As the author it is my duty to tell you something, so I shall say it happened in September. I do not know if this is entirely accurate – nobody records these things, after all – but mid September seems the most likely time.
What is recorded, and therefore verifiable, is that a consignment of prisoners arrived at Toulon on the 1st September 1800. I shall not describe them; you may imagine them as being much the same as the consignment of 1896 that brought Griffon and Valjean to the Var.
Also in the records is that amongst the prisoners brought to Toulon at this time was one Thomas Laurent.
Thomas Laurent was a man of thirty-two, neither tall nor short, neither good nor bad, neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. He had been persuaded to take part in a robbery by an acquaintance. Had consented because he had a sick wife and had been told it was easy, and had been caught. Before this he had been a worker at printers in the rue de Sabot; when he arrived at Toulon his hands were still stained with ink. Long before that, he had been born in Brie, something that is only of any real importance to us and the records of justice. Laurent himself had left for Paris at the age of eighteen and seldom though of his childhood in Faverolles.
Now life, as Andoche was often wont to remark, is a funny old thing and, due this peculiarity, the reader might easily guess that Laurent ended up on the same chain and Jean Valjean and Andoche. There was, of course, another first night scene, only Thomas did not cry. The only way in which he showed any sign of anxiety was by a constant fidgeting. He turned from one side to another, twisted into as many positions as his chain would allow, drummed his feet tapped his fingers and generally made an utter nuisance of himself. The other prisoners ignored him, at least for that first night, being well used to such peculiarities. Inevitable, as the nights rolled on, someone's patience wore thin. The someone was Varlet: he asked Laurent in a tight-lipped, exhausted voice to just stop it
"Sorry, yeah," said Laurent, and almost instantaneously rolled over again, banging his chain.
"Just bloody stop it!"
"Sorry, yeah," and he began to drum his fingers on the side of his cot.
"Oh for Fuck's sake!"
Andoche began to laugh.
"I don't know what the hell you're laughing at, Griffon", snapped Varlet, who at this point was so near the end of his tether that he would have told Monsieur Delbecq himself to go take a running jump if he had entered the cell at that moment.
"Ah, nothing, my friend, nothing. It's just that I've worked out that there's enough length in my chain to wrap it round that bugger's neck."
Laurent gave a convulsive little gulp and for five minutes lay as still as a death man, then he began to tap again. Andoche began to whistle.
"To the baker's with you, Griffon, but what the hell are you doing now?"
"I," said Andoche, with such merriment that one could almost see his eyes twinkle in the dark with it, "am providing a wind accompaniment to the percussion. D'you reckon you could tap out a gavotte for us, mate?"
"Nutters! I'm chained to a pack of fucking nutters!" whined Varlet, "Mad as a March – "
Valjean, who had maintained a stony silence throughout this performance, now sat bolt upright on his pallet and said in a subdued, forceful tone that carried more weight than a shout: "Jesus Christ but would you all shut up, you band of wretches!"
Silence, once again, reigned and Jean Valjean lay back down, not noticing that in his exasperation he had reverted to the Patois of his childhood.
"Auvergnat," said the newcomer after an interval, "where you from?"
Since Varlet was a Parisian and Andoche was from wherever he chose, Valjean realised that it must have been him that was meant.
"Faverolles," he answered.
"Me also, friend. Your name?"
"Le Cric. Or, rather, Valjean."
"Jean?" The one who . . . went to prison?"
"As you see me."
"I saw her, you know."
"Saw who?" Valjean asked, nonplussed.
"Jeanne."
"Jeanne?"
"Jeanne your sister. Jeanne Montet."
"Jeanne? You saw Jeanne? Where? Where is she? And the children, no? You must have seen them. Jean? Paul? Marie?"
"The youngest I saw, the little boy – I don't know his name."
"Paul. That's Paul."
"It was like this," Laurent said in a level, dispassionate voice, "Before I cam here I worked at a printers in the rue de Sabot. About a year and a bit ago, who should turn up looking for work but Jeanne? She got a job as a stitcher – I put in a good word for her – and I think she lived near Saint-Sulpice."
"Good, very good! And Paul?"
"The boy. I remember seeing him. She used to bring him along to work with her to go to the school in the same building. Only we started at six and the school not till seven and she kept wanting to bring him into the workshop with her. But he used to get in the way so, in the end, he had to wait outside. I remember him sitting on the pavement hugging Mere Heurgon's cat – "
"And the other children?"
"I don't know."
"You must know!"
"I don't. I never saw them."
"Didn't Jeanne tell you?" Valjean asked, becoming agitated.
"Look friend, I don't even think she knew herself," said Laurent in a fearful tone. He half expected Valjean to leap from his bunk and set upon him, and was sure that he had grown no smaller since their youth in Faverolles.
But Valjean had sunk back down onto his pallet without another word, almost as if he had been winded.
Two hours later he had not changed position at all, lying facing the wall with his eyes fixed open. Andoche, who slept next to him, leant forward and pushed his elbow gently: "You're not asleep, are you?"
"No."
"I heard what Laurent said."
"Of course. Wouldn't be like you to miss it."
"I don't know whether to take that as an insult," Andoche commented dryly. Then he drew a deep breath and began: "I know . . . "and then thought better of it.
"Know what?"
"Nothing much. Why caged birds sing. Whatever you like, really."
Valjean rolled over onto his back and said in a tone that was not quite accusatory: "The opportune moment. That's what you're always on about, isn't it? So, when is it then? When is this 'opportune moment'?"
"Once again, I must plead ignorance."
"You're honest, I'll give you that, as chums go." And he turned so that he was face to face with Andoche: "Do you remember that day you found out about your son?"
"Yes"
In the dark Andoche could see what little light there was glancing off Valjean's pupils and he noted, not for the first time, how deep his eyes were. The two men were so close that their noses were almost touching. Their feet were, in fact, actually touching and then, momentarily, so were their hands. Then their noses and then their lips and he was conscious of a strong and steady pressure being laid on his upper arm. He felt, running through his entire body the tingle of that indefinable and electric impulse known to all good fanandels, the name of which is opportunity.