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A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLS ON THE GROUND AND PRODUCES A TUMULT
Near Saint-Medard's church there was a poor man who was in
the habit of crouching on the brink of a public well which had
been condemned, and on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing
charity.
He never passed this man without giving him a few sous.
Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who envied this mendicant
said that he belonged to the police. He was an ex-beadle of seventy-five,
who was constantly mumbling his prayers.
One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing by, when he had not
Cosette with him, he saw the beggar in his usual place, beneath
the lantern which had just been lighted.
The man seemed engaged in prayer, according to his custom,
and was much bent over.
Jean Valjean stepped up to him and placed his customary alms
in his hand. The mendicant raised his eyes suddenly, stared intently
at Jean Valjean, then dropped his head quickly.
This movement was like a flash of lightning.
Jean Valjean was seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that
he had just caught sight, by the light of the street lantern,
not of the placid and beaming visage of the old beadle, but of
a well-known and startling face. He experienced the same impression
that one would have on finding one's self, all of a sudden, face
to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He recoiled, terrified, petrified,
daring neither to breathe, to speak, to remain, nor to flee, staring
at the beggar who had dropped his head, which was enveloped in
a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he was there.
At this strange moment, an instinct-- possibly the mysterious
instinct of self-preservation,--restrained Jean Valjean from uttering
a word.
The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance
as he had every day.
"Bah!" said Jean Valjean, "I am mad!
I am dreaming!
Impossible!"
And he returned profoundly troubled.
He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face
which he thought he had seen was the face of Javert.
That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not
having questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his
head a second time.
On the following day, at nightfall, he went back.
The beggar was at his post.
"Good day, my good man," said Jean Valjean, resolutely,
handing him a sou.
The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice,
"Thanks, my good sir."
It was unmistakably the ex-beadle.
Jean Valjean felt completely reassured.
He began to laugh. "How the deuce could I have thought
that I saw Javert there?" he thought.
"Am I going to lose my eyesight now?"
And he thought no more about it.
A few days afterwards,--it might have been at eight o'clock
in the evening,--he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette
spell aloud, when he heard the house door open and then shut again.
This struck him as singular.
The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house except
himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not
burn out her candles.
Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet.
He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly
be the old woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out
to the apothecary's. Jean Valjean listened.
The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man; but the
old woman wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly
resembles the step of a man as that of an old woman.
Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew out his candle.
He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice,
"Get into bed very softly"; and as he kissed her brow,
the steps paused.
Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards
the door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and
holding his breath in the dark.
After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned
round, as he heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards
the door of his chamber, he saw a light through the keyhole.
This light formed a sort of sinister star in the blackness
of the door and the wall. There was evidently some one there,
who was holding a candle in his hand and listening.
Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated.
But he heard no sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate
that the person who had been listening at the door had removed
his shoes.
Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his
bed, and could not close his eyes all night.
At daybreak, just as he was falling into a doze through fatigue,
he was awakened by the creaking of a door which opened on some
attic at the end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine
footstep which had ascended the stairs on the preceding evening.
The step was approaching.
He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole,
which was tolerably large, hoping to see the person who had made
his way by night into the house and had listened at his door,
as he passed.
It was a man, in fact, who passed, this time without pausing,
in front of Jean Valjean's chamber.
The corridor was too dark to allow of the person's face being
distinguished; but when the man reached the staircase, a ray of
light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean
Valjean had a complete view of his back.
The man was of lofty stature, clad in a long frock-coat, with
a cudgel under his arm.
The formidable neck and shoulders belonged to Javert.
Jean Valjean might have attempted to catch another glimpse
of him through his window opening on the boulevard, but he would
have been obliged to open the window:
he dared not.
It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like
himself. Who had given him that key?
What was the meaning of this?
When the old woman came to do the work, at seven o'clock in
the morning, Jean Valjean cast a penetrating glance on her, but
he did not question her.
The good woman appeared as usual.
As she swept up she remarked to him:--
"Possibly Monsieur may have heard some one come in last
night?"
At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o'clock in the evening
was the dead of the night.
"That is true, by the way," he replied, in the most
natural tone possible.
"Who was it?"
"It was a new lodger who has come into the house,"
said the old woman.
"And what is his name?"
"I don't know exactly; Dumont, or Daumont, or some name
of that sort."
"And who is this Monsieur Dumont?"
The old woman gazed at him with her little polecat eyes, and
answered:--
"A gentleman of property, like yourself."
Perhaps she had no ulterior meaning.
Jean Valjean thought he perceived one.
When the old woman had taken her departure, he did up a hundred
francs which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in
his pocket. In spite of all the precautions which he took in this
operation so that he might not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou
piece escaped from his hands and rolled noisily on the floor.
When darkness came on, he descended and carefully scrutinized
both sides of the boulevard.
He saw no one.
The boulevard appeared to be absolutely deserted.
It is true that a person can conceal himself behind trees.
He went up stairs again.
"Come."
he said to Cosette.
He took her by the hand, and they both went out.
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