"Hey! Gypsy boy! Tell me my fortune, why don't you?"
"Gonna go visit your dad at 'work' today, gypsy?"
"Ooh, look at him grow red! Gypsy! Gypsy!"
"Gypsy's son! Gypsy's son! Your daddy's a thief!"
"I was born in a house, where were you born, gypsy?"
The little boy clenched his fists, trembling with rage and humiliation. Hot tears made his eyes sting, yet he refused to let them stream down his face and give the older boys what they wanted. Every insult, every word, every remark about his ancestry was embedded in his soul, causing it to grow tough and ugly with scars and pits the flesh could not cover. The boy was five, yet his heart was hard as a convict's. Some speak of the joys of childhood; they were fortunate. There are some children who are forgotten in the shadows, who shiver for lack of the sun's rays. They are not children for long, if ever they truly are.
The leering faces of the boys loomed before the child, and he had hardly time to cover his face with his arms before one of them cuffed him soundly on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground. He landed amidst the dirt and stones, amongst the garbage and the mud, with a painful thud. One of the boys kicked him, hard, and he sprawled onto his back. He lay there, momentarily stunned, and gasped for air as the cruel laughter of the boys blocked out all sound and filled his ears.
"Hey, look! The gypsy's got his mouth open! Think he's hungry?"
"Well, let's not let him starve! Feed 'im!" Three of the boys pinned him down, laughing at the way he feebly tried to kick them away, and another pried open his mouth. The oldest of the boys scooped a generous handful of the street muck up and, laughing at the look of mingled horror and hatred in the child's eyes, dumped the mix of mud and horse excrement into his open mouth.
"Enjoy your meal, gypsy, it'll be the only one you eat this week!"
"Gypsy! You're gonna be just like your daddy!"
"Gypsy!"
With those as their parting words, the older boys ran away, laughing, as the poor child lay in the gutter, choking on the slime of the streets. Gypsy. Gypsy. Gypsy! That's all I am! Son of a gypsy thief, son of a convict, son of slime, and so I'm slime! I am nothing! And, parallel to this train of self-torment, ran thoughts of hatred. I'll kill them. I'll kill them all someday. And I'll never be a thief, I'll never be a gypsy, I'll kill them! I'm gonna be big someday, I'll be so big I block out the sky and I'll smash the world with one big fist!
So ran the thoughts of a child, age five. Still sputtering on the muck, he stood up unsteadily and ran, not in any particular direction, just away. Blindly, his bare feet slapped the cold, muddy ground, carrying him here and there, down this alley and up this one, until he reached a dead end. Here he collapsed, and here the dam behind his eyes broke, and he sobbed pitifully, huge sobs of despair and hatred and agony. Still tasting the muck his tormentors had "fed" him, he knelt and vomited up everything and anything in his stomach, and heaved long after what little was there had fled. Here, in the darkest alley, in the iciest mud, lay the epitome of wretchedness, the incarnation of despair. Begotten by hate, fed by poverty and battered by society, this was the life this child had known. Chaos, torment, agony all were common to this child born of anguish. He wept out his last tear, heaved his last heave, and lay, still and silent as death, in the reeking mud. He never shed a tear after that day. It was as if he had no more to shed.
After hours of lying on the hard ground, the boy quietly stood up and walked to that hovel he was forced to call, shamefacedly, "home". Inside, his mother was squinting at a sock she was darning, and did not hear him enter. She would not have noticed him at all if he had not crossed between her and the lamp, casting a shadow on her lap. She turned and looked at him, crying out,
"You're hurt! Here, let me--"
"Don't touch me!" her son snapped cruelly, and glared at her with loathing. She was to blame, she who had given him life, it was all her fault! It was she who had given birth to him, who had flung him into the pit of society's dung, however unwittingly. It was her fault he was a gypsy, her fault his father was a thief, her fault, her fault, her fault...
She jerked her hands back, her face showing no change in expression, but her eyes could not conceal the hurt. His eyes, so full of hatred, had stabbed her like a knife. She turned away quickly, too quickly to see the momentary flash of pleading behind his eyes. He was begging her, pleading her, praying that she would forgive him, show him that someone in this world loved him, that he was not the slime the others made him out to be, but she was too heartbroken at this rebuke to notice. And at the moment she had turned away from him, from his last silent plea to the world, the final stitch was sewn in his scarred and battered heart, and it thumped cold and dead from that day on.
All she could see was that he had used that tone of voice which the "decent" folk use when talking to a whore or a convict. So, it was her son now, eh? What had she done to deserve such lifelong abuse, and to have her son suddenly turn on her, what had she done? Truly, she had done nothing, but she did not know that. She turned back to her stocking, eyes cold and empty. Whatever love she had felt for this boy, for her son, had been extinguished in that instant. And from that moment, the boy was truly alone.
"Hey, look what we got here! A little gypsy nothing, walking like a decent something!"
"Well, we shouldn't leave the poor boy so confused, eh?"
"Right, gypsy, you need a little correcting in your manner!"
"What do you say we start out by teaching him what shoes taste like?"
"Right!" and the largest raised his hand to knock the boy flat again, as he had every time he had seen him. The young boy had already shielded his face in preparation for the inevitable blow to come. It never did. Cautiously, he peeked out from behind his shaking arms, and was astonished at what he saw. A burly man in a uniform had grabbed the arm of the large boy just as he was about to bring it down upon the child, and had effortlessly held it there, despite the boy's struggling. Suddenly, the bully's eyes lit up with recognition and, what awed the young child most, a little fear. The man released the boy's arm and, with a scowl, sent him and his pack running. Turning, he held out his hand to help up the young victim, but he scrambled up and dusted himself off on his own.
"Oh, you're the little gypsy boy, eh? What did you do to make those boys pick on you so?"
"I'll never be a gypsy! Ever!"
"Oh?" replied the man, "so, tell me: what will you be?"
"What are you, m'sieur?" asked the little boy solemnly and with a little awe and respect in his voice. Whoever he was, he was powerful, to make the bully run like that. The man smiled a little at this strange child, and replied:
"I am an officer of the law, a policeman."
"That is what I will be." stated the boy firmly and with resolution. The police officer looked at this boy, with his frail figure, his matted hair, his dirty skin and dirtier rags, and the eyes full of hate and darkness that made him shudder, and felt pity for the child who was so solemn before him.
"Boy, what is your name?" he asked gently.
"My name, m'sieur? The world calls me son-of-a-thief and gypsy, but my mother, she named me Javert."
"So be it, Javert. You will be a policeman. And if you will excuse me, I must continue patrolling."
Javert watched the uniformed man walked the dusty road until he turned a bend and could be seen no more. Had anybody cared to look at this boy, they would have seen a queer look in his eyes, something that temporarily overcame the hate and spilled into view where people could see, before he recovered himself and stowed it away for what he thought would be forever. It was buried well indeed for nearly fifty years, reappearing once and for the last time as he stared into the black waters of the Seine. It was hope. Hope for an beginning, hope for an end, hope for an absolution.
Breaking out of his reverie, he walked away, straight, tall, and resolute.
He had his life waiting.