Part 13

Marius kept his promise about not telling Cosette, and Valjean visited her every evening in a small room on the ground floor. It was cold and damp, but a fire had been lit and two armchairs had been placed in front of it. At first, Cosette could not understand why Valjean refused to meet her upstairs. When he refused to kiss her cheek, she began to feel unhappy, afraid that she had done something to offend him. She pressed his hands in hers and held them to her lips.

'Please, please be kind!' she begged. 'I want you to come and live with us. You'll always be my father and I'm not going to let you go.'

He released his hands.

'You mustn't call me "father" any more,' he told her. 'You must call me "Monsieur Jean".'

'I don't understand,' she said, becoming angry. 'This is ridiculous. You're upsetting me very much, and I don't know why you're being so cruel.'

'You don't need a father any more. You have a husband.'

'What a thing to say!' Cosette replied. 'Are you angry with me because I'm happy?'

'Cosette,' he said, 'your happiness is the only thing that matters to me. You're happy now, and so my work is complete.'

With these words, he picked up his hat and left.

Jean Valjean continued his evening visits, but the relationship between himself and Cosette became cooler and more distant. She stopped calling him 'father' or asking him questions. As 'Monsieur Jean', he gradually became a different person to her, and she began not to depend on him for her happiness.

Valjean would sit looking at Cosette in silence, or would talk about incidents from their past. One evening in April, he called at the usual time but was told that Cosette had gone out with her husband. He waited in the small, damp room for an hour before sadly returning home. Over the next few days, his visits began to be interrupted by servants calling Cosette to dinner. When he arrived, he discovered that the fire had not been lit, and the armchairs had been left near the door. One evening he discovered there were no chairs in the room at all - he and Cosette had to stand in the cold for their whole meeting. Valjean realized what was happening; Marius was telling the servants not to make him welcome any more. That night he went home in despair, and the next evening he did not come at all.

When Valjean did not appear for the second evening, Cosette sent a servant to his house to ask if he was well. Valjean replied that he was very well, but that he had business to attend to. He did not return to the house again, and Cosette was too busy with married life to think too much about him. She did not realize that, every evening, Valjean would walk slowly from his house until he reached the corner of the street where she lived. He would then stare at the house for several minutes, tears rolling down his cheeks, before turning round and slowly returning home.

***

Marius thought it was right to exclude Valjean from Cosette's life. He achieved this without cruelty, but without weakness. Apart from the details about his life that Valjean had confessed to him, he knew that Valjean had killed Inspector Javert at the barricade. His private investigations into the old man's past had also revealed an even more disgusting fact. He had discovered that Valjean's money really belonged to somebody called Monsieur Madeleine, a wealthy manufacturer from Montreuil who had mysteriously disappeared. He persuaded Cosette, therefore, not to use any of the money her guardian had given her, and to live on the money that he had started to earn as a lawyer. Cosette had not been happy about this. She could not understand why her father, as she still thought of Valjean, had stopped visiting her. She still loved him in her heart. But she loved her husband even more, and she gradually became used to not depending on the old man for her happiness.

One evening a servant brought Marius a letter, saying, 'The writer is waiting in the hall.'

The smell of tobacco and the handwriting on the envelope was so familiar that Marius immediately thought of the Jondrettes. He read the letter quickly. It was signed 'Thenard', and was asking for money. Marius could not believe his luck. He had tried without success to find the man who had saved his father's lite at Waterloo, and now the man had come to him! He immediately asked the servant to show the man in.

However, Marius had a shock when he saw the man - he did not recognize him at all! He was an old man with a big nose, glasses and neat grey hair. He was wearing smart black clothes, and a gold watch chain hung from his jacket pocket.

'What do you want?' Marius asked coldly, as the stranger bowed to him.

The stranger explained in great detail how he used to work for the government in foreign countries and that, now he was retired, he wanted to move to South America with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, it was a long journey, and he needed money.

'What has that to do with me?'

'Has M. Pontmercy not read my letter?'

Marius had only read the letter quickly, and could not remember the details, so he said, 'Go on.'

'I have a secret to tell you, M. Pontmercy,' the stranger said. 'I'll tell you the first part for nothing. I think you'll be interested;

'Well?'

'The man you think is your wife's guardian is a murderer and a thief. His name is Jean Valjean.'

'I know that.'

'Did you know that he spent nineteen years in prison?'

'I know that too.'

The stranger narrowed his eyes, trying to hide his disappointment and anger at Marius's calmness. Then he gave a strange smile.

'I have more information to tell you. It concerns money that belongs to your wife. It's a remarkable secret and I'll sell the information to you for 20,000 francs.'

'I know this secret already,' Marius said, 'just as I knew the others.'

'10,000 francs?'

'I repeat, you have nothing to tell me.'

'But I need to eat, Monsieur!' the visitor said, losing confidence. 'I'll tell you for twenty francs.'

'I know it already,' Marius said. 'I know everything. I even know your real name. It's Thenardier.'

The visitor laughed, but Marius went on, 'You're also Jondrette. And you once had an inn in Montfermeil.'

'I deny it!'

'You're a completely rotten man, but I'll give you this.' Marius took a banknote out of his pocket and threw it in the stranger's face.

'Thank you, M. Pontmercy!' the man said, examining the note. '500 francs! That's real money. Oh well, I suppose we can relax.'

With those words, he removed his false nose, glasses and neat grey wig.

'M. Pontmercy is absolutely right,' he said, changing his voice. 'I am Thenardier.'

He waited for a few seconds to see Marius's reaction.

Marius, meanwhile, was grateful for finally having the chance to help Thenardier, and therefore to keep the promise he had made to his father. Thenardier's presence, however, offered him another opportunity; it gave him the chance to solve the mystery of Cosette's fortune.

'Thenardier,' he said. 'Shall I tell you the secret that you were planning to sell me? I, too, have sources of information, and probably know more about the subject than you do. Jean Valjean, as you say, is a murderer and a thief. He's a thief because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer and mayor of Montreuil, M. Madeleine. Jean Valjean, who knew the mayor's background, reported him to the police and took advantage of his arrest to take over half a million francs from his Paris bank. The manager of the bank told me this himself. And he murdered the policeman, Javert. I know this because I was there at the time.'

Thenardier looked puzzled for a moment, then said, 'Monsieur, I think you are mistaken.'

'What! Are you denying what I said? Those are facts!'

'They are incorrect, and I do not like to hear a man unjustly accused. Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine, nor did he kill Javert.'

'How do you know?'

'First, he did not kill M. Madeleine because he was M. Madeleine! And second, he did not kill Javert because Javert killed himself. He killed himself by jumping into the river.'

'What proof do you have?' Marius said, wide-eyed with disbelief.

'I have all the proof here,' Thenardier said, producing an envelope in which there were several documents and newspaper articles. 'I've spent a long time discovering the truth about Jean Valjean.'

Marius studied the documents carefully, then looked up with a smile of joy. 'But he's a splendid man! The fortune was really his, and he's not a murderer or thief at all! He's a hero and a saint!'

'He's a thief and a murderer,'Thenardier said quietly.

'What do you mean?'

'I told you that I do not like to see a man accused unjustly, but I do like to see a man punished for crimes he has committed.'

'And what crimes are those?'

Thenardier sat down and told Marius about the time he had helped Valjean to escape from the Paris sewer.

'He was carrying the body of a man he had robbed and killed,' Thenardier said. 'Look, I have a piece of cloth from the dead man's coat as proof.'

He produced a muddy piece of cloth and showed it to Marius, who immediately went pale and rose unsteadily to his feet. As Thenardier continued to talk, Marius opened a cupboard door and took out a coat.

'That man was me!' Marius cried. 'And here is the coat I was wearing!'

Thenardier stared at the coat and the cloth in his hands, speechless with fear. He was even more surprised when, instead of chasing him out of the room, Marius ran towards him and pressed several thousand-franc notes into his hand.

'You're a terrible man,' Marius said. 'A thief and a liar. You came here to destroy a man, but you have done the opposite. If you hadn't saved my father's life at Waterloo, I'd report you to the police. I know that your wife is dead, but take the money and start a new life in America with your daughter. When you arrive there, I'll send you another 20,000 francs. Now get out. I never want to see you again!'

When Thenardier had left, unable to believe his good fortune, Marius ran to find Cosette and told her everything immediately.

'We must go to him at once,' Marius said. 'He was the man who saved my life. We must waste no time!'

Minutes later, he and Cosette were travelling in a carriage to Number 7, rue de l'Homme-Arme.

***

Jean Valjean looked up when he heard the knock on his door and called in a weak voice, 'Come in.'

The door opened and Marius and Cosette appeared. Cosette rushed to the chair where Jean Valjean was sitting.

'Father!' she cried, falling into his arms.

'So you've forgiven me?' Valjean whispered, hugging Cosette to him and turning to Marius.

'Cosette, did you hear what he said?' Marius cried, tears of shame and guilt rolling down his cheeks. 'He asked me to forgive him. And do you know what he did? He saved my life and he brought me back to you. He came to the barricade to save me, just as he saved Javert. He carried me on his back through the sewers of Paris, to bring me to you. Oh Cosette, I feel so ashamed of the way I've treated him!'

'You have no need to say all this,' Valjean murmured.

'Why didn't you say it yourself?' Marius demanded. 'Why didn't you tell me that you were M. Madeleine and that you saved Javert's life at the barricade? Why didn't you tell me that I owed you my life?'

'Because I thought it would be better to break away. If you had known the truth, you would have felt obliged to be good to me, a worthless criminal. That would have upset everything.'

'What or whom would it have upset?' Marius said. 'Well, we're not going to allow you to stay here on your own. You're going to come home with us. You're Cosette's father and mine. I won't allow you to spend another day here.'

'And you can't refuse this time,' Cosette agreed, sitting on Jean Valjean's lap and kissing his forehead. 'There's a carriage waiting for you. I'm kidnapping you - by force, if necessary!'

Jean Valjean listened as she described the view from the room that would be his, the beauty of the garden, the singing of the birds, but he was listening more to the music of her voice than to the meaning of her words. Finally, he said, 'Yes, it would be delightful, but

Cosette, frightened, took his two hands in hers.

'Your hands are so cold,' she said. 'Are you ill? Are you in pain?'

'No,' said Valjean. 'I'm not in pain. But

'But what?'

'I'm going to die soon.'

'Father, no!' Cosette cried. 'You're going to live! You must live, do you understand?'

Marius and Cosette both did their best to raise Valjean's spirits, to show him how much they loved and needed him, to fill him with the strength and the desire to live again. But it was too late. Valjean smiled, his eyes shining with love and happiness, but he was beginning to lose strength.

'To die is nothing,' he murmured. 'But it is terrible not to live.'

Then, taking Cosette's sleeve and pressing it to his lips, he said, 'Come close to me, both of you. I love you dearly. How sweet it is to die like this. And you love me too, dear Cosette. You'll feel some grief for me, but not too much. I want you to have no great sorrows. You must enjoy life, my children. I'm leaving the two candlesticks by the bed to Cosette. They're made of silver, but to me they are pure gold. I don't know whether the person who gave them to me is pleased as he looks down on me from above. I've done my best. You mustn't forget, my children, that, despite my money, I am one of the poor.'

As he spoke, Valjean's breathing became more painful and he had difficulty moving his arms. But as the weakness of his body increased, his spirit grew in strength. The light of an unknown world was shining brightly in his eyes.

'Now, Cosette,' he breathed softly, 'the time has come for me to tell you your mother's name. It was Fantine. You must not forget it. Your mother loved you greatly and she suffered greatly. She was as rich in sorrow as you are in happiness. That is how God balances things out. He watches us all from above and knows what he is doing among his splendid stars. And now I must leave you, my children. Love one another always. There is nothing else that matters in this world except love.'

Cosette and Marius fell to their knees on either side of him, holding back their tears. Jean Valjean's hands rested on their bowed heads, and did not move again. He lay back with his head turned to the sky, the light from the two silver candlesticks falling on his smiling, peaceful face.

- THE END -