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In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before
him in visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time,
formed the double rule of his soul,--the concealment of his name,
the sanctification of his life.
For the first time they appeared to him as absolutely distinct,
and he perceived the distance which separated them.
He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily,
good, while the other might become bad; that the first was self-devotion,
and that the other was personality; that the one said, my neighbor,
and that the other said, myself; that one emanated from the light,
and the other from darkness.
They were antagonistic.
He saw them in conflict.
In proportion as he meditated, they grew before the eyes of
his spirit. They had now attained colossal statures, and it seemed
to him that he beheld within himself, in that infinity of which
we were recently speaking, in the midst of the darkness and the
lights, a goddess and a giant contending.
He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good
thought was getting the upper hand.
He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis
of his conscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked
the first phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked
the second. After the grand crisis, the grand test.
But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession
of him.
A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued
to fortify him in his resolution.
One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking
the matter too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was
not interesting, and that he had actually been guilty of theft.
He answered himself:
"If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that means
a month in prison.
It is a long way from that to the galleys. And who knows?
Did he steal?
Has it been proved?
The name of Jean Valjean overwhelms him, and seems to dispense
with proofs. Do not the attorneys for the Crown always proceed
in this manner? He is supposed to be a thief because he is known
to be a convict."
In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when
he denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps,
be taken into consideration, and his honest life for the last
seven years, and what he had done for the district, and that they
would have mercy on him.
But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled
bitterly as he remembered that the theft of the forty sous from
little Gervais put him in the position of a man guilty of a second
offence after conviction, that this affair would certainly come
up, and, according to the precise terms of the law, would render
him liable to penal servitude for life.
He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more
and more from earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere.
He told himself that he must do his duty; that perhaps he should
not be more unhappy after doing his duty than after having avoided
it; that if he allowed things to take their own course, if he
remained at M. sur M., his consideration, his good name, his good
works, the deference and veneration paid to him, his charity,
his wealth, his popularity, his virtue, would be seasoned with
a crime. And what would be the taste of all these holy things
when bound up with this hideous thing? while, if he accomplished
his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled with the galleys,
the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil, and
pitiless shame.
At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny
was thus allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements
made on high, that, in any case, he must make his choice:
virtue without and abomination within, or holiness within
and infamy without.
The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his
courage to fail, but his brain grow weary.
He began to think of other things, of indifferent matters,
in spite of himself.
The veins in his temples throbbed violently; he still paced
to and fro; midnight sounded first from the parish church, then
from the town-hall; he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks,
and compared the sounds of the two bells; he recalled in this
connection the fact that, a few days previously, he had seen in
an ironmonger's shop an ancient clock for sale, upon which was
written the name, Antoine-Albin de Romainville.
He was cold; he lighted a small fire; it did not occur to
him to close the window.
In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged
to make a tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the
subject of his thoughts before midnight had struck; he finally
succeeded in doing this.
"Ah! yes," he said to himself, "I had resolved
to inform against myself."
And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine.
"Hold!" said he, "and what about that poor
woman?"
Here a fresh crisis declared itself.
Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his revery, produced
the effect of an unexpected ray of light; it seemed to him as
though everything about him were undergoing a change of aspect:
he exclaimed:--
"Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself;
it is proper for me to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to
conceal my person or to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected
magistrate, or an infamous and venerable convict; it is I, it
is always I and nothing but I: but, good God! all this is egotism;
these are diverse forms of egotism, but it is egotism all the
same. What if I were to think a little about others?
The highest holiness is to think of others; come, let us examine
the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_ forgotten,
what would be the result of all this?
What if I denounce myself?
I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back
in the galleys; that is well-- and what then?
What is going on here?
Ah! here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry,
workers, both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people!
All this I have created; all these I provide with their living;
everywhere where there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have
placed the brand on the hearth and meat in the pot; I have created
ease, circulation, credit; before me there was nothing; I have
elevated, vivified, informed with life, fecundated, stimulated,
enriched the whole country-side; lacking me, the soul is lacking;
I take myself off, everything dies: and this woman, who has suffered
so much, who possesses so many merits in spite of her fall; the
cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been!
And that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have
promised to her mother; do I not also owe something to this woman,
in reparation for the evil which I have done her? If I disappear,
what happens?
The mother dies; the child becomes what it can; that is what
will take place, if I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself?
come, let us see how it will be if I do not denounce myself."
After putting this question to himself, he paused; he seemed
to undergo a momentary hesitation and trepidation; but it did
not last long, and he answered himself calmly:--
"Well, this man is going to the galleys; it is true,
but what the deuce! he has stolen!
There is no use in my saying that he has not been guilty of
theft, for he has!
I remain here; I go on: in ten years I shall have made ten
millions; I scatter them over the country; I have nothing of my
own; what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am doing
it; the prosperity of all goes on augmenting; industries are aroused
and animated; factories and shops are multiplied; families, a
hundred families, a thousand families, are happy; the district
becomes populated; villages spring up where there were only farms
before; farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears,
and with wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder;
all vices disappear, all crimes:
and this poor mother rears her child; and behold a whole country
rich and honest!
Ah!
I was a fool! I was absurd! what was that I was saying about
denouncing myself? I really must pay attention and not be precipitate
about anything. What! because it would have pleased me to play
the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after all; because
I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for the
sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps,
but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing,
evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor woman must
die in the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street!
like dogs; ah, this is abominable! And without the mother even
having seen her child once more, almost without the child's having
known her mother; and all that for the sake of an old wretch of
an apple-thief who, most assuredly, has deserved the galleys for
something else, if not for that; fine scruples, indeed, which
save a guilty man and sacrifice the innocent, which save an old
vagabond who has only a few years to live at most, and who will
not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel, and which
sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. This poor
little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is,
no doubt, blue with cold at this moment in the den of those Thenardiers;
those peoples are rascals; and I was going to neglect my duty
towards all these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce
myself; and I was about to commit that unspeakable folly! Let
us put it at the worst:
suppose that there is a wrong action on my part in this, and
that my conscience will reproach me for it some day, to accept,
for the good of others, these reproaches which weigh only on myself;
this evil action which compromises my soul alone; in that lies
self-sacrifice; in that alone there is virtue."
He rose and resumed his march; this time, he seemed to be
content.
Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths
are found only in the depths of thought.
It seemed to him, that, after having descended into these
depths, after having long groped among the darkest of these shadows,
he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths,
and that he now held it in his hand, and he was dazzled as he
gazed upon it.
"Yes," he thought, "this is right; I am on
the right road; I have the solution; I must end by holding fast
to something; my resolve is taken; let things take their course;
let us no longer vacillate; let us no longer hang back; this is
for the interest of all, not for my own; I am Madeleine, and Madeleine
I remain.
Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean!
I am no longer he; I do not know that man; I no longer know
anything; it turns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present
moment; let him look out for himself; that does not concern me;
it is a fatal name which was floating abroad in the night; if
it halts and descends on a head, so much the worse for that head."
He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece,
and said:--
"Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision; I am
quite another man now."
He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short.
"Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before
any of the consequences of the resolution which I have once adopted;
there are still threads which attach me to that Jean Valjean;
they must be broken; in this very room there are objects which
would betray me, dumb things which would bear witness against
me; it is settled; all these things must disappear."
He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and
took out a small key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture
could hardly be seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones
of the design which covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle
opened, a sort of false cupboard constructed in the angle between
the wall and the chimney-piece; in this hiding-place there were
some rags-- a blue linen blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old
knapsack, and a huge thorn cudgel shod with iron at both ends.
Those who had seen Jean Valjean at the epoch when he passed
through D---- in October, 1815, could easily have recognized all
the pieces of this miserable outfit.
He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks,
in order to remind himself continually of his starting-point,
but he had concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had
allowed the candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen.
He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared
that it would open in spite of the bolt which fastened it; then,
with a quick and abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms
at once, without bestowing so much as a glance on the things which
he had so religiously and so perilously preserved for so many
years, and flung them all, rags, cudgel, knapsack, into the fire.
He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions,
henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the
door behind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front
of it.
After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite
wall were lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow.
Everything was on fire; the thorn cudgel snapped and threw
out sparks to the middle of the chamber.
As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags
which it contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the
ashes. By bending over, one could have readily recognized a coin,--no
doubt the forty-sou piece stolen from the little Savoyard.
He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with
the same step.
All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which
shone vaguely on the chimney-piece, through the glow.
"Hold!" he thought; "the whole of Jean Valjean
is still in them. They must be destroyed also."
He seized the two candlesticks.
There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out
of shape, and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal.
He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment.
He felt a sense of real comfort.
"How good warmth is!" said he.
He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks.
A minute more, and they were both in the fire.
At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within
him shouting:
"Jean Valjean!
Jean Valjean!"
His hair rose upright:
he became like a man who is listening to some terrible thing.
"Yes, that's it! finish!" said the voice.
"Complete what you are about!
Destroy these candlesticks!
Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop!
Forget everything!
Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right!
Applaud yourself!
So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed:
here is an old man who does not know what is wanted of him,
who has, perhaps, done nothing, an innocent man, whose whole misfortune
lies in your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime, who
is about to be taken for you, who will be condemned, who will
finish his days in abjectness and horror.
That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le
Maire; remain honorable and honored; enrich the town; nourish
the indigent; rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and admired;
and, during this time, while you are here in the midst of joy
and light, there will be a man who will wear your red blouse,
who will bear your name in ignominy, and who will drag your chain
in the galleys.
Yes, it is well arranged thus.
Ah, wretch!"
The perspiration streamed from his brow.
He fixed a haggard eye on the candlesticks.
But that within him which had spoken had not finished.
The voice continued:--
"Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices,
which will make a great noise, which will talk very loud, and
which will bless you, and only one which no one will hear, and
which will curse you in the dark.
Well! listen, infamous man!
All those benedictions will fall back before they reach heaven,
and only the malediction will ascend to God."
This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from
the most obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become
startling and formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear.
It seemed to him that it had detached itself from him, and
that it was now speaking outside of him.
He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that
he glanced around the room in a sort of terror.
"Is there any one here?" he demanded aloud, in utter
bewilderment.
Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:--
"How stupid I am!
There can be no one!"
There was some one; but the person who was there was of those
whom the human eye cannot see.
He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece.
Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which
troubled the dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke
him with a start.
This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated
him. It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people
moved about for the purpose of asking advice of everything that
they may encounter by change of place.
After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew his position.
He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions
at which he had arrived in turn.
The two ideas which counselled him appeared to him equally
fatal.
What a fatality!
What conjunction that that Champmathieu should have been taken
for him; to be overwhelmed by precisely the means which Providence
seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen his position!
There was a moment when he reflected on the future.
Denounce himself, great God!
Deliver himself up!
With immense despair he faced all that he should be obliged
to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up once more.
He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was
so good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor,
to liberty.
He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never
more hear the birds sing in the month of May; he should never
more bestow alms on the little children; he should never more
experience the sweetness of having glances of gratitude and love
fixed upon him; he should quit that house which he had built,
that little chamber!
Everything seemed charming to him at that moment.
Never again should he read those books; never more should
he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress,
the only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him his
coffee in the morning.
Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the iron necklet,
the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell,
the camp bed all those horrors which he knew so well!
At his age, after having been what he was! If he were only
young again! but to be addressed in his old age as "thou"
by any one who pleased; to be searched by the convict-guard; to
receive the galley-sergeant's cudgellings; to wear iron-bound
shoes on his bare feet; to have to stretch out his leg night and
morning to the hammer of the roundsman who visits the gang; to
submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be told:
"That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was
mayor of M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration,
overwhelmed with lassitude, their green caps drawn over their
eyes, to remount, two by two, the ladder staircase of the galleys
beneath the sergeant's whip. Oh, what misery!
Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent being,
and become as monstrous as the human heart?
And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending
dilemma which lay at the foundation of his revery:
"Should he remain in paradise and become a demon?
Should he return to hell and become an angel?"
What was to be done?
Great God! what was to be done?
The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty
was unchained afresh within him.
His ideas began to grow confused once more; they assumed a
kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is peculiar to
despair.
The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to his mind,
with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past.
He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris,
where young lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April.
He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly.
He walked like a little child who is permitted to toddle alone.
At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort
to recover the mastery of his mind.
He tried to put to himself, for the last time, and definitely,
the problem over which he had, in a manner, fallen prostrate with
fatigue:
Ought he to denounce himself?
Ought he to hold his peace?
He could not manage to see anything distinctly.
The vague aspects of all the courses of reasoning which had
been sketched out by his meditations quivered and vanished, one
after the other, into smoke.
He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up
his mind, something in him must die, and that of necessity, and
without his being able to escape the fact; that he was entering
a sepulchre on the right hand as much as on the left; that he
was passing through a death agony,-- the agony of his happiness,
or the agony of his virtue.
Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him.
He was no further advanced than at the beginning.
Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen
hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being
in whom are summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings
of humanity had also long thrust aside with his hand, while the
olive-trees quivered in the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible
cup which appeared to Him dripping with darkness and overflowing
with shadows in the depths all studded with stars.
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