Les Something
Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.
Javert watched thoughtfully as the convicts sang along to their work.
"I still don't like it," he said finally.
"You think the singing means that they're too happy and so we're not doing our duty of making their lives as miserable as possible?" a fellow guard inquired.
Javert shook his head. "No, no, they look quite miserable and, in case there was any doubt, they're singing about how miserable they are and how they might as well just die right there. Perhaps if they have the energy to sing they have the energy to do more work but that's not my department."
"Then do you just not like the song?" the guard asked, a little bewildered. The convicts managed to put on a surprisingly pleasant performance given that none of them had any voice lessons and many couldn't even read.
"I'm suspicious of the song," Javert explained. "I've heard that sometimes captured peoples communicate with each other through seemingly innocuous songs. Of course, they are unjustly enslaved and these are perfectly lawfully imprisoned men but they seem to feel that they're victims so I imagine that the principle is about the same."
"But we're hearing the songs, too," the guard protested. "We know that it's just them complaining about how long their sentence is."
"That's what it sounds like," Javert agreed. "But is it really about that?"
"I…think so," the guard said, now sounding far less certain.
"I'm just saying that I want to know when they have the time to compose and then learn and finally harmonize all these songs," Javert said. "Even if they are not passing secret escape messages through them, the secret meetings that they must be having to be capable of this would be a wonderful time to plot escape. And speaking of…"
The guard nodded. "On it."
He went away and returned a few minutes later with a prisoner in his mid-forties.
"How was he trying to escape this time?" Javert inquired politely.
"I am offended by the presumption," the prisoner declared.
"He was lowering a rope ladder from the top of the roof," the guard replied, placing the ladder on Javert's desk.
"I've never seen that before in my life," the prisoner lied. "And even if I had, it's Thursday."
"Maybe if you would vary up the days that you tried to escape you'd have better luck," Javert suggested.
"Javert!" the guard was scandalized. "You can't just give the prisoners escape advice!"
Javert frowned. "I'm just trying to break up the monotony here. Maybe if someone would just reassign me already I wouldn't have to resort to such drastic measures."
The guard just shook his head, clearly at a loss for words.
The prisoner waited until they were done to speak. "I did think of that but then Thursday is just the perfect day to escape. The timing doesn't quite fit on any of the other days."
"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore since we're releasing you today," Javert told him. "And you knew that so why were you even trying to escape? Yes," he held up a hand here to forestall any possible protests, "I know that it is Thursday but it really seems unnecessary."
"I don't want to be released," the prisoner replied. "I want to escape. If I wanted to be released I would have stopped trying to escape years ago."
"Are you sure that we're doing the right thing letting him out on parole?" the guard asked, warily eying the prisoner. "I mean, with his weekly escape attempts we really should never let him out."
Javert shrugged. "It comes from the top. He's as sick of reading the reports on 24601's escape as we are of writing them and it's really setting a bad example. That's why, if anyone asked, he only tried to escape four times."
"My name is Jean Valjean," Valjean said indignantly.
Javert glanced over at him. "So it is."
"So please address me by it," Valjean said sternly. "Especially since I'm going to be free today."
Javert looked briefly amused. "Oh, is that what you think it is?"
"Well it is the end of my sentence," Valjean said, not liking the sound of this.
"That is true," Javert conceded. "But you're a thief so you have to have a yellow ticket-of-leave that you must show everywhere you go and will likely mean you'd be better off just staying here."
"I am not a thief!" Valjean objected.
"You stole something," Javert said flatly.
"One time!" Valjean exclaimed.
"Once is all it takes," Javert said virtuously. "If you kill someone one time you are a murderer. If you rape someone one time you are a rapist. If you kidnap someone one time then you are a kidnapper. It's pretty standard."
"But I didn't do any of those things and I had a longer sentence than some of those who did!" Valjean cried out. "I just stole a loaf of bread."
"Ah but you stole it from a house and that makes it robbing a house which is more serious," Javert corrected him.
"I broke a window pane!" Valjean argued. "And my sister's children were starving and close to death."
"Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the law say 'don't steal' and not 'don't steal unless you're really poor and are convinced you have a good reason'?" Javert asked idly. "Besides, at your trial the baker testified that he would have given you the damn loaf if you had just asked and not up and broken his window."
"That did not actually occur to me," Valjean admitted.
"And you just threw the loaf away once you got it," Javert added.
"It had blood on it!"
"See, your problem is that you just don't think things through," Javert diagnosed. "Let us hope that these nineteen years have given you some capacity to do so."
"I would like to declare right now that it is completely ridiculous that I had nineteen years in prison for taking one loaf of bread and breaking one window pane," Valjean told him.
Javert nodded. "Duly noted. But you should remember it was only five for that and fourteen for those hundreds of escape attempts. Be grateful we're letting you out at all."
"I thought it was four," Valjean said smugly. "And five years for one little window is rather excessive."
"Hey, I don't make the law, 24601, I just obsessively uphold it," Javert said defensively.
"It's Jean Valjean," Valjean reminded him.
Javert rolled his eyes. "Since you're going to be so anal about names then you might as well know mine. I'm Javert. I doubt very much that we should meet again but if you remember that then I'll make an effort to call you by your non-prison name at least once at some point in the future. After all, I do better on my performance reviews if convicts still know and fear me years after being released."
"You're too kind," Valjean said sarcastically.
It had taken Valjean an hour or so to look for work after leaving the prison because he kept getting distracted by the outside world, something he had very rarely seen in his nineteen years locked up (something he technically shouldn't have seen at all but, well, he did rather escape a lot).
Finally, just when some local observers were getting ready to seek to get him to a madhouse for all of his marveling over perfectly ordinary things like streams and trees, he settled down and went to work as a laborer. Unfortunately, there was a slight problem when the time came to pay him.
"What?" the man asked defensively. "It's your pay. I'm not cheating you, really."
"I'm the last in line to be paid so I literally just watched you give eleven other men twice what you've given me," Valjean argued.
The man's jaw dropped. "Oh, now that's just nonsense! I gave them all 30 sous and I gave you 25! In what world is that half?"
"In the world where you just admitted to me that you cheated me," Valjean said triumphantly.
"I really didn't," the man repeated.
Valjean gave him a skeptical look. "Really. Because it sounds like you just admitted to paying me less."
"That's not cheating you," the man insisted. "To begin with, I am the employer and there is no union so I can pay what I want."
"But the agreed-upon rate is five sous more," Valjean replied.
The man shrugged. "You're a convict."
"Ex -convict," Valjean said stubborn, crossing his arms.
The man rolled his eyes. "You don't stop being a convict just because they let you out of prison! It's called 'convict' for 'convicted.' Serving your sentence doesn't erase the past."
"Well I just don't see what my past has to do with how much I'm getting paid," Valjean told him.
The man sighed. "Look, it's like this. Because you're a convict I don't want you around so don't bother coming back tomorrow. I am suspicious of you and fear that you are a dangerous man who might hurt me. Therefore, I have no choice but to treat you terribly because that's obviously the best way to make sure that you won't hurt me."
Valjean just stared at him. "That's not really how those things work."
"What do you know about how violent people think?" the man asked contemptuously. "You're a convict!"
Grumbling, Valjean took the money the man deigned to give him and wandered off. He tried to locate somewhere to stay but everyone had somehow heard all about his past and were all under the same impression that the best way to protect yourself from a dangerous and violent man is to piss him off.
"It's official, I hate the world," Valjean said to nobody in particular as he settled down in the mud outside. "I only thought I did before but now I'm positive of it. Everyone's so judgmental and hateful and really giving me no incentive not to rob them all blind. I mean, I was thinking about maybe reforming or something after nineteen years in prison but after this they can forget it. And hey, if I get rearrested then at least I'll have someplace to stay. That jailer really wasn't thinking very clearly when he told me that I couldn't stay but if I got arrested later then we could talk. And I might even get a chance to escape properly this time…decisions decisions…"
An old man approached him. "Excuse me, did I hear you say that you were looking for a place to stay for the night?"
Valjean looked up, startled. "I'm sure you didn't since I didn't say that."
The old man nodded. "Ah, right, I heard the panicked townspeople demanding that I get rid of you and deduced that you must need a place to stay instead."
"Who are you?" Valjean demanded.
"I'm the local bishop," the bishop explained.
That was not what Valjean had been expecting. "I've only ever seen a bishop once."
"I hope that I can match his conduct," the bishop said humbly.
"It would be hard not to," Valjean said bluntly. "It was in the prison and we were all forced to listen to him give a sermon. Well, try to listen. I was too far back to have heard anything. And they kept the peace by training guns on us the entire time. Honestly, I didn't get much out of the experience."
"That is unfortunate," the bishop said, bowing his head. "Well allow me to try to give you a better bishop experience then. I would like to invite you to stay in my house tonight. I have a very nice guest bed."
Valjean stared at him suspiciously. "Just like that?"
The bishop nodded. "Just like that."
"You did hear the part where I've been to prison, right?" Valjean asked, just to make sure. "I've been there for nineteen years and escaped four times and this paper they gave me says that I'm really dangerous."
The bishop helped him to his feet. "Right this way, monsieur."
Valjean couldn't help but light up at that. Still, he said, "I'm not altogether sure that you're even listening to me."
"We'll set out our best silver!" the bishop said grandly.
The next morning, the bishop sitting peacefully in his garden when two police constables dragged Valjean back before him.
"Oh, hello," the bishop said, vaguely surprised. "I thought you had already left."
Valjean wouldn't look at him.
"He did," one of the constables said grimly. "And it turns out that he robbed you blind, too. If you weren't a bishop we would totally say that we told you so."
"I don't recall being robbed," the bishop said, frowning.
"Well we know that he was staying here last night," the constable began.
"How ever did you know that?" the bishop inquired.
"Your sister told everybody," the constable explained. "Said that if you were to all be murdered in your beds she wanted us to be sure that we got the guy. And we found this silver set in his bag and your sister already filled out a robbery report. Actually, she filled one out for everything valuable in the house last night and just had to hand it the right one to us this morning."
"She certainly is diligent, I'll give her that," the bishop mused. "Still, I'm afraid that she's much mistaken."
"So this isn't your silver?" the constable asked incredulously.
"Not anymore it isn't," the bishop replied. "It was until this man got here. My sister neglected to consult me about her police report filing and I'm afraid I did not get a chance to inform her that I gave our silver away."
Valjean's head shot up and he looked at the bishop like he had never seen anything quite like him. And a little bit like he was worried that the old man had gone senile but it was mostly awe and gratitude.
The constable still couldn't believe it. "So you're saying that you just gave this convict your silvery cutlery?"
The bishop nodded and smiled beatifically. "I did. And what's more, if you'll excuse me a moment…" He went inside the house and shortly returned with two beautiful silver candlesticks. "I decided to give these to him, too. They're worth a great deal of money and they're my most prized possessions."
"Why are you doing all of this?" the constable cried out.
"I'm nearing the end of my days and applying for sainthood," the bishop replied.
Shaking their heads, the constables turned and left.
"I…I don't know what to say," Valjean said the moment they were alone. "You could have…And I would have deserved…Thank you."
"I will be greatly rewarded in heaven," the bishop assured him. "But let's talk about you. If you're going to go around robbing kindly old bishops then I can't say that I think much of how you plan on treating the rest of the world. That won't make you happy or keep you out of prison. And since I've now bought your soul, I'm giving it to God. Be a better person and stop stealing from people."
Valjean frowned. "I don't think you can buy a person's soul. In fact, I'm pretty sure that that was what all of that mess about the indulgences and the Protestant Reformation was about."
"Are you saying that you would like me to keep my money?" the bishop asked pointedly.
Valjean coughed. "On the other hand, I'm quite pleased that my soul fetches such a brilliant price. I will try to be a better person."
"I do hope you try soon," the bishop told him. "I will be pleased if, at any point during your life, you decide to be a good person but I do hope that you'll do it before robbing a small child and possibly completely ruining his life or possibly even leading to his death."
Valjean looked at him strangely. "I'll see what I can do."
The bishop smiled warmly at him. "That's all I ask. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go find some sick people to visit."
Valjean stood staring after him for awhile, ignoring the bishop's sister glaring at him from inside the house.
"I hate guilt," he complained. "I thought I was past all of that but I suppose that if priests are good at making you feel guilty then a super priest like a bishop would be even better at it. And now I suppose I don't technically have to steal anymore since this silver I've been given is worth so much. But it's so difficult when everyone treats you like you're some kind of monster! You even start robbing from the few people who are kind to you which actually doesn't do much to convince people to be kind and maybe even makes the people who think they can protect themselves by being horrid think that they have a point.
"Everywhere I go I'll just meet normal people who most would think are decent and I will despise because of how they behave to me. And if I keep getting cheated…Well, I eat a lot and I don't know how long the silver will last. Especially since everyone will think that I stole it which I technically did but having been given it as a present afterwards cancels that out, I think. Well, that settles it. I'm going to go on the run. Being a fugitive is clearly the best way to be an honest man."
That decided, Valjean cheerfully ripped up his yellow ticket-of-leave and walked off whistling.
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