She was pale; her eyes were red; the candle which she carried trembled in her hand.
The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface.
The emotions of that day had turned the nun into a woman once more.
She had wept, and she was trembling.
Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he handed to the nun, saying,
“Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le Cure.”
The paper was not folded.
She cast a glance upon it.
“You can read it,” said he.
She read:—
“I beg Monsieur le Cure to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me.
He will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of the funeral of the woman who died yesterday.
The rest is for the poor.”
The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few inarticulate sounds.
She succeeded in saying, however:—
“Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor, unhappy woman?”
“No,” said he; “I am pursued; it would only end in their arresting me in that room, and that would disturb her.”
He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the staircase.
They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones:—
“My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not even left the door.”
A man responded:—
“But there is a light in that room, nevertheless.”
They recognized Javert’s voice.
The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner of the wall on the right.
Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed himself in this angle.
Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table.
The door opened.
Javert entered.
The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were audible in the corridor.
The nun did not raise her eyes.
She was praying.
The candle was on the chimney-piece, and gave but very little light.
Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement.
It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his element, the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority.
This was impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor restriction.
In his eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was the chief of all; he was religious, superficial and correct on this point as on all others.
In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never makes a mistake; a nun was a creature who never sins; they were souls walled in from this world, with a single door which never opened except to allow the truth to pass through.
On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire.
But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him imperiously in the opposite direction.
His second movement was to remain and to venture on at least one question.
This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life.
Javert knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence.
“Sister,” said he, “are you alone in this room?”
A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though she should faint.
The sister raised her eyes and answered:—
“Yes.”
“Then,” resumed Javert, “you will excuse me if I persist; it is my duty; you have not seen a certain person—a man—this evening?
He has escaped; we are in search of him—that Jean Valjean; you have not seen him?”
The sister replied:— “No.”
She lied.