Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [95]
This was more than poor Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! to leave this infamous life! to live free, rich, happy, honest, with Cosette! to see suddenly spring up in the midst of her misery all these realities of paradise! She looked as if she were stupefied at the man who was speaking to her, and could only pour out two or three sobs: “Oh! oh! oh!” Her limbs gave way, she threw herself on her knees before Monsieur Madeleine, and, before he could prevent it, he felt that she had seized his hand and carried it to her lips.
Then she fainted.
BOOK SIX
JAVERT
1
THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE
MONSIEUR MADELEINE had Fantine taken to the infirmary, which was in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put her to bed. A violent fever came on, and she passed a part of the night in delirious ravings. Finally, she fell asleep.
Towards noon the following day, Fantine awoke. She heard a breathing near her bed, drew aside the curtain, and saw Monsieur Madeleine standing gazing at something above his head. His look was full of compassionate and supplicating agony. She followed its direction, and saw that it was fixed upon a crucifix nailed against the wall.
From that moment Monsieur Madeleine was transfigured in the eyes of Fantine; he seemed to her clothed with light. He was absorbed in a kind of prayer. She gazed at him for a long while without daring to interrupt him; at last she said timidly:
“What are you doing?”
Monsieur Madeleine had been in that place for an hour waiting for Fantine to awake. He took her hand, felt her pulse, and said:
“How do you feel?”
“Very well. I have slept,” she said. “I think I am getting better—this will be nothing.”
Then he said, answering the question she had first asked him, as if she had just asked it:
“I was praying to the martyr who is on high.”
And in his thought he added: “For the martyr who is here below.”
Monsieur Madeleine had passed the night and morning in informing himself about Fantine. He knew all now, he had learned, even in all its poignant details, the history of Fantine.
He went on:
“You have suffered greatly, poor mother. Oh! do not lament, you have now the portion of the elect. It is in this way that mortals become angels. It is not their fault; they do not know how to set about it otherwise. This hell from which you have come out is the first step towards Heaven. We must begin by that.”
He sighed deeply; but she smiled with this sublime smile from which two teeth were gone.
That same night, Javert wrote a letter. Next morning he carried this letter himself to the post-office of M—sur M—. It was directed to Paris and bore this address: “To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur the Prefect of Police.”
Because the matter at the police station had become known, the post-mistress and some others who saw the letter before it was sent and who recognized Javert’s handwriting in the address, thought he was sending in his resignation.
Monsieur Madeleine wrote immediately to the Thénardiers. Fantine owed them a hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, telling them to pay themselves out of it, and bring the child at once to M—sur M—, where her mother, who was sick, wanted her.
This astonished Thénardier.
“The Devil!” he said to his wife, “we won’t let go of the child. It may be that this lark will become a milk cow. Some silly fellow must have been smitten by the mother.”
He replied by a bill of five hundred and some odd francs carefully drawn up. In this bill figured two incontestable items for upwards