Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [94]
Javert went on:
“This wretch has just insulted Monsieur the Mayor.”
“That concerns me,” said Monsieur Madeleine. “The insult to me rests with myself, perhaps. I can do what I please about it.”
“I beg Monsieur the Mayor’s pardon. The insult rests not with him, it rests with justice.”
“Inspector Javert,” replied Monsieur Madeleine, “the highest justice is conscience. I have heard this woman. I know what I am doing.”
“And for my part, Monsieur Mayor, I do not know what I am seeing.”
“Then content yourself with obeying.”
“I obey my duty. My duty requires that this woman spend six months in prison.”
Monsieur Madeleine answered mildly:
“Listen to this. She shall not spend a day.”
At these decisive words, Javert had the boldness to look the mayor in the eye, and said, but still in a tone of profound respect:
“I am very sorry to resist Monsieur the Mayor; it is the first time in my life, but he will deign to permit me to observe that I am within the limits of my own authority. I will speak, since the mayor desires it, on the matter of the citizen. I was there. This girl fell upon Monsieur Bamatabois, who is an elector and the owner of that fine house with a balcony, that stands at the corner of the esplanade, three stories high, and all of hewn stone. Indeed, there are some things in this world which must be considered. However that may be, Monsieur Mayor, this matter belongs to the police of the street; that concerns me, and I detain the woman Fantine.”
At this Monsieur Madeleine folded his arms and said in a severe tone which nobody in the city had ever yet heard:
“The matter of which you speak belongs to the municipal police. By the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and sixty-six of the code of criminal law, I am the judge of it. I order that this woman be set at liberty.”
Javert endeavoured to make a last attempt.
“But, Monsieur Mayor—”
“I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of December 13th, 1799, on illegal imprisonment.”
“Monsieur Mayor, permit—”
“Not another word.”
“However—”
“Leave,” said Monsieur Madeleine.
Javert received the blow, standing head-on, and full in the chest like a Russian soldier. He bowed to the ground before the mayor, and went out.
Fantine stood by the door and looked at him with stupor as he passed before her.
Meanwhile she also was the subject of a strange revolution. She had seen herself somehow fought over by two opposing powers. She had seen struggling before her very eyes two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, her child, one of these men was drawing her to the side of darkness, the other was leading her towards the light. In this contest, seen with distortion through the magnifying power of fright, these two men had appeared to her like two giants; one spoke as her demon, the other as her good angel. The angel had vanquished the demon, and the thought of it made her shudder from head to foot, this angel, this deliverer was precisely the man whom she abhorred, this mayor whom she had so long considered as the author of all her woes, this Madeleine! and at the very moment when she had insulted him in a hideous fashion, he had saved her! Had she then been deceived? Ought she then to change her whole heart? She did not know, she trembled. She listened with dismay, she looked around with alarm, and at each word that Monsieur Madeleine uttered, she felt the fearful darkness of her hatred melt within and flow away, while there was born in her heart an indescribable and unspeakable warmth of joy, of confidence, and of love.ak
When Javert was gone, Monsieur Madeleine turned towards her, and said to her, speaking slowly and with difficulty, like a man who is struggling that he may not weep:
“I have heard you. I knew nothing of what you have said. I believe that it is true. I did not even know that you had left my workshop. Why did