As the cathedral clock strikes two, Jean Valjean awakes. What wakes him is that his bed is too good. It is nearly twenty years since he slept in one, and although he has not undressed, the sensation is too novel not to disturb him. He has slept more than four hours. Fatigue has passed. He is not accustomed to give many hours to rest. He stares into the gloom, closes his eyes to sleep again, and cannot. Sleep comes more easily than it returns. He falls to thinking.
The old time and the present float together in a muddy pool. Many thoughts occur. One drives the others out. He has observed the six sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle Madame Magloire placed on the table. They are a few paces distant. As he crossed the adjoining room, the old servant was putting them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed. On the right as you enter from the dining-room. Solid. Old. The ladle alone would make two hundred francs. Double what he earned in nineteen years. It is true he would have earned more if the administration had not robbed him. His mind wavers a whole hour, with some struggle mixed in. Three o'clock. He sits up, feels for the knapsack, hangs his legs over the bed, and finds himself seated almost without knowing it. He is the only person awake in a house where all are sleeping. Suddenly he stoops, sets his shoes softly on the mat, and becomes motionless again. Throughout the meditation, Brevet's knitted cotton suspender keeps returning for no reason he knows.
He would have remained until daybreak if the clock had not struck a half or quarter hour. The stroke seems to say, Come on. He rises, hesitates, listens. All is quiet. He walks to the window. A full moon, large clouds, alternate shadow and gleam, a cellar twilight indoors. The window has no grating. It opens on the garden and is fastened only by a small pin. He opens it; cold air rushes in; he shuts it. The white wall is low, easy to climb. Tree-tops beyond mark a lane. He makes up his mind: knapsack, shoes in a pocket, cap drawn down, cudgel in the angle of the window. On the bed he has laid a short bar of iron, pointed like a pike. In daylight it would be a miner's candlestick, the tool convicts stuck into rock above Toulon. He takes it in his right hand, holds his breath, deadens his tread, and goes to the Bishop's door. He finds it ajar. The Bishop had not closed it.
Coming Up in Chapter 25
He listens. Not a sound. He pushes the door with a fingertip, like a cat. A third push wakes a badly oiled hinge. The cry sounds like judgment. Then the cloud parts over a sleeping face, and the iron is still in his hand.
