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Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon Javert returned to Paris. "Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of March, 1824, he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish of Saint-Medard and who had been surnamed "the mendicant who gives alms."
"What time is it?" "Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago." "The devil!" ejaculated Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come you, do you listen here." A whispering ensued. Jondrette's voice became audible again: "Has old Bougon left?" "Yes," said the mother. "Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor's room?"
The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it. Jondrette started, half rose, listened a moment, then began to laugh and said: "What a fool I am! It's the partition cracking!" Marius kept the pistol in his hand. Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the panes. Six o'clock was striking from Saint-Medard. Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head.
At this word from his wife, Jondrette closed the door again, and this time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and descend the staircase rapidly. At that moment, one o'clock struck from the church of Saint-Medard. Marius, dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, firm and energetic by nature.
Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the balances of destiny! Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Medard, which is the nearest church.
The vat of Trophonius contains nothing that is not in Mesmer's tub; Ergaphilas lives again in Cagliostro; the Brahmin Vasaphanta become incarnate in the Comte de Saint-Germain; the cemetery of Saint-Medard works quite as good miracles as the Mosque of Oumoumie at Damascus. Paris has an AEsop-Mayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand.
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