Responding to the knock on his door, Jean Valjean turned and called feebly, “Come in!” Marius pushed the door open and then leaned against it. But Cosette rushed into the room, and immediately Valjean said, “Cosette!” As he sat up in his chair and held out his trembling arms, his sad, weary, and haggard eyes were suddenly filled with immense and overwhelming joy.
Cosette, sobbing with emotion, fell to her knees, embraced him, and said the one word she had longed to say and he had longed to hear: “Father!”
Valjean, now completely overcome with emotion himself, stammered, “Cosette! It is really you! Thank God!” Then, as he held Cosette tightly in his arms, he looked toward Marius and said, “You are here as well. Does this mean you forgive me?”
Marius blinked several times in an attempt to stem the flow of tears, took a step forward, and between sobs said simply, “Father!”
“Thank you,” was Valjean’s happy response.
Cosette stood to take off her shawl and her hat and tossed them onto the bed. Then she sat on Valjean’s knee, tenderly pushed his long white hair away from his face, and softly kissed him on the forehead. Valjean easily yielded to her display of affection, which only led to Cosette doubling her show of devotion, as though she were single-handedly attempting to repay Marius’s debt.
Valjean managed to say feebly, “How stupid I have been! I thought I never would see her again. Marius, you can’t imagine what I was saying to myself just as you entered! I was looking at Cosette’s little dress and saying, ‘Everything is over for me. I am a miserable man, for I will never see my Cosette again.’ How idiotic I have been! I was forgetting about our gracious God, who said, ‘You believe you are about to be abandoned? Don’t be silly! No, things will not go as you think.’ Then He said to one of His angels, ‘There is a man over there who needs your help.’ And the angel came, and the ‘man over there’ sees his Cosette again! Oh, I was so unhappy. But now you are here!”
Then, looking Marius in the eyes, he asked again, as though it were too good to be true, “Marius, you forgive me?”
Hearing these words uttered once more was more than Marius could bear. His heart overflowed with emotions as he declared, “Cosette, did you hear that? He asks my forgiveness! Just think of what he has done for me! I owe my entire life to him. The battle at the barricade and the cesspool of the sewer—he walked through it all for me. For you, Cosette! He carried me through death itself and pushed it aside for me, yet was willing to accept death for himself on my account. He possesses all the courage, virtue, heroism, and godliness of an angel!”
“Hush! Hush!” said Valjean in a quiet voice. “Why tell all that?”
“Because you did not tell it!” Marius shouted angrily, but with an anger that included untold respect and honor. “It’s your own fault. You save people’s lives and conceal it from them! And then under the pretense of unmasking yourself, you actually scandalize yourself. It’s terrible!”
“I told the truth,” Valjean offered.
“No!” retorted Marius, “The truth is the whole truth—and that, you did not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine. Why didn’t you say so? You saved Javert? Why haven’t you said that? I owe my life to you, but you never told me. Why not?”
“Because I was thinking as you do,” Valjean answered. “I thought you were right, and that it would be better if I went away. And if you had known about the sewer, you would have kept me with you.”
“But you are Cosette’s father—and mine!” Marius argued. “And you will not spend another day in this dreadful apartment. Don’t even think of staying here until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Valjean questioned with a faraway look in his eyes. “No, tomorrow I will not be here. But I will not be with you.”
“What do you mean?” Marius demanded. “Come now, we’re not going to allow any more journeys and good-byes. You belong to us, and we will not lose you again.”
“This time it’s for good,” added Cosette. “We have a carriage waiting, and we won’t take no for an answer.” Then, with a smile, she said, “We’ll steal you away, and use force if necessary.”
Valjean listened to Cosette but without really hearing her. He only heard the music of her voice instead of catching the meaning of her words. Then large tears slowly welled up in his eyes—the type that seem to be the foreshadowing, dark pearls of the soul. As the tears ran down his face, he whispered, “The proof that God is gracious and good is that she is here.”
Cosette took both of the old man’s hands in hers and cried, “Father! Your hands are so cold. Are you ill?”
“I am fine,” Valjean replied. “Only …”
“Only what?” Cosette demanded.
“In a few minutes I will be dead,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.
“Father! You will live!” Cosette insisted. “I want you to live! Do you hear me?”
“Yes, forbid me to die,” Valjean said with a smile. “Who knows? Perhaps I will obey. I was dying just as you got here, but your presence stopped me. It was like being born again.” Then in a very serious tone, he added, “It is nothing to die. And you see, Marius, God thought as you and I did, and He does not change His mind. He thinks it best I go away. Death is a proper answer, and God knows what we need better than we do.” Then he turned to Cosette and gazed at her as though he wished to remember her features throughout eternity. Although his life was already fading into the shadows, he was filled with pure rapture as he looked at her, and the radiance of her sweet face was reflected onto his pale countenance. He looked into her eyes and said, “How good your husband is, Cosette! You are much better off with him than with me.”
Speaking barely above a whisper, he continued, “It is nothing to die. What is to be feared is not living beyond …” Then pausing, he rose to his feet, which was a sudden display of strength not uncommon as one struggles with death. He summoned his last vestige of power, walked with a steady step to the wall, and lightly pushed Marius aside as the young man attempted to help him. He took his copper crucifix from the wall and returned to his chair as someone who appeared to be in perfect health. Setting the crucifix on the table, he said in a loud voice, “Behold the great Martyr!”
Then his chest heaved abruptly as though the grave had placed its deadly grip upon him. His head also jerked convulsively, and his hands, which were resting on his knees, were suddenly clenched. Cosette held him by his shoulders and attempted to speak to him but could not, for she was sobbing uncontrollably.
At that moment, the housekeeper, who had come upstairs to check on him since he had not been eating, stuck her head partially around the half-opened door. Seeing him in obvious distress, she asked, “Sir, would you like a priest?”
Pointing above his head as though he saw someone, Valjean replied, “I have had one.” Of course, only Valjean saw the kind old bishop, who was now a witness to his final agony and battle with death.
The agony of death is said to meander toward the grave and then return to life, as there appears to be some grasping for life in the act of dying. For a moment, Valjean moved toward life again and resumed, “Marius, I implore you not to worry about the money. The 600,000 francs really belong to Cosette, and my life would be wasted if you do not enjoy them! We did very well with those glass trinkets and made some beautiful jewelry.”
Jean Valjean’s life turned once again toward the grave, and as the horizon of death approached, he seemed to become weaker by the moment. His breathing was now intermittent, and the rattle of death could be heard as he struggled. He had difficulty moving his hands, and he had lost all feeling in his feet and legs. Yet as his body became continually feebler, the more the majesty of his soul was displayed across his countenance. And the light of the next world was already visible in his eyes.
He motioned for Cosette and Marius to lean more closely toward him, and it was obvious to both of them that the last minute of the last hour had arrived. Valjean spoke in a voice that seemed to be coming from some distant place, as though some unseen wall was now rising between them and him. He whispered, “I love you dearly. How wonderful it is to die like this, and to know you love me too, my dear Cosette! Deep within my soul, I knew you still loved your poor old father. You will weep for me a little, won’t you? But promise me—not too much. I don’t want you to suffer.
“My children, don’t forget that I am a poor man. Just have me buried in the first plot of earth you can find—under a stone to mark the spot. This is my wish. And put no name on the stone. Cosette, if you wish to visit the place from time to time, it will give me pleasure. And, Marius, you may come as well. By the way, monsieur, I must admit that I have not always loved you, and I ask your forgiveness for that. Now, however, you and Cosette are as one to me. I am very grateful to you, and I know you make Cosette very happy.”
Then pointing to his dresser, Valjean said, “In there I have left some money for the poor. Please see that they receive it. And to you, Cosette, I leave the two candlesticks on the mantel. They are silver. Yet to me they are more than that. They are gold—even diamonds—for they change common wax candles that are placed in them into something sacred. I don’t know if the man who gave them to me is satisfied with me from heaven, but I have done what I could.
“Cosette, see your little dress lying on the bed? Do you remember it? That was ten years ago. How time flies! We have been very happy, but now my life is over. Do not weep, my children, for I am not going very far. And I will see you from there. Just look up at night and you will see me smile. Cosette, do you remember that night in Montfermeil? You were in the forest and so terrified! Remember how I took hold of the handle of your water pail? That was the first time I touched your poor little hand. It was so cold! Oh, how cold, red, and chapped your little hands were then, mademoiselle, but now they are so soft and lovely!
“Oh, the forests through which one has walked with his child, the trees under which one has strolled, the convent where one hid himself and his child, and the games and the laughter of childhood—they are all but shadows now. They are things of the past—things I thought I could hold on to forever, but that was my mistake. Oh, Cosette, I almost forgot—the Thénardiers! They were wicked people, but you must forgive them.
“And now, Cosette, the moment has come for me to tell you of your mother. Never forget her name. It was Fantine. Kneel whenever you speak that name, for she suffered so much, but she loved you so dearly. She suffered as much unhappiness as you have enjoyed happiness. Yet that is the way God apportions things. He sits on His throne on high, He sees us all, and He knows what He is doing in the midst of each and every star in His heavens.
“My children, I am on the verge of my departure. Love each other dearly and forever. Nothing but love really matters in this world—love for one another. And when you think of love, sometimes think of the poor old man who died here and who loves you.
“I no longer am seeing things very clearly. I had more things to tell you, but it makes no difference now. I die a happy man. Just one more thing—please move more closely so I may lay my hands upon your heads.” Cosette and Marius knelt beside his chair and he placed one hand on each of them and said, “May you be blessed.” The young couple sobbed through their tears of sadness and despair beneath his hands.
Valjean fell backward in his chair, and the light of the bishop’s candlesticks shone across his face. He lifted his eyes toward heaven and, with a faraway look, said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I see a light.”
Cosette and Marius kissed his once strong but still majestic hands—and then those hands moved no more. Jean Valjean was dead.
It was night—starless and extremely dark. Yet in that darkness, there can be no doubt that somewhere an angel stood with wings outstretched to welcome the soul of Jean Valjean.
Far from the elegant quarter of the city there is a potter’s field. Hidden from view in a deserted corner of the cemetery—next to the wall and beneath a large tree—lies a stone. It lies amid the dandelions and is partially covered with moss, and has suffered the ravages of time and weather. Nothing has been carved on the stone—not even a name—except that many years ago a hand scratched a few words, which over time have probably become illegible beneath the rain and the dust. Yet they once read:
He sleeps. Although his circumstance was very strange, he lived. He died when he lost his little angel. The passing happened simply, by itself, as the night comes when the day has gone.