The gamin, at the sound of Marius’ voice, ran up to him with his merry and devoted air.
“Will you do something for me?”
“Anything,” said Gavroche. “Good God! if it had not been for you, I should have been done for.”
“Do you see this letter?”
“Yes.”
“Take it.
Leave the barricade instantly” (Gavroche began to scratch his ear uneasily) “and to-morrow morning, you will deliver it at its address to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent’s, Rue de l’Homme Arme, No. 7.”
The heroic child replied “Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall not be there.”
“The barricade will not be attacked until daybreak, according to all appearances, and will not be taken before to-morrow noon.”
The fresh respite which the assailants were granting to the barricade had, in fact, been prolonged.
It was one of those intermissions which frequently occur in nocturnal combats, which are always followed by an increase of rage.
“Well,” said Gavroche, “what if I were to go and carry your letter to-morrow?”
“It will be too late.
The barricade will probably be blockaded, all the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out.
Go at once.”
Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, scratching his ear sadly.
All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements which were common with him.
“All right,” said he. And he started off at a run through Mondetour lane.
An idea had occurred to Gavroche which had brought him to a decision, but he had not mentioned it for fear that Marius might offer some objection to it.
This was the idea:— “It is barely midnight, the Rue de l’Homme Arme is not far off; I will go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time.”
BOOK FIFTEENTH.—THE RUE DE L’HOMME ARME
CHAPTER I—A DRINKER IS A BABBLER
What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul?
Man is a depth still greater than the people.
Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval.
Every sort of gulf had opened again within him.
He also was trembling, like Paris, on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution.
A few hours had sufficed to bring this about.
His destiny and his conscience had suddenly been covered with gloom.
Of him also, as well as of Paris, it might have been said:
“Two principles are face to face. The white angel and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the abyss.
Which of the two will hurl the other over?
Who will carry the day?”
On the evening preceding this same 5th of June, Jean Valjean, accompanied by Cosette and Toussaint had installed himself in the Rue de l’Homme Arme.
A change awaited him there.
Cosette had not quitted the Rue Plumet without making an effort at resistance.
For the first time since they had lived side by side, Cosette’s will and the will of Jean Valjean had proved to be distinct, and had been in opposition, at least, if they had not clashed.
There had been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other.
The abrupt advice: “Leave your house,” hurled at Jean Valjean by a stranger, had alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory.
He thought that he had been traced and followed.
Cosette had been obliged to give way.
Both had arrived in the Rue de l’Homme Arme without opening their lips, and without uttering a word, each being absorbed in his own personal preoccupation; Jean Valjean so uneasy that he did not notice Cosette’s sadness, Cosette so sad that she did not notice Jean Valjean’s uneasiness.
Jean Valjean had taken Toussaint with him, a thing which he had never done in his previous absences.
He perceived the possibility of not returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind nor confide his secret to her.
Besides, he felt that she was devoted and trustworthy.
Treachery between master and servant begins in curiosity.
Now Toussaint, as though she had been destined to be Jean Valjean’s servant, was not curious.
She stammered in her peasant dialect of Barneville:
“I am made so; I do my work; the rest is no affair of mine.”
In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which had been almost a flight, Jean Valjean had carried away nothing but the little embalmed valise, baptized by Cosette “the inseparable.”