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This terror incarnates itself sometimes and leaps horribly out upon us; as when the crouching mendicant looks up, and Jean Valjean, in the light of the street lamp, recognises the face of the detective; as when the lantern of the patrol flashes suddenly through the darkness of the sewer; or as when the fugitive comes forth at last at evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also, waiting stolidly for vice and stolidly satisfied to take virtue instead.
A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau. In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean found himself, this sombre building had about it a solitary and uninhabited look which tempted him. He ran his eyes rapidly over it; he said to himself, that if he could contrive to get inside it, he might save himself.
Certain convicts who were forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire system of mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to Jean Valjean.
However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, except her pallor. She still wore her sweet face for him. This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean. Sometimes he asked her: "What is the matter with you?" She replied: "There is nothing the matter with me." And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would add:
Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is." And she presented her other cheek. Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to the pavement. "This is becoming serious," said Cosette. "What have I done to you? I declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with us." "I have dined." "That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you.
One hallucination might pass, but two hallucinations? The disquieting point about it was, that the shadow had assuredly not been a phantom. Phantoms do not wear round hats. On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what she thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see her father shrug his shoulders and say to her: "You are a little goose."
He gazed at the galley-sergeant standing a few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to him. All of a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns.
What an idea! Marius told me that you wish me to receive you here." "Yes, it is my wish." "I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father." And she offered him her cheek. Jean Valjean remained motionless. "You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, I pardon you.
"I am forced to do so, since the real Jean Valjean has been found." The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his hand; he raised his head, gazed fixedly at Javert, and said with his indescribable accent: "Ah!" Javert continued: "This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor.
I'll open the door for you." And half drawing from beneath his tattered blouse a huge key, he added: "Do you want to see how a key to liberty is made? Look here." Jean Valjean "remained stupid" the expression belongs to the elder Corneille to such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was real.
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