330 Les Miserables
osity is a sort of gluttony. To see is to devour.
On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless
and mute, crouching down like a terrified dog.
The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the
table. Javert seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper
from his pocket, and began to write.
This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to
the discretion of the police. The latter do what they please,
punish them, as seems good to them, and confiscate at their
will those two sorry things which they entitle their indus-
try and their liberty. Javert was impassive; his grave face
betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seri-
ously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments
when he was exercising without control, but subject to all
the scruples of a severe conscience, his redoubtable discre-
tionary power. At that moment he was conscious that his
police agent’s stool was a tribunal. He was entering judg-
ment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the
ideas which could possibly exist in his mind, around the
great thing which he was doing. The more he examined the
deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. It was evi-
dent that he had just witnessed the commission of a crime.
He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the per-
son of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by
a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made
an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Jav-
ert. He wrote in silence.
When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and
said to the sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him,