Page 2361 - les-miserables

been in the barricade. He had not fought there. What had
he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre
sprang up and replied: ‘Javert.’
Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean
Valjean dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade,
and he still heard behind the corner of the little Rue Monde-
tour that frightful pistol shot. Obviously, there was hatred
between that police spy and the galley-slave. The one was in
the other’s way. Jean Valjean had gone to the barricade for
the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived late. He
probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsi-
can vendetta has penetrated to certain lower strata and has
become the law there; it is so simple that it does not aston-
ish souls which are but half turned towards good; and those
hearts are so constituted that a criminal, who is in the path
of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft and
unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had
killed Javert. At least, that seemed to be evident.
This was the final question, to be sure; but to this there
was no reply. This question Marius felt like pincers. How
had it come to pass that Jean Valjean’s existence had el-
bowed that of Cosette for so long a period?
What melancholy sport of Providence was that which
had placed that child in contact with that man? Are there
then chains for two which are forged on high? and does God
take pleasure in coupling the angel with the demon? So a
crime and an innocence can be room-mates in the mysteri-
ous galleys of wretchedness? In that defiling of condemned
persons which is called human destiny, can two brows pass

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