2
THE LAST FLICKERINGS OF THE EXHAUSTED LAMP
ONE DAY Jean Valjean went down stairs, took three steps into the street, sat down upon a stone block, upon that same block where Gavroche, on the night of the 5th of June, had found him musing; he remained there a few minutes, then went upstairs again. This was the last oscillation of the pendulum. The next day, he did not leave his room. The day after he did not leave his bed.
His portress, who prepared his frugal meal, some cabbage, a few potatoes with a little pork, looked into the brown earthen plate, and exclaimed:
“Why, you didn’t eat anything yesterday, poor dear man!”
“Yes, I did,” answered Jean Valjean.
“The plate is all full.”
“Look at the water-pitcher. That is empty.”
“That shows that you have drunk; it don’t show that you have eaten.”
“Well,” said Jean Valjean, “suppose I have only been hungry for water?”
“That is called thirst, and, when people don’t eat at the same time, it is called fever.”
“I will eat to-morrow.”
“Or at Christmas. Why not eat to-day? Do people say: I will eat tomorrow! To leave me my whole plateful without touching it! My cole slaw, which was so good!”
Jean Valjean took the old woman’s hand:
“I promise to eat it,” said he to her in his benevolent voice.
“I am not satisfied with you,” answered the portress.
Jean Valjean scarcely ever saw any other human being than this good woman. There are streets in Paris in which nobody walks, and houses into which nobody comes. He was in one of those streets, and in one of those houses.
While he still went out, he had bought of a brazier for a few sous a little copper crucifix, which he had hung upon a nail before his bed. The cross is always good to look upon.
A week elapsed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He was still in bed. The portress said to her husband: “The goodman upstairs does not get up any more, he does not eat any more, he won’t last long. He has trouble, he has. Nobody can get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad match.”
The porter replied, with the accent of the marital sovereignty:
“If he is rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him not have any. If he doesn’t have a doctor, he will die.”
“And if he does have one?”
“He will die,” said the porter.
The portress began to dig up with an old knife some grass which was sprouting in what she called her pavement, and, while she was pulling up the grass, she muttered:
“It is a pity. An old man who is so nice! He is white as a chicken.”
She saw a physician of the neighbourhood passing at the end of the street; she took it upon herself to beg him to go up.
“It is on the third floor,” said she to him. “You will have nothing to do but go in. As the goodman does not stir from his bed now, the key is in the door all the time.”
The physician saw Jean Valjean, and spoke with him.
When he came down, the portress questioned him:
“Well, doctor?”
“Your sick man is very sick.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearance, has lost some dear friend. People die of that.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He told me that he was well.”
“Will you come again, doctor?”
“Yes,” answered the physician. “But another than I must come again.”