Part 267 (1/2)
”He has got himself killed. Go waken his father.”
The porter did not stir.
”Go along with you!” repeated Javert.
And he added:
”There will be a funeral here to-morrow.”
For Javert, the usual incidents of the public highway were categorically cla.s.sed, which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance, and each contingency had its own compartment; all possible facts were arranged in drawers, as it were, whence they emerged on occasion, in variable quant.i.ties; in the street, uproar, revolt, carnival, and funeral.
The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette; Nicolette roused great-aunt Gillenormand.
As for the grandfather, they let him sleep on, thinking that he would hear about the matter early enough in any case.
Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa in M. Gillenormand's antechamber; and while Basque went in search of a physician, and while Nicolette opened the linen-presses, Jean Valjean felt Javert touch him on the shoulder. He understood and descended the stairs, having behind him the step of Javert who was following him.
The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their arrival, in terrified somnolence.
They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box.
”Inspector Javert,” said Jean, ”grant me yet another favor.”
”What is it?” demanded Javert roughly.
”Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like with me.”
Javert remained silent for a few moments, with his chin drawn back into the collar of his great-coat, then he lowered the gla.s.s and front:
”Driver,” said he, ”Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7.”
CHAPTER XI--CONCUSSION IN THE ABSOLUTE
They did not open their lips again during the whole s.p.a.ce of their ride.
What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun; to warn Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some other useful information, to take, if he could, certain final measures. As for himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over; he had been seized by Javert and had not resisted; any other man than himself in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts connected with the rope which Thenardier had given him, and of the bars of the first cell that he should enter; but, let us impress it upon the reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against himself.
Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean Valjean.
At the entrance to the Rue de l'Homme Arme, the carriage halted, the way being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and Jean Valjean alighted.
The coachman humbly represented to ”monsieur l'Inspecteur,” that the Utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the a.s.sa.s.sinated man, and with mire from the a.s.sa.s.sin. That is the way he understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same time, drawing his certificate book from his pocket, he begged the inspector to have the goodness to write him ”a bit of an attestation.”
Javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him, and said:
”How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive?”
”It comes to seven hours and a quarter,” replied the man, ”and my velvet was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector.”