d; all
was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with short steps,
to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very
dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by
the wind. This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light,
eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort of
twilight. This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way,
intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid light
which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which the passersby
come and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had
no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened, according to the
fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened it; but as a
rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room abruptly, he closed
it again immediately. He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze
which studies rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably
low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived
tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that the
wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees.

Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who
has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened
it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the
bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up
again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the
visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in the
angle of the window; then returned to the bed, and resolutely seized the
object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short bar of
iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to
distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit of iron could
have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club.

In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing
more than a miner's candlestick. Convicts were, at that period,
sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which environ
Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at their
command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at
the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into
the rock.

He took the candlestick in his right hand; hol