He left on his right the two narrow passages which branch out in the form of a claw under the Rue Laffitte and the Rue Saint-Georges and the long, bifurcated corridor of the Chaussee d’Antin.
A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, he halted.
He was extremely weary.
A passably large air-hole, probably the man-hole in the Rue d’Anjou, furnished a light that was almost vivid.
Jean Valjean, with the gentleness of movement which a brother would exercise towards his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the banquette of the sewer.
Marius’ blood-stained face appeared under the wan light of the air-hole like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb.
His eyes were closed, his hair was plastered down on his temples like a painter’s brushes dried in red wash; his hands hung limp and dead.
A clot of blood had collected in the knot of his cravat; his limbs were cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth; his shirt had thrust itself into his wounds, the cloth of his coat was chafing the yawning gashes in the living flesh.
Jean Valjean, pushing aside the garments with the tips of his fingers, laid his hand upon Marius’ breast; his heart was still beating.
Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, bandaged the young man’s wounds as well as he was able and stopped the flowing blood; then bending over Marius, who still lay unconscious and almost without breathing, in that half light, he gazed at him with inexpressible hatred.
On disarranging Marius’ garments, he had found two things in his pockets, the roll which had been forgotten there on the preceding evening, and Marius’ pocketbook.
He ate the roll and opened the pocketbook.
On the first page he found the four lines written by Marius. The reader will recall them:
“My name is Marius Pontmercy.
Carry my body to my grandfather, M. Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais.”
Jean Valjean read these four lines by the light of the air-hole, and remained for a moment as though absorbed in thought, repeating in a low tone:
“Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, number 6, Monsieur Gillenormand.”
He replaced the pocketbook in Marius’ pocket.
He had eaten, his strength had returned to him; he took Marius up once more upon his back, placed the latter’s head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his descent of the sewer.
The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of Menilmontant, is about two leagues long.
It is paved throughout a notable portion of its extent.
This torch of the names of the streets of Paris, with which we are illuminating for the reader Jean Valjean’s subterranean march, Jean Valjean himself did not possess.
Nothing told him what zone of the city he was traversing, nor what way he had made.
Only the growing pallor of the pools of light which he encountered from time to time indicated to him that the sun was withdrawing from the pavement, and that the day would soon be over; and the rolling of vehicles overhead, having become intermittent instead of continuous, then having almost ceased, he concluded that he was no longer under central Paris, and that he was approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer boulevards, or the extreme outer quays.
Where there are fewer houses and streets, the sewer has fewer air-holes.
The gloom deepened around Jean Valjean.
Nevertheless, he continued to advance, groping his way in the dark.
Suddenly this darkness became terrible.
CHAPTER V—IN THE CASE OF SAND AS IN THAT OF WOMAN, THERE IS A FINENESS WHICH IS TREACHEROUS
He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a pavement under his feet, but only mud.
It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a man, either a traveller or a fisherman, while walking at low tide on the beach far from shore, suddenly notices that for several minutes past, he has been walking with some difficulty.
The beach under foot is like pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is bird-lime.
The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water.
The eye, however, has perceived no change; the immense beach is smooth and tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little cloud of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the passer-by.
The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors to approach the shore.
He is not uneasy.
Uneasy about what?
Only he is conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every step that he takes.
All at once he sinks in.
He sinks in two or three inches.
Decidedly, he is not on the right road; he halts to get his bearings.
Suddenly he glances at his feet; his feet have disappeared.
The sand has covered them.
He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than before.
The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to mid-leg, he flings himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees.
Then, with indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which neither man can walk nor fish can swim.
He flings away his burden, if he have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late, the sand is above his knees.
He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually gains on him; if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if the bank of sand is too ill-famed, there is no hero in the neighborhood, all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed.
He is condemned to that terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly and sing, the sun and the sky.
This engulfment is the sepulchre which assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards a living man.