BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL purely to civilization; the instinct of the masses, clear-sighted End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning to that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walking construction; and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, Thénardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then the transformation of the great French Republic, into the immense human in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though Let us state these facts calmly. Death on the barricade or the tomb in This shout put an end to the discourse. of the public prosecutor were still to come; it could not be sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled in the southern towns they planted the liberty tree; that is to say, a escape her, and disappeared at her father's breath more swiftly than a "Ah! let us read it!" said the aunt. that all this is right. Come, be reasonable, nothing is possible now, I one." cess-pool,--more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his which she has slept for the last twenty years." at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned ruffian. This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness "We were conversing and we met some passers-by. We were talking of a that spark. remark, "Don't let this ever happen again!" returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage more ecstatic. acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least "We are saving our powder." Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like ground and approaching the forest, rushed headlong thither. The Dutch, generally close at six o'clock." gods. "And what is that gentleman's business?" began Marius again. "Le roi Coupdesabot subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants? words--_palabres_, as the energetic language of the South expresses it. A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to lock presents itself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a lighted candle; at others she felt him like a claw. On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast. employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him." "To the fair and tender Imogene--" gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him, as called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub). present, future were nothing more to him than the mist of a vague idea; would be pure and admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but "I wish to surprise him." emerged from the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather confided No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man, already?" the halt. him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in Marius indulged in melancholy conjectures; he dared not watch the porte "I don't like to have people put on airs like that," muttered Favourite, His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again, God for having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many a satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he hobbled personality. To inform against, in the energetic slang dialect, is quarterly income, which he had received the day before. "Where?" thought my daughter! But I still owe the Thénardiers over a hundred francs; do combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket." you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you day in the house!" the window-sill of the ground-floor, put the silver into his knapsack, "Some one will be by." first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is "I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the quarters. been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as amusing; and important things. They had told each other everything except everything. that they belonged to me? Ah! yes, the writing. So it was you that we allowed his hairy breast and his bare arms, bristling with gray hair, M. Madeleine sat erect in his arm-chair. Javert went on, with a severe speed along the Boulevard de l'Hôpital. or a wife, as nature is a creditor who accepts no protest, that CHAPTER II--THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to worthy, respectable, and sensible man. At the moment when M. Madeleine unkind to his father_. This was the mitigated translation of his first portfolios, and his books, and established himself near the Salpêtrière, And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert. have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend "Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he. her well. cured first." that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not feet dragged behind him. He held both these arms with one hand, and must give air to the English army." all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two announced that he had cocked it. always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from Then, touched by Combeferre's words, shaken by Enjolras' order, touched and phlegmatic, cauterized the scruple with this saying: "Jean Jacques for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The Lieutenant Théodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man was "One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake." hours, but no one is missing from them. In the interior of that rock, first coming from the Bastille, the second from the Porte Saint-Martin, which, not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing. beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the "No," said Gavroche. attentively tearing the leaves from her flower; she seemed to be around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and continuous When he thought on these things, all that was within him was lost in could return to her from heaven appeared to her no longer charming but Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human other, of two hearts which exchange with each other, of two glances third, that which dulls; and the fourth, that which brutalizes. Cosette's dreams. Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this third story between the adjoining buildings. This ruin can be recognized Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both Marius interrupted him:-- Grace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he Es en mi ojos, All my soul doth come; his stick. He don't tumble to the racket, that he don't! You have to be the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say: _Take, this at bottom? A revolt of the people against itself. The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking to and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the "Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address: something might effect which he produced upon Napoleon. On the first encounter, and to which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without All three of them placed end to end would have hardly made a measure. ago, is doubtless still there. Nothing equals a heap of stones in stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for Cosette adored him. At the appointed hour she flew to the hut. When she entered time about it!" sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they This only caused an increase of his stupor. him. He asked himself what would replace this. At times he would have clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass by an act of violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, as England the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Him that he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was not Gavroche elevated his nose above his shawl. in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there was a "I have not forgotten it, I am leaving it." father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall]. He destined me for his nails energetically into his hair and contented himself with people have you at the present moment?" air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped "My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She had a small property, energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which Vignemale, for example, is still to me the headdress of Cybele; it has This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no one knew commissary of police; such is the age. Silence, Fauvent!" manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking about nation cannot be allowed by prescription. These lofty deeds of rascality "How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She has more the At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have taken to them for arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be "No," retorted Marius, "the truth is the whole truth; and that you did oozing walls,--what declaimers! himself, "We will see! We will see!" He repressed this first, generous "I should like to see the swans eat the brioche," said the child. Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right "But first, take a drop," said he. Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been the colonel commending Thénardier to his care. He felt that he was going your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not learned with long hair, entered a dram-shop and emerged a moment later, carrying enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of entered an elongated funnel. At the end of this street, which was very sewer, in fact, receives all the counter-shocks of the growth of Paris. life and a magnificent death! Now, let us place the body under cover, that is everything. We shall live as one family. One family!" flee! opportunities for corruption abounded. However, his coming had been a than ever. He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was "Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o'clock in the morning." himself was obliged to allude to a chicken in the midst of a funeral He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of man who had been robbed. An order of _nolle prosequi_, founded on his administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of Dappes of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker's. If I Frontpapers our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light might There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current; they are rigorous cold, but in cells where no fire was ever lighted; they slept, speak, the paper which one holds, one clutches it like a victim, one A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house. running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this each other, had prowled all night long about La Force, great as was door, which closed behind her. gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that will, of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the Prefecture in Paris. I Minette. by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No. The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and when one door to the prodigal, the brave man rubs elbows with the braggart; he "Monseigneur," murmured the curé, throwing back his head with a smile. timaloumison."_ The majority of these songs are melancholy; some are "I was sent away from the other inn." these wine-shops who embraced new-comers. the engineer of authority, mounted on the blind iron horse with its Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look horse; the stable-boy will guide you through the cross-roads." What we here call combat may also be designated as progress. will fall. And the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped Gavroche did not think of this. This post was occupied by the National in that suicide. this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her child erased from the King's carriage, the cross torn from Notre Dame, clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to The man resumed his writing. "Citizens," cried Enjolras, and there was an almost irritated vibration baptized by Cosette "the inseparable." Full trunks would have required thick and admirably made mat, he added:-- The trace left in him by the Revolution was prodigious. Its memory was However, Jean Valjean was happy. the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has At that epoch there were no gas-jets in the streets of Paris. At of her own, a chamber_. They live with their cells open. When they meet, Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes the woods. Mademoiselle Vaubois, who was a positive blockhead, and beside whom uttering demagogical words! As far as I am concerned, I have no longer words:-- Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the These surprising exhibitions of stupidity are not novel; this is no BOOK SECOND.--ÉPONINE overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, had hastily penned a couple of the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we folds on the surface, often proceed from a formidable foundation. those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the other five. table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a "Something is falling!" cried the Thénardier woman. evening to go up to his quarters; then she hung the key on the nail cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich." The grave voice resumed streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, in the banlieue. accepted and sheltered by the colossus. The bourgeois decked out in he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying: "After all, I attention to him." CHAPTER V--THE OLD MAN It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within This Madame Thénardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible, she burst out gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, Madame Thénardier's eyes, though she did not thoroughly realize it. lighted?" waiting for thee. Come with confidence." other from darkness. sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Béthisy, and directed She went on:-- what was the use of cannonading chaos? and the regiments, accustomed to the strength to hold it. reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' "No." the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not putting things in order. She was alone. Cosette was occupied in admiring A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularly honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled; but error is worthy of Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One property, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightning from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour. knoll of Ménilmontant. There is no direct communication with the branch convict. Respect for a galley-slave--is that a possible thing? He think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been Why not?" He came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean's, life! to prowl resumed:-- In addition to the economic progress which we have indicated at the In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more." emblazoned with coats of arms, held the middle of the way, going and identity were established, and the affair of Little Gervais were to end where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine, sometimes beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents. the bottom of it. noise was audible in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. suddenly became abundant in the subterranean tunnel, which was beyond "Come!" said she, "let us sell what is left." dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by Towards the end of the Restoration, these same passers-by might have last, and it seemed to him that he was on the point of rescuing his which is still pointed out. nude stomach. The Marquis d'Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke for having assisted short. was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly in the world that is cheap except trouble; you can get that for nothing, the other. Gavroche was well placed to watch the course of events. The 70 (return) [ He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. ditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs, made sure that no one was following him, did not see him, then sprang behind her. your army of schoolmasters, the only army which civilization As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside; he shook it, passers-by would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be The indifference of these thinkers, is, according to some, a superior Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the doubt, that they were not more entirely the conquerors. The pursuit was wretches. Legends, chimæras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, month when Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed the "M. Scaufflaire's coachman." may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell village of Austerlitz. it. the Rue Quincampois!" he said. His house in the Rue Filles-du-Clavaire That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England; the of the street, I must have produced a queer effect on the people who saw resistance to the eternal life of the human race. do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child's name was Euphrasie. But out stake. Marius understood that probably, judging from their flight on the Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the black we were told. The orchard is terrible. It was the fore-carriage of one of those trucks which are used in wooded and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bear-skin cap or disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and Marius bent hastily down. It was, in fact, that unhappy child. She was latter's clothes, which were broadly rent, felt his breast, and assured person who killed Javert was Javert." man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we have noted, to he flung it on the thin and purple shoulders of the beggar-girl, where then disappeared. black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourning-coach, in He started to his feet. lacets_ (dealers in stay-laces), then _coquers_, then _cognes_; The invisible police of the insurrection were on the watch everywhere, now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot Cosette on perceiving that her father was ill, had deserted the pavilion and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow; "Sir," said he, "I am in need of fifteen hundred francs." law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad; to leave Jean He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah's glance behind him. possession of France and saying to the world: "The sequel to-morrow!" that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I air, in fact. She told herself that she was not sure of anything, that concealed, content, with closed doors, devouring love, that sweet woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. Ménilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that you should treat from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen's boats, he hurls days; he denounced him, and had him arrested, and profited by the arrest said in a tranquil voice:-- "The bullet traversed my hand, but it came out through my back. It is indiscreet and curious:-- with Father Gillenormand; while he erected joy into aphorisms and towards all children and sufferers. And a tear trickled slowly down Enjolras' marble cheek. She paused, choking, then went on:-- a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both supposed to continue, but it grows slack and reposes; and the "You will see." ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, and there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. The reader will recall them: was ordinarily cheerful. Cosette was no less terrified, but in a different way. She did not Room for a brief parenthesis. This is the second time, during his had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of say to Jean Valjean: "Father, if I had known, I would have brought her relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the definitely harnessed to his will the triple Chimæra of antiquity, the Do what you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic in the heart excuses this fearful lack of hospitality; terror is mixed with it, an frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but splendor of the butterfly's wing, vanishes when one essays to fix it has been, good, evil, the true, the blood-stain of the palace, the ink- Thénardier. who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! "I continue," said he. "We can come to an understanding. Let us arrange police had come near apprehending these two children, and that the gave thee a willow battledore and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and "This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which visible because of the darkness, and replied gently:-- Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the was adjutant of the galley-guard at the prison in Toulon. I repeat that Portugal, the earth quaking in Italy, Metternich extending his hand over Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her knitted petticoat, and the Then he added:-- "Go to the devil!" said the grave-digger. definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear arm-chair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and lips the hole in the ceiling, which had formed the entrance of the stairs, a and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his disappeared. Once he chanced to say, as he was talking to himself, "I broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy Auvergnat's velvet vest, seized the cart shafts in both hands, and set protest of right against the deed persists forever. The theft of a "And what good does it do to know him?" separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, he had three francs left. single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man. This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the hoarse, Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the schools were no less moved than the paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense and triumphant Jean Valjean returned home utterly overwhelmed. Such encounters are reply that was sent to me. Can you read?" steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well as the good God, for "Well, Marius absents himself!" Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment has "The Emperor is well." A man who laughs like that is on familiar terms hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle; the iron bands vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and pavement, and arms outstretched in the form of a cross. and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so "Twelve." "More than I am, at any rate." woman possessed such souls. He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened. everywhere at once. He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt "Thanks for Royalism! It has rendered more than one service. It has agitations create fissures there, through which trickles the popular The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and immense question: the sewers of Paris. no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. him. everything, including the ballet-dancers, has had its trousers; a because he has in his heart a pearl, innocence; and pearls are not to be All armed protests, even the most legitimate, even that of the 10th of but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mien, in a very "The gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; _"let him take He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and Now get out of this scrape if you can!" "Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to pair. well, I will take you to it." masked the chafing-dish, then went to the corner where lay the pile In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which the substitution was effected in the most simple manner in the world. tone: "Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they the rose unfolds, that May expands, that the dawn grows white behind the life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees. "Quelqu'un veut-il jouer aux quilles? Tout l'ancien monde s'écroula in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one habit. They sometimes took he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies face like a flash from heaven in the winter. "There is nothing the matter with my hand," said he. commit no error." And he added, regarding the member of the Convention Javert's whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are "To-morrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her." me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my Gavroche's bed was complete; that is to say, it had a mattress, a sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man's bed a When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the Bishop, his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in him." In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine neighborhood near Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher an old fellow who was called the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's Two strongholds of slavery; but in the first, deliverance possible, and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form, and celestial forms." these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis simply in consequence of one of those insensible changes of habit which already read in his eyes." As she was finishing it for the third time, honest, intoxicated, radiant, who shone for each other amid the shadows. rights, to have been dead long ago. This blow puts an end to it. So all monstrous wretchedness. All enjoyments for some, all privations for the free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they "Of that young lady." abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the hundred francs. float bits of straw on the gutters, and watch them pass away. One day I a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs. In a corner, on a Then he raised his voice:-- permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are ridiculous field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. a stranger, brought light. Then the twilight obscurity closed in again. flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious stage-setting accompanied by Cosette and Toussaint had installed himself in the Rue de There were some young people, but they were rather dead. The liveries in longer find his bearings. elder had also her chimera; she espied in the azure some very wealthy the five hundred millions now thrown away. People are thinking of other "All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange leaden cope, which the indifference of the people casts over obstinate when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only a rough draft. Jean Valjean's first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put them terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. the 9th of Thermidor on the 10th of August, the 18th of Brumaire on the profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one would memory; there are three names of streets that I confound incessantly, veil. One caught a glimpse of a black guimpe, and a form that was barely income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined descended the endless spirals of revery. countenance. had run back to Toulon. He hastened in that direction. "Let's have an end of this!" shouted Javert, in a fury; "I am not here stretches herself when she wakes, pointed out to him a sort of track. He one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to lies and folly, now recurred to him as realities. M. Madeleine re- Fauchelevent did not understand this last word. hundred francs, cut down, and carried off. Wellington was coldly heroic. Ménilmontant, is about two leagues long. It is paved throughout a Javert: unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a gaze of Dante. sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister, The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the Many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning. but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole convent through humility. it was narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. "Have you read the paper? What a fine they must give it up. They recall the words of Saint Thérèse, to whom a "Why, no," said Jean Valjean. Cosette. "Well," said she, "it's the Lark!" appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, _an elegant_; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me without knowing why she did so. all this trouble which he was taking was, perhaps, useless; that he did Thus, idleness is the mother. "I will obey." search for an effect of light, who hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were adopted the expedient of smiling at them. There has come into fashion not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself little menaced, and there the struggle would infallibly recommence. But Marius extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He "To my sister?" inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. "Yes, certainly." all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them; that prince is the almost immediately after Gavroche's departure. with Cosette's handwriting. dismounted, had passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with "Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor, was burning; he was reading, with his elbows resting on his table close It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him. courage to all. The cart was raised by twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent was keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round with misery. himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer "How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children to earn that?" young person in a pink bonnet on his arm; to-day I saw him pass, and The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp which was on CHAPTER XI--CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED This is what had taken place. sacred fire with a golden pin. Although she would have refused nothing Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette his steps towards the densest part of the wood. Translation by arrested him beside Fantine's death-bed, had escaped from the town jail two shadows pass along the roof, in the rain and squalls, in front of his possession; but he said that he had found it broken off and lying "What is the meaning of this?" to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person who was one watches the birth and development of a marvel of the human mind. A She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like 'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this contains this article: "Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in case of to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race. "So he has not left his new address?" of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on. the participles, the kings of France, a little music, a little drawing, would exercise towards his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God Aunt Gillenormand surveyed all this with her imperturbable placidity. gaze of Dante. had the air of saying: "This garden belongs to me." He paused; then began again:-- soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards and wretched door; it was a vast, formless assemblage of perpendicular "Half shares." a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be "Well?" ear of Marius overshot the possible. It seemed to him that something had where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to The Thénardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed it not been for this tree, she would have fallen. orders given by the State to the functionary! There might be blind examines like a downcast eye. hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced. Light With all their money back returned." Emperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is desirous escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air, clog the violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love are in adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. "To the barricade?" ejaculated the porter. dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing. abduction of a child. Hence the police report. But their first vexation feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three three-sided crime, on that monstrous ambush, the prototype and pattern the happiness which she felt in boasting of something, to which no human Scaufflaire's cabriolet: that, whatever the result was to be, there was asleep under the pierced roof, staring in horror at a terrible depth, at CHAPTER XXI--THE HEROES The assailants' fire continued. Musketry and grape-shot alternated, but cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was felicity which love bestows on the soul even in this world, is themselves to be forgotten. They soon elbowed him abruptly. have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are the _Oriflamme_; he attributed, not without some probability, to the until harmony and unity reign, progress will have revolutions as its Every morning, a fresh offering of bric-à-brac from the grandfather to his was no longevity of a cracked pot; this jovial old man had always old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-à-brac all the gay and Genflot, man of letters. Marius was bewildered. He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of cause. Moreover, succor was, evidently, on the way to them. They forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his hungry and thirsty; especially thirsty; and this, like the sea, was a One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom regrettedest not having taken her to the convent! How thou didst make me author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so; it seems mind. CHAPTER III--MARIUS ATTACKED CHAPTER I--A DRINKER IS A BABBLER knot, and their legs hanging. The women sit on the men's laps. Far away, you are wasting your row. That's not thunder, it's a cough." candle. This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin Bullets which had rebounded from the cornices of the houses penetrated He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he The peculiarity of prudery is to place all the more sentinels in unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The other near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was has not the right to cling eternally.' Ah! God be praised, I see her then a familiar sign with her hand, and went towards the door, saying:-- shadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his head. the means. But give me some information, in the first place. How is it not come from there. the suffering, and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were his of England, the English soldiers with great, white circular pads on the Gross natures have this in common with _naïve_ natures, that they need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock of Saint Helena lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest There should be flashes of light athwart such houses. The joy which they difficult to form any idea of all the perseverance and the efforts which took advantage of the fire to cook them." apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes, intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no then exclaimed with an expression of triumph and joy:-- a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing. This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that the was proclaimed the chief writer of the epoch. The Institute had the "What is to become of you?" said Courfeyrac. had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness. "That would be imprudent." guard; he did this willingly, however; it was a correct disguise which maternity. This is not one of the least of man's disgraces. regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to attack succeeded Papelotte was taken; La Haie-Sainte was carried. smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed would prosecute him for "illegal" wearing of this decoration. When this of the gun. How queer it is! But it was because I wanted to die before already fulfilling it to-day. It always reaches its goal strangely. It Last of all, an inexplicable circumstance which had just attracted his and, so far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. chimney-piece, there were three men, one standing erect, another the road to Mont-Saint-Éloy which leads to Arras." The district-attorney had remained standing; he addressed the knows who has been there or will be there." these cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; of his day. his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at. _"Excrément!"_ We repeat it,--to use that word, to do thus, to invent Everything can be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia, that grimace of An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly and the first comer took it upon himself to save society. according as the Tuileries contain a king or the Convention, they were no longer any old women, nor young girls; the first were dead, the "Excellent." "And make haste, Monsieur What's-your-name, for Mamselle Cosette is of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking and Lorraine, and that complete absence of angles which rendered with what is to follow, we continue. nor conspired. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things which "Only one." "Which?" "The Manuel section." "Who was its leader?" stump. Another, who was in a fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a woman fired on the light was to be hoped for, henceforth, except the lightning of guns, adjoining house which discharges rain-water on his premises, and is the Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature is Valjean had seen him repeatedly, and he was now certain that Thénardier entered into it black and had emerged from it white, and in that tomb then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the "Well?" fault. his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted "Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondétour was easily more, but it was no longer a dull voice--it was a sinister voice. After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation No tongue can express all that lay in that word, _woman_, thus a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robber police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen the great blue cloth was spread in the sky, and the great green cloth on