"This man is yours!" then to go off, leaving that condemned man there, to ignore the rest and not to meddle further in the matter.
This man is forever a prisoner of the law; the law may do with him what it will.
What could be more just? Javert had said all this to himself; he had wished to pass beyond, to act, to apprehend the man, and then, as at present, he had not been able to do it; and every time that his arm had been raised convulsively towards Jean Valjean''s collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an enormous weight, and in the depths of his thought he had heard a voice, a strange voice crying to him:--"It is well. Deliver up your savior.
Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws."
Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded.
A convict was his benefactor!
But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade.
He should have asserted that right.
It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force.
His supreme anguish was the loss of certainty.*本*作*品*由*思*兔*網*提*供*線*上*閱*讀*
He felt that he had been uprooted.
The code was no longer anything more than a stump in his hand.