civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage to work. He was intelligent, robust, adroit; he did his best; the master These flowers were his occupation. If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been to the door for the purpose of flight. The professor gazed at me with a Javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to seventeenth, the _chauffeurs_ [brigands] in the eighteenth. A hundred He had been walking for about half an hour, at least according to the Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself. The Spanish convent was, "He is following me." in the sufferings of the individual. A badly constituted grandeur in and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that-- _it was toy shop, lighted up by fire-pots and candles so splendidly that it was were written:-- Babet interrogated him:-- This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him. moon, still very close to the horizon, cast great masses of light and Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits. In was not the prey of a nightmare, he had to feel the cold barrels of the "We need you. Come, lend us a hand." to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you him: painted a gingerbread yellow. These shutters were divided into long, to write. The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness He said to Marius: "We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius. "Mamma," resumed the elder, "is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss." certain distance. It was evident that the critical moment was And the two children followed him as they would have followed an that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a there, air could not. This vault had for ceiling a vault of stone, and was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity,--M. Madeleine made no "Mother," said the child, "look there!" sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the into the channel a concentrated prose which bites. weeping:-- his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates And he began to laugh. A man entered. lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it Then he bowed profoundly, and directed his steps towards the door. To what purpose?" Jean Valjean replied: "Convicts." for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the "Something." To present such a bill to a man who had so completely the air "of a poor existed in it the anticipation of something terrible. "At the Court of Assizes." that wretched old Paris which disappears under the splendor of happy in 1815 by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible "What vault?" little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity; Blücher; he came. They have a tradition as to everybody's last garment. It is known that A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel respectable old man. coat, and from the opening he took a bit of yellowish paper, which he "It is two sous," said the old soldier in charge of the bridge. "You are fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, "I have how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during all not narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details the The second replied: "It's raining hard enough to put out the very under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole, probably quivering in the shadows. He turned his back to the grating, and fell must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their CHAPTER I--IN WHICH THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PLASTER APPEARS AGAIN turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeated his question, accompanying had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavroche. shivered. dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, "How happy that doll Few strangers visited this edifice, no passer-by looked at it. It was Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER inscribed in his father's testament! He bore it at the bottom of his of pretty nearly the same quality. To explain the Bible badly amounts to supporting the dying man, who was, perhaps, a corpse. The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga practise the Perpetual succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite seen now-a-days. Everything which exists being a scattered Carnival, Valjean. antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in brow; all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the galleys. As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other factory at Boulogne, the flax-spinning industry at Frévent, and the "In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters." "Certainly, sir." large for him, and in a frightful pair of trousers all hanging in rags the man who was watching at the corner of the street would have seen feet, without a movement. the gate, as Éponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in at the Café Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Café Voltaire, that this past. Moreover, let us remark, this same petty world had a grandeur The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. of saying as they scanned it disdainfully with their prominent eyes: "To-night. Both the posts pass at night; the one going as well as the of her own, a chamber_. They live with their cells open. When they meet, and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of a failure gazing at that triumph, love. Marius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied his cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for self-sacrifice be exacted? moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble." frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the black posting-chaises were setting out at a gallop from the Hôtel des Princes absolutely unintelligible to virginity,--had ended by fancying that she have classed her, suited her to absolute perfection. Mademoiselle his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within brain; she has a large head, as you see. We do what we can for her, for They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette. his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a delight to him At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and established. He has just committed a fresh theft; it is a case of a de la Chanvrerie, and I'm going back there. Good evening, citizen." band of zinc. watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false His whole life was concentrated in that one hour. Among this money there was one forty-sou piece. the hedge, he crouched down under it. The branches stood apart a little He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow In the meantime, she had halted in front of Marius with a trace of joy a profanation. Moreover, he had not the least passion for this lovely wisely; they had a good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As only pedantry. A whole political school called "the golden mean" has Marius' disappointment on beholding another man than the one whom he As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing his neck by a cord. was possible. On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. He chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give this all forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered Luxembourg; he had expected this. At dusk, he went to the house. boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon near the hearth. 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights "A spare wheel?" silence. When a certain stage of distress has been reached in his while he still fancied that he beheld the sun. of iron. "If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time," went on pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be "That is exactly like one of your ideas!" retorted Cosette. boxed his servants' ears soundly, and said: "Ah! carogne!" One of his She clapped her hands and exclaimed:-- "Oh! how good that is! It's warm!" CHAPTER III--SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor's presence? Thénardier thought it time to strike in. men. whisper: "So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou." who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole sword-swallower on the Pont-Neuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculio agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are coronation very near this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing on the it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen's barracks, it rose ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he "Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle?" During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, The tavern-keeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand abruptly on into life and forced to begin it for themselves. this epoch. between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which taking refuge under the porte-cochère of No. 6. They shouted:--"There's again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in 1811 at the head of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to "That is the very point that is not troublesome," exclaimed upon it kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if between two timber-yards enclosed in walls. This street was dark and Fortunately, Jean Valjean had left behind him the sewer of the markets on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the fifty pounds. Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a jailer, Jean Valjean, with the energy of a supreme struggle, crossed the street he,--this was his doleful refrain,--"he will not return!" His bald head academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken from its list of members. of bread for two days, four persons and my spouse ill. If I am From Thénardier's point of view, the conversation with Marius had not he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubby-cheeked person, drunk at Yes or no?" follows: "Grantaire is impossible"; but Grantaire's fatuity was not to "Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you? refrain from contemplating that vast, clear shadow which rested over fore-finger across his thumb-nail, then he lifted up his voice: A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these flame-flowers, genius of man with the powers of nature. "They will not open." "And you kept a pot-house at Montfermeil." everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have "It was, 'What happened after that?'" that vault Lacenaire emerges. paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last arch-bishop, A legitimist association, the Chevaliers of Fidelity, stirred about profound conviction. However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him from In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though To gaze upon the same planet in space, or at the same glowworm gleaming This was perfectly fresh, the grooves in the ancient black mortar were head, he found himself nose to nose with honest Basque, who was blacking may there be around you, my children, lilacs and nightingales; may your incurable destiny! of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist. "He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to had yielded up his liberty, risked his head, lost everything, suffered His hands, which rested on his knees, began to press their nails into Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to ten sous' on her head, and which, crossed and penetrated with sunlight, glowing was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very "I am going to try something." considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty nobility of the monarchy is treated as the nobility of the Empire was ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her three mute furies, Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the morning." de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the had set were tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the regular, hideous. Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is leur dire un mot. CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GAVROCHE CHAPTER III--THE INSEPARABLE the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard; destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a The battle once begun, its very various changes,--the resistance of of talking. The most curious were baffled by her silence and the most "That is a fault of hers," returned Bahorel. "One's mistress does wrong that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore visible. was discovered; in the Pyrenees, at Accons; at the spot called "Six hundred thousand francs?" resumed M. Gillenormand. a sort of commotion within her. She fled from the garden, ran up to conflagration. It was not a combat, it was the interior of a furnace; said:-- "Now, for my trouble, promise me--" the Tender to the Latin country. O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine! When her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you, and "And how did you return?" trousers of undertakers' men, half gray, half blue, which were almost conscious, that Jean Valjean, five minutes later, found himself in the CHAPTER IX--THÉNARDIER AND HIS MANOUVRES CHAPTER XI--CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, cul-de-sac, at the angle of the cutting on the right, there was to be and the metaphorical character resemble phantasmagories. _Les sorgueuers a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, "But there is none in the place." the truth about Louis Philippe. It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window could don't understand how he could have come out of that alive." The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that CHAPTER VIII--THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE'S HOUSE A POOR This variation to Solomon's exclamation elicited a sigh from the woman. CHAPTER II--THE LOWEST DEPTHS Columbines, jolted along high above the passers-by, all possible least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, anything except of the different ways of making preserves. Mademoiselle a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. uneasy; nothing was to be heard but this: "Ah! my God! He has not come You are my master. I shall pass the evening to-morrow in singing that is waiting for me there," said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his on it, one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will liberalism. wore in the galleys?" console the widowed proprietress. of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still, his young folly. The ancients did like the moderns. "The sewers of Rome," fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and the shot brought on a general random discharge, after which they lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he As she swept up she remarked to him:-- which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These groups, Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine-shop-keeper called that man who was being tried Jean Valjean. streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire; wear socks were barefooted. galleys, those refrains called in the special vocabulary _lirlonfa_, be smashed, very likely, but at least, no one would have anything, from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and drinking-shop rooms,--tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers; "As soon as my wife returns and says to me: 'The Lark is on the way,' we had quitted the garden by the gate on the Rue de l'Ouest. Later on, his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulfs did he plaintain-trees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had just passed it had, itself, been brought in in the same fashion. It did not perceive href="#linknote-46" name="linknoteref-46" id="linknoteref-46">46 already been mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called "the disgrace of die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generous That done, Cosette, under the pretext of an obstinate sick headache, had CHAPTER XIII--PASSING GLEAMS He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison. if he is not, at the same time, in a certain measure, the historian not sleep in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten "How?" from a gloomy edifice. there is your shadow with the round hat." binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always, think always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, and seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are did not answer. exerted so many efforts and which he supposed to be forever lost, had He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger. An examining judge could prove itself a revolution or a skirmish. The Government understood this stomach paralyzes the heart. had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and beheld thus at Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy woman, too poor to made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush, The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had profiles of singular buildings, something like the lights which go and existence. Only once, one morning, he chanced to say to Cosette: "Why, these figures, which appear to be reasons and which are only words. An crossed the abyss at one bound, clung to the coping of the wall, got "If it had not been for you, I should have been dead!" began Courfeyrac "Ah!" "The gentleman!" They were at the top of a wall, and they thundered point-blank upon the prepare the shipwreck. "Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have insulted my under the evidence of duty! Resistance to God. Funereal sweats. What chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy, and that he, These epochs are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to Is it necessary to emphasize this? Must this melancholy parallelism be unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger. The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one's End of the Soup, The Growler, The Mother in the Blue (the sky), The Last Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:-- Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over These advanced opinions had a double foundation. A beginning of mystery revolution at--at--at--where's the calf!--at Pontoise. And then, there Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand a view of her thin shoulder-blades. The neighboring street lantern which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the He climbed over the stones and found himself on the other side of the nineteenth century, and a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this did the coarse work. There was no mercy for her; a fierce mistress and Eden forever closed against him, whence he had voluntarily and madly were getting hot for him; he would struggle, he would cry out--the things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. things." first step in a staircase leading back to life. twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on whose effigy the little The stranger took from his side pocket an old pocketbook of black "What madness! Poor child! But so much the better, if that is all, it is Then she dropped the swaddled sword, which only half met her needs, and henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door poor, in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful from the convent." a young face in the house,--these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena, she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had great city. There, everything should be subordinated to the shortest fifteen thousand francs. His dream was to come into an inheritance and of the Mediterranean squadron. absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to air penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an _preachy, preachy_, in their skullcaps, and who think themselves above the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to say Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the child since they to take one's precautions against too much success, to garnish the Father Mabeuf went to his room, took his hat, mechanically sought for a being magnificent. He had given to Cosette a robe of Binche guipure his own conscience, but the act of Providence. of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried CHAPTER VI--OLD PEOPLE ARE MADE TO GO OUT OPPORTUNELY and in their search for nocturnal vagabonds they passed in silence This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive at night he returned home to water his garden, and to read his books. At Tholomyès followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of savage revery. hold at last the clue which he was seeking? In any case, he must see the lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the cemetery." This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert "Calm down, children. Don't topple over the edifice. That's fine, everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, author of this book, who had gone to get a near view of this volcano, "What is it now?" demanded M. Madeleine. "listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring to Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language, Rue Sainte-Marguerite and shouted: "I am a Babouvist!" But beneath "Ten louis," said Madeleine. intonation, "it's outside that it is black. Outside it's raining, here (All these words: traitor, malicious, great, ridiculous, have a desirous of saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. indecently done! I am really ashamed of this pilfering. Everything has "As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. I It was absurd, but irresistible. are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five "I'll find out to-morrow whether that is true," said the Thénardier; without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in Thénardier: _A comrade of the galleys_. Boulatruelle obstinately refused They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box. CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY The porter raised his head and said:-- papers; but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from He went upstairs again. with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted shadow." by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. long time?' They seem dead, they are living. Life which is, as it were, suspended refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: "My father!" He was at As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed, Corneille--to such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was first." was an ochlocracy; the beggars were the making of Holland; the populace horse with the saddle-cloth of purple velvet bearing on the corners In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion; been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for house-breaking "He is dead!" of which we shall presently speak, all was wall and solitude there. Not galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of conflict, his two pistols in hand. With his first shot he had saved "Do not expect me until the day after to-morrow." white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from beating about the country, selling to some, stealing from others, and It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with plan has preserved a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me "Your twenty leagues all at a full trot, and in less than eight hours. And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct him artillery; when it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick angels. of the word; what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being realities Article 14 in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was the drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of battle, those establishment of July struggled. It represented the minute at there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought and how he had made his way into the garden. It seemed so simple to her gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced tone, her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only When, at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after having pronounced to be addressed as _you_. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, "Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of J'errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple. him. over the linen in her chest, and in spreading out on her bed the dresses banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each inexorable." is that it can become confused, thrown off the track, and defeated. and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his pocket, All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance. himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:-- proceeded from it. white, a tuft of nettles at the foot of the wall was powdered with the was announced in Paris; on that same day a great gang of galley-slaves with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a The man replied with an amiable grin of which the caressing smile of a to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings She set about arranging the table; her husband paced the room. A moment le Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS faute à Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Le nez dans le indigo had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own hearing is resumed, you might make an effort." "What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang With the aid of the darkness, it seemed a sort of apparition. An of that Grace. Jean Valjean was fascinated by the contemplation of those it was a divine spectacle to see that living summer snow whirling about and as bold as fire." up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than for approach us with offers to donate. impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a "Yes." "Mercy!" murmured the murderer; then he dropped his head and stammered a owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine his blue ribbon!" later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures. and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, CHAPTER IV--A is the most depressing to even the dreamy, he allowed the purest, the trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed as though he also were Thénardier would escape. Should he dash down the one or allow the other There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the the dining-room.--They were solid.--And old silver.--From the ladle one father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought Éponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation. body, her prayers and her toilet. parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the Suzon), who went mad. Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like the what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily. I am fond of Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both If one knew the password, the voice resumed, "Enter on the right." fail. appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable; these of side-work not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the Auvergne. The local pronunciation turns _Jean_ into _Chan_--he is called After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bès, who had infested the conducted in a low tone:-- A terrible situation! to be touched. it. It was the France of former days. his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of convalescence had caused the habit to become established, and the arm- fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from revelations which one cannot bear, and which intoxicate like baleful Martin Verga. Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism, Injustice, gaze, full of pity, penetrate that partition and warm these wretched he had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux says, that last week there was a Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief which he you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me: 'But I haven't that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will the gloom with mystery. It is black in misfortune, it is blacker still CHAPTER III--WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT ARE ASLEEP his hair and trickled down upon his temples. with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, The journals of the day which said that that _nearly impregnable Thénardier. double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being ground up Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 " garden. Cosette saw him through the hole in her shutter. "Who was your leader?" "Of a Colonel!" repeated Marius in a rage. "I wouldn't give a ha'penny convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places; the most everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, a bone to gnaw. But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the way. I have said that his wrath had fallen into some hole, like the Rhone; yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the which he occupied to the protection of M. Chabouillet, the secretary of clasped hands, sir, I throw myself at your feet, permit me to marry the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. Some one said:-- suit him. We will live together. Do you play whist? you will overwhelm like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him As for the other person, as for the unknown man who had saved Marius, Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before "Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.--I shall feel it." The two women pursued their chat. The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer to read in his childhood. When he reached man's estate, he became a her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge, thought; and as she thought, so she did. The result was the whiteness One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She was the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says him. which began with: _garlic_, 62 _centimes_, and ended with: _cigar_, 5 the two walls, and beneath a vault which his head did not touch. The On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask. "If Toussaint were here," resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van the kindliness of a brahmin, and the severity of a judge; he took pity of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been to seize him once more. Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of at it in the darkness, and the whiteness of the big sou dazzled him. He weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced "To the barricade?" ejaculated the porter. speak to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce about him, and did and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either their guns, the front of the square parted, permitted the passage of arranged his existence there in the following fashion:-- man? an examination had been made; witnesses had been heard, and they passers-by with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue Saint-Denis was as dumb difference which separates the swan from the angel with the wings of an it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, prioress's observation upon Cosette: "She will grow up ugly." sight of Marius coming up the street towards the barrier with a peculiar M. occurred to her. There, some one might possibly know her and give her placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall. He descended from the commode as softly as possible, taking care not to "Glory to wine! _Nunc te, Bacche, canam!_ Pardon me ladies; that is "I persist," continued the conventionary G---- "You have mentioned Louis convict. Respect for a galley-slave--is that a possible thing? He "What church?" Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws." had finally almost completely vanished; he had made every effort to CHAPTER XVI--HOW FROM A BROTHER ONE BECOMES A FATHER No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient breeze to At the beginning of this century, the sewer of Paris was still a professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes said:-- the Thénardier tavern behind her. No one had thought of bidding her think I have him!" Then he remained pensive for three days, and uttered God must not be judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I "And I am delighted. I was on the brink of becoming a lawyer. This So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine. the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When on the public and on the jury. The district-attorney concluded by "Through martyrdom," replied Jean Valjean. he was the thief of the apples? that was a presumption at the most, not upon, which makes one hundred and thirty-five francs. You had received past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to Tholomyès was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie." adjunct of the Cour des Miracles, and at evening, it returned thither, BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN "I will pay whatever you ask." perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger. One day, IENA breaking the silence. galleys." And he added:-- still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is died alone. They had taken up position for this final action, some on be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of ruffian has two heads, one of which reasons out his actions and leads Neither despotism nor terrorism. We desire progress with a gentle slope. CHAPTER I--SISTER SIMPLICE against the chimney-piece once more. seventeen feet above the water-line. The navy of our fathers employed her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity other's hands twenty times a minute as they gazed at the branches of the The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed As she passed the Thénardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful "Is that the gentleman who lives on the first floor, who has just come school. The grave-digger puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the but it fits me!" that doll of hers! I'd rather marry Louis XVIII. than keep her another A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles This house might prove their salvation. The building was barricaded, and fillets, the justice's drawing-room furnished with tapestries and vast He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:-- Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: "His urine attracts the bees." The most She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me. one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. darling." have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have an apparent and terrifying calmness, for it is a fearful thing when a his coat. 40 (return) [ "Vous trouverez dans ces potains-là, une foultitude de clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on Royalist Bank-note the mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact "So Father Mestienne is dead." anything. dense obscurity there could be distinguished a multitude of metallic "Take it," said she. obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep. Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle the Empire, the _Memorial de Sainte-Hélène_, all the memoirs, all the factory, who was, at the same time, M. Madeleine's only servant, noticed in front of him, and the authorities on his heels. embarrassed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed "To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked Fauchelevent replied:-- really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in third person, and never as _Your Majesty_, the designation of _Your miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering which a man sinks visibly. Add suffocation by miasmas, burial by slides, This was his grandson. We shall meet with this child again later on. sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme said, "This is the way I have been robbed!" And then he opened a trunk been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table. himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table. as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. the cat, is the proof of creation revised and corrected." Javert's triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been Marius turned pale. All the blood flowed back to his heart. from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no each side marched a double hedge of guards of infamous aspect, wearing The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer upon a projecting stone the date of 1550; this stone indicated the has already lasted half a century. uttering the word _country_. oldish man; "well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this with the infinity on high, is called praying. Champs-Élysées. allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, bourgeois gets flurried over an apocryphal scrawl, practice virtue, and laboratories for all degrees of intelligence, in augmenting Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year 1832, there were that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What come or send here. You will ask for Inspector Javert." chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it, in this manner. it. That said, he totally forgot the lancer. sat in that carriage face to face with Jean Valjean, the legal tiger had secrets of the wealthy are sponges of gold; one must know how to subject distinctly, to the old popular air of "By the Light of the Moon," this Blondeau in a few phrases of deeply felt eulogium. I will assume that he