Near Saint-Médard’s church there was a poor man who was in the habit of
crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and
on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity. He never passed
this man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him.
Those who envied this mendicant said that he belonged to the police. He
was an ex-beadle of seventy-five, who was constantly mumbling his
prayers.
One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing by, when he had not Cosette
with him, he saw the beggar in his usual place, beneath the lantern
which had just been lighted. The man seemed engaged in prayer,
according to his custom, and was much bent over. Jean Valjean stepped
up to him and placed his customary alms in his hand. The mendicant
raised his eyes suddenly, stared intently at Jean Valjean, then dropped
his head quickly. This movement was like a flash of lightning. Jean
Valjean was seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just
caught sight, by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and
beaming visage of the old beadle, but of a well-known and startling
face. He experienced the same impression that one would have on finding
one’s self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger.
He recoiled, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak,
to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head,
which was enveloped in a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he
was there. At this strange moment, an instinct—possibly the mysterious
instinct of self-preservation,—restrained Jean Valjean from uttering a
word. The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same
appearance as he had every day. “Bah!” said Jean Valjean, “I am mad! I
am dreaming! Impossible!” And he returned profoundly troubled.
He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he
thought he had seen was the face of Javert.
That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having
questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second
time.
On the following day, at nightfall, he went back. The beggar was at his
post. “Good day, my good man,” said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing
him a sou. The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice,
“Thanks, my good sir.” It was unmistakably the ex-beadle.
Jean Valjean felt completely reassured. He began to laugh. “How the
deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there?” he thought. “Am I
going to lose my eyesight now?” And he thought no more about it.
A few days afterwards,—it might have been at eight o’clock in the
evening,—he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud,
when he heard the house door open and then shut again. This struck him
as singular. The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house
except himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not
burn out her candles. Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet.
He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old
woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary’s.
Jean Valjean listened.
The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man; but the old woman
wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the
step of a man as that of an old woman. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew
out his candle.
He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, “Get into bed
very softly”; and as he kissed her brow, the steps paused.
Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the
door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding
his breath in the dark.
After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he
heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards the door of his
chamber, he saw a light through the keyhole. This light formed a sort
of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was
evidently some one there, who was holding a candle in his hand and
listening.
Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated. But he heard no
sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the person who had
been listening at the door had removed his shoes.
Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his bed, and
could not close his eyes all night.
At daybreak, just as he was falling into a doze through fatigue, he was
awakened by the creaking of a door which opened on some attic at the
end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine footstep which
had ascended the stairs on the preceding evening. The step was
approaching. He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole,
which was tolerably large, hoping to see the person who had made his
way by night into the house and had listened at his door, as he passed.
It was a man, in fact, who passed, this time without pausing, in front
of Jean Valjean’s chamber. The corridor was too dark to allow of the
person’s face being distinguished; but when the man reached the
staircase, a ray of light from without made it stand out like a
silhouette, and Jean Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man
was of lofty stature, clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under
his arm. The formidable neck and shoulders belonged to Javert.
Jean Valjean might have attempted to catch another glimpse of him
through his window opening on the boulevard, but he would have been
obliged to open the window: he dared not.
It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself.
Who had given him that key? What was the meaning of this?
When the old woman came to do the work, at seven o’clock in the
morning, Jean Valjean cast a penetrating glance on her, but he did not
question her. The good woman appeared as usual.
As she swept up she remarked to him:—
“Possibly Monsieur may have heard some one come in last night?”
At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o’clock in the evening was
the dead of the night.
“That is true, by the way,” he replied, in the most natural tone
possible. “Who was it?”
“It was a new lodger who has come into the house,” said the old woman.
“And what is his name?”
“I don’t know exactly; Dumont, or Daumont, or some name of that sort.”
“And who is this Monsieur Dumont?”
The old woman gazed at him with her little polecat eyes, and answered:—
“A gentleman of property, like yourself.”
Perhaps she had no ulterior meaning. Jean Valjean thought he perceived
one.
When the old woman had taken her departure, he did up a hundred francs
which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in his pocket. In
spite of all the precautions which he took in this operation so that he
might not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou piece escaped from
his hands and rolled noisily on the floor.
When darkness came on, he descended and carefully scrutinized both
sides of the boulevard. He saw no one. The boulevard appeared to be
absolutely deserted. It is true that a person can conceal himself
behind trees.
He went upstairs again.
“Come.” he said to Cosette.
He took her by the hand, and they both went out.
BOOK FIFTH—FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK