Chapter Text
Everything was in perfect order, except for his thoughts, but those would be put to rest soon enough.
Javert set his hat down upon the parapet with great conviction. He could feel the air in his hair, and wondered for a moment what it would feel like on the way down. A cold shower? A brisk chill? A snowstorm? Would the air be colder, or the water? The water, of course. It may have been early June on the calendar, but any Parisian knew that it was always winter in the Seine.
It somehow seemed ignoble to die without his hat; that had been one of the foolish ideas to cross his mind at the barricades as well, to die in the garb of a laborer and not a man of justice. At least his death now would be in uniform, but he didn't dare risk his hat coming off on the way down, flying away on the breeze, making his death a source of amusement for any onlookers. Inspector Javert had never been the cause of people's smiles in life, and he'd be damned if he was going to be the same in death, either.
"Of course," he said aloud, "I'm damned regardless."
Hearing the words put to voice gave him pause. When he'd first conceived the notion that a fall from the Pont-au-Change might solve the moral dilemma tearing him apart, it had occurred to him that suicide was a mortal sin. Whether there was a God above, he could not say; the past twelve hours had sent his faith and beliefs flying apart. If there was not, why, he would die, and that would be the end: blackness. And if there was, as the very existence of Jean Valjean the convict-saint seemed to suggest, he would be damned, exactly as he deserved. He had damned other sinners to prison, some even to the guillotine, in his work for the police; he himself deserved no lighter penalty. Justice would be his, and he would go to Hell with the rest of the guilty.
He leaned over the parapet for a moment, hat sitting to his side like a silent spectator, and stared at the water below. As all members of the police force and any local mother of small children knew, this was not a part of the Seine that lent itself to easy recovery. Even in the depths of night, the starlight lit up the world enough for him to see the white-tipped eddies churning below the bridge, ceaselessly whispering of the depths and stones below. It would probably hurt, but he had known little but pain throughout his life; it was not worth fretting over. If he fell just right it might even be over before he knew it, and then he would be where he was destined to be.
It was unfortunate, though. Before this night and its confusion heaped upon confusion, Javert had considered himself of the righteous. If there were no God, he would die, and that would be the end, but if there were, ah, no matter what doubts crossed his mind, his behavior was beyond reproach. He had done right all his life.
More right than most who considered themselves saved, to be sure. Why, he had kept himself clean of passion: even a pinch of snuff, his one guilty pleasure, was an indulgence no more terrible or significant than putting jam on a slice of bread. He was damned, but except for his own murder -- an indelible stain, to be sure -- his soul was pure.
Javert unsteadily pulled himself up to stand beside his hat. Here he could feel the wind even more strongly; it pulled at his coat like the fingers of the poor at the carriages of gentlefolk, greedy and cold. He looked down once more, but from this higher vantage point, the rapids of the Seine seemed to level out, with only the occasional reflection of the heavens to break the darkness. He took a deep breath.
A shooting star streaked across the sky, and for a moment he heard his mother's voice, telling him that she had seen a comet through the infirmary window on the night he was born, and how lucky a sign that was. It just showed how little the criminal vagabond knew. She was in prison for fortunetelling, and hadn't even been any good at it.
Why was he thinking of his mother? Perhaps he would see her in Hell, and he could tell her how wrong she'd been about his life. She'd looked at his palm and predicted that he would never again see prison walls once he was a man, that he would meet a beautiful wife with hair of gold who would take care of him all his days, that he would end his time on earth old and white-haired in his bed with fifteen grandchildren at his side. The fool. The closest she'd come to accuracy in any of those predictions was that his hair was streaked with silver now.
Or perhaps that had been a mother's wishful thinking, and she had chosen to see his fortune through a mirror: he'd begun his career in a prison and had visited criminals there regularly; no beauty, golden-tressed or otherwise, had ever crossed his path and caught his fancy; far from having fifteen grandchildren, he had never even known another's touch in his half-century of life. Perhaps he was just backward, or his natural contrariness ran deeper than even he knew.
Javert looked up at the sky. The sky did not look back at him, but he spoke to it anyway.
"Had I been killed at the barricade," he said, "I would have gone to heaven and been seated among the best. Instead, I am condemned to burn with the sinners, those who committed vile deeds and sins of the flesh time and time again, though I myself have never even-"
He paused. He had never before let cross his lips a thought that had run through his mind intermittently all through his adult life, and had particularly been circling through his consciousness that night. The stars remained silent, but the river continued to grumble below.
"...Although," he continued, running his hands through his hair, not quite sure where his mind was going, "if my soul is a lost cause anyway-"
Finally, the idea took form, and struck him with almost painful force, as though he had been hit with one of the cannonballs that had been fired that afternoon; he staggered backward, off the parapet and back to a more stable ground. He would grant himself a brief reprieve; that was all. Brief but eventful, if his ridiculous idea could be put into reality.
He considered leaving his hat -- the parapet would be waiting for him when he returned -- but the thought of some urchin stealing and wearing it while he was still alive to see it sent a flare of anger through his belly. He shoved it roughly onto his head instead, and walked with great determination down the path that led to the seediest district within reach.
--
As he walked, Javert mentally listed the possible sins that he could commit in a few hours’ time; he really did want to be done with the river before the bridge became a busy thoroughfare. He had always presumed that he would be forgiven for not honoring his mother and his father, as they were without honor themselves. That was not a blasphemy that he took pleasure in, either; it was simply a matter-of-fact, and thus not worth pursuing in his final moments on earth. He supposed that he also coveted, but similarly, it was more a reality than a conscious choice; he would never be accepted as part of society, and so by becoming an upholder of the law, he was doing the best he could to turn feelings of exclusion into providing a service to the world that did not want him. That too was nothing in which he could take pleasure. He wanted his damnation to be something he would enjoy.
But he knew that he was letting his thoughts, broken and spent things that they were, escape from what he was truly thinking, what he had truly lacked in his life. What he needed to do.
If his soul was damned to Hell one way or another, it would be a waste to die a virgin. Therefore, Javert was going to go fornicate before he died.
He had staked out the local brothels and districts of ill-repute enough times that he did not need to pay attention to the way. Instead, he let his mind wander toward what he sought. He didn’t have enough time to be wholly choosy about the prostitute that he selected, and indeed a part of him reeled with disgust at the thought of using a woman who had been used by all walks of men before, but he didn’t know anyone else who might be... accessible and amenable... at this hour.
“Or at any hour,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t be helped.”
Still, Paris had its share of whores, and so he thought he might be able to have some choice in the matter. One that didn’t look diseased, that had to be among his top criteria. One that looked to have reached her majority; that was another. Choosing a fallen woman to lie with might be easier than he thought.
So, then, to consider the finer details...
In his fractured state of mind, he could not come up with a vision of a woman with whom he would like to sin; it was possible that he was hurrying too much as he walked, not letting his body or mind breathe. He took a moment to lean against a brick wall and conjure up a more exact image, so that he would not waste time when he found one that resembled what he wanted.
She would be... tall? Tall might be nice. He would not have to bend in half to put his face near hers, and since he had never kissed another person, he supposed that was something he should try, too. Nothing too breakable; he was not a small man, and he did not want to fear causing damage, even to a low woman who did that sort of thing for a living. His mother had predicted a blonde in his future, but he couldn’t put a specific hair color on the shadowy figure his mind was creating for him; he figured it would all look the same by candlelight anyway. (The dark would have been better, but he had some feeling that his lack of experience might necessitate some precautions.)
She should probably have a bosom, he supposed, although not one that was too large; he could not understand the appeal to women bouncing about like their bodies were rubber balls bound up in lace. She should probably have legs, and a rear end, and -- what else did the men he worked with talk about whilst he endeavored to ignore them? Definitely she should smell good, and have bathed fairly recently; he had smelled his share of prostitutes who used perfume in place of soap, and the very memory nearly made him retch.
Thus, in short...
...he had no image of the kind of woman he was looking for whatsoever, aside from being sturdy and clean. Well. He started walking again with newfound determination, pleased with himself. His lack of extreme preference probably made things easier, for when he...
Well, he didn’t quite know what he would do with her once he got there, but he figured that that was her job to know. All he had to do was lie back and let her work her will with his manhood.
He knew what would happen in theory; it was simply that he was not sure what kind of lover he would be in practice. He was perfectly knowledgeable about such worldly matters, though lacking in first-hand knowledge. He had even felt the shame of arousal from time to time in his life, although never in the presence of a prostitute.
He came to a sudden halt, boots skidding a bit as an image flashed before his eyes.
Javert had always figured he’d never married because the right woman had never come along; it was just something that happened to men in their turn. Intercourse, too, seemed presumably like something that just happened, after the right woman came along. But the fact that he’d never known arousal in the presence of a woman -- that could be a problem. Even still, as he tried to hold an image of his acceptable partner in his mind, he could feel himself not growing with lust, but actually shrinking in dismay, crawling back up between his thighs, as it had always done when he had been propositioned by a woman of the night.
It had never been an issue before, of course, because he had been on the path of the just, and the just man waited for his intended, and then they would know each other in proper ways. But now that he was going to die, and had decided that propriety could be thrown by the wayside, he had to wonder: was it more of a waste to die pure by choice, or to die pure because his body failed him when faced with opportunity?
He could almost hear the whores laughing at him now, and he stopped and drew a deep breath.
Pride too was a crime against God, so if he was going to die a sinner, he might as well maintain it.
“I’m sure there are plenty of other terrible things I’ve been missing out on besides fornication,” he muttered to himself, and turned on his heel. “Liquor. Vandalism. Forgery. Theft.”
So many opportunities. All he needed was someone to guide him in the most efficient way.
His feet knew where to take him. He’d already been there once that night.