Les Misérables, page 125
CHAPTER IX--THE MAN WITH THE BELL
He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had takenin his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat.
The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In afew strides Jean Valjean stood beside him.
Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:--
"One hundred francs!"
The man gave a start and raised his eyes.
"You can earn a hundred francs," went on Jean Valjean, "if you willgrant me shelter for this night."
The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance.
"What! so it is you, Father Madeleine!" said the man.
That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that unknown spot,by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back.
He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him wasa bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on hisleft knee a leather knee-cap, whence hung a moderately large bell. Hisface, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable.
However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed, trembling allover:--
"Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter?Dieu-Jésus! Did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that:if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what a state you are in!You have no cravat; you have no hat; you have no coat! Do you know, youwould have frightened any one who did not know you? No coat! Lord God!Are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here?"
His words tumbled over each other. The goodman talked with a rusticvolubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was utteredwith a mixture of stupefaction and _naïve_ kindliness.
"Who are you? and what house is this?" demanded Jean Valjean.
"Ah! pardieu, this is too much!" exclaimed the old man. "I am the personfor whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you hadme placed. What! You don't recognize me?"
"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how happens it that you know me?"
"You saved my life," said the man.
He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjeanrecognized old Fauchelevent.
"Ah!" said Jean Valjean, "so it is you? Yes, I recollect you."
"That is very lucky," said the old man, in a reproachful tone.
"And what are you doing here?" resumed Jean Valjean.
"Why, I am covering my melons, of course!"
In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Faucheleventheld in his hand the end of a straw mat which he was occupied inspreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he hadbeen in the garden he had already spread out a number of them. It wasthis operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar movementsobserved from the shed by Jean Valjean.
He continued:--
"I said to myself, 'The moon is bright: it is going to freeze. What if Iwere to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And," he added, looking atJean Valjean with a broad smile,--"pardieu! you ought to have done thesame! But how do you come here?"
Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under thename of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution. He multipliedhis questions. Strange to say, their rôles seemed to be reversed. It washe, the intruder, who interrogated.
"And what is this bell which you wear on your knee?"
"This," replied Fauchelevent, "is so that I may be avoided."
"What! so that you may be avoided?"
Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air.
"Ah, goodness! there are only women in this house--many young girls. Itappears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell gives themwarning. When I come, they go."
"What house is this?"
"Come, you know well enough."
"But I do not."
"Not when you got me the place here as gardener?"
"Answer me as though I knew nothing."
"Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent."
Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence,had cast him into precisely that convent in the Quartier Saint-Antoinewhere old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had beenadmitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, asthough talking to himself:--
"The Petit-Picpus convent."
"Exactly," returned old Fauchelevent. "But to come to the point, how thedeuce did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine? No matter ifyou are a saint; you are a man as well, and no man enters here."
"You certainly are here."
"There is no one but me."
"Still," said Jean Valjean, "I must stay here."
"Ah, good God!" cried Fauchelevent.
Jean Valjean drew near to the old man, and said to him in a gravevoice:--
"Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life."
"I was the first to recall it," returned Fauchelevent.
"Well, you can do to-day for me that which I did for you in the oldendays."
Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands JeanValjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as thoughincapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed:--
"Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make yousome little return for that! Save your life! Monsieur le Maire, disposeof the old man!"
A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed toemit a ray of light.
"What do you wish me to do?" he resumed.
"That I will explain to you. You have a chamber?"
"I have an isolated hovel yonder, behind the ruins of the old convent,in a corner which no one ever looks into. There are three rooms in it."
The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and so cleverlyarranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean had not perceivedit.
"Good," said Jean Valjean. "Now I am going to ask two things of you."
"What are they, Mr. Mayor?"
"In the first place, you are not to tell any one what you know about me.In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more."
"As you please. I know that you can do nothing that is not honest,that you have always been a man after the good God's heart. And then,moreover, you it was who placed me here. That concerns you. I am at yourservice."
"That is settled then. Now, come with me. We will go and get the child."
"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "so there is a child?"
He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as a dog followshis master.
Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown rosy againbefore the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old gardener'sbed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more; his hat,which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. WhileJean Valjean was putting on his coat, Fauchelevent had removed thebell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket thatadorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbowsresting on a table upon which Fauchelevent had placed a bit of cheese,black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man wassaying to Jean Valjean, as he laid his hand on the latter's knee:"Ah! Father Madeleine! You did not recognize me immediately; you savepeople's lives, and then you forget them! That is bad! But they rememberyou! You are an ingrate!"
