Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [409]
We have already referred elsewhere to this impression, with which everybody is acquainted.
He turned round.
As just a few minutes earlier, somebody was indeed behind him.
A man of tall stature, wrapped in a long overcoat, with folded arms, and holding in his right hand a club, the leaden knob of which could be seen, stood erect a few steps in the rear of Jean Valjean, who was stooping over Marius.
It was, with the aid of the shadow, a sort of apparition. A simple-minded man would have been afraid on account of the twilight, and a reflective man on account of the club.
Jean Valjean recognised Javert.
The reader has doubtless guessed that Thénardier’s pursuer was none other than Javert. Javert, after his unhoped-for departure from the barricade, had gone to the prefecture of police, had given an account verbally to the prefect in person in a short audience, had then immediately returned to his duty, which implied—the note found upon him will be remembered—a certain surveillance of the shore on the right bank near the Champs- Elysées, which for some time had attracted the attention of the police. There he had seen Thénardier, and had followed him. The rest is known.
It is understood also that the opening of that grating so obligingly before Jean Valjean was a piece of shrewdness on the part of Thénardier. Thénardier felt that Javert was still there; the man who is watched has a scent which does not deceive him; a bone must be thrown to this hound. An assassin, what a godsend! It was the scapegoat, which must never be refused. Thénardier, by putting Jean Valjean out in his place, gave a victim to the police, threw them off his own track, caused himself to be forgotten in a larger matter, rewarded Javert for his delay, which always flatters a spy, gained thirty francs, and counted surely, as for himself, upon escaping by the aid of this diversion.
Jean Valjean had passed from one shoal to another.
These two encounters, blow on blow, to fall from Thénardier upon Javert, it was hard.
Javert did not recognise Jean Valjean, who, as we have said, no longer resembled himself. He did not unfold his arms, he secured his club in his grasp by an imperceptible movement, and said in a clipped, calm voice:
“Who are you?”
“I.”
“What you?”
“Jean Valjean.”
Javert put the club between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined his body, laid his two powerful hands upon Jean Valjean’s shoulders, which they clamped like two vices, examined him, and recognised him. Their faces almost touched. Javert’s look was terrible.
Jean Valjean stood inert under the grasp of Javert like a lion who should submit to the claw of a lynx.
“Inspector Javert,” said he, “you have got me. Besides, since this morning, I have considered myself your prisoner. I did not give you my address to try to escape you. Take me. Only grant me one thing.”
Javert seemed not to hear. He rested his fixed eye upon Jean Valjean. His rising chin pushed his lips towards his nose, a sign of savage musing. At last, he let go of Jean Valjean, rose up as straight as a stick, took his club firmly in his grasp, and, as if in a dream, murmured rather than pronounced this question:
“What are you doing here? and who is this man?”
Jean Valjean answered, and the sound of his voice appeared to awaken Javert:
“It is precisely of him that I wished to speak. Dispose of me as you please; but help me first to carry him home. I ask only that of you.”
Javert’s face contracted, as it happened to him whenever anybody seemed to consider him capable of a concession. Still he did not say no.
He stooped down again, took a handkerchief from his pocket, which he dipped in the water, and wiped Marius’ blood-stained forehead.
“This man was in the barricade,” said he in an undertone, and as if speaking to himself. “This is he whom they called Marius.”
A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, heard everything, and recollected everything, believing he was about to die; who spied even in his death-agony, and who, leaning upon the first step of the grave, had