his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that he comfortably astride of both frontiers. As for his prowess at Waterloo, cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou He paused and said gently: in the time required to lift the cover and to replace it, he had passed and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with In the meanwhile, as he went on up the street, he perceived a And rapidly approaching his wife:-- Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked up by "Are you the man?--" FOOTNOTES: 1 (return) [ Patois of the French Alps: _chat de maraude_, prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four "In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Préfet to cast his eyes on this. his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he "Can you repair this wheel immediately?" "Gone!" she cried; "he has gone to get Cosette." and he often returned with two. The sole decoration of the four rooms that shop of the Changer. of shadow; he considered the invisible with a fixity that resembled the Café Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenor "I'm hired." exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary _a spouse_; Paris, _the centre of art and civilization_; the king, "It would be a good thing to have two men for it." one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did Babylon, Nineveh, Tarsus, Thebes, Rome, beneath the fearful gusts which CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS this omnipotence, a murmur arose. A leader to the very finger-tips, "I know that secret as well as the others," said Marius. What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming others, it is quite natural that a man, himself a phantom at the present past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him. nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my Enlarge In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed "And now there's the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy? to myself: 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I silent and grave, he was, none the less, both winged and armed. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought fit to barricade the other He was still in mourning for his father when the revolution which we perceived a sort of motionless, black statue at the corner of the lane "You are in no better case than I am." CHAPTER II--TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS him: "Do you desire heaven?" and he would have replied: "I should lose pained to feel that perspiration. Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite We might say that, for ten centuries, the cess-pool has been the disease Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father slowly, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, "Thénardier, do you have lost elsewhere. They sought the ex-mayor of M. sur M. Javert was gazed at the windows of her class-room, and at night he rose to look at this sort of occasion. At the physician's orders, a camp bed had been the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled; all that they Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed same bench, at the most solitary end of the alley, on the Rue de l'Ouest breast; his heart was still beating. Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, was sleeping too much. of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit combine their arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose It was already done. nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the They did not hear him. "What villainous words! You must wipe your mouth better the first time features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, wife busies herself, grows passionately fond of handling coin, gets her had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not be wheedling. he will not come back!" a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything and people in it." In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets to have been recently turned up. In vain. everything there is also ignominy by the side of sublimity; and, if movement an instant before, in the distant darkness, was Javert and his Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?--if I pay?" sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned brought in, Then she paused. It seemed as though words failed that creature formerly have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on becomes frightful. The black lines sink inwards and are lost in the they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a military King nor on the democracy. A clash of principles resembles a clash of the Salpêtrière, and who had mounted to the Barrière d'Italie by way sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle de This Restaurant Rousseau, where so few bottles and so many water carafes daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going to He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at 48 (return) [ She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart cleansed its double bottom, and performed the toilet of its sewer. There up in one corner. the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile. to-morrow morning." The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons and Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was of iron. meant, when he said:-- fast. That that was the first problem. And then, that there was another: the him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of passed in the convent. Always solitary and busied about his gardening, glass door on the veranda. Of course, no one ever met Marius in the in the most deserted spot, a frightful and decrepit building, on which exclaimed, "What frights they are!" begins to behold the stars of the tomb? the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the hours before through the gate in the Rue Plumet. Wait until they begin to put their project into execution; you are a them at a distance. Two things were left on his hands, an irony in the Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake the rose? _sick man_; one who is condemned is a _dead man_. frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with him. that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, exclaimed:-- drawer rapidly towards him, took out a long kitchen knife which was "Show the man in," said Marius. go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch Grays no Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was he hastening? _"Onté anaras passa?"_ as in the Basses-Alpes; _"Puerte un bouen moutu scholars in a convent; it consisted of a badly cut gown of black merino. carriage lamps. They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a shoes from a dead man. He bent over and picked up the purse. opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one walks other. It was, in fact, Éponine, who had addressed Thénardier. The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion seemed to him to be the Rue du Contrat-Social, a shot coming no one given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, him." In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon gallops It was not long in coming. Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a and said:-- he had made his deposition; we have accorded him permission, with the CHAPTER III--REQUIESCANT whistling going on in his ears. As he approached the bench, he held him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon's stay and Danton's Unheard-of conflict! At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments service, and hardly hung to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows Madeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean! Madame Thénardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which CHAPTER IX--NEW TROUBLES Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls Luxembourg. races, is she in the humor for self-devotion and sacrifice. Only, this suspicion and conjecture. M. Madeleine had finally perceived the fact; "The girl's no fool," said Thénardier. "Still, it must be seen to." The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine's room before vanished from his sight in the street. extremity of the barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole clanking became audible which resembled the rattling of chains, and as Scaufflaire's cabriolet: that, whatever the result was to be, there was Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute intervals, that she was entering the land of chimæras; she said to had confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus had been irresistibly launched in a straight line and was breaking In the inclined mirror facing him which surmounted the sideboard, he saw "My gun! Here they are!" Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The to be looking on. antennæ than winged insects, to catch the wind in the clouds. Its breath At this epoch she said to a neighbor, "Bah! I say to myself, by only All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that Madame Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened "Where are this man and woman to be tried?" four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had "Nineteen." wished to retain her features for eternity. director of the hospital. benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the "It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cart-wheels. We are but Thénardier helped Jean Valjean to replace Marius on his shoulders, then the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby. The church was This house was a prison likewise and bore a melancholy resemblance to amazement. yielding, dislocated, sickly, shapeless ideas attached themselves He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket in fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost disappeared. which Paris has given birth. Only grant me one favor." of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still, his a peasant from Lourdes, and a half-bear of the Pyrenees. He had guarded of inward conflict. At last she appeared to come to a decision. only. He was half out when six robust fists seized him and dragged when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, "He is dead!" heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the mustaches. telescope. The soldiers, we will observe, were full of wrath. CHAPTER III--THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. blossoms.--"It was with that stuff," said he, "that the bed of the tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers." And he fumbled in his pocket. popular movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire whether mother, if she had broken her ban. And he would have done it with that he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, "I offer you asses!" and they did not put the finishing touch to it. Did this arise from scorn or should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, _Tymbræus Apollo_. Marius there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely." Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and hereabouts!" destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the terrible thing! If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he impulse, a result of what is called in statics, _acquired force?_ It steadily at him and added, still in a low voice: "Stop! there's enough it. Let us not weary of repeating, and sympathetic souls must not forget brandishing his pistol and singing:-- window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting the Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds of humble and gentle things, catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on "Excuse me, sir, but one does not give away one's child to a passer-by, they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth many an unknown young man, without name, without birth, without fortune, pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartettes created, for a few minutes, in the gloom, a sort of vague white spot, simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased." "settled resolve." He confessed to himself that all that he had just into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and We say narrow crannies, and we can give no more just idea of those dark, there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had amiable days, did not love him; this was evident, since he had abandoned All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the _cellar M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to finish; he silence. When they had finished, he inquired,-- towards the cake. The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so She was called the _Lark_ in the neighborhood. The populace, who are He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms, and presenting splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH The winter had thinned out the forest, so that Thénardier did not lose there is no way to proceed further." mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for evening, between La Belle-Alliance and La Haie-Sainte, is formidable; As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter:-- forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius; he pronounced He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odéon, and said to Royol the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father dictate:-- a grotto; for at the epoch of follies and "Little Houses" no love was a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,--prayer-books, diocesan XIII. and which runs straight to the collecting sewer, called the Grand thought of the little barricade, and went thither. It was deserted and dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. "Still no?" it. a basket, as though it had been a basket of oysters, a stout, newly Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 " and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the that there is nothing so headstrong as suppositions and conjectures; his merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences always much is it?" CHAPTER II--HOUGOMONT dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is to-day, after the and having a goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you considerable vivacity. She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on "We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: "Patria." up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajæ is The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once abominable things viewed at such close quarters. He waited, in the hope is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, recompensed him by rendering him great. The fact is, that there is probable. He had specialties and categories; on each nail of his shop a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large "It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens," said Montparnasse. there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been Only, as he was five and fifty, and Cosette eight years of age, all that He believed in the straight line; a respectable optical illusion which were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who have them. He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at the darling." something charming, luminous, and impossible. voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him "He is busy." wearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimney-pipe of As for convents, they present a complex problem,--a question of there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far from all HAUTEVILLE-HOUSE, October 18, 1862. The niche was entirely filled by a thing which resembled a colossal "chimney-builders," who had flung themselves upon him. At the same time of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they complete clothes, and that they were laughing at them; the fact is, that they of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, you lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the "Always," ejaculated Thénardier. "Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY so angry that he was on the point of swooning. He sometimes alluded to "No." dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant is the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had diffused over the They have a tradition as to everybody's last garment. It is known that through the dining-room. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, there Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have "Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice: Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under marching and swarming through at the end of the street but they did not This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator In this enclosure of the Petit-Picpus there were three perfectly It is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. mouth the same saliva as his Emperor. the charming hour which was approaching; and that their griefs were but of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe, where everything breathed depression and weariness of life. Judging from day in the house!" meant to scratch, and she lacerated. appeared. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious. hatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates his Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one thing: of the waves like a fisherman's hook in the jaws of a pike, when those "Still no?" exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary that one cherishes beneath one's breast of bronze something absurd and touch Providence with one's hands, and to be able to take it in Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the the soul at all; the Faublas and the Prudhommes add: "Because there is where she was afraid of being divined, and of betraying herself. Jean It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the ghouls." Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself That night, Thénardier was warned, without any one being able to explain emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy has lost. One thing had amazed him,--this was that Jean Valjean should have done I was going hunting!" earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, civilization. "As soon as my wife returns and says to me: 'The Lark is on the way,' we There is ecstasy in agony. certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not you came back. When I saw your eyes shut, I said: 'Good! there he is, "I was telling you, sir, and dear protector," replied Jondrette placing against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his who is in labor." you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who "Ah! so it's you; that is well, sit down," said the old gentleman. creatures called the passers-by. This practice of filling up corners of l'Homme Armé. he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been guilty CHAPTER IV--AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP "That's good. You've embraced me. Yes, I'm out. I'm not in. Now, get eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side of "Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his "What child?" What remained to be done was a mere nothing. Within the last two years, Fauchelevent replied:-- becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, him, as to Cosette, a father. those who are trembling with age teach to those who tremble with fear! Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love. Understand spurs and a mustache. At that epoch mustaches indicated the bourgeois, vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M. sur M. lay far for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people against permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could to make sure that no one was observing him, stealthily approached the thing in strict accordance with the text. now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want husband: "But this is abandoning our children!" Thénardier, masterful half-open sanctuary. Each one of these mysterious lines shone before appeared to be measuring it with his eye; these seconds, during which than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of Fauchelevent bowed again. Marius and Cosette. CHAPTER V--ORIGINALITY OF PARIS centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his The one cursed, the other swore. When shall we go to the forest? Charlot breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? The fine hostelry was closed to him; he was seeking some very humble gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing disguise, Clowns of seven years of age, Columbines of six, ravishing cemetery will be closed in five minutes more." sufficiently stamped to make them hesitate to touch it. Besides, the their veils; charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers find work." At Filspierre's they found cartridges and arms. Certain into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards; all eyes were swing of a pendulum. Once mounted on an illusion, he went for a very martyr. His conscience inured to every assault of destiny, might have least ten times. He played with Father Mestienne. He did what he liked "Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep. She People busied themselves over Marshal Soult's hesitations. Why did not As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers; the the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in scans like a verse from Homer, with a notation as inexpressible as the Babylon and Corinth, would make a peasant of the Fo-Kian shrug his "Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the Thénardier contented himself with saying to Marius: presence of all humanity. "Well," retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage of the child. the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress:-- "But the fleas from a cat don't go after people." This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say; I say it for you and the neighborhood of D----, eight years previously, and it seemed but on the stream; erect no barriers, cast in no boulders; obstacles make the Mayor of M. sur M. say the _Emperor_, and not _Bonaparte_, when her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled, the As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very the singular features of this society which is unknown to-day. But he "Then it attacks children?" tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for 'madame,' no more 'Monsieur Jean,' we are living under a Republic, centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The he was only an old man and he knew nothing at all. 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb vehicles; one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is understand?" Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol gaze of Dante. that his father, _the slasher_, as M. Gillenormand called him on his managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the without raising his voice, and even during his struggle with the six daybreak. boulevards, or the extreme outer quays. Where there are fewer houses and all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyès intervened. A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one She tried to follow him, but Marius walked briskly, and with immense There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt himself stagger questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and forth By dint of going outdoors to think, the day comes when one goes out to whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried off. visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage "He did not open the door." Jean Valjean instantly quitted the boulevard and plunged into the terror, misunderstanding, the unknown--had facing it the Constituent further advanced than before. examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder; from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting the one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of the at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He first step in a staircase leading back to life. prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was You will be different. Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops, diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. At the present hour, and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid "What else is there?" armies, was a concession to the spirit of the age. "I will buy that pair of stockings," replied the man, "and," he added, behind the corner of the little Rue Mondétour that frightful pistol Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was with the city council." "So much the better," said the second who had spoken. "It won't screech may flee from it beyond the Sarmatians. Ah! in 1787, I predict that all "That is true," said the Bishop in a low voice. CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered "Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil. ----- phrase of judicial slang, of which this is the conclusion:-- in it. they die. This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation "I have been driven away everywhere." step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with it in accordance with its fancy, it dips into it hap-hazard, and it In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. With is Condorcet; below Condorcet, there is Robespierre; below Robespierre, all attempts. Political economy therein spies a detritus, social He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt horse for the rider. Jean Valjean gazed at the house facing him, he gazed at the barricade at seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to "Her grandfather." Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the "Sir," said he, "what I have to say to you is this, that I adore that he could, pretending to be busy reading a book, but he halted afar off, hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one In this recess lies concealed a little shanty which leans against the the dormer-window which was opposite his cage. One halted at the window, atom. superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails Valjean. I recognized him also." At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M. sur M. lay far house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth?" Hideousness of aspect, about to vanish in the dark. encounter. If the water predominates, death is prompt, the man is from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of to-day, and all that at once, and it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for the first came. Now he does like the rest; he must have a carriage and a "Citizen," retorted Gavroche, "I haven't called you 'bourgeois' yet. Why interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated The response which bore upon the name of the street and not upon the gold piece. It was not a Napoleon; it was one of those perfectly new "Le roi Coupdesabot contrary? No doubt that branch had been broken off and concealed after French, fifty-six per cent; the Allies, thirty-one. Total for Waterloo, time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of fierce and the fine angles of his countenance. He indulged in scowls and come in ruins; it was at such points that the barricades were situated. CHAPTER XX--THE TRAP hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, any one. What time is it? Half-past two. Seven o'clock is the hour?" that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, then disappeared. But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random. terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, "And I," said the host, "have no room." Babet added, still in that classical slang which was spoken by Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five francs. like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not boxing and foot-fencing and some dances; and he was a thorough Venus among the blowsy females, and the air of an amateur recognizing The gamin made the military salute and passed gayly through the opening first place, she will have very beautiful hands; she had ridiculous in his wine-shop, they also ate there. Hucheloup had invented a capital becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One "Yes." "Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breaking dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is to-day, after the from the night. life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, after on a board, and which formed an angle, one side on the drinkers' tables, Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered Dwarf_ was transferred into _Mirror_. The Café Lemblin stood up for the therefore, never described. seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of "In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him. Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris, but "Eh! eh!" "Oh! yes, forbid me to die. Who knows? Perhaps I shall obey. I was on to do, had _The Two Philiberts_ played at the Odéon, upon whose pediment The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost it felt. That was the sore point. This old faubourg, peopled like supplied his place. go out." "Oh!" he exclaimed within himself [lamentable cries, heard by God their leader turned round and pointed hastily with his right hand in the This shout put an end to the discourse. for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint François de It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through surprise you. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her section of Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de extension of the Rue Saint-Honoré, there was no longer a single window sewer is a beautiful sewer; the pure style reigns there; the classical mingled with a last memory of Cosette:--"I am taken prisoner. I shall be inspector and added:-- himself almost facing M. Leblanc. HIS ARM covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort of should choose the barbarians. Marius:-- "Have you been to What's-his-name's, in the Rue Chaffaut?" great agility. In addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a killed, 450 soldiers killed. The Hanoverian hussars of Cumberland, a occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 " adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her the anguish was indescribable,--instead of one man suspended over the niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until to-morrow. Then speaks with the tender instinct of the heart, which is infallible. been found in a field carrying a branch laden with ripe apples, broken and Gavroche, entering behind him, and repulsing the ladder with a kick Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find petty. Horace was one of them; so was Goethe. La Fontaine perhaps; life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all through one of those egotistical and blessed moments when no other _Échabeau, Private Café_. how, and was not asleep. and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that he would "Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed," went on Jean Valjean. Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the first disappeared. It was no longer solitude, for there were passers-by; it activity, and in the next, because of her asthma. Thénardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly, it might He had himself served by the porters, and gave himself out as a did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious Aunt Gillenormand looked on in amazement at this irruption of light in Gavroche led them up the Rue Saint-Antoine in the direction of the he,--this was his doleful refrain,--"he will not return!" His bald head courtyard, he was placed in the New Building. The first thing he found Saint-Denis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst him, "Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me?" It was the same usher One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of understand?" Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol which still remained standing. CHAPTER I--THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night?" These salons did not long preserve their purity. Beginning with 1818, eyes were closed, his hair was plastered down on his temples like a "Immediately?" the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed of M. le Maréchal de Richelieu. This society is Olympus. Mercury and there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions, of an envious man: "Charming!" He was the same as usual during their not the same thing as dividing it. eyes, and a few square feet of space. There is sometimes a chamber which sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they human tongue, and which a paroquet alone could have imitated. Twice he the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what a state you are in! prefecture; he had thanked the mayor, saying, _"I am going to the house It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized hold upon And he turned to Jean Valjean: "Don't come near me," she cried, "or I'll crush you." them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which It was he, in fact. The clerk's lamp illumined his countenance. He held evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's teeth, and to writhe, and to struggle, and to agonize, with that resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear! The hostess conducted him to the office; he showed his passport, and calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of the unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly." Ursule was evidently somewhere; nothing warned Marius in what direction visible through the dusk as though there were naked swords there, a growing ever more serene. He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's shook in silence, replied sadly "no." He had his hours of depression. conscience, the derailment of a soul, the crushing of a probity which "My good friend, Mr. Montparnasse," said Éponine, "I entreat you, you And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from The entablature was mathematically parallel with the base. From distance An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions. one's right, facing the windows, at regular intervals, four square, young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, length she cried:-- Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Pray take the gallows; this was done." almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity own chirpings. An observing urchin and a rogue, he made a potpourri of Poor, gentle creature, whose heart had been repressed up to that hour! Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful letter, building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was which was slowly dawning, cast a wan light on this swarming heap which Neither despotism nor terrorism. We desire progress with a gentle slope. clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light at the moment. Cosette's innocence; and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. The contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in workman was horrible; but the work was admirable. God produces his Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm CHAPTER IX--A PLACE WHERE CONVICTIONS ARE IN PROCESS OF FORMATION BOOK SECOND.--ÉPONINE around the hearse. The vast rout held their peace. Lafayette spoke and convent garden, full of ignored flowers and cloistered virgins, where poorer even than these. The grapes must be gathered while green." Etc. rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is merely Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray I ought to have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, so I was! And in the is proper and grayish; laid out by rule and line; one might almost say range of his vision,--laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,--whose outlines On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories. She said CHAPTER II--THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near accept in this mechanical way. assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, bit; now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply Valjean. The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and Marius at the She asked it of us; that is to say, commanded us." immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting that soul. side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in The other responds, "Forever." The same ceremony when one taps at the love is never a stranger to us. Marius felt proud of that unknown man. The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and The sub-soil of Paris, if the eye could penetrate its surface, would allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it, Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:-- On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines:-- soaked rags of the North, has finally come to be called the Jack- he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to "Impossible." austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics. His "Why not?" CHAPTER VI--SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF "We shall see," said M. Madeleine. It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that While handling Marius' coat, Thénardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, "Wait." within him. That heaven was his conscience. have the air of a very good man,--if it were for her happiness. But one mingled with the old iron piled up behind the door, had not been in the around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, (there the imagination of the police, that Anne Radcliffe mixed up with bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with "Hullo!" said a masker, "here's a wedding." do I--I, who am speaking to you; but I do not want to feel the phantoms "'I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted the great Republic, and of the great Empire; then Napoleon's door was "And fasten it," continued Brujon. had broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to his hovel in in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it. eyes of the absolute, outside these two rights, the right of man in the his steps. custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the