VOLUME II - COSETTE - BOOK FIFTH - FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK - HAPTER IX. The Man with the Bell

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_ He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden.
He had taken in 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 a few 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
will grant 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 was a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant,
who wore on his left knee a leather knee-cap, whence hung a moderately
large bell. His face, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable.

However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed,
trembling all over:--

"Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did
you enter? Dieu-Jesus! 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, you would 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
rustic volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this
was uttered with a mixture of stupefaction and naive 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 person for whom you got the place here, and this house
is the one where you had me 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
Valjean recognized 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 Fauchelevent
held in his hand the end of a straw mat which he was occupied in
spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he
had been in the garden he had already spread out a number of them.
It was this operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar
movements observed from the shed by Jean Valjean.

He continued:--

"I said to myself, `The moon is bright: it is going to freeze.
What if I were to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And," he added,
looking at Jean Valjean with a broad smile,--"pardieu! you ought
to have done the same! But how do you come here?"

Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under
the name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution.
He multiplied his questions. Strange to say, their roles seemed
to be reversed. It was he, 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.
It appears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell
gives them warning. 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-Antoine
where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart,
had been admitted on his recommendation two years previously.
He repeated, as though talking to himself:--

"The Petit-Picpus convent."

"Exactly," returned old Fauchelevent. "But to come to the point,
how the deuce did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine?
No matter if you 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 grave voice:--

"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
olden days."

Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean
Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though
incapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed:--

"Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you
some little return for that! Save your life! Monsieur le Maire,
dispose of the old man!"

A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance
seemed to emit 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
cleverly arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean
had not perceived it.

"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 your service."

"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
follows his master.

Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown rosy
again before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old
gardener's bed. 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. While Jean Valjean was putting on his coat,
Fauchelevent had removed the bell and kneecap, which now hung on
a nail beside a vintage basket that adorned the wall. The two men
were warming themselves with their elbows resting 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 was saying to Jean Valjean,
as he laid his hand on the latter's knee: "Ah! Father Madeleine!
You did not recognize me immediately; you save people's lives,
and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember you!
You are an ingrate!" _

Read next: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK FIFTH - FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK: HAPTER X. Which explains how Javert got on the Scent

Read previous: VOLUME II - COSETTE: BOOK FIFTH - FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK: HAPTER VIII. The Enigma becomes Doubly Mysterious

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