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THE EVENING OF A DAY OF WALKING
Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before
sunset, a man who was travelling on foot entered the little town
of D---- The few inhabitants who were at their windows or on their
thresholds at the moment stared at this traveller with a sort
of uneasiness. It was difficult to encounter a wayfarer of more
wretched appearance. He was a man of medium stature, thickset
and robust, in the prime of life.
He might have been forty-six or forty-eight years old. A cap
with a drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned
and tanned by sun and wind, and dripping with perspiration. His
shirt of coarse yellow linen, fastened at the neck by a small
silver anchor, permitted a view of his hairy breast:
he had a cravat twisted into a string; trousers of blue drilling,
worn and threadbare, white on one knee and torn on the other;
an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with
a bit of green cloth sewed on with twine; a tightly packed soldier
knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new, on his back; an enormous,
knotty stick in his hand; iron-shod shoes on his stockingless
feet; a shaved head and a long beard.
The sweat, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, added
I know not what sordid quality to this dilapidated whole.
His hair was closely cut, yet bristling, for it had begun
to grow a little, and did not seem to have been cut for some time.
No one knew him.
He was evidently only a chance passer-by. Whence came he?
From the south; from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his
entrance into D---- by the same street which, seven months previously,
had witnessed the passage of the Emperor Napoleon on his way from
Cannes to Paris.
This man must have been walking all day. He seemed very much
fatigued.
Some women of the ancient market town which is situated below
the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the boulevard
Gassendi, and drink at the fountain which stands at the end of
the promenade.
He must have been very thirsty: for the children who followed
him saw him stop again for a drink, two hundred paces further
on, at the fountain in the market-place.
On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned
to the left, and directed his steps toward the town-hall. He entered,
then came out a quarter of an hour later.
A gendarme was seated near the door, on the stone bench which
General Drouot had mounted on the 4th of March to read to the
frightened throng of the inhabitants of D---- the proclamation
of the Gulf Juan.
The man pulled off his cap and humbly saluted the gendarme.
The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively
at him, followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered
the town-hall.
There then existed at D---- a fine inn at the sign of the
Cross of Colbas.
This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man
of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to
another Labarre, who kept the inn of the Three Dauphins in Grenoble,
and had served in the Guides.
At the time of the Emperor's landing, many rumors had circulated
throughout the country with regard to this inn of the Three Dauphins.
It was said that General Bertrand, disguised as a carter,
had made frequent trips thither in the month of January, and that
he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls
of gold to the citizens.
The truth is, that when the Emperor entered Grenoble he had
refused to install himself at the hotel of the prefecture; he
had thanked the mayor, saying, "I am going to the house of
a brave man of my acquaintance"; and he had betaken himself
to the Three Dauphins.
This glory of the Labarre of the Three Dauphins was reflected
upon the Labarre of the Cross of Colbas, at a distance of five
and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, "That
is the cousin of the man of Grenoble."
The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best
in the country-side. He entered the kitchen, which opened on a
level with the street.
All the stoves were lighted; a huge fire blazed gayly in the
fireplace.
The host, who was also the chief cook, was going from one
stew-pan to another, very busily superintending an excellent dinner
designed for the wagoners, whose loud talking, conversation, and
laughter were audible from an adjoining apartment. Any one who
has travelled knows that there is no one who indulges in better
cheer than wagoners.
A fat marmot, flanked by white partridges and heather-cocks,
was turning on a long spit before the fire; on the stove, two
huge carps from Lake Lauzet and a trout from Lake Alloz were cooking.
The host, hearing the door open and seeing a newcomer enter,
said, without raising his eyes from his stoves:--
"What do you wish, sir?"
"Food and lodging," said the man.
"Nothing easier," replied the host.
At that moment he turned his head, took in the traveller's
appearance with a single glance, and added, "By paying for
it."
The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his
blouse, and answered, "I have money."
"In that case, we are at your service," said the
host.
The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack
from his back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his
stick in his hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to
the fire. D---- is in the mountains.
The evenings are cold there in October.
But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller.
"Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man.
"Immediately," replied the landlord.
While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with
his back turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil
from his pocket, then tore off the corner of an old newspaper
which was lying on a small table near the window.
On the white margin he wrote a line or two, folded it without
sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper to a child who
seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and lackey.
The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the
child set off on a run in the direction of the town-hall.
The traveller saw nothing of all this.
Once more he inquired, "Will dinner be ready soon?"
"Immediately," responded the host.
The child returned.
He brought back the paper.
The host unfolded it eagerly, like a person who is expecting
a reply.
He seemed to read it attentively, then tossed his head, and
remained thoughtful for a moment.
Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who
appeared to be immersed in reflections which were not very serene.
"I cannot receive you, sir," said he.
The man half rose.
"What!
Are you afraid that I will not pay you?
Do you want me to pay you in advance?
I have money, I tell you."
"It is not that."
"What then?"
"You have money--"
"Yes," said the man.
"And I," said the host, "have no room."
The man resumed tranquilly, "Put me in the stable."
"I cannot."
"Why?"
"The horses take up all the space."
"Very well!" retorted the man; "a corner of
the loft then, a truss of straw.
We will see about that after dinner."
"I cannot give you any dinner."
This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck
the stranger as grave.
He rose.
"Ah! bah!
But I am dying of hunger.
I have been walking since sunrise. I have travelled twelve
leagues.
I pay.
I wish to eat."
"I have nothing," said the landlord.
The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace
and the stoves:
"Nothing! and all that?"
"All that is engaged."
"By whom?"
"By messieurs the wagoners."
"How many are there of them?"
"Twelve."
"There is enough food there for twenty."
"They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in
advance."
The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his
voice, "I am at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain."
Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which
made him start, "Go away!"
At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting
some brands into the fire with the iron-shod tip of his staff;
he turned quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply,
the host gazed steadily at him and added, still in a low voice:
"Stop! there's enough of that sort of talk.
Do you want me to tell you your name?
Your name is Jean Valjean.
Now do you want me to tell you who you are?
When I saw you come in I suspected something; I sent to the
town-hall, and this was the reply that was sent to me. Can you
read?"
So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the
paper which had just travelled from the inn to the town-hall,
and from the town-hall to the inn.
The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord resumed after
a pause.
"I am in the habit of being polite to every one.
Go away!"
The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he
had deposited on the ground, and took his departure.
He chose the principal street.
He walked straight on at a venture, keeping close to the houses
like a sad and humiliated man. He did not turn round a single
time.
Had he done so, he would have seen the host of the Cross of
Colbas standing on his threshold, surrounded by all the guests
of his inn, and all the passers-by in the street, talking vivaciously,
and pointing him out with his finger; and, from the glances of
terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that
his arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town.
He saw nothing of all this.
People who are crushed do not look behind them.
They know but too well the evil fate which follows them.
Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing,
traversing at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful
of his fatigue, as is often the case when a man is sad.
All at once he felt the pangs of hunger sharply.
Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see whether
he could not discover some shelter.
The fine hostelry was closed to him; he was seeking some very
humble public house, some hovel, however lowly.
Just then a light flashed up at the end of the streets; a
pine branch suspended from a cross-beam of iron was outlined against
the white sky of the twilight.
He proceeded thither.
It proved to be, in fact, a public house.
The public house which is in the Rue de Chaffaut.
The wayfarer halted for a moment, and peeped through the window
into the interior of the low-studded room of the public house,
illuminated by a small lamp on a table and by a large fire on
the hearth.
Some men were engaged in drinking there.
The landlord was warming himself. An iron pot, suspended from
a crane, bubbled over the flame.
The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of
an inn, is by two doors.
One opens on the street, the other upon a small yard filled
with manure.
The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped
into the yard, halted again, then raised the latch timidly and
opened the door.
"Who goes there?" said the master.
"Some one who wants supper and bed."
"Good.
We furnish supper and bed here."
He entered.
All the men who were drinking turned round. The lamp illuminated
him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined him
for some time while he was taking off his knapsack.
The host said to him, "There is the fire.
The supper is cooking in the pot.
Come and warm yourself, comrade."
He approached and seated himself near the hearth.
He stretched out his feet, which were exhausted with fatigue,
to the fire; a fine odor was emitted by the pot.
All that could be distinguished of his face, beneath his cap,
which was well pulled down, assumed a vague appearance of comfort,
mingled with that other poignant aspect which habitual suffering
bestows.
It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile.
This physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble,
and ended by seeming severe.
The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire beneath brushwood.
One of the men seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger
who, before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut,
had been to stable his horse at Labarre's. It chanced that he
had that very morning encountered this unprepossessing stranger
on the road between Bras d'Asse and--I have forgotten the name.
I think it was Escoublon.
Now, when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely
weary, had requested him to take him on his crupper; to which
the fishmonger had made no reply except by redoubling his gait.
This fishmonger had been a member half an hour previously
of the group which surrounded Jacquin Labarre, and had himself
related his disagreeable encounter of the morning to the people
at the Cross of Colbas.
From where he sat he made an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper.
The tavern-keeper went to him.
They exchanged a few words in a low tone.
The man had again become absorbed in his reflections.
The tavern-keeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand
abruptly on the shoulder of the man, and said to him:--
"You are going to get out of here."
The stranger turned round and replied gently, "Ah!
You know?--"
"Yes."
"I was sent away from the other inn."
"And you are to be turned out of this one."
"Where would you have me go?"
"Elsewhere."
The man took his stick and his knapsack and departed.
As he went out, some children who had followed him from the
Cross of Colbas, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw
stones at him.
He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his
stick:
the children dispersed like a flock of birds.
He passed before the prison.
At the door hung an iron chain attached to a bell.
He rang.
The wicket opened.
"Turnkey," said he, removing his cap politely, "will
you have the kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the
night?"
A voice replied:--
"The prison is not an inn.
Get yourself arrested, and you will be admitted."
The wicket closed again.
He entered a little street in which there were many gardens.
Some of them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful
aspect to the street.
In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of
a small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted
up.
He peered through the pane as he had done at the public house.
Within was a large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in
printed cotton stuff, and a cradle in one corner, a few wooden
chairs, and a double-barrelled gun hanging on the wall. A table
was spread in the centre of the room.
A copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen,
the pewter jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and
the brown, smoking soup-tureen. At this table sat a man of about
forty, with a merry and open countenance, who was dandling a little
child on his knees.
Close by a very young woman was nursing another child. The
father was laughing, the child was laughing, the mother was smiling.
The stranger paused a moment in revery before this tender
and calming spectacle.
What was taking place within him? He alone could have told.
It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would
be hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness,
he would find perhaps a little pity.
He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock.
They did not hear him.
He tapped again.
He heard the woman say, "It seems to me, husband, that
some one is knocking."
"No," replied the husband.
He tapped a third time.
The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which
he opened.
He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan.
He wore a huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder,
and which a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all
sorts of objects which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket,
caused to bulge out.
He carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened
and turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare.
He had thick eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent
eyes, the lower part of his face like a snout; and besides all
this, that air of being on his own ground, which is indescribable.
"Pardon me, sir," said the wayfarer, "Could
you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and
a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep?
Tell me; can you? For money?"
"Who are you?" demanded the master of the house.
The man replied:
"I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all
day long.
I have travelled twelve leagues.
Can you?-- if I pay?"
"I would not refuse," said the peasant, "to
lodge any respectable man who would pay me.
But why do you not go to the inn?"
"There is no room."
"Bah!
Impossible.
This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been to
Labarre?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
The traveller replied with embarrassment:
"I do not know. He did not receive me."
"Have you been to What's-his-name's, in the Rue Chaffaut?"
The stranger's embarrassment increased; he stammered, "He
did not receive me either."
The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust;
he surveyed the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed,
with a sort of shudder:--
"Are you the man?--"
He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps
backwards, placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down
from the wall.
Meanwhile, at the words, Are you the man? the woman had risen,
had clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge
precipitately behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger,
with her bosom uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured
in a low tone, "Tso-maraude."[1]
[1] Patois of the French Alps:
chat de maraude, rascally marauder.
All this took place in less time than it requires to picture
it to one's self.
After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one
scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door
and said:--
"Clear out!"
"For pity's sake, a glass of water," said the man.
"A shot from my gun!" said the peasant.
Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot
two large bolts.
A moment later, the window-shutter was closed, and the sound
of a bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside.
Night continued to fall.
A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the light of the
expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens which
bordered the street, a sort of hut, which seemed to him to be
built of sods.
He climbed over the wooden fence resolutely, and found himself
in the garden.
He approached the hut; its door consisted of a very low and
narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which road-laborers
construct for themselves along the roads.
He thought without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling
of a road-laborer; he was suffering from cold and hunger, but
this was, at least, a shelter from the cold. This sort of dwelling
is not usually occupied at night.
He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut.
It was warm there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw.
He lay, for a moment, stretched out on this bed, without the
power to make a movement, so fatigued was he.
Then, as the knapsack on his back was in his way, and as it
furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he set about
unbuckling one of the straps.
At that moment, a ferocious growl became audible.
He raised his eyes.
The head of an enormous dog was outlined in the darkness at
the entrance of the hut.
It was a dog's kennel.
He was himself vigorous and formidable; he armed himself with
his staff, made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out
of the kennel in the best way he could, not without enlarging
the rents in his rags.
He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being
obliged, in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse
to that manoeuvre with his stick which masters in that sort of
fencing designate as la rose couverte.
When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and
found himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge,
without shelter, without a roof over his head, chased even from
that bed of straw and from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather
than seated himself on a stone, and it appears that a passer-by
heard him exclaim, "I am not even a dog!"
He soon rose again and resumed his march.
He went out of the town, hoping to find some tree or haystack
in the fields which would afford him shelter.
He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping.
When he felt himself far from every human habitation, he raised
his eyes and gazed searchingly about him.
He was in a field. Before him was one of those low hills covered
with close-cut stubble, which, after the harvest, resemble shaved
heads.
The horizon was perfectly black.
This was not alone the obscurity of night; it was caused by
very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest upon the hill itself,
and which were mounting and filling the whole sky.
Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was
still floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight,
these clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish
arch, whence a gleam of light fell upon the earth.
The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces
a particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was
poor and mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon.
The whole effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow.
There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed
tree, which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the
wayfarer.
This man was evidently very far from having those delicate
habits of intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to
the mysterious aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something
in that sky, in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which
was so profoundly desolate, that after a moment of immobility
and revery he turned back abruptly.
There are instants when nature seems hostile.
He retraced his steps; the gates of D---- were closed.
D----, which had sustained sieges during the wars of religion,
was still surrounded in 1815 by ancient walls flanked by square
towers which have been demolished since.
He passed through a breach and entered the town again.
It might have been eight o'clock in the evening.
As he was not acquainted with the streets, he recommenced
his walk at random.
In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary.
As he passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at
the church.
At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment.
It is there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial
Guard to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated
by Napoleon himself, were printed for the first time.
Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope,
he lay down on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this
printing office.
At that moment an old woman came out of the church.
She saw the man stretched out in the shadow.
"What are you doing there, my friend?" said she.
He answered harshly and angrily:
"As you see, my good woman, I am sleeping."
The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was
the Marquise de R----
"On this bench?" she went on.
"I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years,"
said the man; "to-day I have a mattress of stone."
"You have been a soldier?"
"Yes, my good woman, a soldier."
"Why do you not go to the inn?"
"Because I have no money."
"Alas!" said Madame de R----, "I have only
four sous in my purse."
"Give it to me all the same."
The man took the four sous.
Madame de R---- continued:
"You cannot obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a
sum.
But have you tried? It is impossible for you to pass the night
thus.
You are cold and hungry, no doubt.
Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity."
"I have knocked at all doors."
"Well?"
"I have been driven away everywhere."
The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed
out to him on the other side of the street a small, low house,
which stood beside the Bishop's palace.
"You have knocked at all doors?"
"Yes."
"Have you knocked at that one?"
"No."
"Knock there."
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