Brick Club 5.3.8, 5.3.9
Thenardier babbling on, trying to squeeze water from the stone that is Jean Valjean reminded me of this unrivaled scene from the best show ever made Leverage. But, like, in reverse and Thenardier has a particular talent of speaking a lot of words without saying a single thing. Must be a Hugo character. This is kind of an immovable object versus an unstoppable force situation. Thenardier is the consummate con man but, as you know, you can’t con an honest man, and Valjean is the consummate honest man.
The running theme of light and shadow shows up again, “Jean Valjean, we have just said, turned his back to the light…The encounter took place between Jean Valjean veiled and Thenardier unmasked.” Interestingly, it isn’t just that Valjean is now in the shadows, there’s also consistently someone else who is in the light, and usually not who we’d expect. Previously, it was the police Valjean encountered in the sewers, standing in a more illuminated area, here it’s Thenardier, though it’s a livid light, and later on it’s implied to be Javert, if just by his opposition to Valjean. There’s perhaps something here about good people or people with good intentions being forced into the shadows while their opponent parades freely in the light but it’s a thread that doesn’t really bear out for the rest of the book.
Something interesting is Thenardier saying, “The sewer is treacherous and informs against you” only for Hugo to assert a page later, “The sewer was evidently in complicity with some mysterious band.” It makes me wonder how facetious Thenardier is being—a decent question at any point, really—and what he might actually be communicating, intentionally and unintentionally, with his rambling. It could be nothing, but I’m always wary of offhandedly dismissing pointed commentary from characters. Also, ironically, it’s Thenardier that is informing against Valjean, using him as a distraction or scapegoat to throw Javert off his scent. Maybe it’s not the sewers, Thenardier, maybe it’s you.
This entire trek through and subsequent emergence from the sewers feels so liminal, “it was the undecided and exquisite hours which says neither yes nor no.” It’s like people from all corners of the story wandering above and below the fog of the city, bumping into each other at odd intervals. It’s like a Midsummer’s Night Dream except not as whimsical or at all pleasant.
“The reader has doubtless guessed that Thenardier’s pursuer was none other than Javert.” Yes, because who else would immediately return to duty just to coincidentally come across intel on someone he had previously caught, only to come across that other guy he had been previously chasing and the kid that originally led him to catch Thenardier. This breaks even the illusion of coy subtlety on Hugo’s part but that’s fine.
Just like Javert readily gave up his identity to the barricade, Valjean just as abruptly identifies himself to Javert. Remember, Javert is supposedly “a spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, heard everything, and recollected everything,” but forgive me for having doubts since it was sheer luck he even made it off the barricade alive with this information. But congrats, you remembered the name of a man who had already given you his name before in relation to a case and was also one of the chiefs of the barricade.
Commence the most Awkward Carriage Ride in recorded history. I’d bet anything at some point Marius’s head drops onto Valjean’s shoulder or he keels over and still nobody moves an inch. Also a brief return of the shadowy Valjean, “Jean Valjean seemed to be made of shadow, and Javert of stone.”
