Javert had put his hat on unthinkingly as he left his rooms, letter to the Prefect in hand. The act had been a part of his unvarying routine for years on end: every day, his greatcoat, a quick whistle, his hat, the door latch. It was no real surprise that with his mind so occupied with the slow and unstoppable crumbling of reality, his body had snatched at every sense of order it could, clinging to routine as a drowning man to a rope — and so, he had put on his hat as he always did, and only now, staring down over the embankment parapet into the yawning void below, had he realized he had done so. A stir of surprise broke through the grave decision in his heart and he slowly removed his hat, giving his companions more than enough time to scramble up safely within.
He set it top-down on the parapet. There was no need for them to follow him, of course; they had performed their duty admirably and without failure, quite unlike himself. Valjean's remembered words in his ears transmuted themselves to an immutable and solemn condemnation; Javert's hand gripped the stone beside his hat until his knuckles whitened. So: he would set them at liberty; they would neither be dismissed nor forced to resign. Yes, that would be best.
But he did not have the chance to speak the words before his squirrels peered curiously up out of his hat, first the left, then the right, resting their paws on the brim. They fixed him both at once with wide round eyes that seemed, in his distraction, to shine with the same cursedly sweet light as Valjean's — even the right's, which was normally quite severe with him — and waited, silently.
The words stuck in his throat, and frozen, changed: instead of 'You are free to go. I do not require your services any longer, but I have provided you a good character: the receipt is beneath the hatband,' he said, "I — must go away; you are not to worry about me, do you understand?" which was of course ridiculous. They had no cause to worry, as they knew nothing, could know nothing; for the sake of his disguise, they had had to stay behind during the work of the past day, and so had seen neither Valjean nor what he had wrought upon Javert — upon the world.
But even as he spoke, the right squirrel leapt lightly from its foothold brace within the hat to his arm and, scrambling up it with its customary extraordinary agility, sat upon his shoulder; his left shoulder, quite out of order. It rested its paw against his ear and chattered lowly as if it were quite sure he could understand. Though — perhaps it was not meant for him, despite the tone and direction, as when it had finished the left squirrel joined it quickly, ascending to his right shoulder. Their tails, instead of pressing to his cheeks as they belonged, curled softly around and below his stock, a soft caress against the rope-burns left from the students' kind treatment.
In surprise and concern, for his squirrels had certainly never behaved in such a manner before, Javert lifted his hand from the parapet to stroke their backs and in doing so accidentally knocked his hat from the ledge into the river below. "Damn," he said, half struck by a mad urge to jump after it — but of course, with the squirrels wrapped about him so strangely, he could not; it would be tantamount to murder, for though they could swim better than he, they were hardly fish; escape from the rapids would be impossible.
Javert touched them anyway; their fur was soft and sleek as ever, almost shocking in its constancy. Gently he ran his thumb across the left's small graying head; it had always particularly detested change and protested strongly each time he had been forced by some circumstance or other to switch his hat or coat for a new one. "You'll soon get used to it," he said; "the pair of you are certain to find work quickly, with—"
He had knocked the letter of reference into the Seine along with his hat.
The right squirrel scolded loudly and disapprovingly in his ear, as if his thought was written plain on his face. To release them now, without reference, would be no better than dismissing them with prejudice; it would be wrong — it would be unfair. The thought of knowingly making his last act on earth an unjust one scratched at his very soul, his inherent and unbroken probity slowly but implacably overpowering the call of the river. Very well: he would return to his lodgings one more time; he would write a new one and have it properly sealed and the thing would be done with. "Come along," he said to them abruptly, unbuttoning his coat enough that they could slip into the carrying harness within; with a final chatter and tug at his hair, they did so.
By the time he had painstakingly and carefully recreated their reference — his pen somehow stopped up with fur almost immediately, ruining his first attempt with ugly blots; a small inky pawprint found its way to another; a sudden draft rustled the papers as he wrote and did for the third — the sun had risen outside his window; there was the noise and call of the city waking, and Javert had fallen asleep at his desk.