A Hero and Some Other Folks | Page 9

"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 the collar of his
blouse--"I want my silver, my forty-sous piece"--and began to cry. A
little lad a-sobbing! Jean Valjean, you who for so many years "have
talked but little and never laughed;" Jean Valjean, pity the child; give
him his coin. You were bought of the bishop for good. But in terrible
voice he shouts: "Who is there? You here yet? You had better take care
of yourself;" and the little lad runs, breathless and sobbing. Jean
Valjean hears his sobbing, but made no move for restitution until the
little Savoyard has passed from sight and hearing, when, waking as
from some stupor, he rises, cries wildly through the night, "Petit
Gervais! Petit Gervais!" and listened, and--no answer. Then he ran, ran
toward restitution. Too late! too late! "Petit Gervais! Petit Gervais!
Petit Gervais!" and, to a priest passing, "Monsieur, have you seen a
child go by--a little fellow--Petit Gervais is his name?" And he calls
him again through the empty night; and the lad hears him not. There is
no response, and for the first time since he passed to the galleys, Jean
Valjean's heart swells, and he bursts into tears; for he was horrified at
himself. His hardness had mastered him, even when the bishop's

tenderness had thawed his winter heart. Jean Valjean was now afraid of
himself, which is where moral strength has genesis. He goes
back--back where? No matter, wait. He sees in his thought--in his
thought he sees the bishop, and wept, shed hot tears, wept bitterly, with
more weakness than a woman, with more terror than a child, and his
life seemed horrible; and he walks--whither? No matter. But, past
midnight, the stage-driver saw, as he passed, a man in the attitude of
prayer, kneeling upon the pavement in the shadow before the bishop's
door; and should you have spoken, "Jean Valjean!" he would not have
answered you. He would not have heard. He is starting on a pilgrimage
of manhood toward God. He saw the bishop; now he sees God, and
here is hope; for so is God the secret of all good and worth, a thing to
be set down as the axiom of religion and life. A conscience long
dormant is now become regnant. Jean Valjean is a man again!
Goodness begets goodness. He climbed; and the mountain air and azure
and fountains of clear waters, spouting from cliffs of snow and the far
altitudes, fed his spirit. God and he kept company, and, as is meet,
goodness seemed native to him as lily blooms to lily stems. God was
his secret, as God is the secret of us all. To scan his process of recovery
is worth while. The bishop reminded him of God. Goodness and love in
man are wings to help us soar to where we see that service, love, and
goodness are in God--see that God is good and God is love. Seeing God,
Jean Valjean does good. Philanthropy is native to him; gentleness
seems his birthright; his voice is low and sweet; his face--the helpless
look to it for help; his eyes are dreamy, like a poet's; he loves books; he
looks not manufacturer so much as he looks poet; he passes good on as
if it were coin to be handled; he suffers nor complains; his silence is
wide, like that of the still night; he frequently walks alone and in the
country; he becomes a god to Fantine, for she had spit upon him, and
he had not resented; he adopts means for the rescue of Cossette. In him,
goodness moves finger from the lips, breaks silence, and becomes
articulate. Jean Valjean is brave, magnanimous, of sensitive conscience,
hungry-hearted, is possessed of the instincts of motherhood, bears
being misjudged without complaint, is totally forgetful of himself, and
is absolute in his loyalty to God--qualities which lift him into the elect
life of manhood.

Jean Valjean was brave. He and fear never met. The solitary fear he
knew was fear of himself, and lest he might not live for good as the
bishop had bidden him; but fear from without had never crossed his
path. His was the bravery of conscience. His strength was prodigious,
and he scrupled not to use it. Self-sparing was no trait of his character.
Like another hero we have read of, he would "gladly spend and be
spent" for others, and bankrupt himself, if thereby he might make
others rich. There is a physical courage, brilliant as a shock of armies,
which feels the conflict and leaps to it as the storm-waves leap upon the
sword edges