Work Text:
- I -
Yet in a moment, before we had reached the end of the first year of a friendship that was sweeter to me than all the joys of life as I lived it then, You took him from this world.
Paris, June 2nd, 1833. Around four ‘o clock in the afternoon.
Dear diary,
I am heartbroken. I can barely find the words to describe what has happened today, but for the sake of gathering my thoughts, I must.
It’s been nearly a year since I found Javert. I had thought that, if I cared for him enough, if I showed him enough love, he would know that life was worth living, that mistakes are there to learn from – because that’s all a mistake is; a lesson, not a death sentence.
But then again, Javert and I have always had different ways of viewing life and law.
Saint Augustine once wrote:
For if a parricide is more criminal than any ordinary murderer on the score that he slays not just a man, but even a relative, and among parricides themselves, the nearer the relative that one kills, the more vicious he is judged to be, then, without a doubt, he is still worse who kills himself, because no one is nearer to a man than himself.
I wonder if those words echoed in Javert’s head today like they now do in mine. I don’t want to think about it, yet my own mind curses me. It is true, I have hated Javert, in those days which I’d rather forget, I have feared him in those days more recent, but I have loved him dearly – in what way, I dare not say – in this past year.
Did he think of himself as a criminal – against the law or against the Law, did it truly matter to him? – in those final moments? Knowing him, I pray not, but I fear so.
I would not mind living with a criminal, if that is what has been haunting his heart for this past year – perhaps I should have told him – for, after all, I have been living with myself my whole life, and he, then, considered us both criminals. God, I do not know what to say, what to think!
From simple care had grown understanding, from understanding, forgiveness, from forgiveness, a simple friendship, from a simple friendship…
What have we become? What are were we?
(it seems that later that night, the following was added in a nearly illegible handwriting.)
Dear God, I have dragged Javert to sin! That which I have tried my whole life to avoid, for myself and for others, has happened. I pray You forgive me, but perhaps even more so that he will – I know I will not.
- II -
My heart grew sombre with grief, and wherever I looked, I saw only death. My own country became a torment and my own home a grotesque abode of misery. All that we had done together was now a grim ordeal without him.
Paris, June 3rd, 1833. Around five ‘o clock in the morning.
Dear diary,
A year ago, I would have thought it a joke if one had told me that I would be weeping over him whom I had feared so much, but it has become my reality.
This past year had been filled with difficulties regarding us both. Something inside me, though it had forgiven him, still trembled when I saw him. I am certain it was the same for him.
Still, we were no longer enemies; although I had never truly considered us that, I doubt Javert thought of us as anything else back in those days.
It is for this soul I weep.
I walk through my own home and can only think of this past year with him. Cosette is living with Marius and I am alone once more. Alone with nothing but the memories of him, alone with my prayer, alone with my grief.
Javert has left this world and taken everything with him – I kneel naked before God, that You may take me as well, O Lord!
- III -
If I said “Wait for God’s help”, my soul did not obey. And in this she was right because, to her, the well-loved man whom she had lost was better and more real than the shadowy being in whom I would have her trust.
Paris, June 4th, 1833. Around seven ‘o clock in the evening.
Dear diary,
I must confess I am struggling with praying, for all I can think of is Javert. He occupies my every thought, all I can think of is how I might have changed his mind if only I had cared for him more, more than I already did. I should’ve shown him more kindness, more love.
When I pray, I pray only for him, but in this moment, dare I say, I start to doubt if God can hear me through my sobs, or if my voice has been stained with sin to such an extent He can no longer understand me.
My soul says, trust Him, my heart says, follow him, and my mind, nothing – it does not know what to do, if not think of him.
- IV –
I lived in misery, like every man whose soul is tethered by the love of things that cannot last and is then agonized to lose them.
Paris, June 5th, 1833. Around five ‘o clock in the afternoon.
Dear diary,
I found the strength to visit Javert’s grave. I know he would’ve had no interest in a great grave, but I doubt this is what he would have wanted. It’s not what I want for him.
He has been buried on a separate part of the graveyard, that part which has not been consecrated and where those who have not been baptized or were excommunicated also find their final resting place.
I did not attend the funeral, for I suspected some of Javert’s colleagues would be there as well, but when I arrived there, I found but a single flower on that simple stone.
It was then I realized only I am mourning this man.
- V –
My heart lies before you, O my God. Look deep within. See these memories of mine, for You are my hope. You cleanse me when unclean humours such as these possess me, by drawing my eyes to Yourself and saving my feet from the snare.
Paris, June 6th, 1833. Around midnight.
Dear God!
I confess! I have loved Javert! I have loved him like man loves woman, rather than how man loves man. In a different life, I would have been his bride, I would have said yes if only he had asked – God, dear God! How terrible we can find love in mourning, how terrible to love something death can take! My soul belongs to You alone, then why do these thoughts now dawn in me? Cleanse me, O God! Cleanse me from these sinful thoughts!
- VI –
I wondered why other men should live when he was dead, for I had loved him as though he would never die. Still more I wondered that he should die and I remain alive, for I was his second self. How well the poet put it when he called his friend the half of his soul! I felt that our two souls had been as one, living in two bodies, and life to me was fearful because I did not want to live with only half a soul.
(This entry has been stained with tears, and is, because of this, illegible.)
- VII –
Perhaps this, too, is why I shrank from death, for fear that one whom I had loved so well might then be wholly dead.
Paris, June 7th, 1833. Around three ‘o clock in the morning.
Dear diary,
I couldn’t.