Page 897 - les-miserables

calling of a carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and
lashings, which horses seem to require, something of the
notary had lingered in him. He had some natural wit; he
talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare thing
in a village; and the other peasants said of him: ‘He talks
almost like a gentleman with a hat.’ Fauchelevent belonged,
in fact, to that species, which the impertinent and flippant
vocabulary of the last century qualified as demi-bourgeois,
demi-lout, and which the metaphors showered by the cha-
teau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the pigeon-hole
of the plebeian: rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and
salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by
fate, worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nev-
ertheless, an impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in
his actions; a precious quality which prevents one from ever
being wicked. His defects and his vices, for he had some,
were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy was of the
kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had
none of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the fore-
head, which signify malice or stupidity.
At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, af-
ter having done an enormous deal of thinking, and beheld
M. Madeleine seated on his truss of straw, and watching
Cosette’s slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and said:—
‘Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to
enter?’
This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean
Valjean from his revery.
The two men took counsel together.

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