第 二百三十五 章 · JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD
However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had
arranged his existence there in the following fashion:—
Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big
sleeping-room with the painted pier-glasses, the boudoir with the
gilded fillets, the justice’s drawing-room furnished with tapestries
and vast armchairs; she had the garden. Jean Valjean had a canopied bed
of antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased
in the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul at Mother Gaucher’s, put into
Cosette’s chamber, and, in order to redeem the severity of these
magnificent old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-à-brac all
the gay and graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young
girls, an étagère, a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an
inkstand, a blotting-book, paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of
pearl, a silver-gilt dressing-case, a toilet service in Japanese
porcelain. Long damask curtains with a red foundation and three colors,
like those on the bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the
ground floor, the curtains were of tapestry. All winter long, Cosette’s
little house was heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the
sort of porter’s lodge which was situated at the end of the back
courtyard, with a mattress on a folding-bed, a white wood table, two
straw chairs, an earthenware water-jug, a few old volumes on a shelf,
his beloved valise in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with
Cosette, and he had a loaf of black bread on the table for his own use.
When Toussaint came, he had said to her: “It is the young lady who is
the mistress of this house.”—“And you, monsieur?” Toussaint replied in
amazement.—“I am a much better thing than the master, I am the father.”
Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated
their expenditure, which was very modest. Every day, Jean Valjean put
his arm through Cosette’s and took her for a walk. He led her to the
Luxembourg, to the least frequented walk, and every Sunday he took her
to mass at Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, because that was a long way off.
As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the
poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn down upon him
Thénardier’s epistle: “To the benevolent gentleman of the church of
Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas.” He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the
poor and the sick. No stranger ever entered the house in the Rue
Plumet. Toussaint brought their provisions, and Jean Valjean went
himself for water to a fountain nearby on the boulevard. Their wood and
wine were put into a half-subterranean hollow lined with rock-work
which lay near the Rue de Babylone and which had formerly served the
chief-justice as a grotto; for at the epoch of follies and “Little
Houses” no love was without a grotto.
In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box destined
for the reception of letters and papers; only, as the three inhabitants
of the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither papers nor letters,
the entire usefulness of that box, formerly the go-between of a love
affair, and the confidant of a love-lorn lawyer, was now limited to the
tax-collector’s notices, and the summons of the guard. For M.
Fauchelevent, independent gentleman, belonged to the national guard; he
had not been able to escape through the fine meshes of the census of
1831. The municipal information collected at that time had even reached
the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud,
whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise, and, consequently,
worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the town-hall.
Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform and mounted
guard; he did this willingly, however; it was a correct disguise which
mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary. Jean Valjean had
just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age of legal exemption; but he
did not appear to be over fifty; moreover, he had no desire to escape
his sergeant-major nor to quibble with Comte de Lobau; he possessed no
civil status, he was concealing his name, he was concealing his
identity, so he concealed his age, he concealed everything; and, as we
have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard; the sum
of his ambition lay in resembling any other man who paid his taxes.
This man had for his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois.
Let us note one detail, however; when Jean Valjean went out with
Cosette, he dressed as the reader has already seen, and had the air of
a retired officer. When he went out alone, which was generally at
night, he was always dressed in a workingman’s trousers and blouse, and
wore a cap which concealed his face. Was this precaution or humility?
Both. Cosette was accustomed to the enigmatical side of her destiny,
and hardly noticed her father’s peculiarities. As for Toussaint, she
venerated Jean Valjean, and thought everything he did right.
One day, her butcher, who had caught a glimpse of Jean Valjean, said to
her: “That’s a queer fish.” She replied: “He’s a saint.”
Neither Jean Valjean nor Cosette nor Toussaint ever entered or emerged
except by the door on the Rue de Babylone. Unless seen through the
garden gate it would have been difficult to guess that they lived in
the Rue Plumet. That gate was always closed. Jean Valjean had left the
garden uncultivated, in order not to attract attention.
In this, possibly, he made a mistake.