A SUCCESSFUL EXAMINATION.
An hour later two men and a child presented themselves in the darkness of night at No. 69, Little Rue Picpus. The elder of the two men raised the knocker and rapped.
The two men had fetched Cosette from the green-grocer's, where Fauchelevent had left her on the previous evening. Cosette had spent the four-and-twenty hours in understanding nothing and silently trembling; she trembled so greatly that she had not cried, nor had she eaten nor slept. The worthy green-grocer had asked her a hundred questions; but had only obtained as answer a gloomy look, ever the same. Cosette did not breathe a syllable of what she had seen or heard during the last two days; for she guessed that she was passing through a crisis, and felt deeply that she must be "good." Who has not experienced the sovereign power of the words, "say nothing," uttered with a certain accent in the ear of a little startled being? Fear is dumb; besides, no one can keep a secret like a child.
The only thing was, that when she saw Jean Valjean again after these mournful four-and-twenty hours, she uttered such a cry of joy that any thoughtful person who had heard it would have divined in this cry an escape from a gulf.
Fauchelevent belonged to the convent, and knew all the pass-words; hence doors readily opened to him, and thus was solved the double and startling problem, "how to get in, and how to get out." The porter, who had his instructions, opened the little gate which communicated between the court-yard and the garden, in the wall of the former facing the gateway, which might still be seen from the street twenty years ago. The porter showed them all three through this gate, and thence they reached the inner private parlor where Fauchelevent had received the orders of the prioress on the previous day.
The prioress was waiting for them, rosary in hand, and a vocal mother, with her veil down, was standing near her. A discreet candle lit up, or to speak more correctly, pretended to light up the parlor. The prioress took a thorough look at Jean Valjean, for no eye examines like a drooping one. Then she questioned him.
"Are you the brother?"
"Yes, Reverend Mother," Fauchelevent answered.
"What is your name?"
Fauchelevent answered: "Ultime Fauchelevent."
He had really had a brother of that name, who was dead.
"Where do you come from?"
Fauchelevent.—"From Picquigny near Amiens."
"What is your age?"
F.—"Fifty."
"What is your trade?"
F.—"Gardener."
"Are you a good Christian?"
F.—"All the members of our family are so."
"Is this little girl yours?"
F.—"Yes, Reverend Mother."
"Are you her father?"
F.—"Her grandfather."
The vocal mother said to the prioress in a whisper, "He answers well."
Jean Valjean had not said a word. The prioress looked attentively at Cosette, and whispered to the vocal mother, "She will be ugly."
The two mothers consulted for a few minutes in a very low voice in a corner of the parlor, and then the prioress turned and said,—
"Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap and bell, for we shall require two in future."
On the morrow two bells were really heard in the garden, and the nuns could not resist the temptation of raising a corner of their veils. They could see under the shade of the trees two men digging side by side, Fauvent and another. It was an enormous event; and silence was so far broken that they whispered, "It is an assistant gardener," while the vocal mothers added, "It is a brother of Father Fauvent's."
Jean Valjean was in fact permanently installed; he had the leathern knee-cap and bell, and was henceforth official. He called himself Ultime Fauchelevent. The most powerful determining cause of his admission was the remark of the prioress with reference to Cosette,—"She will be ugly." The prioress, once she had prognosticated this, felt an affection for Cosette, and gave her a place in the boarding-school. This is very logical after all; for although there may be no looking-glasses in a convent, women are conscious of their face. Now, girls who feel themselves pretty have a disinclination to take the veil; and as profession is generally in an inverse ratio to the beauty, more is hoped from ugly than from pretty girls.
All this adventure aggrandized Fauchelevent, for he had a three-fold success,—with Jean Valjean, whom he saved and sheltered; with Gribier, who said to himself, "He saved me fifteen francs;" and with the convent, which, thanks to him, while keeping the coffin of Mother Crucifixion under the altar, eluded Cæsar and sanctified God. There was a coffin with a body at the Little Picpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery; public order was doubtless deeply affected by this, but did not perceive the fact. As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was great; he became the best of servants, and most precious of gardeners. On the archbishop's very next visit, the prioress told the whole affair to the Grandeur, partly in confusion, and partly in a boastful spirit. The archbishop, on leaving the convent, spoke about it applaudingly and in a whisper to M. de Latil, Confessor to Monseigneur, and afterwards Archbishop of Reims and Cardinal. The admiration felt for Fauchelevent travelled all the way to Rome; and we have seen a letter addressed by the then reigning Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, Monsignore, in the Paris Nunciature, and called, like himself, Della Genga, in which were the following lines,—"It appears that there is at a convent in Paris an excellent gardener, who is a holy man, of the name of Fauvent." Nothing of all this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut; he went on grafting, hoeing, and covering his melon beds, quite unaware of his excellence and sanctity. He no more suspected his glory than does a Durham or Surrey steer whose portrait is published in the Illustrated London News, with the inscription "The ox that gained the Short-horn prize."