Виктор Мари Гюго
Les Misérables, v. 5
Jean Valjean stopped, and Marius listened, for such enchainments of ideas and agonies cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice again, yet it was no longer the dull voice, but the sinister voice.
"You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say. Yes, I am denounced! Yes, I am pursued! Yes, I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It is I who bar my own passage, and I drag myself along, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and execute myself, and when a man holds himself he is securely held."
And, seizing his own collar, and dragging it toward Marius, he continued, —
"Look at this fist. Do you not think that it holds this collar so as not to let it go? Well, conscience is a very different hand! If you wish to be happy, sir, you must never understand duty; for so soon as you have understood it, it is implacable. People may say that it punishes you for understanding it; but no, it rewards you for it, for it places you in a hell where you feel God by your side. A man has no sooner torn his entrails than he is at peace with himself."
And with an indescribable accent he added, —
"Monsieur Pontmercy, that has no common-sense. I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I raise myself in my own. This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful; it was nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be one if you had, through my fault, continued to esteem me; but now that you despise me I am so. I have this fatality upon me, that as I am never able to have any but stolen consideration, this consideration humiliates and crushes me internally, and in order that I may respect myself people must despise me. Then I draw myself up. I am a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know very well that this is not likely; but what would you have me do? It is so. I have made engagements with myself and keep them. There are meetings which bind us; there are accidents which drag us into duty. Look you, Monsieur Pontmercy, things have happened to me in my life."
Jean Valjean made another pause, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as if his words had a bitter after-taste, and he continued, —
"When a man has such a horror upon him; he has no right to make others share it unconsciously; he has no right to communicate his plague to them; he has no right to make them slip over his precipice without their perceiving it; he has no right to drag his red cap over them, and no right craftily to encumber the happiness of another man with his misery. To approach those who are healthy and touch them in the darkness with his invisible ulcer is hideous. Fauchelevent may have lent me his name, but I have no right to use it: he may have given it to me, but I was unable to take it. A name is a self. Look you, sir, I have thought a little and read a little, though I am a peasant, and you see that I express myself properly. I explain things to myself, and have carried out my own education. Well, yes; to abstract a name and place one's self under it is dishonest. The letters of the alphabet may 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 among honest folk by picking their lock, never to look, but always to squint, to be internally infamous, – no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, bleed, weep, tear one's flesh with one's nails, pass the nights writhing in agony, and gnaw one's stomach and soul That is why I have come to tell you all this, – voluntarily, as you remarked."
He breathed painfully, and uttered this last remark, —
"Formerly I stole a loaf in order to live; to-day I will not steal a name in order to live."
"To live!" Marius interrupted; "you do not require that name to live."
"Ah! I understand myself," Jean Valjean replied, raising and drooping his head several times in succession. There was a stillness; both remained silent, sunk as they were in a gulf of thought. Marius was sitting near a table, and supporting the corner of his mouth on one of his fingers. Jean Valjean walked backwards and forwards; he stopped before a glass and remained motionless. Then, as if answering some internal reasoning, he said, as he looked in this glass, in which he did not see himself, —
"While at present I am relieved."
He began walking again, and went to the other end of the room. At the moment when he turned he perceived that Marius was watching his walk, and he said to him, with an indescribable accent, —
"I drag my leg a little. You understand why, now."
Then he turned round full to Marius.
"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 your family. I am in my room. I come down to breakfast in my slippers; at night we go to the play, all three. I accompany Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries and to the Place Royale; we are together, and you believe me your equal. One fine day I am here, you are there. We are talking and laughing, and you hear a voice cry this name, – Jean Valjean! and then that fearful hand, the police, issues from the shadow and suddenly tears off my mask!"
He was silent again. Marius had risen with a shudder and Jean Valjean continued, —
"What do you say to that?"
Marius's silence replied, and Jean Valjean continued: —
"You see very well that I did right in not holding my tongue. Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, be in the sunshine and content yourself with it, and do not trouble yourself as to the way in which a poor condemned man opens his heart and does his duty; you have a wretched man before you, sir."
Marius slowly crossed the room, and when he was by Jean Valjean's side offered him his hand. But Marius was compelled to take this hand which did not offer itself. Jean Valjean let him do so, and it seemed to Marius that he was pressing a hand of marble.
"My grandfather has friends" said Marius. "I will obtain your pardon."
"It is useless," Jean Valjean replied; "I am supposed to be dead, and that is sufficient. The dead are not subjected to surveillance, and are supposed to rot quietly. Death is the same thing as pardon."
And liberating the hand which Marius held, he added with a sort of inexorable dignity, —
"Moreover, duty, my duty, is the friend to whom I have recourse; and I only need one pardon, that of my conscience."
At this moment the door opened gently at the other end of the drawing-room, and Cosette's head appeared in the crevice. Only her sweet face was visible. Her hair was in admirable confusion, and her eyelids were still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird thrusting its head out of the nest, looked first at her husband, then at Jean Valjean, and cried to them laughingly, – it looked like a smile issuing from a rose, —
"I will bet that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead of being with me!"
Jean Valjean started.
"Cosette," Marius stammered, and he stopped. They looked like two culprits; Cosette, radiant, continued to look at them both, and there were in her eyes gleams of Paradise.
"I have caught you in the act," Cosette said; "I just heard through this, Father Fauchelevent saying, 'Conscience, doing one's duty.' That is politics, and I will have none of it. People must not talk politics on the very next day; it is not right."
"You are mistaken, Cosette;" Marius replied, "we are talking of business. We are talking about the best way of investing your six hundred thousand francs."
"I am coming," Cosette interrupted. "Do you want me here?"
And resolutely passing through the door, she entered the drawing-room. She was dressed in a large combing gown with a thousand folds and large sleeves, which descended from her neck to her feet. There are in the golden skies of old Gothic paintings, these charming bags to place an angel in. She contemplated herself from head to foot in a large mirror, and then exclaimed with an ineffable outburst of ecstasy, —
"There was once upon a time a king and queen. Oh, how delighted I am!"
This said, she courtesied to Marius and Jean Valjean.
"Then," she said, "I am going to install myself near you in an easy-chair; we shall breakfast in half an hour. You will say all you like, for I know very well that gentlemen must talk, and I will be very good."
Marius took her by the arm and said to her lovingly, —
"We are talking about business."
"By the way," Cosette answered, "I have opened my window, and a number of sparrows [pierrots] have just entered the garden. Birds, not masks. To-day is Ash Wednesday, but not for the birds."
"I tell you that we are talking of business, so go, my little Cosette; leave us for a moment. We are talking figures, and they would only annoy you."
"You have put on a charming cravat this morning, Marius. You are very coquettish, Monseigneur. No, they will not annoy me."
"I assure you that they will."
"No, since it is you, I shall not understand you, but I shall hear you. When a woman hears voices she loves, she does not require to understand the words they say. To be together is all I want, and I shall stay with you, – there!"
"You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible."
"Impossible?"
"Yes."
"Very good," Cosette remarked; "I should have told you some news. I should have told you that grandpapa is still asleep, that your aunt is at Mass, that the chimney of my papa Fauchelevent's room smokes, that Nicolette has sent for the chimney-sweep, that Nicolette and Toussaint have already quarrelled, and that Nicolette ridicules Toussaint's stammering. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah, it is impossible? You shall see, sir, that in my turn I shall say, 'It is impossible.' Who will be caught then? I implore you, my little Marius, to let me stay with you two."
"I assure you that we must be alone."
"Well, am I anybody?"
Jean Valjean did not utter a word, and Cosette turned to him.
"In the first place, father, I insist on your coming and kissing me. What do you mean by saying nothing, instead of taking my part? Did one ever see a father like that? That will show you how unhappy my marriage is, for my husband beats me. Come and kiss me at once."
Jean Valjean approached her, and Cosette turned to Marius.
"I make a face at you."
Then she offered her forehead to Jean Valjean, who moved a step towards her. All at once Cosette recoiled.
"Father, you are pale; does your arm pain you?"
"It is cured," said Jean Valjean.
"Have you slept badly?"
"No."
"Are you sad?"
"No."
"Kiss me. If you are well, if you sleep soundly, if you are happy, I will not scold you."
And she again offered him her forehead, and Jean Valjean set a kiss on this forehead, upon which there was a heavenly reflection.
"Smile."
Jean Valjean obeyed, but it was the smile of a ghost.
"Now, defend me against my husband."
"Cosette – " said Marius.
"Be angry, father, and tell him I am to remain. You can talk before me. You must think me very foolish. What you are saying is very astonishing, then! Business, – placing money in a bank, – that is a great thing. Men make mysteries of nothing. I mean to say I am very pretty this morning. Marius, look at me."
And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders and an exquisite pout she looked at Marius. Something like a flash passed between these two beings, and they cared little about a third party being present.
"I love you," said Marius.
"I adore you," said Cosette.
And they irresistibly fell into each other's arms.
"And now," Cosette continued, as she smoothed a crease in her dressing-gown, with a little triumphant pout, "I remain."
"No," Marius replied imploringly, "we have something to finish."
"Again, no?"
Marius assumed a serious tone.
"I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible."
"Ah, you are putting on your man's voice, sir; very good, I will go. You did not support me, father; and so you, my hard husband, and you, my dear papa, are tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you believe that I intend to return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud, and I intend to wait for you at present. You will see how wearisome it will be without me. I am going, very good."
And she left the room, but two seconds after the door opened again, her fresh, rosy face passed once again between the two folding-doors, and she cried to them, —
"I am very angry."
The door closed again, and darkness returned. It was like a straggling sunbeam, which, without suspecting it, had suddenly traversed the night. Marius assured himself that the door was really closed.
"Poor Cosette!" he muttered, "when she learns – "
At these words Jean Valjean trembled all over, and he fixed his haggard eyes on Marius.
"Cosette! Oh, yes, it is true. You will tell Cosette about it. It is fair. – Stay, I did not think of that. A man has strength for one thing, but not for another. I implore you, sir, I conjure you, sir, give me your most sacred word, – do not tell her. Is it not sufficient for you to know it? I was able to tell it of my own accord, without being compelled. I would have told it to the universe, to the whole world, and I should not have cared; but she, – she does not know what it is, and it would horrify her. A convict. What! You would be obliged to explain to her, tell her it is a man who has been to the galleys. She saw the chain-gang once. Oh, my God!"
He sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands; it could not be heard, but from the heaving of his shoulders it could be seen that he was weeping. They were silent tears, terrible tears. There is a choking in a sob; a species of convulsion seized on him, he threw himself back in the chair, letting his arms hang, and displaying to Marius his face bathed in tears, and Marius heard him mutter so low that his voice seemed to come from a bottomless abyss, "Oh! I would like to die!"
"Be at your ease," Marius said; "I will keep your secret to myself."
And, less affected than perhaps he ought to have been, but compelled for more than an hour to listen to unexpected horrors, gradually seeing a convict taking M. Fauchelevent's place, gradually overcome by this mournful reality, and led by the natural state of the situation to notice the gap which bad formed between himself and this man, Marius added, —
"It is impossible for me not to say a word about the trust money which you have so faithfully and honestly given up. That is an act of probity, and it is but fair that a reward should be given you; fix the sum yourself, and it shall be paid you. Do not fear to fix it very high."
"I thank you, sir," Jean Valjean replied gently.
He remained pensive for a moment, mechanically passing the end of his forefinger over his thumb-nail, and then raised his voice, —
"All is nearly finished; there is only one thing left me."
"What is it?"
Jean Valjean had a species of supreme agitation, and voicelessly, almost breathlessly, he stammered, rather than said, —
"Now that you know, do you, sir, who are the master, believe that I ought not to see Cosette again?"
"I believe that it would be better," Marius replied coldly.
"I will not see her again," Jean Valjean murmured. He walked toward the door; he placed his hand upon the handle, the door opened, Jean Valjean was going to pass out, when he suddenly closed it again, then opened the door again and returned to Marius. He was no longer pale, but livid, and in his eyes was a sort of tragic flame instead of tears. His voice bad grows strangely calm again.
"Stay, sir," he said; "if you are wilting, I will come to see her, for I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not longed to see Cosette I should not have made you the confession I have done, but have gone away; but wishing to remain at the spot where Cosette is, and continue to see her, I was obliged to tell you everything honestly. You follow my reasoning, do you not? It is a thing easy to understand. Look you, I have had her with me for nine years: we lived at first in that hovel on the boulevard, then in the convent, and then near the Luxembourg. It was there that you saw her for the first time, and you remember her blue plush bonnet. Next we went to the district of the Invalides, where there were a railway and a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back yard where I could hear her pianoforte. Such was my life, and we never separated. That lasted nine years and seven months; I was like her father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand me, M. Pontmercy, but it would be difficult to go away now, see her no more, speak to her no more, and have nothing left. If you have no objection, I will come and see Cosette every now and then, but not too often, and I will not remain long. You can tell them to show me into the little room on the ground-floor; I would certainly come in by the back door, which is used by the servants, but that might cause surprise, so it is better, I think, for me to come by the front door. Really, sir, I should like to see Cosette a little, but as rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place. I have only that left. And then, again, we must be careful, and if I did not come at all it would have a bad effect, and appear singular. For instance, what I can do is to come in the evening, when it is beginning to grow dark."
"You can come every evening," said Marius, "and Cosette will expect you."
"You are kind, sir," said Jean Valjean.
Marius bowed to Jean Valjean, happiness accompanied despair to the door, and these two men parted.
CHAPTER II
THE OBSCURITY WHICH A REVELATION MAY CONTAIN
Marius was overwhelmed; the sort of estrangement which he had ever felt for the man with whom he saw Cosette was henceforth explained. There was in this person something enigmatic, against which his instinct warned him. This enigma was the most hideous of shames, the galleys. This M. Fauchelevent was Jean Valjean the convict. To find suddenly such a secret in the midst of his happiness is like discovering a scorpion in a turtle-dove's nest. Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette in future condensed to this proximity? Was it an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of this man form part of the consummated marriage? Could nothing else be done? Had Marius also married the convict? Although a man may be crowned with light and joy, though he be enjoying the grand hour of life's purple, happy love, such shocks would compel even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demi-god in his glory, to shudder.
As ever happens in sudden transformation-scenes of this nature, Marius asked himself whether he ought not to reproach himself? Had he failed in divination? Had he been deficient in prudence? Had he voluntarily been headstrong? Slightly so, perhaps. Had he entered upon this love-adventure, which resulted in his marriage with Cosette, without taking sufficient precaution to throw light upon the surroundings? He verified, – it is thus, by a series of verifications of ourselves on ourselves, that life is gradually corrected, – he verified, we say, the visionary and chimerical side of his nature, a sort of internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which in the paroxysms of passion and grief expands, as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the entire man to such an extent that he merely becomes a conscience enveloped in a fog. We have more than once indicated this characteristic element in Marius's individuality. He remembered that during the intoxication of his love in the Rue Plumet, during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoken to Cosette about the drama in the Gorbeau hovel, during which the victim was so strangely silent both in the struggle and eventual escape. How was it that he had not spoken to Cosette about it, and yet it was so close and so frightful? How was it that he had not even mentioned the Thénardiers, and especially on the day when he met Éponine? He found almost a difficulty in explaining to himself now his silence at that period, but he was able to account for it. He remembered his confusion, his intoxication for Cosette, his love absorbing everything, the carrying off of one by the other into the ideal world, and perhaps, too, as the imperceptible amount of reason mingled with that violent and charming state of the mind, a vague and dull instinct to hide and efface from his memory that formidable adventure with which he feared contact, in which he wished to play no part, from which he stood aloof, and of which he could not be narrator or witness without being an accuser. Moreover, these few weeks had been a lightning flash; he had not had time for anything except to love. In short, when all was revolved, and everything examined, supposing that he had described the Gorbeau trap to Cosette, had mentioned the Thénardiers to her, what would have been the consequence, even if he had discovered that Jean Valjean was a convict; would that have changed him, Marius, or his Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have loved her less? Would he have refused to marry her? No. Would it have made any change in what had happened? No. There was nothing, therefore, to regret, nothing to reproach, and all was well. There is a God for those drunkards who are called lovers, and Marius had blindly followed the road which he had selected with his eyes open. Love had bandaged his eyes to lead him whither? To paradise.
But this paradise was henceforth complicated by an infernal proximity, and the old estrangement of Marius for this man, for this Fauchelevent who had become Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror; but in this horror, let us say it, there was some pity, and even a certain degree of surprise. This robber, this relapsed robber, had given up a deposit, and what deposit? Six hundred thousand francs. He alone held the secret of that deposit, he could have kept it all, but he gave it all up. Moreover, he had revealed his situation of his own accord, nothing compelled him to do so; and if he, Marius, knew who he was it was through himself. There was in this confession more than the acceptance of humiliation; there was the acceptance of peril. For a condemned man a mask is not a mask but a shelter, and he had renounced that shelter. A false name is a security, and he had thrown away that false name. He, the galley-slave, could conceal himself forever in an honest family, and he had resisted that temptation, and for what motive? Through scruples of conscience. He had explained himself with the irresistible accent of truth. In short, whoever this Jean Valjean might be, his was incontestably an awakened conscience. Some mysterious rehabilitation had been begun, and according to all appearances scruples had been master of this man for a long time past. Such attacks of justice and honesty are not peculiar to vulgar natures, and an awakening of the conscience is greatness of soul. Jean Valjean was sincere; and this sincerity, visible, palpable, irrefragable, and evident in the grief which it caused him, rendered his statements valuable, and gave authority to all that this man said. Here, for Marius, was a strange inversion of situations. What issued from M. Fauchelevent? Distrust. What was disengaged from Jean Valjean? Confidence. In the mysterious balance-sheet of this Jean Valjean which Marius mentally drew up, he verified the credit, he verified the debit, and tried to arrive at a balance. But all this was as in a storm, Marius striving to form a distinct idea of this man, and pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, to the bottom of his thoughts, lost him, and found him again in a fatal mist.
The honest restoration of the trust-money and the probity of the confession were good, and formed as it were a break in the cloud; but then the cloud became black again. However confused Marius's reminiscences might be, some shadows still returned to him. What, after all, was that adventure in the Jondrette garret? Why, on the arrival of the police, did that man, instead of complaining, escape? Here Marius found the answer, – because this man was a convict who had broken his ban. Another question, Why did this man come to the barricade? For at present Marius distinctly saw again that recollection, which reappeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink before the fire. This man was at the barricade and did not fight; what did he want there? Before this question a spectre rose and gave the answer, – Javert. Marius perfectly remembered now the mournful vision of Jean Valjean dragging the bound Javert out of the barricade, and heard again behind the angle of the little Mondétour Lane the frightful pistol-shot. There was probably a hatred between this spy and this galley-slave, and one annoyed the other. Jean Valjean went to the barricade to revenge himself; he arrived late, and was probably aware that Javert was a prisoner there. Corsican Vendetta has penetrated certain lower strata of society, and is the law with them; it is so simple that it does not astonish minds which have half returned to virtue, and their hearts are so constituted that a criminal, when on the path of repentance, may be scrupulous as to a robbery and not so as to a vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert, or at least that seemed evident. The last question of all admitted of no reply, and this question Marius felt like a pair of pincers. How was it that the existence of Jean Valjean had so long brushed against that of Cosette? What was this gloomy sport of Providence which had brought this man and this child in contact? Are there chains for two forged in heaven, and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with the demon? A crime and an innocence can, then, be chamber companions in the mysterious hulks of misery? In that defile of condemned men which is called human destiny, two foreheads may pass along side by side, one simple, the other formidable, – one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn, the other eternally branded? Who can have determined this inexplicable approximation? In what way, in consequence of what prodigy, could a community of life have been established between this celestial child and this condemned old man? Who could have attached the lamb to the wolf, and even more incomprehensible still, the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved the lamb, the ferocious being adored the weak being, and for nine years the angel had leaned on the monster for support. The childhood and maidenhood of Cosette and her virgin growth toward life and light had been protected by this deformed devotion. Here questions exfoliated themselves, if we may employ the expression, into countless enigmas; abysses opened at the bottom of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without feeling a dizziness: what could this man-precipice be? The old genesiacal symbols are eternal: in human society, such as it now exists until a greater light shall change it, there are ever two men, – one superior, the other subterranean; the one who holds to good is Abel, the one who holds to bad is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this bandit religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, bringing her up, guarding her, dignifying her, and though himself impure, surrounding her with purity? What was this cloaca which had venerated this innocence so greatly as not to leave a spot upon it? What was this Valjean carrying on the education of Cosette? What was this figure of darkness, whose sole care it was to preserve from every shadow and every cloud the rising of a star?
That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret, and Marius recoiled before this double secret. The one, to some extent, reassured him about the other, for God was as visible in this adventure as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments, and employs whom he likes as tool, and is not responsible to him. Do we know how God sets to work? Jean Valjean had labored on Cosette, and had to some extent formed her mind; that was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible, but the work was admirable, and God produces his miracles as he thinks proper. He had constructed that charming Cosette, and employed Jean Valjean on the job, and it had pleased him to choose this strange assistant. What explanation have we to ask of him? Is it the first time that manure has helped spring to produce the rose? Marius gave himself these answers, and declared to himself that they were good. On all the points which we have indicated he had not dared to press Jean Valjean, though he did not confess to himself that he dared not. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette; Cosette was splendidly pure, and that was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did he require when Cosette was a light? Does light need illumination? He had everything; what more could he desire? Is not everything enough? Jean Valjean's personal affairs in no way concerned him, and in bending down over the fatal shadow of this wretched man he clung to his solemn declaration, "I am nothing to Cosette; ten years ago I did not know that she existed." Jean Valjean was a passer-by; he had said so himself. Well, then, he passed, and whoever he might be, his part was played out. Henceforth Marius would have to perform the functions of Providence toward Cosette; she had found again in ether her equal, her lover, her husband, her celestial male. In flying away, Cosette, winged and transfigured, left behind her on earth her empty and hideous chrysalis, Jean Valjean. In whatever circle of ideas Marius might turn, he always came back to a certain horror of Jean Valjean; a sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we have stated, he felt a quid divinum in this man. But though it was so, and whatever extenuating circumstances he might seek, he was always compelled to fall back on this: he was a convict, that is to say, a being who has not even a place on the social ladder, being beneath the lowest rung. After the last of men comes the convict, who is no longer, so to speak, in the likeness of his fellow-men. The law has deprived him of the entire amount of humanity which it can strip off a man. Marius, in penal matters, democrat though he was, was still of the inexorable system, and he entertained all the ideas of the law about those whom the law strikes. He had not yet made every progress, we are forced to say; he had not yet learned to distinguish between what is written by man and what is written by God, – between the law and the right. He had examined and weighed the claim which man sets up to dispose of the irrevocable, the irreparable, and the word vindicta was not repulsive to him. He considered it simple that certain breaches of the written law should be followed by eternal penalties, and he accepted social condemnation as a civilizing process. He was still at this point, though infallibly certain to advance at a later date, for his nature was good, and entirely composed of latent progress.
