Part 266 (1/2)

Javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert's look was terrible.

Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert's grasp, like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx.

”Inspector Javert,” said he, ”you have me in your power. Moreover, I have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning. I did not give you my address with any intention of escaping from you. Take me.

Only grant me one favor.”

Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riveted on Jean Valjean. His chin being contracted, thrust his lips upwards towards his nose, a sign of savage revery. At length he released Jean Valjean, straightened himself stiffly up without bending, grasped his bludgeon again firmly, and, as though in a dream, he murmured rather than uttered this question:

”What are you doing here? And who is this man?”

He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou.

Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice appeared to rouse Javert:

”It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you. Dispose of me as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I ask of you.”

Javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to think him capable of making a concession. Nevertheless, he did not say ”no.”

Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief which he moistened in the water and with which he then wiped Marius'

blood-stained brow.

”This man was at the barricade,” said he in a low voice and as though speaking to himself. ”He is the one they called Marius.”

A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes.

He seized Marius' hand and felt his pulse.

”He is wounded,” said Jean Valjean.

”He is a dead man,” said Javert.

Jean Valjean replied:

”No. Not yet.”

”So you have brought him thither from the barricade?” remarked Javert.

His preoccupation must indeed have been very profound for him not to insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer, and for him not to even notice Jean Valjean's silence after his question.

Jean Valjean, on his side, seemed to have but one thought. He resumed:

”He lives in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, with his grandfather. I do not recollect his name.”

Jean Valjean fumbled in Marius' coat, pulled out his pocket-book, opened it at the page which Marius had pencilled, and held it out to Javert.

There was still sufficient light to admit of reading. Besides this, Javert possessed in his eye the feline phosph.o.r.escence of night birds. He deciphered the few lines written by Marius, and muttered: ”Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du Calvaire, No. 6.”

Then he exclaimed: ”Coachman!”