Part I, Book 7, Chapter 4
Forms That Suffering Takes in Sleep
At 3 AM, after all the turmoil documented in the previous chapter, Madeleine falls asleep and has an unsettling dream. What follows is a very creepy, atmospheric scene.
The dream is rich enough to merit a whole analysis on its own, but alas, I am behind on these posts and don’t have the time. The TL;DR is that Jean Valjean is in some purgatorial version of a countryside village where the streets are empty but every house contains a man who doesn’t speak and doesn’t answer Valjean’s questions. Really unsettling stuff! Finally all the non-speaking men form a large crowd and come after him like zombies and one of them tells Valjean that he’s been dead for a long time.
If I had a dream like that, I would for sure wake up with my heart pounding and unable to fall back asleep. Honestly, Hugo could give the Gothic horror novelists a run for their money.
When he wakes up, he looks out the window and sees a tilbury and small white horse pulling up outside, and he wonders who the heck is out so early. His caretaker knocks on his door and announces that the tilbury the mayor ordered has arrived, and he’s like, what tilbury?
This is hilarious and so relatable. As someone who has gone “what the heck is going on” when my alarm has gone off at 5 AM so I can catch a flight, I wholly sympathize.
Madeleine has no idea what the caretaker is talking about. It isn’t until she mentions Scaufflaire that Madeleine remembers what’s happening, and after a long silence, Madeleine tells her to tell Scaufflaire that he is indeed coming.
So Madeleine/Valjean has made his decision! I love how dramatically these decisions get revealed. I cannot wait for all the drama to come. BRING IT ON.
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