"Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him-he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory."
"There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on!" The words were wrenched from Javert's icy lips and carried by the wind, but they came from his shattered heart. The heart that for the first time in his stone-cold life had been moved, had cracked under the emotion. But perhaps pain is better than numbness; it shows we are alive.
Javert shuddered, but not from the frigid air, for he did not even feel it. No, his shuddering was internal, from his very soul. For the first time in his life, the Law had been upended, his morals had been uprooted. The world, which had always been totally black and white to Javert, now had a blurred gray aspect. The convict he'd been chasing his whole life had become more than a one-dimensional sinner guilty of breaking the all-powerful Law and deserving of death...he'd become human. But more importantly, and devastatingly, he'd become humane.
Javert only saw two options before him. He could lock this man up, this 24601-no, this Jean Valjean, for Javert could no longer constrain the man to an unfeeling number now that he knew his character-he could send Valjean to the galleys, which is a sugar-coated way of saying death.
Or. Javert forced himself to face it unflinchingly. He could fling himself into the icy river and this terrible indecision that was worse than the guilt. Disorder, to Javert, was hell.
He was going to do it. He knew that now, knew he had known he would do it from the instance he was saved by the unwitting murderer Jean Valjean. Javert had dropped his gun into the water, yes, but only because a bullet was too easy a way to do it; or, perhaps he had been trying to hold on to the facade of life for as long as possible. Javert, who had always lived a life rules and regulations, would die from a fall, or jump, into a river. Nothing simpler, nothing more orderly. He could picture the newspaper article heralding the news when his clothes were found floating, lifeless and empty.
As he stared into the void of the river, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, but his eyes didn't register the sight in front of him, for they were already fixated on what lay ahead.
"Monsieur. Monsieur Javert."
His eyes finally clicked back into focus, and he took in the sight in front of him. He saw a girl who couldn't have been older than 16, but who somehow seemed much older. She was dressed in a simple but spotlessly clean white dress. A pretty girl. She had an ethereal aspect to her, which Javert didn't notice. If he'd been in his right mind, he would have called her an angel. Or, perhaps not, as Javert did not believe in angels.
"Why are you dying?" asked the girl, her voice faint and somehow melodious.
Javert looked at her blankly.
"I asked you why you are dying. You are obviously about to die, and I wish to know why."
Javert responded automatically, used to giving prompt and accurate answers. "I am choosing to die because the Law has been overruled by a mere man, because order is upside down, and because a convict has become a saint."
The girl shrugged and looked at the sky. "It is as I thought. He is not ready to die," she said, as if speaking to someone in the heavens. Then she nodded, apparently receiving her answer.
She then turned to Javert again with a soft sigh, but not of exasperation. Almost of pity. "Monsieur, your time has not come. If you had told me you were dying for love, it would be a different story. To die for love is honorable. You see, Monsieur, I am an angel in heaven, for I died for the one I love; and now he is happy, and I am blessed."
Javert looked at her blankly. His mind wasn't functioning rationally, or at all, and he showed no sign of hearing what the girl said; however, her words were being deeply imprinted on his brain. He believed this girl; rather, his soul believed, as his body wasn't capable of hearing anything.
"Come, Monsieur, suicide is never honorable, for it is never love. Killing oneself is selfish, and love is sacrifice."
The words and the way in which she said them struck his very soul, and his body began to wake up. He nodded slowly. "Who are you?"
"I am an angel," she replied simply. "And you are a man. Before you are two roads. You can make the cowardly choice and end your life, or you can choose the valorous thing and restore your life. I swear to you that if you leave here and become a different man, you will come to know love, and you will be an angel someday."
And then she was gone.
Javert found himself standing on the Notre Dame bridge overlooking the rampaging waters of the river. For the first time, he felt the cold, and he pulled his collar up around his chin. He looked up and saw the brightly scintillating stars, reminding him of the ones he had gazed at so long ago when he had made a promise to both himself and the sky. But tonight, the stars were not shining with revenge or a vow of violence; rather, they were twinkling with love, reminding Javert of the girl's mysterious and wise words.
And Javert went home.
Javert retired from the Prefecture of Police, moved to the country. He started a new life and found love. He found forgiveness for Jean Valjean. And he always had a strange fondness for gazing at the stars.
All that remained of that night was a newspaper article he'd clipped from the local paper, but not one telling of his own death. No, this article spoke of an angelic girl in white who had been spotted on the Notre Dame bridge at one o' clock in the morning on June 7, 1832.