Jean Valjean listens. Not a sound. He pushes the door with the tip of a finger, the furtive gentleness of a cat that wants to enter. The opening enlarges in silence. A second, bolder push. Large enough to pass, except a little table bars the angle. A third push, more energetic. A badly oiled hinge emits a hoarse and prolonged cry. He shudders. It sounds like the trump of judgment. For a moment the hinge seems to have become a dog, barking to wake the house. He falls back from his toes to his heels. His temples beat like forge hammers. It seems impossible the clamour has not shaken the town, the two women, the gendarmerie. He thinks himself lost.
He remains petrified, a statue of salt. Minutes pass. The door has fallen wide. Nothing has stirred. The rusty cry woke no one. The first danger is past. A frightful tumult still reigns in him. He does not retreat. Even when he thought himself lost, he did not draw back. His only thought is to finish. He enters. Papers, folios, a prie-Dieu are only pale spots. At the far end, the Bishop's even breathing. He arrives at the bed sooner than he expected. For half an hour a large cloud has covered the heavens. As he pauses, the cloud parts, and a ray through the long window lights the Bishop's pale face. He is sleeping peacefully, almost dressed against the Alpine cold, brown wool to the wrists, pastoral ring hanging over the edge of the bed. More than a smile: a radiance. The soul of the just contemplates a mysterious heaven. That heaven is his conscience. Moonlight on inward light: the sleeper seems as in a glory, gentle, an old man's head and an infant's slumber.
Valjean stands in the shadow with the iron candlestick, frightened by this luminous old man. Never has he beheld anything like it. This confidence terrifies him. The moral world has no grander spectacle: a troubled conscience on the brink of an evil action, contemplating the slumber of the just. He is touched and astounded. His face shows a strange indecision. He seems prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand. His left arm rises; he takes off his cap; it falls back; he meditates, cap in one hand, club in the other. The Bishop sleeps on. The crucifix over the chimney-piece seems to bless one and pardon the other. Suddenly Valjean replaces the cap, steps rapidly past the bed without glancing at him, goes to the cupboard, raises the iron as if to force the lock, finds the key, seizes the basket of silverware, crosses the room without precautions, takes his cudgel, puts the silver in the knapsack, throws away the basket, crosses the garden, leaps the wall like a tiger, and flees.
