I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever have anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is necessary that I should be despised.
Then I straighten up again.
I am a galley-slave who obeys his conscience.
I know well that that is most improbable.
But what would you have me do about it? it is the fact.
I have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them.
There are encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties.
You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me in the course of my life.”
Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as though his words had a bitter after-taste, and then he went on:
“When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to make them slip over one’s own precipice without their perceiving it, one has not the right to let one’s red blouse drag upon them, one has no right to slyly encumber with one’s misery the happiness of others.
It is hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark with one’s ulcer.
In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not take it.
A name is an I.
You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I express myself properly.
I understand things.
I have procured myself an education.
Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it is dishonest.
Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a watch.
To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous within the I, no! no! no! no! no!
It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep, to tear one’s skin from the flesh with one’s nails, to pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul.
That is why I have just told you all this.
Wantonly, as you say.”
He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word:
“In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in order to live, I will not steal a name.”
“To live!” interrupted Marius.
“You do not need that name in order to live?”
“Ah! I understand the matter,” said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering his head several times in succession.
A silence ensued.
Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of thoughts.
Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back.
Jean Valjean was pacing to and fro.
He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless. Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see:
“While, at present, I am relieved.”
He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the drawing-room.
At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that Marius was watching his walk.
Then he said, with an inexpressible intonation: “I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!”
Then he turned fully round towards Marius: “And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers, in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany Madame Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are together, you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am there, we are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a voice shouting this name:
‘Jean Valjean!’ and behold, that terrible hand, the police, darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my mask!”
Again he paused; Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder.
Jean Valjean resumed:
“What do you say to that?”
Marius’ silence answered for him.
Jean Valjean continued:
“You see that I am right in not holding my peace.
Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; you have before you, sir, a wretched man.”
Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean Valjean, he offered the latter his hand.
But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not offered, Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius that he pressed a hand of marble.
“My grandfather has friends,” said Marius; “I will procure your pardon.”
“It is useless,” replied Jean Valjean.
“I am believed to be dead, and that suffices.