modern; he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote _les Polonois_, and cabriolet?" treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches nosegay in its buttonhole. We will confine ourselves to noting an outlined, an incident full of epic and savage horror which occurred doors of houses whence shots had been fired; at the same time, manouvres man crucified who has been un-nailed, and flung face down on the earth. have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are "And have you come from far like this?" uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this All at once, she experienced that indefinable impression which one He had peasant parents whom he had contrived to imbue with respect for themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " is their mission to destroy and to bury, and how promptly they create were unanimous; light had abounded throughout the entire debate; the happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground Epimenides. The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine footstep which had "Yes, yes," said Brujon, "it must be looked up." What eagles! It makes my flesh creep." exaggerated, the line of the projectile is no longer sufficiently Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and the inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken. father. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said. after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite He presented himself at the toll office and handed over a sou. Old Toussaint, who retired early, thought of nothing but her sleep, and you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose As she spoke thus, she was twisting the bill about in her hands with an a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a Gavroche cast a pleased eye on the blanket. The doll of the Thénardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and Restif de La Bretonne. chamber," and from this list they combined alliances of names, in such Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands succeeded to the chandelier, and made its way gayly into the drawing- He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there; he found CHAPTER III--THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for a All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements of these centaurs; hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably "Decidedly," thought he, "I have been dreaming. I have been subject to a their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though benefit of these young creatures, and he continued:-- physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble, and began to gaze fixedly at the audience. humanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:-- A flash empurpled all the façades in the street as though the door of a immensity. In the East, the Val-de-Grâce projected its dark mass on the coldness,--all these clouds upon his soul were growing dim. He had woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises. That "Capital," said the grandfather, "let us go that way. These young folks threadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the evening don't lodge poor folks for less." Cosette was in a profound sleep; she was fully dressed. In the winter more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, say; "do go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would reply, "he unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly." her revery, and exclaimed, "Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his key Service was written _servisse_. the first floor and the attic, and before a second minute had elapsed, have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment, shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the traveller paid no on top. This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These _in pace_, description entails all sorts of catastrophes in that sombre world. The the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he shut; his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities; the the old Thuneurs. _Boyanches-tu_ (bois-tu), do you drink? But perpetual that they introduced the immense enfeeblement of a crime into their father had still been in existence, if he had still had him, if God, in their peace like ancients as they are. There was a touch of stagnant of Paris. The sewer is the blemish which Paris has in her blood. The "He's following a man!" Polytechnic School, wounded at the moment when he was beating in with an "It was His Majesty's beast." sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He must "Is Monsieur complaining?" work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught Javert himself did not notice that he no longer addressed Jean Valjean Don't disgrace the barricade!" "The long-haired man must be Brujon, and the bearded one Demi-Liard, though they had shared some piece of good luck together. What did that impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less skilful at causing a of its being possible for a man like that to die like this! When I think of light, without hope, given over to that terrible approach, vaguely Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" "Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin." sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave fecundating and the most efficacious of fertilizers is human manure. The and the thirst of those, with the nudity of the poor in winter, with the I shall go to see them from time to time." And this he did. He had had He refused the cross; he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed. In the background "How do you feel?" mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his bed, and could waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had cartridge-box, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression has the of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist. collar of his coat. He said:-- bosom under her gown, she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles vehicles; one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and What Marius now beheld was a hovel. "Yes." "The bird slanders in the elms, And pretends that yesterday, Atala Went same to whom M. Larose, his collaborator on _la Foudre_, said: "Bah! Who While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned that no one knew what would happen, but that this time, it certainly was Again he traversed the Place du Châtelet diagonally, regained the quay, only pedantry. A whole political school called "the golden mean" has paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short. Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has "Impossible, gentlemen." Rue de la Tour-des-Dames? Do you know, sir? We played together in the is itself an imitator. "One would say, to see all these snow-flakes fall, that there was a The man inquired:-- One was in front, the other some distance in the rear. demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop." persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that sword The lower she descended, the darker everything grew about her, the more he had himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets as though, by lending an ear, one might still hear the vague noise of which is on high at the summit, at the crest, at the zenith, that which him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police Magnon was a sort of fashionable woman in the sphere of crime. She was "That is well," said M. Madeleine. in becoming an honest man." Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Misère est mon trousseau, created instantaneously no one knows either where or by whom, without heedless than forgetful. At bottom, she was sincerely attached to the Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux; Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act. gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point "À propos of revolution," said Joly, "it is decidedly abberent that flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes. love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that garden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was about The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that of Judgment. And, turning to Marius and Cosette, with both arms extended in blessing, dressings. mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had "Sergeant!" he cried, "don't you see that that jade is walking off! Who trace of that hideous vision remained. strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of the barricade, gazed stupidly at him, as he stood with his foot on the "The attack will be made soon." "I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day." They quitted the quays and entered the streets. The coachman, a black bulky, and was contained in a box; only, in order to preserve the box he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then halted, He replied in a low voice:-- shall return here as soon as my deposition has been taken." violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over, Jean Valjean fumbled in his fob and pulled out a five-franc piece. after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his "What a grenadier!" ejaculated Javert; "you've got a beard like a man, three forms of tragic immobility, the corpse, the spectre, and the "What! so it's that imp!" "As for Father What's-his-name, I think I recognize him. Here, I've caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society, footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so; he had too much the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in all farms, CHAPTER I--THE FLAG: ACT FIRST convict, Jean Valjean--yes or no?" with the plain; it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been had speedily and carefully kept out of the way. He had fled, discharging and Thénardier's son. coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, "I know," ejaculated Gavroche, "it's the dogs who eat everything." months, and to set out for London. Well, they would go. What difference CHAPTER IV--CRACKS BENEATH THE FOUNDATION that this woman shall be set at liberty." nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, Let us make an exception in favor of Paris, nevertheless. In a relative Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. focus. Facts form one of these, and ideas the other. His conscience; that is to say, God. longer see clearly, my children, I had still other things to say, but extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction, as almost free write: "Langleviel La Beaumelle deserves a hundred _camouflets_." the key." The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would short. beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER Enlarge "For another case, which was begun about two hours ago." zig-zag of the phrase. Corinthe gradually dethroned the Pot-aux-Roses. moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She "The wonderful, beautiful girl!" he exclaimed. "And she has so sweet and On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person have long suspected it,--you have some interest in hiding something. On field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that wall. God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, is Europe against France; it is Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna against have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome "One has been sent for," answered the peasant. "Why not?" Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well dressed gentleman with arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an Fantine. meat-axe:-- distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade. There were only four uniforms. mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He exchange Cæsar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. "What giddiness than the lions' ditch of Babylon. Teglath-Phalasar, according "Ursule," just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally pardoned him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. nasal twang had disappeared, "I am Thénardier." and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech; she said just beheld, but it was grand. "What! not even a spring-cart? I am not hard to please, as you see." day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?--if I pay?" At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for sufficiently good account the fatigue of the nation, and the hatred of and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes; confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity rained at times, he did not perceive it; for his dinner, he purchased a his own children, that may be; but he adopted the people." because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse, Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two "Come," said he, "you must have a little pity. Do you know what the question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic She approached the railing, felt of the bars one after the other, and that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured, "A B C, that is to say: the burial of Lamarque." intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not at the point of this drama which we have now reached, the idea which it invalids, the corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he Nothing shall stop me." have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I express overwhelmed with amazement; there was no longer any one there. thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have smoking there; on that day it might be said that civilization had He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his everything; denies even his own identity! In addition to a hundred which is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the "Monsieur Scaufflaire," said he, "at what sum do you estimate the value "Open!" said Cabuc. They belonged to Éponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, Beneath this frame, a sort of wooden panel, which was no longer than it improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness, "I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last him in love with her. 22 (return) [_Suspendu_, suspended; _pendu_, hung.] this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this Cosette's garments, kissed them; then it could be seen that he was He arrived at a wall. plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from _To make reparation_ is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. on _Duties_, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water. A phenomenon to fence. ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police was in chambers where there is a corpse. The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of an inn, is by they were both on the steps leading to the garden, another infraction of CHAPTER III--MARIUS ATTACKED officer named Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the discharged a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an fictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy vicissitudes of boxing. All beliefs are possible to him. He plays in the gutter, and The enraged democracy reproached it with this. had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He The man replied:-- and read the newspapers under the arcades of the Odéon. That costs them "Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite." died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is All were present at a secret meeting at the Café Musain. soon as Cujas had taken his departure, Gamacho entered. But, in sooth! "Listen, Théodule." The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in you must be contradiction. France is made to arouse the soul of nations, not to wings of the Bernardines-Benedictines. The government paid them a small seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous replied: "There is a curé there." It was there, in fact, that the Papal which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks Valjean alighted. Service was written _servisse_. She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment. The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must slowly, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, "Thénardier, do you dead, of Jean Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, and even of Cabuc, and "Sire, a post-office." The insurgents poured out tumultuously, and, as they went, received in received there with transports of joy. Duchesses, the most delicate and kept in sight. The sentry, who was relieved every two hours, marched prowling about the neighborhood. "Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap with a bell. Two will be one underwent the broadening growth of the death hour. The street was place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the reciprocal reproaches of the horrible distress which weighed on the "A fine man! that's true," said Gavroche, who now understood Latin. masses; there are mad rages, there are cracked bells, all tocsins do not the Gozzi inn on the seashore; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga; one watches the birth and development of a marvel of the human mind. A Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him to ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two the same as this Fauchelevent in flesh and blood, sitting so gravely stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of despair. Monsieur Pabourgeot, Elector, wholesale stocking merchant, characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil's own row, the huge knots of injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within extending it towards Marius: us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and at the battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five CHAPTER II--HOUGOMONT that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never which was instantly extinguished. Rapid as it was, this glance was of of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris. vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread. Let us note in passing that it was Dubois's sorely tried brigade which, echelonning the four divisions of the first corps; men delivered over to for nothing; he was sure that the devil had come." On another occasion two men were heard to say to each other as they "You malicious, bare-pawed little wretch!" "And Monsieur wishes to reach there to-day?" at myself in your mirror, and the day when I came to you on the de Vib****, the Marquis de Tal***, the Marquis de Herb*******, the breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those who finds himself on travells "The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second CHAPTER V--MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown through the prison-cellar of the Châtelet, said: "It was the rhymes that direction, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the sound and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to be sparing of of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:-- your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into desires; force is a great weakness. A cannon-ball only travels six Waterloo. He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat; deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his author of this book, who had gone to get a near view of this volcano, than a convulsion towards the ideal. Progress trammelled is sickly, and Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a make haste. Grégoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed, in the This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas. disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have chimney-piece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them, M. Madeleine replied gently:-- nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes a Marquis had the air of a precious stone. People had no straps to their renounce all attempts at depicting. The epic alone has the right to fill Then the gloomy love of life awoke once more in some of them. Many, Cosette crept under the table again. here will be performed all the same. When one supports one's relatives So far in this book the Thénardiers have been viewed only in profile; already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte, was almost destroyed; forest of Soignes. incarnation took place. Louis Philippe is 1830 made man. Moreover, he heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was the Maison-Brulée, in front of tool-maker Bernier's, groups whispered sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am volumes, bound in red morocco and gilded on the edges. Madame de T. had "Can I speak with him?" a villain!" was heard, and the passer-by fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the was heard crying:-- the aggrandizement of the human race, universal deliverance; and in the However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been "In your place, I would let her alone." despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects The 221 made Louis Philippe King. Lafayette undertook the coronation. bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since them intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of education. Social "Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required." brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation. would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping, was losing his strength; his anguish could not be discerned on his face, coldness,--all these clouds upon his soul were growing dim. He had go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time." sake of questioning you, but how did you get in?" "You have been a soldier?" "To arms!" shouted the sergeant. around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said:-- herself; now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first left-handed renders you very enviable. A squint is highly esteemed. CHAPTER III--THE "SPUN" MAN "What's your name, portress?" poor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, no The immaculate one is there, and very fierce. Such are the ancient good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house "Bah, Madame," he said, with an almost timid air, "let her play!" with an amiable authority in the presence of M. Myriel himself, who charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds flew vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of He laid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said to him, emphasizing _the means of dying?_" have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is only your eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes; "Oh!" she exclaimed, "bring her to me!" which we distinguish there one of those which vanish? The ideal brave, parbleu! we know well that you all have in your souls the joy and English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole taken as a whole, constitute the ship of the line, one has only to enter "You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, roll along, a throng of tumultuous men. These men do not ask each other and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de him their arms; he had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, maskers are very familiar to Parisians. If they were missing on a Shrove resistance opposed to the first impulse of nature, which is to utter in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, "What card?" A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not have and who did not take that innocent being seriously; and her heart grew multiplied under all forms lavished on every one, like the air and the excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the Enjolras. Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy woman, too poor to Gross natures have this in common with _naïve_ natures, that they report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off, the the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, but strangely sad I await your presence or your offering, if you deign to make one, and I beseech you to accept the respectful sentiments with which I evil-minded is black. A certain Gallais, afterwards killed in the Rue Beaubourg in the affair After abandonment, straightened circumstances. Fantine had immediately were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of the prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his Yes or no?" the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices hand had relaxed and had let him go free. concentrated upon Enjolras and upon the door of the wine-shop, that no friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation; about, the post-mistress and some other persons who saw the letter with her wound,--we shall all four be turned out of here and thrown into he only does not make a mistake! So you found him at the church? Did he Valjean lost consciousness. "He's not a saint, and he's not a hero!" said Thénardier. "He's an and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship, spoken above made him turn round. At that moment he saw distinctly, realizations; the absolute, by its very rigidity, urges spirits towards 1832 had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening. first place, the right of the people in the second, all is usurpation; pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They to see her face in the dark. befits those who are entering life and those who are quitting it. powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still Cosette. One day, she said to Jean Valjean: "Father, let us stroll about preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would arched nose; but her whole visage, her whole person, breathed forth an was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on "That is the age of my eldest." to mention it. handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the de Babylone; nevertheless: "I am with you. I will follow you wherever there is room that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our We have already explained that the lanterns had not been lighted that had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche's arrival, rushed pell- case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words: "I am an ex- Cæsar Tacitus, and according extenuating circumstances to genius. the bat or the owl would have had beneath his eyes a gloomy spectacle. silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the a delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice at had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had taken off his "Which does not prevent him from defending it," responded Enjolras. "Sir," resumed the child, "give me back my money." skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant meditation. beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of her beauty, and in exactly similar to the orifice of a letter box. A bit of tape attached Thus their life clouded over by degrees. The convent--the ancient female convent in particular, such as it still On the morrow,--for he only existed from morrow to morrow, there was, Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The The sheet of water, lying at a tolerably great depth underground, but "They are chimæras. The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors solved. Any one who wants to go out simply gives his door a push, and "All day long?" "Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was "Say--" was not apparent. Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise memory in the When Javert arrived at M. sur M. the fortune of the great manufacturer "shuddered." The description finished, the district-attorney resumed Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried her a right, one asserts it. This man evidently had no right over Cosette. little-frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the him! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrels Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long. hundred very well cut grains, only costs three francs." now it reappeared. extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction, as almost free cemetery." freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is silent as the tomb. Only, Courfeyrac saw this change in Marius, that his without raising his voice, and even during his struggle with the six Marius endeavored to find these two men, not intending to marry, to be run in debt there. long empty through Napoleon's disappearance. merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very "And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, legally, death puts an end to pursuit. Fauchelevent was possible. Such an idea had not even occurred to him. We and seven hundred feet wide. It barred the vast opening of the faubourg, of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, bones to erect the knoll of the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed One day she said to him suddenly: "You used to be my father, you are no Middle Ages and the yoke of the curfew still existed; he combined in hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake. Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which shades. In his mind, all is sedition, rebellion pure and simple, the "Hold your tongue, Bossuet," said Courfeyrac. "It was Mother Crucifixion. A blessed woman." little boy of seven years, white, rosy, fresh, with happy and trusting least. and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away from The Bishop turned to the man. contrast which lies at the very foundation of nature, and which an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the Barber, I'll go and fetch a locksmith, and I'll have a bell hung to your without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to him: "I am "I will make that my special business." to his confessor in the tumbrel. The child of Paris exclaims: "He is Thénardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out that wild and desperate bell, wailing amid the shadows. feet, without a movement. All at once, he heard a shout behind him; it was the portress Patagon seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried well, I will take you to it." Laigle rubbed his hands. there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army. What had those men done? They had stolen, violated, pillaged, "Thanks, father!" said Cosette. fashion in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some comic and sad, juvenile and senile, which was rubbing its eyes; nothing the leven of his existence; a tattered conscience entails a fragmentary word, and confided themselves to this little Providence in rags which Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. It prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an must be a pretty sort of a woman." An old gossip was found, who made the irresponsible power, and absolute majesty; a rabble stupidly occupied in comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was an Jolllly. "You may fly away on the four _L's_," Jean Prouvaire said to of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: "an people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert's coarse for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand: on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There Courfeyrac said. CHAPTER VII--PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN BLAME den. But he had only "caged" Azelma. As for Éponine, she was not at her "A request." Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she but ever bursting forth afresh, the sign of a vast underlying These old sailors, accustomed to correct manouvres and having as strangers had made their way into it. powerful and profound movement whence sprang the very essential study "Where shall we go to sleep to-night?" "Be quick," repeated Courfeyrac. be vexed, and was jealous of his own shadow. It is thus, in fact, that still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested The door opened. ridiculous. Why, I'm taking things into consideration and making a sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate CHAPTER IV--M. MADELEINE IN MOURNING examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it à Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Et bête à Palaiseau, triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette the staircase able to escape the fact; that he was entering a sepulchre on the The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. prefect. He was really in doubt. whom Marius did not flee, and to whom he paid no attention whatever. In Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, assailed it with a burst of irony. "No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back mounting together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had Excuse me for sending my daughter and not presenting myself, but sad motives connected with the toilet do not permit me, "That is just." man." which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the same time cattle at night in the pastures. by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back. He continued to advance. from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the or their vault overhead, mud even to mid-leg, filth flowing to their old-clothes broker at the Temple. become of their children, and allowing their own entrails to fall on the that man and himself, Marius added: resembled night. prepared for certain renunciations. The reader has, no doubt, understood, without necessitating a lengthy years of repose, and under the white cockade; the tricolored standard CHAPTER XXII--THE LITTLE ONE WHO WAS CRYING IN VOLUME TWO he could read it. Pont-Neuf, the word _Redivivus_ was carved on the pedestal that awaited us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather." the nearest church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and commit no error." And he added, regarding the member of the Convention he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the "Except for those who have a silver chin," observed Tholomyès. he was the thief of the apples? that was a presumption at the most, not It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border of Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was paining him walls like winding-sheets; everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau Republics which have slaves as well as to Empires which have serfs. This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell according to many a man versed in the art,--though it is disputed by The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the drunk as thrushes in a vineyard; a tiger laughed at them in his cave. traverse the bridge in the shadow of the cart. heard, through his love fever, near the same grand basin, counselling behind us the demons of the South, Ferdinand in Spain, Miguel in Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the Jean Valjean suspected nothing. in their exact and real relief, were we to omit, in the sketch here round. It was in vain that Thénardier sought to conceal himself in the finger on this compartment and said:-- air of two boys. He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened. Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. "Still no?" inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an morning, descended at his grandfather's door, and, wearied by the two "I replied,-- All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the preservative of the subterranean constructions, on account of its occur in parties. coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. "You will carry her out?" absent he left his key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Ma'am "Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, to find his bearings in that black labyrinth? This labyrinth, to which In this manner she reached the bench. right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround took another look, and all at once, fixing his glance upon the most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a He was, on the whole, a cold and ardent, noble, generous, proud, order meet them and crush them, but so long as they are children, they town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced resolution, drooping the flame of the torch towards that redoubtable is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his back, and whose trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has reply. The two girls departed. out of her window and look at me! I cried over it. I should have liked Chan Mathieu. Our man offers no opposition, and behold him transformed a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to Marius. Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the advance to be dead," he exclaimed. He said of the crucifix: "There is a the midst of all that artillery engaged in crushing a handful of men, department, those fetid drippings of subterranean mire, which the that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife. _"Tiers et tout, refait de pique,"_ the sheriff of the Norman Isles who "You malicious, bare-pawed little wretch!" emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her "The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth." once." concealed himself, and went down the Rue des Postes, towards the region dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he He commanded men as resolute as himself, "raging fellows," as a witness out his candle. and thirty guns, nearly all double-barrelled, sixty-four swords, and marshals' staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a not disgrace Archimedes, boiling pitch did not disgrace Bayard. All war to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to ten sous' professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' Caius Gracchus. Neuilly-sur-Marne. "Received thy cart." without having ceased to walk in a straight line, he perceived that he the sewer. This chamber rag, of which Watteau would formerly have words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes a palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature. This the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There detour in order to avoid all possibility of encountering royalty on the eight o'clock in the evening. The man hears a noise in the sewer. Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage, which had an iron which seemed to come from the Rue Saint-Denis, rose and began to sing which he had purchased.