Page 2188 - les-miserables

‘You will need a stone also, but you can find one outside.
There’s a heap of rubbish.’
‘What am I to do with a stone?’
‘Idiot, you’ll want to sling that stiff into the river, you’ll
need a stone and a rope, otherwise it would float on the wa-
ter.’
Jean Valjean took the rope. There is no one who does not
occasionally accept in this mechanical way.
Thenardier snapped his fingers as though an idea had
suddenly occurred to him.
‘Ah, see here, comrade, how did you contrive to get out
of that slough yonder? I haven’t dared to risk myself in it.
Phew! you don’t smell good.’
After a pause he added:
‘I’m asking you questions, but you’re perfectly right not
to answer. It’s an apprenticeship against that cursed quar-
ter of an hour before the examining magistrate. And then,
when you don’t talk at all, you run no risk of talking too
loud. That’s no matter, as I can’t see your face and as I don’t
know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don’t
know who you are and what you want. I twig. You’ve bro-
ken up that gentleman a bit; now you want to tuck him away
somewhere. The river, that great hider of folly, is what you
want. I’ll get you out of your scrape. Helping a good fellow
in a pinch is what suits me to a hair.’
While expressing his approval of Jean Valjean’s silence,
he endeavored to force him to talk. He jostled his shoulder in
an attempt to catch a sight of his profile, and he exclaimed,
without, however, raising his tone:

2188 Les Miserables