Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of the street like so many pockets of thieves.
When he reached the centre of the web he found the fly no longer there.
His exasperation can be imagined.
He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and Petit-Picpus; that agent, who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not seen the man pass.
It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns; that is to say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very heels, and then the oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez halt short.
In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, "It was not a stag, but a sorcerer." Javert would have liked to utter the same cry.
His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage.
It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Caesar made mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean Valjean.
He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the exconvict.
The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in not arresting him purely and simply in the old building; he was wrong in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de Pontoise.┆思┆兔┆在┆線┆閱┆讀┆