The Inspector and the Urchin
One foot in front of the other, boots slipping on wet cobblestones, Javert walked from the barricade. Everything was wrong. But somehow, the worst of it was inside of Javert himself. He had acted honorably, more so than necessary. He had warned Valjean that he would not bargain his morality for his life. Javert knew that once you committed yourself to doing the right thing, it wasn't that difficult. Why then, did he feel shame at the idea of arresting Valjean?
But Valjean could not be right. He was a thief, and all thievery was the same, be it the taking of bread or of a life. The man had saved a prostitute and a rebel brat. This only showed that he cared for other vermin. But now he had saved Javert. This was different, not because Javert valued his life above all else, but because he knew that Jean Valjean was not a simpleton or a madman. He did not smile at his foes because he couldn't tell them from his friends. He had looked at Javert in the sewers with hate—or was it disappointment? And then he had looked beyond the hate or disgust or disappointment, whatever it was, and sworn to return to the galleys. He did not regret saving Javert's life.
Wasn't this what Javert did every day of his life? Followed the law, no matter how it made him feel, and then convinced himself he was happy to do it? Hadn't he, above all else, done what he knew to be right? This criminal was doing exactly the same. But Javert no longer wanted to follow what was good. That was too much for any man to change. He would not be like Valjean. He would not live according to what he was forced to consider right. He would have to be—wrong. There was no place for anything wrong in the world. It had to be cast out at once. There was no reason—
The voice shrilled across the darkness inescapably, though it was small and thin. There wasn't even the sound of gunshot to mask it.
"You! This is your fault! They're dying, they're getting shot, and I've got blood—" Gavroche seemed hysterical. He clenched black fists that were covered in blood. Then he grasped a knife sticking from a dead man's belt. He turned his back to Javert, trying furiously to jerk it from the sheath it was stuck in. Javert didn't move. He heard the boy crying. He heard the sound of many boots plodding the streets nearby.
"You're a murderer, a killer! All you want to do is make people miserable!" Gavroche's own blood flowed down his hands. He had torn the skin trying to pull the knife out.
There was shouting at the end of the alley.
"You don't even know the difference between right and wrong! You don't care! You—"
Javert struck the boy aside with his baton, and Gavroche fell hard against the alley wall. The soldiers, finally making their way down the dimly lit street, fired at the only man left in their sight. Then they were gone, dogging the heels of fleeing revolutionaries.
Javert shook and bled, unable to move out of the street. But he saw that the urchin, Gavroche, glanced back before disappearing through a broken fence. He had been angry when he hit the boy, but he had struck knowing that the men were coming with their guns….What did it matter why anyone did anything?
The law would justify this, he would have justified this, by saying that order had to be kept, and anyone in the streets tonight knew the risk they were taking. He shuddered, and the night seemed colder. Then, with a last effort, he threw it as far away from himself as he could. Javert did not die with his baton in hand. He did not die with the law in his heart.