At sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu is strolling in the garden when Madame Magloire runs up in consternation. Does his Grace know where the basket of silver is? Yes: he has just picked it up in a flower-bed. Nothing in it. And the silver? He does not know. She flies to the oratory and back. The man is gone. The coping of the garden wall has been torn away into Cochefilet Lane. The Bishop has been sighing over a plant of cochlearia the falling basket broke. He asks, gently, whether that silver was theirs. He has detained it wrongfully for a long time. It belonged to the poor. The man who took it was a poor man, evidently. Magloire is not thinking of herself or of Mademoiselle. What is Monseigneur to eat with now? Pewter has an odour. Iron has a taste. Wooden ones, then. At the same table where Jean Valjean sat the night before, the Bishop dips bread in milk and remarks, gaily, that one does not even need wood.
They are about to rise when a knock comes. Three gendarmes hold a fourth man by the collar. At the word Monseigneur, Valjean lifts his head, stupefied. So he is not the curé. The Bishop advances as fast as age allows. He is glad to see him. He gave him the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which he can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did he not carry them away with the forks and spoons? The brigadier confirms the man was walking like one who runs away, and had this silver. The Bishop smiles. The man said a kind old fellow of a priest had given it. They have brought him back by mistake. The gendarmes release him. Valjean recoils, almost inarticulate, as if talking in his sleep. Is it true that he is to be released?
The Bishop fetches the two candlesticks from the chimney-piece. The women look on without a word, a gesture, or a look that could disconcert him. Valjean takes them mechanically, trembling in every limb. Go in peace. When he returns, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. The street door is never fastened with anything but a latch, day or night. The gendarmes retire. Then, in a low voice: do not forget, never forget, that he has promised to use this money in becoming an honest man. Valjean has no recollection of promising anything. The Bishop has emphasised the words. He resumes with solemnity. Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you.
Coming Up in Chapter 27
Jean Valjean leaves the town as though fleeing it. He takes every path and retraces his steps all morning, eating nothing. A late flower in a hedge reminds him of childhood. Toward sunset, on a deserted plain, a little Savoyard comes singing, a forty-sou piece in his hand.
