CHAPTER II

THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN


Marius was quite upset.

The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man
beside whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him.
There was something enigmatic about that person, of which his
instinct had warned him.

This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys.
This M. Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean.

To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness
resembles the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves.

Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned
to such a neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the
acceptance of that man form a part of the marriage now consummated?
Was there nothing to be done?

Had Marius wedded the convict as well?

In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste
the grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force
even the archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory,
to shudder.

As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked
himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself.
Had he been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence?
Had he involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he
entered upon this love affair, which had ended in his marriage
to Cosette, without taking sufficient precautions to throw light
upon the surroundings? He admitted,--it is thus, by a series
of successive admissions of ourselves in regard to ourselves,
that life amends us, little by little,--he admitted the chimerical
and visionary side of his nature, a sort of internal cloud peculiar
to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms of passion and sorrow,
dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, and invades the
entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing more than a
conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once indicated this
characteristic element of Marius' individuality.

He recalled that, in the intoxication of his love, in the Rue Plumet,
during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoke
to Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim
had taken up such a singular line of silence during the struggle
and the ensuing flight. How had it happened that he had not
mentioned this to Cosette? Yet it was so near and so terrible!
How had it come to pass that he had not even named the Thenardiers,
and, particularly, on the day when he had encountered Eponine?
He now found it almost difficult to explain his silence of that time.
Nevertheless, he could account for it. He recalled his benumbed
state, his intoxication with Cosette, love absorbing everything,
that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps also,
like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with this violent
and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull instinct impelling him
to conceal and abolish in his memory that redoubtable adventure,
contact with which he dreaded, in which he did not wish to play
any part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and in which he
could be neither narrator nor witness without being an accuser.

Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning; there had
been no time for anything except love.

In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his mind,
examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he
had told Cosette about the Gorbeau ambush, even if he had discovered
that Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius?
Would that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have drawn back?
Would he have adored her any the less? Would he have refrained
from marrying her? No. Then there was nothing to regret,
nothing with which he need reproach himself. All was well.
There is a deity for those drunken men who are called lovers.
Marius blind, had followed the path which he would have chosen had he
been in full possession of his sight. Love had bandaged his eyes,
in order to lead him whither? To paradise.

But this paradise was henceforth complicated
with an infernal accompaniment.

Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent
who had turned into Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror.

In this horror, let us state, there was some pity, and even
a certain surprise.

This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored
that deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs.

He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept
it all, he had restored it all.

Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him
to this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself.
In this avowal there was something more than acceptance of humiliation,
there was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask is not
a mask, it is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected
that false name. He, the galley-slave, might have hidden himself
forever in an honest family; he had withstood this temptation.
And with what motive? Through a conscientious scruple.
He himself explained this with the irresistible accents of truth.
In short, whatever this Jean Valjean might be, he was, undoubtedly,
a conscience which was awakening. There existed some mysterious
re-habilitation which had begun; and, to all appearances,
scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. Such fits
of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar natures.
An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul.

Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable,
irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered
inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that that man had said.

Here, for Marius, there was a strange reversal of situations.
What breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean
inspire? confidence.

In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive
Marius struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted
the passive principle, and he tried to reach a balance.

But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring
to form a clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean,
so to speak, in the depths of his thought, lost him and found him
again in a fatal mist.

The deposit honestly restored, the probity of the confession--
these were good. This produced a lightening of the cloud,
then the cloud became black once more.

Troubled as were Marius' memories, a shadow of them returned to him.

After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic?
Why had that man taken to flight on the arrival of the police,
instead of entering a complaint?

Here Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive
from justice, who had broken his ban.

Another question: Why had that man come to the barricade?

For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection
which had re-appeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink at
the application of heat. This man had been in the barricade.
He had not fought there. What had he come there for? In the presence
of this question a spectre sprang up and replied: "Javert."

Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean Valjean
dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade, and he still
heard behind the corner of the little Rue Mondetour that frightful
pistol shot. Obviously, there was hatred between that police spy
and the galley-slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean
had gone to the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself.
He had arrived late. He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there.
The Corsican vendetta has penetrated to certain lower strata and has
become the law there; it is so simple that it does not astonish
souls which are but half turned towards good; and those hearts are
so constituted that a criminal, who is in the path of repentance,
may be scrupulous in the matter of theft and unscrupulous in the
matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed Javert. At least,
that seemed to be evident.

This was the final question, to be sure; but to this there was
no reply. This question Marius felt like pincers. How had it come
to pass that Jean Valjean's existence had elbowed that of Cosette
for so long a period?

What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed
that child in contact with that man? Are there then chains
for two which are forged on high? and does God take pleasure
in coupling the angel with the demon? So a crime and an innocence
can be room-mates in the mysterious galleys of wretchedness?
In that defiling of condemned persons which is called human destiny,
can two brows pass side by side, the one ingenuous, the other
formidable, the one all bathed in the divine whiteness of dawn,
the other forever blemished by the flash of an eternal lightning?
Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing off? In what manner,
in consequence of what prodigy, had any community of life been
established between this celestial little creature and that old criminal?

Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still
more incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb?
For the wolf loved the lamb, for the fierce creature adored
the feeble one, for, during the space of nine years, the angel
had had the monster as her point of support. Cosette's childhood
and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, her virginal growth towards
life and light, had been sheltered by that hideous devotion.
Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into innumerable enigmas,
abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and Marius could no longer bend
over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. What was this man-precipice?

The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it
now exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it,
there will always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean;
the one which is according to good is Abel; the other which is
according to evil is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was
this ruffian religiously absorbed in the adoration of a virgin,
watching over her, rearing her, guarding her, dignifying her,
and enveloping her, impure as he was himself, with purity?

What was that cess-pool which had venerated that innocence to such
a point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean
Valjean educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows
which had for its only object the preservation of the rising
of a star from every shadow and from every cloud?

That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret.

In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one,
in some sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible
in this affair as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments.
He makes use of the tool which he wills. He is not responsible
to men. Do we know how God sets about the work? Jean Valjean
had labored over Cosette. He had, to some extent, made that soul.
That was incontestable. Well, what then? The workman was horrible;
but the work was admirable. God produces his miracles as seems
good to him. He had constructed that charming Cosette, and he had
employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this strange
collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him?
Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided the spring to create
the rose?

Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they
were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points
which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that
he did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette,
Cosette was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him.
What enlightenment did he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require
enlightenment? He had everything; what more could he desire? All,--
is not that enough? Jean Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him.

And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast,
convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch:
"I am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she
was in existence."

Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself.
Well, he had passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished.

Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence
to Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself,
in her lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took
her flight, winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth
her hideous and empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean.

In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned
to a certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for,
as we have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man.
But do what he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was
certainly forced to fall back upon this: the man was a convict;
that is to say, a being who has not even a place in the social ladder,
since he is lower than the very lowest rung. After the very last
of men comes the convict. The convict is no longer, so to speak,
in the semblance of the living. The law has deprived him of the entire
quantity of humanity of which it can deprive a man.

Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system,
though he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the
law on the subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet
accomplished all progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish
between that which is written by man and that which is written by God,
between law and right. He had not examined and weighed the right
which man takes to dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable.
He was not shocked by the word vindicte. He found it quite simple
that certain breaches of the written law should be followed by
eternal suffering, and he accepted, as the process of civilization,
social damnation. He still stood at this point, though safe to advance
infallibly later on, since his nature was good, and, at bottom,
wholly formed of latent progress.

In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous
and repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict.
That word was for him like the sound of the trump on the Day
of Judgment; and, after having reflected upon Jean Valjean for
a long time, his final gesture had been to turn away his head.
Vade retro.

Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact,
while interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean
had said: "You are confessing me," had not, nevertheless, put to
him two or three decisive questions.

It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind,
but that he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic?
The barricade? Javert? Who knows where these revelations would
have stopped? Jean Valjean did not seem like a man who would
draw back, and who knows whether Marius, after having urged him on,
would not have himself desired to hold him back?

Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures,
to stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have
asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way
to these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister
situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side
of our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light
might have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean,
and who knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted
forth as far as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal
glow would not have lingered behind it on the brow of that angel?
The spattering of a lightning-flash is of the thunder also.
Fatality has points of juncture where innocence itself is stamped
with crime by the gloomy law of the reflections which give color.
The purest figures may forever preserve the reflection of a
horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius had been afraid.
He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses rather
than to gain further light.

In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes
to Jean Valjean.

That man was the night, the living and horrible night.
How should he dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing
to interrogate the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be?
The dawn may be blackened forever by it.

In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth,
come into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending
perplexity to Marius.

He now almost reproached himself for not having put those
formidable questions, before which he had recoiled, and from
which an implacable and definitive decision might have sprung.
He felt that he was too good, too gentle, too weak, if we must say
the word. This weakness had led him to an imprudent concession.
He had allowed himself to be touched. He had been in the wrong.
He ought to have simply and purely rejected Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean
played the part of fire, and that is what he should have done,
and have freed his house from that man.

He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind
of emotions which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away.
He was displeased with himself.

What was he to do now? Jean Valjean's visits were profoundly repugnant
to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did
the man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down,
he did not wish to penetrate deeply; he did not wish to sound himself.
He had promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise;
Jean Valjean held his promise; one must keep one's word even to a convict,
above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette.
In short, he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him.

Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind,
passing from one to the other, and moved by all of them.
Hence arose a profound trouble.

It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love
is a talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it.

However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette,
who was as candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing;
he talked of her childhood and her youth, and he became more
and more convinced that that convict had been everything good,
paternal and respectable that a man can be towards Cosette.
All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had surmised was real.
That sinister nettle had loved and protected that lily.