Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [406]
Of whom did he think in this overwhelming dejection? Neither of himself nor of Marius. He thought of Cosette.
8
THE TORN COAT-TAIL
IN THE MIDST of this annihilation, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a voice which spoke low, said to him:
“Go halves.”
Somebody in that darkness? Nothing is so like a dream as despair, Jean Valjean thought he was dreaming. He had heard no steps. Was it possible? he raised his eyes.
A man was before him.
This man was dressed in a smock; he was barefooted; he held his shoes in his left hand; he had evidently taken them off to be able to reach Jean Valjean without being heard.
Jean Valjean had not a moment’s hesitation. Unforeseen as was the encounter, this man was known to him. This man was Thénardier.
Although wakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed to be on the alert and on the watch for unexpected blows which he must quickly parry, instantly regained possession of all his presence of mind. Besides, the condition of affairs could not be worse, a certain degree of distress is no longer capable of crescendo, and Thénardier himself could not add to the blackness of this night.
There was a moment of delay.
Thénardier, lifting his right hand to the height of his forehead, shaded his eyes with it, then brought his brows together while he winked his eyes, which, with a slight pursing of the mouth, characterises the sagacious attention of a man who is seeking to recognise another. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, we have just said, turned his back to the light, and was moreover so disfigured, so muddy and so blood-stained, that in full noon he would have been unrecognisable. On the other hand, with the light from the grating shining in his face, a cellar light, it is true, livid, but precise in its lividness, Thénardier, as the energetic, trite metaphor expresses it, struck Jean Valjean at once. This inequality of conditions was enough to insure Jean Valjean some advantage in this mysterious duel which was about to open between the two conditions and the two men. The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thénardier unmasked.
Jean Valjean perceived immediately that Thénardier did not recognise him.
They gazed at each other for a moment in this penumbra, as if they were taking each other’s measure. Thénardier was first to break the silence.
“How are you going to manage to get out?”
Jean Valjean did not answer.
Thénardier continued:
“Impossible to pick the lock. Still you must get away from here.”
“That is true,” said Jean Valjean.
“Well, go halves.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have killed the man; very well. Me, I have the key.”
Thénardier pointed to Marius. He went on:
“I don’t know you, but I would like to help you. You must be a friend.”
Jean Valjean began to understand. Thenardier took him for an assassin.
Thénardier resumed:
“Listen, comrade. You haven’t killed that man without looking to what he had in his pockets. Give me my half. I will open the door for you.”
And, drawing a big key half out from under his smock, which was full of holes, he added:
“Would you like to see what freedom looks like?gu There it is.”
Jean Valjean “remained stupid,” the expression is the elder Corneille‘s, so far as to doubt whether what he saw was real. It was Providence appearing in a guise of horror, and the good angel springing out of the ground under the form of Thénardier.
Thénardier plunged his fist into a huge pocket hidden under his smock, pulled out a rope, and handed it to Jean Valjean.
“Here,” said he, “I’ll give you the rope to boot.”
“A rope, what for?”
“You want a stone too, but you’ll find one outside. There is a heap of rubbish there.”
“A stone, what for?”
“Fool, as you are going to throw the stiff into the river, you want a stone and a rope; without them it would float on the water.”
Jean Valjean took the rope. Everybody has accepted things thus mechanically.
Thénardier snapped his fingers as over