THE LAST FLUTTERINGS OF THE LAMP WITHOUT OIL.
One day Jean Valjean went down his staircase, took three steps in the street, sat down upon a post, the same one on which Gavroche had found him sitting in thought on the night of June 5; he stayed there a few minutes, and then went up again. This was the last oscillation of the pendulum; the next day he did not leave his room; the next to that he did not leave his bed. The porter's wife, who prepared his poor meals for him, some cabbage or a few potatoes and a little bacon, looked at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed,—
"Why, poor dear man, you ate nothing yesterday!"
"Yes, I did," Jean Valjean answered.
"The plate is quite full."
"Look at the water-jug: it is empty."
"That proves you have drunk, but does not prove that you have eaten."
"Well," said Jean Valjean, "suppose that I only felt hungry for water?"
"That is called thirst, and if a man does not eat at the same time it is called fever."
"I will eat to-morrow."
"Or on Trinity Sunday. Why not to-day? Who-ever ever thought of saying, I will eat to-morrow? To leave my plate without touching it; my rashers were so good."
Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand.
"I promise you to eat them," he said, in his gentle voice.
"I am not pleased with you," the woman replied.
Jean Valjean never saw any other human creature but this good woman: there are in Paris streets through which people never pass, and houses which people never enter, and he lived in one of those streets and one of those houses. During the time when he still went out he had bought at a brazier's for a few sous a small copper crucifix, which he suspended from a nail opposite his bed; that gibbet is ever good to look on. A week passed thus, and Jean Valjean still remained in bed. The porter's wife said to her husband, "The old gentleman upstairs does not get up; he does not eat, and he will not last long. He has a sorrow, and no one will get it out of my head but that his daughter has made a bad match."
The porter replied, with the accent of marital sovereignty,—
"If he is rich, he can have a doctor; if he is not rich, he can't. If he has no doctor, he will die."
"And if he has one?"
"He will die," said the porter.
The porter's wife began digging up with an old knife the grass between what she called her pavement, and while doing so grumbled,—
"It's a pity—an old man who is so tidy. He is as white as a pullet."
She saw a doctor belonging to the quarter passing along the bottom of the street, and took upon herself to ask him to go up.
"It's on the second floor," she said; "you will only have to go in, for, as the old gentleman no longer leaves his bed, the key is always in the door."
The physician saw Jean Valjean and spoke to him: when he came down again the porter's wife was waiting for him.
"Well, doctor?"
"He is very ill."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Everything and nothing. He is a man who, from all appearances, has lost a beloved person. People die of that."
"What did he say to you?"
"He told me that he was quite well."
"Will you call again, doctor?"
"Yes," the physician replied, "but some one beside me ought to come too."
CHAPTER III.
A PEN IS TOO HEAVY FOR THE MAN WHO LIFTED FAUCHELEVENT'S CART.
One evening Jean Valjean had a difficulty in rising on his elbow; he took hold of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breathing was short, and stopped every now and then, and he perceived that he was weaker than he had ever yet been. Then, doubtless, under the pressure of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, sat up, and dressed himself. He put on his old workman's clothes; for, as he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them. He was compelled to pause several times while dressing himself; and the perspiration poured off his forehead, merely through the effort of putting on his jacket. Ever since he had been alone he had placed his bed in the anteroom, so as to occupy as little as possible of the deserted apartments. He opened the valise and took out Cosette's clothing, which he spread on his bed. The Bishop's candlesticks were at their place on the mantel-piece; he took two wax candles out of a drawer and put them up, and then, though it was broad summer daylight, he lit them. We sometimes see candles lighted thus in open day in rooms where dead men are lying. Each step he took in going from one article of furniture to another exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary fatigue, which expends the strength in order to renew it; it was the remnant of possible motion; it was exhausted life falling drop by drop in crushing efforts which will not be made again.
One of the chairs on which he sank was placed near the mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting-book. He saw himself in this mirror, and could not recognize himself. He was eighty years of age; before Marius's marriage he had looked scarce fifty, but the last year had reckoned as thirty. What he had on his forehead was no longer the wrinkle of age, but the mysterious mark of death, and the laceration of the pitiless nail could be traced on it. His cheeks were flaccid; the skin of his face had that color which makes one think that the earth is already over it; the two corners of his mouth drooped as in that mask which the ancients sculptured on the tomb. He looked at space reproachfully, and he resembled one of those tragic beings who have cause to complain of some one. He had reached that stage, the last phase of dejection, in which grief no longer flows; it is, so to speak, coagulated, and there is on the soul something like a clot of despair. Night had set in, and he with difficulty dragged a table and the old easy-chair to the chimney, and laid on the table, pen, ink, and paper. This done he feinted away, and when he regained his senses he was thirsty. As he could not lift the water-jar, he bent down with an effort and drank a mouthful. Then he turned to the bed, and, still seated, for he was unable to stand, he gazed at the little black dress and all those dear objects. Such contemplations last hours which appear minutes. All at once he shuddered, and felt that the cold had struck him. He leaned his elbows on the table which the Bishop's candlesticks illumined, and took up the pen. As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the nibs of the pen were bent, the ink was dried up, and he was therefore obliged to put a few drops of water in the ink, which he could not do without stopping and sitting down twice or thrice, and was forced to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his forehead from time to time, and his hand trembled as he wrote the few following lines:—
"COSETTE,—I bless you. I am about to explain to you. Your husband did right in making me understand that I ought to go away; still, he was slightly in error as to what he believed, but he acted rightly. He is a worthy man, and love him dearly when I am gone from you. Monsieur Pontmercy, always love my beloved child. Cosette, this paper will be found: this is what I wish to say to you; you shall see the figures if I have the strength to remember them; but listen to me, the money is really yours. This is the whole affair. White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, and black beads come from Germany. Jet is lighter, more valuable, and dearer; but imitations can be made in France as well as in Germany. You must have a small anvil two inches square, and a spirit lamp to soften the wax. The wax used to be made with resin and smoke-black, and costs four francs the pound; but I hit on the idea of making it of gum-lac and turpentine. It only costs thirty sous, and is much better. The rings are made of violet glass, fastened by means of the wax on a small black iron wire. The glass must be violet for iron ornaments, and black for gilt ornaments. Spain buys large quantities; it is the country of jet—"
Here he stopped, the pen slipped from his fingers, he burst into one of those despairing sobs which rose at times from the depths of his being. The poor man took his head between his hands and thought.
"Oh!" he exclaimed internally (lamentable cries heard by God alone), "it is all over. I shall never see her again; it is a smile which flashed across me, and I am going to enter night without even seeing her. Oh! for one moment, for one instant to hear her voice, to touch her, to look at her,—her, the angel, and then die! Death is nothing, but the frightful thing is to die without seeing her! She would smile on me, say a word to me, and would that do any one harm? No, it is all over forever. I am now all alone. My God! my God! I shall see her no more."
At this moment there was a knock at his door.