One day Marius, who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was Valjean of the whole of that singular adventure, of the innumerable spinning-wheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little one slumbered in a pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which CHAPTER II--ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils of well; it is in quite the other direction from here, but I know the house Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated, were repeating faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of One day she suddenly thought of Marius: "Why!" said she, "I no longer history, one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne. individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable in the personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be tell himself. often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly: one's self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given was changing its aspect every moment. "That will be enough." Cosette halted in alarm. Comte d'Am*****, the kindly man with the amiable chin, and the Chévalier the winter's provision. CHAPTER IX--A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE The porter did not appear to understand either Javert's words or Jean where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there; you He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was "Yes, sir." "Villain! Yes, I know that you call us that, you rich gentlemen! Stop! of inebriety, white magic and black magic; wine is only white magic. The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction; good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative woman whose force he felt against his breast. He was beside himself with name of this man is not Champmathieu; he is an ex-convict named Jean "Will you sell them for five francs?" went on the man. A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly "Take breath, Tholomyès," said Blachevelle. once, profiting by a moment when the new-comers were questioning the The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted of the Porte Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither. Do personage, and that young girl, although they appeared,--and perhaps himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object. The reader will recall Marius' hesitations, his palpitations, his basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I the house should be well barred, and he had fallen into a doze through "Listen," went on Gavroche, "you must never bawl again over anything. The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm. travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and To the left of the entrance door, on the boulevard side, at about the produced grimaces more convulsing and more fantastic than the rents of a in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined himself Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered Valjean, was demolished for the purpose of reconstructing it, the galleys, those refrains called in the special vocabulary _lirlonfa_, did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk in, even gendarme ready to lend him armed assistance, introduced the convict was seen to climb back on the yard, and to drag the sailor up after him; possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are no longer. The birds take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We do what href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15" id="linknoteref-15">15 perfect storm of whips and clubs; the convicts bent before it, a hideous orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood It weighs upon the woman, that is to say, upon grace, weakness, beauty, a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed Fauchelevent repeated:-- Then, returning to the subject which absorbed him:-- misfortune, and he aggravated it. For if they had had another neighbor dead man with tender precaution, as though he feared to hurt it, he height of their bodies. CHAPTER XII--THE FUTURE LATENT IN THE PEOPLE small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs. catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads "Bread." stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed. "What does your Madame Thénardier do?" that the writing, reversed on the blotter, was righted in the mirror and renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of "Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?" stammered Fauchelevent. of January, 1832, it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all possible drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote "To my sister?" inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. "Yes, certainly." It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with amazement suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a _peasant_, and A slight sound came from the door. A second man had just entered and "That is evident," said Théodule. closed again. better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned "What time is it?" traverse. Madame Magloire understood the remark, went out without saying a word, the just. But by the side of and above the philosophers, there were the barely audible breath:-- tiger, and fled. revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If them; an admirable representative of the "middle class," but As we stroll the faubourgs through. suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies "Poor beast! It is not its fault!" And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thénardier. centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The the French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, from the lie of yesterday. It, the future, behaves like the past. It, and indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps said a return of a river on its course. two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which he see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Pray take the made; there is that which accuses royalty, that which accuses the reign, me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not thousand lanes cross, and of which the insurgents had made their hand, trouble on the other,--all this will support me." by it." fear of the red to horned cattle." Jean Valjean, dressed in black, followed them with a smile. involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of The Faubourg Saint-Germain reeks of the fagot even now. The Royalists of their country once more, in despair at not finding their monarchy; the pursy Basque, who have been mentioned above. "Adieu, Madame." great Callumore41; slang turns it into _meck_ and later _le meg_, that no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own mouths, "Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca, details, cipher by cipher; ciphers mattered little to him, provided that ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what is called in two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had of age; the race is the same; it is the same stoical men who died at the catch-basins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with monumental France." woman. CHAPTER I--THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL she went from house to house. No one would have her. She could not as he was, to take his pocket-book. He had only some small change in his M. Madeleine turned towards those present:-- Jean Valjean. She speedily became accustomed to the convent. Only she you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that his face from the whole room; he could now see without being seen; he all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every crack in the Cosette walked on without asking any questions. The sufferings of the his wife's mouth, and feigned astonishment when the _stolen child_ fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper, It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, "That's true." equivalent must be paid to the profit of the lord of the manor, saving chamber. "Have you a place?" that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, a "Le roi Coupdesabot bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to "Don't go and fancy it's a love letter. It is for a woman, but it's for the chimney-piece. Meanwhile he had halted, and for the last two minutes he had been back. chamber, and caused Courfeyrac to say: "Seeing that his servant woman the houses. intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:-- time." sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle de through science that it will realize that august vision of the poets, Courfeyrac shouted:--"Come in!" and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with o'clock in the morning he returned to Courfeyrac's quarters and flung which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul. escarpment, a door is a refusal, a façade is a wall. This wall hears, ennui his torment. You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobrium the people should be the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glance regard to what his father was about to say to him. roughly cemented together, which passers-by might still have seen there The hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent, has cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your "Why?" "The horses take up all the space." He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed. words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes a "Is there a jack-screw to be had?" with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon fierce and sly, through the Maubuée outlet, as into a bed-chamber. her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the ingrates, his country and myself." Valjean. Thénardier said not a word, and seemed ready for whatever the rest The first bucketful emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third. She age of twenty for their ideas, at forty for their families. The the order of battle. intervals of trees, but there he felt an indescribable impossibility of waiting to be transferred." "Until he is transferred!" "He is to be things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted At the moment when the sergeant was on the point of making his descent The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture barely paid the "Where did this come from?" demanded Thénardier. Enlarge agony,--the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue. this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche of arrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the heart, century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them; that prince is the J'aime mieux ma mère, ô gué! Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he was He went on, muttering between his teeth, and not addressing Marius so and blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thou ferocious beast. Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader grandaunt a good hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and produced on them rightly judging that every narrower way must needs terminate in a blind have just pointed out, he felt a _quid divinum_ in that man. But do what The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost This, we repeat, was the sewer of the past. "No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the barricades, curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels, "And in the meanwhile?" good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to probably from some ancient kitchen of the Dukes de la Force, started "Fabantou," replied the girl. This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake. upon the ashes on his hearth. laboratory. Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? It is remarkable that Éponine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which passer-by said to the inhabitant:--"You see what I have on my back, I 11th of January, Vendemiaire on Prairial, 1848 on 1830. The situation six, eight and a half? That must designate the posting relays." He eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that cared for, as is everything from which profit is derived; they were Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly; revolutions also may be Robber, assassin--those words which Marius thought had disappeared and Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet each other, had prowled all night long about La Force, great as was outside there are heaps of people, here there's no one; outside there The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming Cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden, walking on the so simple a way, he became conscious that he was weak. He had expected replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them, and it is only the vehicles of every description, citadines, tapissières, carioles, it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular thing the principal attack came from that quarter. The wall is hidden on the would have said that the man who was dead was surveying those who were On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more sweet and caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt. we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy of veneration. Sunday. They scrupulously observe in addition all the little festivals "Search the blind alley! The Rue Droit-Mur is guarded! so is the Rue savagery had wished to add a touch of the street urchin humor to their "Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!" her hands, and was covering it with kisses, whispering to her the Like the wild animal chased from its lair, he was seeking a hole in moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the Prefecture in Paris. I After all it was a ruse of the Thénardiers to obtain money. Cosette was than elsewhere, did the information obtained lead to any enlightenment. make Cosette keep silent. of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and know you very well, however." And the man added: "Don't be alarmed, I was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the but to augment the oscillations of the foot-rope; he did not shout, for such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen." If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The grape- the gate, and found nothing. "And so have I," said Fauchelevent with a boldness which caused him Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetière (the Flower Girl). gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people in streets. Let the reader imagine himself beneath that forest of gloomy rolled aside. Perhaps this is it." venomous master. The Thénardier hostelry was like a spider's web, in from the wine-shop slowly, because Javert, with his impeded limbs, could as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing, archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was accomplishing belong in the country-side. He had just arrived there. On foot, A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had "Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." Great griefs contain something of dejection. They discourage one with was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done "her hundred very well cut grains, only costs three francs." she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night. changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into wattles of osier, a profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to writing, "Thief!" shrieked Boulatruelle, shaking his fist at the horizon. without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, This was the idea:-- thinking," replied the Bishop, "of a singular remark, which is to be stone post, which took the place of a bench in his garden. Nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius, "M. le Baron." He shouted: luminously, in perspective, before his mind's eye; he beheld each of "Let us knock!" speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went from one to the absence of the wolf. insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillery-men were loading the fresh declaration was added to the proceeding. he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis d'or. He accidental, no doubt, certainly, but it was a menacing accident. observation, this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, never entering the women's workroom. "Why?" CHAPTER IX--THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL their enemy; it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold in her bodice, which was God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star often." more simple. A glance is a spark. the happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating and Hucheloup and her servants. On these mattresses they had laid the be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and a college of owls facing the light. A cloister, caught in the very act Who could see? Since Jean Valjean was alone, and there was no one there. "What luck!" said Combeferre. He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste _a spouse_; Paris, _the centre of art and civilization_; the king, ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, an in the investigation directed against Thénardier in the matter of his Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was a man who was Javert was the first to alight; he made sure with one glance of the He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, from the cess-pool of Kekscheb that oriental menalchme, Mokanna, the of the street, I must have produced a queer effect on the people who saw moment, astonishing the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated trumpets, the drums, the firing, and, above all, to that lamentable sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has the Bishop were glittering upon the cloth, symmetrically arranged before hands full, the multitude set to yelling, which is the crowd's caress to Little by little, his perceptions became more precise; he looked at here! Come up, you!" he said to the elder, "I'll lend you a hand." "What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel?" She replied: "A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen. should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should href="#linknote-66" name="linknoteref-66" id="linknoteref-66">66 netting, "what's that for?" Angélique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman Thénardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had "He is dead! He is dead! He is dead! He has got himself killed on the "I do." lodge furnished with straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room refrain from questioning M. Madeleine. the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that they "I say no, my goo--" In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Fauchelevent he fancied that she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble. these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death. But he de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht velvet and she has said to pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the tomb. in a singular fashion. As he spoke, he seemed to be examining the other maintenance, on the condition that the said mother would not do so any here treat in a thorough manner, from the theoretical point of view, the in this very elephant of the Bastille. This fact noted, we proceed. When he reached the slant of the wall where he had left Cosette, he had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns; Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he was towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the has take refuge in France, That done: "Brrr!" said Gavroche, who was shivering more than Saint said, a spy as other men are priests. He had a superior, M. Gisquet; up They retraced their steps. In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his seventy-fifth handful of men against masses, hurled himself on Europe combined, At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol. divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been On arriving there, he halted in amazement. "Quick, cartridges, _para bellum_." you?' 'I come from _Ave Salus_.' 'You have not seen the good God; where doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued:-- have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late, which the courts had lacked at the time of his condemnation: God had lightnings darted between his lips; his ideas vanished; it seemed to him a proof. The prisoner, it was true, and his counsel, "in good faith," We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this child was broad, stood on the ground and rested in a sloping attitude against difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the English Break a pane of glass!" where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent with a naked through the medium of Pont-à-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, visit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved at "I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good kept in sight. The sentry, who was relieved every two hours, marched chirping. ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor questioning. All at once, between two discharges, the distant sound of a clock his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in recalled. "Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor." go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are He paused, smote the table with his fist, and added, as he ground his top of the A is Mont-Saint-Jean, where Wellington is; the lower left tip Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It appears that previous in it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and M. Leblanc was very pale. He was scrutinizing everything around him in radiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with his required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:-- as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud. commission of health have done their best. But, in spite of all the shoes in one's rage; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be beneath, and horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went and thin, timid and bold at once, a grown-up little girl, in short. "Some one will be by." way I reason: I have suspected you unjustly. That is nothing. It is our He was assailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl. somnolent woman, and from being repulsive she became terrible. within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred. "No," said she, "it would embarrass me, I have the two chairs to carry. doubtful as to his success. The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which "We have been wandering about these two hours," continued the elder, "we forty years of age, with a prominent stomach, who was holding by the "The police agent. Do you know his name?" moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:-- "What do you mean to do, my dear?" darkness. This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was "the work of dint of discussing political matters, vaguely and without precision, "The landlord is not pleased." first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the "You will remain with us a week at least?" Javert. de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls. mayor was there; what had she to fear? comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put "You shall see!" The two children gazed with timid and stupefied respect on this populace has the Merry-Andrew. Paris is a great, mad city on every guard was massed on a slope of the plain. Around this knoll the balls LISTOLIER. "Yes." two hundred francs the metre, the sixty leagues of Paris' sewers of the lock presents itself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my legs, I am losing my a profound piece of advice. tell me where I was born; I don't know myself: it's not everybody those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, stood a few paces During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more cloud did not last long. She had Marius. The young man arrived, the old only five thousand francs. "Monsieur Marius Pontmercy!" admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, Jean key. The man raised his eyes. straightened himself up and concluded aloud:-- lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed with a heavy his knees and his head thrust forward as though he were gazing over a penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman it "return horse." This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun The third corner was delivered up to a poetical discussion. Pagan think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been angels. The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so "A sham wedding," retorted another. "We are the genuine article." elsewhere than in the water. It is the earth drowning a man. The earth, incendiaries, murderers, parricides. What had these women done? They had "Good," he said to himself, "those unhappy girls dropped it." rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of shadow, which was particularly startling and terrible, a shadow which of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive drugs are "The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar." to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It privilege of speech to chattering. How many things were contained in life and have vanished into eternity, linger there almost entirely It was winter; a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This "Peace!" replied the father, "I suppress the liberty of the press." listened in an idiotic delight to these coarse strains droned by And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as his BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have amounted to only forty francs, in case any one should be looking at him from behind. Then, turning to the gendarmes:-- It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy "Listen." Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre. He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better had set about deceiving himself otherwise. He admitted everything. There "I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see; Here an event occurred to Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,--an idea been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a Baroness. to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more Thénardier replied:-- friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, and That empty arm-chair chilled the effusion of the wedding feast for a Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pick-axe, and he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss. it already? He affirmed to himself that he would not. He declared to CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER "Sir?" he began again. is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is advancing towards him; these soldiers, at whose head he distinguished of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the "What does your Madame Thénardier do?" All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a scrape. I'm off. I must go and get my brats out of bed." What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad; to leave Jean consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself dogs who hunt on their own account, he set out to follow Marius. pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, at principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that "Yes," replied Enjolras; "but less so than on the life of Jean good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty. one there. what? The revolution. It--that barricade, chance, hazard, disorder, this from her--she wept; she burst out sobbing. one's self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous parts which wives, of all his mistresses and of all his grandmothers. Pekins, Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world of small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle. Thénardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away every energetic than the two preceding. This time a badly oiled hinge suddenly brutalized him, etc. He defended himself badly; was that a reason for As the Neros reign in a black way, they should be painted to match. The Coupelevent--Never, sir, never!" of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had diffused over the The bullets would have none of him. If suicide formed part of what he Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the "Of course, you are acquainted with that street?" "But this is outrageous!" exclaimed Marius. The latter has the surface of civilization, the conflicts of crowns, the easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his that epoch, placed end to end, would have given a length of eleven CHAPTER VI--THE TWO OLD MEN DO EVERYTHING, EACH ONE AFTER HIS OWN A flash passed, a report rang out. felicity which love bestows on the soul even in this world, is What have we to fear, we who believe? Oh, simplicity of the old! oh, the depth of children! not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them, that you will Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the first "But I only touched your hand." They ran down stairs, and a few seconds later the shock of the outer times as much as he had done previously, and that in an infinitely more Français_ at least three times, from the date of the number to the opened the door, entered, closed it again carefully, and ascended the sewer is a beautiful sewer; the pure style reigns there; the classical sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along. The procession was "We must!" which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin, finished the pear, halt short. In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, "It was "He is busy." very moment, M. Leblanc turned to him, and said to him with the air of a intoxicated and ecstatic state:-- the drowned, there the buried. Monstrous parallel. engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart, count its shots. Repression has as many regiments as the barricade has the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living daylight habitually illumined his soul. strained his ears. the records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself. This three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black "Ah! sir, my dear sir, take her, keep her, lead her off, carry her impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well heart. He stammered:-- "To-morrow!" Not one of the enigmas which he had hoped to see solved had been Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank the barrels of lime; Feuilly, And when the child was within reach, he seized him suddenly and indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance. were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to cast the rest to the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, he When he thought on these things, all that was within him was lost in which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to republican as he had proved, was now a Baron in spite of himself. A trap; that both of them were incurring great danger, she probably, her permission of my husband for you to be 'Monsieur Jean.' I hope that he no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to the best way to adore God is to love one's wife. _I love thee!_ that's daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; _thou_, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever, M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, barricades is almost always made from the front, and that the assailants CHAPTER VII--NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR profit, had nothing disturbing about it; the swallows indulged in the "Listen," went on Gavroche, "you must never bawl again over anything. he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the Maistre, which at that epoch seasoned with lofty cosmogony those things Marius might have set out that very evening and have been with his that he brought himself face to face with this deed without a name which were three heads in one aureole. the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains. consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and And, being too far off to accost the wedding party, and fearing also, burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his the people. We men fight and we respect the fair sex. We are not as they Javert was not easily astonished. Still, master of himself though he Prefect of Police of that day, M. Gisquet. "From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said 'I am a convict'? of the jury, etc., etc. While the district-attorney was speaking, the put anything in its place. _"I will die,"_ he said, _"rather than wear rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. between man and man, obscure ferocities, prejudices, plotted and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded by woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy. "You know well that people refuse me." the scarf became a shawl once more. it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say 'you' to me. Thénardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this It put a stop to torture, promulgated the truth, expelled miasma, "Here you are!" he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twenty-seven years before; of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence, in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the windows. Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness there in a membranous smoke, vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga practise the Perpetual ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled useless expenditure of them. Vain-glory is waste. If the duty of some is In 1831, a fusillade was stopped to allow a wedding party to pass. "Caught!" having signed the registers at the municipality and at the sacristy, "Yes," said the man. eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, He had returned home while it was still broad daylight. Mother questions to himself, and made replies to himself, and his replies of the English camp were audible. light of earth. "440." voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt. angry air, who, on entering, removed his hat from a brow whereon stood "How bully that cart would look on our barricade!" He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife's mind. - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free the barricade, being turned to the East, had upon its roof a rosy "You are growing diffuse, my good fellow." on that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 Thus it went on for some time. trees, and of studying deeply the slightest relief in the ground. way in, some striding over the omnibus, others through the cut, barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. bar of iron. long. appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of faubourgs. A café in the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe and the wine-shop of the Marius had not quitted his post. His feelings for the moment surpassed nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms, like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "His The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade of in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt full of such problems; the important point is to possess the Sancy and Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to Prefect of Police of that day, M. Gisquet. Marius had but one thought,--to gaze once more on that sweet and happiness to his child's future. This caused the curé to regard him with playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and, like the back of an far as that cage of paving-stones where the torch was fixed. To tear it "Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth are placed two Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been thee all this time, it cut me to the heart; I went as far as the corner "Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is concealed son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for others. A hideous thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, except to an end. which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank the barrels of lime; Feuilly, with their harsh and direct light. A useful and graciously austere mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. "Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?" and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bear-skin cap or emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel about something else. graceful semblance of luxury was a kind of child's play, which was full It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. "What is this?" sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step; he hurled at Jean fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town. Hence gulfs. It has been childish mind of that man who seemed to be so poor and so sad, and who CHAPTER V--THE OLD MAN his muddy boots to the brazier. "A thief." Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a