Kabanata Kabanata 354 · THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN

Marius was quite upset.

The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man

beside whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was

something enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned

him.

This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M.

Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean.

To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one’s happiness

resembles the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves.

Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned to such a

neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that

man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to

be done?

Had Marius wedded the convict as well?

In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste

the grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force even

the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to

shudder.

As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked

himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he

been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he

involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon

this love affair, which had ended in his marriage to Cosette, without

taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He

admitted,—it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves

in regard to ourselves, that life amends us, little by little,—he

admitted the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of

internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms

of passion and sorrow, dilates as the temperature of the soul changes,

and invades the entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing

more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once

indicated this characteristic element of Marius’ individuality.

He recalled that, in the intoxication of his love, in the Rue Plumet,

during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoken to

Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim had taken

up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing

flight. How had it happened that he had not mentioned this to Cosette?

Yet it was so near and so terrible! How had it come to pass that he had

not even named the Thénardiers, and, particularly, on the day when he

had encountered Éponine? He now found it almost difficult to explain

his silence of that time. Nevertheless, he could account for it. He

recalled his benumbed state, his intoxication with Cosette, love

absorbing everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal,

and perhaps also, like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled

with this violent and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull

instinct impelling him to conceal and abolish in his memory that

redoubtable adventure, contact with which he dreaded, in which he did

not wish to play any part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and

in which he could be neither narrator nor witness without being an

accuser.

Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning; there had been

no time for anything except love.

In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his

mind, examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if

he had told Cosette about the Gorbeau ambush, even if he had discovered

that Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius?

Would that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would

he have adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying

her? No. Then there was nothing to regret, nothing with which he need

reproach himself. All was well. There is a deity for those drunken men

who are called lovers. Marius blind, had followed the path which he

would have chosen had he been in full possession of his sight. Love had

bandaged his eyes, in order to lead him whither? To paradise.

But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal

accompaniment.

Marius’ ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this

Fauchelevent who had turned into Jean Valjean, was at present mingled

with horror.

In this horror, let us state, there was some pity, and even a certain

surprise.

This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that

deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs.

He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept it all,

he had restored it all.

Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him to

this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this

avowal there was something more than acceptance of humiliation, there

was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask is not a mask, it

is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected that false

name. He, the galley-slave, might have hidden himself forever in an

honest family; he had withstood this temptation. And with what motive?

Through a conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the

irresistible accents of truth. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean

might be, he was, undoubtedly, a conscience which was awakening. There

existed some mysterious re-habilitation which had begun; and, to all

appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man.

Such fits of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar

natures. An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul.

Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable,

irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered

inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that that man had

said.

Here, for Marius, there was a strange reversal of situations. What

breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire?

confidence.

In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius

struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive

principle, and he tried to reach a balance.

But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a

clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak,

in the depths of his thought, lost him and found him again in a fatal

mist.

The deposit honestly restored, the probity of the confession—these were

good. This produced a lightening of the cloud, then the cloud became

black once more.

Troubled as were Marius’ memories, a shadow of them returned to him.

After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic? Why had that

man taken to flight on the arrival of the police, instead of entering a

complaint?

Here Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive from

justice, who had broken his ban.

Another question: Why had that man come to the barricade?

For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection which had

reappeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink at the application of

heat. This man had been in the barricade. He had not fought there. What

had he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre

sprang up and replied: “Javert.”

Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean Valjean

dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade, and he still heard

behind the corner of the little Rue Mondétour that frightful pistol

shot. Obviously, there was hatred between that police spy and the

galley-slave. The one was in the other’s way. Jean Valjean had gone to

the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived

late. He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsican

vendetta has penetrated to certain lower strata and has become the law

there; it is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but

half turned towards good; and those hearts are so constituted that a

criminal, who is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the

matter of theft and unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean

Valjean had killed Javert. At least, that seemed to be evident.

This was the final question, to be sure; but to this there was no

reply. This question Marius felt like pincers. How had it come to pass

that Jean Valjean’s existence had elbowed that of Cosette for so long a

period?

What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed that

child in contact with that man? Are there then chains for two which are

forged on high? and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with

the demon? So a crime and an innocence can be room-mates in the

mysterious galleys of wretchedness? In that defiling of condemned

persons which is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side,

the one ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the

divine whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of

an eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing

off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community

of life been established between this celestial little creature and

that old criminal?

Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still more

incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf

loved the lamb, for the fierce creature adored the feeble one, for,

during the space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her

point of support. Cosette’s childhood and girlhood, her advent in the

daylight, her virginal growth towards life and light, had been

sheltered by that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to

speak, into innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of

abysses, and Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without

becoming dizzy. What was this man-precipice?

The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it

now exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there

will always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the

one which is according to good is Abel; the other which is according to

evil is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian

religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her,

rearing her, guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure

as he was himself, with purity?

What was that cesspool which had venerated that innocence to such a

point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean

educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows which had for

its only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every

shadow and from every cloud?

That was Jean Valjean’s secret; that was also God’s secret.

In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one, in

some sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this

affair as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of

the tool which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how

God sets about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette. He had,

to some extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what

then? The workman was horrible; but the work was admirable. God

produces his miracles as seems good to him. He had constructed that

charming Cosette, and he had employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him

to choose this strange collaborator for himself. What account have we

to demand of him? Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided

the spring to create the rose?

Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they

were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points

which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he

did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette

was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment

did he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He

had everything; what more could he desire? All,—is not that enough?

Jean Valjean’s personal affairs did not concern him.

And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast,

convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch: “I am

nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in

existence.”

Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had

passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished.

Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to

Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her

lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took her

flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her

hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean.

In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a

certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we

have just pointed out, he felt a _quid divinum_ in that man. But do

what he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly

forced to fall back upon this: the man was a convict; that is to say, a

being who has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower

than the very lowest rung. After the very last of men comes the

convict. The convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the

living. The law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of

which it can deprive a man.

Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system, though

he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the

subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all

progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that

which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law

and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to

dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by

the word _vindicte_. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of

the written law should be followed by eternal suffering, and he

accepted, as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still

stood at this point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since

his nature was good, and, at bottom, wholly formed of latent progress.

In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and

repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict. That word was for

him like the sound of the trump on the Day of Judgment; and, after

having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture

had been to turn away his head. _Vade retro_.

Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact, while

interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said:

“You are confessing me,” had not, nevertheless, put to him two or three

decisive questions.

It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that

he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic? The barricade? Javert?

Who knows where these revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did

not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius,

after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him

back?

Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to

stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have

asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way to

these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister

situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side

of our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light

might have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean,

and who knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as

far as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not

have lingered behind it on the brow of that angel? The spattering of a

lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture

where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the

reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve

the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius

had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses

rather than to gain further light.

In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes to Jean

Valjean.

That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he

dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate

the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened

forever by it.

In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth, come

into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending perplexity to

Marius.

He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable

questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable

and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too

good, too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had

led him to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be

touched. He had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely

rejected Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that

is what he should have done, and have freed his house from that man.

He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind of emotions

which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased

with himself.

What was he to do now? Jean Valjean’s visits were profoundly repugnant

to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the

man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down, he did

not wish to penetrate deeply; he did not wish to sound himself. He had

promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise; Jean

Valjean held his promise; one must keep one’s word even to a convict,

above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette. In short,

he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him.

Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing

from one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound

trouble.

It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love is

a talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it.

However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as

candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing; he talked of her

childhood and her youth, and he became more and more convinced that

that convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a

man can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and

had surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected

that lily.

BOOK EIGHTH—FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT

[Illustration: The Twilight Decline]