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For Javert, watching Monsieur Madeleine was both duty and habit. If the man was indeed what he suspected him to be, then Javert, as an agent of law and justice, would be duty-bound to expose him and stop this calculated deception of the good citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer. He had persisted in his surveillance for so long that whenever M. Madeleine entered his field of vision, he found his eyes irresistibly drawn to the supposed gentleman. That was the power of habit.
And so he watched, with an attentiveness approaching the fanatical. He wrapped shadows like a cloak around his haughty form, observing unobserved. His searching gaze noted every minute detail which his keen mind categorized and examined, all in an attempt to place a clear definition on the most mysterious man of this bland little town. Indeed, were it not for the challenge presented by M. Madeleine, Javert would have been bored within weeks of his arrival here.
To duty and habit might perhaps be added pleasure, but that last Javert would never admit to himself.
It was through such intimate scrutiny and relentless analysis that he came to know M. Madeleine. It might even be said that Inspector Javert knew M. Madeleine better than any man, but to him, it was far from enough.
The melancholy man walked with a slight limp, dragging his left leg; nineteen years in chains was but one of a not insignificant number of possible explanations. (Javert had been uncomfortably aware of the powerful build of the man’s thighs, of the flexing and stretching of the muscles as he walked, of the sombre dignity of his pace. He did not look away, for he must be thorough in his observations.) M. Madeleine had the rough hands of a labourer, not the smooth ones of a man born into wealth, but it was not a crime to rise in the world through one’s own efforts. (To ascertain this, Javert had voluntarily offered the man his ungloved hand to shake, a once in a lifetime occurrence for him.) He led a curiously retired and unassuming life in spite of his prosperity, yet self-deprivation was a Christian virtue, and M. Madeleine was by every indication the epitome of a good Christian. (Javert had often wondered what secret sins and vices might be gleaned from his confessions, and always became horrified at himself for the thought. He had the highest respect for ecclesiastical authority; that his inquisitiveness wherever M. Madeleine was concerned might tempt him to violate the sanctity of the seal was a troubling sign indeed.)
Javert witnessed M. Madeleine’s skills with a shotgun on one occasion when they happened to meet while strolling through the forest outside Montreuil. A bear that by all reason should have already been hibernating happened upon them. Were it not for M. Madeleine’s reflexes, they would both likely be dead. Javert was impressed against his will. He was also reminded of a note in the margins of a certain sentencing report, but there was more than one man in the world with the skills of an expert marksman, surely.
There were other tiny pieces that could never stand on their own, but together formed into a most intriguing picture. Connections were established in his mind, but the evidence was far from conclusive. Javert was a carefully correct man. He did nothing. He simply watched, and waited.
Then there was an incident with a cart.
Seventeen years ago, he had seen a man with the strength of four tremble beneath the weight of a marble caryatid, bent but unbroken, wavering but strong. As he watched M. Madeleine slip under that cart and try to lift it upon his back, he was reminded of that man.
The resemblance grew stronger by the second, until the twain merged into one at that triumphant instant when the cart was lifted and the old man was saved.
Javert beheld Jean Valjean.
M. Madeleine, caked with mud and sweat, clothes torn and hair disheveled, gazed at him with an open, peaceful expression that was at once extraordinarily joyful and extraordinarily pained. It was the countenance of a saint upon the pyre. Their eyes held.
Javert looked away.