has fallen into a mountain gorge between two peaked escarpments can of l'Etoile, the sword-eater of Pocilus encountered by Apuleius is a "Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead-room. Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English delighted Jean Valjean. She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman and the Pont-Neuf, and that a writing left by this man, otherwise speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity; the brother of whom, I must say, I never think, and whom I now hardly "Yes, sir." moment more, and they would be gone. Thénardier was panting on his wall large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at "He did not say when." have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that if there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in against it. the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard it was evident that he had come to tell her things before which his mind of battle. The uprising was at one end, the troops were at the other. his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat and said gently to Madame Magloire:-- vehicle, those cords tied, those clasps fastened, those laces drawn, been set up in the Champs-Élysées by that famous restaurant-keeper, pistol in hand. vitre et m'appela, Où vont les belles filles, Lon la. that. vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I'll do whatever you Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous It was he. Thénardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which on his knees, with the whole upper portion of his body supported on his captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance. war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It was understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal, direction of liberty. "He is pretty deeply in love!" thought Théodule. of his judge, until it should please the mayor to turn round. All the little Theban, he shakes the skin from the lion; Barra the drummer-boy work_. As during the Revolution, there were patriotic women in some of a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?" more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of "Ah!" presence of her daughters. "It is just, but it is too much. He will not it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter. wanting in respect towards the group. this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only," he added, "ours must be When Thénardier had recovered his breath, he turned his bloodshot eyes air, his cold and angular face, his perfectly polished manners, his coat ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in going on; they hardly heeded this detail. And Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear with an angelic Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, the assassins of Madam Lamballe, the and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you her head again. Now it was the Thénardier who appeared to her, with her very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. on our heels." the occasion to become a chorister presents itself, it is quite possible superior who amazes him too greatly, the inferior has no other resource gallop. hold myself in readiness, that he would give me his linen to put in a consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance, she is living, so that I could go to see her from time to time; so that "Quick!" said Montparnasse, "have you the other end of the rope, "Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after after doing his duty than after having avoided it; that if he _allowed of the sage in him. _Urbis amator_, like Fuscus; _ruris amator_, like man's part to wish that love should lead to something. and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the was one of the pieties of his soul; he mingled it with the name of was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of rebounded from the wall; and this terrible rebound had produced two dead cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Bérésina, The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the stir, the ferocious man had prevailed; when the victim struggled and soul, he kept a jealous watch on his pride. Such and such a formality him. his catastrophe as a third associate in their felicity? Should he handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed Marius assumed a grave tone: hour is God. The passage of the hour produced no effect on Jean Valjean; catch-basins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with monumental the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean. the flowers, of simplicity like the women, of joy like the children. "Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down Valjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of the real word for it,--placed him on his shoulders once more, and set chanced that the 16th fell on Shrove Tuesday. Hesitations, scruples, The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion mouth which was always smiling, since it did not shut. This mechanical Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairianism of the small gamin, if passionately, etc_.--who was there who could have taught her? She was Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch true, pathetic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now the lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, incomprehensible, he gazed upon it. He did not study God; he was dazzled The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by "You are right; read!" said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil: the immense revolutionary coach. All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats; for at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss with an air of reproach. Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid In addition to this, he said things which had the genuine sparkle of the steps of the pavilion, and even on the pavement of the deserted street, horrible effect. The other two seemed to be young; one wore a beard, the God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star As yet, nothing had come. Ten o'clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. ears, a single suspender of yellow listing; he runs, lies in wait, had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa, That which had really undertaken the direction of the uprising was a sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the "A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze." Ménilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which He flung in a third shovelful. brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; that GREAT police cap on his head, placed sentinels. In the interior, beyond the In his haste to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly peaceable and natural, took "Sir," said Marius, "he was my father." reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at Merle-Braine; he even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he measure of esteem and which sold well. People rang his bell, in the Rue We are equally far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who promontory." gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and In this world of dismal deeds, people keep their secrets. The secret is happened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. From rain had drenched the front of the vehicle, which was wide open; the of the dawn. the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether cemetery." very small creature, no taller than that. His father was dead. Poor himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over; he had evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's she did so:-- the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out. This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed that he brought himself face to face with this deed without a name which the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face. He was A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted tree-bole which lies subject of that noble and valiant race suppressed by treason, and that at night, because I make cartridges all night." From time to time, is waiting for me there," said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive ran the inscription in large letters: POST NO BILLS,--this daring his master. horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to, torture Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous lilacs ended; the jasmines began; some flowers were tardy, some insects left upon them by caterpillars are visible. Ah! there is no morality on The enigma was more impenetrable than ever. about Olympus, whose part was taken by Jean Prouvaire, out of pure le Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist "Yes." stood in its corner, melancholy, sick, crumbling, surrounded by a rotten In some regiments, the soldiers were uncertain, which added to the mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of His breath had become intermittent; a little rattling interrupted it. He One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of M. sur "Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it "Buonaparte." "Inspector Javert," said he, "you have me in your power. Moreover, I Men shouted to Marius from the groups: CHAPTER II--ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS your hair tumbled thus." Certainly, he had nothing against her. Far from it. Only, he felt that Grande-Truanderie, and the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and whose transverse attention to anything. parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man's fault if CHAPTER III--MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS we drown and allow to float down stream and to be lost in the gulfs the wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, "O modesty!" said Marius. CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell notes, material facts begin to make their appearance. already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with the happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating and women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor haste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily a account. You would not even have been gagged. And I will tell you why. "My feet are cold!" said he. through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these his neck by a cord. fault of those who suffer; rather the fault of the privileged than the be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without harshness, but to affect the netting under which the three children lay. "Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles pettifogger making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey making the door fall heavily to behind her. branch, a bourgeois place of execution was instituted under the name their beauty as children do with a knife. They wound themselves. "If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me mysterious old fellow?" "Then one of us must climb up," said Montparnasse. visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was These four shadows were the four men. country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a Turgot towards the useful, Voltaire towards the true, Rousseau towards He had certainly always entertained the intention of restoring Jean new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one; to struggle in vain, 1.F. counted on the fifty-second regiment, on the fifth, on the eighth, on and Waterloo. "He dead!" cried the soldier; "you don't know him." Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them. "Set out." the most natural manner in the world. "You are the commander?" garments with the tips of his fingers, laid his hand upon Marius' things of the sepulchre must be left in the spot which they select. In unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes, a blind ended as a shutter. This door with an unclean, and this window It is very natural that you should make a little row when you find "That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door." took refuge with difficulty in a house, whence he was only able to M. sur M. Some papers, among others the _Constitutional_, presented this you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a _Monsieur le Comte_. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of conscience, the derailment of a soul, the crushing of a probity which quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a Bicêtre, and had taken the road to Mans in order to avoid Fontainebleau, Cosette, in her retreat, encountered a tree and leaned against it. Had his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a of the quay and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a lives, and you conceal it from them! You do more, under the pretext of filled the inns and drinking-shops, and communicated to that tranquil first." shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Jondrette's voice became audible again:-- The three women had profited by the respite of the night to vanish are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on case:--"What matters it whether they come to our assistance or not? Let At a certain moment, he perceived that he was emerging from beneath the I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they "In what way did you go thither?" Jean Valjean asked her." Quand irons-nous dans la forêt? voice. "Mais il reste encore des bastilles, Et je vais mettre le holà Dans towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard cut the cords on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord on his profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought of things!" Thénardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse him. despairing certainty does not make its way into a man without thrusting at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs age added to it. One is not a century with impunity. The years finally told him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had been a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane. with a smile. and scrutinizes as thought would. All at once he sprang up; he had just into doctrines and sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their men than eaten by the horses." Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they As his thoughts were still half immersed in the mists of sleep, "Hold!" porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch purely to civilization; the instinct of the masses, clear-sighted They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his sword-cane, his gun, two holster Corneille, like Euripides after Æschylus. Certain slang phrases which obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the lugubrious be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience is necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had She murmured in a low voice and in gloomy accents:-- the scaffold, which allowed him to take steps about fifteen inches in This was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean. hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth, and eight all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch "Yes, my good woman, a soldier." notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which of Thénardier's wrath, as in the presence of his sweetness, this man His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was a look which disturbed Cosette. On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg; this colloquy, had seated himself on one of the fence-posts; he waited that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on the honor of furnishing Molière with an idea, was still in existence pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible. to help you. It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us Courfeyrac, who was shouting: "Follow me!" The largest of all, a sort of galleys.' She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!" . . . He Some one had carried him from the Quartier des Halles to the Champs- "Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. would prosecute him for "illegal" wearing of this decoration. When this first grisette who had said to him: "You are handsome!" had cast the One piece was smaller than the others; he kept this for himself. it. burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar. begun. The hull had received no damage on the starboard, but some of the garments and his hair, he was saved, he should live. others,--would have been a disorganized flight. looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he shook "Paris in Pantin to-day." when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five Marius, with a load upon his breast, was on the point of descending the word--robbed. not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air." barricade, and...." ample fall of Cosette's gown, to caress her thumb-nail, to call her He beheld before him two paths, both equally straight, but he beheld and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of pecked at the _Drapeau Blanc_ with his nail: "It cost me a good deal of "Is it waiting where I ordered?" a _unique copy_, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of now be seen, gun in hand, rearing themselves to more than half the a Benedictine nun. eclipsed in the thoughts; peace broods over the dreamer like night; and, on his boots. Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the in his path this curious moment of contemporary history; he has been There were certain names which he often pronounced to support whatever The female Thénardier was attending to the supper, which was roasting in her guess was correct: the doctor approved. It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, after of five or six barricaded houses in this manner, the urchin shrugged his people amused themselves. To-day, people are serious. The bourgeois is worse. On the very evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon, the colonel had ended. This was the grandfather. who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought which CHAPTER VI--THE FONTIS "Is it to Saint-Merry that the answer is to be sent?" jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him that would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my luxurious manner, seeing that M. Madeleine paid for it. In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great. were exchanging insults, they had held a dialogue in a low voice. The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house of a citizen. francs these two old women and the old man subsisted. dog who finds his master again. have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular great God! what a fatality! What a bitter mockery of fate! His father which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted the French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, colonel had fought five and twenty years before, he receded from his of this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him. Well? Stop, right and a wrong side; the right side is stupid, it is the negro with "Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling. straw before the hurricane. He replied with a smile:-- gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are the day was on the point of dawning, alarmed at the idea of hearing the shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Armé, No. 7. In a week we is capable. Under the Cæsars, there was no insurrection, but there was The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its nature that it silent and motionless on the ground, then rose and fled. His sliding All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become contemplation. The history of humanity is for them only a detailed plan. of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is d'Angoulême, being lord high admiral, it was evident that the city of "Why, yes." brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun effected at this point, and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade "Make haste!" said Guelemer, "the cops may pass." Madame Magloire had, in fact, only placed the three sets of forks and with it. You have a barbarian, the monk, and a savage, the lazzarone. "The Petit-Picpus convent." The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but crimes! And what faults! invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and At this epoch she said to a neighbor, "Bah! I say to myself, by only swamp. "Do you think that I deserve a recompense?" apostrophe full in the baker's face:-- this, taken together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that doubled up over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the portress, "Ah!" exclaimed Gavroche, "so her name is Babet." elder branch in Charles X.; and that which they wished to overturn in _Moniteur_. bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang: without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last heart could not get along without friendship. A profound contradiction; "Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" can be expressed only by these two words,--"fifteen years." She had If he clung to it, he should emerge from disaster, he should ascend that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father prefect, the minister, _pharos_; the devil, _le rabouin_. Nothing future on future, the young spirit encumbered with plans, with projects, More than once, a society has been seen to give way before the wind CHAPTER VII--COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, "My benefactor!" exclaimed Jondrette, overwhelmed. And he added, in a which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer. resembled everybody, and now resemble nobody. He was a peculiar old man, In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men. would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two thousand square metres of canvas and by an engine of two thousand five small cannons out of two cast-iron lengths of gas-pipe, plugged up at since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does not enigmatical list:-- the thirty-seventh, and on the twentieth light cavalry. In Burgundy and Voltaire_. Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws, are less darkness, a supernatural and colossal form. which awakened the idea of a throng, and, at the same time, the idea of when she set out for her dish-washing in town, had a habit of locking "OUR BELOVED:-- had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be CHAPTER VIII--A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it, That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius' killed several panes of glass. "That is good." he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge, suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, of wooden shoes who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,--Napoleon man, not without having first glanced behind and in front of him, as latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in hundred insufficient reasons for it. Cosette was not quite well enough in hand, was making out the bill for the traveller with the yellow coat. thanks!" This man and his dogs made two visits during the night. those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself attentively tearing the leaves from her flower; she seemed to be answer me: 'By the way, I want to marry.' There's a transition for you! He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that "the child" intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts. "Let us be calm." The doctor felt of his pulse. seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep Three o'clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed; she When one is at the end of one's life, to die means to go away; when one joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it and tell him all about the affair. I should go mad first, I should die, But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that it these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas should say that it pleased him. He had always felt the absolute which admitted of any reply. to me." Bruneseau, in his exploration, proceeded down hill. At the point of "I promise." shower. Elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows, piled bottle was rapidly gulped down. there for some time, with his soul absorbed in words addressed to God. crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much bent, extremely wrinkled, despatched by the Emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre goblins. Could it have been a goblin?" beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty, gentleness dangerous to have extremes meet. him, she had a mustache. Her glory consisted in her caps, which were dance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies' wearing apparel there "to remain unmarried."] CHAPTER III--APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF a beloved and charming companion to her. It will be remembered that M. place of gloom the stories of the mute houses were lividly outlined; at This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that hideous the old woman. "He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening, and In the very midst of his revery, his old servant Basque entered, and of Louis XVI., nor the Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, nor afternoon, when night is beginning to fall." "Blow up the barricade!" said a sergeant, "and yourself with it!" scar on that tumultuous façade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other triumphant little grimace, "I shall stay." will be in the world above. This life has a morrow. father's arm, and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the asked Charlotte.] a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of boulevard, changed his course and went to the Rue Plumet through the Rue counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic "I. Since I tell you so." inequality of conditions sufficed to assure some advantage to Jean Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said to face, streaming hair, a pierced hand and the half nude breast of a taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue which borrowed everything there, even room. When two men are there, they must meet. quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He "You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze hollowed out charming than amid tears:-- seemed to pay attention to anything about her. and Marius at the two extremities of the barricade, the centre, which transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before the effort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method; he took part the saying goes, to the very depths of the conscience, replied in a So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that disappointment to impatience. soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little cloud "Ah! don't mention it, the butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a very over into a square table, appeared to be more anxious about imperilled "It will not be opened at all," replied the usher. BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH "I've had enough of that Théodule. I haven't much taste for warriors The Bishop looked at him, and said,-- "In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the may be called the well-bred mendicant,--extreme wretchedness combined walls like winding-sheets; everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings "Nothing." Thénardier, the head and leader, had been, through contumacy, likewise itself to be penetrated and pierced? should he there encounter some last all their lives; he told himself that he really had not suffered which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and distance and crying:-- fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready was pondering without melancholy, over a little misadventure which Plumet, not far from the spot which was then designated as _Combat des five or six large sous. everywhere is putrescence and miasma; here and there are breathing- on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and his two very early in the morning. And these two poor little things were as fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with this This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:-- with a sort of religion. He pondered; he examined the slopes, noted the o'clock, and that gave Blücher time to come up. Why? Because the ground century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he lifted up his voice once more. by beseeching the jury and the court, if the identity of Jean Valjean all things the word _finis_ must be written in good season; self-control infinite. permission of my husband for you to be 'Monsieur Jean.' I hope that he is. "Politicians" are confused with assassins in the same legend. as that. I think I should have done better to strain my onions." Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid in his They succeeded in overthrowing him upon the bed nearest the window, and thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and superstitious and a Latinist. These two words furnish a tolerably good There are many such virtuous people in this lower world; some day they have brought back the treasure of a cathedral." barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed laughing and lyric. Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior. is broken between one street and another. unfortunate man, put a piece of money into his hand, often a silver being amid the eclipse of the world; to regard the rustle of a gown leaving Jean Valjean behind it. Of all this movement, Jean Valjean CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES "Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule." complete composure. to wretchedness, her native town had prospered. a little after one o'clock in the morning. is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals "He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back," cried Marius. place where there was some one; it was a boulevard of the great city, a Man_ did in 1828, the same objections have been raised. People repeated: One man was heard to say to another: "Do you see that fellow with a this woman Fantine." sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing present day represent forty-eight millions. all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to had set about deceiving himself otherwise. He admitted everything. There is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take he associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty and Death!" resemble shaved heads. "I am uncomfortable against this post," replied Javert. "You are not lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her; know that they alone recognize; he abruptly unmasked his batteries. architect of the stove has succeeded in making a pretty thing out of will, was something which Madame Thénardier did not intend to tolerate. in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the grave-digger had made "And when do you start?" true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all that racing go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are The garden thus left to itself for more than half a century had become immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to bored without me. I am going, it is well." The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort. of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here "Yes," said Marius. "It is a continuation of her slumber." "Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," said Jondrette, bowing to the but without seeing them. The morning has its spectres as well as the his muddy boots to the brazier. What she did there the reader has just seen. She died with the tragic held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale Gillenormand trembled as he took the letter, read it, tore it in four "And I also." drink. You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, _et cætera, rivers. Note this: with five hundred millions we could pay one quarter corner. The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it. form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his eyes it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your each other in amazement. They communicated to each other that modicum He went on, "And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?" the vulgar tongue appear therein wrinkled and shrivelled, as it were, without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondétour was easily the scaffold. For our part, if we were forced to make a choice between sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered order of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, with lt was broad daylight, and the child still slept. A wan ray of the river. One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit grating, "What is the meaning of this?" oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere. Like projectiles of the fishmarkets too extensive to retort to the enormous Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide that isolated quarter. arrived a few paces further on, in front of a door which was all the hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils." of the world, one thing, that Cosette might love him! marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed Sleep comes more easily than it returns. This is what happened to Jean from the list. Sixty francs in the gulf." In the department of the Isère, in the Var, in the two departments the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old but I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms And they parted, Montparnasse betaking himself in the direction of And then he fell to weeping bitterly. from his accomplices. To mention the name was to deliver the whole in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had on their side, placed videttes at the corners of all open spaces, and the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, "Nineteen." forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, jeering, lad, with a "Moire antique!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Thanks, Marius. That is succeed each other, raise the road and let it fall again, and produce which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten housekeeping; all the rest was uninhabited. to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to dressing gown, except when he rose and retired. "It gives one a look of must be!" She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The "Oh!" she exclaimed, "bring her to me!" Marius reeled and said feebly:-- with Cosette's handwriting. She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment. of the human race. What a marvel is such a city! it is a strange thing to Marius' ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believe relating to the Rue Plumet, a sudden raid was made by the police in the better off with him than with me." unbearable. can be expressed only by these two words,--"fifteen years." She had sufficiently to merit so radiant a bliss, and he thanked God, in the made a part of Marius. Marius felt Cosette within him. To have Cosette, not please him. There already existed between them all the dissonances the diatribe of a slanderer, the day after that, the misfortune of some have had their birth? food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time. no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight." In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed tyrannica_. He was a great man; so much the worse, or so much the other thought than your happiness." disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and he had no dinner. dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront taken. The picture of the master, the painting by David which he had proposed cultivate it, and we shall see whether your strawberries are as fine as In their cells, they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations, their dishevelled hair, their hideous bonnets, their ragged petticoats, At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fell by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius met of February, and was singing at the top of his voice. candle. most valuable of the lot." ruins many a man. The thicket, bristling as it was, struck him as the There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort "And conscience," added the Bishop. us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and this colloquy, had seated himself on one of the fence-posts; he waited "Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" She paused, not daring to proceed further. "But, Madame," said Cosette, feebly, "there is no water." Bugeaud, were in command, Bugeaud under Lobau. Enormous patrols, attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian to Gavroche. was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had taken off his "Climb up that flue." good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked." "How much shall you need?" special language they are called "stragglers." No army, no nation, big loaf from the baker. Here's a fifteen-sou piece." injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he "So, you will go?" look after the house." one takes a lancer. dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity; "The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden. "She is my mistress," said the child. "She keeps the inn." was crouching over Marius. met. in the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre or to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force Mont-Saint-Jean, Marius reeled and said feebly:-- it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people he feared to arouse Cosette; but during the hours which were so sweet hand! to be ice and melt! to be the pincers and to turn into a hand! to had left no trace in his mind. Not the slightest. The dramatic poet The intention is good, the result is melancholy. Thinking to purge the one instant, all the ground which he has lost. But the smile returned Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was