Chapter 364 Three He can lift Fauchelevent's carriage, but now even a pen is too heavy

One evening, Jean Valjean raised himself with difficulty on his arms; he felt for his own pulse, but could not feel it; his breathing was short and often stopped; he confessed that he had never been so weak.Then, presumably some special preoccupation made him exert himself, sat up, and dressed.He wore his workman's uniform, which he preferred again, since he no longer went out.He had to stop several times while dressing, just to get the sleeves of his jacket on, and beads of sweat trickled down his brow. Since he lived alone, he had put his bed in the hall in order to take up as little of the empty room as possible.

He opened the suitcase and took out Cosette's dress. He spread the clothes out on the bed. The bishop's candlestick still stood on the mantelpiece.He took two candles from a drawer and put them in the candlesticks, and although it was still light, it was summer, he lit the candles, as they sometimes do in broad daylight in rooms with dead people. Every step, from one piece of furniture to another, exhausted him so much that he had to sit down.It was not ordinary fatigue at all, where exhausted strength could be regained, but it was only a sliver of active energy left; it was spent life, dying drop by drop in the last unsustainable effort.

He sank down on a chair in front of the mirror, a misfortune to him, and a gift to Marius, in which he saw the reverse of Cosette's blotting paper.He no longer recognizes himself in the mirror.He was eighty years old; before Marius's marriage he was not considered fifty, and a year was worth thirty years.On his forehead, instead of wrinkles of age, there are traces of mysterious death.You can already feel the pinch marks of the ruthless nails.His cheeks were drooping, his face was earthy, and the corners of his mouth were turned down, like the decoration of a human face carved on a tomb; he looked into the air with a complaining expression; like a protagonist in a tragedy complaining about someone.

He remains in this state, the final stage of depression, when the pain no longer changes, it is frozen, so to speak; like disappointment in the soul. As night fell, he dragged with difficulty a table and an old armchair to the fireplace, where he set down pens, ink, and paper. After doing this, he passed out.After regaining consciousness, he felt thirsty.He couldn't lift the jug, and with difficulty he turned it close to his mouth and took a sip of water. Then he turned to the bed, and sat still, for he could not stand, looking at the little black dress and all these lovely things. This contemplation could last for hours, but it seemed only a few minutes later, when suddenly he shivered and felt the cold come over him, and leaning on the table illuminated by the light of the bishop's candlestick, he picked up his pen.

But the pen and ink were not used for a long time, the nib was bent, and the ink was dry. He had to stand up and put a few drops of water in the ink. After doing this, he had to stop and sit down two or three times. He could only write with the back of the nib. And wipe his forehead from time to time. With trembling hands, he slowly wrote the following lines: At this point he stopped, the pen fell from his hand, and once again, as it had sometimes happened in the past, he let out a wail of disappointment from the bottom of his heart, and the poor man held his head in his hands and mused. "Alas!" he cried inwardly (poor wailing, God only hears), "this is over, I shall never see her again. She is a smile that passes me by. Before I go into the darkness, cannot Seeing her again. Oh! It doesn’t matter for a minute, it doesn’t matter for a moment! I can hear her voice, touch the hem of her skirt, look at her, she is an angel! Then die! Death is indifferent, the terrible thing is, To die without seeing her. She would smile at me, she would say a few words to me. Would it do any harm? No, it's over, it's over forever. I'm alone, my God! My God! I'll never see her again."

Just then, someone knocked on the door.