Part II, Book 4, Chapter 5
A Five-franc Piece Falling on the Floor Makes a Noise
There’s an old beggar in the neighborhood who Valjean always gives money to, and one evening, when Valjean hands him his usual alms, the beggar looks up and has Javert’s face. Now THAT is a jump scare—Les Misérables really is a horror movie sometimes.
Valjean is, of course, frightened and disturbed beyond belief, but when he goes back the next day to get a better look at the beggar, it is very definitely not Javert.
This would make it a totally different book, but it would be very funny if instead of ruthlessly hunting down Valjean, Javert played the game of psychological torture, slowly driving Valjean insane, by popping up as random side characters and bystanders in his daily life. This, of course, involves a level of creativity and sick whimsy that we know Javert is simply incapable of having. But how much more fun would that be?
One night several days later, Valjean hears the front door of the building open and close—which is odd as the nosy old lady has already gone to bed—and a man’s footsteps coming down the hall. He puts Cosette to bed, tells her to be quiet, and blows out the candle and sits silently in the dark. I have never seen A Quiet Place but I imagine it’s basically that.
After a long, agonizing wait in pitch darkness, Valjean turns to look at the door, and sees the light of someone’s candle through his keyhole. This is CREEPY! This chapter is basically a horror movie!
The next morning, Valjean hears the same footsteps outside his door, and peers through his keyhole to see a man with Javert’s build walking down the hall. (I was half afraid that he’d put his eye to the keyhole to see Javert’s eye looking right back at him, but luckily Hugo doesn’t go there.)
A little while later, he casually chats with the old lady and finds out that the man is a new lodger, who the lady says is a “man of means, like yourself,” which is both very pointed and very suspicious! Why would a man with money live in this shitty building? (I realize that’s exactly what the lady and her neighborhood friends were gossiping about.)
So Valjean packs up a roll of franc coins to stash in his coat, and one five-franc coin falls out and rolls across the floor, making a loud noise. Uh oh.
Valjean takes Cosette and flees the building. I found myself praying that the five-franc coin falling was a totally random pointless detail Hugo forgot to edit out, but something tells me that’s not the case!
And thus ends Book 4.
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