“Monsieur? . . .” But his manner of pronouncing it contained a complete question.
The doctor replied to the question by an expressive glance.
“Because things are not agreeable,” said Jean Valjean, “that is no reason for being unjust towards God.”
A silence ensued.
All breasts were oppressed.
Jean Valjean turned to Cosette.
He began to gaze at her as though he wished to retain her features for eternity.
In the depths of the shadow into which he had already descended, ecstasy was still possible to him when gazing at Cosette.
The reflection of that sweet face lighted up his pale visage.
The doctor felt of his pulse.
“Ah! it was you that he wanted!” he murmured, looking at Cosette and Marius.
And bending down to Marius’ ear, he added in a very low voice: “Too late.”
Jean Valjean surveyed the doctor and Marius serenely, almost without ceasing to gaze at Cosette.
These barely articulate words were heard to issue from his mouth:
“It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live.”
All at once he rose to his feet.
These accesses of strength are sometimes the sign of the death agony.
He walked with a firm step to the wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, detached from the wall a little copper crucifix which was suspended there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of perfect health, and said in a loud voice, as he laid the crucifix on the table:
“Behold the great martyr.”
Then his chest sank in, his head wavered, as though the intoxication of the tomb were seizing hold upon him. His hands, which rested on his knees, began to press their nails into the stuff of his trousers.
Cosette supported his shoulders, and sobbed, and tried to speak to him, but could not.
Among the words mingled with that mournful saliva which accompanies tears, they distinguished words like the following:
“Father, do not leave us.
Is it possible that we have found you only to lose you again?”
It might be said that agony writhes. It goes, comes, advances towards the sepulchre, and returns towards life.
There is groping in the action of dying.
Jean Valjean rallied after this semi-swoon, shook his brow as though to make the shadows fall away from it and became almost perfectly lucid once more.
He took a fold of Cosette’s sleeve and kissed it.
“He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back,” cried Marius.
“You are good, both of you,” said Jean Valjean.
“I am going to tell you what has caused me pain.
What has pained me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that you have not been willing to touch that money.
That money really belongs to your wife.
I will explain to you, my children, and for that reason, also, I am glad to see you.
Black jet comes from England, white jet comes from Norway.
All this is in this paper, which you will read.
For bracelets, I invented a way of substituting for slides of soldered sheet iron, slides of iron laid together.
It is prettier, better and less costly.
You will understand how much money can be made in that way.
So Cosette’s fortune is really hers.
I give you these details, in order that your mind may be set at rest.”
The portress had come upstairs and was gazing in at the half-open door.
The doctor dismissed her. But he could not prevent this zealous woman from exclaiming to the dying man before she disappeared:
“Would you like a priest?”
“I have had one,” replied Jean Valjean. And with his finger he seemed to indicate a point above his head where one would have said that he saw some one.
It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death agony.
Cosette gently slipped a pillow under his loins.
Jean Valjean resumed:
“Have no fear, Monsieur Pontmercy, I adjure you.
The six hundred thousand francs really belong to Cosette.