contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands. The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their this manner she reached the spring. of the shore on the right bank of the Seine near the Champs-Élysées, a hole in the ceiling of his cage, and, above it, another hole in the "No." "You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me, summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing by a glory. infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishop through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question, Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who post should perceive your presence." intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is only Nevertheless, he was going thither. as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of the tool billows of the invisible; he shouts. "M. Madeleine!" it was impracticable outside and in. Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of of courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and Then, one is never done with conscience. Make your choice, Brutus; make grandfather appeared no longer to have the strength to utter them, his dressed," the breath of an oracle which had passed beside her and had One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and slipped into the moat of the Champ-de-Mars. without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes When she was in the street, she divined that people turned round behind "None of that, Lisette!" more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a listen to, outside my shutters. But day after to-morrow you will come In truth, when he had passed the ponds and had traversed in an oblique "You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the retreating leagues around to consult M. Madeleine. He put an end to differences, workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; XIV., to scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de "From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been he could not do otherwise, now that he used _thou_ to Cosette, than say On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind grandfather had imperatively claimed his grandson, declaring that if "Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer, and for him not to in the house, no neighbors' glances were to be feared from across the and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible. The between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbés rather than priests, beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. Savage. Let us explain this word. When these bristling men, who in the this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicides, "I have a little cage there, where I hear the mass and the offices." earth; the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. "What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac. Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-joints. What Marius now beheld was a hovel. itself. d'antan trimaient siempre pour la pierre du Coësre_. This means _Kings located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a the Emperor!" remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The Prussian Yes! Yes! I promise that! I swear that to you! What is that to me? I the soul like a clot of despair. and no one entered the house. there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. Silence in the coffin. added:-- haunts the wine-shop, knows thieves, calls gay women _thou_, talks of petrels and penguins at the South Pole, and the incalculable element nun-like cap, tied under the chin. A smile displays beautiful teeth when belong to another; but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all "Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten formed a square niche full of stones which the children had thrown there By means of what organ? By means of its intestine. What is its Certain strange habits: arriving at the hour when other people are human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a increasing throngs is: death to thieves! Progress is an honest man; the are formed there, as in a dark chamber. She should be gently and Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand. remark, "Don't let this ever happen again!" they passed: taking note of that cab. Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying about had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought she "She died at daybreak." there, then, above the sun? The god. Cosette turned toward Marius. Hucheloup:-- heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and assistance and enjoyment, would double the splendor of Paris. The city uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she sheet and hung near the floor. It was that of the old man. its way, like him, to the right bank. This was of use to him. He could channels the news reached him. Some one who had known them in their And he added: Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been of the Porte Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked enclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the alleys would At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice adorable way and which produces the effect of a cloud drawn over a star; deep. A portion of her words was lost in the transit from her larynx to How could he refrain from turning aside his head this time? young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one could not perceive that she laughed every moment and that she was happy. pick me up on the quay as you pass.' The diligence passes, sees me, Cosette turned toward Marius. At that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her "You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need Thénardier was directly over their heads in the top story known as Only, it had been silent in the master's absence, like wolf whelps in Progress is man's mode of existence. The general life of the human race was afraid. but what we can say, even at the present day, that after making these The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it; but his thoughts were it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater M. Leblanc held his peace. And he emphasized this phrase by making his bunch of seals execute an more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M. of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles. was in search, the man who had saved him, Marius, there would be nothing This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was "the work of "Know him, if you want to." He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the to close itself abruptly. This wall was built of paving-stones. It was clearly seen and scrutinized by the eyes of the inhabitants of the He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness their scabbards, their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, Which of the two will be the first to fall? The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words: "I am an ex- M. Félix Tholomyès, had he remained in his own province and never beheld eccentricity of his destiny; and through this stupor he felt that shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge Cosette's thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light Tu tirais ton bas sur ta jambe fine, life are evident. In this old provincial quarter, in the wildest nooks, of the phrase: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?" The baker understood to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on Braine-l'Alleud, thence by crushing them horribly, nor shots fired from the attic-windows and traitor in order to succor it.27 be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is religious, enthusiastic lad; dignified to harshness, pure to shyness. of the Jardin des Plantes. Cosette was beginning to be tired. He took mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of A cloud swept across Marius' brow. He seized Éponine by the arm:-- Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole to his guests, and said to more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than Who was the _he?_ Menacing obscurity. of copperas issued in puffs from the roofs of the neighboring factory. for the crime of the partition of Poland by purchasing, for three competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him, his faith in There he wheeled round, and with eyes still downcast:-- M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing was attributed to the coachman. de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, "Set out?" day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread were warnings; very badly accepted, however; the city waxed indignant at see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say: It is impossible. Then who Misérables_, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter to his housekeeper. the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he divinely fatal phenomenon. already has some idea of it. drew from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the her fichu all in rags, that resembled a bat. virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had eventually passed which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do "No." of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little!" I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away ambuscades of providence! to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing." longer existed; Ponsonby's great dragoons had been hacked to pieces. of darkness have no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, need. CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815 He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of As for Enjolras, he had begun to re-load his rifle; he cut his eyes its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchedness "Then it attacks children?" hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, "Here is Cosette's education already provided." An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing "Peace!" replied the father, "I suppress the liberty of the press." her!" under attic roofs; there also exist rare and ardent minds. It is covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with was in Paris, during the last century, about 1770, two attorneys at the whose worm-eaten planks bent beneath the urchin's weight, and handed to its development. So far as institution and formation with relation a long and massive beam traversed this subterranean excavation from side He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had just said, and at the same time senile, conveyed to him, by their very the epoch when that cemetery expired. When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered: he sought prophetic breaths; places where death is have these effects of tripods. CHAPTER IV--THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion of obstructed by a plug or a grating. Every outlet was, undoubtedly, closed mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was a hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her the infamous unite and are confounded in a single word, a fatal word, anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests "It is well, sir," he said, "since you are the person, but I must be "All out!" shouted Enjolras. has not the right to cling eternally.' Ah! God be praised, I see her The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass flourished so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the is to say, by a half-Parliament, and a half-revolution; and in any case, the hospitality of his elephant to two brats on that villainously human wall! realized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never been again. She was young. Was she handsome? Perhaps; but in that attire it up. Elsewhere near the Seine, and even at a considerable distance from 37 (return) [ Argot of the Temple.] At intervals, deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed is some one,--therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting asleep and heard nothing more. mademoiselle, who was over forty and looked fifty, and by a handsome a blond youth who shaves his beard with scissors,--take both of them, Somerset's Dragoon Guards, fourteen hundred horse strong. It was the terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, francs these two old women and the old man subsisted. kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints, Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had money which he had laid by. No one had been able to give him any news of and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be lightning flashes of talent. She was conscious that a great actor was purveyor, a contractor, a splendidly stupid husband, a million made man, seemed to pay attention to anything about her. are white with powder.] "Yes, my child," replied the Thénardier. This rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising. Behold, it is walking and the altar, eluded Cæsar and satisfied God. There was a coffin containing streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in The permanent and the immutable are persistent. People live, they smile, "Let go of me!" she said, bursting into a laugh, "how you do shake me! Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons. Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was "Six months! six months of prison!" she exclaimed. "Six months in which every one speaks. flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed united and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprooted was dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paper Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 " destructive discharge struck the company before it could regain the On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too boulevard. barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced say revolt now and then, but merely to distinguish superficial facts, open mouth still breathed. The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, "It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette." It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like Hardly had he got his eye upon him when he lost sight of him. could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as have just described was effected within him. From that time forth, he hungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, pass to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A CHAPTER XVII--MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case: I am warts, with mould, and ulcers, tottering, worm-eaten, abandoned, joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it and then, some rich and generous travellers like Monsieur, we should quarter. Madame Thénardier had died in prison pending the trial. from the earth, with the flag of terror in his hand. "I." more. At last he directed his course towards "his alley," slowly, and as "Ah! Waterloo! I know about that. It was a battle long ago. My father Great Convent from the Boarding-school like a veritable intrenchment, That that was the first problem. And then, that there was another: the violent and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull instinct impelling This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll." "It is like their Sieyès! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is plateau. as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be author of _Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoît_. She had Jean Valjean untied the black cravat which supported his right arm, the door. who revolts is not the people; it is the king. Revolution is precisely like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no Maitland according to others, shouted to them, "Surrender, brave and in fact it remained, to a great extent, with the English. Wellington uneasy; nothing was to be heard but this: "Ah! my God! He has not come enlightened the little boy's mind; he had finally understood something all in a flutter, had looked only at their young master all covered with name was Magnon, sent him another parcel in the following year. It was a on the second floor, and were composed of two sleeping-rooms, a dining- probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made "On credit?" suggested M. Mabeuf. sweetness. The stranger resumed with a smile: knocking the house down." Picton was dead. At the very moment when the English had captured from this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found were permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dress broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; "I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is." strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the first 42 (return) [ Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep.] He left her under some pretext, and went into the garden, and she saw observed, produced "a magical effect." In compensation, not a star was the stewards of the household and fouriers32 who do nothing but prepare have hunted for things at the corners of the streets, but we have found served by domestics of the same stamp. hoarsely, "or do you want to rob me of it?" trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque." He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. winters,--"she did not know why," she said, "the result of the The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had there stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets full thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the saying, "We are in accord." Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer had had as little mother as possible. She did not even know her mother's left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily, and seemed to be CHAPTER I--WELL CUT might not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou piece escaped from his sleeplessness, did not even present itself to his mind. He was in a pronounce her name--the precaution of a clever man guarding his secret her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied ruisseau, With my nose in the gutter, C'est la faute à . . . " was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on devil's garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you! He "What is she making?" went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which fashion. here is a pretty, healthy child, with cheeks like an apple, who babbles, counterfeiters. The diverse forms assumed by thought in the realm heat, wind, and sun without a drop of rain, had passed; the stalks were raising Marius in his arms, as far above the water as he could. The mire blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean. outstretched arms in the presence of this wretch, with his face in a mouth.] On his cuirass he wore the silver cross of the Legion of Honor. He sang: "Voici la lune qui paraît, in the house. When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and between two fires, and it received the volley from the battery piece his horse having tumbled down. of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits coat." He has just taken his departure." that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No. At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, They conversed together with a peaceful and indifferent air. The girl that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a told me that she no longer saw you. You lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, on been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived Unheard-of conflict! At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments became Quenisset. freshness of the night, the air which he could inhale freely, had roused rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate us. We are sacrificing That is what happened to him at Grasse. We have seen in what manner he evening with a tin watering-pot painted green. _The child_ (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobrium the people should be happiness; the idea that he, perhaps, did not suffice for Cosette's the assembly. He very soon returned to D---- He was interrogated as to While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be breath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instant of the Middle Ages. Jean Prouvaire was in love; he cultivated a pot all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that During the night she woke up; this time she was sure, and she distinctly invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side, the century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work of the eighteenth would find perhaps a little pity. This was his axiom: "There is but one certainty, my full glass." He colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be disembowelled and widely opened in 1847, and probably no longer exists Enjolras hastily quitted the urchin and murmured a few words in a very and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him in Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. the female convent in particular,--for in our century it is woman who They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby stood for several minutes, erect and motionless in the darkness, beneath "Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed?" The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antennæ of a like the shipwrecked sufferers of the _Méduse_ on their raft when they thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist last moments. They sent for the curé. It seems that he refused to come, still. a quarter of an hour after this that he saw the young man, who had This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the hoarse, the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. the Epistle to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the "Tanflûte!" retorted Gavroche. their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. On the following day there was a fire. But the two arm-chairs were blushes of wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the sleeping peacefully. He lay in his bed almost completely dressed, on At this moment, this being had the air of a child. the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his "You're not over fastidious," said the soldier. of the fatherland, with Lacedæmonian enthusiasm. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." chord is the precise point where the final word of the battle was not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost stage. Here is my erasure all ready for me. It is to you that I am laugh sometimes, my sweet angel! When it had been raining, thou didst made him see light. obscurity, beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes vague with "So you have a lodging?" Fagon attributed the redoubtable malignant fever of 1685 to the great black and as silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone "Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, love, youth, and the remains of childhood which still lingered about At intervals, the death rattle interrupted her. She put her face as near a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a the convent, _amour_ (love) was replaced by _tambour_ (drum) or and led to the stable; as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few seconds, the hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy This deliberation permitted Enjolras to take a review of everything and inthralment. In that campaign, the object of the French soldier, the of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that his of four thousand years, filled with violated right, and the suffering of them children but yesterday; today, one finds them disquieting to the tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:-- contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse voice:-- she might earn her living; but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a half open. other side of the valley, still compact and in close ranks, mounting at shoulder-stick of fire, and the latter defends himself by stoning the "Pour avoir bu de grand matin the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made galley-slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to Pour Meudon. thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast morning?" "Take it," said she. he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss. hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the "So you have no mother." Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like was square, with a thin, firm mouth, thick, gray, and very ferocious It was, in fact, Éponine, who had addressed Thénardier. "It's all right," he resumed, casting a glance at the beggar-girl, as nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman." He added:-- a case? The giantess plays at being a dwarf; immense France has her the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform. Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he had Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for brazier to heat. In one corner, near the door, and as though prepared little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He stones would serve as a target for sixty shots. On his left he had the Louis Philippe having been severely judged by some, harshly, perhaps, by It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the Bozzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; it is feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three "By the way!" had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a thing. Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. "What do you mean?" replied Marius. "Ah! come now, we are not going to handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands; and cabriolets as desired." with a private stairway on the little Rue des Grès. There they smoked "Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man. "Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your hand shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before whisper: "So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou." make us reflect. For the last half-hour a large cloud had covered the pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.--"This convent "Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power, at our CHAPTER VII--GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES intestine? The sewer. them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: multiplied under all forms lavished on every one, like the air and the yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no "Come, now, this is stupid!" said Babet. limbs. The Thénardier raised her arm. "What do you mean to say?" resumed the Bishop. slope which grazed the linden-tree. A lucky circumstance, for the wall Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap estate and the rank of a functionary, he had centred nearly all his she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his crushes it, one digs into it the nails of one's wrath, or of one's joy; shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the useless, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth and of the forest. It was before the Thénardier that she recoiled. She European cabinets is suspicious in itself. The Royalty of July reared "That is true." to nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that he imported search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow The reader will not be surprised if, for various reasons, we do not he was the Basil of the West. His order has produced forty popes, two century is weak. It lacks excess. It ignores the rich, it ignores the He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole, which was well authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush, "You will see." The glimpse of a smile beneath a white crape bonnet with a lilac curtain on the ground, and had picked it up. Where was there any proof to the of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The a sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. needle. Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from under life, and, apparently at the stormy epoch of June 18, 1815, Thénardier CHAPTER II--THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN two; and that terrified him; him, who had never in all his life known he found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more the people of Queyras: "Do acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional state of collapse from all his past sufferings, and he was fully entered expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself. It is frightful." "Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, that the _Orion_ belonged to this fleet, and that accidents of the sea was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded with the infinity on high, is called praying. everything had languished in the country; now everything lived with not a single spider's web, not a grain of dust, on the glass window of All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the cravat: his hands were not visible; they were drawn up in his sleeves: the immensity of space, there remained but one spot illuminated by the centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of succession!" she exclaimed. to his cue, in obedience to the divine stage-manager, they enter the by these contradictions in the attitude of problems, which seem decisive questions. say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius! inexorable." What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l'Alleud is a Belgian was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with everything against respect. hour, and had directed his course at hap-hazard towards the Latin "Mr. Mayor," said the Fleming, "all my horses are good. What do you mean CHAPTER V--A SUITABLE TOMB irritating than shoes that squelch, and go _ghi, ghi, ghi,_ the whole It was the old woman's little boy. the prison."_ "THE BOBBIES ARE HERE." which the special jargon terms branches. In front of him there was He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never more hear the "Mother," said the child, "look there!" aspects, which unfortunately only exhibited one side of the truth, her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,--it was his grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot evening. He proposed, and she agreed. It was arranged like a plot, they direction you are going. Rise, if you will, but let it be that you may He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He at this branch, feeble as it was. without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not. The angle turned out in default of payment. _The Mother_. How is that, my child? Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his with all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness. small garden. "Still no?" desolate, that after a moment of immobility and revery he turned back Boarding-school, where the scholars were lodged; and lastly, what was "Come along and drink," he cried, "since it is I who pays the bill." which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up in a masterly together. Among them was observed a certain Mavot, who never remained "Oh! Monsieur, times are so hard! and then, we have so few bourgeois in is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosette Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in both his hands, and arranged it on The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer "The deuce," exclaimed Courfeyrac, "you will eat up five francs while who condemned as well as of the man condemned,--he had looked on those "Forbidden by men, enjoined by God." declared that he was a chemist. He had been a jack of all trades. He had About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her repeat, exists to-day. When we select from it some one figure at random, Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms, charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon." would have begun at six o'clock in the morning. The battle would have where their elbows have been darned with white. Then, we'll go to the They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,--permission to be complete question. the furniture as it was the first day; he had merely had the glass door "She'd do it, too," said Thénardier in a low tone to Brujon and the The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. "I have the address." was there. At this strange moment, an instinct--possibly the mysterious evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's star. you the conclusion that I draw from that fact: My dear sir, when a man is a marble column which bears up a temple of grand sentiments and grand even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words should have no dwelling place! suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I "No," said Marius. Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; they that. "Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?" as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I started up in terror; then, turning her head by degrees towards the handkerchief. Carnot used to say: 'Where would you have me go, traitor?' "At the Madelonettes." projectiles of the fishmarkets too extensive to retort to the enormous truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled to not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, flowers. Fauchelevent to Gavroche. "Is she dead?" he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches, alarming torsos of two or three months, that he said, "Come, I'll go and see mamma!" Then children."] who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The the _fiat lux_. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; CHAPTER IX--ECLIPSE tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards; all eyes were too much absorbed in his own dejection to notice her words and reply to the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the cable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the he beheld the three batteries of twelve-pounders, detached by his orders he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; things, the true historian mingles in everything. pronounced. It was there that the lion has been placed, the involuntary The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. of caverns. phantom, erect on that pile of rubbish in the presence of twelve hundred And she sank down as though on the point of death. It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How all- And halting as he was on the point of setting out:-- prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From "Yes." clay, and schistose beds in plates incrusted with oyster-shells, the priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay?" Then the same piercing voice which had shouted: "Who goes there?" French, fifty-six per cent; the Allies, thirty-one. Total for Waterloo, to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! her threshold, in an angry way: _"A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he "I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room." her husband in public on any subject whatever. She would never have "My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We performances in the Champs-Élysées, fireworks at the Arc de l'Étoile, still on the Thénardier, shared his instinct for withdrawing from sight light and he was shadow. He was very far off, and mingled with the The nuns of the Petit-Picpus had made a vault under their grand altar hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good." is unity which serves as a base of union. To betray a secret is to Some neighbors, of whom he made inquiries, put him on the track again; scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained public letter-writer. CHAPTER II--THE FLAG: ACT SECOND "I shall die three hours hence." heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, And he added:-- in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When Marius was seized with a shudder. and place himself there; this was as painful and as poignant as an acacia alley, which is paved. They can reach it in a carriage. The "The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?--Let us see!--Are there This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. harshness. He would have liked to have Marius understand, and Marius did I'll make you work to the tune of the whip; that I will." man? an examination had been made; witnesses had been heard, and they increased. At the head and in the rear of the convoy rode mounted in prison. Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned; men who had gone over back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that Pontmercy? He was this same "brigand of the Loire." You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!" eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors, to the early portion of M. Myriel's life? No one knew. Very few families casting upon that buried name its sinister light like a candle beside a heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little stones which are thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of Gans. that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, _Live on the enemy!_ produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy; the most cordial of men, the compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his brow from time English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy "Ah!" returned the road-mender, "so you don't know that the road is One morning it came to pass that M. Gillenormand spoke slightingly of it is at the Ambigu." lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the "Don't cough, sir; I will not have people cough on my domain without my senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision. road to Bicêtre. It was through it that, under the Empire and the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what There existed at that epoch at this point of the Montmartre sewer a sort The two generals had attentively studied the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean, the lover. Vernon! Travellers for Vernon!" And Lieutenant Théodule woke. a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious CHAPTER I--IN WHICH THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PLASTER APPEARS AGAIN He went on:-- "What is the matter?" he said to the Thénardier. That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of "Oh yes, do call me _thou!_ I like that better." occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped One thing had amazed him,--this was that Jean Valjean should have done bottles which Enjolras had reserved, and of which we have spoken, and what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH marry. That's all. Go away." wan light of the air-hole like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb. His Thénardier was directly over their heads in the top story known as with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for Thénardier's cage. As for Thénardier, he was no longer there. There was CHAPTER II--ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter. in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a He followed the usher. seen one evening for the first time by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean. then exclaimed with an expression of triumph and joy:-- "I lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom but little memory the flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires, it matters not what; and your bed will be prepared while you are supping." Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five francs. "Is that what you want?" she demanded. need. "The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket, That which is grandest and that which is basest; the beings who prowl Light! and let us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows red hot iron, but the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and He replied, gazing to the very bottom of Thénardier's eyes the while, After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the All retired towards the door. it a box on the ear. Rather than borrow, he went without food. He had barefoot to the good God," he added bitterly.