After ordering the sergeant back upstairs, Javert pulled the outside shutter - there were none on the inside - all the way across the tiny cross- barred opening in the upper part of the massive cell door and shut the door itself firmly. The happenings inside were now rendered invisible to the rest of the world. Then, his nose still buried in his notebook, Javert groped with his foot for the state-issued cell chair, a rickety low-backed affair with rotting wickerwork and crooked legs, moved it with a light kick into the corner directly across from the stove, and sat down onto it with the air of a diligent law student cramming for end of the year orals.
For some time, Javert did not stir at all, except to flip a page or to make an occasional mark in the margins with a chewed-up pencil. At first Fantine watched him with interest; then with confusion; then with boredom; finally, she turned her head altogether away from him and observed instead the orange flames dancing merrily behind the narrow slits of the stove door. To the devil with him, she thought drowsily. Let him stay here and read if he's got nothing better to do.
But eventually female curiosity won out over fatigue, and Fantine began watching her captor once again, but this time in secret, through half-shut eyelashes.
Javert seemed completely absorbed in his reading. The pencil he was now holding in his mouth; from time to time his massive lower jaw made lazy side-to-side motions, rotating the stub mechanically in the firm grip of the molars.
Four years now he's been here, thought Fantine. Had almost no grey hair when he arrived, just a bit at the temples, and now look at him. Shame, really; a plain horsetail in place of all those shiny black locks... Losing weight too. Any skinnier and he won't be a man any more, he'll be a walking lamppost.
Seated, the inspector really did seem uncommonly gangly. To position himself on the prison chair, which was far too low for his long legs, Javert had to fold his body into three, curve his spine into a question mark, and bring his knees almost to level with his chest. The pose looked outstandingly awkward. Fantine felt a twinge of pity tug at her heart. Earlier in the office, she had heard Javert curse under his breath as he stood up from that desk of his, trying to stretch out as inconspicuously as possible his back and legs. Perhaps that's why he decided to sit on the desk instead of behind it to speak with me, mused Fantine.
As if to confirm her suspicions, the inspector leaned back into the curved back of the chair as far as his height permitted, took a short moment to stretch out his sides, then crossed one long leg over the other with a slight grimace of discomfort.
Slightly colouring from her own boldness, Fantine let her gaze wander over him, from the square tip of a brilliantly shined black boot to the hint of bare neck above the buttoned-up collar. Javert's head was bent over his reading; there was a slight frown on his face, as if something in the text perplexed him. His long hair was held back with a metal clasp, but a few thin, greying strands escaped the queue and hung down along his right cheek, which was sunken-in and already slightly bluish from the evening stubble.
"Mademoiselle, would you kindly dress me back up again? I'm getting chilled," Javert suddenly spoke up, without lifting his eyes from the notebook. The pencil fell from his teeth and rolled into the groove between the pages.
Horrified beyond words, Fantine blushed furiously and immediately lowered her gaze to the unswept dirt floor. To his credit, Javert did not seem inclined to humiliate her further but only shook his head with mock exasperation: women!..
But it was as if Fantine's scrutiny had taken away his desire to continue reading: he flapped the notebook shut around the pencil and tossed both onto the nominal "pillow" end of the prison bed - towards the wall decorated by a large, plain wooden crucifix.
"I apologize for leaving you temporarily unentertained. I had to re- acquaint myself with a few... well, let us call them a few procedures," said Javert, as he rose slowly from his uncomfortable seat and stretched like a huge, sleepy cat, laying his palms flat onto the prison ceiling and bending slightly backwards.
Still too embarrassed to look at him after getting caught with her eyes roaming, even if it was just curiosity, that's all, not Christ forbid lust or anything like that, Fantine stared at the floor and wondered what sort of "procedures" he could mean, when all the necessary paperwork has already been filled out.
"How is your chest-ache?" Javert asked her suddenly in a softer, kinder tone.
Fantine shrugged. "No better or worse than before, monsieur."
A few long, uncomfortable moments passed. Javert remained silent. Feeling for some reason apprehensive, Fantine finally made herself look up at Javert's face and was unpleasantly startled. The inspector did not look his usual proper self. His head was bowed, as if in penitence, his back was slightly bent, and his teeth worried his lower lip. Just as Fantine opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, his gloomy grey eyes suddenly locked with her own, and he spoke up again, this time haltingly and without the previous assurance in his voice:
"I can't promise you anything. I haven't done this for a good half a decade. Who knows if I can even manage..? And the blokes could start making a row above us... But I think... I think it will be all right. Yes... It will be all right. Pull down your dress."