The visible _I_ in nowise authorizes the thinker to deny the latent _I_.
Having made this reservation, let us pass on.
Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us to say what there was in Police Officer Javert.
The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as he grew up, he would devour the other little ones.
Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be Javert.
Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was in the galleys.
As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,-- those who attack it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these two classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung.
He entered the police; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an inspector.
During his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of the South.
Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the words, "human face," which we have just applied to Javert.
The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns for the first time.
When Javert laughed,--and his laugh was rare and terrible,--his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a watchdog; when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead and fell over his eyebrows; between his eyes there was a permanent, central frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his mouth pursed up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command.
This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments, comparatively; but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating them,--respect for authority, hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes, murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion.
He enveloped in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state, from the prime minister to the rural policeman.
He covered with scorn, aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions.
On the one hand, he said, "The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never the wrong."
On the other hand, he said, "These men are irremediably lost.
Nothing good can come from them."
He fully shared the opinion of those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know not what power of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of authenticating, demons, and who place a Styx at the base of society.
He was stoical, serious, austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics.