"Sir!" said Jean Valjean, "I have one thing to say to you. I am an ex-convict."
The limit of the perceptible acute sounds may be as well exceeded for the mind as for the ear. These words, "I am an ex-convict," coming from M. Fauchelevent's mouth and entering Marius's ear went beyond possibility. Marius did not hear. It seemed to him as if something had been just said to him, but he knew not what. He stood with gaping mouth. Jean Valjean unfastened the black handkerchief that supported his right arm, undid the linen rolled round his hand, bared his thumb, and showed it to Marius.
"I have nothing the matter with my hand," he said.
Marius looked at the thumb.
"There was never anything the matter with it," Jean Valjean added.
There was, in fact, no sign of a wound. Jean Valjean continued,—
"It was proper that I should be absent from your marriage, and I was so as far as I could be. I feigned this wound in order not to commit a forgery, and render the marriage-deeds null and void."
Marius stammered,—
"What does this mean?"
"It means," Jean Valjean replied, "that I have been to the galleys."