The Fontis — Les Misérables

Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of a famous avenue, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works. The fluidity exceeded even certain infected clays. When, a few years later, the old stone sewer in which we now see Jean Valjean was demolished, the quicksand presented such an obstacle that the operation lasted nearly six months. The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the downpour of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained by the subjacent sand, had given way and had produced a stoppage of the water. Infiltration had taken place. A slip had followed. The dislocated bottom had sunk into the ooze. To what extent. Impossible to say. The obscurity was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of night.

Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered this slime. There was water on the surface, slime at the bottom. He must pass it. To retrace his steps was impossible. Marius was dying, and Jean Valjean exhausted. Besides, where was he to go. Jean Valjean advanced. The pit seemed, for the first few steps, not to be very deep. But in proportion as he advanced, his feet plunged deeper. Soon he had the slime up to his calves and water above his knees. He walked on, raising Marius in his arms, as far above the water as he could. The mire now reached to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer retreat. This mud, dense enough for one man, could not, obviously, uphold two. Jean Valjean continued to advance, supporting the dying man, who was, perhaps, a corpse. The water came up to his arm-pits. He felt that he was sinking. He still held Marius on high, and with an unheard-of expenditure of force he advanced still, but he was sinking. He had only his head above the water now and his two arms holding up Marius. In the old paintings of the deluge there is a mother holding her child thus.

He sank still deeper. He turned his face to the rear, to escape the water, and in order that he might be able to breathe. Anyone who had seen him in that gloom would have thought that what he beheld was a mask floating on the shadows. He caught a faint glimpse above him of the drooping head and livid face of Marius. He made a desperate effort and launched his foot forward. His foot struck something solid. A point of support. It was high time. He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of support with a sort of fury. This produced upon him the effect of the first step in a staircase leading back to life. The point of support was the beginning of the other watershed of the pavement, which had bent but had not given way, and which had curved under the water like a plank. Well built pavements form a vault and possess this sort of firmness. Once on this plane, he was safe. Jean Valjean mounted this inclined plane and reached the other side of the quagmire. As he emerged from the water, he came in contact with a stone and fell upon his knees. He reflected that this was but just, and he remained there for some time, with his soul absorbed in words addressed to God. He rose to his feet, shivering, chilled, foul-smelling, bowed beneath the dying man whom he was dragging after him, all dripping with slime, and his soul filled with a strange light.