amoama: (cobrig)
[personal profile] amoama
Title: Deep Shadows
Fandom: Les Misérables
Subject: Javert/Valjean
Notes/Warnings: For [profile] rehia_gessev at the [profile] waywardmixes holiday exchange - I really hope you like it! Warnings for wretchedness and suicide - nothing too heavy in the mix but it is canon.
Also I know there are a lot of words here - I'm sorry - but think of how long the book is! Limiting myself was so hard. I had to use a free download version of the book as I don't have access to any of my books right now so the translation is definitely not the best ever but the awesomeness of Victor Hugo still shines through. :D
Pictures are illustrations and covers from various editions of the book.





Notes on the characters and source material:
Les Misérables is a novel by Victor Hugo, first published in 1862. Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, focusing on the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.

Hugo wrote of the novel, Les Misérables is written for all nations. I do not know whether it will be read by all, but I wrote it for all… Social problems overstep frontiers. The sores of the human race, those great sores which cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the map. In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of the book which should instruct him and of the hearth which should warm him, the book of Les Misérables knocks at the door and says: "Open to me, I come for you."

This mix focuses on the relationship between Javert and Jean Valjean, two men set at odds by their circumstances and personalities but who have a profound effect upon each other.

In my mind, Valjean regards Javert first with curiosity then as a threat, and finally with pity. For his part, Javert is barely human enough to recognise anything so demeaning as love inside himself. Javert is obsessed with Valjean and Valjean is the one person able to humanise Javert at all. Around Valjean, Javert loses control, sometimes entirely; but his distaste for Valjean the Criminal covers everything else inside Javert until the very bitter end when his real feelings for Valjean reveal themselves. In doing so, these feelings utterly devastate Javert.






The Guard and his Convict

Iron - Woodkid
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head.
The thunder of the drums dictates
the rhythm of the falls, the number of deaths,
the rising of the horns... ahead

"Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing twenty years ago, when I was adjutant-guard of convicts at Toulon."

[Javert watches the convicts, notes the strength of one over all the others, the brutality of his limbs held at bay by will as much as chains. He observes the man, day after day, learns his name, something of his history. Jean Valjean. But for the grace of God, Javert thinks, I could have been this man if I had veered from righteousness.]

"This savage in the service of civilization"

[The child Javert, born in a prison, surrounded by filth and sin. Only the law protected him, brought him out of the darkness. Only the law remembered that he was guiltless of the circumstances of his birth.
Who knows what this creature, Valjean could have been had he fought against the sin inside him.]


Crave – Duologue
There's a line that goes from you to me
You know what I crave, I got myself a little taste



The Inspector and his Mayor

Road to Somewhere – Goldfrapp
Been a long hot summer
Rain like daggers coming down on me
Get a feeling it's too late
But alone, together, could be we might start it up all over again

"Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing what you ask." Madeleine shuddered. Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his eyes from Madeleine: "He was a convict." "Ah!" said Madeleine.

[Javert has watched the Mayor, suspected him where everyone else revered him. His watching stirs in him the same feelings as the convict had done, twenty long years ago. The same wonder at his body, the same revulsion at his core. The Mayor does not respect the law as he should and yet, as magistrate, the Mayor is the Law.]

[The Mayor feels Javert's gaze on him, the suspicion, disdain and the bitter respect. Valjean's hulking frame longs to give in to the shudder this vigilant observance provokes in him.]


Madeleine raised his head, met Javert's falcon eye still fixed upon him, looked at the motionless peasants, and smiled sadly. Then, without saying a word, he fell on his knees.

Runaway – The National
There's no saving anything
Now we're swallowing the shine of the summer
There's no saving anything.
We got another thing coming undone
And its taking us over
We don't bleed when we dont fight
Go ahead Go ahead Throw your arms in the air tonight



The Informer and his Denounced

Redeemer – Imaad Wasif
Though it tears us miles apart
Though the axe is swung
Though the horns are hung
Though the hunter steals away with the prey
Isn't it pure, by the dagger, Or by the Sword

"Wrath impelled me; I denounced you at the Prefecture! …Your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was directed to others. I want none of it for myself… ! if you had been what I thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man."

[For one moment, Javert is thrown from the scent and the Mayor is free; but Valjean cannot live with the possibility of another man serving his sentence in his stead.]

Cap Diamant – Coeur de Pirate
Tes lèvres brûlent tant de mille mensonges : Your lips burn from a thousand lies
Que tu ne prends plus la peine de raconter : That you've given up on telling
Et tu m’as volé ce qu’il reste de l’été : And you stole from me what was left of the summer
Même si je ne suis rien pour toi : Even if I'm nothing to you
Je me rappelle des secrets en cavale : I remember secrets on the run
Laissés en murmures au creux de mes bras : Left whispered in my arms
Que je porterai, si lourds de tourments : That I'll carry, so heavy with torments
Je t’entends encore crier doucement : I still hear you screaming quietly
Pourquoi voulais-tu encore donc de moi : Why did you want me again

Sad fate! He would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men.

[Javert enters the hospital where Fantine is cared for, sure of finding his quarry. There are no doubts yet, simply anticipation. He has found Valjean. He will arrest his man, the one who has fled and deceived and mocked the Law will once again be made subservient to it.]

The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, without stirring, without moving from his post, without approaching him, became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible as joy. It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul.

The depths having been stirred up, mounted to the surface.




The Spy and his Fugitive

[But Valjean escapes and Javert receives evidence of his death. Without Valjean in front of him he can continue his life as he decrees it.]

Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was to be irreproachable.

Avenue of Hope – I Am Kloot
Don't let me falter, don't let me hide
Don't let someone else decide
Just who or what I will become

[Valjean, for his part, lives in fear, barely a life outside of Cosette. His whole purpose being to hide from Javert, the spectre that defines his existence just as much as his love for his adopted daughter and his desire to live out his redemption.]

The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance as he had every day. "Bah!" said Jean Valjean, "I am mad! I am dreaming! Impossible!" And he returned profoundly troubled. He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he thought he had seen was the face of Javert.
…Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without profound anxiety. He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from sight there.


Track You Down – Matthew Mayfield
And fear wraps its claws around his neck and squeezes tight
There's blood in the water and panic in the air
He's racing and chasing the scent of your hair

[Any whisper or hint of Valjean's continued existence leads Javert to abandon all thoughts of other duties to pursue this one exception.]

Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single instant; even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to be the most secure Javert's eye had been on him.

Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly knotted. He was sure of success; all he had to do now was to close his hand.


Kill of the Night – Gin Wigmore
My cold desire
To hear the boom, boom, boom of your heart
The danger is I'm dangerous
And I might just tear you apart



La Foule – Edith Piaf
Emportés par la foule qui nous traîne : Carried away by the crowd behind us
Nous entraîne
Écrasés l'un contre l'autre : We lead crushed against each other
Nous ne formons qu'un seul corps
Et le flot sans effort : We are one body and flow effortlessly
Nos deux mains restent soudées
Et parfois soulevés : Our hands are welded and sometimes raised
Nos deux corps enlacés s'envolent
Et retombent tous deux : Our bodies entwined fly and both fall





The Conquered and his Saviour

While they were binding Javert, a man standing on the threshold was surveying him with singular attention. The shadow cast by this man made Javert turn his head. He raised his eyes, and recognized Jean Valjean. He did not even start, but dropped his lids proudly and confined himself to the remark: "It is perfectly simple."

Me and The Devil – Gil Scott-Heron
Early this morning when you knocked upon my door
An I say Hello Satan I believe its time to go
Me and the Devil
so if you see the vulture coming flying circles in your mind
remember there is no escaping for he will follow close behind

[Captured by the revolutionaries, Javert submits to his fate; he, the spy, has been caught by his enemies, it is fair that they will kill him. He knows he has lost. At his moment of capitulation Valjean descends from the barricade. Of course, of course, he is here. These opponents of the Law must necessarily be his friends. Javert's loss is complete, he has failed the Law, failed as the upholder of justice and his mistakes are borne out by Valjean's presence. Javert wants Valjean to be the one to kill him, to know he died at the hands of this convict, this escapee, this masquerader whose whole being is an affront to righteousness.]

"Take your revenge."
Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it.
"A clasp-knife!" exclaimed Javert, "you are right. That suits you better."
Jean Valjean cut the martingale which Javert had about his neck, then he cut the cords on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord on his feet; and, straightening himself up, he said to him: "You are free."
Javert was not easily astonished. Still, master of himself though he was, he could not repress a start. He remained open-mouthed and motionless.


[Valjean no longer seeks to avoid Javert, the events of the barricade have culminated in his acceptance of his life and his death. He no longer needs to hide from his shadow. He acts to save Javert from death and sets him free into the night, confident that Javert will come for him in time.]

Same Stars We Shared – Amatorski
Same stars we shared
all frozen in the sky
while dreaming the same
guilty we are
awaked and aware
of killed and disgrace



The Released and his Torment

When he had so unexpectedly encountered Jean Valjean on the banks of the Seine, there had been in him something of the wolf which regains his grip on his prey, and of the dog who finds his master again.

You Should've Seen the Other Guy – Nathaniel Rateliff
When we get out of this fight,
You're gonna help me wrap my hands
A-stichin' up my eyes, you know that blood can blind
I think I'm gonna be hit tonight, If there's one way out, it's to swing my way through the crowd.
Is there a blanket of pain that I can wrap up in?
You got a hold of me now, hey that's a hell of a grin

[Confronted with Valjean once more, now desperate, carrying the near-lifeless body of Marius from the barricade, Javert acts as he never has. He aids Valjean. Together they convey Marius to his family's house.]

[Javert does not arrest him.]


Was it not a fearful thing that Javert and Jean Valjean, the man made to proceed with vigor, the man made to submit,—that these two men who were both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both of them had set themselves above the law?

Jean Valjean was the load which weighed upon his spirit. Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him.
Javert felt that something terrible was penetrating his soul—admiration for a convict. Respect for a galley-slave—is that a possible thing? He shuddered at it, yet could not escape from it. In vain did he struggle, he was reduced to confess, in his inmost heart, the sublimity of that wretch.


Le Petit Mort – Coeur de Pirate
La pluie coule sur mes tempes : The rain runs down my temples
La foudre chante ta descente : The lightning is singing your descent
Blottie contre ma vie : Huddled up against my life
Ton rire résonne et puis s’enfuit : Your laugh resounds and then flees
Je crois qu’il est trop tard : I think that it's too late
Pour te dire que ça fait mal : To admit to you that I'm hurting
Mon coeur n’est plus comme avant : My heart is not like it was before
Car il s’endort tout doucement : Because it softly falls asleep



The Shadow and the Martyr

The water roared. All at once he took off his hat and placed it on the edge of the quay. A moment later, a tall black figure, which a belated passer-by in the distance might have taken for a phantom, appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the shadows; a dull splash followed; and the shadow alone was in the secret of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath the water.

Wild is the Wind – Nina Simone
Give me more Than one caress
Satisfy this Hungriness
Let the wind Blow through your heart
For wild is the wind
With your kiss My life begins
You're spring to me
All things To me
Cling to me
For we're creatures Of the wind
And wild is the wind

[Javert takes his own life. He must die because all that he is has already ceased to exist. His whole life has been built on a baseless premise and so he crumples and falls. Finally human, perhaps even alive.]

[Without Javert stalking him, Valjean should now be free, but in the absence of his shadow Valjean fades too, waiting for death to take him.]


His breath sank, his glance grew grander. He was a corpse on which the wings could be felt.

Au Parc - Chiara Mastrioanni
Même soleil d'hiver, Mêmes bruits de brindilles : Same winter sun, Same twigs' cracks
Le bout des doigts glace, Le givre sur les grilles : Frozen fingertips, Frost on the railings
Mêmes odeurs d'humus, La terre qui se terre : Same humus scents, Earth going to earth
Tout y sera, tout y sera : It will all be there, it will all be there
A part toi : But you
Parc de la Pépinière, fin de semaine : Parc de la Pépinière, end of the week
Encore une heure, encore une heure à peine : One more hour, barely one more hour
Encore une heure de jour et la nuit vient : One more hour of day then night falls



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