It is no fault of theirs.
Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love.
Old age goes towards the end.
They do not lose sight of each other, but there is no longer a close connection.
Young people feel the cooling off of life; old people, that of the tomb.
Let us not blame these poor children.
BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER II
LAST FLICKERINGS OF A LAMP WITHOUT OIL
One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the 6th of June; he remained there a few moments, then went up stairs again.
This was the last oscillation of the pendulum.
On the following day he did not leave his apartment.
On the day after that, he did not leave his bed.
His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed:
"But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!"
"Certainly I did," replied Jean Valjean.
"The plate is quite full."
"Look at the water jug.
It is empty."
"That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have eaten."
"Well," said Jean Valjean, "what if I felt hungry only for water?"
"That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it is called fever."
"I will eat to-morrow."
"Or at Trinity day.
Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say:
`I will eat to-morrow'? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it!
My ladyfinger potatoes were so good!"
Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand:
"I promise you that I will eat them," he said, in his benevolent voice.
"I am not pleased with you," replied the portress.
Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman.
There are streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which no one ever comes.
He was in one of those streets and one of those houses.
While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite his bed.
That gibbet is always good to look at.
A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room.
He still remained in bed.
The portress said to her husband:--"The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last long.
That man has his sorrows, that he has.
You won't get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad marriage."
The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty:
"If he's rich, let him have a doctor.
If he is not rich, let him go without.
If he has no doctor he will die."
"And if he has one?"
"He will die," said the porter.
The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she grumbled:
"It's a shame.
Such a neat old man!
He's as white as a chicken."
She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of the street; she took it upon herself to request him to come up stairs.
"It's on the second floor," said she.
"You have only to enter.
As the good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked."
The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him.
When he came down again the portress interrogated him:
"Well, doctor?"
"Your sick man is very ill indeed."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Everything and nothing.
He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost some person who is dear to him.
People die of that."
"What did he say to you?"
"He told me that he was in good health."
"Shall you come again, doctor?"
"Yes," replied the doctor.
"But some one else besides must come."
BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER III
A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT'S CART
One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker than he had ever been before.
Then, no doubt under the pressure of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into a sitting posture and dressed himself.
He put on his old workingman's clothes.
As he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them.
He was obliged to pause many times while dressing himself; merely putting his arms through his waistcoat made the perspiration trickle from his forehead.
Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible.
He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette's outfit.
He spread it out on his bed.
The Bishop's candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece. He took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks.
Then, although it was still broad daylight,--it was summer,-- he lighted them.
In the same way candles are to be seen lighted in broad daylight in chambers where there is a corpse.
Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down.
It was not ordinary fatigue which expends the strength only to renew it; it was the remnant of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away drop by drop in overwhelming efforts and which will never be renewed.
The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting book.
He caught sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself.
He was eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been taken for fifty; that year had counted for thirty.
What he bore on his brow was no longer the wrinkles of age, it was the mysterious mark of death.
The hollowing of that pitiless nail could be felt there.
His cheeks were pendulous; the skin of his face had the color which would lead one to think that it already had earth upon it; the corners of his mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs.
He gazed into space with an air of reproach; one would have said that he was one of those grand tragic beings who have cause to complain of some one.
He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on the soul like a clot of despair.
Night had come.
He laboriously dragged a table and the old arm-chair to the fireside, and placed upon the table a pen, some ink and some paper.
That done, he had a fainting fit.
When he recovered consciousness, he was thirsty.
As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught.
As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the point of the pen had curled up, the ink had dried away, he was forced to rise and put a few drops of water in the ink, which he did not accomplish without pausing and sitting down two or three times, and he was compelled to write with the back of the pen.
He wiped his brow from time to time.
Then he turned towards the bed, and, still seated, for he could not stand, he gazed at the little black gown and all those beloved objects.
These contemplations lasted for hours which seemed minutes.
All at once he shivered, he felt that a child was taking possession of him; he rested his elbows on the table, which was illuminated by the Bishop's candles and took up the pen.
His hand trembled.
He wrote slowly the few following lines:
"Cosette, I bless thee.
I am going to explain to thee.
Thy husband was right in giving me to understand that I ought to go away; but there is a little error in what he believed, though he was in the right.
He is excellent.
Love him well even after I am dead.
Monsieur Pontmercy, love my darling child well.
Cosette, this paper will be found; this is what I wish to say to thee, thou wilt see the figures, if I have the strength to recall them, listen well, this money is really thine.
Here is the whole matter:
White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, black glass jewellery comes from Germany.
Jet is the lightest, the most precious, the most costly.
Imitations can be made in France as well as in Germany.
What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a lamp burning spirits of wine to soften the wax.
The wax was formerly made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound.
I invented a way of making it with gum shellac and turpentine.
It does not cost more than thirty sous, and is much better.
Buckles are made with a violet glass which is stuck fast, by means of this wax, to a little framework of black iron.
The glass must be violet for iron jewellery, and black for gold jewellery.
Spain buys a great deal of it.
It is the country of jet . . ."
Here he paused, the pen fell from his fingers, he was seized by one of those sobs which at times welled up from the very depths of his being; the poor man clasped his head in both hands, and meditated.
"Oh!" he exclaimed within himself [lamentable cries, heard by God alone], "all is over.
I shall never see her more.
She is a smile which passed over me.
I am about to plunge into the night without even seeing her again.
Oh! one minute, one instant, to hear her voice, to touch her dress, to gaze upon her, upon her, the angel! and then to die!
It is nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her.
She would smile on me, she would say a word to me, would that do any harm to any one?
No, all is over, and forever.
Here I am all alone.
My God!
My God!
I shall never see her again!"
At that moment there came a knock at the door.
BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER IV (1)
A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING
That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying:
"The person who wrote the letter is in the antechamber."
Cosette had taken the grandfather's arm and was strolling in the garden.
A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior.
Coarse paper, coarsely folded--the very sight of certain missives is displeasing.
The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort.
Marius took it.
It smelled of tobacco.
Nothing evokes a memory like an odor.
Marius recognized that tobacco.
He looked at the superscription:
"To Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron Pommerci.
At his hotel."
The recognition of the tobacco caused him to recognize the writing as well.
It may be said that amazement has its lightning flashes.
Marius was, as it were, illuminated by one of these flashes.
The sense of smell, that mysterious aid to memory, had just revived a whole world within him.
This was certainly the paper, the fashion of folding, the dull tint of ink; it was certainly the well-known handwriting, especially was it the same tobacco.
The Jondrette garret rose before his mind.
Thus, strange freak of chance! one of the two scents which he had so diligently sought, the one in connection with which he had lately again exerted so many efforts and which he supposed to be forever lost, had come and presented itself to him of its own accord.
He eagerly broke the seal, and read:
"Monsieur le Baron:--If the Supreme Being had given me the talents, I might have been baron Thenard, member of the Institute [academy of ciences], but I am not.
I only bear the same as him, happy if this memory recommends me to the eccellence of your kindnesses.
The benefit with which you will honor me will be reciprocle.
I am in possession of a secret concerning an individual.
This individual concerns you.
I hold the secret at your disposal desiring to have the honor to be huseful to you.
I will furnish you with the simple means of driving from your honorabel family that individual who has no right there, madame la baronne being of lofty birth.
The sanctuary of virtue cannot cohabit longer with crime without abdicating.
I awate in the entichamber the orders of monsieur le baron.
"With respect."
The letter was signed "Thenard."
This signature was not false.
It was merely a trifle abridged.
Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation.
The certificate of origin was complete.
Marius' emotion was profound.
After a start of surprise, he underwent a feeling of happiness.
If he could now but find that other man of whom he was in search, the man who had saved him, Marius, there would be nothing left for him to desire.
He opened the drawer of his secretary, took out several bank-notes, put them in his pocket, closed the secretary again, and rang the bell.
Basque half opened the door.
"Show the man in," said Marius.
Basque announced:
"Monsieur Thenard."
A man entered.
A fresh surprise for Marius.
The man who entered was an utter stranger to him.
This man, who was old, moreover, had a thick nose, his chin swathed in a cravat, green spectacles with a double screen of green taffeta over his eyes, and his hair was plastered and flattened down on his brow on a level with his eyebrows like the wigs of English coachmen in "high life."
His hair was gray.
He was dressed in black from head to foot, in garments that were very threadbare but clean; a bunch of seals depending from his fob suggested the idea of a watch.
He held in his hand an old hat!
He walked in a bent attitude, and the curve in his spine augmented the profundity of his bow.
