Les Misérables I:2:XII - The Bishop at Work
The next day at dawn, Bishop Welcome was taking a stroll in his garden. Madame Maglory rushed towards him in a state of hysteria.
"My Lord! My Lord!" she cried, "Does Your Excellency know where the silverware basket is?"
"Yes," said the bishop.
"Thanks be to God!" she replied. "I didn't know what had become of it."
The bishop had just picked it out of a flowerbed. He presented it to Madame Maglory. "Here it is."
"So?" she said, "There's nothing inside! What about the silverware?"
"Ah!" replied the bishop. "So it's the silverware that has been worrying you? I don't know where it is."
"Good God! It's been stolen! It was the man who came yesterday evening; he stole it!"
In the blink of an eye, with a vivacity typical of vigilant old women like herself, Madame Maglory ran to the Oratory, entered the alcove and came back to the bishop. In the meanwhile, the bishop had bent down with a sigh to examine a cochléaria-des-Guillons plant that the basket had crushed as it fell over the flowerbed. He stood up when he heard Madame Maglory cry out.
"My Lord! The man has gone! The silverware is stolen!" As she was making this exclamation her eyes fell upon a corner of the garden where traces had been left evincing a climb to safety. A wooden support had been ripped off the wall. "See! That's how he escaped! He jumped down into Cochefilet Alley. Oh! What an abomination! He has robbed us of our silverware!"
The bishop remained silent for a moment, then raised his serious eyes and spoke to Madame Maglory softly: "But did this silverware belong to us in the first place?"
Madame Maglory was speechless. Another silence ensued, then the bishop continued:
"Madame Maglory, I have wrongly, and for a long time now, kept this silverware stored away. It was for the poor. What was this man? Evidently a pauper."
"Sweet Jesus!" interjected Madame Maglory, "All this is neither for my own sake, nor for the mademoiselle's. It doesn't bother us in the least. But it is of concern to you, my Lord. What is Your Excellency going to eat out of now?"
The bishop looked at her with an air of surprise.
"Oh, it's about that, is it? Are there no tin-plated utensils?"
Madame Maglory shrugged.
"Tin has an odour."
"Well then, we'll settle for iron-plated ones."
Madame Maglory grimaced profusely.
"Iron leaves a bad taste."
"Okay," said the bishop, "Wooden ones, then."
Moments later he was dining at the same table where Jean Valjean had sat the night before. As they were eating he cheerfully pointed out to his sister and Madame Maglory, who was grumbling under her breath, that there was absolutely no need for a spoon nor a fork (not even wooden ones) to dip a piece of bread in a cup of milk.
"What an idea!" said Madame Maglory to nobody in particular as she paced up and down, "Taking in a man like that and putting him up right under your nose! Oh, what a delightful surprise it is when all he does is rob you! God, it makes you shudder just to think about it!"
As brother and sister were about to get up to leave the table there came a knock on the door.
"Come in!" said the bishop.
The door was opened. A strange, violent group appeared on the doorstep. Three men were holding a fourth by the collar of his shirt. The three men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean. An officer of the gendarmerie who appeared to be the leader of the group was close to the door. He came in and approached the bishop with a military salute.
"Your Excellency…" he said. Hearing this address, Jean Valjean, who had been in a gloomy mood and looked exhausted, lifted his head, astounded.
"Your Excellency!" he murmured. "So this is not Father…"
"Silence," said a gendarme. "This is The Most Reverand Bishop Welcome."
However, Bishop Welcome had made his approach as hurriedly as his old age would allow him.
"Ah! There you are!" he cried when he saw Jean Valjean. "I am so relieved to see you! Or I would be, except that I had given you the candlesticks too, which are made of silver like everything else, and out of which you could easily make two hundred francs. Why didn't you take them away with your cutlery?"
Jean Valjean opened his eyes and looked at the venerable bishop with an expression that no human language could render.
"Your Excellency," said the officer of the gendarmerie, "Is what this man was saying true, then? We found him. He looked like someone who was trying to get away. We stopped him to investigate. He had this silverware…"
"And did he tell you," interrupted the bishop with a smile, "That it had been given to him by a kindly old priest in whose house he had spent the night? I see now. So you brought him here? That was a mistake."
"In that case," replied the officer, "Shall we let him go?"
"Certainly," replied the bishop.
The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who shrank back.
"Is it true that they're setting me free?" he said in an almost inaudible voice, as if he were talking in his sleep.
"Yes, you're being set free. Don't you understand that?" said a gendarme.
"My friend," interjected the bishop, "before going away, here are your candlesticks. Take them."
He went to the fireplace, took the silver candelabras and brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without a word, a gesture or a regard which might trouble the bishop.
Jean Valjean was trembling all over. He took the candlesticks almost mechanically, with an absent expression.
"Now," said the bishop, "Go in peace. – And by the way, when you come back, my friend, it is useless to try and enter through the garden. You can always come in and go out through the front door. It is only left on the latch, both in the day and at night."
Then, turning to face the gendarmerie:
"Sirs, you may leave now." The gendarmes went away.
Jean Valjean looked as if he were about to faint.
The bishop walked towards him and said to him quietly, "Do not forget; never forget that you have promised to use this money to become an honest man."
Jean Valjean, who could not recall having promised anything, remained silent. The bishop had weighted his words as he was speaking them. He said again, with a kind of solemnity:
"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to the darkness, but to the light. It is your soul that I purchase; I deliver it from all dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I commit it to God."