1
THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE
MONSIEUR MADELEINE had Fantine taken to the infirmary, which was in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A violent fever came on, and she passed a part of the night in delirious ravings. Finally, she fell asleep.
Towards noon the following day, Fantine awoke. She heard a breathing near her bed, drew aside the curtain, and saw Monsieur Madeleine standing gazing at something above his head. His look was full of compassionate and supplicating agony. She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed upon a crucifix nailed against the wall.
From that moment Monsieur Madeleine was transfigured in the eyes of Fantine; he seemed to her clothed with light. He was absorbed in a kind of prayer. She gazed at him for a long while without daring to interrupt him; at last she said timidly:
“What are you doing?”
Monsieur Madeleine had been in that place for an hour waiting for Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and said:
“How do you feel?”
“Very well. I have slept,” she said. “I think I am getting better—this will be nothing.”
Then he said, answering the question she had first asked him, as if she had just asked it:
“I was praying to the martyr who is on high.”
And in his thought he added: “For the martyr who is here below.”
Monsieur Madeleine had passed the night and morning in informing himself about Fantine. He knew all now, he had learned, even in all its poignant details, the history of Fantine.
He went on:
“You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that.”
He sighed deeply; but she smiled with this sublime smile from which two teeth were gone.
That same night, Javert wrote a letter. Next morning he carried this letter himself to the post-office of M—sur M—. It was directed to Paris and bore this address: “To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur the Prefect of Police.”
Because the matter at the police station had become known, the post-mistress and some others who saw the letter before it was sent and who recognized Javert’s handwriting in the address, thought he was sending in his resignation.
Monsieur Madeleine wrote immediately to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them a hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves out of it, and bring the child at once to M—sur M—, where her mother, who was sick, wanted her.
This astonished Thénardier.
“The Devil!” he said to his wife, “we won’t let go of the child. It may be that this lark will become a milk cow. Some silly fellow must have been smitten by the mother.”
He replied by a bill of five hundred and some odd francs carefully drawn up. In this bill figured two incontestable items for upwards of three hundred francs, one of a physician and the other of an apothecary who had attended and supplied Eponine and Azelma during two long illnesses. Cosette, as we have said, had not been ill. This was only a slight substitution of names. Thénardier wrote at the bottom of the bill: “Received on account three hundred francs.”
Monsieur Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote: “Make haste to bring Cosette.”
“Christy!” said Thénardier, “we won’t let go of the girl.”
Meanwhile Fantine had not recovered. She still remained in the infirmary.
It was not without some repugnance, at first, that the sisters received and cared for “this girl.” He who has seen the bas-reliefs at Rheims will recall the distension of the lower lip of the wise virgins beholding the foolish virgins. This ancient contempt of vestals for less fortunate women is one of the deepest instincts of womanly dignity; the sisters had experienced it with the intensification of Religion. But in a few days Fantine had disarmed them. The motherly tenderness within her, with her soft and touching words, moved them. One day the sisters heard her say in her delirium: “I have been a sinner, but when I shall have my child with me, that will mean that God has pardoned me. While I was bad I would not have had my Cosette with me; I could not have borne her sad and surprised looks. It was for her I sinned, and that is why God forgives me. I shall feel this benediction when Cosette comes. I shall gaze upon her; the sight of her innocence will do me good. She knows nothing of it all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At her age the wings have not yet fallen.”
Monsieur Madeleine came to see her twice a day, and at each visit she asked him:
“Shall I see my Cosette soon?”
He answered:
“Perhaps to-morrow. I expect her every moment.”
And the mother’s pale face would brighten.
“Ah!” she would say, “how happy I shall be.”
We have just said she did not recover: on the contrary, her condition seemed to become worse from week to week. That handful of snow applied to the naked skin between her shoulder-blades, had caused a sudden check of perspiration, in consequence of which the disease, which had been forming for some years, at last attacked her violently. They were just at that time beginning in the diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases to follow the fine theory of Laënnec. The doctor sounded her lungs and shook his head.
Monsieur Madeleine said to him:
“Well?”
“Has she not a child she is anxious to see?” said the doctor.
“Yes.”
“Well then, make haste to bring her.”
Monsieur Madeleine gave a shudder.
Fantine asked him: “What did the doctor say?”
Monsieur Madeleine tried to smile.
“He told us to bring your child at once. That will restore your health.”
“Oh!” she cried, “he is right. But what is the matter with these Thenardiers that they keep my Cosette from me? Oh! She is coming! Here at last I see happiness near me.”
The Thénardiers, however, did not “let go of the child;” they gave a hundred bad reasons. Cosette was too delicate to travel in the winter time, and then there were a number of little petty debts, of which they were collecting the bills, etc., etc.
“I will send somebody for Cosette,” said Monsieur Madeleine, “if necessary, I will go myself.”
He wrote at Fantine’s dictation this letter, which she signed. “Monsieur Thénardier:
”You will deliver Cosette to the bearer. “He will settle all small debts. ”I have the honour to salute you with consideration.
“FANTINE.”
At this juncture a serious incident intervened. In vain we chisel, as best we can, the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny reappears continually.