Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and
of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to
be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape,
with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall
forest trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where
could be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees,
gnarled and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch,
whose glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and
there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss. The alleys were
bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs. The grass had half
taken possession of them, and a green mould covered the rest.
Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as a
means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots, directly
against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was no longer
anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely through the
gloom.
The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were
distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a
shed.
The large building of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had a wing on the Rue
Petit-Picpus, turned two façades, at right angles, towards this garden.
These interior façades were even more tragic than the exterior. All the
windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible at any one of
them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons. One of those façades
cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an
immense black pall.
No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist
and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out, which
intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond, and the
low roofs of the Rue Polonceau.
Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined.
There was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour;
but it did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk
in, even in broad daylight.
Jean Valjean’s first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put
them on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is
fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose
thoughts were still on the Thénardier, shared his instinct for
withdrawing from sight as much as possible.
Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous
noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets; the
blows of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert’s appeals to the
police spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with
words which could not be distinguished.
At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that
species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held
his breath.
He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette’s mouth.
However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that
this frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him
by so much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those
walls had been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak.
All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a
sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been
horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst
of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night;
women’s voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the
pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,—voices
which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn
infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song
proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At
the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said
that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.
Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of
them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that
they must kneel.
These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent
the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant
in an uninhabited house.
While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no
longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he
felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.
The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could
not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street;
there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had
reassured him,—all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds on
the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy
sound.