Chương Chương 63 · AN ENTRANCE BY FAVOR

Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed a

sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for

virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had eventually passed

the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through two

or three neighboring departments. Besides the service which he had

rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry,

there was not one out of the hundred and forty communes of the

arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some

benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the

industries of other arrondissements. It was thus that he had, when

occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen

factory at Boulogne, the flax-spinning industry at Frévent, and the

hydraulic manufacture of cloth at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the

name of M. Madeleine was pronounced with veneration. Arras and Douai

envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor.

The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this

session of the Assizes at Arras, was acquainted, in common with the

rest of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and

universally honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which

connected the council-chamber with the court-room, bent over the back

of the President’s armchair and handed him the paper on which was

inscribed the line which we have just perused, adding: “The gentleman

desires to be present at the trial,” the President, with a quick and

deferential movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom

of the paper and returned it to the usher, saying, “Admit him.”

The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the

door of the hall, in the same place and the same attitude in which the

usher had left him. In the midst of his reverie he heard some one

saying to him, “Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me?” It was the

same usher who had turned his back upon him but a moment previously,

and who was now bowing to the earth before him. At the same time, the

usher handed him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be

near the light, he could read it.

“The President of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to M.

Madeleine.”

He crushed the paper in his hand as though those words contained for

him a strange and bitter aftertaste.

He followed the usher.

A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted

cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a

table with a green cloth. The last words of the usher who had just

quitted him still rang in his ears: “Monsieur, you are now in the

council-chamber; you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder

door, and you will find yourself in the court-room, behind the

President’s chair.” These words were mingled in his thoughts with a

vague memory of narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had

recently traversed.

The usher had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought

to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment

when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful

realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain.

He was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned.

With stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible

apartment, where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring

with his name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He

stared at the wall, then he looked at himself, wondering that it should

be that chamber and that it should be he.

He had eaten nothing for four and twenty hours; he was worn out by the

jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him

that he felt nothing.

He approached a black frame which was suspended on the wall, and which

contained, under glass, an ancient autograph letter of Jean Nicolas

Pache, mayor of Paris and minister, and dated, through an error, no

doubt, the _9th of June_, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded

to the commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by

them. Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who

had watched him, would have imagined, doubtless, that this letter

struck him as very curious, for he did not take his eyes from it, and

he read it two or three times. He read it without paying any attention

to it, and unconsciously. He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette.

As he dreamed, he turned round, and his eyes fell upon the brass knob

of the door which separated him from the Court of Assizes. He had

almost forgotten that door. His glance, calm at first, paused there,

remained fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by

little became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth

among his hair and trickled down upon his temples.

At a certain moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of

authority mingled with rebellion, which is intended to convey, and

which does so well convey, _“Pardieu! who compels me to this?”_ Then he

wheeled briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had

entered in front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was

no longer in that chamber; he was outside in a corridor, a long, narrow

corridor, broken by steps and gratings, making all sorts of angles,

lighted here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of

invalids, the corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he

listened; not a sound in front, not a sound behind him, and he fled as

though pursued.

When he had turned many angles in this corridor, he still listened. The

same silence reigned, and there was the same darkness around him. He

was out of breath; he staggered; he leaned against the wall. The stone

was cold; the perspiration lay ice-cold on his brow; he straightened

himself up with a shiver.

Then, there alone in the darkness, trembling with cold and with

something else, too, perchance, he meditated.

He had meditated all night long; he had meditated all the day: he heard

within him but one voice, which said, “Alas!”

A quarter of an hour passed thus. At length he bowed his head, sighed

with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly,

and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him

in his flight and was leading him back.

He re-entered the council-chamber. The first thing he caught sight of

was the knob of the door. This knob, which was round and of polished

brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb

might gaze into the eye of a tiger.

He could not take his eyes from it. From time to time he advanced a

step and approached the door.

Had he listened, he would have heard the sound of the adjoining hall

like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not

hear.

Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself

near the door; he grasped the knob convulsively; the door opened.

He was in the court-room.