Marius Produces on Some One Who Is a Judge of the Matter, the Effect of Being Dead — Les Misérables

He allowed Marius to slide down upon the shore. They were in the open air. The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, living, joyous air inundated him. Twilight had descended. Night was drawing on, the great deliverer, the friend of all those who need a mantle of darkness. The river flowed to his feet with the sound of a kiss. Evening was unfolding over his head all the sweetness of the infinite. It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose oneself at a little distance, and yet there was sufficient daylight to permit of recognition at close quarters. For several seconds Jean Valjean was overcome by that serenity. Then he bent down swiftly to Marius, as though the sentiment of duty had returned to him, and, dipping up water in the hollow of his hand, he gently sprinkled a few drops on the latter's face. Marius's eyelids did not open, but his half-open mouth still breathed.

Jean Valjean was on the point of dipping his hand in the river once more when he experienced that embarrassment a person feels when there is some one behind him whom he does not see. He turned round. A man of lofty stature, enveloped in a long coat, with folded arms, and bearing in his right fist a bludgeon, stood a few paces in the rear. Jean Valjean recognised Javert. Thenardier's pursuer had been Javert, who, after the barricade, had gone on duty again on this shore and had followed the man in the blouse. The grating so obligingly opened had been a bit of cleverness. Thenardier had felt that Javert was still there, and had flung a bone to that sleuth-hound: an assassin, a diversion, thirty francs, and his own escape. Jean Valjean had fallen from one danger upon another. Javert did not recognise him. Who are you. I. Who is I. Jean Valjean. Javert laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders, scrutinised him, and recognised him. Their faces almost touched. Jean Valjean remained inert, like a lion submitting to the claws of a lynx. Inspector Javert, you have me in your power. Take me. Only grant me one favour.

Javert released him and murmured, as though in a dream: What are you doing here. And who is this man. He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou. Jean Valjean asked him to dispose of him as he saw fit, but first to help carry the wounded man home. Javert's face contracted as when any one seemed to think him capable of making a concession. Nevertheless he did not say no. He wiped Marius's blood-stained brow. This man was at the barricade. He is the one they called Marius. He seized the hand and felt the pulse. He is wounded, said Jean Valjean. He is a dead man, said Javert. No. Not yet. Jean Valjean gave the address in the Marais and held out the pocketbook. Javert deciphered the few lines and exclaimed: Coachman. The hackney-coach that had been waiting descended to the shore. Marius was laid upon the back seat, Javert seated himself on the front seat beside Jean Valjean, and the carriage drove rapidly away toward the Bastille. A glacial silence reigned. Marius seemed to be awaiting only a coffin. Jean Valjean seemed made of shadow, and Javert of stone. Chance had united, in that vehicle full of night, the three forms of tragic immobility: the corpse, the spectre, and the statue.