Page 2197 - les-miserables

one favor.’
Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riv-
eted on Jean Valjean. His chin being contracted, thrust his
lips upwards towards his nose, a sign of savage revery. At
length he released Jean Valjean, straightened himself stiff-
ly up without bending, grasped his bludgeon again firmly,
and, as though in a dream, he murmured rather than ut-
tered this question:
‘What are you doing here? And who is this man?’
He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou.
Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice appeared
to rouse Javert:
‘It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you.
Dispose of me as you see fit; but first help me to carry him
home. That is all that I ask of you.’
Javert’s face contracted as was always the case when any
one seemed to think him capable of making a concession.
Nevertheless, he did not say ‘no.’
Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief
which he moistened in the water and with which he then
wiped Marius’ blood-stained brow.
‘This man was at the barricade,’ said he in a low voice and
as though speaking to himself. ‘He is the one they called
Marius.’
A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything,
listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when
he thought that he was to die; who had played the spy even
in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first
step of the sepulchre, had taken notes.

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