[CHAPTER VIII.]
A SUCCESSFUL EXAMINATION.
An hour later two men and a child presented themselves in the darkness of night at No. 69, Little Rue Picpus. The elder of the two men raised the knocker and rapped.
The two men had fetched Cosette from the green-grocer's, where Fauchelevent had left her on the previous evening. Cosette had spent the four-and-twenty hours in understanding nothing and silently trembling; she trembled so greatly that she had not cried, nor had she eaten nor slept. The worthy green-grocer had asked her a hundred questions; but had only obtained as answer a gloomy look, ever the same. Cosette did not breathe a syllable of what she had seen or heard during the last two days; for she guessed that she was passing through a crisis, and felt deeply that she must be "good." Who has not experienced the sovereign power of the words, "say nothing," uttered with a certain accent in the ear of a little startled being? Fear is dumb; besides, no one can keep a secret like a child.
The only thing was, that when she saw Jean Valjean again after these mournful four-and-twenty hours, she uttered such a cry of joy that any thoughtful person who had heard it would have divined in this cry an escape from a gulf.
Fauchelevent belonged to the convent, and knew all the pass-words; hence doors readily opened to him, and thus was solved the double and startling problem, "how to get in, and how to get out." The porter, who had his instructions, opened the little gate which communicated between the court-yard and the garden, in the wall of the former facing the gateway, which might still be seen from the street twenty years ago. The porter showed them all three through this gate, and thence they reached the inner private parlor where Fauchelevent had received the orders of the prioress on the previous day.
The prioress was waiting for them, rosary in hand, and a vocal mother, with her veil down, was standing near her. A discreet candle lit up, or to speak more correctly, pretended to light up the parlor. The prioress took a thorough look at Jean Valjean, for no eye examines like a drooping one. Then she questioned him.
"Are you the brother?"
"Yes, Reverend Mother," Fauchelevent answered.
"What is your name?"