Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [404]
This darkness suddenly became terrible.
5
FOR SAND AS WELL AS WOMAN THERE IS A FINESSE WHICH IS PERFIDY
HE FELT that he was entering the water, and that he had under his feet, pavement no longer, but mud.
6
THE FONTIS
JEAN VALJEAN found himself in the presence of a fontis.The fontis which Jean Valjean fell upon was caused by the showers of the previous day. A yielding of the pavement, imperfectly upheld by the underlying sand, had occasioned a damming of the rain-water. Infiltration having taken place, sinking had followed. The floor, broken up, had disappeared in the mire. For what distance? Impossible to say. The darkness was deeper than anywhere else. It was a mudhole in the cavern of night.
Jean Valjean felt the pavement slipping away under him. He entered into this slime. It was water on the surface, mire at the bottom. He must surely pass through. To retrace his steps was impossible. Marius was expiring, and Jean Valjean exhausted. Where else could he go? Jean Valjean advanced. Moreover, the quagmire appeared not very deep for a few steps. But in proportion as he advanced, his feet sank in. He very soon had the mire half-knee deep and water above his knees. He walked on, holding Marius with both arms as high above the water as he could. The mud now came up to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer turn back. He sank in deeper and deeper. This mire, dense enough for one man’s weight, evidently could not bear two. Marius and Jean Valjean would have had a chance of escape separately. Jean Valjean continued to advance, supporting this dying man, who was perhaps a corpse.
The water came up to his armpits; he felt that he was foundering; it was with difficulty that he could move in the depth of mire in which he was. The density, which was the support, was also the obstacle. He still held Marius up, and, with an unparalleled outlay of strength, he advanced; but he sank deeper. He now had only his head out of the water, and his arms supporting Marius. There is in the old pictures of the deluge, a mother doing thus with her child.
He sank still deeper, he threw his face back to escape the water, and to be able to breathe; he who should have seen him in this darkness would have thought he saw a mask floating upon the darkness; he dimly perceived Marius’ drooping head and livid face above him; he made a desperate effort, and thrust his foot forward; his foot struck something solid; a support. It was time.
He rose and writhed and rooted himself upon this support with a sort of fury. It produced the effect upon him of the first step of a staircase reas cending towards life.
This support, discovered in the mire at the last moment, was the begin ning of the other slope of the floor, which had bent without breaking, and had curved beneath the water like a board, and in a single piece. A well-constructed paving forms an arch, and has this firmness. This fragment of the floor, partly submerged, but solid, was a real slope, and, once upon this slope, they were saved. Jean Valjean ascended this inclined plane, and reached the other side of the quagmire.
On coming out of the water, he struck against a stone, and fell upon his knees. This seemed to him fitting, and he remained thus for some time, his soul lost in unspoken prayer to God.
He rose, shivering, chilled, reeking, bending beneath this dying man, whom he was dragging on, all dripping with slime, his soul filled with a strange light.
7
EXTREMITIES
HE SET OFF once more.
However, if he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed to have left his strength. This supreme effort had exhausted him. His exhaustion was so great, that every three or four steps he was obliged to take breath, and leaned against the wall. Once he had to sit down upon the curb to change Marius’ position and he thought he should stay there. But if his vigour were dead his energy was not. He rose again. He