This movement was like a flash of lightning.

This movement was like a flash of lightning. 　　Jean Valjean was seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just caught sight, by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and beaming visage of the old beadle, but of a well-known and startling face. He experienced the same impression that one would have on finding one's self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He recoiled, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak, to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head, which was enveloped in a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he was there. 　　At this strange moment, an instinct-- possibly the mysterious instinct of self-preservation,--restrained Jean Valjean from uttering a word. 　　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. 　　That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second time. 　　On the following day, at nightfall, he went back. 　　The beggar was at his post. 　　"Good day, my good man," said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing him a sou. 　　The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice, "Thanks, my good sir." 　　It was unmistakably the ex-beadle. 　　Jean Valjean felt completely reassured. 　　He began to laugh. "How the deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there?" he thought. 　　"Am I going to lose my eyesight now?" 　　And he thought no more about it. 　　A few days afterwards,--it might have been at eight o'clock in the evening,--he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, when he heard the house door open and then shut again. This struck him as singular. 　　The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house except himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not burn out her candles. 　　Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet. 　　He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. Jean Valjean listened. 　　The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man; but the old woman wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the step of a man as that of an old woman. 　　Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew out his candle.