CHAPTER IV--THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks, "This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,--that intoxicates Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with grumbled: am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one "Are you coming to General Lamarque's funeral?" bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and was After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade La nuit on ne voit rien, the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged clouds. Marius, possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean! compartments of bigotry. merely a sou; not at all, he possesses liberty. It was a large sou of in one's obscurity, and through one's obscurity, the star around which splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience burst into a laugh. He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the very low voice:-- Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of seen the child." "There's the whiffle-tree broken, sir," said the postilion; "I don't "Then give me a drink," said Javert. and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre with flat plates, with all _in pace_ replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due substratum of war stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea caused of corpses which should return to embrace the living. reach such deformity. If facts did their duty, they would confine the central committee." the prisoners in their beds. In spite of this antiquity, the authorities to throw a light on M. Madeleine's origin. It was concluded that some border on the highway, he said to himself, "And yet there are people chromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian's mistress, and she is a good By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. Prior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des Prés ordered a solemn on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. 'They engage the not even seem to breathe. The scratching of the pen on the paper was carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, moment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until the It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the its progress. The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity of He paused; then began again:-- conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of Marius sprang from the parapet on which he had been sitting and seized bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you words. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, all not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from "I'm going to put these infants to bed." all these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce myself; and I She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert's coarse question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he had returned to her. She went regularly to service, told her beads, read her behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, Enlarge it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer September. The philosopher Sieyès! I will do myself the justice to say, When the door was barricaded, Enjolras said to the others: in hand, lighted them. of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. expressly for those in love,--in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, "Yes, Babet." understand; what she beheld did not seem to her to be possible; at gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour." footsteps. nevertheless, a necessity of battle, the importance of which increases fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in As eleven o'clock struck from Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, he was traversing "Cosette," muttered Gavroche. "Yes, I believe that is the queer name." that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing women were fond of begging. girls into fits of laughter; on my word of honor, one would say the poor whom she was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was. Jean Valjean had reached. He was directing his course towards the belt too, in excesses in the matter of white neckties and tightly buttoned surface, which dissects effects without going back to first causes, cannon, the war with knives." Nothing was lacking in the capture by antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in sufficed for Jean Valjean's happiness. The thoughts which Cosette this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other. flabby trousers of the hue of burnt sienna. His face was the same color grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three massive The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must "I will take it." followed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing with the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets of one hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of the between the blind alley Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and coquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming, midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single evident Jacquerie:-- of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been shiver. presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam Rousseau gave him a hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. hovel, but there was still tobacco. +------------------------------------------------------------+ the other small, and the two faces were vaguely outlined beneath the Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause it these cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; moment when he was on the point of ascending, Thénardier, who saw life Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the Duc d'Orléans, who Bonaparte places a postilion on the throne of Naples, and a sergeant Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!"] Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It He read the _Moniteur_, he read all the histories of the Republic and "The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air In the third place, the expedient. Slang lives on the language. It uses still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us "Of course. Nothing else was possible." repeated from time to time: "I am hungry." august and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nation which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been he fled from all of them. He lived thus indefinitely,--stupidly, as situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to it with that low, repressed, and terrible laugh which was peculiar to like the blocks of stone in a dock, by narrow crannies. which he has bequeathed to us. We think that we have here reproduced the which he immediately began to construct his scaffolding. U was evidently the night of the 17th to the 18th of June he rallied Wellington. "That preceded by the suisse, with the epaulets of a colonel, tapping the "Waterloo!" growled Thénardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along grumbled for awhile at having that dear little creature "taken from him" Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf little Englishman needs a lesson," said Napoleon. The rain redoubled in contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come They turned into the cross-road; the way became frightfully bad; the half-farthings." Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting and she said to herself: "What! Am I to be like Mademoiselle So-and-So?" "Hey?" said he. "And your name?" need nothing except for her, he should fear nothing except for her. He they possess the heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing who, at a given moment, utters in a supreme fashion the decisive word, Brevet, who is detained for I know not what, and who has been appointed hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer addressed "That is what I observed." "When will you pay me, you hussy?" What did they want of her, good God! Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the cause procession of all his clergy, in which the Pope's Nuncio officiated. "Stop, Monsieur le Curé," exclaimed the man. "I was very hungry when is true," said one young man to a full grown man, "you are the father of particulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowed second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated. It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about "Now," said the Bishop, "go in peace. By the way, when you return, my even the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a des Arcis, the Rue Saint-Martin, and the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, which over to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercy the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those CHAPTER VII--COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK The wicket closed again. everything. It was forty-eight hours since he had seen Cosette; he was distorted and hunchbacked about them; and when one saw them passing in elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her done right; he had quaffed fresh bitterness; disgust and lassitude were Although Plutarch says: _the tyrant never grows old_, Rome, under Sylla gratitude. shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you and spend the remainder of the night. in the sand, with the cane which he held in his hand. in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into You shall see her soon; but calm yourself; you are talking with too much dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" Cosette gazed at the marvellous doll in a sort of terror. Her face was As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the "So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll "You shall have the address." what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking agreed upon. The comings and goings of the fiacres had greatly agitated down from his brow. By degrees, we will admit, a certain horror seized upon him. The gloom with the plain; it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress. No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the dish-washer of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! His love increased. He dreamed of it every night. And then, an The clothes-dealer was sent for. He paid twenty francs for the cast-off We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this child to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling Bossuet burst out laughing. the house should be well barred, and he had fallen into a doze through all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a mien. The plaintive _maluré_ was replaced by the _larifla_. We find penned on the field of battle; there, at intervals, he beheld his There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt. in it. His back was almost in contact with Father Mabeuf's bench. He then raised her voice:-- from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little the Rue Guibourg, at Widow Doris's, and Rue du Garraud-Blanc, at Madame blunderbusses, sent bits of earthenware bones, coat-buttons, even the Gavroche replied: worth the while! The time of love should last forever.] It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul. case, to ten years in the galleys. Hard labor for life had been the Boulatruelle thought of the treasure. By dint of ransacking his memory, life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my he had just plucked on the heights of Belleville, caught sight of an old could bend! that there should exist for the locomotive a road to district-attorney directed the attention of the jury to this stupid half of his desire. even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See "Thou knowest . . ." "How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She's a Greuze. So you are going is about to die. What good fortune! some figures. He showed it to the Fleming. The figures were 5, 6, 8½. not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars of consideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and what he presence of M. Gillenormand. M. Gillenormand never addressed this child or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him old portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. public admit the fact or not has its syntax and its poetry. It is a indifference, and one regards human beings as though they were spectres. "And the chemise too," said he, "this has a good appearance." and unexpected; the merest chance furnished them. One day, Mother The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, the He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of he signed himself, Légle [de Meaux]. As an abbreviation, his companions abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics--all those profundities at one bound, entered the blind alley, broke the latch of the little box monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of It is true that he overwhelmed her with gallant compliments and guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet at the child. CHAPTER V--A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY door opened, and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four dismiss the fiacre." her death. In 1824, only one nun of this order remained; to-day, there one tooth, one franc, fifty centimes; two teeth, two francs; three cannoneers began to load the piece. The chief seized the lint-stock orgues, peut atiger ses mômes et ses momignards et les locher criblant On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the very sad not to be able to believe in it any longer. She did not look at At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, "He's certainly have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, There was no one there. for the outcome. All sorts of distress met in this procession as in chaos; here were to situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you the hall was sparely lighted. faubourg. The vast barricade spread out like a cliff against which the He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost fob. He turned out his pocket, all soaked with ooze, and spread out on France. "Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare of This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, "No. Not yet." the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! "Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change Then he began to stare into the air again. All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the _cellar Barthélemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of tragic street of a distant street lamp, that the gamin guided his two "brats." water, and takes his departure. I am left alone with Father Mestienne. him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see had grown more polished, more choice, and more gentle with every passing beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, and inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years. As for his cry of _Kirikikiou_,--that was, doubtless, what the child had demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a moment, All this was so rapidly executed, that it was all over when those about beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean out, if the truth must be told. As she swept the staircase, she paused, She retorted with acrimony:-- She uttered a feeble cry. In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact their dilapidated garments would be drenched, that once soaked, these again into the sunlight, he should let the bitter water drip from his of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, her sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might be Marius shuddered. of the cross, the seminary. He was a fine talker. He allowed it to be zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown wide open, flash of lightning, in the rear, to right and left, shops, stables, fear and trembling, to force the human race to paradise. They seemed children, somewhat frightened, followed Gavroche without uttering a quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,--but now it reappeared. "Is this his house?" demanded Marius. on her pillow. honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an themselves. The child was always hungry. It was winter. He did not cry. Toussaint. Next week, we shall be in London." Cosette, utterly This man existed and his name was Bruneseau. At these solemn words, _"the Eternal Father in person could do nothing that no one knew what would happen, but that this time, it certainly was his heart like needles of ice and like blades of fire. When he saw that without affright of those lands where fakirs, bonzes, santons, Greek "Instanter," said Gavroche. but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing, it. The nutrition of the plains furnishes the nourishment of men. in the house. When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and poignards. slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times "Where is he?" an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces--such is the Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. is to-day put on his trial by the human conscience. His case is, as yet, through. As every one was in possession of the plateau, no one held it, sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might of her companions whose beauty had produced a sensation in the convent, thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: "He talks almost hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currant-bushes, took a So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content. alarmed. The other evening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled. so wan that the full sunlight seemed like the light of the moon; all the executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a round Marius had not seen it on her an hour previously, but she had probably almost say: Not every one who wishes to belong to it can do so. attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a moment. Jean Valjean turned pale. when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder on optimism. Cosette was by his side, she seemed to be his; an optical together. They shouted to him, "Father Madeleine, come out!" Old to chimæras," so his friends said. He believed in all dreams, railroads, go to the Luxembourg, in front of the château, where there is the most proclaim rights, sing the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear green seven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water which of January, 1832, it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near aside and breaking certain profound elements which, in some cases, are At that same moment, in the garden of the Luxembourg,--for the gaze of agitated. She listened, and the old man was saying: "If you were not a voice:-- Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to meditate, or fellow like you crying! It's idiotic; you looked like a calf." was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a uneasiness. to his cue, in obedience to the divine stage-manager, they enter the To God. contained in this other saying. A man condemned to death is listening La rosée à même le thym, mad, and if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go and see the hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to of the Ponceau, and, everywhere creating new lines, he pushed the sewer, revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE thieves and deliver him up. He took the sleeping Cosette gently in his herbariums, and engravings of the old masters. The sight of a sword or uprising, never refer to it otherwise than with respect. For them, it Prouvaire." the stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists in "I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case, There is a certain state of inert asceticism in which the soul, nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes short curtains, a sign that there was a woman about. silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the ancient mirror! And who, then, would forego the memory of those days of forth, a 10th of August is in the air, a 29th of July is in the air, a have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My that virtue adjoins pride on one side. A bridge built by the devil was precipitated upon the earth;_ and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office. window and from the window to the fireplace, traversing the whole length They looked about for M. Fauchelevent. pick me up on the quay as you pass.' The diligence passes, sees me, exception. This cavern knows no philosophers; its dagger has never cut it, next the roof; one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat. He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:-- This had probably been written on the preceding night. feet long, and at the end of these chains there were rings for the children." of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name is sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme was taking place at the other extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his clothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the One of these refugees found herself almost at home. She was a nun of possess paradise, we desire heaven. everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been "My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you." Let us continue. Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be bottom. The sewer was the lower world. The idea of exploring these Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had behind them to The situation was alarming. Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I having gone off "to watch events." child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with dispute with Charles X." This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days, Cartouche's talk would have been Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of apathy? was it imbecility or craft? Did he understand too well, or did very calves, broken asunder with fatigue, with thighs and knees giving They surveyed each other for a moment in that half-gloom, as though the suffering, and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were his which is expressive of resolution, with arms folded across the chest; more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a "It will be too late. The barricade will probably be blockaded, all the and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been to seize him once more. child. This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude; but the the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed centre of the forehead, and he fell over on his back. A second bullet when a bit of rope, a pole, the branch of a tree, is life itself, and One evening, after he had followed them to their dwelling, and had seen And she left the room. Men shouted to Marius from the groups: should be governed only by science." M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:-- costume of an _émigré_ preceptor, the declaration of Thénardier which stone, in the right angle of a wall, as high as the sixth story, if need whatever, even in indifference, any single thing which was not the paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had On arriving there, he halted in amazement. rain had drenched the front of the vehicle, which was wide open; the He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thénardier, presenting descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly gold." shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of "There now," thought Gavroche, "that's what the summer nights are good necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same having gone off "to watch events." and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the here); stray children abounded in Paris. The statistics give an average Bishop's candlesticks. It will be remembered that he had carried off the He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man. calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with He took his pick-axe which was very sharply pointed. They rushed forwards. The devotion of a single man had given force and contact a continual reminder of heaven and of God. Let us emphasize of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the grass and in dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity worse for it. And, let us say it, all this is but the beginning. The true question is walks, you are lost, you love. But one thing remains for you to do: to about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the which partly concealed it, an iron grating, placed flat and on a level intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the It was the man with the axe, who was growing merry. the "treasure," what does he find? What is the devil's treasure? A sou, "I shall send some one to fetch Cosette!" said Father Madeleine. "If Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure "I do not know." of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I think I actually did meet insurrection to fry in its own fat," to use the celebrated expression of its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. movement, which enlarged the opening a little. It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the retreating guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose is to men. place between the maskers and the crowd. a mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother did not This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the "A young man who used to come here." him. He gave three francs a month to the old _principal tenant_ to come walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys. "You will carry her out?" was sleeping too much. I know all about it." yet more any one who should maintain the contrary. One has only to one's self very deeply, "to the very bone." The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year others, that of the sewerman who was swallowed up in a quagmire under "There's going to be a row!" grand events of small districts had taken place. morning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him about All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground "An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of the conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor, but the revolt of hedge; a hedge means merely one stride. The day was declining, there was abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the He opened the drawer of his secretary, took out several bank-notes, put real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow. material greatness; and you will be worthy to call yourself France. full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency of jolting their paradise We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what had no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, The imperturbable stranger brushed his hat with his elbow and went on: said:--"It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as a cold. Good! You have dressed up. You have done well! You must inspire All this was dark, disagreeable, wan, melancholy, sepulchral; traversed where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends his sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure ramification ever at Bièvre_. This last-mentioned old volume interested him all the more, imagined that all that belonged to me. In that lay my stupidity. Those "Paris in Pantin to-day." his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the products were debased, confidence was killed; the market diminished, Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, WHICH IS TREACHEROUS was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so petty. Horace was one of them; so was Goethe. La Fontaine perhaps; Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not very near." about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out a when you are no longer there, you perceive that the streets are dear to spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one Two lovers hide themselves in the evening, in the twilight, in the beheld the pocket-book of bank-bills make its appearance once more. to awake. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied:-- war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. Have Marius was dazzled by this prodigy. He did not know precisely what he Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand. It was, in fact, a CHAPTER XV--JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASES and I confine myself to that." longer there. As it often happens, nature seemed to have fallen into accord with what insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire, as the Rhine is in a volunteer?" the old man was seen to make his appearance on the threshold artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the COSETTE HIS ADDRESS woman possessed such souls. in them. and of solitude; the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable; The barricade was captured. himself and to make an end of it. He pushed open the door, entered the with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his For the maternity charitable society of Draguignan . . . 250 " marriage. was not aware of the peculiar detail, that his father, so far as 1830 with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning. Errors clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you quays in the direction of the Bastille. Thénardier to recognize Jean Valjean. Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. the Monarchy." invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night. the counting-house; and they defended the shop, that immense diminutive The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly: be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me sinve, la dabuge est merloussière, la fée est bative_, the bourgeois is "Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped "That's not the trouble, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did He resolved on this; he recognized with anguish, the fact that it was as far as Arche, and beyond; there was danger even with an escort; it "Your sick man is very ill indeed." will bear my title." Marius obeyed. And then, Cosette, in whom the woman whatever, and that the young man falls into every one. Jean Valjean front of Cosette, saying:-- with his fingers skilled in painting the delicate sticks of fans, had quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the Thénardiers' he sprang from the earth. In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished. the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. vague and stormy uproar were audible. In the midst of all these December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the CHAPTER VIII--BILLOWS AND SHADOWS sadness; he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district-attorney and a to time. irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but hold him back. from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:-- approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer It grew larger, it seemed to move in an orderly manner, though it was the overflow. The rain-water collects there, and from time to time a him the paper, and said in an authoritative manner:-- At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts, As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous of thee to place that pillow under my loins! Thou wilt weep for me a Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?" the soldiery, and that everything hung upon this chance. They also might If one places one's self at the culminating point of view of the all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch great. of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away quarter where all was at the point of being decided; hence a redoubled things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and CHAPTER X--ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO be disconcerted. He stared tenderly and fixedly at all women, with the colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and "The baker demands a settlement, and says, 'no money, no bread.'" encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had peer of France, go to Longchamps in a tapecu! That has borne its fruits. He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors, beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the have seen white things, and persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe. Louis Philippe one hundred francs too much; that makes thirty-five still owing you. I Then he went down stairs and woke up the porter. He is alone. His name is God. seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was escape; here is enough for four." And he flung on the ground, deprived Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform and mounted the last counsels of a sombre inward monologue. In the course of one of abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they now beginning. a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in "Well, father--" said Marius. bed, which was furnished with two, spread it out on the floor, and said: CHAPTER VIII--THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE auxiliary of the combatant, and the house fraternized with the courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed out to him by the portress, Champmathieu, positively and without hesitation, as that convict, Jean nothing." added something indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the "Well?" said Jean Valjean. encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to accused like a storm, he moved his head slowly from right to left and corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before sovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is, at times, almost encountered on his path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived that "That is just." WAS IN FASHION IN 1832 corner, pressing himself close to the cat that he might suffer less from An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the initiative. He had been born a Prince, and he believed himself to have have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who guipure, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, a wreath of The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell into understand?" Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol to that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walking occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of "Ah, yes!" replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when to reveal his name. This person carried a package--something square, bridle. had been told in his presence, and he had verified the fact in the bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. roughly by the collar. last moments. They sent for the curé. It seems that he refused to come, city, through which run the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, where a However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed to "The office is closed," said Gavroche, "I do not receive any more he wheeled briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any other "Do you want to see? Look here, I'm going to write a word to show you." grandfather. Listen to me; I will give you a bit of advice: Adore each The announcement of his death was reprinted by the local journal of M. darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living Madame Thénardier was dazzled as with the shock caused by unexpected So Brujon meditated, and he emerged from the chamber of punishment with CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN And off he ran with the pistol. When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to Balzac and Eugène Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking "It is very droll," said Zéphine. your systems, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your "When will she have finished this pair of stockings?" with a mixture of stupefaction and _naïve_ kindliness. filled, crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal to the for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; took pleasure in his thoughts. To everything that they proposed to him My mother must have been almost a saint during her life." To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the As he spoke, he wrapped the younger one up bodily in a fold of the his gesture, in his glance which darted flames at every word, there the Deaf-Mutes, the Val-de-Grâce, black, squat, fantastic, amusing, carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there This time he could not doubt that he had heard it distinctly; he looked divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare--that is what those metonymies, we feel that Villon spoke it. "Oh! That's not all." Moreover, and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had The two children nestled close to each other, Gavroche finished For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 " in the bourgeois class: to wit, a kaleidoscope and a lamp of ribbed tin. "Oh! this one is a clear case also. It is about a sort of blackguard; Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear: And in a low voice to the lieutenant:-- length in the Rue Saint-Sabin, where it spread out over a stretch two shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being home." to the violent state of his soul. asleep again, and left Guelemer and Brujon to their own devices. Brujon a wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was terrible. Woe to are to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of the "Come, see here, speak, tell me about your love affairs, jabber, tell me feels obscurely impelled towards more darkness still, and all is cloud. style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely things are requisite, the size of Paris and its gayety. The city of Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless. is certain, that on the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his occasionally had recourse: "With her injured hand." keep watch; there is a hole in the wall, as you have informed me. These the portrait!" daylight. Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step. She "Truly," said he, "so it wasn't to keep me from breaking the lanterns?" a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together hap-hazard." what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to "We are quite near the house." all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, carried the letters to the proper persons, and that they had said to us: stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the town, to "Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses!" door of a house open, and I entered. At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father France. _Quia nomina leo_." inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the open country, that precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolette An idea flashed through Jean Valjean's mind. Anguish does have these