The long windows of the dining-room opened on the street. Jean Valjean stood for several minutes, erect and motionless in the darkness, beneath those radiant windows.
He listened.
The confused sounds of the banquet reached his ear.
He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, the violins, the clatter of the plates, the bursts of laughter, and through all that merry uproar, he distinguished Cosette’s sweet and joyous voice.
He quitted the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and returned to the Rue de l’Homme Arme.
In order to return thither, he took the Rue Saint-Louis, the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs-Manteaux; it was a little longer, but it was the road through which, for the last three months, he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the Rue de l’Homme Arme to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, in order to avoid the obstructions and the mud in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple.
This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him all possibility of any other itinerary.
Jean Valjean entered his lodgings.
He lighted his candle and mounted the stairs.
The apartment was empty.
Even Toussaint was no longer there.
Jean Valjean’s step made more noise than usual in the chambers.
All the cupboards stood open.
He penetrated to Cosette’s bedroom.
There were no sheets on the bed.
The pillow, covered with ticking, and without a case or lace, was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress, whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again.
All the little feminine objects which Cosette was attached to had been carried away; nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four walls.
Toussaint’s bed was despoiled in like manner.
One bed only was made up, and seemed to be waiting some one, and this was Jean Valjean’s bed.
Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors, and went and came from one room to another.
Then he sought his own chamber once more, and set his candle on a table.
He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right hand as though it did not hurt him.
He approached his bed, and his eyes rested, was it by chance? was it intentionally? on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, on the little portmanteau which never left him.
On his arrival in the Rue de l’Homme Arme, on the 4th of June, he had deposited it on a round table near the head of his bed.
He went to this table with a sort of vivacity, took a key from his pocket, and opened the valise.
From it he slowly drew forth the garments in which, ten years before, Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the black fichu, then the stout, coarse child’s shoes which Cosette might almost have worn still, so tiny were her feet, then the fustian bodice, which was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with pockets, then the woollen stockings.
These stockings, which still preserved the graceful form of a tiny leg, were no longer than Jean Valjean’s hand.
All this was black of hue.
It was he who had brought those garments to Montfermeil for her.
As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on the bed.
He fell to thinking. He called up memories.
It was in winter, in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in rags, her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes.
He, Jean Valjean, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself in these mourning habiliments.
The mother must have felt pleased in her grave, to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and, above all, to see that she was properly clothed, and that she was warm.
He thought of that forest of Montfermeil; they had traversed it together, Cosette and he; he thought of what the weather had been, of the leafless trees, of the wood destitute of birds, of the sunless sky; it mattered not, it was charming.
He arranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fichu next to the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, one after the other.
She was no taller than that, she had her big doll in her arms, she had put her louis d’or in the pocket of that apron, she had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but him.
Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed, that stoical old heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cosette’s garments, and if any one had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have heard frightful sobs.
CHAPTER IV—THE IMMORTAL LIVER
The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so many phases, began once more.
Jacob struggled with the angel but one night.
Alas! how many times have we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, and struggling desperately against it!
Unheard-of conflict!
At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments the ground crumbles away underfoot.
How many times had that conscience, mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him!
How many times had the truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast!
How many times, hurled to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy!
How many times had that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind!
How many times had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his conscience, again overthrown by it!
How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear: