________________________________________________
_ Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast
and of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made
to be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape,
with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall
forest trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre,
where could be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees,
gnarled and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch,
whose glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well.
Here and there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss.
The alleys were bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs.
The grass had half taken possession of them, and a green mould
covered the rest.
Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him
as a means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots,
directly against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was
no longer anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely
through the gloom.
The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were
distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a shed.
The large building of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had a wing on the Rue
Petit-Picpus, turned two facades, at right angles, towards this garden.
These interior facades were even more tragic than the exterior.
All the windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible
at any one of them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons.
One of those facades cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the
garden like an immense black pall.
No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist
and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out,
which intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond,
and the low roofs of the Rue Polonceau.
Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined.
There was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour;
but it did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk in,
even in broad daylight.
Jean Valjean's first care had been to get hold of his shoes
and put them on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette.
A man who is fleeing never thinks himself sufficiently hidden.
The child, whose thoughts were still on the Thenardier, shared his
instinct for withdrawing from sight as much as possible.
Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous
noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets;
the blows of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert's appeals
to the police spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled
with words which could not be distinguished.
At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that
species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean
held his breath.
He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette's mouth.
However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm,
that this frightful uproar, close and furious as it was,
did not disturb him by so much as the shadow of a misgiving.
It seemed as though those walls had been built of the deaf stones
of which the Scriptures speak.
All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose;
a sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had
been horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling
burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of
the night; women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time
of the pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,--
voices which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the
newborn infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already.
This song proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above
the garden. At the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one
would have said that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.
Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees.
They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both
of them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent,
felt that they must kneel.
These voices had this strange characteristic, that they
did not prevent the building from seeming to be deserted.
It was a supernatural chant in an uninhabited house.
While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing.
He no longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him
that he felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding.
The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean
could not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street;
there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced,
that which had reassured him,--all had vanished. The breeze
swayed a few dry weeds on the crest of the wall, and they gave
out a faint, sweet, melancholy sound. _
Read next: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK FIFTH - FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK: HAPTER VII. Continuation of the Enigma
Read previous: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK FIFTH - FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK: HAPTER V. Which would be Impossible with Gas Lanterns
Table of content of Les Miserables
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
