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THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE
M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he
had established in his own house.
He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed.
A burning fever had come on.
She passed a part of the night in delirium and raving.
At length, however, she fell asleep.
On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke.
She heard some one breathing close to her bed; she drew aside
the curtain and saw M. Madeleine standing there and looking at
something over her head. His gaze was full of pity, anguish, and
supplication.
She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed on a
crucifix which was nailed to the wall.
Thenceforth, M. Madeleine was transfigured in Fantine's eyes.
He seemed to her to be clothed in light.
He was absorbed in a sort of prayer. She gazed at him for
a long time without daring to interrupt him. At last she said
timidly:--
"What are you doing?"
M. Madeleine had been there for an hour.
He had been waiting for Fantine to awake.
He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied:--
"How do you feel?"
"Well, I have slept," she replied; "I think
that I am better, It is nothing."
He answered, responding to the first question which she had
put to him as though he had just heard it:--
"I was praying to the martyr there on high."
And he added in his own mind, "For the martyr here below."
M. Madeleine had passed the night and the morning in making
inquiries.
He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heart-rending
details.
He went on:--
"You have suffered much, poor mother.
Oh! do not complain; you now have the dowry of the elect.
It is thus that men are transformed into angels.
It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise.
You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the
first form of heaven.
It was necessary to begin there."
He sighed deeply.
But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in which two
teeth were lacking.
That same night, Javert wrote a letter.
The next morning be posted it himself at the office of M.
sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the superscription ran:
To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur le Prefet of
Police.
As the affair in the station-house had been bruited about,
the post-mistress and some other persons who saw the letter before
it was sent off, and who recognized Javert's handwriting on the
cover, thought that he was sending in his resignation.
M.Madeleine made haste to write to the Thenardiers.
Fantine owed them one hundred and twenty francs.
He sent them three hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves
from that sum, and to fetch the child instantly to M. sur M.,
where her sick mother required her presence.
This dazzled Thenardier.
"The devil!" said the man to his wife; "don't
let's allow the child to go.
This lark is going to turn into a milch cow.
I see through it.
Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother."
He replied with a very well drawn-up bill for five hundred
and some odd francs.
In this memorandum two indisputable items figured up over
three hundred francs,--one for the doctor, the other for the apothecary
who had attended and physicked Eponine and Azelma through two
long illnesses.
Cosette, as we have already said, had not been ill. It was
only a question of a trifling substitution of names. At the foot
of the memorandum Thenardier wrote, Received on account, three
hundred francs.
M. Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and
wrote, "Make haste to bring Cosette."
"Christi!" said Thenardier, "let's not give
up the child."
In the meantime, Fantine did not recover.
She still remained in the infirmary.
The sisters had at first only received and nursed "that
woman" with repugnance.
Those who have seen the bas-reliefs of Rheims will recall
the inflation of the lower lip of the wise virgins as they survey
the foolish virgins.
The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajae is one
of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity; the sisters
felt it with the double force contributed by religion.
But in a few days Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds
of humble and gentle things, and the mother in her provoked tenderness.
One day the sisters heard her say amid her fever:
"I have been a sinner; but when I have my child beside
me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was leading
a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me;
I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her
sake that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall
feel the benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall
gaze at her; it will do me good to see that innocent creature.
She knows nothing at all.
She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings
have not fallen off."
M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and each time she
asked him:--
"Shall I see my Cosette soon?"
He answered:--
"To-morrow, perhaps.
She may arrive at any moment.
I am expecting her."
And the mother's pale face grew radiant.
"Oh!" she said, "how happy I am going to be!"
We have just said that she did not recover her health.
On the contrary, her condition seemed to become more grave
from week to week. That handful of snow applied to her bare skin
between her shoulder-blades had brought about a sudden suppression
of perspiration, as a consequence of which the malady which had
been smouldering within her for many years was violently developed
at last. At that time people were beginning to follow the fine
Laennec's fine suggestions in the study and treatment of chest
maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine's chest and shook his head.
M. Madeleine said to the doctor:--
"Well?"
"Has she not a child which she desires to see?"
said the doctor.
"Yes."
"Well!
Make haste and get it here!"
M. Madeleine shuddered.
Fantine inquired:--
"What did the doctor say?"
M. Madeleine forced himself to smile.
"He said that your child was to be brought speedily.
That that would restore your health."
"Oh!" she rejoined, "he is right!
But what do those Thenardiers mean by keeping my Cosette from
me!
Oh! she is coming.
At last I behold happiness close beside me!"
In the meantime Thenardier did not "let go of the child,"
and gave a hundred insufficient reasons for it.
Cosette was not quite well enough to take a journey in the
winter.
And then, there still remained some petty but pressing debts
in the neighborhood, and they were collecting the bills for them,
etc., etc.
"I shall send some one to fetch Cosette!" said Father
Madeleine. "If necessary, I will go myself."
He wrote the following letter to Fantine's dictation, and
made her sign it:--
"MONSIEUR THENARDIER:--
You will deliver Cosette to this person.
You will be paid for all the little things.
I have the honor to salute you with respect.
"FANTINE."
In the meantime a serious incident occurred.
Carve as we will the mysterious block of which our life is made,
the black vein of destiny constantly reappears in it.
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