Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [135]
More than two hours had elapsed when she started from her reverie and exclaimed, “Why, bless me! I have hung his key on the nail!”
Just then, the window of her box opened, a hand passed through the opening, took the key and stand, and lighted the taper at the candle which was burning.
The portress raised her eyes; she was transfixed with astonishment; a cry rose to her lips, but she stifled it.
She knew the hand, the arm, the coat-sleeve.
It was M. Madeleine.
She was speechless for some seconds, thunderstruck, as she said herself, afterwards, in giving her account of the affair.
“My God! Monsieur Mayor!” she exclaimed, “I thought you were—”
She stopped; the end of her sentence would not have been respectful to the beginning. To her, Jean Valjean was still Monsieur the Mayor.
He completed her thought.
“In prison,” said he. “I was there, I broke a bar from a window, let myself fall from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am going to my room; go for Sister Simplice. She is doubtless beside that poor woman.”
The old servant hastily obeyed.
He gave her no warning, very sure she would protect him better than he would protect himself.
It has never been known how he had succeeded in gaining entrance into the court-yard without opening the carriage port. He had, and always carried about him, a pass-key which opened a little side door, but he must have been searched, and this taken from him. This point is not yet cleared up.
He ascended the staircase which led to his room. On reaching the top, he left his taper stand on the upper stair, opened his door with little noise, felt his way to the window and closed the shutter, then came back, took his taper, and went into the chamber.
The precaution was not useless; it will be remembered that his window could be seen from the street.
He cast a glance about him, over his table, his chair, his bed, which had not been slept in for three days. There remained no trace of the disorder of the night before the last. The portress had “put the room to rights.” Only, she had picked up from the ashes and laid in order on the table, the ends of the weighted club, and the forty-sous coin, blackened by the fire.
He took a sheet of paper and wrote: These are the ends of my loaded club and the forty-sous coin stolen from Petit Gervais, of which I spoke at
the Court; then placed the two bits of iron and the piece of silver on the sheet in such a way that it would be the first thing perceived on entering the room. He took from a closet an old shirt which he tore into several pieces and in which he packed the two silver candlesticks. In all this there was neither haste nor agitation. And even while packing the bishop’s candlesticks, he was eating a piece of black bread. It was probably prison-bread, which he had brought away in escaping.
This has been established by crumbs of bread found on the floor of the room, when the court afterwards ordered a search.
Two gentle taps were heard at the door.
“Come in,” said he.
It was Sister Simplice.
She was pale, her eyes were red, and the candle which she held trembled in her hand. The shocks of destiny have this peculiarity; however subdued or disciplined our feelings may be, they draw out the human nature from the depths of our souls, and compel us to exhibit it to others. In the agitation of this day the nun had again become a woman. She had wept, and she was trembling.
Jean Valjean had written a few lines on a piece of paper, which he handed to the nun, saying: “Sister, you will give this to the curé.”
The paper was not folded. She cast her eyes on it.
“You may read it,” said he.
She read: