Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [102]
“Master Scaufflaire,” he asked, “have you a good horse?”
“Monsieur Mayor,” said the Fleming, “all my horses are good. What do you mean by a good horse?”
“I mean a horse that can go fifty miles in a day.”
“The devil!” said the Fleming, “fifty miles!”
“Yes.”
“Pulling a cabriolet?”
“Yes.”
“And how long will he rest after the journey?”
“He must be able to start again the next day in case of need.”
“To do the same thing again?”
“Yes.”
“The devil! and it is fifty miles?”
Monsieur Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled the figures. He showed them to the Fleming. They were the figures 12112,15, 21.
“You see,” said he. “Total, forty-eight and a half, that is to say, fifty miles.”
“Monsieur Mayor,” resumed the Fleming, “I have just what you want. My little white horse, you must have seen him sometimes passing; he is a little beast from Bas-Boulonnais. He is full of fire. They tried at first to make a saddle horse of him. Bah! he kicked, he threw everybody off. They thought he was vicious, they didn’t know what to do. I bought him. I had him pull a cabriolet; Monsieur, that is what he wanted; he is as gentle as a girl, he goes like the wind. But, of course, it won’t do to get on his back. It’s not his idea to be a saddle horse. Everybody has his peculiar ambition. To draw, but not to carry: we must believe that he has said that to himself.”
“And he will make the trip?”
“Your fifty miles, all the way at a trot, in less than eight hours. But there are some conditions.”
“Name them.”
“First, you must let him rest an hour when you are half way; he will eat and somebody must be by to prevent the tavern boy from stealing his oats, for I have noticed that at taverns oats are oftener drunk by the stable boys than eaten by the horses.”
“Somebody shall be there.”
“Secondly—is the chaise for Monsieur the Mayor?”
“Yes.”
“Monsieur the Mayor knows how to drive?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Monsieur the Mayor will travel alone and without baggage, so as not to overload the horse.”
“Agreed.”
“But Monsieur the Mayor, having no one with him, will be obliged to take the trouble of seeing to the oats himself.”
“Agreed.”
“I must have thirty francs a day, the days he rests included. Not a penny less, and the fodder of the beast at the expense of Monsieur the Mayor.”
Monsieur Madeleine took three Napoleons from his purse and laid them on the table.
“There is two days, in advance.”
“Fourthly, for such a trip, a chaise would be too heavy; that would tire the horse. Monsieur the Mayor must consent to travel in a little tilbury that I have.”
“I consent to that.”
“It is light, but it is open.”
“It is all the same to me.”
“Has Monsieur the Mayor reflected that it is winter?”
Monsieur Madeleine did not answer; the Fleming went on:
“That it is very cold?”
Monsieur Madeleine kept silence.
Master Scaufflaire continued:
“That it may rain?”
Monsieur Madeleine raised his head and said:
“The horse and the tilbury will be before my door to-morrow at half-past four in the morning.”
We have but little to add to what the reader already knows, concerning what had happened to Jean Valjean, since his adventure with Petit Gervais. From that moment, we have seen, he was another man. What the bishop had desired to do with him, that he had executed. It was more than a transformation—it was a transfiguration.
He succeeded in escaping from sight, sold the bishop’s silver, keeping only the candlesticks as souvenirs, glided quietly from city to city across France, came to M—sur M—, conceived the idea that we have described, accomplished what we have related, gained the point of making himself unassailable and inaccessible, and thence forward, established at M—sur M—, happy to feel his conscience saddened by his past, and the latter half of his existence giving the lie to the first, he lived peaceable, reassured, and hopeful, having but two thoughts: to conceal his name, and to sanctify his life; to escape from men and to return to God.
These two thoughts were associated