Continuation of the Enigma — Les Misérables

The night wind has risen, which indicates that it must be between one and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette says nothing. As she has seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean has fancied that she is asleep. He bends down and looks at her. Cosette's eyes are wide open, and her thoughtful air pains Jean Valjean. She is still trembling. Are you sleepy? said Jean Valjean. I am very cold, she replied. A moment later she resumed, Is she still there? Who? said Jean Valjean. Madame Thenardier. Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to make Cosette keep silent. Ah, said he, she is gone. You need fear nothing further. The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. The ground is damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grows more keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round Cosette. Are you less cold now? said he. Oh, yes, father. Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back.

He quits the ruin and creeps along the large building, seeking a better shelter. He comes across doors, but they are closed. There are bars at all the windows of the ground floor. Just after he has turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observes that he is coming to some arched windows, where he perceives a light. He stands on tiptoe and peeps through one of these windows. They all open on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up by arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows are visible. The light comes from a taper which is burning in one corner. The apartment is deserted, and nothing is stirring in it. Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thinks he perceives on the ground something which appears to be covered with a winding-sheet, and which resembles a human form. This form is lying face downward, flat on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round its neck. The whole chamber is bathed in that mist of places which are sparely illuminated, which adds to horror.

Jean Valjean often said afterwards that, although many funereal spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form accomplishing some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and beheld thus at night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was perhaps dead, and still more alarming to think that it was perhaps alive. He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what seemed to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement. All at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and he fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind him. It seemed to him that if he turned his head, he should see that form following him with great strides and waving its arms. He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way beneath him. The perspiration was pouring from him. Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An edifice full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the darkness with the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them abruptly that terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of heaven, and then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it actually was an edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It was not a dream! He had to touch the stones to convince himself that such was the fact. Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep.