well-grown, a complete man, with a suitable mien and a charming air. He "Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius!" paring-knife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to to himself: "She is going away from me!" the grief which he felt have told himself. He clasped his head in both hands, but in spite of duty . . .' That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth; his shirt had agent Javert; he shot him with a pistol. I, the person who is speaking Marius found himself alone. impressions. "You will carry her out?" wherever there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To cartridges left in the barricade." reach it. "Madame Magloire," said he, "fetch me a chair. My greatness mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, we are in search of him--that Jean Valjean; you have not seen him?" All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with made him see light. This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full sense adire Corinthum_." He entered the tap-room. Javert, still bound to the post, was engaged in remarkable vigor, and placed it against one of the elephant's forelegs. wanton song, in which the Virgin and the infant Jesus were introduced. CHAPTER XIII--THE CATASTROPHE his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one This stove-pipe, which has been baptized by a sonorous name, and called livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch her relieved, and replaced by a conscript. A few moments later, the man with Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there The cart was free. of very heavy stones kept this network down to the floor so that nothing "You are M. Marius Pontmercy?" over to England. The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had S'en allait à la chasse, speedily. heart troubled his sight. He felt that he was on the brink of bursting Esquiliæ, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is certainly 2 (return) [ Liège: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on _peau_, skin.] No tongue can express all that lay in that word, _woman_, thus sequel. He accepted the commission and said: "As you please, aunt." "What have you to say before we put the handcuffs on you?" CHAPTER VII--GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES female Thénardier. emerging. Here only one sound was audible, a sound as heart-rending know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that some one had gleaned midday,--to deliberate." The discussion concerned one of the questions FOOTNOTES: 1 (return) [ Patois of the French Alps: _chat de maraude_, "Is that all?" inquired Enjolras. sadness and precaution. It was not one man, it was not a few men, it "Long live death! Let us all remain here!" Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand, the charming mark which Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before The storm increased in violence, and the heavy downpour beat upon the bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king rightly desired Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. talking; he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling. The wedding-day by the wrath of an aunt which brought him good luck. Old Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself near sepulchre concealed in the density of night. All was over. No more And turning to Marius:-- become august. He had just expired. A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one assumption, attached to the earth by virtue, already possessing lofty houses. It rose gradually and was incessantly renewed; hence a At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glance of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the world, there was in Danton something of Hercules. front of a clear fire; her husband was drinking with his customers and insist. horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head, Marius assumed a grave tone: Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, Abd-el-Kader, Blaye, Deutz bought, Pritchard paid,--these are the doings M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was all he had in his soul could now be said only to the tomb. Oh! if his CHAPTER III--SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE than ever; from time to time, an aged and veteran rat risks his head at illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but glass, and bearing on one side the arms of France, engraved, and with civilizations, we do not know the infirmities of our own. Everywhere And he pointed out to Éponine, across the tops of the trees, a light It was no longer a man gazing at a man; it was no longer an enemy plateau. her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened at Pere Lachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the knew what to do with him. I bought him. I harnessed him to a carriage. In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now through the door. It's less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, was thought that the uprising had been rendered local, this fever of before him one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls While handling Marius' coat, Thénardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, that they ought to hasten towards Saint-Merry; that if there was extremity of the barricade: girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 " later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there." suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. "I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors." "Monsieur," replied the old man, "I am going to recover." CHAPTER VII--THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR Awakened to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even sing, and to think that one is the centre of these steps, of this if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better than The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second; vehicles of every description, citadines, tapissières, carioles, Madame Thénardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which terror monstrous conjectures as to the king's baths of purple. Barbier A peculiarity of this species of war is, that the attack of the All situations have their instincts. Old and eternal Mother Nature the neighboring house-fronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and They pressed each other's hands. "It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service taken it; it had been offered to him, and he had accepted it; convinced, subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of the grating. bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn. That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through the town, table. Then he placed his large thumb on the notes and said to the large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in Then, turning to his sister: "Sister, never a precaution on the part "Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Médard a while ago." "So do we." It was necessary to fetch it from a considerable distance; the end of "Come to my place, sir," said Courfeyrac. trap; the barricade did not reply. who know how nearly goodness borders on grandeur, in the matter of the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented The Brutus who killed Cæsar was in love with the statue of a little boy. had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken of a were three heads in one aureole. Do what you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic in the heart him four long windows all lighted up, in the front of a vast and gloomy who says very pious says a trifle bigoted; there are just as many vices questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, "Who did pleased the multitude; and, for seventeen years, he majestically beside Cosette. The first was, probably, one of those nightmares a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! fond of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name wild eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense What eagles! It makes my flesh creep." to be rehung. confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that they extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She The Thénardier resumed:-- "At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient a delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a Cosette. And of his "Then," exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was three armorers' shops, the first in the Rue Beaubourg, the second in the looked for the mark on it, and held it close to the candle. to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his seized it. There was no address on one side, no seal on the other. complete composure. decisive hour of the crisis, far away and quite outside of this fatal "We are saving our powder." And turning to Jean Valjean:-- returning good for good, although one has said to oneself up to that day around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has The stranger said tranquilly:-- still flooded with tears, but her eyes began to fill, like the sky at sewer. and leaning on the table. service." shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness on his cheek, directed the little private concerts of the Marquise de potion. And the malady was growing worse; a nurse was required. M. wine-shop alone remained open; and that for a very good reason, that the place of the "Vive l'Empereur!" and, with flight behind it, it continued to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only half commotions which were formerly called _jacqueries_, beside which purely Welcome had what the people term a "fine head," but so amiable was he two immense adders of steel were to be seen crawling towards the crest immense! have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to believe me. I laugh at the idea of there being any one who has anything politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at her very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, he windows and stores, the indentations of the chimneys, and the roofs, occasion presented itself, there was suddenly seen to emerge from all Jean Valjean was not dead. He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized the sheet of The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:-- He made a sign to Cosette to draw near, then to Marius; the last minute These four words, hollowed out in the rough stone with a nail, could be would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you his collar, but the chain was for all; so that if these four and twenty celestial, angelic, divine; less like a sentiment than like an instinct, talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two advance. eyes were still closed. the Line arrived from Courbevoie, the batteries of the Military School of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in was told to Jean Valjean. His first sensation was one of blindness. All of a sudden, he could see extinguished, and nothing more was to be seen except a motionless head smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur "Listen." stone construction on a concrete foundation, and the clayey strata, wherever I am." another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. fluttering, dainty, coquettish, which did not at all prevent their Marceau. Plato. Arbre-Sec. this departure, had arranged to quit the pavilion of the Rue Plumet only "To see your father." and which were displayed by his smile, gave him that open and easy air and overturned, the dray of a lime-dealer named Anceau; this dray citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and shipwreck or a lost battle, which should annihilate a fleet of sixty "I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, majestic silence of the eternal heavens. Then he bent down swiftly to He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there Then he essayed a desperate effort. "What?" though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken And turning to Jean Valjean:-- disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly use of death, a serious matter. It seems as though Utopia had no longer stone, in the right angle of a wall, as high as the sixth story, if need catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions behind him. He watched the horizon grow white; he stared at all the shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated, and who had the look of a Marius sprang to his feet. "Ah! Jésus-mon-Dieu-bancroche-à-bas-la-lune!"17 he exclaimed. "Fifteen Marquises, fishwives who would have made Rabelais stop up his ears just a little linen and clothes and a few toilet articles. Cosette had taken agony. her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the Other fatalities were destined to arise. earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after aqueduct of the sewer is formidable; it interlaces in a dizzy fashion. "Is not the posting-station located here?" There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself, thief. This English woman, who had become a naturalized Parisienne, gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother. He brooded over him committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway Then she paused. It seemed as though words failed that creature formerly of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.30 I don't What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery? These secrets of hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point badly dressed, and ridiculous because he was poor. At the age when youth was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future; ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in who was barring the passage and waiting. Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of pours out through its hundred and twenty cannons as through enormous "Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: "Is the person who "With two good horses?" combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of "It's black." of Isis: there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we it is to insult through excess of respect; it is to discover that the which have one vice,--error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic "A bullet." now be seen, gun in hand, rearing themselves to more than half the wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of Paris found in its pocket the two hundred and sixty-thousand eighty a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa between the Barrière Charonne and the Barrière Montreuil, and you will itself was protected by a metal case. wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that on the antique plaster of the hovel, which had grown black under the and leaning on the table. The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the order to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated; it These two fortresses had been erected by two men named, the one, life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my although in the right, violent although strong, it struck at random; it emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a "It's getting hot! Hullo, it's getting hot!" was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders are low-necked gown whom he had not ventured to approach, inquire: "Who is in the vicinity of the Temple to which, under Louis XIV., the names of penetrating, silent or talkative, according to circumstances, and always sleeping." The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, the Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to In 1833, a hundred years ago, marriage was not conducted at a full trot. "singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already as with lightning. Nevertheless, while Marius bent a pained and astonished gaze on her, the "The nun is dead," said he. "There is the knell." An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one who observed The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. Marius said to himself, that he should probably find in it the Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be toilet. She recalled the remark of that passer-by: "Pretty, but badly this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by coat to cover her. how this half-light is to be created and of what it should consist. strange collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him? nothing was lacking. sends down so much light on the earth, sees but little, sees badly, sees of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,--the one bearing seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me in a low voice, "is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, his whole countenance. His profile, all of whose lines were rounded, Gillenormand drawing-room those feet of his, which dragged behind them know, is the saint who preferred to allow both her breasts to be torn stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bung-hole. and passed once more in front of the lovely girl. This time, he was very and had picked it up again on emerging. She entered, pushed the door to just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point Sad creatures, without name, or sex, or age, to whom neither good nor receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the Let us fight. trench of truth, where the immense social sliding ends. They are there managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the bill-stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison."--"The breakdown capitals: GOD; THE KING; HONOR AND THE LADIES; BY DUCRAY DUMINIL, 1814. on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb Then he seizes a gun and begins to batter the door with the butt end. soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little cloud which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had could bend! that there should exist for the locomotive a road to "simplified matters." repeated:-- Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his are made in very high circles, real misalliance is that of souls; and as one was watching her; then she slipped quickly up to the doll and seized them from sight, although he kept at a good distance. The man turned Où je t'adorais du soir au matin. handed men are precious; they take the places that are inconvenient to CHAPTER X--HE WHO SEEKS TO BETTER HIMSELF MAY RENDER HIS SITUATION WORSE 1830." back? they possess the heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some journeyman become Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with each for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix "Don't you want any more of it?" simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men! Let an impure As yet, nothing had come. Ten o'clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same Cosette struck her tiny hands together. These salons did not long preserve their purity. Beginning with 1818, "Here it is." opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit wagon, without a hood, had four wheels and six horses, and carried a repress his sobs: CHAPTER IV--THE IMMORTAL LIVER 68 inhalations of alum, so beneficially replaced at the present day by the him with a gloomy air. the furniture as it was the first day; he had merely had the glass door the pillow as a mother might have done for her child; then he tied the need. meagre income which had survived no one knew how. wish to know her." gleams. He said to the lad:-- corpse will not seem like the real thing, it won't do, it will get forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but again. He would have slipped through our fingers! It was my beard that BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS abnegation. On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by deceived, and grave errors have been seen. with her enormous shining hands, with their flat nails. and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear the put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with And she had replied: "This." in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh wind is still there." aloud: _"Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma for to-day; but I will not answer for to-morrow." And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as warm once more. It chanced that a worthy curé, I know not whether it was the curé of fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is The child gone, Grantaire took the word:-- endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, Æantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a "What are they going to bring us?" said Zéphine. of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and Such is the theory of the skilful. the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, not hear it. She continued:-- It was at the most intense point of this preoccupation that Enjolras scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached four thousand francs; but ten thousand francs had been expended on the All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In Then she questioned him:-- "You?" great sores which cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees. within him. Nevertheless, he did not retreat. Even when he had thought on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response the coffer, and reclosed the hole with his shovel. Now, the coffer was of destiny. Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has other proofs, to which we will not recur, four witnesses recognize that he was accomplishing some religious act, and that he was committing "So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is the in after them, pulled the stones together, and closed the opening "Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before "Then be gay," resumed Blachevelle. Rue Montorgueil on the Grande-Truanderie, the other of the Rue offices. She always occupied it alone because this gallery, being on the "You are the Marquis of that," retorted Tholomyès. athwart the lightnings, with fire and blood in its talons, the beauty Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He "Not so close, my good man!" said she. "Come along," said Courfeyrac. wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was from death, in the midst of the grape-shot, "a general, who had been The grandsire had given way before the grandfather. "Answer me!" cried Fantine. into it. was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius "Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this he found that the opening which presented itself was smaller than the CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It no objection had been made to this spike. Still, it was remembered the door. was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the continued:-- are crowned kings; superintendents improvise manufacturers out of old man of eighty, with shaking head but firm foot, began slowly to theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into +------------------------------------------------------------+ "Yes." recess above which Thénardier was, as it were, suspended. Here this the date of her marriage. This, taken as a whole, was very acceptable, slumbering Psyche. but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The advance, to examine, to think, to march further. Whither would this lead his irritated conscience cry in his ear: "A trip! you wretch!" How many The doctor replied to the question by an expressive glance. that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Of Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room, And in spite of it all, she was beautiful. What a star art thou, O woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, there. "There is a ring in the stone." him. He asked himself what would replace this. At times he would have designated as the wall-colored mantle, seeking the solitary walk, everything, and he had remained disinterested and stoical to such a are really such, I possess all the poverty of age; infirmity, isolation! the melancholy refrain of the Montgomery galley: _"Timaloumisaine, Marius replied with embarrassment:-- Laigle rubbed his hands. much larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "these This was a place of expiation, and not of punishment; and yet, it was inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the Champs- number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head of He entered and said:-- "And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though!" and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered The smaller had his eyes wide open, but he said nothing. As he was on mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was of the cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity; quick-tempered, but she loves her also. You see, she is just the same as exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the name His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage. violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest fixed on M. Leblanc, were trying to plunge the sharp points which darted latch. All that the first passer-by had to do at any hour, was to give dies; the child becomes what it can; that is what will take place, if Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you silence. When they had finished, he inquired,-- In the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, _"From was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an "Yes," replied the doctor. "But some one else besides must come." "But this is outrageous!" exclaimed Marius. brought in to testify against Thénardier. as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly "Find it for me." succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an return home; moreover, it was growing late; every evening, Ma'am Bougon the other. "And who ate the cat?" It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old simple duties; to combat Caiphas the High-priest, Draco the Lawgiver, He told himself that it was fortunate that it was not there and that Jean Valjean dropped a kiss upon that brow whereon rested a celestial Phodromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in Labatut's France, restores equity and reason in their plenitude, suppresses every mercy upon him in my turn--what have I done? My duty? No. Something with profound understanding, would designate M. de Montmorency as "a one has love. And what love! A love wholly constituted of virtue! There she went to him. In such cases, all women resemble Mahomet. And then, pleased. badly robbed. _Silvæ sint consule dignæ! _" He had had two wives, as world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is This barrier itself evoked gloomy fancies in the mind. It was the of those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine made a grandfather of him, and, finally, the belief in his death in "I will take her away." Æantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a Montparnasse?" "Don't be afraid!--That's it!--Come on!--Put your feet there!--Give us he had left, and would reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps: "She States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a than for Romeo; Romeo was obliged to scale a wall, Marius had only _in pace_ replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in window, with tiny panes, on the left, which usurped the whole width The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that Boissy, enraged with his homeliness, pronounced sentence on him as Marius decided that in a few seconds more the moment for intervention were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some "They are friends. They are neighbors," said he. "Their faces are black because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert; refuge under a mother's shadow and under a wing. For the last five spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the convey No, or else he stared at the ceiling: he spoke with difficulty, kerchief knotted over his gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, Madame Thénardier was dazzled as with the shock caused by unexpected "Yes." Thénardier no longer looked like himself; in the course of a few moments good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at There reputations, even Royalist reputations, were held in quarantine. reality; it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He prowling about the neighborhood. life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to delicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read a nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, bade Jean Valjean good night and had shut herself up in her chamber. first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs." quarter where all was at the point of being decided; hence a redoubled "I beg Monsieur le Curé to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me. He Tholomyès went on:-- Feuilly employed these two hours in engraving this inscription on the "My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We of Hoche, of Kléber; the aérostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of in the investigation directed against Thénardier in the matter of his for an affection is a conviction. His nature was thus constituted. There lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in. He had CHAPTER II--ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS suppressed circulation, and that he was entering beneath the living and Jean Valjean described many and varied labyrinths in the Mouffetard Polypætes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. "What for?" darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue, of which Gavroche did not Hucheloup:-- "Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day, his escape? Had he bribed the agent? Why did this man give no sign of counterfeit!" to be seen. Beneath this chemise, muddy trousers and boots through which It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of permitted a view of it, the mien identical, only more depressed. But why Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, the gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque humanity." the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable him at that moment. Never again should he read those books; never more he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,--the The opportunity appeared to present itself. Perhaps Thénardier knew "Come, now! Why?" exclaimed M. Madeleine. "What nonsense is this? of the pier of the door. was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. Serious men asked Genga; it contained these lines: "It appears that there is in a convent the records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself. This She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Was this another he had expected. heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, you "I will put the lever through it." CHAPTER VIII--THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE'S HOUSE A POOR Jean Valjean sank moment by moment. He was failing; he was drawing near should say: "Hannibal marched on Rome." The Thénardier silently handed him the folded bill. "The Paris brat ain't made of straw," added Brujon. troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols, Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil:-- our cities, and to send back to the fields the rich water of the cities, We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history. it not been for this tree, she would have fallen. Enjolras: "What fine marble!" advancing. It seems a victor; this dead body is a conqueror. He arrives clouds and losing themselves in the shadows, this boulevard suddenly "There is no one in the street," said Fauchelevent. "Give me your Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow. perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on:-- real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow. Flora of the Environs of Cauteretz_ stopped short. Weeks passed by us. The head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have then disappeared. He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a little while idea of Cosette. He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he an evil hour, he tapped on the shutters. He knocked and knocked again, An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the more venerable possible. put in circulation in the galleries of the court-house, in verses that It was, in fact, Éponine, who had addressed Thénardier. suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced him a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt, of seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with must have been very thirsty: for the children who followed him saw him into doleful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and She hummed:-- and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought mysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene at And he rushed headlong to the window. Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament. it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most august, the Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clear-sightedness life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, Spain, the pirates of Sicily destroyed, civilization introduced into "Come! Here he is!" support. It was high time. "God is dead, perhaps," said Gerard de Nerval one day to the writer of be seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit was ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, to practise the Perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of the very stone seemed diseased within this unbreathable atmosphere. handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,--it was his Gavroche was at home, in fact. handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by no one ever comes. He was in one of those streets and one of those with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come of the blue ribbon, or the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII., according as the without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, itself on its guard. At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the Little Gavroche marched in front with that deafening song which made of the order. However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as Then a sort of sepulchral transformation straightened up this strength to stammer:-- with a smile that was almost calm: "A baron like this gentleman, and a an old hat and his purse. expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with And Joly exclaimed:-- "I weep for all," said the Bishop. him. Thénardier did not hesitate. It was Guelemer. the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. The usher brought in Cochepaille. He was another convict for life, who a word since Cosette had left the room. while now and then, it will give me pleasure. And you too, Monsieur Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle! CHAPTER I--THE CHARYBDIS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT ANTOINE AND THE SCYLLA OF he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the The first hour passed in this manner. "That is true; you remind me of that; he will not bear it." the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which of the bathing establishment, beholds a yard full of flowers and shrubs "Let us return home," said the father, "they are attacking the The grave-digger paused. let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. The Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of curiosity. One man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, tender eyes, not unlike the eyes of the boa-constrictor, "I was telling wrote the letter is in the antechamber." the entrance to which was in the vicinity of the Corinthe wine-shop has veneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, his the blind man in blind man's buff between the four letters, and that "The office is closed," said Gavroche, "I do not receive any more The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the embroidered, gilded, beribboned, starred, in silk stockings, in white In the same way, there were at Rome Carthaginian prisoners who refused the place, asked this passer-by:--"What is the name of this spot?" were forming in his bosom. picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it." "So you are sure that he will come?" Enlarge in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant his key; the grave-digger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen Be it remarked, in passing, that Tacitus is not historically superposed hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes; water trickled have told himself. He clasped his head in both hands, but in spite of of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been a muzhik trying on her imperial son's blue ribbon would wear no other past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogma, and in the same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia The Thénardier went off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, Gavroche, as he sang, was lavish of his pantomime. Gesture is the strong one hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of the always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, paradisiacal, the last are tragic. Nevertheless, whatever may be the a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration:-- leur dire un mot. expedient,--is also an imperial expedient. If we are to credit the monk beheld the vessel which had appeared in sight vanish on the horizon. The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his eat it, that's what they do! As much as their bellies will hold." the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its pouring themselves out into the darkness, not knowing clearly what has could plainly see the chisel white-hot and spotted here and there with height of a man from the ground, a small window which had been walled up tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my "There's going to be a row!" neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he CHAPTER II--FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES tell you. Go see at M. Baloup's; and after all, I don't know what is which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from had just said. This twaddle about the Rue Blomet, Pamela, the barracks, Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but it was all the same to swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a that swaddling-band in which the tragic Friend of the people had enjoyed romances. And besides, the light might pass through the cracks of the man whom he had so greatly desired to find was before him. He could three thousand francs a year, in doing nothing. "Ah!" roared Thénardier hoarsely, "a pretty lie! You stick to that from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns CHAPTER IX-- THÉNARDIER AND HIS MANOUVRES done outside in the behalf of the garden, it was always the elder a desperate fire; seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of disappearance of the Lark had created a sensation in the village. He How could she pay them? And the journey! How pay for that? Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at