A Hero and Some Other Folks | Page 8

with galley slaves; attempts repeated escapes, is retaken, and at the age of forty-six shambles out of his galley slavery with a yellow passport, certifying this is "a very dangerous man;" and with a heart on which brooding has written with its biting stylus the story of what he believes to be his wrongs, Jean Valjean, bitter as gall against society, has his hands ready, aye, eager, to strike, no matter whom. Looked at askance, turned from the hostel, denied courtesy, food, and shelter, the criminal in him rushes to the ascendant, and he thrusts the door of the bishop's house open. Listen, he is speaking now, look at him! The bishop deals with him tenderly, as a Christian ought; sentimentally, but scarcely wisely. He has sentimentality rather than sentiment in his kindness; he puts a premium on Jean Valjean becoming a criminal again. To assume everybody to be good, as some philanthropists do, is folly, being so transparently false. The good bishop--bless him for his goodness!--who prays God daily not to lead him into temptation, why does he lead this sullen criminal into temptation? Reformatory methods should be sane. The bishop's methods were not sane. He meant well, but did not quite do well. Jean Valjean, sleeping in a bed of comfort, grows restless, wakens, rises, steals what is accessible, flees, is arrested, brought back, is exonerated by the bishop's tenderness, goes out free; steals from the little Savoyard, cries after the retreating lad to restore him his coin, tails to bring him back; fights with self, and with God's good help rises in the deep dark of night from the bishop's steps; walks out into a day of soul, trudges into the city of M----, to which he finds admission, not by showing the criminal's yellow passport, but by the passport of heroism, having on entrance rescued a child from a burning building; becomes a citizen, invents a process of manufacturing jet, accumulates a fortune, spends it lavishly in the bettering of the city where his riches were acquired; is benefactor to employee and city, and is called "Monsieur;" and after repeated refusals, becomes "Monsieur the Mayor;" gives himself up as a criminal to save a man unjustly accused, is returned to the galleys for the theft of the little Savoyard's forty-sous coin; by a heroic leap from the yardarm, escapes; seeks and finds Cossette, devotes his life to sheltering and loving her; runs his gauntlet of repeated perils with Javert, grows steadily in heroism, and sturdy, invigorating manhood; dies a hero and a saint, and an honor to human kind,--such is Jean Valjean's biography in meager outline. But the moon, on a summer's evening, "a silver crescent gleaming 'mid the stars," appears hung on a silver cord of the full moon's rim; and, as the crescent moon is not the burnished silver of the complete circle, so no outline can include the white, bewildering light of this heroic soul. Jean Valjean is the biography of a redeemed life. The worst life contains the elements of redemption, as words contain the possibility of poetry. He was a fallen, vicious, desperate man; and from so low a level, he and God conspired to lift him to the levels where the angels live, than which a resurrection from the dead is no more potent and blinding miracle. Instead of giving this book the caption, "Jean Valjean," it might be termed the "History of the Redemption of a Soul;" and such a theme is worthy the study of this wide world of women and of men.
Initial in this redemptive work was the good bishop, whose words, "Jean Valjean, my brother, you belong no longer to evil, but to good," never lost their music or might to Valjean's spirit. Some man or woman stands on everybody's road to God. And Jean Valjean, with the bishop's words sounding in his ears--voices that will not silence--goes out with his candlesticks, goes trembling out, and starts on his anabasis to a new life; wandered all day in the fields, inhaled the odors of a few late flowers, his childhood being thus recalled; and when the sun was throwing mountain shadows behind hillocks and pebbles, as Jean Valjean sat and pondered in a dumb way, a Savoyard came singing on his way, tossing his bits of money in his hands; drops a forty-sous piece near Jean Valjean, who, in a mood of inexplicable evil, places his huge foot upon it, nor listened to the child's entreaty, "My piece, monsieur;" and eager and more eager grows a child whose little riches were invaded, "My piece, my white piece, my silver;" and in his voice are tears--and what can be more touching than a child's voice touched with tears? "My silver;" and the lad shook the giant by