My lady-finger potatoes were so good!”
Jean Valjean took the old woman’s hand: “I promise you that I will eat them,” he said, in his benevolent voice.
“I am not pleased with you,” replied the portress.
Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman.
There are streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which no one ever comes.
He was in one of those streets and one of those houses.
While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite his bed.
That gibbet is always good to look at.
A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room.
He still remained in bed.
The portress said to her husband:—“The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last long.
That man has his sorrows, that he has.
You won’t get it out of my head that his daughter has made a bad marriage.”
The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty:
“If he’s rich, let him have a doctor.
If he is not rich, let him go without.
If he has no doctor he will die.”
“And if he has one?”
“He will die,” said the porter.
The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she grumbled:
“It’s a shame.
Such a neat old man!
He’s as white as a chicken.”
She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of the street; she took it upon herself to request him to come upstairs.
“It’s on the second floor,” said she. “You have only to enter.
As the good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked.”
The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him.
When he came down again the portress interrogated him:
“Well, doctor?”
“Your sick man is very ill indeed.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“Everything and nothing.
He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost some person who is dear to him.
People die of that.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me that he was in good health.”
“Shall you come again, doctor?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor. “But some one else besides must come.”
CHAPTER III—A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT’S CART
One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker than he had ever been before.
Then, no doubt under the pressure of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into a sitting posture and dressed himself.
He put on his old workingman’s clothes.
As he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them.
He was obliged to pause many times while dressing himself; merely putting his arms through his waistcoat made the perspiration trickle from his forehead.
Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible.
He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette’s outfit.
He spread it out on his bed.
The Bishop’s candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece.
He took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks.
Then, although it was still broad daylight,—it was summer,—he lighted them.