Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [367]
Jean Valjean had brought Toussaint, which he had never done in his preceding absences. He saw that possibly he should not return to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind, nor tell her his secret. Besides he felt that she was devoted and safe. Between domestic and master, treason begins with curiosity. But Toussaint, as if she had been predestined to be the servant of Jean Valjean, was not curious. She said through her stuttering, in her Barneville peasant’s speech: “I am from same to same; I thing my act; the remainder is not my labour.” (I am so; I do my work! the rest is not my affair.)
In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which was almost a flight, Jean Valjean carried nothing but the little fragrant valise christened by Cosette the inseparable. Full trunks would have required porters, and porters are witnesses. They had a coach come to the door on the Rue de Babylone, and they went away.
It was with great difficulty that Toussaint obtained permission to pack up a little linen and clothing and a few toilet articles. Cosette herself carried only her writing-desk and her blotter.
Jean Valjean, to increase the solitude and mystery of this disappearance, had arranged so as not to leave the cottage on the Rue Plumet till the close of the day, which left Cosette time to write her note to Marius. They arrived in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé after nightfall.
They went silently to bed.
The lodging in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé was situated in a rear court, on the third story, and consisted of two bedrooms, a dining-room, and a kitchen adjoining the dining-room, with a loft where there was a cot which fell to Toussaint. The dining-room was at the same time the antechamber, and separated the two bedrooms. The apartment contained the necessary kitchen ware.
We are reassured almost as foolishly as we are alarmed; human nature is so constituted. Hardly was Jean Valjean in the Rue de l‘Homme Armé before his anxiety grew less, and by degrees dissipated. There are quieting spots which somehow act mechanically upon the mind. Dim street, peaceful inhabitants. Jean Valjean felt some strange contagion of tranquillity in that lane of the old Paris, so narrow that it was barred to carriages by a beam laid upon two posts, dumb and deaf in the midst of the noisy city, twilight in broad day, and so to speak, incapable of emotions between its two rows of lofty, century-old houses which are silent like the patriarchs that they are. There is stagnant oblivion in this street. Jean Valjean breathed freely there. By what means could anybody find him there?
His first care was to place the inseparable by his side.
He slept well. Night counsels; we may add: night calms. Next morning he awoke almost cheerful. He thought the dining-room charming, although it was hideous, furnished with an old round table, a low sideboard surmounted by a cracked mirror, a worm-eaten armchair, and a few other chairs loaded down with Toussaint’s bundles. Through an opening in one of these bundles, Jean Valjean’s National Guard uniform could be seen.
As for Cosette, she had Toussaint bring a bowl of soup to her room, and did not make her appearance till evening.
About five o‘clock, Toussaint, who was coming and going, very busy with this little move, set a cold fowl on the dining-room table, which Cosette, out of deference to her father, consented to look at.
This done, Cosette, upon pretext of a severe headache, said good-night to Jean Valjean, and shut herself in her bedroom. Jean Valjean ate a chicken’s wing with a good appetite, and, leaning on the table, clearing his brow little by little, was regaining his sense of security.
While he ate this frugal dinner, he became confusedly aware, on two or three occasions, of the stammering of Toussaint, who said to him: “Monsieur, there is a row; they are fighting in Paris.” But, absorbed in a multitude of plans, he paid no attention. To tell the truth, he had not heard.
He