第 一百三十九 章 · WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING A CONVENT

It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed

it, “fallen from the sky.”

He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue

Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of

the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had

caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he

had seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making

reparation; that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised

him, was the gardener’s bell attached to the knee of Father

Fauchelevent.

Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have

already seen, supped on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a

good, crackling fire; then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by

Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw.

Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said: “I must remain here

henceforth.” This remark trotted through Fauchelevent’s head all night

long.

To tell the truth, neither of them slept.

Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on his

scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to

Paris. Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded

him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,—to

remain there. Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this convent

was both the safest and the most dangerous of places; the most

dangerous, because, as no men might enter there, if he were discovered,

it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step

intervening between the convent and prison; the safest, because, if he

could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would

ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was

safety.

On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains. He began by

declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had

M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister

walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child?

One cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one’s arms. Who

was that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had

lived in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew

nothing of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air

which discouraged questions; and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself:

“One does not question a saint.” M. Madeleine had preserved all his

prestige in Fauchelevent’s eyes. Only, from some words which Jean

Valjean had let fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference

that M. Madeleine had probably become bankrupt through the hard times,

and that he was pursued by his creditors; or that he had compromised

himself in some political affair, and was in hiding; which last did not

displease Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North,

had an old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine

had selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he

should wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point, to which

Fauchelevent returned constantly and over which he wearied his brain,

was that M. Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that

little girl with him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to

them, and still did not believe it possible. The incomprehensible had

just made its entrance into Fauchelevent’s hut. Fauchelevent groped

about amid conjectures, and could see nothing clearly but this: “M.

Madeleine saved my life.” This certainty alone was sufficient and

decided his course. He said to himself: “It is my turn now.” He added

in his conscience: “M. Madeleine did not stop to deliberate when it was

a question of thrusting himself under the cart for the purpose of

dragging me out.” He made up his mind to save M. Madeleine.

Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself and made himself divers

replies: “After what he did for me, would I save him if he were a

thief? Just the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? Just

the same. Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same.”

But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent!

Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical

undertaking; this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder than

his self-devotion, his good will, and a little of that old rustic

cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous

enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister, and

the steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Benoît. Father Fauchelevent

was an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards

the end of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the

world, found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action

to be performed, flung himself upon it like a man, who at the moment

when he is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine

which he had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may

add, that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent

had destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good

action of some kind absolutely necessary to him.

So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine.

We have just called him a _poor peasant of Picardy_. That description

is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now

reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent’s physiology becomes useful.

He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his

cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various

causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a

carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses

seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had

some natural wit; he talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare

thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: “He talks

almost like a gentleman with a hat.” Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to

that species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last

century qualified as _demi-bourgeois, demi-lout_, and which the

metaphors showered by the château upon the thatched cottage ticketed in

the pigeon-hole of the plebeian: _rather rustic, rather citified;

pepper and salt_. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by

fate, worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless,

an impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious

quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his

vices, for he had some, were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy

was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none

of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which

signify malice or stupidity.

At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an

enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss

of straw, and watching Cosette’s slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and

said:—

“Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter?”

This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his

reverie.

The two men took counsel together.

“In the first place,” said Fauchelevent, “you will begin by not setting

foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the

garden and we are done for.”

“That is true.”

“Monsieur Madeleine,” resumed Fauchelevent, “you have arrived at a very

auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of the

ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our

direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours

are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies

them. The one who is on the point of departure is a saint. In fact, we

are all saints here; all the difference between them and me is that

they say ‘our cell,’ and that I say ‘my cabin.’ The prayers for the

dying are to be said, and then the prayers for the dead. We shall be at

peace here for to-day; but I will not answer for to-morrow.”

“Still,” observed Jean Valjean, “this cottage is in the niche of the

wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not

visible from the convent.”

“And I add that the nuns never come near it.”

“Well?” said Jean Valjean.

The interrogation mark which accentuated this “well” signified: “it

seems to me that one may remain concealed here?” It was to this

interrogation point that Fauchelevent responded:—

“There are the little girls.”

“What little girls?” asked Jean Valjean.

Just as Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had

uttered, a bell emitted one stroke.

“The nun is dead,” said he. “There is the knell.”

And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen.

The bell struck a second time.

“It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will continue to strike

once a minute for twenty-four hours, until the body is taken from the

church.—You see, they play. At recreation hours it suffices to have a

ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to

hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils.”

“Who?” asked Jean Valjean.

“The little girls. You would be very quickly discovered. They would

shriek: ‘Oh! a man!’ There is no danger to-day. There will be no

recreation hour. The day will be entirely devoted to prayers. You hear

the bell. As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell.”

“I understand, Father Fauchelevent. There are pupils.”

And Jean Valjean thought to himself:—

“Here is Cosette’s education already provided.”

Fauchelevent exclaimed:—

“Pardine! There are little girls indeed! And they would bawl around

you! And they would rush off! To be a man here is to have the plague.

You see how they fasten a bell to my paw as though I were a wild

beast.”

Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.—“This convent

would be our salvation,” he murmured.

Then he raised his voice:—

“Yes, the difficulty is to remain here.”

“No,” said Fauchelevent, “the difficulty is to get out.”

Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart.

“To get out!”

“Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is first necessary

to get out.”

And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded,

Fauchelevent went on:—

“You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me,

you fall from heaven, because I know you; but the nuns require one to

enter by the door.”

All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from another bell.

“Ah!” said Fauchelevent, “they are ringing up the vocal mothers. They

are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when any one dies.

She died at daybreak. People generally do die at daybreak. But cannot

you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the

sake of questioning you, but how did you get in?”

Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into

that terrible street made him shudder. You make your way out of a

forest filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly

counsel that shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured

to himself the whole police force still engaged in swarming in that

quarter, agents on the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists

extended towards his collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection

of the streets perhaps.

“Impossible!” said he. “Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell from the

sky.”

“But I believe it, I believe it,” retorted Fauchelevent. “You have no

need to tell me that. The good God must have taken you in his hand for

the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped

you. Only, he meant to place you in a man’s convent; he made a mistake.

Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and

inform the municipality that the dead-doctor is to come here and view a

corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not at

all fond of that visit. A doctor is a man who does not believe in

anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too. How

quickly they have had the doctor summoned this time! What is the

matter? Your little one is still asleep. What is her name?”

“Cosette.”

“She is your daughter? You are her grandfather, that is?”

“Yes.”

“It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service

door which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens; I have my

vintage basket on my back, the child is in it, I go out. Father

Fauchelevent goes out with his basket—that is perfectly natural. You

will tell the child to keep very quiet. She will be under the cover. I

will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a

fruit-seller whom I know in the Rue Chemin-Vert, who is deaf, and who

has a little bed. I will shout in the fruit-seller’s ear, that she is a

niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until to-morrow. Then

the little one will re-enter with you; for I will contrive to have you

re-enter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out?”

Jean Valjean shook his head.

“No one must see me, the whole point lies there, Father Fauchelevent.

Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like

Cosette.”

Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of

his left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment.

A third peal created a diversion.

“That is the dead-doctor taking his departure,” said Fauchelevent. “He

has taken a look and said: ‘She is dead, that is well.’ When the doctor

has signed the passport for paradise, the undertaker’s company sends a

coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister,

the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail her up. That forms a part

of my gardener’s duty. A gardener is a bit of a grave-digger. She is

placed in a lower hall of the church which communicates with the

street, and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead. I

don’t count the undertaker’s men and myself as men. It is in that hall

that I nail up the coffin. The undertaker’s men come and get it, and

whip up, coachman! that’s the way one goes to heaven. They fetch a box

with nothing in it, they take it away again with something in it.

That’s what a burial is like. _De profundis_.”

A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping

Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an

angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her.

He was no longer listening to Fauchelevent.

That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The

good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble:—

“The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery. They declare that they are

going to suppress that Vaugirard cemetery. It is an ancient cemetery

which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is

going to retire. It is a shame, for it is convenient. I have a friend

there, Father Mestienne, the grave-digger. The nuns here possess one

privilege, it is to be taken to that cemetery at nightfall. There is a

special permission from the Prefecture on their behalf. But how many

events have happened since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and

Father Madeleine—”

“Is buried,” said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly.

Fauchelevent caught the word.

“Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial.”

A fourth peal burst out. Fauchelevent hastily detached the belled

knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again.

“This time it is for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. Good, now I am

pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don’t

stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are

hungry, there is wine, bread and cheese.”

And he hastened out of the hut, crying: “Coming! coming!”

Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his

crooked leg would permit, casting a sidelong glance by the way on his

melon patch.

Less than ten minutes later, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell put the

nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door, and a gentle voice

replied: _“Forever! Forever!” _ that is to say: _“Enter.” _

The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the

gardener on business. This parlor adjoined the chapter hall. The

prioress, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for

Fauchelevent.