OOM: Marius

[road_to_calvary]

 

At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him! How many times had the truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind! How many times had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his conscience, again overthrown by it…

 

*

He dreams of an ice-cold room, and himself bent over a bed with his arms outstretched, a man on an invisible cross. At times, a flash of sun and salt, and a whip biting his flesh; he is glad of those moments of respite. They do not last, he is sent back to the room, walls closing in and frost on the windows, the darkness of a long winter’s night. He wakes to the red glow of the clock but does not know what it is or where he is, and sleeps again at once.

The last time he was caused to wrestle with his conscience, he had dreamed of his brother and a world where everything was dead. This time the fight is far worse, a combat between good and evil itself, the light on one hand, the abyss on the other. Happiness overshadowed by the spectre he trails behind him – happiness he himself brought about! – or the darkness, but with the knowledge that no one is harmed as he sits in it.

He blinks awake.  The clock says 4am. The sky is turning light at one edge, and he stares at it without seeing, scenes of his life reeling behind his eyes, Marius’s face in its grimace of horror, the way he stumbled and cried out, Cosette’s ire as they sent her away. And through it all, the cold, empty hole in his own chest at knowing Marius is the face society wears; that is how people would look at Cosette if they knew, that is why he did it, that is the last protection he can offer her. And it is right. What is he, in the face of that? Nothing at all. Should he set himself above conscience, and take what is not his to have? No, he could not. But he cannot give it up entirely. Honesty must be worth some grace. The boy was kind. He was merciful. You shall come every evening, and it was more than he had the right to expect.

He must sleep. He must go home, to where she will be expecting him. But there are these last hours to be got through first, and how can he sleep when all he hears are the words that caused that look  on Marius’s face, the words that keep him in the dark, and force him to tug at the thread in his heart. And what words. The only words he needs to seal his fate, should he find the courage to utter them aloud. Words written on his soul the day the gavel fell, and consigned him to this life. Words he will wear on his bones until the last breath leaves his body. Words he cannot even wish were untrue, because they brought him to her.

 

*

 

‘Monsieur, I have something to say to you. I am an ex-convict.’

Marius stood with his mouth wide open. The invitation to breakfast was still hanging in the air when Valjean spoke; this was not the response the boy had been expecting. Valjean took advantage of the shock to remove the sling he wore, and unwind the sham bandage from his uninjured thumb.

‘It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing.’

‘…what is the meaning of this?’

‘The meaning of it is that I have been in the galleys.’

‘You are driving me mad!’

The terror was evident in the boy’s voice, but it could not be helped. Valjean felt nothing but peace in that moment; the peace earned through unimaginable pain, the calm only won by passing through the tempest.

‘Monsieur Pontmercy, I was nineteen years in the galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban.’

Marius seemed to recoil, try to refuse the evidence and unhear the words, but they would not be made silent. Hideous enlightenment flashed through him, the dawn of understanding making him quiver.

‘Say all, say all! You are Cosette's father!’

He retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable horror. Valjean watched, and then lifted his head slowly to look him in the eye.

‘I the father of Cosette! before God, no. Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself.’

He told him that Cosette was an orphan, and that she needed him. That he was a passer-by, and became her  protector. That he fulfilled the duty he took on; that he did not think that so slight a thing can be called a good action, but if it be a good action, well, say that he had done it. He said that he loved her.

But he can do no more for Cosette; that is what he said, because it is the truth. Their roads parted now, she was Madame Pontmercy and had all the gain of that. The six hundred thousand francs he gave were a deposit that came into his hands, and he had restored it. How did he come by the deposit? What did it matter?

‘I complete the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a reason for desiring that you should know who I am.’

Marius sounded wounded in his shock, as though Valjean were raging at him, as though everything he knew in life was upside down – but he still could not bring himself to say it was not true. They both knew it was true.

‘But why do you tell me all this? Who forces you to do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?’

 

*

 

4:01am. Valjean blinks in the dark. His motive? How can he ever explain his motive, and make anyone understand. To those who have not lived such a life, it must seem ludicrous that he, an ex-convict, a parole-breaker who lies every time he says his name, could ever have such a motive.

It is simply this: honesty.

He had spoken knowing the boy might not believe him, but also knowing that he had gone there to speak the truth and that he could do no more than that. He had spoken words he had not rehearsed, and they come back to him now as if saying them again, as if he were back in that drawing room so filled with light. I have a thread in my heart which keeps me fast. Had I been able to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to go far away, I should have been safe.

He could have left. Marius would have been happy with that, at least now he knows the truth. But he tried to make himself and could not, because he could not run again like a thief in the night. He tried to break the thread, he tore his heart in two with it, but it would not budge and he knew, he knew, he could not live anywhere else. She is here, and what is he without her? And Cosette had arranged a room for him in the house, and spoke of the days they would spend together, how he would play cards with the grandfather, and take walks with her, and they would all eat together, and share the fireplace and the table, and the garden, and the house, and all be happy as one family, together.

He would like to laugh again, but it is not in him. He, be happy? Well, why not? He has known happiness; those years at the convent while Cosette grew and he tended the garden with old Fauchelevent, and then after, before this boy came to ruin it all, when it was just the two of them in their house in the Rue Plumet. When all she had was him, and all they had was each other. No, he cannot laugh. If she were here to tell him to, perhaps. But maybe not even then.

 

*

 

‘As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it was well, I said to myself: 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing; my conscience.’

His conscience was a thing that would damn him to the end of the world. But there was no higher law, and one cannot ignore it at will. How could a man live with himself if he chose to listen only when it suited? It would be abominable, false conscience, no truth at all.

‘That is why I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. It was not a resolution that was easy to take. I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one's way, that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.’

 

*

 

He gets out of bed and paces the carpet, his mind on fire as it had been when he made this speech to the Baron. He is right to have said it, he is sure; the distinction is clear and so how could his decision have been otherwise? To say nothing was to be happy, but he would have brought Toulon with him; he would have sat at their fine dinner table with the knowledge that if they knew who he was, he would be driven from it; he would be served by the domestics who would recoil if they knew, and proclaim their revulsion to his face; he would have pulled back from a handshake or a clasp of the arm; he would have sat surrounded by this family who believed themselves safe, who would speak and open their hearts to each other. And he would be in his armchair and know that he was the stranger in the room, that he was chained to keeping his secret and nothing else would matter, that secrecy and dishonesty were all he could bring into their house. He would be a dead man among the living, and he would commit that crime every day of his life, tainting them, turning them as black as he.

He stops walking. He stares out of the window, carpet beneath his feet, the cloying heat of summer on his neck. The dawn is coming, here in a place that cannot be real. Tiredness aches at the back of his eyes, but the words are draining from him, leaving him empty; the more he hears them again, the more he knows them to be true. And there is a dreadful calm in knowing the right path has been set upon; every step may hurt, but the pain holds truth…that the other would be worse. It may shine bright, and have flowers along the verge, but how would he enjoy them when he knew the lie he carried inside? No, this path is better. The agony is earned by honesty, and if he is scoured as he walks then at the end, at least he will be clean.

 

*

 

‘I am only the most crushed of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one's peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at midday, and my 'good morning' would have lied, and my 'good night' would have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be happy? I stand outside of life, Sir.’

He paused, his throat dry. Marius was listening, unable to interrupt.

‘You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds oneself, one is firmly held.’

But it would not be honest if he did not add the final word of his confession.

‘Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It is by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own.’

Because it was the truth, and had been the truth since Montreuil. Had he not suffered badly with pride in those years, when he took to comparing himself to other men? Had he not learned the folly of it, when he so very nearly allowed another man to be condemned in his place? And the knowledge that came after he submitted himself to the fall – that by following his conscience, he did right; by doing right, he could stand to look himself in the eye; and so it came in a circle - - he could rest easy and be assured that he was no longer the animal he was in Toulon, that he knew right from wrong, and exercised his will to choose one over the other; that he might suffer in body because of honesty, but his soul remained free.

Perhaps even that was egotism. But if so, at least no one else was chained by it.

‘When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it, one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not take it. A name is an I. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous within the I, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have just told you all this.’

He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word:

‘In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in order to live, I will not steal a name.’

 

*

 

He dresses without haste. The sun will not rise just yet, he has time. It occurs to him to wonder whether he will ever see this room again; some obligations have been placed on him in the day since he came back to this place, but they are nothing a conversation should not see to. He can predict the outcome of it now, so much that it hardly seems worth the effort of having it at all. But he said he would, and so he will. And after that? He will go home.

The irony of finding this magic tavern is not lost on him. That all through these choices he has recently made, there was always a place where people seem not to care that he carries the shadow of the law with him. Where he is told his past matters not, and where people may already have read about it and know what he did, and why. He has been told he is a good man, even by people who would condemn him in Paris…and for a time, he did not know why these words did not touch him. He knows now. It is because he is not anyone else’s to condemn, or exonerate. No one can free him but himself, and how could he ever do that? Words here are not words in Paris. Someone here would nod at the words ‘I am an ex-convict,’ and then move on to talk about the weather, or the latest conversations they have had. But having that here is not the same as having it at home. No amount of acceptance can change the reality of Marius’s face on hearing the truth, or the way Cosette had stood horrified as she saw a chain-gang of convicts being driven out of the city. ‘Are they still men?’ she had asked. And he had said, sometimes.

Only sometimes. Only here, perhaps, and for those who have no access to this place…only when they lie. But he cannot do that anymore. He cannot taint the innocent to make himself happy. No, there was only truth left, and to throw himself on the mercy of Marius Pontmercy.

 

*

‘You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; you have before you, sir, a wretched man.’

Marius crossed the room slowly, and when he came close he offered Valjean his hand. He did not take it, he could not, but the boy pressed their palms together anyway. He allowed it, because he could not pull away.

‘My grandfather has friends. I will procure your pardon.’

‘It is useless. I am believed to be dead, and that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon.’

He disengaged his hand, and added quietly,

‘Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience.’

Cosette had come. She talked of waiting for them to finish speaking, though they insisted they spoke of business. She was dressed neck to foot in a dressing-gown with a thousand folds, she spoke of the birds that had come to her window, she chided him for not taking her part when Marius tried to send her away. She asked if he was well, and if he was happy, and if he had slept, and she looked like an angel dressed in white, offering her gleaming brow to be kissed. He had done so, even after lying to her questions, even knowing it might be the last time he could do it.

Marius closed the door in her wake, making sure it was secure.

‘Poor Cosette. When she finds out…’

And his heart had snapped again; a razor’s slice of shock, and realisation.

‘Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that.’

He could not think of it then, the horror was too great.

‘One has the strength for one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, give me your most sacred word of honour, that you will not tell her. Is it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the whole world,—it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to explain matters to her, to say to her: 'He is a man who has been in the galleys.' She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!’

After the tears of the day before, after the night he had spent, it was nothing to shed tears in front of the Baron. Indeed, he would not be able to stop them if he had tried. For Cosette to know this! No, he had not thought of it. All these years had passed with him knowing she must not, and would not, ever find out; he had not considered that it might happen now. And he could not bear the horror on her face if she knew. He could not.

‘Oh, would that I could die.’

 

*

 

But men are not allowed to die just because they will it. That is not the way of God. They are left alive to suffer and endure, and try to keep themselves true despite it.

He ties his cravat with stiff fingers, not looking at his face in the mirror. Should he have wished for death? Well, it is of no matter. He has told the truth, and there is nothing left to lose anymore. God cannot have more trials for him, because nothing could ever be as great as this one. Sending himself back to the galleys was nothing in comparison. So he may as well die, and he can do it knowing that Cosette is safe and happy, and in no danger.

He lets his hands fall to his side. There, he is ready. He is dressed, and respectable. He will speak to those he has promised to speak to, and then he will leave. And what of home? Marius promised not to tell Cosette. He tried to give him money to live on. He is a good young man, is he not?

His feet do not move. He looks at the carpet. It seems black in this pre-dawn light, shadows crawling over his shoes and up his legs, anchoring him in place. Yes, a good young man.

 

*

 

‘Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I ought not to see Cosette anymore?’

Marius’s voice was cold, aloof.  ‘I think that would be better.’

‘I shall never see her more.’

He heard himself say it, but could not feel the words in his mouth. And there was nothing else to say, so he walked to the door…but no, he could not, perhaps he should but he could not do it, he could not leave without begging because he must know he did everything he could, and he could not bear to think it was the final word. To never see her more! No, he must fight against that, the only thing left worth fighting for in the world.

‘Stay, sir. If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly.’

Words fell from him; the places they had lived, the clothes she wore, the years they have spent together. Words he would hardly remember, lost as they were to the terror clutching at his heart, knowing that it might be pulled from his chest at any second and thrown into the fire. ‘…truly, sir, I should like to see a little more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, I have nothing left but that. And then, we must be cautious. If I no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the afternoon, when night is beginning to fall.’

If he came at night, he would not be seen or noted by anyone; he could pass in and out like a shadow through the door, take his little bit of light and then leave again in the dark. He could do that and disturb no one, he would leave them to the daytime and the sun, and never darken it for them. But if he was not allowed, if the boy refused, then –

‘You shall come every evening, and Cosette will be waiting for you.’

‘…you are kind, sir.’

 

*

 

Yes, he is very kind.

Valjean blinks as the first sliver of sun lifts over the mountain, throwing a golden beam across the lake. It lights up a figure walking across the grass, and passes across the building to Valjean’s left. He watches it from his window and then steps back, retreats to the corner to retrieve his hat.

Time does not pass at home while he is here. He will re-enter the Rue de l’homme Arme at around two in the afternoon, and as he has already seen Cosette that morning, as Paris reckons it, he will not be able to return in the evening. Twenty-four hours then, and a few more, before he can go to the house.  He is not sure what he will fill those hours with, but no doubt something will present itself.

He looks around the room before he leaves. There is nothing in it that was not provided by the bar, because he has never kept possessions here. He has made the bed somewhat, and folded his nightclothes. There is a toothbrush in the bathroom, and an upturned glass by the sink. That is all.

He puts his hat on his head, and closes the door. He is not sure he will ever return, but that is well enough. This place is not real, because there is no sorrow here. There is no quandary, no fight, no struggle. He is not troubled, and not harassed by his own conscience, and so it passes by as if a dream. There have elements he has enjoyed, interesting people to talk with. But Cosette is at home, and he must go and wait for her now. She is the only sunlight that matters; the only dawn he dares touch. And only for a while longer. Just a little while longer.

 

*

 

How many times he had risen bleeding, bruised, broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And, after having dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with red-hot pincers, it had said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil: "Now, go in peace."