Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [136]
The sister attempted to speak, but could scarcely stammer out a few inarticulate sounds. She succeeded, however, in saying:
“Does not Monsieur the Mayor wish to see this poor unfortunate again for the last time?”
“No,” said he, “I am pursued; I should only be arrested in her chamber; it would disturb her.”az
He had scarcely finished when there was a loud noise on the staircase. They heard a tumult of steps ascending, and the old portress exclaiming in her loudest and most piercing tones:
“My good sir, I swear to you in the name of God, that nobody has come in here the whole day, and the whole evening; that I have not even once been away from my door!”
A man replied: “But yet, there is a light in this room.”
They recognised the voice of Javert.
The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening covered the corner of the wall to the right. Jean Valjean blew out the taper, and placed himself in this corner.
Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table.
The door opened.
Javert entered.
The whispering of several men, and the protestations of the portress were heard in the hall.
The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying.
The candle was on the mantel, and gave but a dim light.
Javert perceived the sister, and stopped abashed.
It will be remembered that the very foundation of Javert, his element, the medium in which he breathed, was veneration for all authority. He was perfectly homogeneous, and admitted of no objection, or restriction. To him, be it understood, ecclesiastical authority was the highest of all; he was devout, superficial, and correct, upon this point as upon all others. In his eyes, a priest was a spirit who was never mistaken, a nun was a being who never sinned. They were souls walled in from this world, with a single door which never opened but for the exit of truth.
On perceiving the sister, his first impulse was to retire.
But there was also another duty which held him, and which urged him imperiously in the opposite direction. His second impulse was to remain, and to venture at least one question.
This was the Sister Simplice, who had never lied in her life. Javert knew this, and venerated her especially on account of it.
“Sister,” said he, “are you alone in this room?”
There was a fearful instant during which the poor portress felt her limbs falter beneath her. The sister raised her eyes, and replied:
“Yes.”
Then continued Javert—“Excuse me if I persist, it is my duty—you have not seen this evening a person, a man—he has escaped and we are in search of him—Jean Valjean—you have not seen him?”
The sister answered—“No.”
She lied. Two lies in succession, one upon another, without hesitation, quickly, as if she were an adept in it.
“Your pardon!” said Javert, and he withdrew, bowing reverently.
Oh, holy maiden! for many years you have been no more in this world; you have joined the sisters, the virgins, and thy brethren, the angels, in glory; may this falsehood be credited to you in Paradise.
The sister’s assertion was to Javert something so decisive that he did not even notice the singularity of this taper, just blown out, and smoking on the table.
An hour afterwards, a man was walking rapidly in the darkness beneath the trees from M——sur M——in the direction of Paris. This man was Jean Valjean. It has been established, by the testimony of two or three waggoners who met him, that he carried a bundle, and was dressed in a smock. Where did he get this smock? It was never known. Nevertheless, an old artisan had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days before, leaving nothing but his smock. This might have been the one.
A last word in regard to Fantine.
We have all one mother—the earth. Fantine was restored to this mother. The cure thought best, and did well perhaps, to reserve out of what Jean Valjean had left, the largest amount possible for the poor. After