Les Misérables. Виктор Мари Гюго

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       CHAPTER II—HOW JEAN MAY BECOME CHAMP

       Table of Contents

      One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor’s office, in case he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was informed that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with him. Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on hearing this name. Javert had avoided him more than ever since the affair of the police-station, and M. Madeleine had not seen him.

      “Admit him,” he said.

      Javert entered.

      M. Madeleine had retained his seat near the fire, pen in hand, his eyes fixed on the docket which he was turning over and annotating, and which contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert’s account. He could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be glacial in his manner.

      Javert bestowed a respectful salute on the mayor, whose back was turned to him. The mayor did not look at him, but went on annotating this docket.

      Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without breaking the silence.

      If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had made a lengthy study of this savage in the service of civilization, this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the corporal, this spy who was incapable of a lie, this unspotted police agent—if any physiognomist had known his secret and long-cherished aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said to himself, “What has taken place?” It was evident to any one acquainted with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few paces in the rear of the mayor’s armchair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, in an attitude almost of discipline, with the cold, ingenuous roughness of a man who has never been gentle and who has always been patient; he waited without uttering a word, without making a movement, in genuine humility and tranquil resignation, calm, serious, hat in hand, with eyes cast down, and an expression which was half-way between that of a soldier in the presence of his officer and a criminal in the presence of his judge, until it should please the mayor to turn round. All the sentiments as well as all the memories which one might have attributed to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as granite, no longer bore any trace of anything but a melancholy depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and an indescribable courageous despondency.

      At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned half round.

      “Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?”

      Javert remained silent for an instant as though collecting his ideas, then raised his voice with a sort of sad solemnity, which did not, however, preclude simplicity.

      “This is the matter, Mr. Mayor; a culpable act has been committed.”

      “What act?”

      “An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to your knowledge, as it is my duty to do.”

      “Who is the agent?” asked M. Madeleine.

      “I,” said Javert.

      “You?”

      “I.”

      “And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent?”

      “You, Mr. Mayor.”

      M. Madeleine sat erect in his armchair. Javert went on, with a severe air and his eyes still cast down.

      “Mr. Mayor, I have come to request you to instigate the authorities to dismiss me.”

      M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him:—

      “You will say that I might have handed in my resignation, but that does not suffice. Handing in one’s resignation is honorable. I have failed in my duty; I ought to be punished; I must be turned out.”

      And after a pause he added:—

      “Mr. Mayor, you were severe with me the other day, and unjustly. Be so to-day, with justice.”

      “Come, now! Why?” exclaimed M. Madeleine. “What nonsense is this? What is the meaning of this? What culpable act have you been guilty of towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard to me? You accuse yourself; you wish to be superseded—”

      “Turned out,” said Javert.

      “Turned out; so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand.”

      “You shall understand, Mr. Mayor.”

      Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still coldly and sadly:—

      “Mr. Mayor, six weeks ago, in consequence of the scene over that woman, I was furious, and I informed against you.”

      “Informed against me!”

      “At the Prefecture of Police in Paris.”

      M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than Javert himself, burst out laughing now:—

      “As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?”

      “As an ex-convict.”

      The mayor turned livid.

      Javert, who had not raised his eyes, went on:—

      “I thought it was so. I had had an idea for a long time; a resemblance; inquiries which you had caused to be made at Faverolles; the strength of your loins; the adventure with old Fauchelevant; your skill in marksmanship; your leg, which you drag a little;—I hardly know what all—absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean Valjean.”

      “A certain—What did you say the name was?”

      “Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing twenty years ago, when I was adjutant-guard of convicts at Toulon. On leaving the galleys, this Jean Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop; then he committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway on the person of a little Savoyard. He disappeared eight years ago, no one knows how, and he has been sought, I fancied. In short, I did this thing! Wrath impelled me; I denounced you at the Prefecture!”