1.C.4.4. THE REMARKS OF THE PRINCIPAL TENANT
JEAN VALJEAN was prudent enough never to go out by day.
Every evening, at twilight, he walked for an hour or two,
sometimes alone, often with Cosette, seeking the most deserted
side alleys of the boulevard, and entering churches at nightfall.
He liked to go to Saint-Medard, which is the nearest
church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained
with the old woman; but the child's delight was to go out with
the good man. She preferred an hour with him to all her
rapturous tete-a-tetes with Catherine. He held her hand as
they walked, and said sweet things to her.
It turned out that Cosette was a very gay little person.
The old woman attended to the housekeeping and cooking
and went to market.
They lived soberly, always having a little fire, but like
people in very moderate circumstances. Jean Valjean had
made no alterations in the furniture as it was the first day;
he had merely had the glass door leading to Cosette's dressing-room
replaced by a solid door.
He still wore his yellow coat, his black breeches, and his old
hat. In the street, he was taken for a poor man. It sometimes
happened that kind-hearted women turned back to
bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean accepted the sou with a
deep bow. It also happened occasionally that he encountered
some poor wretch asking alms; then he looked behind him to
make sure that no one was observing him, stealthily
approached the unfortunate man, put a piece of money into
his hand, often a silver coin, and walked rapidly away. This
had its disadvantages. He began to be known in the neighborhood
under the name of the beggar who gives alms.
The old principal lodger, a cross-looking creature, who was
thoroughly permeated, so far as her neighbors were concerned.
with the inquisitiveness peculiar to envious persons, scrutinized
Jean Valjean a great deal, without his suspecting the
fact. She was a little deaf, which rendered her talkative.
There remained to her from her past, two teeth,— one above,
the other below,— which she was continually knocking against
each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been
able to tell her anything, since she knew nothing herself
except that she had come from Montfermeil. One morning,
this spy saw Jean Valjean, with an air which struck the old
gossip as peculiar, entering one of the uninhabited compartments
of the hovel. She followed him with the step of an
old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen,
through a crack in the door, which was directly opposite him.
Jean Valjean had his back turned towards this door, by way
of greater security, no doubt. The old woman saw him
fumble in his pocket and draw thence a case, scissors, and
thread; then he began to rip the lining of one of the skirts of
his coat, and from the opening he took a bit of yellowish
paper, which he unfolded. The old woman recognized, with
terror, the fact that it was a bank-bill for a thousand francs.
It was the second or third only that she had seen in the course
of her existence. She fled in alarm.
A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her
to go and get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding
that it was his quarterly income, which he had received the
day before. "Where?" thought the old woman. "He did not
go out until six o'clock in the evening, and the government
bank certainly is not open at that hour." The old woman
went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises.
That thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied,
produced a vast amount of terrified discussion among the
gossips of the Rue des Vignes Saint-Marcel.
A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing
some wood, in his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor. The old
woman was in the chamber, putting things in order. She was
alone. Cosette was occupied in admiring the wood as it was
sawed. The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging on
a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again.
The good woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed
in the skirts and revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc
bank-bills, no doubt!
She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the
pockets. Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she
had seen, but a big pocket-book, a very large knife, and— a
suspicious circumstance— several wigs of various colors. Each
pocket of this coat had the air of being in a manner provided
against unexpected accidents.
Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of
winter.