الفصل الفصل 53 · THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE

MUNICIPAL POLICE

Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out with

long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the

extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She

yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of

spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery

an occasion for obscenity.

On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a

stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded

by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut

the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who

raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the

thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is

a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour.

On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute,

crouching down like a terrified dog.

The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert

seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and

began to write.

This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion

of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems

good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which

they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive;

his grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was

seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he

was exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a

severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment

he was conscious that his police agent’s stool was a tribunal. He was

entering judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas

which could possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he

was doing. The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more

shocked he felt. It was evident that he had just witnessed the

commission of a crime. He had just beheld, yonder, in the street,

society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and

attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made

an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He

wrote in silence.

When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the

sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, “Take three men and

conduct this creature to jail.”

Then, turning to Fantine, “You are to have six months of it.” The

unhappy woman shuddered.

“Six months! six months of prison!” she exclaimed. “Six months in which

to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter!

my daughter! But I still owe the Thénardiers over a hundred francs; do

you know that, Monsieur Inspector?”

She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all

those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides

on her knees.

“Monsieur Javert,” said she, “I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I

was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have

seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That

gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has

any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along

peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see.

And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time:

‘You are ugly! you have no teeth!’ I know well that I have no longer

those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, ‘The gentleman is amusing

himself.’ I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that

moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good

Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can

tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You

know that one is not master of one’s self at the first moment. One

gives way to vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down

your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that

gentleman’s hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my

God! It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the

favor to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know

that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the

government’s fault, but seven sous is one’s earnings; and just fancy, I

must pay one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh,

my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my

Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of

her, poor creature? I will tell you: it is the Thénardiers,

inn-keepers, peasants; and such people are unreasonable. They want

money. Don’t put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will

be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the very

heart of the winter; and you must have pity on such a being, my good

Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living; but it

cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not

cowardliness and gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk

brandy, it was out of misery. I do not love it; but it benumbs the

senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my

closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and

untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me,

Monsieur Javert!”

She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears,

her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short

cough, stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a

divine and terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment

Fantine had become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused,

and tenderly kissed the police agent’s coat. She would have softened a

heart of granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened.

“Come!” said Javert, “I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished?

You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could

do nothing more.”

At these solemn words, _“the Eternal Father in person could do nothing

more,”_ she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down,

murmuring, “Mercy!”

Javert turned his back.

The soldiers seized her by the arms.

A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed

to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to

Fantine’s despairing supplications.

At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate

woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said:—

“One moment, if you please.”

Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat,

and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness:—

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor—”

The words “Mr. Mayor” produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose

to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth,

thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M.

Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him,

with a bewildered air, she cried:—

“Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!”

Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face.

M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said:—

“Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty.”

Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at

that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent

emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of

the town spit in the mayor’s face was a thing so monstrous that, in his

most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege

to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his

thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as

to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse

of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But

when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and

say, _“Set this woman at liberty,”_ he underwent a sort of intoxication

of amazement; thought and word failed him equally; the sum total of

possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute.

The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised

her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who

is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in

a low voice, as though talking to herself:—

“At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six

months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said

that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a

mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be

set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me

go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the

cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all

because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If

that is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her

work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery

followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these

gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison

contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you

see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to

nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become

whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was

actually forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is

that that blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I

stamped on that gentleman’s hat in front of the officers’ café; but he

had spoiled my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress

for evening wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately—truly,

Monsieur Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked

than I, and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who

gave orders that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak

to my landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am

perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally

touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke.”

M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was

speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened

it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine,

“How much did you say that you owed?”

Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:—

“Was I speaking to you?”

Then, addressing the soldiers:—

“Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old

wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I’m not afraid of

you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur

Javert!”

So saying, she turned to the inspector again:—

“And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I

understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly

simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman’s back, and

that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way;

and we—well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course!

And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order,

you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since

you are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for

the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my

supporting my child. ‘Only, don’t do it again, you hussy!’ Oh! I won’t

do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me

now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me.

I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I

told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball

in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, ‘Take care of yourself.’ Here,

feel, give me your hand; don’t be afraid—it is here.”

She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert’s coarse

hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him.

All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the

folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself

along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door,

saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod:—

“Children, Monsieur l’Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and

I am going.”

She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would

be in the street.

Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes

fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced

statue, which is waiting to be put away somewhere.

The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an

expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming

in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the

wild beast, atrocious in the man of no estate.

“Sergeant!” he cried, “don’t you see that that jade is walking off! Who

bade you let her go?”

“I,” said Madeleine.

Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert’s voice, and let go of the

latch as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the

sound of Madeleine’s voice she turned around, and from that moment

forth she uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but

her glance strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to

Madeleine in turn, according to which was speaking.

It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure

before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he had

done, after the mayor’s suggestion that Fantine should be set at

liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor’s presence?

Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any

“authority” should have given such an order, and that the mayor must

certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending

it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for

the past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to

recur to supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small

should be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into

a magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice,

and that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality,

government, society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert?

However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, _I_, as we

have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the

mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole

body agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented

occurrence, and say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:—

“Mr. Mayor, that cannot be.”

“Why not?” said M. Madeleine.

“This miserable woman has insulted a citizen.”

“Inspector Javert,” replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone,

“listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining

matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing

through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were

still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned

everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should

have been arrested by properly conducted police.”

Javert retorted:—

“This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire.”

“That concerns me,” said M. Madeleine. “My own insult belongs to me, I

think. I can do what I please about it.”

“I beg Monsieur le Maire’s pardon. The insult is not to him but to the

law.”

“Inspector Javert,” replied M. Madeleine, “the highest law is

conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing.”

“And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see.”

“Then content yourself with obeying.”

“I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six

months in prison.”

M. Madeleine replied gently:—

“Heed this well; she will not serve a single day.”

At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the

mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly

respectful:—

“I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my

life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my

authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the

question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself on

Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that

handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade,

three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are

in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of

police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain

this woman Fantine.”

Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no

one in the town had heard hitherto:—

“The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal

police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and

sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order

that this woman shall be set at liberty.”

Javert ventured to make a final effort.

“But, Mr. Mayor—”

“I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December,

1799, in regard to arbitrary detention.”

“Monsieur le Maire, permit me—”

“Not another word.”

“But—”

“Leave the room,” said M. Madeleine.

Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like a

Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left

the room.

Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he

passed.

Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had

just seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She

had seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her

soul, her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was

drawing her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards

the light. In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of

terror, these two men had appeared to her like two giants; the one

spoke like her demon, the other like her good angel. The angel had

conquered the demon, and, strange to say, that which made her shudder

from head to foot was the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the

very man whom she abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as

the author of all her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when

she had insulted him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had

she, then, been mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not

know; she trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in

affright, and at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the

frightful shades of hatred crumble and melt within her, and something

warm and ineffable, indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and

love, dawn in her heart.

When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and

said to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish

to weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:—

“I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I

believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even

ignorant of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply

to me? But here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or

you shall go to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you

please. I undertake the care of your child and yourself. You shall not

work any longer if you do not like. I will give all the money you

require. You shall be honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare

to you that if all is as you say,—and I do not doubt it,—you have never

ceased to be virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman.”

This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this

life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to

see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of

her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and

could only give vent to two or three sobs, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and

before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her

lips to it.

Then she fainted.

BOOK SIXTH—JAVERT