Javert-good servant that he was- had bowed his head before the authority of the Law. His wound had been healing gradually, but well, and every day he walked with surer step. Although the warden had requested a longer time to heal-he knew full well the notorious stress that Javert's new duties would demand-he had realized after many audiences, after many conversations, that Etienne Javert would sicken further if torn from his purpose.

There is a knowledge well known among those that drive animals, and that is that a horse or dog, injured from its labour, might die all the faster if cut from its traces. Such a beast would drag itself to its place, before sled, before cart, and wait expectantly to be allowed to do the thing for which it was made until death stilled it forever. Depardieu knew the extent of that wound, of that weakness that the young man so patiently bore. To give Javert back to the Law so soon after the incident might very well kill him, but every day taken from it killed him all the faster. He had grown listless and grey, the dark eyes seeming to stare at nothing. More troubling yet was the remarkable passivity which with he bore his medical care, directly following the audience he neither raged nor fought, patiently tolerating the hand of their makeshift doctor. The remainder of the day preceding the deliverance of Valjean, he had permitted poultices and bandages, and even allowed himself a little food. Despite the easiness of this Javert under their care, this gentleness terrified the warden more than he cared to admit. If he was taken a few more days from what he had considered his sovereign purpose, the man would die-like a lame work-horse that had been pulled to the side. Better to allow him take up work again, to die in the traces if he must, heart-easy and content.

But Javert did not die. After the title of Captain of the Guard had been granted, and his shifts finalized, he became possessed with an extraordinary vigor. The ashen pallor, so ill at ease with the caramel of his skin, had lifted, and his sinewy body, which had become emaciated, became merely gaunt. He strode as he always had, lifting his head ever the higher, a fighting dog whose injuries had been healed and could battle anew. Those that caught that speculative, burning gaze could only turn away with a shudder-Javert had returned, in all his terrible gravity and authority-and had been transfigured.

The lash would fall upon the backs of the convicts by day, the orders would be given to the guards at night. Between his workings at Toulon, he would oversee Valjean in the infirmary, who by every day grew stronger despite the clumsiness of his care. This pleased Javert. Sixteen men had died in that cold winter-five of them those convicts that had attempted their escape. Javert thought nothing of them. He had their ringleader in his grip, and there was something beyond neutrality, beyond the need to see him punished exactly as his crimes demanded, something closer to a doomed love than hatred, but carrying both properties. Etienne Javert-for all his striving for perfect indifference except to the Law- was a young man, and passion runs hot in the blood of young men, channeled to go where it will.

In all of us, there is much good and much evil, and Javert was no exception. He would fall as all great men fall when their passions overrule their judgement. But that was the beauty of the Law-it would save him from a single sleepless night, from the horrors of what he had done, what he was about to do. Had Javert been a religious man, he might have asked for deliverance, but failing this he had to content himself with the stars-the stars that watched so much, and said so little.

One day- he thought to himself of the stars, as he watched over Valjean-I will be like you. I will feel nothing. I will be removed, freed, transfigured-

And then the convict would shift in his sleep, and those tortured eyes would be drawn away. One last night-tomorrow, the scaffolding, the laughter, the lash. He told himself that he watched the convict because of his strength, his strength that might even now try his fetters-and if that was a lie, he knew not of it. There were many things that Javert did not understand, including the faintest sense of pity that now rose in his heart. Every day that Valjean got well, he inched closer to his punishment and to his reckoning. The convict would be broken so that he might finally understand his place beneath the heel of Society, would recant those hateful words-would never attempt an escape again.

His patient sighed, and Javert adjusted Valjean's blanket without thinking of what he did. Encroaching sleep had begun to dull his thoughts.

What a pair of men we are, Valjean-he considered faintly, for it was always Valjean in his thoughts, 24601 upon his lips when he thought that he could hear-that we have come so far, only to prove unchanging. For if you drag yourself to hell, I will cling to your heel, I will not let you go-. "

The convict's face, so innocent in sleep-but it was a lie, as all things are a lie.