Dream ✍ 002
((Warning: 19th-century crudeness, disrespect to elders?))
"He was a spy as others are priests. Woe to any who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father if he escaped from prison and turned in his own mother for breaking parole. And he would have done it with that sort of interior satisfaction that springs from virtue."
Javert was penning a report with the sort of disdainful smile that at once frightened and silenced his quarry in its ferocious splendor. He positively beamed self-righteousness and virtue. One could almost achieve the impression that he was humming a merry tavern tune through the artificial dream-fog of silence.
Before his desk, left exposed on the muddy floor by the flicker of candlelight, were two depraved figures.
The first was a young woman of about twenty-five, coiled into a miserable little ball. She had a deck of tarot spread out before her, and she was mumbling nervously under her breath as she read their prophecies. Her face consisted of a flat snub nose, two bulging eyes, a thick brow and a gaze that peered into the soul. She was of a dark complexion, with wild black hair forced into submission by a once brightly-colored patchwork shawl, soiled to dullness by her lifestyle. A tambourine and cluster of bells dangled from her waist. She wore no shoes on her calloused feet; women of her bohemian race were not in the habit of donning civilized footwear.
The other, a tall and lanky man of thirty-three with the face of a tiger; strong jawline, large nose, mean thin mouth, a narrow forehead and hands thick enough to crush a hard-bound Bible with ease. He sat cross-legged upon the floor and scowled fiercely, his chin jutting defiantly at the man behind the desk. His shackled hands were clasped tightly in his lap.
Javert - he was a little younger here and appeared to be in his early forties, with less gray about the temples, fewer wrinkles around his eyes and mouth - signed the report with a flourish and dropped the pen into an inkwell. Upon his desk was a chamber full of thin powder. He took a pinch of it and sprinkled it over the paper to quicken the drying time. He lifted his head and spoke in the resolute pride of a cat with the mouse trapped under its claw.
"Recidivists. Both of you."
He drew an envelope from his overcoat pocket.
"The trial won't be long; you haven't given your defense attorneys much room to wiggle, have you? No. You wouldn't." He folded his report crisply. "At this rate you will get the galleys for life. And how lucky for you, my good man, if they don't give you capital punishment." Javert's mouth twitched again in a semblance of a grim smile, a crack in his usually immovable exterior. "Be nice and the judge may grant you that favor."
He held up the sealed and stamped envelope for the sergeant to deliver at once.
"Choose six men and take them to jail," he instructed. All evidence of a smile in his tone and face had spirited away and the characteristic straight-backed military posture, with a certain stiffness between his shoulders, returned. He turned to the decrepit couple. "You will stay there until the trial."
The woman shuddered. The man, on the other hand, rose deliberately to his feet and slammed a fist on Javert's desk. The police officer calmly looked down to the hand and lifted his head to cast an intent gaze into the convict's eyes.
"See here, boy,--"
"Call me Monsieur l'Inspecteur!" interrupted Javert in a fierce growl that matched the convict's. The similarities were uncanny. There was a tense, tight silence.
"Right," drawled the man dryly, his thin lips pulling into a grimacing smirk. "Monsieur Inspector, it is."
"With respect! You are a convict, and you will call me by my title. People call me by that title." His tone was cold and unforgiving. "Now, hurry up and speak."
The man's eyes narrowed to a dangerously thin line. "Circumstances changed," he spat at the inspector's feet.
"Oh?" Javert's brow arched in mock interest. "Indeed, your fists have much less mobility. Now you have been robbed of the ability scratch your head and your belly at the same time."
The man gave a wry, low chuckle, as he leaned further and further over the inspector's desk. "After my own heart, eh? Never did like your damned smart attitude--"
"It was for the child!"
It was a sharp cry from the floor. This time, the woman spoke up. Javert's gaze swiveled to rest on her, his lip curling into a dour, consternated frown. It was as if he knew something was amiss in this situation. And certainly, something was not quite right. He looked down his short nose at her in silence, waiting for her to continue.
"Our boy, our child," the miserable woman muttered in abrupt, labored French, her hand resting atop her very flat midsection. "He is three months' coming, that's what the cards say! We need food and drink and brandy for my night kicks, I cannot read for others anymore. Please, our child, he'll grow out strong! We needed money to care for the child!" She crawled forward, pressing her hands against the desk and using it as leverage to climb to her feet. "Times is hard, you know that! I can get no job at the factory here, the mayor would not let it. You see how it is, love. I read the cards and I get my change, but I can't do it for anyone else anymore. The new baby, he needs me to see what he will be. My judgment's clouded, my Sight's going to Hell during the last months. I keep reading, the weather's getting colder. I've got to move me to a warmer place." She gazed into Javert's eyes, her own stare growing distant.
The man-convict moved to her side to hold her up.
"Come off it, woman," bit Javert, his face tight with indiscernible derision. He was calmly unimpressed. "You lost your bloody womb to miscarriage three years ago. It's right here, in the registry. Have you gone mad? What a poor liar you've become!" He looked to his sergeant and the assembled men. "Well? I have heard them out. Take them! She will find a warmer place in her cell!"
"But the baby--"
"Your womb is gone, I tell you."
"He needs food in his belly, as well!"
"There is no baby, whore!" Javert shouted. He had lost his patience. "You are out of your mind! Do you hear me? There is nothing springing forth from between your legs any longer! You lost your equipment years ago!"
"Mark my words, boy," this time the man was snarling, enraged, right back at Javert. The inspector soured and motioned to his sergeant. The guards had grabbed ahold of them both, the miserable woman kicking and struggling to scoop up her beloved tarot, the man putting up a valiant, violent fight. "You would have us starve? So be it! For what! We cannot find work, we have a family to feed! I should have you lashed at the rack for this! When I get out of here, I'll...!!!"
"Head straight back to the galleys with interest. And if you're fool enough to enact an ill-conceived plan, you will be at the executioner's mercy."
Javert turned his back on the pair, his jaw tight.
"Your brother, H-----!!" cried the woman as she scratched the door frame, thrashing in attempt to free herself from her captors. The bells at her waist jingled. "Inspector! Think of your brother! He is on his way in three months! Can you be so cruel to us? Don't deny us! We are your--"
The door slammed. The guard-house was left in absolute silence, all manner of company or living thing immediately dissolved. The small room dimmed.
Javert perceptibly sagged with a grim sigh. Where an exchange like this may normally have left him with a head held high and a confident gleam in his eye, and once upon a time this exact scenario may have brought a broad, virtuous satisfaction to his countenance, this time it had left him weary and angry. Those who knew the inspector well would have shuddered to see him in such a state. He withdrew a small silver box from his pocket and placed it on his desk.
"Damn," he murmured to himself absently. "How foolish of them. What terrible business." He opened the silver box and withdrew a pinch of a dark brown powder. Snuff. "Still, it is not unexpected." He lifted the pinch to his nose and prepared to inhale.
"Javert!"
The sound of the door slamming open jolted Javert from his solitude. He accidentally knocked his snuffbox to the floor, his teeth gnashing. It was the bellow of a man, his voice hardened from 19 years of labor in the southern prisons. The inspector looked up, his flashing gaze drilling holes through an elderly man. The candlelight upon the desk flared up to a blazing flame. Javert's face became white as flour as the white-haired gentleman approached, each heavy step sounding like a drumbeat for the rowers on the River Styx.
"You will set those people at liberty immediately."
"He was a spy as others are priests. Woe to any who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father if he escaped from prison and turned in his own mother for breaking parole. And he would have done it with that sort of interior satisfaction that springs from virtue."
Javert was penning a report with the sort of disdainful smile that at once frightened and silenced his quarry in its ferocious splendor. He positively beamed self-righteousness and virtue. One could almost achieve the impression that he was humming a merry tavern tune through the artificial dream-fog of silence.
Before his desk, left exposed on the muddy floor by the flicker of candlelight, were two depraved figures.
The first was a young woman of about twenty-five, coiled into a miserable little ball. She had a deck of tarot spread out before her, and she was mumbling nervously under her breath as she read their prophecies. Her face consisted of a flat snub nose, two bulging eyes, a thick brow and a gaze that peered into the soul. She was of a dark complexion, with wild black hair forced into submission by a once brightly-colored patchwork shawl, soiled to dullness by her lifestyle. A tambourine and cluster of bells dangled from her waist. She wore no shoes on her calloused feet; women of her bohemian race were not in the habit of donning civilized footwear.
The other, a tall and lanky man of thirty-three with the face of a tiger; strong jawline, large nose, mean thin mouth, a narrow forehead and hands thick enough to crush a hard-bound Bible with ease. He sat cross-legged upon the floor and scowled fiercely, his chin jutting defiantly at the man behind the desk. His shackled hands were clasped tightly in his lap.
Javert - he was a little younger here and appeared to be in his early forties, with less gray about the temples, fewer wrinkles around his eyes and mouth - signed the report with a flourish and dropped the pen into an inkwell. Upon his desk was a chamber full of thin powder. He took a pinch of it and sprinkled it over the paper to quicken the drying time. He lifted his head and spoke in the resolute pride of a cat with the mouse trapped under its claw.
"Recidivists. Both of you."
He drew an envelope from his overcoat pocket.
"The trial won't be long; you haven't given your defense attorneys much room to wiggle, have you? No. You wouldn't." He folded his report crisply. "At this rate you will get the galleys for life. And how lucky for you, my good man, if they don't give you capital punishment." Javert's mouth twitched again in a semblance of a grim smile, a crack in his usually immovable exterior. "Be nice and the judge may grant you that favor."
He held up the sealed and stamped envelope for the sergeant to deliver at once.
"Choose six men and take them to jail," he instructed. All evidence of a smile in his tone and face had spirited away and the characteristic straight-backed military posture, with a certain stiffness between his shoulders, returned. He turned to the decrepit couple. "You will stay there until the trial."
The woman shuddered. The man, on the other hand, rose deliberately to his feet and slammed a fist on Javert's desk. The police officer calmly looked down to the hand and lifted his head to cast an intent gaze into the convict's eyes.
"See here, boy,--"
"Call me Monsieur l'Inspecteur!" interrupted Javert in a fierce growl that matched the convict's. The similarities were uncanny. There was a tense, tight silence.
"Right," drawled the man dryly, his thin lips pulling into a grimacing smirk. "Monsieur Inspector, it is."
"With respect! You are a convict, and you will call me by my title. People call me by that title." His tone was cold and unforgiving. "Now, hurry up and speak."
The man's eyes narrowed to a dangerously thin line. "Circumstances changed," he spat at the inspector's feet.
"Oh?" Javert's brow arched in mock interest. "Indeed, your fists have much less mobility. Now you have been robbed of the ability scratch your head and your belly at the same time."
The man gave a wry, low chuckle, as he leaned further and further over the inspector's desk. "After my own heart, eh? Never did like your damned smart attitude--"
"It was for the child!"
It was a sharp cry from the floor. This time, the woman spoke up. Javert's gaze swiveled to rest on her, his lip curling into a dour, consternated frown. It was as if he knew something was amiss in this situation. And certainly, something was not quite right. He looked down his short nose at her in silence, waiting for her to continue.
"Our boy, our child," the miserable woman muttered in abrupt, labored French, her hand resting atop her very flat midsection. "He is three months' coming, that's what the cards say! We need food and drink and brandy for my night kicks, I cannot read for others anymore. Please, our child, he'll grow out strong! We needed money to care for the child!" She crawled forward, pressing her hands against the desk and using it as leverage to climb to her feet. "Times is hard, you know that! I can get no job at the factory here, the mayor would not let it. You see how it is, love. I read the cards and I get my change, but I can't do it for anyone else anymore. The new baby, he needs me to see what he will be. My judgment's clouded, my Sight's going to Hell during the last months. I keep reading, the weather's getting colder. I've got to move me to a warmer place." She gazed into Javert's eyes, her own stare growing distant.
The man-convict moved to her side to hold her up.
"Come off it, woman," bit Javert, his face tight with indiscernible derision. He was calmly unimpressed. "You lost your bloody womb to miscarriage three years ago. It's right here, in the registry. Have you gone mad? What a poor liar you've become!" He looked to his sergeant and the assembled men. "Well? I have heard them out. Take them! She will find a warmer place in her cell!"
"But the baby--"
"Your womb is gone, I tell you."
"He needs food in his belly, as well!"
"There is no baby, whore!" Javert shouted. He had lost his patience. "You are out of your mind! Do you hear me? There is nothing springing forth from between your legs any longer! You lost your equipment years ago!"
"Mark my words, boy," this time the man was snarling, enraged, right back at Javert. The inspector soured and motioned to his sergeant. The guards had grabbed ahold of them both, the miserable woman kicking and struggling to scoop up her beloved tarot, the man putting up a valiant, violent fight. "You would have us starve? So be it! For what! We cannot find work, we have a family to feed! I should have you lashed at the rack for this! When I get out of here, I'll...!!!"
"Head straight back to the galleys with interest. And if you're fool enough to enact an ill-conceived plan, you will be at the executioner's mercy."
Javert turned his back on the pair, his jaw tight.
"Your brother, H-----!!" cried the woman as she scratched the door frame, thrashing in attempt to free herself from her captors. The bells at her waist jingled. "Inspector! Think of your brother! He is on his way in three months! Can you be so cruel to us? Don't deny us! We are your--"
The door slammed. The guard-house was left in absolute silence, all manner of company or living thing immediately dissolved. The small room dimmed.
Javert perceptibly sagged with a grim sigh. Where an exchange like this may normally have left him with a head held high and a confident gleam in his eye, and once upon a time this exact scenario may have brought a broad, virtuous satisfaction to his countenance, this time it had left him weary and angry. Those who knew the inspector well would have shuddered to see him in such a state. He withdrew a small silver box from his pocket and placed it on his desk.
"Damn," he murmured to himself absently. "How foolish of them. What terrible business." He opened the silver box and withdrew a pinch of a dark brown powder. Snuff. "Still, it is not unexpected." He lifted the pinch to his nose and prepared to inhale.
"Javert!"
The sound of the door slamming open jolted Javert from his solitude. He accidentally knocked his snuffbox to the floor, his teeth gnashing. It was the bellow of a man, his voice hardened from 19 years of labor in the southern prisons. The inspector looked up, his flashing gaze drilling holes through an elderly man. The candlelight upon the desk flared up to a blazing flame. Javert's face became white as flour as the white-haired gentleman approached, each heavy step sounding like a drumbeat for the rowers on the River Styx.
"You will set those people at liberty immediately."