|
THE MAN AROUSED
As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean
awoke.
What woke him was that his bed was too good.
It was nearly twenty years since he had slept in a bed, and,
although he had not undressed, the sensation was too novel not
to disturb his slumbers.
He had slept more than four hours.
His fatigue had passed away. He was accustomed not to devote
many hours to repose.
He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded
him; then he closed them again, with the intention of going to
sleep once more.
When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various
matters preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second
time. Sleep comes more easily than it returns.
This is what happened to Jean Valjean.
He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking.
He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one
has in one's mind are troubled.
There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His memories
of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there pell-mell
and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming disproportionately
large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and perturbed
pool.
Many thoughts occurred to him; but there was one which kept
constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all
others.
We will mention this thought at once: he had observed the
six sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame
Magloire had placed on the table.
Those six sets of silver haunted him.--They were there.--A
few paces distant.--Just as he was traversing the adjoining room
to reach the one in which he then was, the old servant-woman had
been in the act of placing them in a little cupboard near the
head of the bed.-- He had taken careful note of this cupboard.--On
the right, as you entered from the dining-room.--They were solid.--And
old silver.-- From the ladle one could get at least two hundred
francs.-- Double what he had earned in nineteen years.--It is
true that he would have earned more if "the administration
had not robbed him."
His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which
there was certainly mingled some struggle.
Three o'clock struck.
He opened his eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a
sitting posture, stretched out his arm and felt of his knapsack,
which he had thrown down on a corner of the alcove; then he hung
his legs over the edge of the bed, and placed his feet on the
floor, and thus found himself, almost without knowing it, seated
on his bed.
He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which
would have been suggestive of something sinister for any one who
had seen him thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house
where all were sleeping.
All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed
them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful
attitude, and became motionless once more.
Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we
have above indicated moved incessantly through his brain; entered,
withdrew, re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then
he thought, also, without knowing why, and with the mechanical
persistence of revery, of a convict named Brevet, whom he had
known in the galleys, and whose trousers had been upheld by a
single suspender of knitted cotton. The checkered pattern of that
suspender recurred incessantly to his mind.
He remained in this situation, and would have so remained
indefinitely, even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one--the
half or quarter hour.
It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, "Come
on!"
He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened;
all was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with
short steps, to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The
night was not very dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed
large clouds driven by the wind.
This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light,
eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort
of twilight.
This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way,
intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid
light which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which
the passersby come and go.
On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had
no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened, according
to the fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened
it; but as a rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room
abruptly, he closed it again immediately.
He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze which studies
rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably low
white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived
tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that
the wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with
trees.
Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that
of a man who has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped
his knapsack, opened it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something
which he placed on the bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets,
shut the whole thing up again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders,
put on his cap, drew the visor down over his eyes, felt for his
cudgel, went and placed it in the angle of the window; then returned
to the bed, and resolutely seized the object which he had deposited
there. It resembled a short bar of iron, pointed like a pike at
one end. It would have been difficult to distinguish in that darkness
for what employment that bit of iron could have been designed.
Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club.
In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it
as nothing more than a miner's candlestick.
Convicts were, at that period, sometimes employed in quarrying
stone from the lofty hills which environ Toulon, and it was not
rare for them to have miners' tools at their command.
These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated
at the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are
stuck into the rock.
He took the candlestick in his right hand; holding his breath
and trying to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps
to the door of the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as
we already know.
On arriving at this door, he found it ajar.
The Bishop had not closed it.
|
