As for the theft, that is understood; one does not kill a man gratis.
This convict was on his way to fling the body into the river.
One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit grating, this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, necessarily, have encountered a frightful quagmire where it seems as though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, and that did not suit the assassin's plans.
He had preferred to traverse that quagmire with his burden, and his exertions must have been terrible, for it is impossible to risk one's life more completely; I don't understand how he could have come out of that alive."
Marius' chair approached still nearer.
Thenardier took advantage of this to draw a long breath.
He went on:
"Monsieur le Baron, a sewer is not the Champ de Mars.
One lacks everything there, even room.
When two men are there, they must meet.
That is what happened.
The man domiciled there and the passer-by were forced to bid each other good-day, greatly to the regret of both.
The passer-by said to the inhabitant:--"You see what I have on my back, I must get out, you have the key, give it to me."
That convict was a man of terrible strength.
There was no way of refusing.
Nevertheless, the man who had the key parleyed, simply to gain time.
He examined the dead man, but he could see nothing, except that the latter was young, well dressed, with the air of being rich, and all disfigured with blood.
While talking, the man contrived to tear and pull off behind, without the assassin perceiving it, a bit of the assassinated man's coat.
A document for conviction, you understand; a means of recovering the trace of things and of bringing home the crime to the criminal.
He put this document for conviction in his pocket.
After which he opened the grating, made the man go out with his embarrassment on his back, closed the grating again, and ran off, not caring to be mixed up with the remainder of the adventure and above all, not wishing to be present when the assassin threw the assassinated man into the river.
Now you comprehend.
The man who was carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean; the one who had the key is speaking to you at this moment; and the piece of the coat . . ."
Thenardier completed his phrase by drawing from his pocket, and holding, on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and his two forefingers, a strip of torn black cloth, all covered with dark spots.
Marius had sprung to his feet, pale, hardly able to draw his breath, with his eyes riveted on the fragment of black cloth, and, without uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he retreated to the wall and fumbled with his right hand along the wall for a key which was in the lock of a cupboard near the chimney.
He found the key, opened the cupboard, plunged his arm into it without looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which Thenardier still held outspread.
But Thenardier continued:
"Monsieur le Baron, I have the strongest of reasons for believing that the assassinated young man was an opulent stranger lured into a trap by Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money."
"The young man was myself, and here is the coat!" cried Marius, and he flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood.
Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thenardier, he crouched down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt.
The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat.
Thenardier was petrified.
This is what he thought:
"I'm struck all of a heap."
Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant.
He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thenardier, presenting to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled with bank-notes for five hundred and a thousand francs.
"You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain.
You came to accuse that man, you have only justified him; you wanted to ruin him, you have only succeeded in glorifying him.
And it is you who are the thief!
And it is you who are the assassin!
I saw you, Thenardier Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l'Hopital. I know enough about you to send you to the galleys and even further if I choose.
Here are a thousand francs, bully that you are!"
And he flung a thousand franc note at Thenardier.
"Ah!
Jondrette Thenardier, vile rascal!
Let this serve you as a lesson, you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of the shadows, wretch!
Take these five hundred francs and get out of here!
Waterloo protects you."
"Waterloo!" growled Thenardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along with the thousand.
"Yes, assassin!
You there saved the life of a Colonel.
. ."
"Of a General," said Thenardier, elevating his head.
"Of a Colonel!" repeated Marius in a rage.
"I wouldn't give a ha'penny for a general.
And you come here to commit infamies!
I tell you that you have committed all crimes.
Go! disappear!
Only be happy, that is all that I desire.
Ah! monster! here are three thousand francs more.
Take them.
You will depart to-morrow, for America, with your daughter; for your wife is dead, you abominable liar.
I shall watch over your departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you twenty thousand francs.
Go get yourself hung elsewhere!"
"Monsieur le Baron!" replied Thenardier, bowing to the very earth, "eternal gratitude."
And Thenardier left the room, understanding nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks of gold, and with that thunder which had burst forth over his head in bank-bills.
Struck by lightning he was, but he was also content; and he would have been greatly angered had he had a lightning rod to ward off such lightning as that.
Let us finish with this man at once.
Two days after the events which we are at this moment narrating, he set out, thanks to Marius' care, for America under a false name, with his daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand francs.
The moral wretchedness of Thenardier, the bourgeois who had missed his vocation, was irremediable.
He was in America what he had been in Europe.
Contact with an evil man sometimes suffices to corrupt a good action and to cause evil things to spring from it.
With Marius' money, Thenardier set up as a slave-dealer.
As soon as Thenardier had left the house, Marius rushed to the garden, where Cosette was still walking.
"Cosette!
Cosette!" he cried.
"Come! come quick!
Let us go.
Basque, a carriage!
Cosette, come.
Ah!
My God!
It was he who saved my life!
Let us not lose a minute!
Put on your shawl."
Cosette thought him mad and obeyed.
He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its throbbing.
He paced back and forth with huge strides, he embraced Cosette:
"Ah!
Cosette!
I am an unhappy wretch!" said he.
Marius was bewildered.
He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure.
An unheard-of virtue, supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him.
The convict was transfigured into Christ.
Marius was dazzled by this prodigy.
He did not know precisely what he beheld, but it was grand.
In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door.
Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself.
"Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Arme, Number 7."
The carriage drove off.
"Ah! what happiness!" ejaculated Cosette.
"Rue de l'Homme Arme, I did not dare to speak to you of that.
We are going to see M. Jean."
"Thy father!
Cosette, thy father more than ever.
Cosette, I guess it.
You told me that you had never received the letter that I sent you by Gavroche.
It must have fallen into his hands.
Cosette, he went to the barricade to save me.
As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he saved others also; he saved Javert.
He rescued me from that gulf to give me to you.
He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer.
Ah!
I am a monster of ingratitude.
Cosette, after having been your providence, he became mine.
Just imagine, there was a terrible quagmire enough to drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire.
Cosette! he made me traverse it.
I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I could know nothing of my own adventure.
We are going to bring him back, to take him with us, whether he is willing or not, he shall never leave us again.
If only he is at home!
Provided only that we can find him, I will pass the rest of my life in venerating him.
Yes, that is how it should be, do you see, Cosette?
Gavroche must have delivered my letter to him.
All is explained.
You understand."
Cosette did not understand a word.
"You are right," she said to him.
Meanwhile the carriage rolled on.
BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER V
A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY
Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door.
"Come in," he said feebly.
The door opened.
Cosette and Marius made their appearance.
Cosette rushed into the room.
Marius remained on the threshold, leaning against the jamb of the door.
"Cosette!" said Jean Valjean.
And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling, haggard, livid, gloomy, an immense joy in his eyes.
Cosette, stifling with emotion, fell upon Jean Valjean's breast.
"Father!" said she.
Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered:
"Cosette! she! you!
Madame! it is thou!
Ah! my God!"
And, pressed close in Cosette's arms, he exclaimed:
"It is thou! thou art here!
Thou dost pardon me then!"
Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears from flowing, took a step forward and murmured between lips convulsively contracted to repress his sobs:
"My father!"
"And you also, you pardon me!"
Jean Valjean said to him.
Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added:
"Thanks."
Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed.
"It embarrasses me," said she.
And, seating herself on the old man's knees, she put aside his white locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow.
Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way.
Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt.
Jean Valjean stammered:
"How stupid people are!
I thought that I should never see her again.
Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very moment when you entered, I was saying to myself:
`All is over.
Here is her little gown, I am a miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that at the very moment when you were mounting the stairs.
Was not I an idiot?
Just see how idiotic one can be!
One reckons without the good God.
The good God says:
"`You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid!
No. No, things will not go so.
Come, there is a good man yonder who is in need of an angel.'
And the angel comes, and one sees one's Cosette again! and one sees one's little Cosette once more!
Ah!
I was very unhappy."
For a moment he could not speak, then he went on:
"I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then.
A heart needs a bone to gnaw.
But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the way.
I gave myself reasons:
`They do not want you, keep in your own course, one has not the right to cling eternally.'
Ah!
God be praised, I see her once more!
Dost thou know, Cosette, thy husband is very handsome?
Ah! what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily.
I am fond of that pattern.
It was thy husband who chose it, was it not?
And then, thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls.
Let me call her thou, Monsieur Pontmercy.
It will not be for long."
And Cosette began again:
"How wicked of you to have left us like that!
Where did you go?
Why have you stayed away so long?
Formerly your journeys only lasted three or four days.
I sent Nicolette, the answer always was:
`He is absent.'
How long have you been back?
Why did you not let us know?
Do you know that you are very much changed?
Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, and we have not known it!
Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand is!"
"So you are here!
Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!" repeated Jean Valjean.
At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was swelling Marius' heart found vent.
He burst forth:
"Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness!
And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette?
He has saved my life.
He has done more--he has given you to me.
And after having saved me, and after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself?
He has sacrificed himself.
Behold the man.
And he says to me the ingrate, to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one:
Thanks!
Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too little.
That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette!
He carried me away through all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself.
Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses!
Cosette, that man is an angel!"
