Chapter Text
His face was furtive, looking down as he shuffled across the empty square. Something about his eyes, the lackluster sheen of his hair, grown (or perhaps simply neglected) to fall past his shoulders, the undisguised reproach with which he peered at his own drenched reflection in the pools of water accumulated from Paris’ autumn rains, suggested to any passing onlooker that the bloodied man in the sea-soaked greatcoat had committed some great sin, like a murderer who, when he sees the prone figure of his victim real in front of him, runs to and fro like a frenzied animal, eyes panicked, searching for any escape. It was with a similar mad fervour that Inspector Javert paced the cobbles of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, his mind flying in every direction. Jean Valjean was a criminal. That, without a doubt, was certain, marked in deep red by the brand on his chest.
And yet.
And yet, that very night, what seemed now like a lifetime ago, this man, this criminal, had spared his life when it had been his duty to die. He had cut his bonds, without hoping for any mercy, without rancor. Now, he had just saved the life of one of the rebels, a student from the barricades, and Javert had let him walk away, a free man. The whole story was preposterous. Silly, even. Javert kept hoping that it was all some dream or hallucination in his final moments, that Jean Valjean had in fact killed him at the barricades, in the dark back alley behind the inn. Then, the world would at least be realigned. Justice would remain good, and any breach thereof a sin. Did it matter if he died?
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Through the dusty window, the lights in the house were on, a mocking call.
It was not justice, this, to go and arrest a man responsible for the safety of so many. If this man was truly evil, if no convict could be reformed, then why was he still here? What did Jean Valjean stand to lose? Everything: riches from Montreuil, a life, his freedom. So then why had he simply stood there?
Javert’s head snapped up. There was another option: If he didn’t have to choose, he could do no wrong. It seemed so simple in his mind, in his steps as he retraced his steps across the broken stones of the shimmering streets. In the lamplight, the trees glowed a fiery copper, almost as if burning. Each step felt dizzying, a lead weight sinking into the ground, moving of its own accord, unbidden by him, without his muddled mind forming any instruction. It would be a matter of only several streets before he would be before the bridge, his fate sealed, but he had business to attend to first.
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The door of the Préfecture was open, as always. As soon as Javert walked in, dozens of heads snapped up. Vidocq was there in two strides, his face a mixture of relief and shock. “Dear Lord! Javert, we heard…we all thought..." Javert interrupted him, passing by him brusquely. “Yes, Vidocq, I’m alive. Not as though you looked for long. No body. Is Gisquet here?” He paused, looking around at the mess of paperwork and files that littered the already packed desks, shaking his head. “I presume not, by the state of things. Well, no matter. I’ll see to it he gets his report.” Confused, the lieutenant stuttered and made an abortive movement towards him before Javert slammed the door in his face, turning towards his final task. This would be a long night.
An hour later, his report was finished.
He read over it several times before adjusting the packet and replacing it on the splintered desk. Every injustice in the police system, every ounce of corruption that oozed through the prisons and prefectures, noted down on twenty-seven sheets of rough paper in his perfectly lined handwriting. As a final touch, he penned a note on a separate sheet of paper, to make sure that the letter reached its destination.
To the attention of Pref. Henri Gisquet and whomever it may concern, signed, Insp. Javert.
Concise, short, direct. As was always his signature.
He sighed woefully, walking as fast as he could out of the prefecture. If others noticed his hurry, they let it go unheeded. There was a revolution on, and a first-class police inspector no doubt had greater matters to attend to than formalities or paperwork.
Walking through those great metal doors, Javert halted, as if hearing some faraway forgotten song from his childhood. He almost saw himself, then, a young officer, too tall for his age, first stepping into the Paris Préfecture next to M. Chabouillet, his patron. How impressed he had been then, how certain! How the world had seemed to him a sure and trustworthy place, where the stars followed their course, never straying, ever constant in their orbit of the heavens.
Now, despite the blackness of the night, Javert could still see that ghost, the spectre of a bright young officer, and broke into a run, running with all of his might from the life he had not lived for what felt like centuries. One step followed another, and, blindly, he found himself climbing up from the bridge onto the cold parapet, over the tumult of the roaring Seine. Above the faint streetlamps, the sky spread like an empty canvas, a void matched only by the darkness of his downturned face’s black eyes, that had dulled to stubborn resignation, as cold and hard as ever.
A spasm of pain shot up his right arm, jolting him awake.
Ashamedly, he realized that he had been holding onto the gate, his knuckles white, like a child afraid of a neighbour’s dog clinging to his mother’s skirts. His wounds from the barricade had reopened, and his worn shirt bloomed crimson, staining his borrowed workmen’s clothes in an ironically artistic pattern. Setting his hat onto the cold stone, he rose to his full height once more, taking in his surroundings, the whole torn city, frayed at the edges, that spread out until past the horizon, its grey buildings black in the darkness, engulfed by the endless night.
In a few hours, morning would come, and with the sunrise, the river Lethe would wash away any memory of a wayward gang of rebellious students, all dead now, of a boy no older than twelve who sang as he died, of a girl with a bullet and a letter in her hand, and of a solitary spy shot in a back alley.
He closed his eyes, one foot already over the void.
A hand closed over his shoulder, dragging him backwards.