8
SUCCESSFUL EXAMINATION
AN HOUR LATER, in the depth of night, two men and a child stood in front of No. 62, Petite Rue Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the knocker and rapped.
It was Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette.
The two men had gone to look for Cosette at the shop of the fruiteress of the Rue de Chemin Vert, where Fauchelevent had left her on the preceding evening. Cosette had passed the twenty-four hours wondering what it all meant and trembling in silence. She trembled so much that she had not wept, nor had she tasted food nor slept. The worthy fruit-woman had asked her a thousand questions without obtaining any other answer than a sad look that never varied. Cosette did not let a word of all she had heard and seen, in the last two days, escape her. She divined that a crisis had come. She felt, in her very heart, that she must be “good.” Who has not experienced the supreme effect of these two words pronounced in a certain tone in the ear of some little frightened creature, “Don’t speak!” Fear is mute. Besides, no one ever keeps a secret so well as a child.
But when, after those mournful four-and-twenty hours, she again saw Jean Valjean, she uttered such a cry of joy that any thoughtful person hearing her would have divined in it an escape from some yawning gulf.
bwFauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew all the pass-words. Every door opened before him.
Thus was that doubly fearful problem solved of getting out and getting in again.
The porter, who had his instructions, opened the little side door which served to communicate between the court and the garden, and which, twenty years ago, could still be seen from the street, in the wall at the extremity of the court, facing the porte-cochère. The porter admitted all three by this door, and from that point they went to this private inner parlour, where Fauchelevent had, on the previous evening, received the orders of the prioress.
The prioress, rosary in hand, was awaiting them. A mother, with her veil down, stood near her. A modest taper lighted, or one might almost say, pretended to light up the parlour.
The prioress scrutinised Jean Valjean. Nothing scans so carefully as a downcast eye.
Then she proceeded to question:
“You are the brother?”
“Yes, reverend mother,” replied Fauchelevent.
“What is your name?”
Fauchelevent replied:
“Ultimus Fauchelevent!”
He had, in reality, had a brother named Ultimus, who was dead.
“From what part of the country are you?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“From Picquigny, near Amiens.”
“What is your age?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“Fifty.”
“What is your business?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“Gardener.”
“Are you a true Christian?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“All of our family are such.”
“Is this your little girl?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“Yes, reverend mother.”
“You are her father?”
Fauchelevent answered:
“Her grandfather.”
The mother said to the prioress in an undertone:
“He answers well.”
Jean Valjean had not spoken a word.
The prioress looked at Cosette attentively, and then said, aside to the mother—
“She will be homely.”
The two mothers talked together very low for a few minutes in a corner of the parlour, and then the prioress turned and said—
“Father Fauvent, you will have another knee-cap and bell. We need two, now.”
So, next morning, two little bells were heard tinkling in the garden and the nuns could not keep from lifting a corner of their veils. They saw two men digging side by side, in the lower part of the garden under the trees—Fauvent and another. Immense event! The silence was broken, so far as to say—
“It’s an assistant-gardener!”
The mothers added:
“He is Father Fauvent’s brother.”
In fact, Jean Valjean was regularly installed; he had the leather kneecap and the bell; henceforth he had his commission. His name was Ultimus Fauchelevent.
The strongest recommendation for Cosette’s admission had been the remark of the prioress: She will be homely.
The prioress having uttered this prediction, immediately took Cosette into her friendship and gave her a place in the school building as a charity pupil.
There is nothing not entirely logical in this.
It is all in vain to have no mirrors in convents; women are conscious of their own appearance; young girls who know that they are pretty do not readily become nuns; the inclination to the calling being in inverse proportion to good looks, more is expected from the homely than from the handsome ones. Hence a marked preference for the homely.
This whole affair elevated good old Fauchelevent greatly; he had achieved a triple success;—in the eyes of Jean Valjean whom he had rescued and sheltered; with the gravedigger, Gribier, who said he had saved him from a fine; and, at the convent, which, thanks to him, in retaining the coffin of Mother Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Cæsar and satisfied God. There was a coffin with a body in it at the Petit Picpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery. Public order was greatly disturbed thereby, undoubtedly, but nobody perceived it. As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was deep. Fauchelevent became the best of servants and the most precious of gardeners.