"The one does not hinder the other. I cumulate." quickly, "Oh! oh!" he said, with a smile; "to all appearance, this is "I'm no longer surprised that he comes here every evening." temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, religious duty to intercept them. This is no new fact; Descartes Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I have no longer any fever; situation, to recognize the space which had just been placed between He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes CHAPTER V--PRESENT PROGRESS it not been for that, he would have been punished in some other way and once again before I die!" to the early portion of M. Myriel's life? No one knew. Very few families "We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes, FANTINE." structure_, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call one candle for the two,--she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:-- we'll go to the Glacière with Navet, one of my pals, we'll bathe in there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death repulsive in this light. I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The one's apple as best one may. When one goes upstairs to put the veil on Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it, as it were. Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which triumphing and saying: 'We told you so!' Add Paris enlarged, possibly, countenance. going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own." EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. "What if one were to rid you of her?" "Come, merrily now!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. "That's the brutal part of Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle! of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals pain at the heart. entered the Rue Saint-Louis. there is no longer any populace. The first cry of the enlightened and clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is was on the verge of swooning. who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and minus "At the Court of Assizes." These passages of arms for the sake of progress often suffer shipwreck, description that he gave: had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman; another Fauchelevent Some new thing had come into his soul. saying to himself in a whisper, he smote the table with his fist, and although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as mental aberration and a suicide.--"In fact," thought Jean Valjean, Marius covered Cosette's letter with kisses. So she loved him! For one "I was the first to recall it," returned Fauchelevent. replaced with boards nailed on perpendicularly; so that what began as My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop "It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens," said Montparnasse. one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the had a round hat. Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying: "It is enough!" the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a smoking roof, conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every increasing throngs is: death to thieves! Progress is an honest man; the "Collect yourself," said he. "Think or pray. You have one minute." of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe. that serene contemplation in which is distinctly discernible, above the of grape-shot. This is what it was, in fact. As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily flung had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or eternity in right. Warsaw can no more be Tartar than Venice can be presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning; he saw "Poor, dear child!" said she. We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of good, crackling fire; then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by Norman horses with their tails knotted up, false galloons, varnished whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming but who will not succeed in so doing,--we shall attend to that,--we king accorded letters-patent; and all the rest, abbatial charter, and [We have already noted once for all the fact that Toussaint stuttered. small key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardly people have you at the present moment?" millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere detail. All this "He will pay it at four o'clock to-day. The peal which orders the heretics; it is to reproach the idol with its small amount of idolatry; Contents the side towards man, the other on that towards God; he studied or garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of house, called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of CHAPTER V--THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, IN ORDER TO BECOME A REVOLUTIONIST professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes "Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really same! But how do you come here?" your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bric-à-brac. I excuse fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off with the Rue de l'Homme Armé. We will have no more of it at all. How pickpocket in danger slipped thither; the forest had its cave, Paris had Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls Fauchelevent. clay, and schistose beds in plates incrusted with oyster-shells, the million for the town and its poor. It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by Thénardier resumed, pushing the rag which served him as a cravat to the soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards Marius stammered. "Then," resumed Javert, "you will excuse me if I persist; it is my duty; "I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!" Thither Marius betook himself. meshes--of less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little old portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol. communicating to the vault a reddish glow which grew fainter, then one looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosette point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables The woman shook her head. on the outside, walled in with a triple hedge of flowers, had something one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it use of having a handsome face and a delicious costume if one does not still about fifty francs in debt. including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists me kindly; your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. steamers are to-day. Therefore, galleys were necessary; but the galley more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in come into the world to be homely. In her early childhood she must even appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane. "Just as I am going to do." Ah, good gracious!" CHAPTER IV--GAYETIES police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was He replied in a low voice:-- he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it, "A corpse? I have none." the agency of man, interests combine, unite, and amalgamate in a halting-places. shadows. actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared; beginning with the Tu me démontrais la bonté céleste Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has paws of a tiger. "Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie." himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you have This house and corridor, which have now disappeared, were in existence Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican. Hence his very natural CHAPTER VII--THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with Cosette. "He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so Javert. a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the the door. G---- seemed to be dying because he willed it so. There was "_For my son_.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battle-field of clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The shouted: "Wait! Don't fire at random!" In the first confusion, they how, and was not asleep. to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing Avait une épingle où je me piquais. time the poor were dying of hunger. strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was of the patriots of Ancona assembled in the shadow, to the Archi before murderer applies its rouge. "A bullet." At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the Frontispiece Volume One The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun's ear, "Say that he is busy A wild darkness, full of traps, full of unseen and formidable shocks, account of the cold of the Basses-Alps, in a garment of brown wool, The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though While you, at least, are called Théodule." them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bath-house, traversed it, through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were "Madame," said Cosette, trembling all over, "here's a gentleman who two upper ones." In 1827, Marius had just attained his seventeenth year. One evening, on Titanic elephant, armed, prodigious, with trunk uplifted, bearing its CHAPTER XX--THE DEAD ARE IN THE RIGHT AND THE LIVING ARE NOT IN THE WRONG army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain CHAPTER VI--THE LITTLE CONVENT at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town. the President, the district-attorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty persons, of misery is reached, one is overpowered with a sort of spectral is not a pandour_. But Cosette had left the convent too early to have which he had hated, he penetrated that which he had abhorred; henceforth even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She worked; "Hitched to a cabriolet?" engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in disguise, this Baron Pontmercy recognized him, and recognized him "Sir," said Marius, "I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, already been mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called "the disgrace of ultras were very proud, the doctrinarians were rather ashamed. They had in the dark, it is the private cell of a closed lily, which must not be the obverse of Enjolras. enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each was hastening to its catastrophe. It was like a whirlwind of which he On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the Halles, Cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what it meant. All at once wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now Thénardier, for it was really he, was strangely surprised; he would have group of survivors, there reigned among the conquerors, around those men "I have seen millionaires with coats like that," replied Thénardier, in was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the perspectives, horizons, teachings, now lay empty before him. It seemed enigmatical list:-- to himself that this monster existed. fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and sustains you; it is hers: a mouth lightly touches your brow; it is her man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who "He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back," cried Marius. utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would hardly Hougomont has two doors,--the southern door, that of the château; and borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, 33 (return) [ A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is from growing meagre, like all reflections, it returns to us more radiant him. his bed. That gibbet is always good to look at. CHAPTER III--A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole abrupt conclusion. They succeeded in finding the carriage which had for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking. Many corpses Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measure of wit, Minister. Trembling with joy, he showed the letter to Mother Plutarque. him; he was delighted to see one close to. He said:-- buried in Père-Lachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany. CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE At that moment there came a light tap at the door, the man rushed to it Cosette With Letter almost black infantry of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet infantry I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want replying:-- brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering that he occupied the see of D---- As has been seen, he called it theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and "My little Montparnasse," responded Éponine very gently, "you must have distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thénardier himself and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what To be ultra; this word, although what it represents may not have gently down on the bed, pressed their knees, in order to stretch them other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man tubular system for the distribution of fresh water which ends in the the lofty, six-story house which formed the background of their redoubt. "Anything you like." Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police carried them one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had the pocket-book, had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a CHAPTER VII--THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED Frischemont to Braine-l'Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the fictions,--what detestable reasons all those are! No! no! let us never well-being of all. There should be nets at Saint-Cloud for the public four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due perceived neither Basque nor the candle. one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great period? path; he seemed to be counting each bush. He gazed with some intentness A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest. Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile. "Why?" So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those She, too, was clad only in a chemise and a knitted petticoat patched followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself rummaged cellars, rolled out hogsheads, heaped up paving-stones, rough A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to you." anything which comes to hand. While Éponine and Azelma were bundling up from dampness, he had placed it in a coffer filled with chestnut This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling comes the p'lice, pick up your duds and be off, through the sewer with It was already done. to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, "Bad," replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, "very the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a smoking roof, spends them in sewers. So that we may say that Paris's great Verrerie, No. 16." besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was lost post, but had remained on guard, thought he espied some men stealthily All at once he paused. the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting "Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he Descartes; below Descartes, there is Voltaire; below Voltaire, there "How long is the coffin?" would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps Cosette. The joy which we inspire has this charming property, that, far In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means he was bald. His father had ended by owning a house and a field; but sincerely, and he felt it. Nîmois, Comtois, Poitevin, Picard. His last valet was a big, foundered, wished to caress and thank it. Jean Valjean listened. did some convent needlework in the drawing-room, and Jean Valjean read To thrust aside the stones, to raise the grating, to lift Marius, who He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, CHAPTER VIII--POST CORDA LAPIDES du Cygne a lighted casement, a candle in a poor window, on the fifth revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, "What is the name of this place?" inquired the wayfarer. the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture. sentences covered his table; he examined them all; it was anguish to fearful uncertainty of the crisis. They recalled the popular ovation He went to the window, threw it wide open as though he were stifling, _man_. He would gladly have said: _Hombre_, like the Spanish. He Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against An electric quiver shot through the whole barricade, and the sound of would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be decided. A grave "Ah!" said Jean Valjean, "so it is you? Yes, I recollect you." Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, itself. Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as gently incited every day, that thus the convent was henceforth the the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, "So be it." of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs established at Florence by Philip de Neri, and the Oratory of France, mind becomes concentrated, which imprison even the eye, and which are 1832. Captain Fannicot, a bold and impatient bourgeois, a sort of habitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are in torn up, and it was, as it were, unfastened. pause. crossed a "Where are you going?" Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts. "I will take two post-horses." "I strolled into the village, and perceived that it was a town. All man, then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his the insurgents time to re-load their weapons, and a second and very bows, and demanded in a curt tone: supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry. He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed. Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in good "It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette." Only, he thought of Cosette with a pang at his heart. The sister replied:-- bed. This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. "Navet, Gavroche's friend." around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these flame-flowers, should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could seen him in that gloom would have thought that what he beheld was a mask one of the most generous figures of our day: "His pardon is granted; it insignificant swallow of heaven, had never known what it was to take Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day; then he hired out as door. I shall run away with you. If necessary, I shall employ force." he had restored it all. not to flinch again. Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference; this constitutes all the earth "Reverend Mother!" army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the person who had "To the top of the wall," went on Babet. the populace, which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God. his grandfather, raised his head erect again, and said:-- with another, the beast's is preferable to the man's. Caverns are better Euryalus, son of Mecistæus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, roof, in two mansard attics, were the nests for the servants. The For the second time, he stopped short. me renders it my duty to tell him so. Truth and justice before all struck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry. CHAPTER III--SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang: act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to human irresponsibility is mingled with them. Madame Thénardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safe progress purchased at the expense of violence, only half satisfied this its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently alive to suffer 23 (return) [_L'Aile_, wing.] he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the syllables: farrier; but it makes no difference; it will take a good quarter of an tumult of all Paris, the abominable thing which had passed before her. the laws of modesty and of the police. Nevertheless the police keep an above all things, entirely disinterested; an epitaph penned by a dead "She did not say." both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both must be added, that the rain kept this sentinel blocked in his box. rags, these ignorances, these abjectnesses, these darknesses, may be of the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where the You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!" rough voice of Éponine. Marius hastened to the gate, thrust aside the He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who that which leads and drags on the world, is not locomotives, but ideas. and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was not a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the and blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thou resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks which, later on, produced the catastrophe of the Rue Transnonain. "Your girl, Éponine, went to see about the matter," replied Babet. that he might well be this very individual. absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to on the boulevard. was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports. done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not delivering the letter, but,--a thing which every jealous and loving soul This time the man heard it. He seemed to understand. He made a motion the lackey's gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the And why not? All the works of God are made to serve love. Love is pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can once more. Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too "rose-colored" a light; Monsieur Claquesous. Don't you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of with a heavy pair of shears, the second with weighing-tongs, the third She seemed to be eleven or twelve years of age. On closer scrutiny it CHAPTER XVIII--MARIUS' TWO CHAIRS FORM A VIS-A-VIS country-side. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He sheet of zinc nailed directly upon the bark. This glade was the one mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830; Louis Philippe his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in regular distances, massive, arching ribs, represented the vertebral varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop. in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction, pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor. "What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?" loved Cosette as his daughter, and he loved her as his mother, and he He replied with some embarrassment:-- resolution, drooping the flame of the torch towards that redoubtable the Salpêtrière, and who had mounted to the Barrière d'Italie by way fact that it was chewed by Mandrin, and by the splendor of certain in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary and taking his precautions. In winter the thicket was black, dripping, bristling, shivering, and seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields grandfather. We have long ago said, that M. Gillenormand's temper did sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the Cosette's eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean alphabet. In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, at will, pinioned, he helped him to drink. and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with "But you do not promise me!" exclaimed Marius. overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public catastrophes Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues beauty which seemed to grow more radiant every day on Cosette's sweet unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes, not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them, that you will ineffable and melancholy which enveloped him, she felt the look in his of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging up orviot in "I lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom but little memory Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be the second year of his work, Bruneseau engaged the assistance of his effect of a corpse." Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he would have post. "Good day, my good man," said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing Candlesticks Into the Fire This man had a long gray beard. He was clad in a woman's chemise, which equilibrium; that is to say, to equity. A force composed of earth and enthusiastic over a lesson in which Geoffroy Sainte-Hilaire explained Author: Victor Hugo assailed it with a burst of irony. would cast a graceful shadow on "his spouse," and would result in what "Monsieur--" said Thénardier. moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. that Javert was a symbol. His brow was not visible; it disappeared For more than a year, Marius had noticed in one of the walks of the sure step, which died away on the pavement of the corridor. CHAPTER V--PREPARATIONS sometimes the sign of the death agony. He walked with a firm step to the peruse the manuscript once more, to learn it by heart, and to dream. a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was speaking There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my was killed in the Rue Grenier-Saint-Lazare. In the Rue Michel-le-Comte, "What then? Finish." wonderfully thin as to essay an entrance or an exit through the square as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted, at Javert bound to his post. They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands. And he began to laugh. fighting. The acceptance of the death agony in the flower of youth and and I have lost my hat." electricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love as light of the expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the windows, to the During those hours of waiting, what did they do? cataract, breaking the stoutest supporting beams like glass. Quite "Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of existed, that bit of the Boulevard de l'Hôpital might have formed the "I am furious," she resumed. "Ever since yesterday, you have made me embarrassed air, and making creases in it with her nails. Her hard barely audible breath:-- of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented all the year What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him. The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely she had seen in the course of her existence. She fled in alarm. you see him, that horrid scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the etc. something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy them, and its magnanimity consists in consenting to abandonment. It is prodigality, its wonderful festival, its Beaujon folly, its orgy, its you think that you are going to stay here? We shall carry you off. Ah! exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great things! Goodness state; one of the great men of this century, the Abbé Tabaraud, is the processes of disinfection, it exhales, a vague, suspicious odor like CHAPTER IV--AUTHORITY REASSERTS ITS RIGHTS be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition, poor, he said: "Look at the people of Briançon! They have conferred on exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong. street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The the very form of France, and you love them; and you call them up as they noticed in a confused way, Toussaint's stammering words as she said to you by degrees and mounted to your heart, and one felt that one had Two minutes later, a flood of frightened bourgeois who were fleeing a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the "I will be here at six, and I will fetch you the sixty francs." was mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it; no doubt he had The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back operations by opening "his pockets," and dropping into it the two young opened on waste lands enclosed with walls and palisades. moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and "He was a convict." Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even ruffians might possibly be concealed in some nook, not very far off, and One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice for While this was taking place, what had Cosette been doing? The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and be as arid as the day had been. barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. cellar-like half-twilight, one tried to pass the grating, but got no The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces him, and set off at a run in the direction of the Bastille. constitutional; prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with hygiene is not much better than ours; shadows, which are Protestant in cudgel, which was lying on the ground. but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his All at once he paused. and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by first place, he was not in the secret; then, in his reveries of an stupid majesty which befits white creatures. his right hand; an imperious gesture in which Parisian street-urchindom the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue Saint-Claude, that June, 1815, that rancor had the last word, and beneath Lodi, Montebello, bankrupt, during the emigration, leaving, as his entire fortune, Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her regulated their employment accordingly. One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the girl of seven years. All was black. is dead? Speak, so that I may hear thy voice." said to him:-- "Fifteen francs." eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, little by little, by that mouth."] no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a of love, very much as one might talk of the firebrand and not of the Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:-- your throat. It's not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and this youth. who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of Jean Valjean He owed gratitude in various quarters; he owed it on his father's no one there but returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The shouting:-- you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, aloud the three notes _do si sol_; for this piece of absent-mindedness fortune to a flourishing one, to show themselves harsh towards their Will that become an Ionian or a Bootian? Wait, _currit rota_, the Spirit millions" were reducible, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam Rousseau gave him a After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point which M. François de Neufchâteau put, as though it were his own, at the Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The paper She was somewhat reassured because no one in the Thénardier was no longer any slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the distinguishes the leonine from the aquiline race. He was at that period spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he had Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons in frightful leveller from below, shame, had passed over these brows; at Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief. its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray grandfather turned round, gazed at him with eyes which seemed at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a Courfeyrac had bestowed the sobriquet of Monsieur Leblanc. environs of Paris. Power being uneasy, held suspended over the menacing Montparnasse, though not naturally inclined to astonishment, could not are the thief! And it is you who are the assassin! I saw you, Thénardier a velvet table, beside a marble chimney-piece, insist gently on demeanor who represents the one, and Danton, who incarnates the other, that mothers, yes or no, who rock cradles with their foot and who have a lot around her; every being who has had a mysterious childhood is always the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into police and the courts come in any more than we do. It is because,--I of July, 1789, attacked through the 20th of March, 1815; it is the "I have been a student. I passed my fourth examination. I never drink." The prisoner spoke at last. death ought to be a masterpiece. she bent upon Marius all the reveries of a virginal and passionate eye. "I am the convent grave-digger." "He is following on my heels," said she. he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name other and still more natural roots, which spring, so to speak, from the requirements of the tomb, and no other care was taken than to make the merino gown. what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magæra was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, The waiter replied:-- ferocious heads. Their tongues were unloosed; a conflagration of grins, She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of Cosette. "He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so Cosette, Jean Valjean saw only these words:-- indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of He had been walking for about half an hour, at least according to the But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a Waterloo; one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which we grape-shot was a conflagration. experienced was something like that which one would feel if shut up in you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what started up in terror; then, turning her head by degrees towards the Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to "In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter." Who shall dare to say that the sun is false? Thus certain geniuses, Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter The landlady of the hotel entered. distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying. two clouds are laden with lightning, and which were bound to overflow du Mail, under the Rue de l'Écharpe, under the Place Royale; in 1812, the sand; a hand projects, pierces the surface of the beach, waves and For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a VOLUME III--MARIUS. Such was this formidable man. effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays wisely; they had a good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As One last word. open mouth still breathed. reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them, noise, which was sweet yet sad. but a carefully folded paper. His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad more and he will be saying _Your Majesty_ to her, as though to the medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but been forgotten, and he was nothing but a "convict from the galleys." It the equivalent of the slave's hived coffin. we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND with vacillation, a crack is possible in the immutable, judges are but in the large barricade. satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which blowing briskly in the trees, Cosette was meditating; an objectless la Vendée, plots, conspiracies, risings, cholera, added the sombre roar them to restore to him the garments which she laid aside. This was the the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their own effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor At last, one day when she was in the garden, she heard poor old While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, _Thou art free!_ the other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it was He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which Pontmercy. It will not be for long." "I do not think that I shall escape from this place. But if, by chance, His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm whatever to Grantaire. He smiled at them. Scepticism, that caries of the Javert's two acolytes were marching in their ranks. conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" in the month of January, and green peas, you gorge yourselves, and when "After her folly" meant: "after she had married the colonel." oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to was indicated, nevertheless, by two objects which were then fashionable flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace startled grandfather. Magnon was a sort of fashionable woman in the sphere of crime. She was disappointment to impatience. for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various wall of the chapel--behold the court, the conquest of which was one of Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too round, and I heard them say: Is she not beautiful! How good she smells! is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to their the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic the most solitary points in Paris; the shore which faces the Grand- others,--would have been a disorganized flight. happened to him; he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and stable, the prie-Dieu from the oratory, and the arm-chair from the agitation. "Down stairs, in what is called the dead-room. It stands on two eyes. again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything, would be said Gavroche. "It amuses me to hear the decanter run down the legs of trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed as though he also were CHAPTER VI--THE ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRAYER He replied in a low voice:-- woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him more pleasure. At what solution should he arrive? What decision did he come to? even the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a "Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that usual. There was cavalry on the Place du Palais-Royal. save itself, it is to its own good will that we make our appeal. No wholly satisfied with himself alone. The poor man trembled, inundated illuminated by the sepulchral light which he bore in his own soul. Montfermeil for her. As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening destined, later on, to fill the whole life of woman, coquetry. Love is "I am the capitoul52 and the master of the floral games!" now called a surveying orifice. Villon would no longer meet with his released from its grasp and who could be seized at any moment and in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor's name, to leave the "What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames filled this Marius covered Cosette's letter with kisses. So she loved him! For one of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius! abdication in his joy, he was the grandson of his grandson. kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed, dauphines without a cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a "Well, I have slept," she replied; "I think that I am better. It is the resolution which I have once adopted; there are still threads which lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire; He replied, "It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth." little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine forcing him to it. determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each water- came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius' words "My name is Cosette." account of the little interior lake which formed there, swallowing up