The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one
and two o’clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had
seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean
had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her.
Cosette’s eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean
Valjean.
She was still trembling.
“Are you sleepy?” said Jean Valjean.
“I am very cold,” she replied.
A moment later she resumed:—
“Is she still there?”
“Who?” said Jean Valjean.
“Madame Thénardier.”
Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to
make Cosette keep silent.
“Ah!” said he, “she is gone. You need fear nothing further.”
The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast.
The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grew more
keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round
Cosette.
“Are you less cold now?” said he.
“Oh, yes, father.”
“Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back.”
He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a
better shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were
bars at all the windows of the ground floor.
Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed
that he was coming to some arched windows, where he perceived a light.
He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all
opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up by
arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were
visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one corner.
The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it.
Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the
ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding-sheet, and
which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat
on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the
immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of
serpent which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a
rope round its neck.
The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely
illuminated, which adds to horror.
Jean Valjean often said afterwards, that, although many funereal
spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything
more blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form
accomplishing some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and
beheld thus at night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was
perhaps dead; and still more alarming to think that it was perhaps
alive.
He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch
whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what
seemed to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement.
All at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and
he fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind
him. It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that
form following him with great strides and waving its arms.
He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way
beneath him; the perspiration was pouring from him.
Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of
sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An
edifice full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the
darkness with the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them
abruptly that terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of
heaven, and then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it
actually was an edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It
was not a dream! He had to touch the stones to convince himself that
such was the fact.
Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a
genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain.
He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep.