Then he returned to the barricade and said:
“It is done.”
In the meanwhile, this is what had taken place.
Marius, more intent on the outside than on the interior, had not, up to that time, taken a good look at the pinioned spy in the dark background of the tap-room.
When he beheld him in broad daylight, striding over the barricade in order to proceed to his death, he recognized him.
Something suddenly recurred to his mind.
He recalled the inspector of the Rue de Pontoise, and the two pistols which the latter had handed to him and which he, Marius, had used in this very barricade, and not only did he recall his face, but his name as well.
This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas.
It was not an affirmation that he made, but a question which he put to himself:
“Is not that the inspector of police who told me that his name was Javert?”
Perhaps there was still time to intervene in behalf of that man.
But, in the first place, he must know whether this was Javert.
Marius called to Enjolras, who had just stationed himself at the other extremity of the barricade:
“Enjolras!”
“What?”
“What is the name of yonder man?”
“What man?”
“The police agent. Do you know his name?”
“Of course.
He told us.”
“What is it?”
“Javert.”
Marius sprang to his feet.
At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol.
Jean Valjean reappeared and cried:
“It is done.”
A gloomy chill traversed Marius’ heart.
CHAPTER XX—THE DEAD ARE IN THE RIGHT AND THE LIVING ARE NOT IN THE WRONG
The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.
Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the houses.
For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed.
In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour was come, when the people wished to put an end to a situation, which had lasted too long, with a charter granted or with a legal country, when universal wrath was diffused in the atmosphere, when the city consented to the tearing up of the pavements, when insurrection made the bourgeoisie smile by whispering its password in its ear, then the inhabitant, thoroughly penetrated with the revolt, so to speak, was the auxiliary of the combatant, and the house fraternized with the improvised fortress which rested on it.
When the situation was not ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to take the barricade.
A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than it chooses.
Woe to whomsoever tries to force its hand!
A people does not let itself go at random.
Then it abandons the insurrection to itself.
The insurgents become noxious, infected with the plague.
A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall.
This wall hears, sees and will not.
It might open and save you.
No.
This wall is a judge.
It gazes at you and condemns you.
What dismal things are closed houses.
They seem dead, they are living.
Life which is, as it were, suspended there, persists there.
No one has gone out of them for four and twenty hours, but no one is missing from them.
In the interior of that rock, people go and come, go to bed and rise again; they are a family party there; there they eat and drink; they are afraid, a terrible thing!
Fear excuses this fearful lack of hospitality; terror is mixed with it, an extenuating circumstance.