


Well?


Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. Self-interest—that’s the object of men. Gold, that’s the loadstone.


What then? Finish.


I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three of us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The journey is long and costly. I need a little money.


What concern is that of mine?


Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter?


State the case precisely.


So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to sell to you.


A secret?


A secret.


Which concerns me?


Somewhat.


What is the secret?


I commence gratis. You will see that I am interesting.


Speak.


Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin.


In my house? no,


An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can be effaced by limitation before the law and by repentance before God. I speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice at this hour. I continue. This man has insinuated himself into your confidence, and almost into your family under a false name. I am about to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing.


I am listening.


His name is Jean Valjean.


I know it.


I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is.


Say on.


He is an ex-convict.


You know it since I have had the honor of telling you.


No. I knew it before.


I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case, you ought to perceive that I am well informed. Now what I have to tell you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la Baronne. It is an extraordinary secret. It is for sale—I make you the first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs.


I know that secret as well as the others,


Monsieur le Baron, say ten thousand francs and I will speak.


I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know what you wish to say to me.


But I must dine to-day, nevertheless. It is an extraordinary secret, I tell you. Monsieur le Baron, I will speak. I speak. Give me twenty francs.


I know your extraordinary secret, just as I knew Jean Valjean’s name, just as I know your name.


My name?


Yes.


That is not difficult, Monsieur le Baron. I had the honor to write to you and to tell it to you. Thénard.


—Dier.


Hey?


Thénardier.


Who’s that?


You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the poet, Don Alvarès the Spaniard, and Mistress Balizard.


Mistress what?


And you kept a pot-house at Montfermeil.


A pot-house! Never.


And I tell you that your name is Thénardier.


I deny it.


And that you are a rascal. Here.


Thanks! Pardon me! five hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron! Five hundred francs! An honest rustler. Well, so be it! Let us put ourselves at our ease.


Monsieur le Baron is infallible, I am Thénardier.


Thénardier, I have told you your name. Now, would you like to have me tell you your secret—the one that you came here to reveal to me? I have information of my own, also. You shall see that I know more about it than you do. Jean Valjean, as you have said, is an assassin and a thief. A thief, because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer, whose ruin he brought about. An assassin, because he assassinated police-agent Javert.


I don’t understand, sir,


I will make myself intelligible. In a certain arrondissement of the Pas de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had regained his status and rehabilitated himself. This man had become a just man in the full force of the term. In a trade, the manufacture of black glass goods, he made the fortune of an entire city. As far as his personal fortune was concerned he made that also, but as a secondary matter, and in some sort, by accident. He was the foster-father of the poor. He founded hospitals, opened schools, visited the sick, dowered young girls, supported widows, and adopted orphans; he was like the guardian angel of the country. He refused the cross, he was appointed Mayor. A liberated convict knew the secret of a penalty incurred by this man in former days; he denounced him, and had him arrested, and profited by the arrest to come to Paris and cause the banker Laffitte,—I have the fact from the cashier himself,—by means of a false signature, to hand over to him the sum of over half a million which belonged to M. Madeleine. This convict who robbed M. Madeleine was Jean Valjean. As for the other fact, you have nothing to tell me about it either. Jean Valjean killed the agent Javert; he shot him with a pistol. I, the person who is speaking to you, was present.


Monsieur le Baron, we are on the wrong track.


What! do you dispute that? These are facts.


They are chimæras. The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors me renders it my duty to tell him so. Truth and justice before all things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill Javert.


This is too much! How is this?


For two reasons.


What are they? Speak.


This is the first: he did not rob M. Madeleine, because it is Jean Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine.


What tale are you telling me?


And this is the second: he did not assassinate Javert, because the person who killed Javert was Javert.


What do you mean to say?


That Javert committed suicide.


Prove it! prove it!


Police-agent-Ja-vert-was-found-drowned-un-der-a-boat-of-the-Pont-au-Change.


But prove it!


I have my papers. Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean thoroughly. I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the same man, and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert. If I speak, it is because I have proofs. Not manuscript proofs—writing is suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,—but printed proofs. Two facts, two proofs,


Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a whole countryside! he is Jean Valjean, Javert’s savior! he is a hero! he is a saint!


He’s not a saint, and he’s not a hero! He’s an assassin and a robber. Let us be calm.


Again!


Always. Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer.


Will you speak, of that miserable theft, committed forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole life of repentance, of self-abnegation and of virtue?


I say assassination and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I repeat that I am speaking of actual facts. What I have to reveal to you is absolutely unknown. It belongs to unpublished matter. And perhaps you will find in it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne by Jean Valjean. I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one’s crime, and to enjoy one’s theft, to bury one’s name and to create for oneself a family.


I might interrupt you at this point, but go on.


Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the recompense to your generosity. This secret is worth massive gold. You will say to me: ‘Why do not you apply to Jean Valjean?’ For a very simple reason; I know that he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I consider the combination ingenious; but he has no longer a son, he would show me his empty hands, and, since I am in need of some money for my trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has nothing. I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair. It cost me a good deal of trouble to get this one. Monsieur le Baron, on the 6th of June, 1832, about a year ago, on the day of the insurrection, a man was in the Grand Sewer of Paris, at the point where the sewer enters the Seine, between the Pont des Invalides and the Pont de Jéna. This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which are foreign to politics, had adopted the sewer as his domicile and had a key to it. It was, I repeat, on the 6th of June; it might have been eight o’clock in the evening. The man hears a noise in the sewer. Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound of footsteps, some one was walking in the dark, and coming in his direction. Strange to say, there was another man in the sewer besides himself. The grating of the outlet from the sewer was not far off. A little light which fell through it permitted him to recognize the newcomer, and to see that the man was carrying something on his back. He was walking in a bent attitude. The man who was walking in a bent attitude was an ex-convict, and what he was dragging on his shoulders was a corpse. Assassination caught in the very act, if ever there was such a thing. As for the theft, that is understood; one does not kill a man gratis. This convict was on his way to fling the body into the river. One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit grating, this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, necessarily, have encountered a frightful quagmire where it seems as though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, and that did not suit the assassin’s plans. He had preferred to traverse that quagmire with his burden, and his exertions must have been terrible, for it is impossible to risk one’s life more completely; I don’t understand how he could have come out of that alive. Monsieur le Baron, a sewer is not the Champ de Mars. One lacks everything there, even room. When two men are there, they must meet. That is what happened. The man domiciled there and the passer-by were forced to bid each other good-day, greatly to the regret of both. The passer-by said to the inhabitant:—“You see what I have on my back, I must get out, you have the key, give it to me.” That convict was a man of terrible strength. There was no way of refusing. Nevertheless, the man who had the key parleyed, simply to gain time. He examined the dead man, but he could see nothing, except that the latter was young, well dressed, with the air of being rich, and all disfigured with blood. 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 . . .


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!


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! 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!


Yes, assassin! You there saved the life of a Colonel. . .


Of a General,


Of a Colonel! 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! eternal gratitude.


Cosette! Cosette! 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. Ah! Cosette! I am an unhappy wretch! Driver. Rue de l’Homme Armé, Number 7.


Ah! what happiness! 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.


You are right,


Come in. Cosette!


Father!


Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God! It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then!


My father!


And you also, you pardon me! Thanks.


It embarrasses me,