"I understand perfectly," said Valjean. He was becoming gloomy. "I understand that I am an idiot."
"Not true."
"Perfectly true. You know, when I was released from prison, they sent me to Pontarlier? I should have obeyed and gone to Pontarlier. The good bishop Myriel advised me to seek work at the local fruitieres as a grurin. I should have heeded the advice and become a cheese-maker. Or better yet, just a cowherd! And there, you are snickering again."
"Why stop at a cowherd? Why not become a cow? You would have made an excellent cow. It would definitely be a more peaceful life. Just picture yourself with a bell around your neck, on all fours, eating grass and occasionally raising your head to moo sadly at another cow's behind..."
Now they both laughed. Then Javert grew serious.
"Don't think you are stupid for not seeing through me. These little subterfuges are all-pervasive in all matters of government business. Government clerks conceal things, policemen conceal things, prosecutors, well, prosecutors are in a league of their own. It all depends on one's intent. A clerk who is out to make a fortune and ascend to a Ministry lies and cheats to pave his way up in the world. A prosecutor lies and cheats to obtain a confession from the detained suspect. And I occasionally – I won't say 'lie,' but I do sometimes play pretend in the name of the law and justice. This is not a paradox, though in an ideal world, it would be. My first love is always the Code."
"You are still the Emperor's man, then?"
"No. I am the man of the law."
"But the Code is Napoleon's."
"No, the Code is the world's."
"I don't understand you."
"That's fine. I often don't understand myself."
"So you are not a Bonapartist? Isn't that why you had been in conflict with Delavau?"
"I had been in conflict with Delavau because Delavau was a scoundrel. The Code does not care who is in charge of the police: a Bonapartist, an Orleanist, a Legitimist, a red Republican, or a devil with a forked tail. These men, they come and go from the Prefecture, shoving each other in their rush to the warm seat. Did you know that Paris changed its Prefect of the Police eight times in the last two years? Eight times! Imagine if I tried to keep up with all their political likes and dislikes! I'd be twirling round and round without stop, like a weathercock in a storm. What was duty one day would be taboo the next."
"I'll give you a concrete example," he continued. "Say that one Prefect issues to me and the rest of the police fellows - the inspectors, the Security Brigade, the Morals police, everyone - standing orders to disband all gatherings of sodomites at Quai de l'Ecole and Champs Elysees. Two months later, an administration change brings in a new Prefect, who wants us instead to present a friendly and socialble front to the sods and protect them against potential assault. Has some fundamental truth about the acceptability of men promenading publically with other men changed? No. Has the law with respect to such gatherings been altered? It has not. The only things that changed were the personal tastes and political opinions of the head of the police in the city. And I cannot even use my assessment of their character to guide me in whether or not to obey their directives. An upright man might sometimes command something immoral; a scoundrel might sometimes issue an order that is not without merit. Gisquet is generally a decent fellow, but were I to have obeyed his orders the night of the uprising, you would have been without a son-in-law today - not because he had been tried, found guilty of treason and his life was forfeit under the law, but because there was a mass slaughter in the streets, completely out of all bounds of civil society. And Delavau, whom I detested heartily and to whom I was an embarassment on many fronts, was privately rather more tolerant of unrepentant sodomites like myself than the bourgeoisie at large - though he had few scruples about potentially using someone's petit defaut against them politically. Most policemen never question what they are asked to do. I have but one litmus test: will executing the order I am given land me in conflict with the law? If so, I cannot in good conscience comply. I am not in service to the state to protect the loves and hatreds of its ever-changing functionaries. I am in service to protect the law."
"And thus one finds that to serve the law, one must often disobey one's superiors. I cannot fault myself for this. They can fault me, if they want – turn me out, perhaps; demote me, maybe – if I were not already so near the bottom of the government heap. But so far it's been working out for me. I have grown very adept at lying in the name of truth. And for the salary I draw, I make myself very useful."
Javert rose.
"Like right now, for instance. Let us make ourselves useful."
"How? We are locked in."
Javert grinned a slow-growing, frightening grin.
"Hey there!"
Valjean knocked harder and waited. There was a noise from without, and then a slurred voice asked:
"Whossere?"
"It is I, Jean-the-Jack. I need a favor."
"What it is?"
"I need you to come down and tie me up."
"What?" said the voice after a pause, sounding slightly more sober.
"I said, come down and tie me up!"
"Why do you want that?"
"Because I'm frightened."
"What?"
"Frightened, I'm frightened!"
Speaking with a drunk man through the keyhole of the massive oak door was proving more difficult than Valjean anticipated. Next to him, Javert bared his teeth in frustration as he struggled to hear.
"So what do I care?"
"I'm a religious man, you know," said Valjean.
"You're a ninny."
"There's a nail sticking out of the wall."
"What nail?"
"A big, rusty nail. With a sharp edge. I could get wrench it out of the wall if I chose."
"What for?"
"To open my veins with."
"Hey now!"
"Come tie me up so that I'm not tempted."
"You can't off yourself before you tell us about your money, Mr. Threadbare-Millionaire!"
"I haven't got any money. It's all gone."
"I don't believe you."
"That's why I need you to come down and tie me up. I have no money anymore. You don't believe me; you will torture me for it. But I'd rather be tortured for a short while on earth than be tortured forever in Hell."
"So don't go to Hell."
"I don't want to. But I'm weak in spirit. The nail tempts me. I'm afraid of pain."
"You? afraid of pain? You burned a hole in your arm with a red-hot poker to show off to us!"
Javert seized Valjean by the left arm, pulled up the sleeve of his worker's blouse and, like Thomas probing the flesh of the risen Savior, set his fingers against the scarred-over wound.
"And you didn't think to mention this to me when I laid out the plan?!" he hissed. "When we get out of here, I'll put another one on your other arm, for symmetry!"
Valjean scrambled for a response.
"I know I burned my arm. Something came over me. I was not in my right mind. It hurt badly afterwards. I was in a fever for weeks. It was miserable. I don't want to go through that again. I'm too old to handle it. And I have no daughter anymore to care for me in my convalescence. She has gottten married. Her husband is strict and won't let her see me. Come down and tie me up. Why did you tie him up but not me? That was unfair of you. I don't want to damn my soul to spare my body."
The men held their breath.
"All right," finally said the voice outside. "Wait. I'll get the rope."
