In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact idea of the Droit-Mur lane, and in particular of the angle which one leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue Polonceau into this lane. Droit-Mur lane is almost entirely bordered on the right, as far as the Rue Petit-Picpus, by houses of mean aspect; on the left by a solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous parts which grow gradually higher by a story or two as they approach the Rue Petit-Picpus side. So this building, which is very lofty on that side, is tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue Polonceau. There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descends to such a degree that it consists of merely a wall. This wall does not abut directly on the street. It forms a deeply retreating niche, concealed by its two corners from two observers who might have been, one in the Rue Polonceau, the other in the Rue Droit-Mur. Beginning with these angles of the niche, the wall extends along the Rue Polonceau as far as a house which bears the number 49, and along the Rue Droit-Mur, where the fragment is much shorter, as far as the gloomy building whose gable it intersects, thus forming another retreating angle in the street. This gable is sombre. Only one window is visible, or, to speak more correctly, two shutters covered with a sheet of zinc and kept constantly closed. The state of the places is rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise memory in the mind of old inhabitants of the quarter.
The niche is entirely filled by a thing which resembles a colossal and wretched door: a vast, formless assemblage of perpendicular planks, the upper ones broader than the lower, bound together by long transverse strips of iron. At one side there is a carriage gate of the ordinary dimensions, evidently not cut more than fifty years previously. A linden-tree shows its crest above the niche, and the wall is covered with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau. In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean finds himself, this sombre building has about it a solitary and uninhabited look which tempts him. He runs his eyes rapidly over it. He says to himself that if he could contrive to get inside it, he might save himself. First he conceives an idea, then a hope. In the central portion of the front, on the Rue Droit-Mur side, there are at all the windows of the different stories ancient cistern pipes of lead. The various branches of the pipes which lead from one central pipe to all these little basins sketch out a sort of tree on the front. These ramifications of pipes with their hundred elbows imitate those old leafless vine-stocks which writhe over the fronts of old farm-houses. This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, is the first thing that strikes Jean Valjean. He seated Cosette with her back against a stone post, with an injunction to be silent, and ran to the spot where the conduit touched the pavement.
Perhaps there is some way of climbing up by it and entering the house. But the pipe is dilapidated and past service, and hardly hangs to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows of this silent dwelling are grated with heavy iron bars, even the attic windows in the roof. And then, the moon falls full upon that facade, and the man who is watching at the corner of the street would have seen Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done with Cosette? How was she to be drawn up to the top of a three-story house? He gives up all idea of climbing by means of the drain-pipe, and crawls along the wall to get back into the Rue Polonceau. When he reaches the slant of the wall where he has left Cosette, he notices that no one can see him there. He is concealed from all eyes, no matter from which direction they are approaching. Besides this, he is in the shadow. Finally, there are two doors. Perhaps they might be forced. The wall above which he sees the linden-tree and the ivy evidently abuts on a garden where he could, at least, hide himself, although there are as yet no leaves on the trees, and spend the remainder of the night. Time is passing. He must act quickly. He feels over the carriage door, and immediately recognizes that it is impracticable outside and in. He approaches the other door with more hope. It is frightfully decrepit. Its very immensity renders it less solid. The planks are rotten. The iron bands, there are only three of them, are rusted. It seems as though it might be possible to pierce this worm-eaten barrier. On examining it he finds that the door is not a door. It has neither hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle. The iron bands traverse it from side to side without any break. Through the crevices in the planks he catches a view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone roughly cemented together, which passers-by might still have seen there ten years ago. He is forced to acknowledge with consternation that this apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank. But then, one found oneself face to face with a wall.
