TO BE happy is a terrible thing. How complacent we are, how self-sufficing. How easy it is, being possessed of the false side of life, which is happiness, to forget the real side, which is duty.
Yet it would be wrong to blame Marius. As we have said, before his marriage Marius asked no questions of Monsieur Fauchelevent, and since then he had been afraid to question Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise which he had been induced to make and had said to himself more than once that he should not have made that concession to despair. And so he had by degrees excluded Valjean from his house and effaced him as far as possible from the thoughts of Cosette, deliberately intervening between them, but in such a way as to ensure that she would not realize what was happening. It was more than effacement; it was eclipse.
Marius was doing what he held to be right and necessary. He believed that in keeping Valjean at a distance, without harshness but also without weakness, he was acting upon serious grounds, some of which we already know and others of which we have still to learn. In the course of a law-suit in which he had been professionally involved he had met a former clerk in the Laffitte banking-house and had received from him certain information which he was unable to investigate further because of his promise of secrecy and Valjean’s perilous situation. At the same time he believed that he had a serious duty to perform, namely, the restitution of six hundred thousand francs to some person whose identity he was seeking to discover as discreetly as possible. In the meantime he did not touch the money.
As for Cosette, she knew nothing of all these secrets; but she, too, was scarcely to be blamed. Marius’s power over her was such that instinctively and almost automatically she did what he wanted. She sensed a ‘feeling’ on the part of Marius where Valjean was concerned, and without his having to say anything she blindly acquiesced in it. Her obedience in this respect consisted in not remembering things that Marius had forgotten. It cost her no effort. Without her knowing why, or being in any way to blame, her spirit had become so merged in that of her husband that what was expunged from Marius’s mind was also expunged from her own.
But we must not carry this too far. In the case of Jean Valjean her forgetfulness was only superficial. She was bemused rather than forgetful. In her heart she still loved the man whom for so long she had called father. But she loved her husband even more, and it was this that had somewhat disturbed the balance of her affections, causing her to lean to one side.
Occasionally she spoke of Jean Valjean, expressing astonishment at his absence. Marius reminded her that he had said he was going away. And this was true. He was in the habit of going away from time to time, although never for so long as this. Several times she sent Nicolette to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé to ask if ‘Monsieur Jean’ had returned. The answer, sent by Valjean himself, was always no. Cosette was not unduly perturbed, having only one need in life, and that was for Marius.
We may mention that Marius and Cosette had themselves been away. They had been to Vernon, where Marius had taken Cosette to his father’s grave. Little by little Marius had detached Cosette from Jean Valjean, and she had allowed it to happen.
For the rest, what is sometimes over-severely described as the ingratitude of the young is not always so reprehensible as one may suppose. It is the ingratitude of Nature herself. Nature, as we have said elsewhere, always ‘looks ahead’; she divides living creatures into those who are arriving and those who are leaving. Those leaving look towards darkness, and those arriving look towards light. Hence the gulf between them, fateful to the old, involuntary on the part of the young. The gulf, at first imperceptible, grows gradually wider, like the spreading branches of a tree. It is not the fault of the branches that, without detaching themselves from the trunk, they grow remote from it. Youth goes in search of joy and festivity, bright light and love. Age moves towards the end. They do not lose sight of one another, but there is no longer any closeness between them. Young folk feel the cooling of life; old people feel the chill of the grave. Let us not be too hard on the young.
One day Jean Valjean walked downstairs and a few paces along the street, then seated himself on a kerbstone, the same one on which Gavroche had found him on the night of 5 June. He stayed there a few minutes, then went upstairs again. It was the last swing of the pendulum. The next day he did not leave his room, and on the following day he did not leave his bed.
The concierge, who prepared his meagre repast, consisting of cabbage or a few potatoes with a little bacon, looked at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed:
‘But you ate nothing yesterday, my poor man.’
‘Yes I did,’ said Valjean.
‘The plate’s still full.’
‘If you look at the water-jug you’ll see that it’s empty.’
‘Well, that proves that you’ve had a drink, but not that you’ve eaten anything.’
‘So perhaps all I wanted was water.’
‘If you don’t eat as well as drink it means that you’ve got a fever.’
‘I’ll eat something tomorrow.’
‘Or next week, perhaps. Why put it off till tomorrow? And those new potatoes were so good.’
Valjean took the old woman’s hand.
‘I’ll promise to eat them,’ he said in his kindly voice.
‘I’m not at all pleased with you,’ she said.
Valjean saw no one except this old woman. There are streets in Paris along which no one passes and houses which no one enters, and he lived in one of them. While he had been in the habit of going out he had bought a small copper cross which he nailed to the wall facing his bed. A cross is always good to look at.
During the week that followed Valjean did not get out of bed. The concierge said to her husband: ‘He doesn’t get up and he doesn’t eat anything. He isn’t going to last long. He’s very unhappy about something. I can’t help feeling that his daughter has made a bad marriage.’
Her husband replied with lordly indifference:
‘If he’s rich enough he’d better send for the doctor; if he’s too poor he can’t afford to, and in that case he’ll die.’
‘But if he does send for the doctor?’
‘He’ll probably the anyway.’
The concierge was pulling up the blades of grass that had sprouted between the stones of what she called her own strip of pavement. She saw a local doctor passing the end of the street and took it upon herself to ask him to go upstairs.
‘It’s the second floor,’ she said. ‘He never gets out of bed and so the key’s always in the door.’
When he came down the doctor said:
‘The man’s very ill indeed.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Everything and nothing. From the look of him I would say that he has lost someone very dear to him. One can die of that.’
‘What did he say to you?’
‘He said he was quite well.’
‘Will you come again, doctor?’
‘Yes,’ said the doctor. ‘But he needs someone other than myself.’
One evening Jean Valjean had difficulty in raising himself on his elbow. His pulse was so weak that he could not feel it; his breath came in short, faint gasps. He realized that he was weaker than he had ever been. And so, no doubt because he was impelled to do so by some over-riding consideration, he sat up with a great effort and got dressed. He put on his old workman’s clothes. Now that he had given up going out he preferred them to any other. He had to pause several times to rest, and the business of getting his arms into the sleeves of his jacket caused sweat to drip from his forehead.
Now that he was alone he had moved his bed into the living-room in order to occupy as little of the apartment as possible. He opened the valise and, getting out Cosette’s trousseau of small garments, spread them on the bed. The bishop’s candlesticks were in their usual place on the mantelpiece; he got two wax candles out of a drawer and, putting them in the candlesticks, lighted them, although it was broad daylight. One may see candles lighted in rooms occupied by the dead. Every step he took, moving from one room to the other, exhausted him, and he had frequently to sit down and rest. It was not just a case of ordinary fatigue which uses up energy and recovers it; it was the last effort of which he was capable, exhausted life spending itself in an effort which it will not be able to repeat.
One of the chairs into which he sank was opposite the mirror, so disastrous for him and so providential for Marius, in which he had read the blotted handwriting of Cosette. He looked at himself in the mirror and did not recognize what he saw. He was eighty years old. Before Cosette’s marriage he might have been taken for fifty. The wrinkles on his forehead were not the wrinkles of age but the mysterious stamp of death; one could see the impress of that inexorable finger. His cheeks sagged, and the colour of his skin was such as to make one feel that there was earth beneath it. The corners of his mouth drooped as in the masks that the ancients carved for the tombs of the dead. He was staring blankly in front of him, but with an expression of reproach, like one of those great figures of tragedy who rise in condemnation of some other man.
He was at the point, the last stage of despair, when pain is no longer active; the soul, as it were, has grown numb. It was growing dark. With great labour he dragged a table and chair close to the mantelpiece, and arranged writing materials on the table. Having done this he fainted, and upon recovering consciousness found that he was thirsty. Not being able to lift the water-jug to his lips, he tilted it painfully towards him and sipped from it. Then he turned towards the bed, and, still seated, for he could no longer stand, looked at the little black frock and the other garments that were so dear to him. He stayed looking at them for a long time, until with a shiver he realized that he was cold; then, leaning forward over the table lit by the bishop’s candlesticks, he picked up his pen.
Since neither pen nor ink had been used for a considerable time, the quill was warped and the ink had dried. He had to get up and pour a few drops of water into the ink-pot, which he only managed to do with several pauses for rest, and he had to write with the reverse side of the quill. Now and then he wiped his forehead. His hand was shaking. Slowly he wrote the following lines:
Cosette, I bless you. There is something I must explain. Your husband was right to make me understand that I must go away. What he supposed was not altogether correct, but still he was right. He is a good man. You must go on loving him after I am dead. And you, Monsieur Pontmercy, you must go on loving my beloved child. Cosette, you will find figures on this paper if I have the strength to recall them. That is why I am writing to you, to assure you that the money is really yours. This is how it is. White jade comes from Norway, black jade from England, and black glass from Germany. Jade is lighter, more rare and more expensive. Imitations can be made in France as they can in Germany. You need a small mould two inches square and a spirit lamp to soften the wax. The wax used to be made of resin and lampblack, but I hit upon the idea of making it of lacquer and turpentine. It costs no more than thirty sous and it is much better. The buckles are made of purple glass fixed with wax in a black metal frame. The glass should be purple for metal frames and black for gold ornaments. A lot is sold in Spain, which is the country where …
And here the pen slipped from his fingers and he sank down, sobbing from the depths of his heart, with his head clasped in his hands.
‘Alas, alas,’ he cried within himself (those dreadful lamentations that are heard only by God), ‘it’s all over. I shall not see her again. It was a smile that came into my life and departed. I shall go into darkness without seeing her. If I could hear her voice, touch her dress, look at her just once more! To die is nothing, but it is terrible to die without seeing her. She would smile at me, she would say a word, and what harm would it do anyone? But it is all over and I am alone. God help me, I shall not see her again!’
At this moment there was a knock on the door.
That same day, or, more exactly, that same evening, Marius having withdrawn to his study after dinner to work on a brief, Basque brought him a letter, saying, ‘The writer is waiting in the hall.’ Cosette at the time was strolling with her grandfather-in-law in the garden.
A letter, like a person, can have a displeasing appearance – coarse paper, careless folding – the very sight of them can be unpleasant. This was such a letter. It smelt of tobacco. Nothing is more evocative than a smell. Marius remembered that tobacco, and looking at the superscription he read: ‘To Monsieur le Baron Pontmerci, At his home’. The familiar smell of the tobacco reminded him of the handwriting, and in a sudden flash of divination he put certain things together: the smell of tobacco, the quality of the paper, the way it was folded, the pale watered ink – all this brought a picture to his mind, that of the Jondrette attic … By the strangest of chances, one of the two men for whom he had searched so diligently, thinking never to find him, had of his own accord come his way!
Eagerly unsealing the letter, he read:
Monsieur le baron,
If the Supreme Being had endowed me with talent I might be the Baron Thénard,* member of the Academy, but I am not. I simply bear the same name as his, and I shall be happy if this recommends me to your favor. Any kindness which you may do me will be resiprocated. I am in possession of a secret concerning a certain person. This person concerns you. I am keeping the secret for your ears alone, being desirus of being useful to you. I can provide you with the means of driving this person out of your house where he has no right to be, Madame la Baronne being a lady of noble birth. Virtue and crime cannot be allowed to go on living together any longer.
I await Monsieur le Baron’s instructions,
Respectfully,
The letter was signed THÉNARD.
The signature was not wholly false, being merely a little abbreviated. But the style and orthography completed the picture. There could be no doubt whatever as to the writer’s identity.
Marius’s agitation was extreme. After his first surprise came a feeling of satisfaction. If he could now find the other man he sought, the one who had saved his life, all his troubles of conscience would be at an end. He went to his desk, got some banknotes out of a drawer, put them in his pocket, closed the drawer and then rang the bell. Basque appeared.
‘Show the gentleman in,’ said Marius.
‘Monsieur Thénard,’ Basque announced.
And now Marius had another surprise. The man who entered was completely unknown to him.
He was an elderly man with a big nose, his chin buried in his cravat, with green-tinted spectacles and grey hair smoothed and plastered down over his forehead like the wigs of coachmen to the English nobility. He was clad entirely in black, his garments being worn but clean, and a bunch of fobs hanging from his waistcoat pocket suggested that he possessed a watch. He was carrying an old hat in his hand. He walked with a stoop, and the curve of his back made his bow upon entering all the deeper.
The first thing that struck Marius was that the suit he was wearing, although carefully buttoned, was too large and seemed to have been made for someone else. And here a brief digression becomes necessary.
There existed in those days in Paris, in a hovel near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew whose business in life was transforming rogues into respectable men. Not for too long, since this might have made them uncomfortable. The change, which was simply one of appearance, lasted one or two days, at the rate of thirty sous a day, and was based on a set of clothes conforming as far as possible to accepted notions of propriety. The practitioner in question was called ‘the Changer’, this being the only name by which he was known to the denizens of the Paris underworld. He possessed a large stock, and the garments he hired out to his customers were more or less presentable. They covered all categories. From every hook in his establishment there hung, used and worn, a social status, that of a magistrate, banker, priest, retired army man, man of letters or statesman. He was in short the costumier of the great repertory theatre of Paris rascality, and his shop was the place whence every kind of crime emerged, and to which it returned. A ragged footpad went there, deposited his thirty sous, selected whatever clothes suited the particular project he had in mind, and came out looking another man. Next day the garments were faithfully returned; the Changer, who dealt exclusively with thieves, was himself never robbed. But the clothes he hired out had one drawback: they didn’t fit. Anyone whose physical dimensions in any way departed from the normal was uncomfortable in them: he must not be too fat or too thin, the Changer catered only for the average. This created problems which his customers had to solve as best they could. The statesman’s outfit, for example, would have been too large for Pitt and too small for Louis-Philippe. We may quote the note in the Changer’s catalogue: ‘Coat of black cloth, black knee-breeches, silk waistcoat, boots and linen’ – to which was appended in the margin, ‘former ambassador’, together with an additional note which read: ‘In a separate box a neatly frizzed wig, green-tinted spectacles, fobs and two quill-tubes an inch long wrapped in cotton-wool’. All this came from the same source, the ‘former ambassador’, and all was somewhat the worse for wear, with the seams whitening and a slit in one of the elbows. Moreover a button was missing from the breast of the jacket. This, however, was a detail, the statesman’s hand being always laid upon his heart to cover the deficiency. Marius would at once have recognized this outfit had he been familiar with the seamy side of Paris life.
Marius’s disappointment at finding himself confronted by a stranger turned to disgust as he examined the visitor more closely while the latter was exaggeratedly bowing.
‘What do you want?’ he asked sharply.
The visitor responded with a grimace which may be likened to the smile of a crocodile.
‘I find it hard to believe that I have not already met Monsieur le Baron in society – at the house of Princess Bagration, perhaps, or of the Vicomte Dambray?’ To pretend acquaintance with someone whom one has never met is always a shrewd move in the performance of a confidence trick.
Marius had listened attentively to the sound of the man’s voice, and with a growing disappointment. He had a nasal intonation quite different from the thin, dry voice which Marius had expected.
‘I know neither Madame Bagration nor Monsieur Dambray,’ he said, frowning, ‘and I have never visited either of them.’
Despite the terseness of his manner the visitor was not discouraged.
‘Well, then, perhaps it was at the home of Chateaubriand. I am on the friendliest of terms with Chateaubriand. He quite often asks me in for a drink.’
Marius’s frown grew darker.
‘I don’t know Monsieur de Chateaubriand either. Will you please come to the point. What can I do for you?’
The visitor bowed more deeply than ever.
‘At least, Monsieur le Baron, do me the honour of listening to what I have to say. There is in America, in the region of Panama, a village called La Joya. It consists of a single house. A big, square, three-storey house built of bricks baked in the sun. Each side of the square is five hundred feet long, and each floor is set back twelve feet from the one below it, forming a sort of terrace which runs right round the building. There is an interior courtyard in which provisions and munitions are stored. There are no windows but only loopholes, no doors but only ladders – ladders leading from the ground to the first terrace, from the first to the second terrace and from the second to the third; ladders for climbing down into the courtyard. No doors to the rooms but only trap-doors; no stairways to the rooms but only ladders. At night the traps are closed and the ladders are drawn up, and loaded guns and carbines are installed at the loopholes. The place is a house by day and a fortress at night, with eight hundred inhabitants. That is the village. Why so many precautions, you may ask? Because it is situated in very dangerous country, full of cannibals. So why does anyone go there? Because it is a wonderful country in which gold is to be found.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ demanded Marius, who was becoming increasingly impatient.
‘I am a wearied ex-diplomat, Monsieur le Baron. Our ancient civilization has become oppressive to me. I want to live among savage people.’
‘And so?’
‘Egotism, Monsieur le Baron, is the law of life. The day-labourer working in the fields looks round when the coach passes, but the peasant proprietor does not bother to do so. The poor man’s dog barks at the rich and the rich man’s dog barks at the poor. Everyone for himself. Self-interest is the object of all men and money is the loadstone.’
‘I’m still waiting.’
‘I want to settle in La Joya. There are three of us. I have a wife and a very beautiful daughter. It is a long journey and it costs a great deal. I need a little money.’
‘What has that to do with me?’
Stretching his neck out of his cravat in a gesture proper to a vulture, the visitor smiled with redoubled ardour.
‘Has Monsieur le Baron not read my letter?’
This was not far from the truth. The fact is that Marius had paid little attention to the contents of the letter, being more interested in the handwriting. In any case, a new thought had occurred to him. The man had mentioned a wife and daughter. Marius looked at him with a searching scrutiny that not even an examining magistrate could have bettered, but he only said, ‘Go on.’
The visitor thrust his hands in his waistcoat pockets, raised his head, without, however, straightening his back, and returned Marius’s gaze through the green-tinted spectacles.
‘Very well, Monsieur le Baron, I will go on. I have a secret to sell you.’
‘A secret which concerns me?’
‘To some extent.’
‘Well, what is it?’
‘I will tell you the first part for nothing. You will, I think be interested.’
‘Well?’
‘Monsieur le Baron, you have living with you a thief and an assassin.’
Marius started.
‘Not living with me,’ he said.
Smoothing his hat with his sleeve, the visitor imperturbably continued:
‘A thief and an assassin. Please note, Monsieur le Baron, that I am not talking about bygone transgressions that may have been cancelled out by process of law and repentance in the eyes of God, but of recent events, present happenings not yet known to the law. A man has insinuated himself into your confidence, almost into your family, under a false name. I will tell you his real name and I will tell you for nothing.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘His name is Jean Valjean.’
‘I know that.’
‘I will also tell you, also for nothing, what he is.’
‘Please do.’
‘He is an ex-convict.’
‘I know that too.’
‘You know it now that I have told you.’
‘No. I knew it already.’
Marius’s cool tone of voice and his apparent indifference to the information had their effect upon the visitor. He gave Marius a sidelong glance of fury which was rapidly extinguished; but brief though it was, it was not lost on Marius. There are looks like flame that can only come from beings of a certain kind; tinted glasses cannot hide them; they are like a glimpse of Hell.
The visitor smiled.
‘I would not venture to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case you will see that I am well-informed. And what I now have to tell you is known to no one except myself. It concerns the fortune of Madame la Baronne. It is a remarkable secret and it is for sale. I am offering it to you first of all, and at a low price – twenty thousand francs.’
‘I know this secret already, just as I knew the others,’ said Marius.
The visitor thought it judicious to lower his price.
‘Well, let us say ten thousand.’
‘I repeat, you have nothing to tell me. I know what you’re going to say.’
The visitor’s expression changed.
‘But I’ve got to eat, haven’t I? Monsieur le Baron, this is an extraordinary secret. I will let you have it for twenty francs.’
‘I tell you I know it already,’ said Marius. ‘Just as I knew the name of Jean Valjean and know your name.’
‘Well, that’s not difficult, seeing that I wrote it in my letter and have only just told you. It’s Thénard.’
‘You’ve left out the rest of it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Thénardier.’
‘Who might he be?’
In moments of peril the porcupine raises its quills, the beetle shams dead, and the infantry forms a square. This man laughed and airily flicked a speck of dust off his sleeve.
‘You are also the workman Jondrette,’ Marius went on, ‘the actor Fabantou, the poet Genflot, the Spaniard Don Alvarez, and the widow Balizard.’
‘The widow what?’
‘At one time you kept a tavern at Montfermeil!’
‘A tavern? Never!’
‘And your real name is Thénardier.’
‘I deny it.’
‘And you’re a thorough rogue. Here, take this.’
Marius got a banknote out of his pocket and tossed it in his face.
‘Thank you, thank you, Monsieur le Baron!’ The man bowed while he examined the note. ‘Five hundred francs!’ He murmured in an undertone, ‘That’s real money!’ Then he said briskly: ‘Well, we might as well be at our ease.’
And with remarkable adroitness he removed his disguise – the false nose, the tinted glasses and the two small tubes of quill which we mentioned just now and which figured in an earlier part of this tale* – stripping them away like a man taking off his hat. His eyes brightened, his uneven, knobbly and hideously wrinkled forehead was disclosed, and his nose was again a beak; in short, the avaricious, cunning countenance of the man of prey reappeared.
‘Monsieur le Baron is infallible,’ he said in a clear voice from which all trace of a nasal intonation had disappeared. ‘I am Thénardier.’
And he straightened his back.
Thénardier was considerably taken aback and might even have been put out of countenance had this been possible for him. He had come there intending to astonish, and had himself been astonished. The fact that his humiliation had been rewarded with the sum of five hundred francs, which he had made no bones about accepting, had put the finishing touch to his amazement.
He was seeing this Baron Pontmercy for the first time in his life; nevertheless the baron had recognized him in spite of his disguise and seemed to know all about him. He seemed also to know all about Jean Valjean. Who on earth could he be, this almost beardless young man who was at once so icy and so generous, who knew all about everybody and treated rogues like a judge while at the same time paying them like a dupe? It must be borne in mind that although at one time Thénardier had been Marius’s neighbour, he had never set eyes on him, a thing that happens often enough in Paris. He had written the letter we have just seen without having the least idea who he was. There was no connection in Thénardier’s mind between the Marius occasionally referred to by his daughters and the present Baron Pontmercy. Nor did the name of Pontmercy mean anything to him because of the episode on the field of Waterloo, when he had heard only the two last syllables, which had not interested him since he had not supposed them to have any cash value.
For the rest, thanks to his daughter Azelma, whom he had put on the track of the bridal pair on 16 February, and thanks also to his own researches and his underworld connections, he had picked up a good many scraps of information. He had discovered, or perhaps guessed, who the man was whom he had encountered in the sewer, and from this it was a short step to finding out his name. He knew that the Baroness Pontmercy was Cosette; but as to this, he had decided upon discretion. Who, after all, was Cosette? He himself did not precisely know. Thoughts of illegitimacy had occurred to him, since he had always regarded Fantine’s story with suspicion, but what good would it do him to mention this? To be paid to keep silent? He had, or thought he had, something better than that to sell. It also occurred to him that to come to the Baron Pontmercy with the tale, unsupported by evidence, that his wife was a bastard would be to invite his boot on his backside.
To Thénardier’s way of thinking his conversation with Marius had not yet really begun. He had been obliged to give a little ground, to modify his tactics, but nothing essential was lost and he was already the richer by five hundred francs. He had something important to say, and well-informed and well-equipped though the Baron Pontmercy was, he felt that he was in a strong position. To men of Thénardier’s stamp, every conversation is a contest. How did he stand in the one which was now about to begin? He did not know whom he was talking to, but he knew what he was talking about. He rapidly surveyed his resources, and having admitted that he was Thénardier he waited.
Marius was also thinking. At last he had caught up with Thénardier. The man whom he had so long sought stood before him, and he could carry out the injunction laid upon him by his father. It was humiliating to know that the dead hero should have owed his life to a scoundrel and that the blank cheque he had left behind him had not hitherto been honoured. It seemed to Marius also, in his complex state of mind where Thénardier was concerned, that there were grounds for avenging his father for the misfortune of having been saved by such a man. In any event he was pleased. The time had at last come when he could rid his father’s shade of this unworthy creditor, and it was as though he would be releasing his father’s memory from a debtor’s prison.
But apart from this he had another duty, namely, if possible to resolve the mystery of the source of Cosette’s fortune. It was a matter in which Thénardier might be of some assistance.
Thénardier had carefully stowed the five-hundred-franc note in his pocket and was smiling almost tenderly at Marius. Marius broke the silence.
‘Thénardier, I have told you your name. Do you want me also to tell you the secret you were proposing to sell me? I, too, have sources of information, and you may find that I know rather more than you do. Jean Valjean, as you say, is a murderer and a thief. He is a thief because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer, Monsieur Madeleine, whom he ruined. And he murdered the policeman, Javert.’
‘I don’t understand, Monsieur le Baron,’ said Thénardier.
‘I will explain. Round about 1822 there was a man living in the Pas-de-Calais who had at one time been in trouble with the law, but who, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, had fully rehabilitated himself. He had become a man of probity and honour, and he had established a factory making objects of black glass which had brought prosperity to a whole town. It had also made his personal fortune, but this was as it were a secondary consideration. He looked after the poor, founded schools and hospitals, cared for the widow and the orphan – became in some sort the guardian angel of the region. He was elected mayor. A released convict who knew his background denounced him and took advantage of his arrest to draw from the Paris banking house of Laffitte – I have this from the chief cashier in person – a sum of over half a million francs belonging to Monsieur Madeleine, whose signature he forged. The released convict was Jean Valjean. As for the murder, Jean Valjean murdered the police agent, Javert. I know because I was there at the time.’
Thénardier darted at Marius the triumphant glance of a beaten man who finds that after all he has regained the ground he lost and victory is in sight. But his meek smile promptly returned. Abjectness, the humility of the inferior confronted by his superior, was a better card to play. He merely said:
‘Monsieur le Baron, I think you are mistaken.’
‘What!’ exclaimed Marius. ‘Are you denying what I’ve said? But those are facts!’
‘They are incorrect. Monsieur le Baron has so far honoured me with his confidence that I feel it is my duty to tell him the truth. Truth and justice should come before all else. I do not like to hear a man unjustly accused. Jean Valjean did not rob Monsieur Madeleine, nor did he kill Javert.’
‘How on earth do you make that out?’
‘For two reasons. In the first place he did not rob Monsieur Madeleine because he himself is, or was, Monsieur Madeleine.’
‘What in the world …?’
‘And secondly he did not kill Javert because Javert killed himself. He committed suicide.’
‘What!’ cried Marius, beside himself with amazement. ‘But what proof have you of this?’
‘The police agent Javert,’ said Thénardier, intoning the words as though they were a classical alexandrine, ‘was found drowned under a boat moored near the Pont-au-Change.’
‘Prove it!’
Thénardier fished in an inside pocket and got out a large envelope containing folded papers of different sizes.
‘Here is my dossier,’ he said calmly. He went on: ‘Acting in your interests, Monsieur le Baron, I wished to discover the whole truth about Jean Valjean. When I tell you that he and Madeleine are one and the same, and that Javert was the only murderer of Javert, I can produce evidence to prove it, and not merely handwritten evidence – handwriting can be forged – but printed evidence.’
As he spoke Thénardier was getting copies of two newspapers out of the envelope, both faded and creased and smelling strongly of tobacco, but one of which seemed very much older than the other.
The reader knows of both these newspapers. The older of the two was the issue of the Drapeau Blanc dated 25 July 1823 in which Monsieur Madeleine and Jean Valjean were shown to be the same person. The more recent, the Moniteur of 15 June 1832, reported the suicide of Javert, adding that it followed Javert’s verbal report to the Prefect of Police that, having been taken prisoner by the insurgents in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he owed his life to the magnanimity of one of them, who had fired his pistol into the air.
There could be no doubting this evidence. The newspapers were unquestionably authentic. They had not been printed simply to support the testimony of Thénardier. Seeing how mistaken he had been, Marius uttered a cry of joy.
‘Why, but then he’s a splendid man! The fortune was really his! He’s Madeleine, the benefactor of an entire region, and Jean Valjean, the saviour of Javert. He’s a hero! He’s a saint!’
‘He’s neither one nor the other,’ said Thénardier. ‘He’s a murderer and a thief.’ And he added in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he has the upper hand, ‘Let us keep quite calm.’
The words murderer and thief, which Marius had thought disposed of, came like a cold douche.
‘You mean there’s more?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Thénardier, ‘there is more. Valjean did not rob Madeleine, but he is nonetheless a thief, and although he did not kill Javert he is nonetheless a murderer.’
‘Are you talking about the wretched little crime he committed forty years ago, which, as your newspaper shows, has been fully expiated?’ asked Marius.
‘I’m talking about murder and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I’m talking about facts. What I have now to tell you is something unpublished and quite unknown which may account for the fortune so cleverly bestowed on Madame la Baronne by Jean Valjean. I call it clever because it enabled him to buy his way into a respectable family, create a home for himself and obliterate his crime.’
‘I might interrupt you at this point,’ said Marius. ‘But go on.’
‘I shall tell you everything, Monsieur le Baron, and trust to your generosity for my reward. This secret is worth a large sum. You may ask why I have not gone to Valjean. The reason is very simple. There is nothing to be got out of him. He has handed all his money over to you, and since I need money for my voyage to La Joya, you are the person to whom I must apply. I am a little fatigued. Will you permit me to sit down?’
Marius nodded and sat down himself.
Thénardier seated himself in an upholstered armchair and replaced his papers in the envelope, remarking, as he re-folded the Drapeau Blanc, ‘I had a job to get hold of this one.’ He then sat back with his legs crossed, in the manner of a man sure of his facts, and embarked solemnly upon his narrative.
‘On the sixth of June last year, Monsieur le Baron – that is to say, on the day of the uprising – a man was hiding in the Paris main sewer at the point between the Pont des Invalides and the Pont d’Iéna where it runs into the Seine.’
At this Marius drew his chair closer, and Thénardier proceeded with the assurance of an orator who feels that he has a firm hold on his audience.
‘This man, who had a key to the sewer, had been obliged to go into hiding for reasons unconnected with politics. It was, I repeat, the day of the insurrection, and the time was about eight o’clock in the evening. Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, the man took cover. Another man was in the sewer. This happened not far from the entrance, and there was sufficient light for the first man to recognize the second, who was walking bent double with a heavy burden on his back. The man was an ex-convict and his burden was a dead body. Clear proof of murder if ever there was one, and as for theft – well, one doesn’t kill a man for nothing. He was going to drop the body in the river. A thing worth mentioning is that before reaching the sewer entrance he had to go through an appalling trough where he might have dumped the body; but if he had done so it would have been found by the sewage workers next day and that didn’t suit him. He preferred to struggle through the pit with his burden, and it must have cost him an enormous effort. The risk he took was horrible and I am surprised that he came out of it alive.’
Marius’s chair had drawn even closer. Thénardier paused for breath and went on:
‘No need to tell you, Monsieur le Baron, that a sewer is not as wide as the Champs-Élysées. Two men occupying the same part of it are bound to meet. That is precisely what happened, and this second man said to the first: “You see what I’m carrying on my back? I’ve got to get out of here. You have a key. Hand it over.” This ex-convict was a man of enormous strength. It was useless to refuse. Nevertheless the first man bargained, simply to gain time. He could see nothing of the dead man except that he was young and well-dressed, seemingly rich, and that his face was covered with blood. While they were talking the first contrived, without the murderer noticing, to rip off a small piece of the murdered man’s coat. As evidence you understand, so as to be able to bring the crime home to the criminal. He then opened the sewer gate and let the man out with his burden on his back. After which he made himself scarce, not wanting to get mixed up in the affair, and in particular not wanting to be there when the murderer dropped his victim in the river. And now I think you will understand. The man carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean, and the man with the key was the person addressing you. As for the scrap of cloth –’
Thénardier concluded the sentence by pulling a muddy fragment from his pocket and holding it out, grasped between his two thumbs and forefingers.
Marius had risen to his feet, pale and scarcely able to breathe. He was staring at the scrap of cloth, and without taking his eyes off it he backed towards the wall and fumbled for the key in the door of a wardrobe. He opened the wardrobe and thrust in his arm without looking, still with his eyes fixed on the scrap of cloth which Thénardier was holding out.
‘I have every reason to believe, Monsieur le Baron,’ said Thénardier, ‘that the murdered man was a wealthy foreigner who had fallen into a trap set by Valjean when he had an enormous sum of money on his person.’
‘I was the man,’ cried Marius, ‘and here is the coat I was wearing!’ And he flung the bloodstained garment on the floor. Then, snatching the fragment of cloth from Thénardier, he bent over the coat and found the place from which it had been torn. It fitted exactly. Thénardier stood petrified, thinking, ‘I’m done for!’
Marius rose up, trembling but radiant. He put a hand in his pocket and going furiously to Thénardier thrust a fist into his face, clutching a bundle of five-hundred and thousand-franc notes.
‘You are an abominable liar and a scoundrel! You came here to accuse this man and you have cleared him; you wanted to destroy him and you have done the opposite. It’s you who are the thief and the murderer! I saw you, Thénardier-Jondrette, in that foul garret in the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. I know enough about you to have you sent to gaol and further, if I wanted to. Here’s a thousand francs for you, villain that you are!’ He threw a thousand-franc note at him. ‘And here’s another five hundred, and now get out of here! What happened at Waterloo protects you.’
‘Waterloo?’ grunted Thénardier, pocketing the notes.
‘Yes, you devil. You saved a colonel’s life.’
‘He was a general,’ said Thénardier, looking up.
‘He was a colonel. I wouldn’t give a halfpenny for any general. And now get out and thank your lucky stars that I want to see no more of you. Here you are, here’s another three thousand francs. Take them and go to America with your daughter, because your wife’s dead, you lying rogue. What’s more, I’ll see to it that you get there, and when you do I’ll see to it that you’re credited with twenty thousand francs. Go and get yourself hanged somewhere else!’
‘Monsieur le Baron,’ said Thénardier, bowing to the ground, ‘I am eternally grateful.’
And he left, having understood nothing, amazed and delighted by this manna from Heaven. We may briefly relate the end of his story. Two days after the scene we have described he set off for America under another name with his daughter Azelma and a letter of credit for twenty thousand francs to be drawn upon in New York. But Thénardier was incurable. He used the money to go into the slave-trade.
Directly he had left the house Marius ran into the garden, where Cosette was still strolling.
‘Cosette!’ he cried. ‘Hurry! We must go at once. Basque, fetch a fiacre! Oh, God, he was the man who saved my life! We mustn’t waste a minute. Put on your shawl.’
Cosette thought he had gone mad, and obeyed.
Marius could scarcely breathe. He pressed a hand to his heart to calm its beating. He strode up and down. He embraced Cosette. ‘I’m such a fool!’ he said. He was beside himself, seeing in Jean Valjean a figure of indescribable stature, supremely great and gently humble in his immensity, the convict transformed into Christ. Marius was so dazed that he could not tell exactly what he saw, only that it was great.
The fiacre arrived. He followed Cosette into it and ordered the driver to go to Number Seven, Rue de l’Homme-Armé.
‘Oh, what happiness!’ cried Cosette. ‘I have been afraid to speak to you of the Rue de l’Homme-Armé. We’re going to see Monsieur Jean.’
‘Your father, Cosette. More than ever your father. Cosette, I have guessed something. You told me that you never received the letter I sent you by Gavroche. I know what happened. It was delivered to him, your father, and he came to the barricade to save me. It’s his nature to save people. He spared Javert. He rescued me from that inferno and carried me on his back through the sewers, to bring me to you. Oh, I have been a monster of ingratitude! There was a deep trough, Cosette, where we might both have been drowned, and he carried me through it. I was unconscious, you see, and I didn’t know what was happening. We’re going to take him back with us, whether he likes it or not, and we’ll never let him go again. Provided he’s at home! Provided we can find him! I’ll spend the rest of my life honouring him. It must have happened like that – Gavroche gave the letter to him instead of to you. And that explains everything. You do understand, don’t you?’
Cosette did not understand a word.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said.
The fiacre continued on its way.
Jean Valjean looked round on hearing the knock on his door and feebly called ‘Come in!’
The door opened and Cosette and Marius appeared. Cosette rushed into the room while Marius stood in the doorway.
‘Cosette!’ said Jean Valjean and sat upright in his chair, his face white and haggard, his arms extended and a glow of immense happiness in his eyes. Cosette fell into his arms. ‘Father!’ she cried.
Valjean was stammering broken words of welcome. Then he said, ‘So you have forgiven me?’ and, turning to Marius, who was screwing up his eyes to prevent the tears from falling, he said: ‘And you too, you forgive me?’
Marius could not speak. ‘Thank you,’ said Valjean.
Cosette tossed her hat and shawl on to the bed, and seating herself on the old man’s knees, she tenderly parted the locks of hair and kissed him on the forehead. Valjean was in a state of great bewilderment. Cosette, who had only a confused notion of what it was all about, embraced him again. Valjean stammered:
‘One can be so stupid! I thought I should never see her again. Do you know, Monsieur Pontmercy, that at the moment when you entered the room I was saying to myself, “It’s all over”. There’s the little dress she wore, there on the bed. I was the most miserable of men. That’s what I was saying to myself at the very moment when you came upstairs – “I shall never see her again!” How idiotic it was! One forgets to trust in God. But I was so unhappy.’
For a moment he was unable to speak, but then he went on:
‘I really did need to see Cosette for a little while every now and then. The heart must have something to live on. But I felt that I was not wanted, and I said to myself, “They don’t need you, so stay in your own place. No one has the right to inflict themselves on other people.” And now I’m seeing her again! Cosette, this is a very pretty dress you’re wearing. Did your husband choose it? You don’t mind, do you, Monsieur Pontmercy, if I address her as tu. It won’t be for long.’
‘Such a cruel father!’ said Cosette. ‘Where have you been? Why were you away so long? The other times it was only three or four days. I sent Nicolette, but they always told her you were away. When did you get back, and why didn’t you let us know? Do you know, you’ve changed a great deal. How wicked of you! You’ve been ill and you never told us. Marius, take his hand and feel how cold it is.’
‘Monsieur Pontmercy,’ said Jean Valjean, ‘have you really forgiven me?’
At the repetition of the words Marius broke down.
‘Cosette, did you hear what he said? He asked me to forgive him! And do you know what he did? He saved my life and, even more, he gave me you! And then he sacrificed himself by withdrawing from our lives. He ran hideous risks for us and now he asks me to forgive him, graceless, pitiless clod that I have been! His courage, his saintliness, his selflessness are beyond all bounds. There is no price too high to pay for him.’
‘You have no need to say all this,’ murmured Jean Valjean.
‘Why didn’t you say it yourself?’ demanded Marius, in a voice in which reproach was mingled with veneration.‘ It’s partly your fault. You save a man’s life and then you don’t tell him. Even worse, you pretended to confess to me and in doing so you defamed yourself.’
‘I told you the truth,’ said Valjean.
‘No. The truth means the whole truth, not just part of it. Why didn’t you tell me that you were Monsieur Madeleine and that you had spared Javert? Why didn’t you tell me that I owed you my life?’
‘Because I thought as you did. I thought you were right. It was better for me to break away. If you had known about the business of the sewer you might have made me stay with you. It would have upset everything.’
‘What or whom would it have upset?’ demanded Marius. ‘Do you think we’re going to allow you to stay here? We’re going to take you with us. Good God, when I think that I only learnt all this by pure chance! You’re coming with us. You’re part of us. You’re Cosette’s father and mine. I won’t allow you to spend another day in this horrible place.’
‘Certainly I shan’t be here tomorrow,’ said Jean Valjean.
‘And what does that mean? We shan’t allow you to go on any more journeys. You aren’t going to leave us again. You belong to us. We shan’t let you go.’
‘This time it’s final,’ said Cosette. ‘We have a cab down below. I’m kidnapping you – if necessary, by force.’
Laughing, she went through the motions of picking up the old man in her arms.
‘We’ve still kept your room for you. You can’t think how pretty the garden is just now. The azaleas are coming on wonderfully, the paths are sanded with real sea sand, and there are little blue shells. You’ll be able to eat my strawberries, I’m the one who waters them. And there won’t be any more of this “Madame – Monsieur Jean” nonsense, we’re a republic and we call each other tu, don’t we, Marius? Everything will be different now. And oh, father, a most dreaful thing happened. There was a redbreast that had built its nest in a hole in the wall, and a horrid cat went and ate it. My darling redbreast, that used to look in at my window! It made me cry. I could have killed that cat. But now nobody’s going to cry any more. We’re all going to be happy. Grandfather will be so delighted when we bring you back with us. You shall have your own corner of the garden where you can grow anything you like and we shall see if your strawberries are as good as mine. And I’ll do everything you say, and of course you’ll have to obey me as well’
Jean Valjean had listened without hearing. He had listened to the music of her voice rather than to the words, and one of those great tears which are the deep pearls of the soul brimmed in his eye. He murmured:
‘This is the proof that God is good.’
‘Dear father!’ said Cosette.
‘It is true,’ said Jean Valjean, ‘that it would be delightful for us all to live together. Those trees are filled with birds. I would stroll with Cosette. To be one of the living, people who greet each other in the morning and call to each other in the garden, that is a great happiness. We should see each other every day and would each cultivate our own corner, and she would give me her strawberries to eat and I would cut my roses for her. Yes, it would be delightful, only –’ he broke off and said softly, ‘well, it’s a shame.’
The tear did not fall but lingered in his eye and he replaced it with a smile. Cosette took his two hands in hers.
‘Your hands are so cold,’ she said. ‘Are you ill? Are you in pain?’
‘No,’ said Valjean. ‘I’m not in pain. Only – ’ he broke off again.
‘Only what?’
‘I’m going to the in a little while.’
Cosette and Marius shuddered.
‘Yes, but that is not important,’ said Jean Valjean. He drew breath, smiled and said: ‘Cosette, go on talking. Your redbreast died. Go on talking about it. I want to hear your voice.’
Marius was gazing at him in stupefaction and Cosette uttered a piercing cry.
‘Father! Father! You’re going to live! You must live! I want you to live, do you understand?’
Jean Valjean looked up at her with adoring eyes.
‘Very well, forbid me to die. Who knows, perhaps I shall obey. I was in the act of dying when you arrived. That stopped me. It was as though I were being reborn.’
‘You’re full of strength and life,’ cried Marius. ‘Do you think people the just like that? You have suffered greatly, but now your sufferings are over. I am the one to ask your forgiveness, and I do so on my knees. You must live, and you must live with us, and you must live for a long, long time. We’re taking you back. Henceforth our every thought will be for your happiness.’
‘You see?’ said Cosette, in tears. ‘Marius says you aren’t to die.’
Jean Valjean continued to smile.
‘If you take me back, Monsieur Pontmercy, will that make me any different from the man I am? No. God thinks as you and I do, and he has not changed his mind. It is better for me to go. Death is a very sensible arrangement. God knows better than we do what is good for us. That you should be happy, Marius Pontmercy and Cosette, that youth should marry with the morning, that you two children should have lilac and nightingales around you, that your life should be like a lawn bathed in sunshine and glowing with enchantment; and that I, who am no longer good for anything, should now the, that is surely right. We must be reasonable. There is nothing more left for me. I am well persuaded that my life is over. I had a fainting fit not long ago, and last night I drank all the water in the jug. Your husband is so good, Cosette. It is far better for you to be with him than with me.’
There was again a knock on the door and the doctor entered.
‘Good day and good-bye, doctor,’ said Valjean. ‘These are my two children.’
Marius went up to him and spoke a single word – ‘Monsieur? …’ – but the the tone in which he said it made it an enutire question. The doctor replied with a meaningful glance.
‘Because things do not always please us,’ said Valjean, ‘that is no reason for reproaching God.’
There was a pause in which all were oppressed. Jean Valjean turned to Cosette as though he wished to carry her image with him into eternity. Even amid the shadows into which he had now sunk the sight of her could still raise him to ecstasy. The glow of her sweet face was reflected in his own. Even in the act of death there may be enchantment.
The doctor was feeling his pulse. ‘You were what he needed,’ he said to Cosette and Marius; and then in a whispered aside to Marius: ‘Too late, I fear.’
Scarcely taking his eyes off Cosette, Valjean glanced serenely at Marius and the doctor. A low murmur escaped his lips.
‘To the is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.’
Suddenly he stood up. These returns of strength are sometimes a sign of the final death-throes. He walked steadily to the wall, brushing aside Marius and the doctor, who sought to help him, and took down the little copper crucifix which was hanging there. Then he returned to his chair, moving like a man in the fullness of health, and, putting the crucifix on the table, said in a clear voice:
‘He is the great martyr.’
Then his head fell forward while his fingers clutched at the stuff of his trousers over his knees. Cosette ran sobbing to hold him up, murmuring distractedly, ‘Father, father, have we found you only to lose you?’
One may say of dying that it goes by fits and starts, now moving towards the grave and now turning back towards life. After that half-seizure Valjean regained strength, passed a hand over his forehead as though to brush away the shadows, and was almost entirely lucid. He seized a fold of Cosette’s sleeve and kissed it.
‘He’s reviving!’ cried Marius. ‘Doctor, he’s reviving!’
‘You are both so good,’ said Jean Valjean. ‘I will tell you what has grieved me. What has grieved me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that you have made no use of the money. It is truly your wife’s money. Let me explain it to you, my children. I am glad you are here, if only for that reason. Black jade comes from England and white jade comes from Norway. It’s all in this letter here. And I invented a new kind of fastening for bracelets which is prettier, better and cheaper. It made a great deal of money. Cosette’s fortune is really and truly hers. I tell you this to put your minds at rest.’
The concierge had come upstairs and was looking through the half-open door. The doctor told her to go away, but he could not prevent the zealous woman from calling to the dying man:
‘Do you want a priest?’
‘I have one,’ Jean Valjean replied; and he pointed upwards as though there were some other being present whom he alone could see. Indeed it is not improbable that the bishop was present in those last moments of his life. Cosette slipped a pillow behind his back. Valjean said:
‘I beseech you, Monsieur Pontmercy, to have no misgivings. My life will have been wasted if you do not make use of the money that is truly Cosette’s. I can assure you that our products were very good, rivalling what are known as the jewels of Berlin.’
When a person dear to us is about to the we fix him with an intent gaze that seeks to hold him back. They stood beside him in silent anguish, having no words to speak, Cosette clasping Marius by the hand.
Jean Valjean was visibly declining, sinking down towards that dark horizon. His breath was coming in gasps, punctured by slight groans. He had difficulty in moving his arms, and his feet were now quite motionless. But as the weakness of his body increased so his spirit grew in splendour, and the light of the unknown world was already visible in his eyes. His face became paler as he smiled. There was something other than life in it. His breath failed but his gaze grew deeper. He was a dead body which seemed to possess wings.
He signed to Cosette to come closer to him, then signed to Marius. It was the last moment of the last hour, and when he spoke it was in a voice so faint that it seemed to come from a long way off, as though there were a wall between them.
‘Come close to me, both of you. I love you dearly. How sweet it is to die like this. And you love me too, dear Cosette. You’ll weep for me a little, but not too much, I want you to have no great sorrows. You must enjoy life, my children. A thing I forgot to mention is that the buckles without tongues are more profitable than any other kind. They cost ten francs the gross to manufacture and sell at sixty. Excellent business, as you see, so there is really no reason, Monsieur Pontmercy, why you should be astonished at that sum of six hundred thousand francs. It is honest money. You can be rich with an easy mind. You must have a carriage and now and then a box at the theatre, and you, Cosette, must have beautiful dresses to dance in, and when you invite your friends to dinner. You must be happy. I am leaving the two candlesticks on the mantelpiece to Cosette. They are made of silver, but to me they are pure gold. I don’t know whether the person who gave them to me is pleased as he looks down on me from above. I have done my best. You must not forget, my children, that I am one of the poor. You must bury me in any plot of ground that comes handy and put a stone to mark the spot. That is my wish. No name on the stone. If Cosette cares to visit it sometimes I shall be glad. And you too, Monsieur Pontmercy. I must confess that I have not always liked you, and I ask your forgiveness. She and you are now one person to me and I am very grateful. I know you are making Cosette happy. The greatest joy in my life has been to see her with rosy cheeks, and I have been grieved when she has looked pale. You will find in the chest of drawers a five-hundred-franc note. I haven’t touched it. It is for the poor. Cosette, do you see your little dress there on the bed? Do you remember it? That was ten years ago. How time passes! We have been happy together. Now it is over. You must not weep, dear children, I shall not be far away. I shall watch over you from where I am. You need only to look when night has fallen and you will see me smile. Do you remember Montfermeil, Cosette? You were in the woods, and you were frightened. I helped you carry the bucket, do you remember? That was the first time I touched your poor hand. It was so cold! Your hands were red in those days, Mademoiselle, and now they are white. And do you remember that big doll? You called her Catherine, and you wished you could have taken her with you to the convent. You made me laugh at times, angel that you were. When it rained you floated straws in the gutter and watched to see which would win. Once I gave you a battledore of willow and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and green feathers. I expect you have forgotten that. You were so enchanting when you were small. You hung cherries over your ears. All those things are in the past – the woods we walked through, the convent where we took refuge, your child’s eyes and laughter, all shadows now. I believed that it all belonged to me, and that is where I was foolish. Those Thénardiers were wicked people, but we must forgive them. Cosette, the time has come for me to tell you your mother’s name. It was Fantine. You must not forget it, Fantine, and you must bow your head whenever you speak it. She loved you greatly and she suffered greatly. She was as rich in sorrow as you are in happiness. That is how God evens things out. He watches us all from above and knows what he is doing amid his splendid stars. And now I must leave you, my children. Love one another always. There is nothing else that matters in this world except love. You will think sometimes of the old man who died in this place. Dearest Cosette, it was not my fault if lately I have not come to see you. It wrung my heart. I used to go to the end of your street. I must have looked a strange sight to the people who saw me. They must have thought me mad. One day I went without my hat … Children, my sight is failing. I had more to say, but no matter. Think of me sometimes. You are fortunate. I don’t know what is happening to me, I can see a light. Come closer. I die happy. Bow your dear heads so that I may lay my hands on them.’
Cosette and Marius fell on their knees on either side of him, stifling their tears. His hands rested on their heads, and did not move again. He lay back with his head turned to the sky, and the light from the two candlesticks fell upon his face.
In the cemetery of Père Lachaise, not far from the communal grave and remote from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres which parades in the presence of eternity the hideous fashions of death, is a deserted corner near an old wall, and here, beneath a big yew tree, surrounded by mosses and dandelions, there is a stone. It is black and green, no more exempt than other stones from the encroachment of time, lichen and bird-droppings. There is no path near it, and people are reluctant to go that way because the grass is long and they are sure to get their feet wet. In sunny weather lizards visit it, there is a stir of grasses all around it and birds sing in the tree.
The stone is quite unadorned. It was carved strictly to serve its purpose, long enough and wide enough to cover a man. It bears no name.
But many years ago someone chalked four lines of verse on it which became gradually illegible under the influence of wind and weather and have now, no doubt, vanished entirely.
He sleeps. Although so much he was denied,
He lived; and when his dear love left him, died.
It happened of itself, in the calm way
That in the evening night-time follows day.