The Railroad To Damascus
To say that he felt bad would have been a great understatement. He acutely felt his own age ('late! too late! one doesn't start anew at fifty!"), his total life failure and endless loneliness.
Silent, unfathomable yearning, hidden most of his life from others as well as from himself, now was suffocating him like waterfall. He felt pathetic, unimportant and useless.
Having left his nightstick and pistol, he descended the stairs leading to the bridge and took a long look at the dark, unquiet waters of the Seine. He felt no fear – perhaps, he had had it out on the barricades, while waiting for the gunshot or the flash of knife. It dawned on him that the view in front of him – the river bank, the huge Notre Dame cathedral, the empty bouleward, some lonely cab rolling down the street, - all that was the last view he contemplated in this life, and perhaps he should say his farewell to the city, to everything…but then he snorted, discarding the thought as silly and sentimental. He had no one to say farewell to. No one was, or had ever been, interested in his person and certainly nobody had ever cared.
"Stop immediately, you fool! How dare you take away what belongs only to Our Lord?! " , he suddenly heard an indignant voice behind his back.
Startled, he turned around. Near the bridge railing there stood an old clergyman. He was of a rather short height; his hair was white and his eyes both perceptive and very kind. It was unbelievable that such a kind man could have just spoken in such a stern, even angry manner.
"What has happened to you, my son?", the priest spoke still sternly, but his tone was calmer. "What led you to this horrible idea – to insult Our Lord ?"
"One cannot even die without being disturbed!", Javert thought with an odd mixture of frustration and relief. He had always held a certain respect for men of cloth, and in any case, wasn't going to make a show out of his suicide.
"What is wrong? Everything is wrong with me, Reverend Father!", he answered bitterly. "I am fifty and I doubt everything I had believed in through all my life. I don't know anymore where I am going."
"I understand you, my son. But this temptation is to be endured. One should never give way to despair!", the old clergyman's tone was now soft, full of warmth and sincere compassion. Javert couldn't remember anyone else ever speaking to him like that. Usually people were only glad to get rid of him. He was not a nice or likeable person, and , being aware of the fact from an early age, the better impression he wanted to make, the more aloof , haughty and snarky he tried to look.
"I think you are in an extreme need of confession , filius meus", the priest observed.
"Confession?" Javert looked puzzled. However, at least his eyes no longer looked empty and dead, as they did several minutes before.
"Ah, I see", the older man chuckled. "So you attend church on due days only lest your superiors should label you a liberal or a follower of Voltaire. Confession, my son, is a confidential conversation about a person's soul. I am here to listen to you. Alors?…"
Javert, who still stood lower down the stairs, lifted his eyes and met those of the clergyman. Never in his life had he met such a kind, righteous man. The light seemed to be visibly pouring from him; unbelievable warmth coming from the priest felt like an embrace. Javert realised it was impossible to resist that man's influence. Besides, it seemed improper to converse with an elderly clergyman from afar, so the inspector went up the stairs again, and, having reached his unexpected confessor, stepped one stair down in order not to be towering over the older man's head, as the difference in their heights was considerable.
"I really don't know where to begin, Reverend Father", Javert started, still looking lost. "It's a long story, a very long one. You see, many years ago I met a man… No, you won't understand!"
"Won't I, though?" the old man didn't look troubled. "Pray tell me, filius meus, what evil had that man done to you that you now, when I saw you, wanted to put such a terrible burden upon his soul?"
"You speak so oddly, Reverend Father…I'm afraid I don't quite understand you…"
"Being a follower of the Good Shepherd, I speak as such. I know who you are talking about – that humble servant of God has been familiar to me for quite a long time. What is troubling you now, my son? What have you done to that man?"
" Spoilt his life, as I now realise", Javert quietly answered, lowering his head in dejection.
"No, my son, you are wrong to take too much responsibilityupon youself!", the priest shook his white head. "All your encounters with that man were not meaningless, nor without purpose; and if you think better about the circumstances that you had met under , time after time, then you'll come to the same conclusion youself!"
"Reverend Father, I thought quite much about it, and came to the conclusion that he had been right, and I had been wrong. Very wrong, indeed. Unforgivably so. It seems to me now that my whole life had been one huge mistake…", Javert concluded bitterly.
"Our Lord sent you these doubts, remorse and heartache in order to acquire your soul" the priest said very seriously, putting his light, weightless hand onto Javert's head. "Don't blame yourself for what Jean Valjean had suffered in this life. God had been testing him like the gold in the goldensmith's oven is being tested by fire, and you were only the tool in that process, filius meus. So, when his time comes, that man will be able to say , like St. Paul did, " The time of my departure is at hand; I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith; and now, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness… "
"Is it possible that there could be two truths , Reverend Father?"
" There can be even three, ten or more, in a worldly sense. But as for me, it has always been the Truth that mattered."
"And what is the Truth, Reverend?", Javert questioned wearily. Strangely, he took for granted the fact that the priest had somehow been acquainted with Jean Valjean, let alone the old man's sudden appearance on the bridge out of nowhere per se.
"The Truth is, filius meus, that you had been born a man long before you came to be a policeman, ", the clergyman smiled, "and that you became a servant of God earlier than the slave of the law. "
"As for my serving the law, it's all over now, Reverend", Javert said. "I must resign."
" It would be a great loss indeed", the old man shook his head in disapproval.
"For whom?", Javert sarcastically questioned. "I'm afraid my superiours don't share your enthusiasm."
"I also had my own superiours, filius meus, and they also did not always, to put it mildly, approuved of my actions", the clergyman's eyes, surprisingly young, twinkled in mischief.
"Bless me, Reverend Father", Javert suddenly asked, a moment later chiding himself for his thoughtlessness. ("Holy Church doesn't bless suiciders! Fortunate enough the Reverend didn't give you penalty!")
"Do lower your head, my son, you are tall indeed!", the priest chuckled good-naturedly. "I, as you see, wasn't blessed with height by Our Lord, and in my young days used to suffer much on that account."
A warm hand covered Javert's lowered head. The aforesaid hand was small, neatly shaped and not at all marred with visible signs of manual labour. "Arictocracy", Javert concluded. "One can
forge almost everything, but hands cannot be forged. They are either rough from work, or such fine like this curate's. By the way, does one have to kiss the priest's hand when receiving a blessing? Looks like I forgot." He never paid attention to such small gestures; just acted as the others did...
A tall , lean middle-aged man in policeman's uniform stood on the Pont-au-Change, top hat in his hand, looking around in wonder. He looked about fifty or so, his short, thick "salt and pepper" hair being a contrast to his altogether grey sideburns. Judging by his facial expression, he failed to remember either how he got there or what he was doing on the bridge at all.
"Don't be a fool, Javert; that is not a way out", said a voice from behind, belonging to an older, larger man , whose hair was completely white.
Flabbergasted, Javert turned around. "You?!"
"You see, it's a talent of mine – to appear at a right place in a right time", the older man smiled with a wistful irony. "Looks like this time the talent didn't fail me either."
He came up , fearless, looking down at the water whirlpool under the bridge. " It's no use. You do know I am quite a good swimmer, don't you? Remember Toulon and Montreuil?", he gave Javert a warm smile.
"I haven't forgot", the latter answered, looking detached, deep in thought, as if trying to remember something. His opponent, tooking the matter into his own hands, was now leading him towards the boulevard, farther and farther from the river, not forgetting to collect Javert's pistol and nightstick from the bridge railing. The pistol , after another look at Javert's state,he put into his own pocket, and the top hat was replaced by the nightstick in its owner's hand. The aforesaid owner of those things, however, seemed to ignore all those manipulations with his property.
"Why did you try to do it?" , the older man chided when they finally stopped near the streetlamp.
"What about the youngster that you saved from the barricade?", Javert abruptly changed the subject . "Is he alive?"
"Yes, he is, and will soon be well. Thanks to you.", Valjean nodded.
" What?…" Javert's eyes widened like saucers.
" Thank you for letting me save him", the older man answered gravely. " I'm forever in your debt for it. Soon he'll be able to marry Cosette and make her happy. So, all is pretty much settled. Now, there's a police post over there, round the corner, let us go."
"Where?", Javert still didn't get it.
"I have finished my earthly business", Valjean patiently explained, returning Javert's things back to him. "Now I am ready to get back to jail. Understood? So, shall we go?"
"No!" Javert cried out suddenly. "No, I can't do it", he shook his dishelved head (his forgotten top hat still in his hands). Valjean looked at his ex-nemesis closer and sighed. The latter's glance betrayed suffering and despair from the depths of his soul.
"So, that's it what… I see now…That's why you wanted to jump?.. In this case, I'll go to the police post alone. Why not? It won't be the first time for me to denounce myself…"
"You are mad!", Javert dejectedly uttered, dropping his top hat and nightstick back to the ground and taking his head into his hands. "Yes, you are really mad!"
" You are the one to talk", retorted Valjean in his mind, choosing to stay silent for now, once again picking up Javert's maltreated things from the ground. "Looks like I am more likely to fetch you to Charanton (Parisian equivalent of Bedhlam), rather than you are to turn me in to the police station. But that, like jumping into the Seine, can just as well be postponed for another day…" . And they continued their journey, leaving the station behind.
…. A tiny old man, most likely a country parson judging from his appearance, who was looking at that curious scene from afar, chuckled good-naturedly, silently blessing his favourite "spiritual son" with a sign of the cross, then turned away, walking in a light gait and leaving no traces of his steps on the grass.