I struggled all night long.
Ah! you think that I did not tell myself that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one’s way, that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her.
Each one of us would have had his share of happiness.
If I continued to be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything.
Yes, with the exception of my soul.
There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my soul remained black.
It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.
Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus I should have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ‘‘ware,’ I should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said:
‘How horrible!’
I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand!
There would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a stranger would have been present!
I should have been side by side with you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the cover of my dreadful pit.
Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself upon you who are living beings.
I should have condemned her to myself forever.
You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in the green cap!
Does it not make you shudder?
I am only the most crushed of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men.
And I should have committed that crime every day!
And I should have had that face of night upon my visage every day! every day!
And I should have communicated to you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures!
Is it nothing to hold one’s peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence?
No, it is not simple.
There is a silence which lies.
And my lie, and my fraud and my indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at midday, and my ‘good morning’ would have lied, and my ‘good night’ would have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned soul, and I should have been an abominable villain!
Why should I do it? in order to be happy.
In order to be happy.
Have I the right to be happy?
I stand outside of life, sir.”
Jean Valjean paused.
Marius listened.
Such chains of ideas and of anguishes cannot be interrupted.
Jean Valjean lowered his voice once more, but it was no longer a dull voice—it was a sinister voice.
“You ask why I speak?
I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say.
Yes!
I am denounced! yes! I am tracked!
By whom?
By myself.
It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds oneself, one is firmly held.”
And, seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and extending it towards Marius: “Do you see that fist?” he continued. “Don’t you think that it holds that collar in such a wise as not to release it?
Well! conscience is another grasp!
If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is implacable.
One would say that it punished you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you; for it places you in a hell, where you feel God beside you.
One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at peace with himself.”
And, with a poignant accent, he added:
“Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man.
It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own.
This has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then; it was a mere nothing.
Yes, an honest man.
I should not be so if, through my fault, you had continued to esteem me; now that you despise me, I am so.