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THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT
In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form
an exact idea of the Droit-Mur lane, and, in particular, of the
angle which one leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue
Polonceau into this lane.
Droit-Mur lane was almost entirely bordered on the right,
as far as the Rue Petit-Picpus, by houses of mean aspect; on the
left by a solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous
parts which grew gradually higher by a story or two as they approached
the Rue Petit-Picpus side; so that this building, which was very
lofty on the Rue Petit-Picpus side, was tolerably low on the side
adjoining the Rue Polonceau.
There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descended
to such a degree that it consisted of merely a wall.
This wall did not abut directly on the Street; it formed a
deeply retreating niche, concealed by its two corners
from two observers who might have been, one in the Rue Polonceau,
the other in the Rue Droit-Mur.
Beginning with these angles of the niche, the wall extended
along the Rue Polonceau as far as a house which bore the number
49, and along the Rue Droit-Mur, where the fragment was much shorter,
as far as the gloomy building which we have mentioned and whose
gable it intersected, thus forming another retreating angle in
the street. This gable was sombre of aspect; only one window was
visible, or, to speak more correctly, two shutters covered with
a sheet of zinc and kept constantly closed.
The state of the places of which we are here giving a description
is rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise
memory in the mind of old inhabitants of the quarter.
The niche was entirely filled by a thing which resembled a
colossal and wretched door; it was a vast, formless assemblage
of perpendicular planks, the upper ones being broader than the
lower, bound together by long transverse strips of iron. At one
side there was a carriage gate of the ordinary dimensions, and
which had evidently not been cut more than fifty years previously.
A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall
was covered with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau.
In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean found himself,
this sombre building had about it a solitary and uninhabited look
which tempted him.
He ran his eyes rapidly over it; he said to himself, that
if he could contrive to get inside it, he might save himself.
First he conceived an idea, then a hope.
In the central portion of the front of this building, on the
Rue Droit-Mur side, there were at all the windows of the different
stories ancient cistern pipes of lead.
The various branches of the pipes which led from one central
pipe to all these little basins sketched out a sort of tree on
the front.
These ramifications of pipes with their hundred elbows imitated
those old leafless vine-stocks which writhe over the fronts of
old farm-houses.
This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, was
the first thing that struck Jean Valjean.
He seated Cosette with her back against a stone post, with
an injunction to be silent, and ran to the spot where the conduit
touched the pavement. Perhaps there was some way of climbing up
by it and entering the house. But the pipe was dilapidated and
past service, and hardly hung to its fastenings.
Moreover, all the windows of this silent dwelling were grated
with heavy iron bars, even the attic windows in the roof. And
then, the moon fell full upon that facade, and the man who was
watching at the corner of the street would have seen Jean Valjean
in the act of climbing.
And finally, what was to be done with Cosette? How was she
to be drawn up to the top of a three-story house?
He gave up all idea of climbing by means of the drain-pipe,
and crawled along the wall to get back into the Rue Polonceau.
When he reached the slant of the wall where he had left Cosette,
he noticed that no one could see him there.
As we have just explained, he was concealed from all eyes,
no matter from which direction they were approaching; besides
this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were two doors; perhaps
they might be forced. The wall above which he saw the linden-tree
and the ivy evidently abutted on a garden where he could, at least,
hide himself, although there were as yet no leaves on the trees,
and spend the remainder of the night.
Time was passing; he must act quickly.
He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized
the fact that it was impracticable outside and in.
He approached the other door with more hope; it was frightfully
decrepit; its very immensity rendered it less solid; the planks
were rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were
rusted.
It seemed as though it might be possible to pierce this worm-eaten
barrier.
On examining it he found that the door was not a door; it
had neither hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle;
the iron bands traversed it from side to side without any break.
Through the crevices in the planks he caught a view of unhewn
slabs and blocks of stone roughly cemented together, which passers-by
might still have seen there ten years ago.
He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this
apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against
which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank; but then,
one found one's self face to face with a wall.
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