1.C.5.9. THE MAN WITH THE BELL
HE walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden.
He had taken in his hand the roll of silver which was in
the pocket of his waistcoat.
The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching.
In a few strides Jean Valjean stood beside him.
Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:—
"One hundred francs!"
The man gave a start and raised his eyes.
"You can earn a hundred francs," went on Jean Valjean,
"if you will grant me shelter for this night."
The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance.
"What!
so it is you, Father Madeleine!" said the man.
That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that
unknown spot, by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start
back.
He had expected anything but that. The person who thus
addressed him was a bent and lame old man, dressed almost
like a peasant, who wore on his left knee a leather knee-cap,
whence hung a moderately large bell. His face, which was in
the shadow, was not distinguishable.
However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed,
trembling all over:—
"Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine?
Where did you enter? Dieu-Jesus! Did you fall from
heaven? There is no trouble about that: if ever you do fall, it
will be from there. And what a state you are in! You have
no cravat; you have no hat; you have no coat! Do you know,
you would have frightened any one who did not know you?
No coat! Lord God! Are the saints going mad nowadays?
But how did you get in here?"
His words tumbled over each other. The goodman talked
with a rustic volubility, in which there was nothing alarming.
All this was uttered with a mixture of stupefaction and naive
kindliness.
"Who are you? and what house is this?" demanded Jean
Valjean.
"Ah! pardieu, this is too much!" exclaimed the old man.
"I am the person for whom you got the place here, and this
house is the one where you had me placed. What! You don't
recognize me?"
"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how happens it that you
know me?"
"You saved my life," said the man.
He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and
Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent.
"Ah!" said Jean Valjean, "so it is you? Yes, I recollect
you."
"That is very lucky," said the old man, in a reproachful
tone.
"And what are you doing here?" resumed Jean Valjean.
"Why, I am covering my melons, of course!"
In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old
Fauchelevent held in his hand the end of a straw mat which he
was occupied in spreading over the melon bed. During the
hour or thereabouts that he had been in the garden he had
already spread out a number of them. It was this operation
which had caused him to execute the peculiar movements observed
from the shed by Jean Valjean.
He continued:—
"I said to myself, 'The moon is bright: it is going to freeze.
What if I were to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And,"
he added, looking at Jean Valjean with a broad smile,—
"pardieu! you ought to have done the same! But how do you
come here?"
Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least
only under the name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only
with caution. He multiplied his questions. Strange to say,
their roles seemed to be reversed. It was he, the intruder,
who interrogated.
"And what is this bell which you wear on your knee?"
"This," replied Fauchelevent, "is so that I may be avoided."
"What! so that you may be avoided?"
Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air.
"Ah, goodness! there are only women in this house— many
young girls. It appears that I should be a dangerous person to
meet. The bell gives them warning. When I come, they
go.
"What house is this?"
"Come, you know well enough."
"But I do not."
"Not when you got me the place here as gardener?"
"Answer me as though I knew nothing."
"Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent."
Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say,
Providence, had cast him into precisely that convent in the
Quartier Saint-Antoine where old Fauchelevent, crippled by
the fall from his cart, had been admitted on his recommendation
two years previously. He repeated, as though talking to
himself:—
"The Petit-Picpus convent."
"Exactly," returned old Fauchelevent. "But to come to
the point, how the deuce did you manage to get in here, you,
Father Madeleine? No matter if you are a saint; you are a
man as well, and no man enters here."
"You certainly are here."
"There is no one but me."
"Still," said Jean Valjean, "I must stay here."
"Ah, good God!" cried Fauchelevent.
Jean Valjean drew near to the old man, and said to him in
a grave voice:—
"Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life."
"I was the first to recall it," returned Fauchelevent.
"Well, you can do to-day for me that which I did for you
in the olden days."
Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled
hands Jean Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several
minutes as though incapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed:—
"Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I
could make you some little return for that! Save your life!
Monsieur le Maire, dispose of the old man!"
A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance
seemed to emit a ray of light.
"What do you wish me to do?" he resumed.
"That I will explain to you. You have a chamber?"
"I have an isolated hovel yonder, behind the ruins of the
old convent, in a corner which no one ever looks into. There
are three rooms in it."
The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and
so cleverly arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean
had not perceived it.
"Good," said Jean Valjean. "Now I am going to ask two
things of you."
"What are they, Mr. Mayor?"
"In the first place, you are not to tell any one what you
know about me. In the second, you are not to try to find out
anything more."
"As you please. I know that you can do nothing that is
not honest, that you have always been a man after the good
God's heart. And then, moreover, you it was who placed me
here. That concerns you. I am at your service."
"That is settled then. Now, come with me. We will go
and get the child."
"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "so there is a child?"
He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as
a dog follows his master.
Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown
rosy again before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in
the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat
and coat once more; his hat, which he had flung over the wall,
had been found and picked up. While Jean Valjean was putting
on his coat, Fauchelevent had removed the bell and kneecap,
which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that
adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves
with their elbows resting on a table upon which Fauchelevent
had placed a bit of cheese, black bread, a bottle of wine, and
two glasses, and the old man was saying to Jean Valjean, as he
laid his hand on the latter's knee: "Ah! Father Madeleine!
You did not recognize me immediately; you save people's lives,
and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember
you! You are an ingrate!"