#lm 2.5.9

[secretmellowblog]

I love how the first thing Fauchelevent says to Valjean in the convent is a stock pickup line:

"Did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that: if ever you do fall, it will be from there."

It's just like

Valjean: *terrified, panicking, not sure where he is, and having an emotional breakdown over Cosette nearly dying* Fauchelevent: Did you fall from heaven? bc baby.....ur an angel <3

[cliozaur]

Lovely chapter. Father Fauchelevent makes an appearance! But before that...

Valjean is so desperate and terrified by Cosette’s state that he risks revealing his presence to the man in the garden (why is no one sleeping at night?). Moreover, he acts typically Valjean, trying to solve the problem with money. Literally, the first thing he says instead of greeting is, “One hundred francs!” And then the man recognizes him as Madeleine.

Fauchelevent is adorable. Abridged versions cut him unmercifully, and it’s so unfair. I love his manner of speaking, his quick wits, and the way he respects and adores Valjean. To be honest, the only Valjean-related ship that makes sense in the Brick is that with Fauchelevent. Just look at them: “Fauchelevent took Jean Valjean’s two robust hands in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands and stood for several minutes as though incapable of speaking.” With him, Valjean and Cosette will finally find shelter. Most importantly, Cosette is safe, warm, and rosy. At least this part of their adventures ends happily.

We also see here how quickly Valjean forgets about the good deeds he did for other people. Like it is something banal, routine, and forgettable. No wonder Fauchelevent finds this forgetfulness offensive. Valjean really has no idea what a treasure he is.

[pureanonofficial]

LES MIS LETTERS IN ADAPTATION - The Man with the Bell, LM 2.5.9 (Les Miserables 1967)

“Who are you? and what house is this?” demanded Jean Valjean.

“Ah! pardieu, this is too much!” exclaimed the old man. “I am the person for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had me placed. What! You don’t recognize me?”

“No,” said Jean Valjean; “and how happens it that you know me?”

“You saved my life,” said the man.

He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent.

“Ah!” said Jean Valjean, “so it is you? Yes, I recollect you.”

...

“What house is this?”

“Come, you know well enough.”

“But I do not.”

“Not when you got me the place here as gardener?”

“Answer me as though I knew nothing.”

“Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent.”

Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence, had cast him into precisely that convent in the Quartier Saint-Antoine where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as though talking to himself:—

“The Petit-Picpus convent.”

[dolphin1812]

I’m so glad that Cosette is safe now, but this chapter still feels so sad? There’s so much desperation in Valjean when he screams “a hundred francs.” On the one hand, this goes back to his tendency to try to solve his problems with money. This stems, in part, from his need to do so (he can’t have people get too close to him and start scrutinizing his life, or else he risks getting caught; this is very similar to what he did as Madeleine), but it also reflects so poorly on society. After all, who would demand 100 francs just to warm up a child by a fire? (I know the answer is the Thénardiers, but they’re not here, so let’s act as if it’s purely hypothetical). On the other, 100 francs is a lot of money, and that he would offer so much underscores just how scared he is.

It’s also so moving that Fauchelevent specifically addresses him as “Father Madeleine.” Valjean chose that name for himself (”He called himself Father Madeleine” - 1.5.1), but it also remained his preferred name after he became wealthy enough to be called “monsieur” and even after he became “monsieur le Maire” (”When he was known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and he was called in the town Monsieur Madeleine; but his workmen and the children continued to call him Father Madeleine, and this caused him his happiest smile” - 1.5.2). Fauchelevent not only radically changed his opinion of Madeleine, but he addressed him as those fondest of him - his workmen and the children - would, showing not just respect, but affection. 

Fauchelevent is also so funny. Normally, I don’t want more criticism of Valjean, because society is harsh enough on him as it is (meaning, the criticism usually makes no sense and is about punishing his “criminality” rather than his actual flaws). Fauchelevent, though, targets his actual flaws in such an amusing way. I love that he’s “reproachful” of Valjean for not immediately recognizing him and for having forgotten all of the arrangements he made for him. It’s understandable to us as readers - he’s had such a chaotic experience that of course some details will slip his mind - but it also illustrates how in his rush to “do good,” he avoids making connections. He saved Fauchelevent’s life during and after his accident, but he didn’t actually bond with him, forgetting him as soon as he was gone as if good deeds occur in a vacuum and don’t impact others. Fauchelevent goes as far as to say this:

“ “Ah! Father Madeleine! You did not recognize me immediately; you save people’s lives, and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember you! You are an ingrate!””

He’s not wrong, exactly. To Valjean, good deeds are part of his own moral journey to be “honest” and live up to the bishop’s command. While he does so much for others, that mission also makes it so that he’s very focused on himself, even though he denies himself (almost) everything. Consequently, he can’t fully process the extent to which he affects others. In this case, he can’t see how much his decision to rescue Fauchelevent made the other man care for and admire him and is, in a sense, an “ingrate” for not respecting Fauchelevent’s feelings. 

Spoilers below:

Valjean never really gets over this issue. When he isolates himself from Cosette at the end of the novel, his logic is very similar: he had to take care of her to do good, but she has other people to look after her now, and it would be selfish (and thus unacceptable) of him to continue to be in her life. He doesn’t realize that Cosette loves him and wants him to be in her life, likely even if she knew his past. His actions aren’t just good deeds to help him live as the bishop said to; they’re the basis of their relationship and an expression of love.

[fremedon]

Brickclub 2.5.8, “The Mystery Deepens,” and 2.5.9, “The Man with the Bell”

Valjean contemplates the sleeping Cosette, and has an epiphany, or thinks he does:

“He clearly perceived this truth, the bedrock of his life from now one, that so long as she was there, so long as he had her by him, he would have no need of anything but for her sake, nor fear of anything except on her account.”

This is going to be literally true, and if Valjean were actually in that place of clarity where he thinks he is, I might say that he’s recognizing that he’s already dead, and merely allowed to keep existing for Cosette’s sake.

But he’s not. @everyonewasabird points out that this is where Valjean makes his fundamental error:

He thinks he has his clarity of mind back.

But he doesn’t! He doesn’t even know he’s cold!

And here, (HERE!?) we get the thesis of the rest of Valjean’s life. Everything revolves around Cosette, she is his sole purpose, and his continued existence is synonymous with her continued proximity.

That’s going to be a problem! She’s going to meet a boy one day, and Valjean will literally die of it!

And there’s always been this question in my head, of what error does Valjean make, and when does he make it?

And the answer is: he makes it RIGHT HERE. In this dead place, thinking he’s clear of mind when actually he’s nothing of the sort.

If we didn’t get that point clearly enough, we soon learn that his calm reassurance comes from contemplating a child he thinks is sleeping who is actually close to death. Cosette in this moment is one more thing that seems like a true light to follow that actually conceals a tomb.

It does feel like there’s some magical bargain being made here. The certainty he feels gazing at Cosette seems almost like a prayer--as long as Cosette is safe, he won’t ask for anything, or need anything for himself.

Valjean is starting to subconsciously notice Fauchelevent’s bell, and after this he’ll notice it properly and be cast back into an immediate and justified terror for his freedom. And he is still terrified by the sight of the prostrate nun--which is fascinating. As much as Hugo is laying on the Gothic horror, why is the nun the most terrifying thing Valjean has ever seen? He’s been in the bagne! Twice! He’s seen some shit. What about the nun performing the reparation is so existentially terrifying?

Even after he finds out where he is and what that prostrate figure was doing, he’s still going to be Weird about it. Later, he will kneel and pray just outside the chapel wall, contemplating the sister at the post, the way he knelt on the doorstep of the Bishop of Digne, and the way he approaches Fantine and Cosette as figures of worship.

He doesn’t know yet who the nun is or what she’s doing, but the echoes of that tendency to set up intermediaries between himself and the divine has some really interesting resonances with the conversation with Fauchelevent.

“Père Fauchelvent, I saved your life.” 

“I was the first to remember it,” replied Fauchelevent.

“Well, today you can do for me what I once did for you.”

Fauchelevent took in his old, wrinkled and trembling hands Jean Valjean’s two sturdy hands and for several minutes seemed unable to speak. Finally he exclaimed, “Oh! that would be a blessing from the good Lord if I could pay you back a little! I, save your life! Monsieur le Maire, this old man is at your service!”

A wonderful joy had in some way transfigured the old man. His face seemed to radiate light.

As Bird pointed out, the conversation at the end of the chapter where Fauchelevent calls Valjean an ingrate for saving his life and forgetting him--and implicit in forgetting, not giving him an opportunity to return gratitude or service--recalls “Enjolras and His Lieutenants,” the other big non-Marius-related use of “ingrate” in dialog. And this scene recalls OFPD--the handclasp, the moment of transfiguration. 

And this scene goes well, mostly? Fauchelevent gets to save Valjean. Valjean gets the help and the refuge that he needs. And he gets a friend--he makes the one human connection outside Cosette that we’ll ever see him make.

And yet the fact that it is the only one really suggests that something here is still broken. There’s a lesson he’s not learning, or at least not able to apply ever again. He will be in this position again, face to face with a person whose life he has saved, twice again and he will fail to make a connection with Javert and do everything in his power to thwart making one with Marius.

I’m not sure exactly what the lesson is, but there’s something here I can’t quite put into words about how saving or transforming a life creates a mutual obligation. We’ve just seen Valjean gaze at Cosette in worship, without waking her and without, at least at first, understanding what she needs. And we’ve seen him run in absolute terror from a figure who he will later turn to with that same worship. But we’re never going to see him reach out, the way Fauchelevent does, to anyone of the people who have transformed his life and try to meet them as equals, or to ask whether worship is what they need or want of him. And he’s going to spend the rest of his life making sure that no one else he helps, no one he saves, has the knowledge or opportunity to reach out to him.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 2.5.9 ‘The man with the bell’

Everything has been increasingly doom-filled and ominous for ages, and now the stakes have risen--we have fifteen minutes to get Cosette in front of a fire, or she may die. For her, Valjean does what he would never dare otherwise: he reveals himself without hesitation.

Then Fauchelevent appears, and he’s the least alarming person in the world. The text is quick to say so, too, in case we were inclined to tarnish him with his setting:

The old man spoke with a rustic volubility in which there was nothing disquieting. All this was said with a mixture of astonishment and frank good nature.

He’s lovely, and I’m so glad he’s here.

And his line about Valjean being “ungrateful” in forgetting a man whose life he saved is fascinating and huge and I love it. Nobody else ever calls Valjean out for the impersonal nature of his sacrificing, and the way he tries to save people without engaging with them.

Grantaire is going to call Enjolras an ingrate much later, for perhaps the same reasons.

What does it mean that a place this grim has him in it? Divine radiance was hiding a tomb, and the tomb was hiding this adorable old man who asks no questions (or at least doesn’t press for their answers), and who’s overjoyed to to return the favor of having his life saved by Madeleine.

But the barricades had Courfeyrac and Lesgle laughing at the canons, along with the joy all the rest of the Amis brought. Fauchelevent feels similar. Unlike Waterloo, where the only jokes were mean-spirited at the expense of the frightened peasants, there’s someone kind and good and funny amid all this death.

And just like at the barricade, that person trusts Valjean instantly, with almost no questions. Both these places react to Valjean like he belongs in them.

And maybe that’s Valjean’s real magic power: he’s so much a mingling of death and the sublime himself that when he walks into these epicenters of the grotesque and sublime and transcendence and death for the sake of the living, they already knows his name and what he’s about.

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 2.5.9 “The Man With The Bell”

The clock is ticking. Cosette has less than 15 minutes before she might die if she doesn’t get warm. This is a reverse of Fauchelevent’s rescue from under the cart: then, the clock was ticking as the cart sank in the mud, and it was Valjean’s quick action that saved him. This time, it is Fauchelevent’s presence that saves Cosette.

The weird surprise of being Known is something Valjean suddenly has to contend with here, in a very different way than he did a couple chapters ago. This is the first time that someone recognizes him in a place where he does not wish to be recognized, and who reacts positively. I can imagine how weird this would be, since a) Valjean’s other experiences of being recognized have all been negative and b) he really, really does not want to be Known, at all ever.

I often forget just how much of this novel is narration, until we get to a block of dialogue and it’s like taking a little break. I wonder what the percentage is of narrative/expository writing vs dialogue in the Brick.

Valjean has two main reactions to any problem that he sees: run from it, or throw money at it. The exception to this rule was the Champmathieu affair, which forced him to face Everything head on. But after escaping the Orion, his instincts are run or, if he has to face it, attempt payment. It’s an interesting commentary on how fucked up capitalism is and how it has fucked over our main characters. Valjean knows that most people aren’t going to do unusual or sacrificial things from the goodness of their hearts, but he does know that money talks and is a very persuasive tool. If he can’t appeal to someone’s better nature, he can appeal to their greed and/or need.

"Did you fall from heaven? There’s no doubt, if you ever fall, that’s where you’ll fall from.” Fauchelevent is such an odd person, and I know that “fell from heaven” is a common phrase, but I also can’t help but think of Lucifer. It’s uhhh not a very Catholic perspective, I don’t think, but my best friend is a religion major and recently wrote a paper for grad school which, long story short, had a section talking about Lucifer’s fall being the first zone of exception and his suffering being the predicate for human suffering. I don’t think Valjean is a First exactly, but he is a Symbol of human suffering and the things that excessive and unjust punishment or exile from society can do to a person. Valjean didn’t fall from heaven in the same way as Lucifer did (as in, willingly or knowingly) but he did suffer from the same sort of exile; the exile from society, being forced into a state of exception where his life and rights are controlled, diminished, and ultimately rejected by the state. Fauchelevent is saying that Valjean is an angel on earth, something good and sacred. But it also fits that he is a fallen being whose Fall and suffering are both created by and maintained by the state, a State which proclaims to be following the values and wills of god and religion.

Okay I’ve just realized that Fauchelevent isn’t actually that weird. He’s “weird” because his friendly peasant way of speaking is so damn normal in this unfamiliar and strange place that he seems like the weird one.

“Ah,” said Jean Valjean. “You. Yes, I remember you.” This cracks me up because I have absolutely had interactions like this where I don’t remember someone until they either do something familiar or are like “Yeah we met at xyz thing!” but then I still totally don’t remember their name so I just have to be like yep I definitely remember you uhhh you person yes I do. It’s been quite a few traumatizing years, I’m not surprised Valjean doesn’t remember Fauchelevent’s name, but it’s still funny.

But at the same time it’s also indicative of how Valjean functions when doing his good deeds (which Fauchelevent will call him out on at the end of the chapter). He sacrifices himself or is selfless or charitable because he feels it is his duty, but he doesn’t stop to get to know the people he saves. He crawled under the cart and saved Fauchelevent at the risk of both being crushed himself and being exposed to Javert, but he didn’t speak to Fauchelevent in person after. He broke in and left money for struggling people in M-sur-M but he didn’t really talk or get to know them (smiled to avoid speaking, gave to avoid smiling, and all that). He’s “the beggar who gives alms” at Gorbeau House, but he only does so at night when his countenance is shadowed and to beggars who, I assume, are not necessarily inclined to want to get to know their benefactors. He will do the same thing later when Cosette is grown up, giving donations of money or clothes or food to the poor and even going to their homes to give, but never actually getting to know them.

Part of this is definitely because of his fear of being Known and the danger that brings to him, but part of it I think is also a fear of falling back into that poverty.

Side note: are the melons symbolic in any way? I don’t know anything about plant symbolism. (Also I love the hilariously simple, “Oh, I’m covering my melons.”)

“I know that you cannot do anything dishonest, and that you have always been a man of God.” Fauchelevent puts so much faith and trust in Valjean and, aside from Cosette, he seems to be the only one who does. The barricade doesn’t necessarily distrust him when he arrives, but they definitely find his not-shooting-anybody style of combat odd, at least until he offers his clothes. But Fauchelevent is immediately trusting. Part of it, also, is Valjean’s liminal existence within this liminal space. What I mean is, the whole convent is a weird place, where Fauchelevent is not allowed to know things or see people, where he is given instructions or commands and can’t question them. So Valjean requesting that he help without asking questions doesn’t faze him because why would it? He’s spent the past however many years doing exactly that for the convent nuns, and I’m sure he feels more indebted to Valjean than the nuns themselves too.

@everyonewasabird has already written a couple posts on “ingrate” and on Fauchelevent calling Valjean ungrateful, so I don’t really have anything more to say about it that they didn’t already cover. (Although I do have one thought about Champmathieu but I think I will reblog their post and put it on there.)

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[pilferingapples]

Les Mis 365 4/27/15 2.5.9

Okay I will absolutely retroblog the chapters I’m skipping from last week but 

I really solidly LIKE Fauchelevent. I mean, at this point there’s no reason NOT to. He’s funny, he’s earnest, he is--here, at least-- genuinely and unflinchingly kind.

But  I liked him even when he was set up as an antagonist pre-cartwreck, which seemed weird to me for a while, but I’ve realized it’s because he’s never Valjean’s antagonist, he’s M.Madeleine’s antagonist. That is, he’s never reacting negatively to Valjean/Madeleine being a convict, or abusing him for being weak; he picks Madeleine as his target for enmity because Madeleine is prosperous and powerful, and he’s willing to go against public opinion for his weird grudge. It’s a misguided sense of enmity (in this case, at least, at least to some degree) but it’s not a bullying enmity; he’s not kicking down at all (at least not as far as he knows).

And even then, when he’d been despising the mayor for what must have been years, Fauchelevent protests against Madeleine risking his life to save him. There’s a strange sort of... lack of calculation, I suppose, in everything about Fauchelevent. He has his wrong ideas and his prejudices, but they aren’t calculating and they don’t serve him to improve himself at the cost of others, like some characters (like an enormous chunk of M-Sur-M, really, going by the story). It didn’t serve him (except maybe emotionally; it can be very satisfying to blame someone) to speak out against Madeleine when he was angry; it doesn’t serve him to help Madeleine now (except, again, emotionally).

There is a major difference in the two situations, of course- before, Fauchelevent’s attitude toward the mayor, and, I think from extrapolation, towards the world, was coming from fear and anger. He’d had a bad run and was sinking towards hate in response--which was clearly not helping him in any way! But it’s hard to see how losing his horse and cart would have improved his outlook,even if he’d survived, without Valjean’s help. 

But here at the convent he’s all full of love and charity. Which means Valjean- and I don’t think he ever realizes this, actually?!?-- has already succeeded on passing on what the Bishop did for him: giving another person the chance to choose kindness again, “buying” a soul for good. In a story where, let’s face, Nice Guys Finish Dead an awful lot of the time, Fauchlevent’s salvation and happy last years are a solid win for the Bishop’s philosophy, and a reminder that Valjean isn’t the only person in the world with hidden goodness.  I wish there could be more room for him in more adaptations, but I’m glad he’s here! 

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