The teeth of a tiger are not more firmly fixed in their sockets.
No lever; no prying possible.
The obstacle was invincible.
There was no means of opening the gate.
Must he then stop there?
What was he to do?
What was to become of him?
He had not the strength to retrace his steps, to recommence the journey which he had already taken.
Besides, how was he to again traverse that quagmire whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle?
And after the quagmire, was there not the police patrol, which assuredly could not be twice avoided?
And then, whither was he to go?
What direction should he pursue?
To follow the incline would not conduct him to his goal.
If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it obstructed by a plug or a grating.
Every outlet was, undoubtedly, closed in that manner.
Chance had unsealed the grating through which he had entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred.
He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison.
All was over.
Everything that Jean Valjean had done was useless.
Exhaustion had ended in failure.
They were both caught in the immense and gloomy web of death, and Jean Valjean felt the terrible spider running along those black strands and quivering in the shadows.
He turned his back to the grating, and fell upon the pavement, hurled to earth rather than seated, close to Marius, who still made no movement, and with his head bent between his knees.
This was the last drop of anguish.
Of what was he thinking during this profound depression?
Neither of himself nor of Marius.
He was thinking of Cosette.
CHAPTER VIII—THE TORN COAT-TAIL
In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a low voice said to him:
“Half shares.”
Some person in that gloom?
Nothing so closely resembles a dream as despair.
Jean Valjean thought that he was dreaming.
He had heard no footsteps.
Was it possible?
He raised his eyes.
A man stood before him.
This man was clad in a blouse; his feet were bare; he held his shoes in his left hand; he had evidently removed them in order to reach Jean Valjean, without allowing his steps to be heard.
Jean Valjean did not hesitate for an instant. Unexpected as was this encounter, this man was known to him.
The man was Thenardier.
Although awakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed to alarms, and steeled to unforeseen shocks that must be promptly parried, instantly regained possession of his presence of mind.
Moreover, the situation could not be made worse, a certain degree of distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thenardier himself could add nothing to this blackness of this night.
A momentary pause ensued.
Thenardier, raising his right hand to a level with his forehead, formed with it a shade, then he brought his eyelashes together, by screwing up his eyes, a motion which, in connection with a slight contraction of the mouth, characterizes the sagacious attention of a man who is endeavoring to recognize another man.
He did not succeed.
Jean Valjean, as we have just stated, had his back turned to the light, and he was, moreover, so disfigured, so bemired, so bleeding that he would have been unrecognizable in full noonday.
On the contrary, illuminated by the light from the grating, a cellar light, it is true, livid, yet precise in its lividness, Thenardier, as the energetic popular metaphor expresses it, immediately “leaped into” Jean Valjean’s eyes.
This inequality of conditions sufficed to assure some advantage to Jean Valjean in that mysterious duel which was on the point of beginning between the two situations and the two men.
The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thenardier unmasked.
Jean Valjean immediately perceived that Thenardier did not recognize him.
They surveyed each other for a moment in that half-gloom, as though taking each other’s measure. Thenardier was the first to break the silence.