Near Saint-Medard church there is a poor man who is in the habit of crouching on the brink of a public well which has been condemned, and on whom Jean Valjean is fond of bestowing charity. He never passes this man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he speaks to him. Those who envy this mendicant say that he belongs to the police. He is an ex-beadle of seventy-five, who is constantly mumbling his prayers. One evening, as Jean Valjean is passing by, when he has not Cosette with him, he sees the beggar in his usual place, beneath the lantern which has just been lighted. The man seems engaged in prayer, according to his custom, and is much bent over. Jean Valjean steps up to him and places his customary alms in his hand. The mendicant raises his eyes suddenly, stares intently at Jean Valjean, then drops his head quickly. This movement is like a flash of lightning. Jean Valjean is seized with a shudder. It seems to him that he has just caught sight, by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and beaming visage of the old beadle, but of a well-known and startling face. He experiences the same impression that one would have on finding oneself, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He recoils, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak, to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who has dropped his head, which is enveloped in a rag, and no longer appears to know that he is there. An instinct of self-preservation restrains him from uttering a word. The beggar has the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance as he has every day. Bah, said Jean Valjean, I am mad. I am dreaming. Impossible. And he returns profoundly troubled. He hardly dares to confess, even to himself, that the face which he thought he had seen was the face of Javert.
That night, on thinking the matter over, he regrets not having questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second time. On the following day, at nightfall, he goes back. The beggar is at his post. Good day, my good man, said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing him a sou. The beggar raises his head and replies in a whining voice, Thanks, my good sir. It is unmistakably the ex-beadle. Jean Valjean feels completely reassured. He begins to laugh. How the deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there? Am I going to lose my eyesight now? And he thinks no more about it. A few days afterwards, it might have been at eight o'clock in the evening, he is in his room, engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, when he hears the house door open and then shut again. This strikes him as singular. The old woman, who is the only inhabitant of the house except himself, always goes to bed at nightfall, so that she may not burn out her candles. Jean Valjean makes a sign to Cosette to be quiet. He hears someone ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary. The step is heavy, and sounds like that of a man, but the old woman wears stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the step of a man as that of an old woman. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blows out his candle. He has sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, Get into bed very softly. As he kisses her brow, the steps pause. Jean Valjean remains silent, motionless, with his back towards the door, seated on the chair from which he has not stirred, and holding his breath in the dark. After a rather long interval he turns round, as he hears nothing more, and, as he raises his eyes towards the door of his chamber, he sees a light through the keyhole. This light forms a sort of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There is evidently someone there, who is holding a candle in his hand and listening. Several minutes elapse thus, and the light retreats. But he hears no sound of footsteps, which seems to indicate that the person who has been listening at the door has removed his shoes.
Jean Valjean throws himself, all dressed as he is, on his bed, and cannot close his eyes all night. At daybreak, just as he is falling into a doze through fatigue, he is awakened by the creaking of a door which opens on some attic at the end of the corridor. Then he hears the same masculine footstep which had ascended the stairs on the preceding evening. The step is approaching. He springs off the bed and applies his eye to the keyhole, hoping to see the person who made his way by night into the house and listened at his door. It is a man, in fact, who passes, this time without pausing, in front of Jean Valjean's chamber. The corridor is too dark to allow of the person's face being distinguished, but when the man reaches the staircase, a ray of light from without makes it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean Valjean has a complete view of his back. The man is of lofty stature, clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable neck and shoulders belonged to Javert. It is evident that this man has entered with a key, and like himself. Who has given him that key? When the old woman comes to do the work at seven o'clock, Jean Valjean casts a penetrating glance on her, but he does not question her. As she sweeps she remarks that possibly Monsieur may have heard someone come in last night. That is true, by the way, he replies, in the most natural tone possible. Who was it? It was a new lodger who has come into the house. And what is his name? I don't know exactly. Dumont, or Daumont, or some name of that sort. And who is this Monsieur Dumont? The old woman gazes at him with her little polecat eyes, and answers, A gentleman of property, like yourself. Perhaps she has no ulterior meaning. Jean Valjean thinks he perceives one. When the old woman has taken her departure, he does up a hundred francs which he has in a cupboard, into a roll, and puts it in his pocket. In spite of all the precautions which he takes so that he may not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou piece escapes from his hands and rolls noisily on the floor. When darkness comes on, he descends and carefully scrutinizes both sides of the boulevard. He sees no one. The boulevard appears to be absolutely deserted. It is true that a person can conceal himself behind trees. He went upstairs again. Come, he said to Cosette. He took her by the hand, and they both went out.
