As much as I love the musical of Les Miserables and the movie version of the musical moves me and I am so grateful for the amazing job that they did with it. But...and it is a big but...it is still not the book. And, in particular, one of my very favorite scenes is not portrayed in the musical/movie. So I am going to journal some of my thoughts here about that pivotal moment in Jean Valjean's life. After Monseigneur Bienvenu allows him to have the stolen silver and presents him with the candlesticks, Valjean begins to randomly wander, retracing steps that he has already taken. He literally does not know where he is going. He is so confused and at such a loss. He finally stops, just as the sun is setting and as he is huddled near a bush, he watches an approaching chimney sweep, a young boy, approach. This youngster is tossing the coins he earned that day in the air and expertly catching them but a forty-sous piece gets away from him and rolls over to land in front of Valjean. Valjean puts his foot over the coin and does not move. At first the boy is not afraid and he tries to retrieve his coin in a number of ways but Valjean will not move his foot. Finally Valjean stands up and the boy suddenly finds himself very frightened and begins to run. It is at this moment that Valjean wakes from his stupor and realizes, with an electric shock what he has just done. He grabs the coin and tries to follow the boy, calling his name but there is no response, the boy is gone. A passing priest explains that the boy is likely a gypsy and Valjean is forced to give up returning the coin.
And now, I need to use Hugo's words. "He fell exhausted onto a large rock, his hands clenched in his hair, and his face on his knees, and cried out, 'I'm such a miserable man!' Then his heart swelled, and he burst into tears. It was the first time he had wept in nineteen years. When Jean Valjean left the bishop's house, his thoughts were unlike any he had ever known before. He could understand nothing of what was going on inside him. He stubbornly resisted the angelic deeds and the gentle words of the old man. 'You have promised me to become an honest man. I am purchasing your soul. I withdraw it from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.' This kept coming back to him. It opposition to this celestial tenderness, he summoned up pride, the fortress of evil in man. He dimly felt that this priest's pardon was the hardest assault, the most formidable attack he had ever sustained; that his hardness of heart would be complete, if it resisted this kindness; that if he yielded, he would have to renounce the hatred with which the acts of other men had for so many years filled his soul, and in which he found satisfaction; that, this time, he must conquer or be conquered, and that the struggle, a gigantic and decisive struggle, had begun between his own wrongs and the goodness of this man...He was just out of that monstrous, somber place called prison and the bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on coming out of the dark. The future life, the possible life offered to him, all pure and radiant, filled him with trembling and anxiety. He no longer really knew where he was. Like an owl seeing the sun suddenly rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded by virtue."
In this moment, Valjean had to decide. He had to wrestle with releasing his hard heart and accepting the blessing of the aged priest or continuing on the path of hateful revenge which had driven him for so many years. He stumbles around the road all night long, like a drunk man, trying to resolve this huge battle for his soul. He wept for a long, long time. He wept until he was completely spent and weak. And he wandered and he saw himself for who he really was, saw the darkness and the bitterness and the hardness and he saw how monstrous was his crime against Petit Gervais because it came on the heels of Bienvenu's pardon. And he also saw the light that was filtering into his soul because of the bishop's actions. I love the way Hugo puts it, "It seemed to him that was looking at Satan by the light of Paradise". We do not know how long he wept but the stage driver, the next dawn saw a man kneeling in prayer, on the pavement in the dark, before the door of Monseigneur Bienvenu.
Why is this one of my very favorite scenes in Les Miserables. Because I fight demons. I fight addictions and laziness and shallowness and anger and I sometimes hurt others in the same way that Valjean hurt Petit Gervais and I need to see the monstrous in my actions. I need to weep more, not over a movie or a book (which we all know I can do readily) but over my own actions. And Hugo's words here remind me of what I need to do to take full advantage of the redemptive work that so many have done for me, just as Valjean made the decision to take advantage of Bienvenu's act of supreme charity. Feel free to remind me.
