Page 808 - les-miserables

His exasperation can be imagined.
He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and
Petit-Picpus; that agent, who had remained imperturbably
at his post, had not seen the man pass.
It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns;
that is to say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very
heels, and then the oldest huntsmen know not what to say.
Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez halt short. In a discomfi-
ture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, ‘It was not a stag, but a
sorcerer.’ Javert would have liked to utter the same cry.
His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair
and rage.
It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the
war with Russia, that Alexander committed blunders in the
war in India, that Caesar made mistakes in the war in Af-
rica, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in Scythia, and that
Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean Valjean. He
was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the
exconvict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was
wrong in not arresting him purely and simply in the old
building; he was wrong in not arresting him when he posi-
tively recognized him in the Rue de Pontoise. He was wrong
in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the full light of the
moon in the Carrefour Rollin. Advice is certainly useful; it
is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs
who deserve confidence; but the hunter cannot be too cau-
tious when he is chasing uneasy animals like the wolf and
the convict. Javert, by taking too much thought as to how he
should set the bloodhounds of the pack on the trail, alarmed

808 Les Miserables