CHAPTER III--A TEMPEST IN A SKULL

  The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no otherthan Jean Valjean.

  We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment hasnow come when we must take another look into it. We do so not withoutemotion and trepidation. There is nothing more terrible in existencethan this sort of contemplation. The eye of the spirit can nowhere findmore dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it can fix itselfon no other thing which is more formidable, more complicated, moremysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle more grand than thesea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it isthe inmost recesses of the soul.

  To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference toa single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, wouldbe to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscienceis the chaos of chimæras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace ofdreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemoniumof sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, atcertain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engagedin reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into thatobscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants,like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons andhydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary circles, as inDante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears withinhim, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of hisbrain and the actions of his life!

  Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which hehesitated. Here is one before us, upon whose threshold we hesitate. Letus enter, nevertheless.

  We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what hadhappened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. Fromthat moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. Whatthe Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was morethan a transformation; it was a transfiguration.

  He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop's silver, reserving onlythe candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversedFrance, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned,accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safefrom seizure and inaccessible, and, thenceforth, established at M. surM., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the firsthalf of his existence belied by the last, he lived in peace, reassuredand hopeful, having henceforth only two thoughts,--to conceal his nameand to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God.

  These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind thatthey formed but a single one there; both were equally absorbing andimperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspiredto regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him towards the gloom;they rendered him kindly and simple; they counselled him to the samethings. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the readerwill remember, the man whom all the country of M. sur M. called M.Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second--hissecurity to his virtue. Thus, in spite of all his reserve and all hisprudence, he had preserved the Bishop's candlesticks, worn mourning forhim, summoned and interrogated all the little Savoyards who passed thatway, collected information regarding the families at Faverolles, andsaved old Fauchelevent's life, despite the disquieting insinuations ofJavert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, as though he thought,following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just,that his first duty was not towards himself.

  At the same time, it must be confessed, nothing just like this had yetpresented itself.

  Never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferingswe are narrating, engaged in so serious a struggle. He understood thisconfusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert,when the latter entered his study. At the moment when that name, whichhe had buried beneath so many layers, was so strangely articulated,he was struck with stupor, and as though intoxicated with the sinistereccentricity of his destiny; and through this stupor he felt thatshudder which precedes great shocks. He bent like an oak at the approachof a storm, like a soldier at the approach of an assault. He feltshadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his head.As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him was togo, to run and denounce himself, to take that Champmathieu out of prisonand place himself there; this was as painful and as poignant as anincision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said tohimself, "We will see! We will see!" He repressed this first, generousinstinct, and recoiled before heroism.

  It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, afterso many years of repentance and abnegation, in the midst of a penitenceadmirably begun, if this man had not flinched for an instant, even inthe presence of so terrible a conjecture, but had continued to walk withthe same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of whichlay heaven; that would have been beautiful; but it was not thus. We mustrender an account of the things which went on in this soul, and we canonly tell what there was there. He was carried away, at first, bythe instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste,stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert's presence, thatgreat danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shookoff thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as awarrior picks up his buckler.

  He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwindwithin, a profound tranquillity without. He took no "preservativemeasures," as they may be called. Everything was still confused, andjostling together in his brain. His trouble was so great that he couldnot perceive the form of a single idea distinctly, and he could havetold nothing about himself, except that he had received a great blow.

  He repaired to Fantine's bed of suffering, as usual, and prolonged hisvisit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behavethus, and recommend her well to the sisters, in case he should beobliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might beobliged to go to Arras; and without having the least in the world madeup his mind to this trip, he said to himself that being, as he was,beyond the shadow of any suspicion, there could be nothing out of theway in being a witness to what was to take place, and he engaged thetilbury from Scaufflaire in order to be prepared in any event.

  He dined with a good deal of appetite.

  On returning to his room, he communed with himself.

  He examined the situation, and found it unprecedented; so unprecedentedthat in the midst of his revery he rose from his chair, moved by someinexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He fearedlest something more should enter. He was barricading himself againstpossibilities.

  A moment later he extinguished his light; it embarrassed him.

  It seemed to him as though he might be seen.

  By whom?

  Alas! That on which he desired to close the door had already entered;that which he desired to blind was staring him in the face,--hisconscience.

  His conscience; that is to say, God.

  Nevertheless, he deluded himself at first; he had a feeling of securityand of solitude; the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable;the candle extinguished, he felt himself invisible. Then he tookpossession of himself: he set his elbows on the table, leaned his headon his hand, and began to meditate in the dark.

  "Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it reallytrue that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in thatmanner? Who can that Champmathieu be? So he resembles me! Is itpossible? When I reflect that yesterday I was so tranquil, and so farfrom suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? Whatis there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done?"

  This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost itspower of retaining ideas; they passed like waves, and he clutched hisbrow in both hands to arrest them.

  Nothing but anguish extricated itself from this tumult which overwhelmedhis will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof andresolution.

  His head was burning. He went to the window and threw it wide open.There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at thetable.

  The first hour passed in this manner.

  Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fixthemselves in his meditation, and he was able to catch a glimpse withprecision of the reality,--not the whole situation, but some ofthe details. He began by recognizing the fact that, critical andextraordinary as was this situation, he was completely master of it.

  This only caused an increase of his stupor.

  Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned tohis actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but ahole in which to bury his name. That which he had always feared most ofall in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was toever hear that name pronounced; he had said to himself, that that wouldbe the end of all things for him; that on the day when that name madeits reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from abouthim, and--who knows?--perhaps even his new soul within him, also. Heshuddered at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if anyone had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when thatname would ring in his ears, when the hideous words, Jean Valjean, wouldsuddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when thatformidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he hadenveloped himself, would suddenly blaze forth above his head, and thatthat name would not menace him, that that light would but producean obscurity more dense, that this rent veil would but increase themystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that thisprodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he wasconcerned, if so it seemed good to him, than that of rendering hisexistence at once clearer and more impenetrable, and that, out of hisconfrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthycitizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful, andmore respected than ever--if any one had told him that, he would havetossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, allthis was precisely what had just come to pass; all that accumulation ofimpossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted these wild fancies tobecome real things!

  His revery continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to anunderstanding of his position.

  It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from some inexplicabledream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middleof the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the verybrink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger,a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom shewas thrusting into the gulf in his stead; in order that the gulf mightclose once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or that otherman, should fall into it: he had only let things take their course.

  The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: Thathis place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was stillawaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it;that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he filledit; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself,"that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that acertain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself,being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, presentin society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear,provided that he did not prevent men from sealing over the head ofthat Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the stone of thesepulchre, falls once, never to rise again."

  All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took placein him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than twoor three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of theconscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart, whichis composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be called anoutburst of inward laughter.

  He hastily relighted his candle.

  "Well, what then?" he said to himself; "what am I afraid of? What isthere in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I hadbut one partly open door through which my past might invade my life,and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has beenannoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divinedme, which had divined me--good God! and which followed me everywhere;that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrownoff the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail:henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his JeanValjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town!And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I countfor nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in this? Upon myhonor, people would think, to see me, that some catastrophe had happenedto me! After all, if it does bring harm to some one, that is not myfault in the least: it is Providence which has done it all; it isbecause it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrangewhat it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should I meddle? It doesnot concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what more do I want? Thegoal to which I have aspired for so many years, the dream of my nights,the object of my prayers to Heaven,--security,--I have now attained; itis God who wills it; I can do nothing against the will of God, and whydoes God will it? In order that I may continue what I have begun, that Imay do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, thatit may be said at last, that a little happiness has been attached tothe penance which I have undergone, and to that virtue to which I havereturned. Really, I do not understand why I was afraid, a little whileago, to enter the house of that good curé, and to ask his advice; thisis evidently what he would have said to me: It is settled; let thingstake their course; let the good God do as he likes!"

  Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bendingover what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair, and beganto pace the room: "Come," said he, "let us think no more about it; myresolve is taken!" but he felt no joy.

  Quite the reverse.

  One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one canthe sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; theguilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean.

  After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed thegloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, sayingthat which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to that whichhe would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious powerwhich said to him: "Think!" as it said to another condemned man, twothousand years ago, "March on!"

  Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fullyunderstood, let us insist upon one necessary observation.

  It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no livingbeing who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is nevera more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to consciencewithin a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is inthis sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, _hesaid, he exclaimed_, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talksto one's self, exclaims to one's self without breaking the externalsilence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except themouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities becausethey are not visible and palpable.

  So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that"settled resolve." He confessed to himself that all that he had justarranged in his mind was monstrous, that "to let things take theircourse, to let the good God do as he liked," was simply horrible; toallow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it,to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short,was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the lastdegree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime!

  For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted thebitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action.

  He spit it out with disgust.

  He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he hadmeant by this, "My object is attained!" He declared to himself thathis life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name?To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done allthat he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was thetrue one--to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest andgood once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone,which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon him--toshut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great God! he wasre-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was becoming a thiefonce more, and the most odious of thieves! He was robbing another ofhis existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He wasbecoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretchedman. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that deathbeneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand,to surrender himself to save that man, struck down with so melancholyan error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, theconvict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection,and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall backthere in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must bedone! He had done nothing if he did not do all this; his whole life wasuseless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need ofsaying, "What is the use?" He felt that the Bishop was there, that theBishop was present all the more because he was dead, that the Bishopwas gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all hisvirtues, would be abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjeanwould be pure and admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, butthat the Bishop saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishopbeheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false JeanValjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest ofsacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take; butit must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyesof God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men.

  "Well," said he, "let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let ussave this man." He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that hewas speaking aloud.

  He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung inthe fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassedtradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it mighthave been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment,_To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d'Artois, Paris_. He drew from hissecretary a pocket-book which contained several bank-notes and thepassport of which he had made use that same year when he went to theelections.

  Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts,into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicionof what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his lips move; atother times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon some point of thewall, as though there existed at that point something which he wished toelucidate or interrogate.

  When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into hispocket, together with the pocket-book, and began his walk once more.

  His revery had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his dutyclearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes andchanged its place as he altered the direction of his glance:--

  _"Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself!"_

  In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him invisible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formedthe double rule of his soul,--the concealment of his name, thesanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him asabsolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated them.He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily, good,while the other might become bad; that the first was self-devotion, andthat the other was personality; that the one said, _my neighbour_, andthat the other said, _myself_; that one emanated from the light, and theother from darkness.

  They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion ashe meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had nowattained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld withinhimself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in themidst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending.

  He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good thoughtwas getting the upper hand.

  He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of hisconscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked the firstphase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. Afterthe grand crisis, the grand test.

  But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possessionof him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued tofortify him in his resolution.

  One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the mattertoo keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, andthat he had actually been guilty of theft.

  He answered himself: "If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, thatmeans a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the galleys. Andwho knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of Jean Valjeanoverwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not the attorneysfor the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is supposed to be athief because he is known to be a convict."

  In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when hedenounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken intoconsideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and what hehad done for the district, and that they would have mercy on him.

  But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as heremembered that the theft of the forty sous from little Gervais put himin the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction,that this affair would certainly come up, and, according to the preciseterms of the law, would render him liable to penal servitude for life.

  He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more and more fromearth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himselfthat he must do his duty; that perhaps he should not be more unhappyafter doing his duty than after having avoided it; that if he _allowedthings to take their own course_, if he remained at M. sur M., hisconsideration, his good name, his good works, the deference andveneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, hisvirtue, would be seasoned with a crime. And what would be the taste ofall these holy things when bound up with this hideous thing? while, ifhe accomplished his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled withthe galleys, the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil,and pitiless shame.

  At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thusallotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made onhigh, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without andabomination within, or holiness within and infamy without.

  The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his courage tofail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, ofindifferent matters, in spite of himself.

  The veins in his temples throbbed violently; he still paced to and fro;midnight sounded first from the parish church, then from the town-hall;he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the soundsof the two bells; he recalled in this connection the fact that, a fewdays previously, he had seen in an ironmonger's shop an ancientclock for sale, upon which was written the name, _Antoine-Albin deRomainville_.

  He was cold; he lighted a small fire; it did not occur to him to closethe window.

  In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged to makea tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the subject of histhoughts before midnight had struck; he finally succeeded in doing this.

  "Ah! yes," he said to himself, "I had resolved to inform againstmyself."

  And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine.

  "Hold!" said he, "and what about that poor woman?"

  Here a fresh crisis declared itself.

  Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his revery, produced the effectof an unexpected ray of light; it seemed to him as though everythingabout him were undergoing a change of aspect: he exclaimed:--

  "Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself; it is proper forme to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to conceal my person orto save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or aninfamous and venerable convict; it is I, it is always I and nothingbut I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse formsof egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think alittle about others? The highest holiness is to think of others; come,let us examine the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_forgotten, what would be the result of all this? What if I denouncemyself? I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back inthe galleys; that is well--and what then? What is going on here? Ah!here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers,both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this Ihave created; all these I provide with their living; everywhere wherethere is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on thehearth and meat in the pot; I have created ease, circulation, credit;before me there was nothing; I have elevated, vivified, informed withlife, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole country-side; lackingme, the soul is lacking; I take myself off, everything dies: and thiswoman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spiteof her fall; the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been! Andthat child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to hermother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation forthe evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The motherdies; the child becomes what it can; that is what will take place, ifI denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? come, let us see how itwill be if I do not denounce myself."

  After putting this question to himself, he paused; he seemed to undergoa momentary hesitation and trepidation; but it did not last long, and heanswered himself calmly:--

  "Well, this man is going to the galleys; it is true, but what the deuce!he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been guiltyof theft, for he has! I remain here; I go on: in ten years I shall havemade ten millions; I scatter them over the country; I have nothing ofmy own; what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am doing it;the prosperity of all goes on augmenting; industries are aroused andanimated; factories and shops are multiplied; families, a hundredfamilies, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomespopulated; villages spring up where there were only farms before;farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, andwith wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder; all vicesdisappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and beholda whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd!what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must payattention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it wouldhave pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, afterall; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! forthe sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps,but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing,evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor woman must die inthe hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street! like dogs; ah,this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her childonce more, almost without the child's having known her mother; andall that for the sake of an old wretch of an apple-thief who, mostassuredly, has deserved the galleys for something else, if not forthat; fine scruples, indeed, which save a guilty man and sacrifice theinnocent, which save an old vagabond who has only a few years to live atmost, and who will not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel,and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. Thispoor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, nodoubt, blue with cold at this moment in the den of those Thénardiers;those peoples are rascals; and I was going to neglect my duty towardsall these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce myself; and Iwas about to commit that unspeakable folly! Let us put it at the worst:suppose that there is a wrong action on my part in this, and that myconscience will reproach me for it some day, to accept, for the good ofothers, these reproaches which weigh only on myself; this evil actionwhich compromises my soul alone; in that lies self-sacrifice; in thatalone there is virtue."

  He rose and resumed his march; this time, he seemed to be content.

  Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths arefound only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, afterhaving descended into these depths, after having long groped among thedarkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds,one of these truths, and that he now held it in his hand, and he wasdazzled as he gazed upon it.

  "Yes," he thought, "this is right; I am on the right road; I have thesolution; I must end by holding fast to something; my resolve is taken;let things take their course; let us no longer vacillate; let us nolonger hang back; this is for the interest of all, not for my own; I amMadeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean!I am no longer he; I do not know that man; I no longer know anything; itturns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present moment; let himlook out for himself; that does not concern me; it is a fatal name whichwas floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a head, somuch the worse for that head."

  He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece, andsaid:--

  "Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision; I am quite another mannow."

  He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short.

  "Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before any of the consequences ofthe resolution which I have once adopted; there are still threads whichattach me to that Jean Valjean; they must be broken; in this very roomthere are objects which would betray me, dumb things which would bearwitness against me; it is settled; all these things must disappear."

  He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out asmall key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardlybe seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones of the design whichcovered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort offalse cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and thechimney-piece; in this hiding-place there were some rags--a blue linenblouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge thorncudgel shod with iron at both ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean atthe epoch when he passed through D----in October, 1815, could easilyhave recognized all the pieces of this miserable outfit.

  He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks, inorder to remind himself continually of his starting-point, but hehad concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had allowed thecandlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen.

  He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that itwould open in spite of the bolt which fastened it; then, with a quickand abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms at once, withoutbestowing so much as a glance on the things which he had so religiouslyand so perilously preserved for so many years, and flung them all, rags,cudgel, knapsack, into the fire.

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  He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions,henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the doorbehind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front of it.

  After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall werelighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire;the thorn cudgel snapped and threw out sparks to the middle of thechamber.

  As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags which itcontained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By bendingover, one could have readily recognized a coin,--no doubt the forty-soupiece stolen from the little Savoyard.

  He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with the samestep.

  All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which shonevaguely on the chimney-piece, through the glow.

  "Hold!" he thought; "the whole of Jean Valjean is still in them. Theymust be destroyed also."

  He seized the two candlesticks.

  There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out of shape,and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal.

  He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a senseof real comfort. "How good warmth is!" said he.

  He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks.

  A minute more, and they were both in the fire.

  At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within himshouting: "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!"

  His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to someterrible thing.

  "Yes, that's it! finish!" said the voice. "Complete what you are about!Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop!Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right! Applaudyourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed: here is an old manwho does not know what is wanted of him, who has, perhaps, done nothing,an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in your name, upon whomyour name weighs like a crime, who is about to be taken for you, whowill be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror.That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire;remain honorable and honored; enrich the town; nourish the indigent;rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and admired; and, during thistime, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be aman who will wear your red blouse, who will bear your name in ignominy,and who will drag your chain in the galleys. Yes, it is well arrangedthus. Ah, wretch!"

  The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on thecandlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. Thevoice continued:--

  "Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make agreat noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, andonly one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark.Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back beforethey reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God."

  This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the mostobscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling andformidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him thatit had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outsideof him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that heglanced around the room in a sort of terror.

  "Is there any one here?" he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment.

  Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:--

  "How stupid I am! There can be no one!"

  There was some one; but the person who was there was of those whom thehuman eye cannot see.

  He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece.

  Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which troubled thedreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start.

  This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him.It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved aboutfor the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounterby change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knewhis position.

  He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions at which hehad arrived in turn. The two ideas which counselled him appeared to himequally fatal. What a fatality! What conjunction that that Champmathieushould have been taken for him; to be overwhelmed by precisely the meanswhich Providence seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen hisposition!

  There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself,great God! Deliver himself up! With immense despair he faced all thathe should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take uponce more. He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was sogood, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty.He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never more hear thebirds sing in the month of May; he should never more bestow alms on thelittle children; he should never more experience the sweetness of havingglances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he should quit that housewhich he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming tohim at that moment. Never again should he read those books; never moreshould he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress,the only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him his coffeein the morning. Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the ironnecklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell,the camp bed all those horrors which he knew so well! At his age,after having been what he was! If he were only young again! but tobe addressed in his old age as "thou" by any one who pleased; tobe searched by the convict-guard; to receive the galley-sergeant'scudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have tostretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman whovisits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would betold: "That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor ofM. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed withlassitude, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount, two bytwo, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the sergeant's whip.Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligentbeing, and become as monstrous as the human heart?

  And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemmawhich lay at the foundation of his revery: "Should he remain in paradiseand become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?"

  What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done?

  The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty wasunchained afresh within him. His ideas began to grow confused oncemore; they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which ispeculiar to despair. The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to hismind, with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past.He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris, where younglovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April.

  He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little childwho is permitted to toddle alone.

  At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to recoverthe mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time,and definitely, the problem over which he had, in a manner, fallenprostrate with fatigue: Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he to holdhis peace? He could not manage to see anything distinctly. The vagueaspects of all the courses of reasoning which had been sketched out byhis meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke.He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up his mind,something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his beingable to escape the fact; that he was entering a sepulchre on theright hand as much as on the left; that he was passing through a deathagony,--the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue.

  Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him. He was nofurther advanced than at the beginning.

  Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundredyears before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom aresummed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had alsolong thrust aside with his hand, while the olive-trees quivered inthe wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Himdripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths allstudded with stars.