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THE REMARKS OF THE PRINCIPAL TENANT
Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every
evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes
alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys
of the boulevard, and entering churches at nightfall. He liked
to go to Saint-Medard, which is the nearest church. When he did
not take Cosette with him, she remained with the old woman; but
the child's delight was to go out with the good man.
She preferred an hour with him to all her rapturous tete-a-tetes
with Catherine. He held her hand as they walked, and said sweet
things to her.
It turned out that Cosette was a very gay little person.
The old woman attended to the housekeeping and cooking and
went to market.
They lived soberly, always having a little fire, but like
people in very moderate circumstances.
Jean Valjean had made no alterations in the furniture as it
was the first day; he had merely had the glass door leading to
Cosette's dressing-room replaced by a solid door.
He still wore his yellow coat, his black breeches, and his
old hat. In the street, he was taken for a poor man.
It sometimes happened that kind-hearted women turned back
to bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean accepted the sou with a deep
bow.
It also happened occasionally that he encountered some poor
wretch asking alms; then he looked behind him to make sure that
no one was observing him, stealthily approached the unfortunate
man, put a piece of money into his hand, often a silver coin,
and walked rapidly away. This had its disadvantages.
He began to be known in the neighborhood under the name of
the beggar who gives alms.
The old principal lodger, a cross-looking creature, who was
thoroughly permeated, so far as her neighbors were concerned,
with the inquisitiveness peculiar to envious persons, scrutinized
Jean Valjean a great deal, without his suspecting the fact.
She was a little deaf, which rendered her talkative.
There remained to her from her past, two teeth,--one above,
the other below,--which she was continually knocking against each
other.
She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able to tell
her anything, since she knew nothing herself except that she had
come from Montfermeil.
One morning, this spy saw Jean Valjean, with an air which
struck the old gossip as peculiar, entering one of the uninhabited
compartments of the hovel. She followed him with the step of an
old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen, through
a crack in the door, which was directly opposite him.
Jean Valjean had his back turned towards this door, by way
of greater security, no doubt.
The old woman saw him fumble in his pocket and draw thence
a case, scissors, and thread; then he began to rip the lining
of one of the skirts of his coat, and from the opening he took
a bit of yellowish paper, which he unfolded. The old woman recognized,
with terror, the fact that it was a bank-bill for a thousand francs.
It was the second or third only that she had seen in the course
of her existence.
She fled in alarm.
A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to
go and get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding that
it was his quarterly income, which he had received the day before.
"Where?" thought the old woman.
"He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening,
and the government bank certainly is not open at that hour."
The old woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned
her surmises.
That thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced
a vast amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the
Rue des Vignes Saint-Marcel.
A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing
some wood, in his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor.
The old woman was in the chamber, putting things in order.
She was alone.
Cosette was occupied in admiring the wood as it was sawed.
The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging on a nail,
and examined it.
The lining had been sewed up again.
The good woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed
in the skirts and revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc
bank-bills, no doubt!
She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the
pockets. Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she
had seen, but a big pocket-book, a very large knife, and--a suspicious
circumstance-- several wigs of various colors.
Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in a manner
provided against unexpected accidents.
Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of
winter.
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